The Darkness Was Comfortable for Me

I escaped from the guild perplexed.

I have let the guild have custody of the 10 gold.

I still have plenty of money saved from exploring the dungeon with Rifreya even without using those 10 gold, so it should be good to keep them as savings for the future.

I have no choice but to live forever in this world.

Rifreya too has told me to live.

In that case, I have to think about the future too.

Right now I can’t even imagine what kind of future there is, but I have to.

(At the very least, I can’t become a templar.) (Hikaru)

It is also impossible to hang out at the workplace of Rifreya.

Becoming a templar is apparently quite high up in the jobs that one wants to be after retiring from being an explorer. You could say this is also the demerit of Affection of Spirits.

(I could also begin a business. At moments like this, the Chosen who have experience as working adults must have the advantage.) (Hikaru)

I was thinking this while walking aimlessly around the city.

(There’s also the choice of entering a school.) (Hikaru)

If this were a world where there was a school system for magic, there might have been something like a magic school, but sadly to say, the magic of this world is established from a contract with Spirits. Rather than studying about it, it is more of a feel.

Rather than a mage, it is closer to a shaman.

If there’s no magic school, it is hard to believe there’s still something for me to learn in a normal school in this world when I finished middle school in Japan. Of course, it might simply be that I don’t know about its existence, but there’s the chance that there’s a place that teaches on a high school level…

(There’s also farming, or maybe lumbering.) (Hikaru)

I feel like both would be difficult.

I have no knowledge in agriculture, and I don’t know about lumbering either.

I could get taught by the natives, but it is not like I feel a desire to do it.

(In the end, it is being an explorer, huh…) (Hikaru)

There’s the risk of death.

However, I am way too suited for running the 2nd Floor of the Meltia dungeon in terms of capabilities. I should be able to earn efficiently to a point that it would be unfathomable compared to other jobs.

In that case, I will earn money as an explorer, search for something I like with that money, and also search for anything else I would want to do in the meantime.

Also, if I am mainly focusing in hunting in that dark 2nd Floor, I should be able to reduce the numbers that inflated from the Viewer Count Race.

“In that case, I should return little by little to a normal lifestyle.” (Hikaru)

Let’s go bathing more often.

Warm up my body, and properly sleep in a decent place.

Bathe in the light of the sun as much as possible, and properly have all meals of the day.

Performing a natural lifestyle in a natural way.

That’s my first mission as someone who has decided to live in this world.

◇◆◆◆◇

Now then.

I say a natural lifestyle, but I don’t really know this world well.

Rifreya has returned to her home, and I don’t have any acquaintances. Alex and his party would probably help me out in a variety of ways, but I don’t even know where they are living.

“I should…think bit by bit about my lifestyle.” (Hikaru)

I walk aimlessly around the city while making sure not to get too close to the church.

What I want to do.

What I want to become.

I didn’t think once about this since coming to this world.

I am an otherworlder, and am being watched the whole time, so it would be difficult to live with someone.

It naturally ends up with me having to live alone, but I am currently in a state where I don’t even know what kind of lifestyle there is, so I am drawing a blank in what choices there are.

I got 10 gold coins as a reward from subjugating the Demon Lord.

They still have it, but if I have that as my capital, I should be able to do a lot of things…

“…I don’t really have anything I want to do…” (Hikaru)

Before I was transferred, I was always supporting my little sisters.

I didn’t have any noteworthy hobbies, and food I like…can’t really think of anything.

I would always help out my little sisters, would get scolded in place of my little sisters, would convince my parents and grandfather in place of my little sisters, and would fulfill their requests.

You could say I am now in a state where I am free from my parents and little sisters.

(I have complicated feelings about this…) (Hikaru)

It is not like I wished to be freed from my little sisters.

I was satisfied with my lifestyle, and I thought it was fine to just live normally.

But I probably had no core.

Nanami chose the high school, and I simply decided on that one as well since it suited my school grades, and my little sisters asked me not to join any clubs and go back home as soon as possible, so I simply did as I was told.

A brook flows by the side of the road in the territory of the Great Water Spirit; a beautiful city of water.

The road is stone paved, and the buildings are also made of stone, and there’s a lot of them with high quality designs.

There’s a lot of stores lined up at the market.

The food is literally piled up like a mountain, and if this were a trip, it would definitely be a sight that would stimulate my curiosity.

“…Freedom, huh.” (Hikaru)

I opened my Status Board, and I could see that I had more than a hundred million viewers even though I was simply walking around the city.

There’s no such thing as freedom when I am being watched by that many people.

Even if it is a normal livelihood, the viewers that are peeking on that and the ones wishing for my failure were tormenting me the 24 hours of the day.

Thinking about it normally, there’s…no way all viewers know about me being suspected as a killer before watching me.

I don’t know if something like that exists, but there might be people that just check out the person and watch them after seeing a ranking or something.

I don’t know in what way we are being watched by the viewers aside from what God has told us beforehand. They can watch freely from a PC, smartphone, or TV. That’s what they said.

They should be able to soon tell I am suspected of being the killer of Nanami once they watch me and try to make a light search about me. And then, they would adjust their perception as ‘He was that kind of terrible person?’ ‘He was enjoying his isekai life with a nonchalant face?’.

Just imagining that flow of events was tiring my heart.

“…I am not the culprit.” (Hikaru)

I muttered this faintly while I was walking.

It is a pointless action.

Even if the person that is suspected as the culprit were to say ‘I didn’t do it’, what would that achieve?

Nothing.

Only deepen the suspicion.

……When I was young, all the pranks of my little sisters ended up with me being the one at fault.

Even when my little sisters would apologize later to mother, I ended up being the one scolded.

‘Because of you, Celica learned bad things’.

‘Because of you, Karen has begun to do unnecessary things’.

At first, I would try to explain myself, but I don’t know when, I realized that persuading them was impossible and just gave up.

Fortunately, my little sisters were smart, and they began to act in a way that wouldn’t trouble their brother around the time they were at the last years of elementary school, but in the end, it was still thorny between me and my mother who was not related by blood.

I wanted to get along with them.

Unlike Nanami who took distance from her parents on her own accord, I wanted to interact normally with my parents.

I might have thought even more strongly about it after seeing Nanami lose her faith in her parents from the one act of abandoning one dog.

I have been asked countless times by Nanami’s parents to try and persuade her. But Nanami was unbelievably stubborn, and never forgave them.

And in the end, a sudden end came without her daughter ever forgiving them…

(Uncle and auntie…they were also killed…along with Nanami…) (Hikaru)

I should actually…be more angry.

Get angry, throw a tantrum, and fire blame.

But having suddenly been thrown into a parallel world forest, that timing was lost.

Nanami won’t come back.

—Sadness.

That feeling will always stay in my chest, and the hand of the culprit won’t be reaching me no matter how much he tries. Only that reality alone was leaning coldly inside my heart.

—Hate.

Every time my memories of Nanami surface in my mind, hatred towards the culprit that took away her future well up in me.

However, I couldn’t bring those honest feelings of hatred out.

…I never brought those feelings once to the outside.

The people watching me think that I am the culprit after all.

If I were to blame the culprit, what would happen?

They would simply laugh at the pathetic theatrics.

What would happen if I were to show mortification for the culprit having escaped?

They would just laugh at me for trying to put the blame on a fictitious culprit, or simply scoff at me thinking I have gone crazy.

The viewers are the allies of the true culprit.

I don’t want to show my inner feelings to those viewers.

I can’t take the possibility of my hatred towards the culprit being consumed as fuel for their laughter.

A culprit I don’t even know the name of.

Just like how my viewers are hating me in a place where they can’t put their hands on me, I am also in a place where I can’t put a hand on the culprit.

If I were on Earth, it would just end with seeing a photo and going ‘it is him!’.

But I can’t do anything towards the culprit in a parallel world.

I am the only one who knows the truth.

I…I alone know the culprit.

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