Hearing Yuuki Asuna's question, Rowan nodded.
"You're right. I'm indeed not from the One Piece world. For now, you can consider me a world traveler. You should understand if I put it that way, right?"
Yuuki Asuna nodded repeatedly. She understood all too well.
Novels about being transported to another world were practically overflowing in Japan. It wasn't as if she were an ancient person. How could she not know?
That also explained why Rowan was together with Smoothie. So he had crossed over into the One Piece world.
"Then what about Miss Medea and Miss Nero? Which anime world are they from?"
"The Fate world."
Yuuki Asuna shook her head, indicating that she had never heard of that manga.
Rowan was not surprised. Although the Fate world was also quite famous, its popularity was still somewhat below Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. It was normal for the young lady of the Yuuki family not to know about it.
"Alright, let's talk about your world first."
Rowan clapped his hands and pulled the topic back.
Yuuki Asuna nodded, pricking up her ears and listening attentively.
"How should I put it? Your world is very strange. It's mixed with too many odd things. Sword Art Online, Saekano, Oregairu, The Prince of Tennis, Slam Dunk, Kuroko's Basketball…"
"Wait."
When Yuuki Asuna heard this, she suddenly thought of something and quickly stopped Rowan from continuing.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at Rowan, her gaze carrying both anticipation and fear.
"What you just said… those couldn't all be names of manga, could they?"
Rowan smiled brightly.
"Congratulations. Correct."
Yuuki Asuna sucked in a cold breath.
"So my world is also a manga world."
"At least in my world, that's how it is."
Yuuki Asuna: "Uh…"
In that instant, she felt as if the sky had collapsed.
One moment, she had learned that the One Piece world truly existed. The next, she discovered that her own world was also two-dimensional fiction.
The truth was like an out-of-control train, suddenly crashing straight into her.
At that moment, she did not even have the chance to dodge.
Her whole body went numb.
"So my world is actually a world made from multiple manga mixed together."
"That's right. We generally call this kind of world… a crossover anime world."
Rowan looked at Yuuki Asuna approvingly, as if saying she was teachable.
At that moment, Yuuki Asuna's suspended heart finally died.
Her brain began operating at astonishing speed.
"You called out my name in one breath earlier. Could I also be a character from some anime? Am I the heroine, or a supporting female character?"
Rowan did not answer directly. Instead, he gave her a mischievous smile and asked back,
"You guess."
Yuuki Asuna: "How am I supposed to guess that?"
Although she said that, she still rubbed her temples and tried hard to speculate.
"Generally speaking, a young lady like me, with an impressive family background and a gentle personality, would usually appear as the heroine's close friend, like Daidouji Tomoyo beside Cardcaptor Sakura."
"Oh? You even know Sakura. Please continue."
Rowan looked at her with a faint, amused smile.
Yuuki Asuna continued, "Logically, I should be a second female lead or something like that. Unfortunately, the people around me are basically all young ladies, and there's no protagonist like Sakura."
"So I can eliminate that option."
"Also, I can't be a villainess-type character. Although I am a young lady, I'm not malicious, nor am I interested in making life difficult for strangers."
"And I'm not a tsundere either, much less a tsundere young lady."
"Although I am the young lady of the Yuuki family, I don't have followers or anything like that."
"And the way you look at me is very abnormal, as if you've seen a character you've been looking forward to for a long time."
"So I should be a genuine heroine… right?"
Clap, clap, clap…
Rowan couldn't help applauding Yuuki Asuna's reasoning.
"Completely correct. As expected of you, Asuna."
"Asuna?"
Yuuki Asuna froze.
"Asuna, Asuna… I understand the logic, but why would I choose that name?"
In Japanese, Asuna and Asuna from "Yuuki Asuna" were basically pronounced the same.
So when Yuuki Asuna heard "Asuna," she knew Rowan was talking about her.
But she did not understand under what circumstances she would choose such a name.
Rowan said, "Sword Art Online."
"Huh?"
"Sword Art Online is both the name of the manga and the name of a game. A full-dive virtual game created by Kayaba Akihiko."
Rowan calmly explained, "Out of curiosity, you borrowed your older brother Yuuki Kouichirou's NERvGear and entered the online game SAO as a beginner. You also used your real name as your character name."
"Unfortunately, what you didn't know was that Kayaba Akihiko was a madman."
"That guy was very dissatisfied with the technological world and fantasized about the existence of another world."
"So he created Sword Art Online, abbreviated as SAO, and trapped ten thousand players inside the game. Unless they cleared the game normally, they absolutely could not log out midway."
"Any attempt to turn off the power or remove the helmet would destroy the player's brain and kill them."
"Thus, you were trapped inside the game. From your initial fear and helplessness, you pulled yourself together and became one of the top players in the clearing group…"
"The Flash, Asuna."
"In the end, together with the male protagonist Kirigaya Kazuto, you found Kayaba Akihiko inside the game and ultimately cleared that world."
"While saving several thousand people, you also gained your own love."
"Because of your positive personality, likable character design, and unwavering devotion to the male lead, Asuna became explosively popular in the doujin community. Doujins about you flooded everywhere."
"And so you happily earned the nickname Doujin-Na."
"Uh… no… please wait…"
At first, Yuuki Asuna had felt somewhat secretly pleased by Rowan's praise. But when he suddenly started talking about doujins at the end, Yuuki Asuna immediately panicked.
As a Japanese person, even as a young lady, she knew what doujins were.
Although she normally did not look at such things, she truly had never expected that one day, she herself would become the protagonist of them.
That was way too embarrassing.
At that moment, Yuuki Asuna's face turned red in an instant, like a ripe tomato, so red it seemed about to drip blood.
She flailed her arms wildly and tried to cover Rowan's mouth, preventing him from continuing.
Medea couldn't help laughing.
"You truly have wicked tastes, Master."
"How is that wicked? I'm just telling the truth."
Rowan smiled as he pried Yuuki Asuna's hands away and winked teasingly at her, as if saying: I've seen your doujins.
At that moment, Yuuki Asuna wanted nothing more than to faint immediately.
This guy was truly too hateful.
No. She could not let him lead her around by the nose.
Yuuki Asuna forced herself to calm down, withdrew her hands, and said with a serious expression, "I have a question. Since I'm the protagonist, why did I die?"
"Right now, I haven't even played Sword Art Online yet, which means the story hasn't begun."
"Why would I die before the story even starts?"
Rowan looked deeply at her. Seeing Asuna's red earlobes, he knew this girl was forcibly enduring her embarrassment and deliberately changing the topic.
He did not keep teasing her. Instead, he clapped his hands and said, "Good question. That is exactly the point I was about to explain next."
"I said just now that this is a crossover anime world. Aside from Sword Art Online, there are other worlds, such as the ones I mentioned earlier: Kuroko's Basketball, The Prince of Tennis, Saekano."
"But those are all slice-of-life and sports anime, and they don't have much to do with Sword Art Online."
"The problem is, this world is too chaotic."
"Besides those sports and daily-life stories, a large number of supernatural anime have also been blended in."
"For example, Natsume's Book of Friends, Tenjho Tenge, Jujutsu Kaisen, the Monogatari series…"
"These works have yokai, cursed spirits, martial artists, oddities… All kinds of demons, ghosts, monsters, and daily youth stories make up this complicated world."
"So this world is divided into the surface and the hidden side."
"On the surface, this is a world where humanity prospers and technology is advanced."
"But in the shadows, this is a world where demons walk and oddities are everywhere."
"These two worlds represent the yin and yang sides of the world. The yang side is humanity, while the yin side is demons, ghosts, and monsters."
"The two sides look like a taiji diagram. They seem to form a single whole, yet they are separated by an invisible wall."
"And that wall is… whether you can see them or not."
"Whether you can see them or not?"
Yuuki Asuna looked confused.
"What does that mean?"
Rowan said, "Whether yokai or oddities, most ordinary humans actually can't see them. That is why this world can operate peacefully."
"Because they can't see them, they naturally assume those things don't exist."
"Only those with talent can see them."
"For example, onmyoji, jujutsu sorcerers, and beings like that."
Yuuki Asuna suddenly understood. No wonder she had lived for more than ten years and had never seen demons or monsters. It turned out she simply had not been able to see those things before.
"Then what about me? Why couldn't I see them before, but later I saw a yokai and was killed by it?"
Rowan said, "Although the vast majority of people can't see these demons and monsters, don't you Japanese often talk about the hour of meeting demons?"
"In reality, under certain special circumstances, ordinary people can also see these demons."
"And once they see these demons, they may be killed by them."
Hearing this, Yuuki Asuna suddenly understood.
"So I happened to see a yokai by chance, and that's why it killed me."
"No."
Rowan shook his head and said, "You did not happen to see a yokai by chance and get killed by it."
"You were… cursed!"