CH 39.2

It’s Liam, the guy I was in a party with in Maeldia back in Castal Kingdom. It looks like the others are also with him. I can see some familiar faces nearby. The elf Archer, Cornelia. The Healer, Emilia. And lastly, Havoc. Apparently, the guys I met back in the closed beta are still working together. It was only a little while ago, but it already feels nostalgic. I was really embarrassed about mistaking them for PKers, so I haven’t seen them since I left the city.

“I never thought we’d run into you here. I’m honestly pretty surprised,” Cornelia says.

I feel the same way. There aren’t many people in this world who I’m close to, so the fact that I was able to reunite with them is pretty much a miracle.

“What are you guys doing in Clermont?”

Maybe they’re players who just picked Clermont as their starting location and haven’t noticed this world’s abnormalities. I rack my brain and think up this selfish, pathetically convenient theory.

“Well, I had some business here. We just arrived not too long ago,” Cornelia says.

“Apparently, this country is where Nel’s from,” Liam says. “Her acquaintance is getting married, and she got an invitation that said they want her to be there, so we figured we might as well come with her.”

“She still hasn’t decided whether she’s going or not,” Havoc adds. “I think she should just suck it up and get it over with.”

“Oh, leave me alone,” Cornelia says. “I have complicated feelings about it! But if she really wants me to come, then there’s no avoiding it.”

“Well, I can’t say I don’t sympathize, but…” Liam trails off.

So this is where Cornelia’s from, huh? Does that mean they’re not players after all?

“Hey, Liam. Are you guys players?”

“Players? What do you mean?”

“No, nevermind.”

That was my last ray of hope, but Liam looks like he has no idea what I’m talking about. I can’t keep lying to myself anymore.

I met them during the closed beta. In other words, I’ve been coming to another world since I first started playing this game. Not realizing I was in another world all the way up until the official release, just how dense am I?

Anyway, what the heck is this world? Information on skills and quests and stuff is all listed in the wiki. I can log out and do basically everything you can do in the game. That’s why it took me so long to notice. There’s no way it has nothing to do with the game. Maybe Another World was modeled after this world. But wouldn’t that mean the admins are also involved? Thinking back to the event that occurred right after I arrived in Clermont, it’s certainly possible that the admins could have timed it to fit with my login. Hrmm, I don’t have enough information.

“Come to think of it, Chaos, is that rumor true?” Emilia asks.

“Rumor?” I ask in confusion.

“I’ve also been wanting to ask,” Havoc says. “They say you defeated a follower of the evil god in the northern forest.”

“Ahh, you mean the Elder Treant.”

I fought the Elder Treant boss in the northern forest region of Castal Kingdom. So that was what they wanted to ask about. Just as I open my mouth to deny it, I hesitate when I see how Liam and the others are looking at me with their eyes sparkling.

“It was you! I knew it was true!”

“No, Liam, that was–”

“Even in Maeldia, there are tons of rumors going around about the mysterious mage who defeated the follower of the evil god. For a while, there was even a request at the Adventurer’s Guild to look for you. The whole country is treating you as a hero,” Cornelia explains.

“Actually, there were some guys who pretended to be you to try to get money out of it,” Liam adds. “But your black hair stands out, so apparently, they smeared ink or soot in their hair to try to fake it. Because of that, the search was called off.”

“Whuh?” I blurt out. How did a misunderstanding like this even happen?

In the first place, although the Elder Treant was strong since it was a boss, it was one of the weakest bosses. It’s not the sort of thing that I’d get the hero treatment just for defeating. Also, saying I defeated it is misleading. There was a group that was fighting the Elder Treant, so in essence, they were the ones who defeated it. I was the one who ended up landing the final blow, but I was only helping them out.

No, hold on. I’ve been thinking about it like a game. From their point of view, it’s reality. Maybe my understanding of the situation is different from theirs.

Even if the Elder Treant was a minor boss in the game, it was probably considered a powerful boss in this world. I mean, it’s a follower of the evil god. Wouldn’t the evil god’s follower be a pretty big deal? Actually, are there really gods in this world?

Also, my perception is that the player who did the most damage is the one who contributed the most in a battle. That person is given the right to take the boss’s drops. But from their perspective, wouldn’t the one who dealt the final blow be considered the one who contributed the most? Even in the Sengoku period, people would bring back heads to distinguish themselves for their achievements in battle, so maybe to them, the person who landed the final blow is the one who contributed the most.

Maybe I did something absurd without even knowing it. Even if I didn’t think much of it because I thought it was a game, maybe there were other things I did that would be absurd by this world’s standards.

What else did I do in this world? Come on, think.

The closed beta. I met the ghost girl, Elizabeth, in the haunted mansion in Castal Kingdom. I broke the jewel to free her soul from the mansion. Even if she asked me to, wasn’t I the one who made her disappear from this world? On top of that, I only thought of it as a sad event scenario. I didn’t understand even the slightest bit how she felt when she asked me that.

The open beta. I met Alexia and Irene in the Weichsel Empire. Alexia was such an innocent young girl and Irene’s a woman, and yet I took them to dangerous places that were crawling with monsters. Not even knowing that, I was just thrilled that I found my first permanent party. On top of the fact that I was risking their lives, weren’t we stealing the lives of monsters? And when Alexia was hit by the rhinos in Brandenburg, she seriously came close to dying. I was the reason why she was in Brandenburg in the first place, so if I hadn’t taken her there, she wouldn’t have had to go through any of that.

The official release. I met Roseline in the Allied Commune. If what that vampire said was true, I was fighting the ones who stole the bodies of her real parents. How did Roseline feel after losing her parents and watching the king commit suicide off of that balcony?

And then there’s Raoul. He wanted me to support Roseline. What was Raoul thinking when he told me that? I don’t know, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted me to support the princess with shallow resolve. Even so, I made that promise to him. Even though I didn’t have that sort of resolve.

The words Raoul entrusted to me when he was on the verge of death. That was Raoul’s dying wish, addressed to me. As he died, he entrusted his precious niece to me in his place. Did I fully understand the weight of that?

I am stunned. I didn’t realize any of this. But I’ve already done it. I feel a heavy weight on my shoulders. My vision goes black.

“H- hey! Chaos?! Are you okay?” Havoc says, grabbing my shoulder after I blanched and was about to fall over. I wordlessly brush his hand aside.

“It’s the man who saved me from the vampire!”

Apparently, a crowd gathered at some point. Within that crowd, I hear a little kid’s voice. I lift my head to look at him. I recognize that kid. I’m pretty sure that’s the kid I saved during the fight with the vampires.

“Thank you for saving me, Mister!”

The mother also bows deeply. The smiling kid looks at me with innocent, bright eyes. It makes me want to avert my eyes on reflex.

The people around us also raise their voices in admiration.

“Who is that guy?”

“Those guys called him Chaos just now.”

“A black-haired guy named Chaos… Isn’t he the mage who defeated the fake king vampire?”

“The mage who saved Lady Roseline?!”

“He’s the one who saved this country!”

Why do they know my name?! And the misunderstandings about me are spreading even further.

Although I want to deny it, I ponder their words. From a different point of view, isn’t what they’re saying the truth? I didn’t exactly defeat the vampire king, but it’s true that I cornered him with the others. In regards to Roseline, all I did was bring her to Charante, but I can’t deny that I protected her.

“Wow, Chaos, you’re famous in Commune too, huh?” Liam says.

“Well, even in Castal, he played an active role in defeating the follower of the evil god. I suppose it makes sense that he would achieve great things here too,” Cornelia says.

“You’re an amazing person, huh Mister? It’s like you’re a hero from a story!”

“N- no, I…!”

But I’m nobody as impressive as a hero. I’m just a player who can use game skills for some reason. I only did all of that because I thought it was a game. I never would have done anything like that in real life.

Contrary to my thoughts, everyone in the crowd who heard my conversation with Liam and the others are praising me without reserve. No, it’s not the real me that everyone’s admiring. It just seems like they’re looking at some other mysterious something through me. The false image of  a hero that doesn’t exist grew enormous without me even knowing it. And that false image is eclipsing the real me.

It’s terrifying. I know they don’t have any bad intentions. It only looks that way to them because they don’t know the truth. Even so, I can’t suppress the fear welling up inside me.

“I’m not scared of vampires anymore now that you’re here, Mister,” the boy says with a smile.

I’m scared.

I’m scared of this boy’s sincere belief in me. I’m scared of the high expectations of everyone around me.

So, I start running away.

The voices of Havoc and the others become more distant. I can’t even look back at them.