Chapter 105: Misuzu ≠ Mishuyu
When they returned to the inn, the rest of the group of the otakus had also returned safely.
It seemed that all three of them had passed their certification exams and were now qualified adventurers.
“But we’re still at the temporary registration stage. We are now able to take commissions, so we are on track to secure funding.”
Ran could hear Megane talking proudly as he scrunched the rims of his glasses.
The rest of the saints weren’t quite sure what to make of it, but when he explained that it was common in RPGs and hunting games, they seemed to get the gist of it.
“Am I right in thinking that by killing monsters or winning battles against their owners, you can get gold or something like that?”
“It’s a little bit different from the game you’re talking about. …… How do I explain this…?”
In response to Kanami’s misguided question, Megane weakened his words in an annoyed manner.
Kanami, who was ignorant of these topics, still seemed to take a long time to grasp the current situation.
“What is the difference between a temporary registration and a full registration?”
“I guess the biggest difference is the trust of the guild. It also seems to affect your rewards. By completing requests quickly and accurately, and building up a good track record, the number of requests you can receive will increase, and the amount of reward will be increased.”
“Do you have any impressions of the actual commission? How difficult is it?”
“Even with this, we are the elite of the Demon King subjugation unit. With the training I received at the palace and the offensive magic I was taught, I decided that I was good enough to handle it! I had no problem completing it, even though I’m an appraiser, so I’m sure people with attack skills will be able to do it more quickly!”
One after another, Megane answered the questions.
It was what he was good at. For a guy who was supposed to be a simple guy, Megane was in charge of the event with his imposing appearance.
“In light of the above, we would like to ask those students who are confident in their ability to slay demons to help us raise funds for the Adventurers’ Guild.”
He gave some other answers, but in the end they agreed on something.
The street silver was to be shared equally between the students and carried with them.
It was unlikely that anyone would run away with it, but there was always the possibility of theft.
It seemed that the security was not that bad, but there was always a chance. There was no better way than to be cautious.
“… Mmm, where is Torao? I thought he holed up in his luggage room.”
Ran opened the luggage room to distribute the street silver, but there was only Subaru Kiryuin and Reika Joougaoka in the room.
“Torao-san left the inn early this morning and never came back.”
“By the way, Ryuzaki said he saw a man in the forest who looked like Torao.”
Ran thought he was just leaving it up to himself to cover up his own blunder.
Ran wondered if he had really gone into the forest alone.
“Maybe I should go looking for him, you never know what might happen.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
Ran looked towards the door and saw Niigaki Takeo, a close friend of Shigenobu Torao, looking at him with a troublesome expression.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. He can use his [Tiger Fongu Metamorphosis] to protect himself in case of emergency. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“But this is a different world. In addition to the demons, there are also bandits and other dangerous people, according to the story from Megane. If something happens to him, it’ll be too late…”
Perhaps he was pushed by Kanami’s spirit as he approached, Niigaki stepped back half a step, saying “Oh …”.
Just a little bit, Niigaki’s expression was strangely distorted. The corners of his mouth seemed to have lifted up in happiness, but from some angles it looked as if his eyes were filled with an unparalleled sense of resentment.
Kanami, who was insensitive and misled by Ran’s skills, was unaware of the intensity of his feelings - but Niigaki had always thought fondly of Kanami
In a rather serious way, Ran was aware of Kanami as a member of the opposite sex. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, he was attracted to her as a woman to the extent that he masturbated using Kanami’s underwear.
However, it was difficult, and even if he knew that the love would never come to fruition, the reality was that it could not be easily blown away.
With a complicated expression on his face, Niigaki looked into Kanami’s eyes and muttered sadly.
“Let him be alone for a while. He’s got a lot on his mind. It’s hard to be vulnerable in front of his own classmates…”
“……What are you going to do if he doesn’t come back?”
“I’ll be responsible for getting him back before dark.”
Then Niigaki turned his back and went back to the boys’ room.
Kanami felt uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to ask any more questions.
◇◇◇
Butterflies of many colours fluttered and swirled through the trees.
Soft rays of sunlight spilled through the thick blue trees. The butterfly with its venomous wings, illuminated by the white light, landed on the tip of the nose of a young boy, Torao Shigenobu.
His unfocused gaze catched the butterfly sitting in front of him. Without wiping it with his hand or shaking his face, he gazed blankly at the butterfly resting in the middle of his face.
Eventually, it flew away from his nose and disappeared into the forest, its whole body glittering with venom.
After a while, he rubbed the head of his nose with his hand and twisted his face in a ticklish way.
“…………”
The sun was shining brightly on his eyes.
The weather was pleasant, but there was no sign of a break in his gloom.
“…… What was my mistake? I don’t know where I went wrong.”
It was the first time he let out a sigh and slumped his shoulders.
He didn’t know how to feel andwhat to do. He kept thinking but couldn’t find an answer.
“Was it a mistake to get rid of Kirishima in the first place? If we had just kept our eyes on him and not done anything else, would this have happened? If we had accepted him as a member of the class, instead of being taken advantage of by Megane, we would not have been subjected to his unreasonable anger……?”
He twisted his mouth into a mockery and let out a short exhalation of “Ha”.
“Or perhaps it would have been better to have killed him instead of trusting the word of a palace official. There are many ways to do this, such as faking an accident during training, cutting off his neck, or attacking him in his sleep.”
The only thing on Torao’s mind was regret, remorse and a tremendous hatred for Ran.
Regret, depression and the thought of his own responsibility only amplified his rage at the original culprit.
“It’s all a bit ‘new’ now, though. When I moved here, I didn’t have the time to think about it,…… More than anything else, everyone in my class selfishly blamed me for kicking out my classmates…… It’s all my fault.” freewebnov(e)l.com
If it hadn’t been for Niigaki’s protection, Torao would probably have been isolated in that place.
In order to protect his sweetheart, he eliminates the danger factor. In a story, he would be a good man, but in real life?
He sacrificed his classmates for a woman. It was selfish. He felt sorry for the “classmates” who were sacrificed.
In fact, at that moment, Kirishima Ran hadn’t caused any problems yet.
“Did he change because we sent him away? Did he have the urge to hurt me and everyone else in the class? Or maybe Kirishima was that kind of guy from the start, and regardless of whether he was hacked or not, he was planning to create a harem of his classmates once he got the skills to train his harem members……”
Torao was lost in a maze of thoughts for which there were no answers, and his mood was sinking.
He was in a complete downward spiral.
“……Nekoyama-san”
The biggest regret that tormented Torao was that he was robbed of Misuzu.
If he hadn’t been summoned to another world and had spent a perfectly ordinary day in the real world, he would have been able to live a happy life.
There was no doubt about it. Misuzu rejected Torao because Ran had slept with Misuzu.
“It would have been better if I’d only had to hate Kirishima.”
The night that Ran’s survival was revealed. That night when it was revealed in front of his classmates that Kirishima Ran was alive.
Torao was confronted with a harsh reality.
[“Just a moment ago, you were smiling at us like you normally do!”]
[“Just a few minutes ago, Nekoyama-san was so cute and kind.”]
It was true that Misuzu had always been cold towards Torao - in front of his eyes.
However, as far as he could hear Tsubasa Ryuzaki’s words, it seemed that it was just Torao’s pride.
“Nekoyama-san had a cold attitude, but only towards me. In front of me, she acted like she wasn’t interested in boys. ……”
In fact, she was only behaving in that way because Walkins’ magic tool had temporarily erased the effect of Ran’s skills and overridden her hypnosis.
Torao had no way of knowing what was going on behind the scenes.
“When we were together, Nekoyama-san always seemed happy and seemed to be truly happy,…… I think she might have been annoyed with me on the inside……”
Perhaps it was the negative thoughts caused by repeated stress that made him think such things.
It was also a big reason why Kanami and Saki, who were always there to help, were no longer useful.
There are many thought processes which, if pointed out by a third party, would be immediately recognized as abnormal, but which, in a state of hopelessness, werere often unnoticeable.
Narrow-mindedness and distorted thinking were both anomalies that he could not recognise on his own.
“Even if Kirishima hadn’t done what he did, I would have ended up being dumped by Nekoyama-san…… Maybe I was the only one who thought we were the ideal couple.”
Torao’s thoughts went from bad to worse.
He shook his head and let the black clouds that filled his head dissipate.
He couldn’t stay here and be depressed forever.
As he sat up to return to his lodgings, he realised that someone was staring at him.
“…Eh?”
He looked up and saw something he couldn’t believe.
Bob cut hair. Her eyes were droopy and round. A neat baby face. And something cat-like about her.
It was as if something stuck in the depths of his memory was being forcibly peeled away with his fingernails. The whirlpool of thoughts that had been coated in darkness regained light in an instant with the impact.
“…… Nekoyama-san?”
A girl popped out from behind a tree. Her appearance was just like Nekoyama Misuzu.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was a carbon copy. Her skin was a little bit darker, the hair colour was silvery white, with some blond hair mixed in as if it were a mesh.
It was hard to say that it was a beautiful gradation. It looked as if an amateur had dyed its hair and failed.
“………”
With her face just peeking out from the trees, she was staring at Torao.
Her eyes were golden and she looked more like a cat than the real Misuzu.
“…… Nekoyama-san. Isn’t it supposed to be?……U,un. that’s true”
Or should he call it a different coloured version of Misuzu?
If she dyed her hair, put in colored contacts and got a tan, she might look like this.
It was not like the Misuzu that Torao knew was the kind of girl who would go for a fancy makeover.
But for Torao, being heartbroken over the loss of his beloved sweetheart, it was hard to accept the reality that she was just another person.
As he looked back at her with a feeling of clinging to her, Misuzu came towards him from behind the trees, as if she was interested in him.
“……U…aa”
The girl, who looked just like Misuzu, was completely naked.
From head to toe, she wore nothing at all. But she showed no sign of embarrassment, and walked towards Torao with her chest outstretched.
Torao blushed at the sight of the naked woman’s body in the sunlight.
He looked at her suspiciously and turned his head away. He was surprisingly shy.
“Wait a minute…!”
He reacted like a girl in front of a man’s genitals, wincing as he did so.
The fact that she looked just like Misuzu made him start to feel dirty inside.
A feeling of indescribable guilt arised, as if he had accidentally seen a naked picture of someone he knew.
But his boyish desires were too strong for him to resist, and he looked the naked girl straight in the eye.
“U-U-?”
The girl who resembled Misuzu tilted her head curiously at Torao ‘s lascivious gaze.
Her ignorance of sexual gazing was a blessing in disguise.
She had no nipples. There was a thin vertical line where her navel should have been, and her skin was generally brown.
Her body was the embodiment of a developing girl, her hips and legs were slim and smooth.
He knew he shouldn’t, but as he looked down. There was a beautiful, girlish stripe on her lower abdomen.
Torao was stunned by the sight of her plump, luscious cleft. The naked body of a woman who looked just like his ex-girlfriend with a lot of regrets. It was not that he was not excited, he was just surprised and upset.
“Where’s your clothes?”
“…… Uu?”
The girl put her index finger on her cheek and tilted her head.
The girl didn’t seem to understand what Torao was saying.
“I mean this. This one.”
As she tugged at his clothes, she hit her palm with her fist as if she had an idea.
Then she retreated into the trees where she had been hiding and pulled out her muddy clothes.
“Did you take it off because it was dirty?”
“U-Ooo-?”
A girl with a muddy cloth in her hands and a curious look on her face.
Somewhat smiling, Torao reached for the cloth she was holding.
“I’ll wash it for you. I think there’s a river there, follow me.”
“Oh-?Soko-Tsui-?”
(あぅー? そこー、つぃー?)
The girl’s face broke into a smile. “Look” Torao said, holding out his hand and leading the girl to a nearby waterhole.
As they continued to walk, Torao was lost in thought.
He learned a lot about the races and creatures of this world in his classroom studies at the Royal Palace.
Not that he knew much about it, as it was not his main interest to begin with. But he did have some knowledge of it.
“Is this girl a monster? Or is it a demon tribe?”
“…you have a family?”
“Kao-?”
“Family”
“Ka-Au-?”
From the difficulty in communicating with her, it seemed likely that she was a demon.
“Has she been separated from the herd? Or has her family been killed?”
Just a few hours ago, a group of otakus were using witchcraft in the forest. He remembered that he could hear some disturbing words.
He had a bad imagination and he felt sick to his stomach. Did those people classify them as lowly creatures simply because they cannot communicate with them, even if they looked human-like?
“You know, you’re…”
“Ooa-?”
“……It’s you. What’s your name?”
“NAaa-Nae-?”
(namae)
A girl made unspeakable sounds in her voice, like the cries made by animals.
It was not that Torao wanted to know her real name. It could be something like naming your cat “Mee” because it purred, or calling your dog “puppy”.
Torao just wanted a name to call her for now. Because with the current life he had, He was afraid he would end up naming her something similar to Misuzu no matter what.
“Nae—Misu-”
“Mi,Misuu?”
“Mishu…Mishuyu”
For a moment, the animalistic voice in the back of her throat sounded like a clear human language.
“Misuzu…”
“Mishuyu,Mishuyu…Mish-”
was it a trick of fate? Or was it a tragedy of jealousy and unrequited love that had congealed into a muddled mess?
It seemed that his existence could not be separated from Misuzu.
In the face of the smiling girl, Mishuyu, Torao burst into tears.
He was conscious of her. It was impossible to forget Misuzu.
“Nekoyama-san……Nekoyama, san……!”
Sobbing, Torao hugged Mishuyu.
The emotional scars inflicted by Ran Kirishima seemed to have cut deeper into his body than he had ever imagined.
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