The Darkness Was Comfortable for Me

TLN: Two chapters today! Make sure you didn’t miss the previous one!

——

The way of living of Brother in the dungeon city was so painful to the point I couldn’t watch it.

It was so fleeting that I felt as if he would be swallowed by the darkness of the dungeon and disappear suddenly.

I was assailed by a feeling of impatience as I maintained the video site, and put extra care in creating the videos of Brother. With that, the viewers began watching the edited videos instead of the real time broadcast, and the viewers decreased on the surface.

I endeavoured to act cheerful, and continued acting like the slightly mean little sister, but my heart was actually on the verge of bursting.

Brother might die.

But there’s almost nothing I can do.

If he at least opened the messages, I could back him up, but I can’t even do that.

The only Chosen close to him are Alex-san and Jeanne-san.

Within those, I asked Alex-san countless times through the messages, but he is a Chosen that gets a lot of horrible messages himself. Even if I ask him to take care of our brother, he probably doesn’t have the leeway to do so.

I found the time to, went to the home of Alex-san, and met with his family, but honestly…it didn’t look like that good of a family environment.

This isekai transfer not only brings change to the Chosen, but also the lifestyle of their families.

They are losing a family member, so that’s natural.

Not all people can see them off with a smile and say ‘Do your best in the far isekai’.

Within all of that, Brother met Rifreya-san.

No amount of gratitude would be enough to express how indebted I feel to her.

If he hadn’t met the slightly…no, pretty pushy Rifreya-san, Brother would have been hidden in the darkness the whole time, and he would have eventually died.

And the Resurrection Gem.

When I heard that announcement, I cursed God from the bottom of my heart.

Just when I thought a change might happen to the heart of Brother in a good direction from deepening his relationship with Rifreya-san, this happened.

That’s why, whether I should help Brother aim for 1st place in the Viewer Count Race…I hesitated about helping him for a second.

But I am on my brother’s side. Didn’t I already decide on that?

Even if it becomes a painful choice, I will support Brother.

Karen and I left the video editing for later, and moved the viewers into real time watchalongs. Thanks to that, the viewership of Brother increased explosively, but the route to 1st place felt far.

I took out another card.

Keeping Ozawa locked up proved useful.

I spread a campaign around the world that Brother is the culprit of killing Nee-san.

Maybe Karen and I were also complicit in this? It might have been a crime performed by the whole family? It could have been an incident brought from love troubles? I brought out possibilities that are no way actually possible, fanned the flames, and controlled the flow towards the channel of our brother.

Even so, being able to get to 1st place in 2 weeks was really because of the effort of our brother.

He is my number one Onii-chan in the world after all.

He is the kind of person that can face even fearsome monsters like those.

But he was a bit too fastidious, and he ended up having a bit of trouble with Rifreya-san, which resulted in the 1st place escaping from his hands.

However, I understand her feelings.

Brother will leave by himself. He would by no means say let’s die together.

That’s the kindness of Brother and also his cruelty…

Even so, they somehow defeated the Demon Lord, and Brother returned alive.

Karen and I had reduced our sleep time to the minimum because of the Viewer Count Race, so we were tired to the extreme just like Brother, and we finally managed to get a good sleep after a while.

Well, even when we woke up, Brother was still deep asleep. He did worry us though.

And then, the farewell with Rifreya-san.

We ourselves had endless things to do like releasing Ozawa, asking Jeanne-san to give the Resurrection Gem, and many other things.

Anyways, things are proceeding in a good direction.

If things continue going like this, there should be no problems…or at least it is supposed to.

◇◆◆◆◇

The request of Jeanne was something unexpected.

It was to reduce the amount of messages.

She always reads the messages she receives. It looked like she was acting according to the contents written there.

In the first place, the reason why she is heading to Meltia is because someone told him that the Chosen called Hikaru had killed his childhood friend and had escaped to the isekai without being judged. They wanted her to ‘bring down the hammer of justice’. Normally, it is the kind of message you would ignore.

I personally didn’t think she was actually heading there to kill my brother, but I sent her ‘See the truth with your own eyes’ just in case.

Whatever the reason it may be, if she is going to be meeting Brother, what’s important is whether she helps out…no, whether she becomes a plus or a minus.

I have already investigated all of the Chosen beforehand.

Within those, Jeanne Cronet had especially high popularity with her eccentric speech and conduct, and her beauty.

White porcelain skin that had northern european blood in it, and strawberry blonde hair.

Big blue eyes with strong will in them, long limbs, slender build.

And yet, her hobbies are computer games, doesn’t properly go to school, and would do nothing but part-time jobs and gaming; a delinquent girl. The grand piercings on both of her ears are her trademark. It was to the point that getting piercings had trended in the whole world.

A natural-born star must refer to people like her.

That kind of person is meeting Brother.

I was a bit worried at first, but seeing her adventures in the isekai, my worries perished in an instant.

That’s because Jeanne Collet is a good natured idiot.

I may say idiot, but it is not in the bad sense of the word.

She has a personality that doesn’t think of the gains and losses, and doesn’t refuse requests. In my eyes, she was suffering quite a lot of losses.

At the time when she subjugated the monsters in the abandoned castle, aside from lodging and food, she didn’t take any cash reward at all.

Thinking about it normally, it was a matter that would require you to ask a knight to do an extermination. The plain action of sending a single girl there shows the wickedness of the villager that asked her of this.

Moreover, the reward for accomplishing that was literally just lowering their heads! Normally, you should make them pay the fitting amount even if it takes force. That girl didn’t do that. An idiot.

It was the same at the time when she was asked from a different village to subjugate bandits.

Just how much conflict was there in that matter. Even if you get cheats from God and have strong powers, there’s no way you would have no hesitation in killing people.

Even the little money and goods she got from the bandit hideout, she presented it to the villagers, and she really just took the one night one meal, and excused herself from the village.

But the people in the whole world loved a girl like that.

You can understand if you watch her.

It is to the point that even I grew to like her.

“Celican~, what do we do? Even if she asks us to decrease her messages, just how many messages is she receiving right now?” (Karen)

“Jeanne-san is getting around 100 a day, I guess. In that case, she is most likely getting 100,000 sent everyday. Then, it shouldn’t be that difficult.” (Celica)

“I have investigated the message system on a large scale before, but are we using that data?” (Karen)

“Right. Also, we are using a bit of money too.” (Celica)

“No problem-nii~. That’s what we got the money for!” (Karen)

Having gotten the ‘homework’ from Jeanne, I immediately began the campaign.

Putting it bluntly, the request of Jeanne entered the category of easy, and I am honestly glad it was. The Resurrection Gem is a one of a kind item. I thought she would ask for a more complicated thing.

She…really is a good person.

“Anyways, let’s do this.” (Celica)

“Okey Dokey~.” (Karen)

In order to send the messages to the Chosen, there’s the need to overcome two factors.

The first is love.

Just how much does the person think of the other party while writing, just how much they are looking forward to their reaction, just how they feel for the other party.

Those emotions that are hard to put into numbers…in other words, love, the stronger it is, the easier the message reaches.

The other one is: the number of messages sent.

For example; let’s say people with around the same amount of feelings were to send 100 messages. In that case, around 20 will arrive. It is data that has been tested countless times.

Then, what happens if that becomes 1,000? Thinking about it normally, 100 should be arriving, but that’s not the case. It would be around 30-40 at best.

What happens if you go up to 100,000?

Surprise, the number goes down even more and only around 100 reach.

And here I thought that was the peak, but when it becomes 1,000,000 in one day, the rate that reaches suddenly decreases, and it reduces to only 1 or 2.

And, most of the time, that 1 or 2 are from the family worrying about the Chosen.

It means that the higher the number, the more intense a filter used.

If we were to purposely create that state, the messages that reach Jeanne would most likely calm down to 2-3 daily. There’s no doubt it has gotten difficult enough that even my messages won’t reach her.

To be more precise…

Push a campaign: ‘Send a message to Jeanne! For the messages that reach, the sender will get 100,000 yen!’ centered in France.

I don’t know what country has the most messages sent, but the most important thing by theory is the aggregate amount. As long as it is a country that has high interest in her, it is a country worth pushing the campaign.

Well, it is made in a way that you can participate no matter the country though.

What’s important is to increase the messages that have no love, so I mix the worldly desire that is money.

This worldly desire clouds the love, and it drastically amplifies the already stupidly difficult acceptance rate. Moreover, you have to register into the site Karen made, so even if your message reaches Jeanne, you won’t be able to receive the money otherwise.

The costs for the campaign reach the hundreds of millions, but if done well, there will only be a handful of people that actually get the money.

No matter the case, thinking of the Resurrection Gem’s rarity, this is exceptionally cheap.

And the reality is that results came in just a few days of the campaign starting.

As expected of the world’s biggest star. With just the amount from the people registered in the website, there’s more than 1 million messages in total sent.

The effect of the total message saturation plan was astounding and, at the beginning, we did give a few people money, but after that, the messages of people aiming for the money couldn’t get through at all.

I don’t know why God made such an adjustment, but this might be its way of saying that the message system is just an extra.

Jeanne saw the message screen that barely got any messages now and said: “To think you would actually show results. I will keep my promise. This Resurrection Gem, Celica, I will give it to your brother”.

I high-fived Karen.

It is a shame that Brother couldn’t get 1st place in the Viewer Count Race, but it is true that he became a bit more positive through that.

In terms of results, I would say he didn’t land in a bad place.

“I will be going out for a bit. Karen, I leave the rest to you.” (Celica)

“Are you going to receive Nanamin?” (Karen)

“That’s right. Need to do a bit of administration processing, so there’s the need to get to the site a bit fast. It would be too much to hide her in a container and bring her all the way to America. Well, I have already gotten the promise for the permanent residence right of Nanami-neesan here, so it is fine to bring her forcefully though… We will be using a private jet anyways.” (Celica)

“Eeh, that’s nice. Using a private jet.” (Karen)

“This isn’t a game! Also, there’s most likely not that many occasions where we will need to use a lot of money.” (Celica)

The charter cost for a small jet can take tens of million yen for a round trip. There’s no point in being stingy when we earn over hundred millions monthly with just the video profits alone.

It is weird saying it myself, but me and Nanami-neesan are…what you would call the people of the time. I want to reduce the chances of contact with bystanders and the mass media, and most of all, time is of utmost importance.

“Then, Linda, let’s go.” (Celica)

“Yes, Boss. John and I will be accompanying you.”

“Counting on you.” (Celica)

Linda here is a remarkable SP I have hired, and the team of 8 people she gathered are protecting us 24/7.

We are not adults, and yet, we have more money than we could ever use; an unbalanced existence.

Linda and her SP team were introduced to us by the country, so they are most likely spies or something, but I don’t have intentions of harming the national interest of America, and I myself don’t have dangerous thoughts.

You could say getting protected by the country in exchange isn’t a bad trade.

I had no means to employ clean and capable personnel anyways.

I take out my smartphone and push the line call.

“Ah, hello, Izuna-san? Yes, it is Celica. It has been a while. Yes…that’s right. Yeah. That matter…yeah, the demolishing of the house, can you proceed with it? Please begin from the Kurose house first. The Souma household, crush it after things are done… Yes, the aim has been set, you see. Also, I will be showing up in the place of Grandpa again. Yeah, it is okay. I will contact Grandpa from my side as well. Yes yes. Right~. Then…” (Celica)

Nanami-neesan will be resurrecting in her room at that house.

In the description of that Resurrection Gem, it said ‘resurrect in the place they died’, so there should be no doubt. God definitely doesn’t make a mistake when it comes to those parts.

The problem is…will the person resurrecting truly be Nanami-neesan herself? But I have no choice but to confirm that one myself.

“…In the case that it is a different something that resembles Nanami-neesan…I will have no choice but to act depending on the situation. Conciliation or destruction. It is that God we are talking about here. It wouldn’t be strange for there to be a catch here.” (Celica)

The corpse of Nanami-neesan has been cremated, and even her bones are already ashes without waiting 49 days.

That’s why it is definite that she will be different from her ‘former body’. I am trying to not think too deeply about what that means. In the end, what happens happens after all.

Even if it were an ultimate copy, practically the same person, would that really be Souma Nanami herself? There’s no point thinking about that.

“Then, I will be going.” (Celica)

“Off yi go. Be careful out there-nii~. Make sure you don’t get stabbed by a Nanamin fanatic.” (Karen)

“I have taken that possibility into account, so it will be okay.” (Celica)

I exit the place and narrow my eyes from the dazzling sunlight.

There was no change around at all as if the strife of the parallel world was of no import.

The isekai is the isekai, and it has nothing to do with our world.

If me or any of my family were to be transferred, I would have watched it in a more standoff perspective. For me, only my brother, my little sister, and Nanami-neesan are important. I am not that interested in other people.

(Fanatics, huh… Are they really out there?) (Celica)

Rather than fanatics, it is more like I have taken into account the religious parties that are reacting and trying to usurp Nanami-neesan. Right now there’s no movement around that house. ‘The big religious groups will finally be moving their heavy butts once they see the resurrection actually happening’ -that’s most likely what this basically means.

And by that time, we would have long scampered from Japan.

That’s why, the problem for the time being are the bystanders. The Nanamin fanatics that Karen speaks of are included in this too.

No matter at what timing Nee-san will be resurrected, as long as the timing when Brother is going to use the gem is broadcasted to the whole world, there’s an absolute need to prepare countermeasures for onlookers.

For now, I asked a demolition company in our home area to demolish both the Kurose household and Nee-san’s household, had a road use permit issued, and prohibited passage for any riffraff on that day.

At first, I was thinking about asking Grandfather to block the road with dozens of black high class cars but, no matter how you think about it, that would stand out negatively.

I have asked Izuna-san for the demolition, so there’s no problem.

Moreover, I have many other countermeasures for any unrelated bystanders. Depending on the situation, I might end up throwing around quite a lot of money, but things that can be solved with money are nice and easy.

Now, if only the item passing with Brother and Jeanne goes well…for that…I have no choice but to pray. Jeanne-san is not the best communicator, and Brother is cautious about Chosen.

John packed the things into the trunk, and I got in the rear seat of the car.

We head to the airport in a Bentley.

The cars in our house are all from Father. To think he would immediately get a second car the moment he got to America, I ended up wincing at that. Even so, he chose a sturdy car, so maybe he thought of us a bit on the decision.

Right now that father of us is on a trip with mother.

He will be returning from his worldwide cruise in half a year. Karen and I enjoyed our first time of freedom…not, but not having our parents get in the way in these busy times is invaluable.

Ozawa was arrested, and the innocence of Brother has been proved.

Now, if we can revive Nanami-neesan with the Resurrection Gem…

You could say Karen and I would have regained around 20% of what we have lost.

It is not a bad pace. I will definitely get back the remaining 80%.