Chapter 1343 This Is This, And That Actually Is…… Part 2

In the first place, the private library in the town where Rei and Rakuro live is a high-tech one that has undergone a major renovation about a year ago and is now equipped with one of the most advanced facilities in the entire region, if not in the entire country.

There is a full-scale touch panel system in that library that allows you to operate the console no matter where you touch the “face” of the desk that you are sitting at, If you use the desk you can display the latest reference books right in front of your eyes without the need of having to stand up from your seat and going amongst the bookshelves to find what you are looking for.

In other words, even though Rei was hesitant to admit it, it turned out that overall her impulse purchase turned out to be a rather wasteful one, indeed. But even so! Even if its usefulness for the future was greatly deducted in this very moment, there was no use worrying about it. Sure enough, it was an expensive book so for someone like Rei, a high schooler with no steady source of income it was a mighty blow to her limited budget, but worrying about that matter would bring her nothing good in a long run. So she would stop pondering what was well beyond her ability to control and she decided to move on instead.

「……………」

「……………」

Huh? Doesn’t it feel that something is seriously wrong with this current setting that they have going on here?

While Rei’s parameter of academic ability goes up a vast amount, at the same time she felt that the parameter of something equally as important, if not even more important than that, began to plummet its way down. It was a pretty quick and a random thought, but nonetheless it made Rei’s spine shiver with terror.

Yes, that’s right. It’s been like that for her for years now. Because she was always so passive about things, she never got to have any actual experience with the things that she really wanted to try out. And if nothing is done here, she won’t make any progress when it comes to romance as well. But then, whatever it is that she should do here?

「……………Ngh,」

So in order to prevent that from happening, Rei decided to turn towards Iwamaki—san for help.

A reply came back surprisingly fast through the SNS application, so Rei turned towards the notification screen of her mobile device with high expectations, but then……

Iwamaki: Just confess already.

「……………」

If she could do that, then she wouldn’t be having such a hard time right now. The advice that Iwamaki-san came up with here does not help in this place. If anything, the only thing it managed to do was to agitate poor Rei’s brain even more than before. After all, Rei is, above all else, an “honor student”, which means that she carries herself with ideas and values that the general public finds appropriate and acceptable, so this made things even harder for her right now. But maybe it would be a good thing to find a common topic that they could talk about? But what would that be? She needed to come up with one in a flash.

「…… Umm,」

「Hmm? What is it?」

As expected, it was really hard to actually think of a conversation topic. Also, since it was the public library, Rei had no choice but to keep her voice lowered down, but eventually she managed to squeeze those words out……

「I happened to see the video from your stream, and……」

「NUEH!?」

ZUGON!!!!!!!!!

「Pyah!?」

Rakuro slammed his forehead against the desk with great momentum from the apparent shock of hearing Rei say that.

It would seem that Saiga Rei managed to step onto a landmine filled with grief and regret.

* * *

At that moment I felt as though someone punched me right to the liver and then I could feel a wave of sharp pain exploding right around my nose and forehead. I could also hear that I let out a strange sound, unlike of which I have never let out before. Normally I would never believe that a human being would be able to make noises like that, but since it came from me directly, then I have to accept that as truth.

The pain in the forehead restarts my buggy thoughts in an instant, and while bowing to the surroundings to apology for the sudden commotion that I have caused, I gathered the remaining reason that was still left in me and build the outer shell to protect myself from the incoming mental damage. It’s fine, everything’s fine, there is no problem. None whatsoever.

「H-Hmmm? You don’t say? Are you sure it was my stream? Maybe you have seen someone else my mistake?」

「T-This is…… Umm, you see, the thing is…… I-I’m sorry?」

「N-No problem! There is no problem at all! None whatsoever!」

「I-Is that right……? Umm, you see…… You looked very…… V-Very C-cool…… R-really amazing! That’s what I wanted to say!」

「H-Haha, hahahahahahaha……」

Why is it always that accepting being praised in earnest is so hard?

I am pretty sure that I prevented the video from being archived, but for some reason a copy of it exists somewhere out there……? The data recorded from the beginning is circulating as a mirror link around the Internet…… and the video that the stranger put up has an advertisement and has been played tens of thousands of times over and over again. The thing here that I’m having the most gripe is that advertising revenue is going strong in someone’s pocket just as we speak…… I saw one such link today’s morning and filed on the video site to erase it. So, the number of posts by different content creators must have doubled or even tripled by now.

「I never knew that…… The Orchestra would be powered up by those kind of feelings.」

「Because the route is bifurcated, I think that’s the reason…… Ahh, are you going to try and challenge it as well, Rei-san?」

「No! No, no, no! I’m still in the middle of figuring out what to do about my sword and armor, you see……」

Ahh, that’s right. I forgot that this person is actually an Only One when it comes to ShangriLa Frontier.

「Umm……Rakuro-kun, why did you even recorded that stream in the first place?」

「……… I was planning to make it privately distributed in order to verify it alongside the “Library”, but I made a mistake and made it publicly available for all world to see.」

「Ahh…… So that’s, that’s the reason, huh……?」

If you want to laugh, feel free to do just that, I won’t hold it against you. Actually, I think that Rei-san would be the only person that I wouldn’t mind if she was to laugh at me.

When I looked it up on my mobile device, all three mirror videos were playing one hundred thousand times each, so how much does that give us in total? World-kun, isn’t the level of trials that you impose on me a little too high as of late?