Chapter 22 - Insanity

We’re back in the safe zone. I put Yumemi down. She’s still in shock, unable to stand on her own.

“Yuu-kun… hug me…”

“What are you saying so suddenly!?”

“Hug me! Comfort me!”

Isn’t she being too honest with her feelings!?

A girl who loves me but technically still didn’t say so, asked me for a hug. There is no way I wouldn’t get conscious of that!

If only I could use the excuse of treating her like my little sister, my heart wouldn’t be racing so hard right now…

Yeah, I admit it. I definitely think of someone of the opposite gender. That’s why it is even harder to just hug her now compared to before!

Agh, can I choose to forget the memories of when I was 14 years old!? I’m curious what happened after that, but leveling up now would make it harder for me to get EXP.

The curiosity is just killing me now!

“Yuu-kun! Hug! Hug! HUUUUUG!”

“Argh, okay-okay.”

I put my arm circling her whole body, and hugged her. She then did the same.

I just realized… how shaken she was. I thought she’s just being childish, but it seems like she just can’t keep it anymore and that she needs my comfort to handle her shaken mental…

Come to think of it, even though he usually asked for some petting too, Kon seems to realize how hard that hits Yumemi, and puts some distance to leave the two of us alone.

I’m really a baka for hesitating comforting her. I forgot that this situation is hard for her and only kept thinking about my own feelings…

I won’t do such stupid things again…

Yumemi finally calmed down, and we’re ready for it.

“HELLOOOO! IS ANYONE THEEREE!?”

“ANY [IRREGULAR]! COME THIS WAY! WE’RE IN THE SAFE ZONE WHERE MONSTERS WON'T ATTACK US!”

We shouted from the safe zone to call for any [Irregular], but nothing came back. So we keep shouting until

“SAVE MEEE!!!” we heard a reply.

A skimpy guy in a loose shirt started running towards the safe zone. And behind him was…

[Red Lizardman - Lv 10] [Red Lizard - Lv 3] [Red Lizardman - Lv 7]

He’s being chased by 3 monsters. Wait, Lizardman? Judging by how it’s together with Lizards, is it an evolution variant from Lizard?

Wait, that’s not important now!

“You two, I’ll go to the front. Back me up as usual, okay!?”

“Okay!” “Kyaun!”

The three of us hurriedly dashed to help the guy, he passed us without second thought and entered the safe zone.

We’re facing 3 enemies, and we’re definitely stronger by all combined levels.

First, I stabbed the Lizardman with one knife on the knee. But its scale parries my trajectory.

I quickly stood up and jumped on it, strangling it with all my strength.

“You two, take care of the Lizards first!”

They nodded and went to cast their magic. Whoever got the higher level got to defeat the higher leveled monster, and so they blasted off their fire laser magic and killed both Lizards in an instant.

“Once I let go of it, aim at the neck!”

“Okay!” “Kyaun!”

“Oun the count of 3… 2… now!” I kicked the Lizardman and pushed my body away from it.

Yumemi’s and Kon’s fire laser struck, made a hole on its neck that looks softer than anything else of its body, and it dropped dead. We got some good amount of EXP, but barely enough to fill up our EXP gauge.

[Shindou Yuuma - Level 14] x3

[Mikazuki Yumemi - Level 6] x8

[Kon - Level 10]

Our level didn’t change.

It seems like these stone knives won’t suffice against whatever monster that is level 10 or more.

Should I look for a better material? Or should I look for another fighting style?

Hmmm…

“I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong I’m not wrong…”

When I was thinking about it, I heard the skimpy guy mumbling something so fast but in a low tone.

For now, I dragged the Lizardman corpse back to the safe zone. Yumemi and Kon are already by the guy’s side, checking on him.

I tried to send him an invitation to the party, but…

“STOP IIIIITTT!!!” He suddenly crashed out. “NO MORE PARTY! NO MORE COMPANIONS! I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS PLACE!”

The guy crouched down holding his head while being hysteric. His reaction is even crazier than Yumemi has ever been.

“Chill, dude. Look, I’m Yuuma. The girl over there is Yumemi, and that little one is Kon.”

“... huh? MONSTEEEERRR!!!”

The dude took out a metal knife, one that looks expensive enough like military equipment.

Yeah, there was indeed a uniform that looked like it belonged to the JSDF, Japanese Special Defense Force…

“Kyaurrr…!”

He’s about to jump on Kon, so I tackled him from the side and pinned him down to the cave floor.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? THAT IS A MONSTER, YOU KNOW!? WHAT IF IT GOT BIG AND EAT US!?”

“I beg of you, calm down! We’re in a safe area, so there are no dangerous monsters, nor can we lose HP!”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure about Kon since he’s a monster. Well, I’ll never test it anyway.

“LIKE HELL THAT IS TRUE!”

I grabbed the knife from him and let my blood drip down to his hand.

Still, we wouldn’t shout like crazy and give the monsters our location if that’s not the case!

“Yo- are you crazy!?”

It feels like a deja vu.

“Yuu-kun! Stop doing reckless things, I beg you!”

Oh, right. Yumemi did the same to me.

“Better than having my buddy killed, don’t you think?”

“A monster… is your buddy…? YOU’RE NUTS!”

“Say all you want, but he is my buddy.”

I need to calm him down, but it just gets on my nerves that he’s giving Kon such treatment. Though I most likely will react the same way if I’m in his position.

“Do you have [Appraisal] or something?”

“Appraisal is a passive skill to look more detail into objects. Try imagining that kind of skill, and you’ll be able to see my HP.”

“... o- okay… ah.” Seems like he got it. I was so quick to get it too after all.

“Look at me. My HP isn’t dropping, see? Though it still hurts, I’d say.”

“......... sorry.”

… and so, the guy calmed down for now.

Yumemi pouted at me, told me to take off my T-shirt to use it as a bandage exactly just like what I did for her back then.

Kon was glaring at the guy for pointing a knife at himself. I told him to stay far away in case things like that happened again.

The guy didn’t really say much about Kon, though…

He sat down and started telling us his story.

“My name is Hiromu… I was the leader of our party just because I look so knowledgeable on games… The others are Kousaka-san in his twenties, Kyou-san around highschooler, Maria-san, and Koko-chan who is still around 6 years old.”

Four of them… so it really is the four skeletons we just found, huh…

One of them must’ve been from the JSDF.

“At first, it was a smooth sail… I was leading them and we hunted some monsters in a team… but what kind of cruel fate was it, a party full of nothing but level 2 newbies… THERE’S NO WAY WE CAN DEFEAT THAT MONSTER! THAT CRAZY PSYCHOPATH WHO ATE THOSE SMALL MONSTERS AS IF IT’S SNACKING ON POTATO CHIPS!!!”

Yeah, that’s the same wolf we know for sure. He’s still doing the same thing as always, it is sickening me.

“When I was giving a sign for them to stop and go back, Koko-chan screamed so loud and made that monster notice us…”

“The little kid, huh… Can’t really blame her for getting traumatized by that thing. I think Yumemi would be screaming like that too if she’s not holding anger against that thing.”

“... Uu… Yuu-kun’s so mean…”

“Hahaha… So you two have encountered that monster too, huh… I envy you, able to stay sane after encountering that thing…” He said in sarcasm.

Technically, the three of us did. Mentioning that would make things complicated, so I decided to not tell him for now.

“What happened after that?”

“I panicked… I, who was in the front, turned my back, shoved them aside to make a path… I ran and ran… then when I realized it, I was back at where my party was left only bones! I took the knife from the toughest guy and ran away, then when I realized it, my EXP Gauge was filled… it seems like my act of shoving them off counts as helping that monster in killing them…”

So even in a party, that could happen, huh? It might be cruel for me to think of this, but I am glad that the wolf didn’t get the full EXP from killing Hiromu-san’s companions.

It seems like Yumemi noticed my thoughts and gave me a little kick.

“I chose to level up and wished for any monster to come by and kill me when I was vulnerable and couldn't sense anything… BUT NOTHING! THAT THING MUST’VE KILLED EVERY MONSTER AROUND!”

Ah… yeah, it’s something that thing would do for sure.

“I ended up regaining my memories until I was 5 years old… and that made it even harder for me… I’VE FAILED MY PAST SELF!!! I wanted to be a hero, but ended up making someone else die!!! Four people, you know!?” He snapped out.

I couldn’t blame him, he had the right to do so.

“Hey… can you imagine how it feels? What would you do if you found out you’ve killed four people?” He started staring at me, but it seems because I didn't really make the reaction he wished for, he turned to Yumemi. “Can you still be sane? Can you?”

“Uhm… that is…”

“Hey, answer me. What should I do? Hey hey hey hey hey hey–”

I slapped the guy’s face because he kept bothering Yumemi.

“Calm down.”

“Hahaha… ahahaha… I see… I can just do that too, huh…”

He pointed the knife on me. I readied my knife too for combat, even though we’re in the safe area.

“Hey, do you know? I just got a notification to my sudden question~”

“May this sinner be fodder to your growth for survival.”

*SPLAT*

He turned the knife and stabbed his own throat.

Red sprinkles like rain onto us, leaving us speechless.

We still don't really understand what is going on, until I realized my EXP Gauge has risen.

[Shindou Yuuma - Level 14] x6

It seems like I got the full EXP because he took his own life, and I was the only one to hit him.

… One thing I can say, he’s past the point of being crazy, it’s just insanity…

“Ah…. aaahh…”

Oh no, it’s not the time to daze off!

I hurried and put my arm around Yumemi’s head.

“Yumemi! Calm down!”

“Ahhh… a…!”

“Listen. This is all just a bad dream.”

“A bad… dream…”

“Yeah, it’s just all a bad dream… Close your eyes. When you wake up, everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Okay… Yuu-kun…”

I don’t know if that works, but Yumemi fell asleep.

Kon then ran to our side, and looked so worried.

Thank goodness Yumemi’s wearing the Yeti coat, her summer dress didn’t get any bloodstain.

I took her coat off and wiped all the blood from her face and hair with my already red T-shirt.

It might be cruel… but…

“Kon… please burn his body out. We can’t let Yumemi know about this.”

“Kyaun!?”

“I know! This is just so wrong, but the fact of another human dying in front of her would get her bad…!”

“Kyuuun… Kyaun!” He nodded.

And so, Kon burnt Hiromu-san’s body, and vaporized all the bloodstain on the floor. I scooped all the remains to the river.

[Skill Unlocked: Criminal Lv 1] it increases the smoothness of criminal acts.

WHAT THE HELL, SYSTEM!? ARE YOU MOCKING ME!?

I know what I did is a crime, but rubbing salt to the wound is just…!

No, in the first place, everything here is just so wrong…!

Why are we here in the first place!? Why do we have to go through hardships like this!?

“Don’t tell me this is some kind of god’s joke… it’s not funny at all.”