The first incident had happened when he was walking through town with his friend. A man was assaulting people on the street with a blade while screaming, so Sei stopped him.
The second had happened at night while he was walking his dog. He happened upon a fire and saved a child and an elderly person who’d failed to escape.
The third had happened when he went to the bank in order to withdraw some money. As if some higher power were waiting for just this moment, the bank was occupied by armed robbers, so he knocked them all out and handed them to the police.
I don’t know if my luck is good or bad... I’m sure this is what people refer to as the devil’s luck.
By some definitions, Minamijuuji Sei attracted trouble. There was no way the world would let his achievements go, and he was forced into giving interviews all while being lauded on television as a super high-schooler. There was even a high-ranking police officer who had given him a push, saying that he should become a policeman in the future.
In any case, his year had been all but average. Given the attention he was getting at a young age, he was a prime target for adulation and applause. At the same time, he’d become a target of envy from his peers. There were those who thought he’d somehow cheated those results, but in the end, he was simply working under different conditions from everyone else.
There was no need for him to fear the weapons of criminals, and they seemed to be standing still to him. Even though the fire he had jumped into had been hot, it hadn’t exactly been unbearable in the end. Sei had actually taken a bullet to the arm during the bank robbery, but all that resulted in was a bruise. All humans felt the need to protect themselves to some extent. However, Sei was the only one who could completely ignore all of that.
When he charged into the fire to save the child, he was praised as a brave young man.
That’s wrong, he thought. It just didn’t seem much like a threat compared to those fires in the other world that could scorch away the face of the planet.
When he had faced down the bank robbers who had holed up with their guns by himself, he was lauded as a young man with a great sense of justice.
That’s wrong, he thought. It’s just that guns only look like toys to me. It wasn’t like I threw caution to the wind in order to calm them down.
“Something is...wrong,” Sei muttered to himself as he walked down the road in his street clothes, holding a shopping bag.
He didn’t have school today, so he’d gone out shopping and was just returning. Since he lived with his mother, he always went out grocery shopping like this on days off, so she didn’t have to.
Currently, he was worried about the power he’d gained in the other world.
I don’t regret what I did. I’m glad I helped someone, I really am. But something is wrong. Was the future I wanted really supposed to be like this? This is basically like I’m the only one constantly up in some safe area as I do things. All my accomplishments are only because of the power I gained on the other side.
So what if I didn’t have it? Would I have been able to do the same things without this power? Would I have been able to jump into a raging fire to save a child? Would I have been able to step in front of a bunch of criminals with guns? Aren’t I just a shameful person who’s cheating by using power he lucked into while feeling proud of it?
I rejected Alovenus, but in the end, I’m still just taking advantage of this power. It’s only the scale that’s different. Isn’t that something I should be really ashamed of...?
Sei paused. “I wonder what they would say?”
Having power also means having responsibility. Power without responsibility is just a deadly weapon.
On the other side, Sei had never thought much about this power he’d gained without much effort. After all, this much power was almost nothing over there. Compared to the likes of Lufas Maphaahl and Alovenus, Sei was basically just a villager. Both Lufas and Alovenus could have squashed him with barely a thought. That was why he hadn’t been able to gain an accurate grip on things and couldn’t understand the incredible power he’d returned with.
Sei finally understood after returning, however, and with that understanding came the feeling that he was a huge cheater.
“If it was her...”
Sei thought of a certain pink-haired girl.
I was young back then too. Well, that hasn’t actually changed. Now that I think back on it, I probably should have talked more about things. I ran away like I was trying to cut off any lingering attachments, but all I did was not say things that should have been said.
Sei was constantly rolling a certain question around in his mind. If she saw me like this, what would she say?
“I think she’d say something like, ‘You’re worrying as much as always, aren’t you?’”
At first, Sei thought he was hearing things. After all, there was no way he should be hearing that voice on Earth. You’re just hearing things, he told himself. It’s just a convenient figment of your imagination.
Despite thinking this, he couldn’t help but turn around. What he saw was just as he’d hoped... The girl he’d most wanted to see was standing there, still looking the same as when he’d left.
Seeing Sei stunned, the girl in front of him spoke somehow bashfully, but also like a child who’d had her prank found out.
“I wanted to see you, so I came.”
＊ ＊
A small village existed on the outskirts of Laevateinn that should have been peaceful, but the world always had those who could not adapt to peace, scoundrels who enjoyed eating the weak. The three dirty, failed adventurers who stopped by the village were just such people. They were not strong, but they acted as such in front of those weaker than them, and this small village had no way to oppose them.
“Ha ha! Hurry up and bring out yer food! All of it!”
“And yer wimmen too! All the young’uns!”
“Ha ha ha ha! I like this place! I think we’ll live here for a while. All of you better be grateful!”
The men almost seemed to be straight out of a bad-guy mold, with mohawks and everything, but people this boilerplate were surprisingly few and far between. There were always fools who defied law and order and thought that acting tough was cool, no matter the era. These men were people who had taken this line of thinking to its logical conclusion and gone as low as they could.
Things like this were not uncommon. If there was something rare about this, it would be that on this day, they were fatally unlucky.
“Hey, you there. You all look like you’re having great fun. Wanna let me join in?”
“Huh?”
The men heard a young woman’s voice, but the moment they turned around, they fell. It was as if a sudden well of gravity had fallen from the heavens. They were completely unable to move.
The men looked up while they lay on the ground and saw a crimson cloak flapping in the wind.
“Agh. Seeing something disgusting on my way back from visiting my mother’s grave is just my luck. Hey, you lot...”
Her almost-shining golden hair turned scarlet halfway down, and her face was almost too perfect. Her eyes were the same shade of fiery scarlet. What drew their eyes the most, though, were her pitch-black wings, the symbol of ill omen.