Published at 31st of December 2020 07:11:58 PM
Chapter 52
Descending to the town, I used Yuuta’s phone to contact Kana . Not through mail, mind you; it was a direct call since people can understand each other better through verbal communication rather than through text . I also wanted to tell her how serious I am about wanting to stop her, so I need to know what sort of state of mind Kana currently is in .
“Hello!? Yuuta!?”
“It’s me, Nakamoto . You know why I called you from this number, right?”
“…Yuuta is alive, right?”
“Fine and peachy . ¹”
“I’m definitely reporting you to the police . ”
Kana’s voice trembled, as if she’s truly at the end of her wits .
“Do that and Yuuta is dead, and honestly I prefer not to do that . I really want you to choose something that will lead to less victims . ”
“…you’ve got some screws loose I swear . ”
“Talk about pot calling a kettle black . I’ll be waiting in the summit of Mt . Shinbetsu . Conceal yourself and the other Kanas, shake off the reporters and come meet me” I said, and then I cut the line .
I returned the phone to Yuuta’s pocket and heaved a sigh .
Mount Shinbetsu is a deserted mountain two kilometers east of here, and since it’ll be a huge pain in the ass, so I went to a public lavatory nearby, sat him up on a toilet bowl and closed the door . Until he came to, we should have someone watching over him, so with heavy heart I had to call Keisuke C and Ayako-chan over to stand watch on the entrance .
Alright then, what would happen when Yuuta wakes up? He’ll go out of the lavatory and bump into Ayako-chan, who would then say to him something like “I wasn’t kidnapped though?” and fool him with it . I don’t know how much he would then start to question his sanity, nor is Ayako-chan the type that would be great at being fair-spoken, so I could only hope that his admiration of Ayako-chan would compromise his judgement .
Opening my smartphone, I shot a message to Keisuke C and told him my plan, to which he replied almost immediately .
[I just need to go there, right? I don’t mind but are you going to continue fighting Kana? I can switch over with you if you’re tired . ]
[I’m fine . At this point I’m the one who’d fought Kana #1 the most, so I know her limits and habits . Focus on keeping guard, C . ”
[Copy . ]
I find myself doubting my other self since I thought perhaps he wanted to switch over since just keeping guard was getting boring for him . It’s me who we’re talking about, so I know how his train of thought goes .
A couple of minutes later, Keisuke C came crashing like the wind with Ayako-chan in his arms . With a swing of his arm as a sign, I start to make my move .
“Let’s go then” I said towards Kana, as if ordering her to join my party after I captured her .
The two of us are mutual enemies, so if I were to cast Conceal upon ourselves, we wouldn’t be able to hear or see each other .
But if she’s an allied character, it’s yet another story . Even if both of us entered stealth condition, we can see and hear each other without issues .
【Hero Kana has accepted to join the party】
“Alright”
There are 2 conditions of someone joining the party: either the party leader invites someone to join the party, or someone who voluntarily wants to be your friend arbitrarily joins the party in their own accord . Although, at some point in my journey, there are some people who joined my party to which I would respond by saying “since when are you so friendly with me?” and this list of people includes Angelica, Rio, and even Ayako-chan .
Yeah, right now there are 3 girls who voluntarily holds me dear, and for their sake, I wouldn’t mind turning into a demon to subjugate Kana .
“Conceal” I cast the spell once again, rendering Kana and I invisible before we start heading for Mt . Shinbetsu .
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Holding Kana in my arms, I dashed straight to the mountain . With the strength of my legs, 2 kilometers would take no time at all, but since it would be pretty awkward to keep running without saying anything, I struck a conversation with Kana in my arms .
“You must be thinking that I’m such a wretch, aren’t you?”
“…”
No response . All she did was send a gaze full of fear and hatred towards me .
“Listen, I actually did manage to clone myself like you did . I cast Regeneration spell on myself and sliced myself in half . Didn’t know if I spilled parts of my brains when I did that, but I just hoped that it wasn’t such a big deal . Now though I feel kind of scared . I’m pretty sure I’ll feel this in the morning . ”
“…”
“How about you? You made six copies of yourself, right? You’ve got to have some amazing guts to do all of that six times .
Kana kept her silence, still glaring at me quietly .
“You also didn’t seem to have a problem living normally since you don’t have greatly enhanced strength, only just about enough . I’m pretty sure if you would just live normally, you’ll have a rainbow-colored future . Can’t you just make the best of your strengths and just live a proper life with that? Why would you go around trying to be a Demon Queen all of a sudden?”
“…”
“If it’s all about your brother, it’s such a waste since your feelings would remain to the extent that you’d go so far as to fight an unwinnable battle . ”
I didn’t say all of this to persuade her; I was just directly telling her my honest feeling…something I feel that I could have from the experiences throughout the years . When I see someone young wasting their time and talent, I couldn’t help but to think that it’s such a waste . That’s why, I get that what I’m saying may come across as an old man trying to give bad advices to a young girl .
I judged that hearing about all of this is going to be no fun at all, so I decided to shut my trap . Besides, she’s someone who succumbed to my brute force, so even listening to me would be insulting enough for her .
You know what, I’ll just be quiet and keep moving for now .
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But then, Kana started talking .
“…there’s nothing then” she said .
“Nothing?”
“Isn’t that right? I’ve got nothing here since I got back from that other world . I was a hero there, someone comparable to a queen . I saved a lot of people by slaying a lot of monsters, you know? But then when I came back to Japan, I’m back to being a nobody . I’m just another normal high school girl . How am I supposed to bear that fact? Everything I did came undone you know!”
“And that’s why you can’t accept this world?”
She asked, “How about you, Nakamoto-san? Don’t you think it’s unfair?”
“Me?”
“You must understand since you’re also a hero from another world, right? That world is heaven, and this world is hell . Why would you even try to get me to like this world?”
“The world I was sent to is nowhere close to being heaven, so much that I constantly thought that I really want to return to Japan . My first campaign over there was beyond excruciating, and just as I had finished having an audience with the King in that world I was thrown into a war with the demi humans . I was tossed to the front line and I was no more than a pawn for the army . I was only able to survive by eating up orcish flesh at that time . Pretty sure they taste like pork just as much as they look like one . ”
“…what the hell . ”
“I actually hate being cruel, that’s why once I stained my hands with blood, I came to hate myself . ”
Kana grimaced, perhaps feeling disgusted that a middle-aged man started talking about himself so seriously .
“Still, there were someone who loved me in my place there, but in the end, she also got killed . By me even, so what could I do? Even when I came back to Japan, I started to care less about everything . Even if society treats me like garbage, I feel like I deserve every bit of it…like the value of my life is just that much . ”
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As I declared that, I came to notice something .
“Ah, that’s right . We’re similar with each other, but we’re just on different vectors . ”
“…what do you mean?”
“Your self-evaluation was raised in that world, while mine greatly decreased . But that’s still why both of us can’t adapt to the current society . ”
We’re nowhere similar, Kana objected, baring her rebellious nature bare . Still, she seemed to have regained her spirits to a certain degree, which caused me to hesitate whether to recast Terror to her .
But I decided against it . My gut is telling me that this is a good progression .
“Let’s just say the main antagonist here is the summons in the first place . If you could only live normally in Japan, you’ll simply be a girl who loves her brother . ”
I wasn’t sure what my message is behind those words .
Kana kept her silence, biting her lips quietly .
Mount Shinbetsu is really close now . From here it looks like a hazy, blue triangle with a hat of pure white snow covering its peak, nowhere close to the Mt . Sagara we’ve been few minutes earlier as Mt . Shinbetsu’s height easily dwarfed the latter, which would make a great challenge for ordinary people to scale .
Fortunately, Kana and I are not ordinary people . We are heroes that has been tempered in another world .
We would probably reach the summit in several minutes .
Vigorously, I coursed through the mountain trail and ascended steadily as the change of atmospheric pressure affecting me in no particular way .