Eavesdropping from the Storehouse on Someone Else's Family Drama

“Stop it, Keranko!!”

The instant Omake-sama and I started eavesdropping on the mansion, what leapt into my ears was a woman's high-pitched, hysterical scream.

“H, how cruel, Karashia Onee-sama...... Don't be so rough, okay? Look, my palm, it's gone all red......”

“Oh my! How awful, Keranko-chan! Let's treat that injury right away, shall we?”

“How pitiable, young Miss Keranko......”

Next came a slow, easygoing voice that sounded a little younger than the scream.

A middle-aged woman's cooing voice.

And a deep, low man's voice.

“......In any case, this ring too, I cannot let you have. Excuse me.”

“U...... uwaa~~~n! Onee-sama, is being mean~~~!”

“Oh my! Karashia, you're her big sister, aren't you? Why not grant your cute little sister's wish, just a little!?”

“......! ‘Just a little’, did you, say? Mother. I...... my dresses, my hair ornaments, my necklaces, Keranko has taken everything from me! And yet, ‘just a little’, you say!? Enough is enough!!”

“Talking back to your mother, is not allowed! Doj, do it.”

“At once!”

“Wai, what are you doing, Doj! Sto...... stop! Aah!”

For a while, I heard a scuffle, like people struggling, but that soon stopped too. Then a dosun! thud rings out, like something falling over.

“Now, Keranko-chan! Your big sister gave you the ring, see? So stop crying, won't you?”

“Really......!? Uwaa~~~, it's so cute!”

“How wonderful, young Miss Keranko.”

“Wa, wait...... wait...... that ring, not that ring......!”

Keranko's voice rings out, laughing brightly as if her crying a moment ago had been a lie.

And then, the footsteps of several people, walking off somewhere.

It seems Keranko and the others have gone off somewhere.

Karashia's words, murmured in a voice on the verge of tears, don't seem to have reached Keranko and the others' ears at all.

For a while after that, I could hear what sounded like sobbing, but judging by the sounds, Karashia also got up quietly afterward and walked off somewhere.

........................

U, ummm......

......What? What's with this sudden messy family-drama theater?

<Haaaaaaaah! Th, this is! An Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast staple setup! The ‘Abused Older Sister’!!>

Whoa!?

What, what, Omake-sama!?

Suddenly getting all excited!?

I mean, eh?

Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast staple setup!?

I feel like I've heard words like that somewhere before......?

<An Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast staple setup is the kind of setup that protagonists reincarnated into another world tend to be given! And of those, the ‘Abused Older Sister’ is a position that protagonists born into relatively high-status families, like noble houses, often find themselves in!>

Ehh?

Even though she's a protagonist, she's being abused?

<It is precisely because she is the protagonist that she is being abused. How she overcomes that environment and grows is the heart of the story! And the one who must always be mentioned in the same breath as this ‘Abused Older Sister’...... is the ‘Spoiled Younger Sister’!>

A, ahh......

That one from before, uh, Keranko, was it?

I've only heard her voice, but...... she was definitely, spoiled...... or is spoiled even the word?

<There are several patterns of being ‘spoiled’, you see. From what we just heard, that Keranko, even among the ‘spoiled’, seems to have a ‘greedy’ streak front and center.>

“Greedy”?

<In other words, a personality that genuinely thinks, ‘everything in this world is mine’. Story-wise, it's a setup that pairs well with the ‘Abused Older Sister’, and the two often appear as a set. She has a habit of ‘wanting anything of her sister's and snatching it’, and in the end she'll snatch even her sister's fiancé.>

How awful!?

Somebody stop her!

<And since this ‘Spoiled Younger Sister’ is doted on by everyone around her, as a rule there's hardly anyone in the house who will put a stop to her outrages.>

U, uwa~~~......

I mean, huh?

Which means, Omake-sama?

You mean that right now, inside that mansion, an Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast is being filmed as we speak?

<......Hmm, that's a tough one. Karashia and Keranko, you said? Based on the sound of their voices, both of those sisters are probably older than you, right?>

Ah, come to think of it, that's true.

I guess they sounded like they were in their mid-teens?

<If they had souls stuffed into their bodies later, like Sara Salar, the baron's daughter, there's a possibility that the abused older sister is your former classmate...... but that method takes a lot of effort to perform. If they're filming an Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast, the mainstream way is to stuff the reincarnator's soul into the body from birth.>

Then aren't they reincarnators who came to this world a little before we did?

<That possibility is also extremely low...... if there are too many reincarnators, the stories get tangled. That's why Soul Auctions for making reincarnators, when they're held at all, come around maybe once every hundred years or so. It's not impossible for a soul to accidentally drift into another world, but in that case, there's no god to film the broadcast......>

......So, in other words, as a conclusion for now, the relationship between those sisters is an Isekai Reincarnation Broadcast staple setup, but it's more likely that they just happen to have that relationship by coincidence, and reincarnation has nothing to do with it?

<Considering the probabilities, isn't that the likeliest? In the first place, sisters who are an ‘Abused Older Sister’ and a ‘Spoiled Younger Sister’ are common enough in this world for the ‘staple setup’ to have become a ‘staple’. It becomes a ‘staple’ precisely because it's so common.>

What an awful world.

<Therefore, it wouldn't be strange at all if those two were just ordinary people who happened to have a ‘staple setup’. Probably, if you gathered all the sisters in the world into one room and threw a stone, chances are you'd hit an ‘Abused Older Sister’ or a ‘Spoiled Younger Sister’, wouldn't you?>

I don't think that's true!?

I think there are sisters with all sorts of relationships!?

There must be plenty of sisters who get along great, too!?

<No, no, sisters are generally on bad terms, you know? That is what I learned from watching Isekai Reincarnation Broadcasts.>

Ah, there goes Omake-sama again, swallowing whole what she picked up from the broadcasts......

It's probably just that she happened to watch only those kinds of stories......

<Well, putting that aside. I've talked a lot, but in this case, whether those sisters have anything to do with isekai reincarnation or not is, honestly, irrelevant.>

Eh? Why?

It's not irrelevant, is it?

It'd be a pain if I got dragged into it, wouldn't it?

<Because Emi, you have no intention of entering that mansion, do you? There's no way for you to get dragged in, is there?>

......Oh, right.

<Even if you changed your mind and wanted to do something about the relationship between those sisters, what could you do? If you punch them, will the family's relationship improve? It won't, will it?>

Hey!

Again with that tone, like ‘all I'm good for is punching’!?

Could you stop that!?

<My apologies. Anyway, Emi. To get back to the point, you have no intention of doing anything for those sisters in the first place, right?>

Well, that's true.

I'm not bragging, but only my combat ability has gone up, and my people skills are catastrophic.

Besides, I'm a cursed child.

It's not a problem I can solve just by waddling out there.

It would just add one more unnecessary commotion.

<......As I thought, you are aware of it? ‘All you're good for is pun......>

Haah!!?

<......My apologies. Anyway, if that's the case! There is only one course of action for us outsiders to take!!>

......Wh, what could it be!!?

<......Let's sit quietly right here and enjoy the eavesdropping!>

What an awful conclusion. The ‘enjoy’ part is especially awful.

I don't think it's very good to enjoy other people's misfortune from a viewer's point of view, Omake-sama.

<I hate to say it myself, but it's a side effect of watching nothing but Isekai Reincarnation Broadcasts for ages...... this disposition has sunk right into me......>

Omake-sama and I let out small sighs that only we could hear.

That being said.

I steal a glance at the sky through the storehouse window.

The blizzard has died down since around when I approached this mansion, and it's so quiet I can't even hear the wind.

But instead, a mist hangs over the whole area, and visibility is very poor.

If I'm going to leave, I'd rather do it when the weather gets a bit better, so I'd like to rest here a little longer.

Which means.

There's nothing else to do, anyway.

I closed my eyes again and started eavesdropping on the goings-on in the mansion.

Omake-sama's knowledge and perceptions are often shaped by information obtained from watching broadcasts, so they are distorted sometimes.

And Keranko is the stock trashy-personality little sister.

It's not that I'm riding a trend or anything, it's a coincidence. R, really, okay?

In a serialized work, incorporating trendy tropes doesn't have much of an effect in terms of increasing the number of readers. Probably.

That said, I cannot deny the fact that I decided to post just the opening part ahead of time because I heard stock trashy-personality little sisters are trending, no sir!!

Well, since the work ‘The Omake Reincarnator’ has an inseparable relationship with things like templates and story archetypes, this is just how it goes.