20. What Do You Expect Me to Do?
20. What Do You Expect Me to Do?
"....?"
It was strange.
The thought that came the moment I opened my eyes.
It was strange, and strange again.
My head floated up while my body felt endlessly heavy.
Was I having sleep paralysis? No, it wasn't. It felt different from sleep paralysis.
This was──yes, how to put it, this.
"I didn't even sleep...an hour...!"
That thing where you actually feel clear-headed if you wake up too quickly.
I definitely turned off the alarm and slept, so why did I wake up at 6 a.m.
"Kkeueueu...."
"Koooooh...."
"....euheut!...heut...euheheheut...."
"....ugh."
Since I had opened my eyes anyway, I raised my body and saw several cadets collapsed around me.
Now that I thought about it, we stayed up all night watching movies and practically passed out.
And yet, this body that opened its eyes right at 6 a.m. felt terribly cursed.
It's all because of those morning workouts.
Damn these stats.
It would be nice if my stats were rolled a bit more like a normal human, but this was the price for flailing around trying to earn just one stat, because they were so pathetically low.
"Kkeueueueu...!"
Udeuk, deudeudeuk.
I got up, stretched, and loosened my body.
Since I was up anyway, I figured I'd move as long as I could and then sleep.
If I opened my eyes mid-sleep and it was the academy, my luck would have run out.
"Mm...Chrono?"
"Huh? You're up?"
At Minerva's voice, I turned my head and saw her raising her body inside the tent I had set up.
When I'd glanced at her yesterday, she had weird dark circles and looked a bit tired, but it seemed she'd slept in a proper bed-like bed and her fatigue was fairly relieved.
"Looks like you slept well."
"Yes...it's thanks to Chrono."
Minerva smiled brightly, opened the tent, and stepped outside.
Minerva looked at the cadets collapsed around and let out a small sigh.
"I told them to sleep quickly because this might happen...."
"Chrono woke up like this, so it's a bit embarrassing."
Looking genuinely embarrassed, Minerva covered her face with both hands.
I hadn't woken up because I wanted to either, but I decided to just laugh it off.
Stay strong, kids.
This was what happened when a leader didn't know people's hearts.
I quietly slipped away from the spot and running──my stamina was a bit too precarious for that.
"Want to go find breakfast?"
"Huh?"
I took Minerva and headed to the river nearby.
...
..
.
Fish.
Small fish were swimming.
They swam so nimbly and quickly that they looked hard to catch even if you wanted to.
"Seu-eu-eu-eu──"
But what if I knew in advance where and how the fish would move?
"──Hap!"
Chwak! I threw the harpoon in my hand.
A sensation of piercing through something at my fingertips.
I immediately pulled out the harpoon and checked its tip.
"...Yas!"
One fish Get!
I tossed the fish to Minerva beside me and positioned myself again.
"Now just about...3 more and let's go!"
"...Um, Chrono. May I ask you something?"
"Eungg? What is it?"
The fish's path──I saw it!
Chwak, I caught another fish with my hand and turned my head toward Minerva.
"Does Chrono...have a lot of this kind of experience? Like camping. Or survival."
"Not really? I told you yesterday. I went to the beach without knowing anything and just got cursed out a ton."
"Then, is all of this something you grasped during this exam?"
"Uh....well, yeah?"
It was true that the utilization of [Cronus's Eye] and [Cronus's Scythe] had increased tremendously during this exam.
I tossed the fish to Minerva again and captured the path the fish would take.
"Chrono is....amazing. In many ways."
"Even if you compliment me, I'm absolutely not giving you salt, pepper, etc?"
"...I'm not complimenting you with that intent."
"Then good."
I caught even the last one and tossed it to Minerva.
Now all that was left was returning to camp and grilling the fish.
"....Oh right!"
I put a few of the fish separately into a container (Cronus's Scythe) together with water.
I'd grill and eat these later when I went down the mountain and returned to my camp.
After that, we returned to Minerva's base, gutted the fish, grilled them nicely, and then...
"...They're not waking up."
"Right."
The cadets who wouldn't wake up.
It felt pointless to wait blankly, so I thought about boiling water──but Cronus's Scythe had turned into a container right now.
"Hmm....ah, will this work?"
When I'd shouted to bring bowls yesterday evening, there was one guy who made a bowl out of iron.
He said he was a follower of the blacksmith god or something. He said he made it by pulling iron up from the ground, but how would I know the skills of some male side character who isn't a heroine.
Anyway, since it was iron, it would be durable. I poured water into the bowl and started boiling it over the fire.
"...Chrono?"
"Wait just a moment."
After the water was fully boiled, I'd have to pour it into separate cups──but since it was iron, it must be incredibly hot.
It looked blazing hot just to look at, so I wondered what to do, then picked up some wooden cups lying around on the ground nearby, washed them with water, and poured the hot water straight in.
"Now into this....this!"
"Instant coffee mix?"
I dissolved the instant coffee mix inside and stirred about five times.
I handed the well-made coffee to Minerva and also made and drank coffee myself.
"Phwaaa....it's nice. Right?"
"....It's nice. Very, very nice."
Minerva's eyes fluttered with joy at the warm temperature of the coffee.
I took out some jerky from my bag and handed it to Minerva.
"This sweet and salty combination is pretty edible."
"You really brought a lot of various things."
Minerva accepted the jerky and put it in her mouth.
She even let out a small hum, as if the taste was quite good.
That sight made me feel unnecessarily proud, so I also flashed a grin.
"Fuuu....really, you're different. You're truly different."
"What is?"
"...In many ways. In various ways, that is."
"Eung?"
Minerva was talking in riddles.
Then she turned her head toward me and gave a bright eye-smile.
"When I first saw you, I thought you were blunt, kept your distance, and liked being alone."
"You know me well."
"But...if I had known you were such a pleasant person, I would have wanted to become close much sooner."
"You're not listening."
Is this kid in the same department as Mars?
Come to think of it, the Mars vs Minerva dynamic was the heroine debate of Part 1, so it made sense.
Especially, this dynamic intensified during summer vacation, where whether to go on a mission to the Ares Guild or the Athena Guild split the route, and the subsequent branching of heroine routes gave me a bit of a headache.
If you helped one side, the other side's affection would be mercilessly cut, so to prevent that, it was correct to concentrate investment and conquer one first.
The trap was that it was hard even knowing that.
The conditions for raising Bond Rank are each so absurd, damn...
The very first condition was 'Win a sparring match against Mars', but with a freshly made character, you absolutely could not beat Mars.
Ultimately, conquering Minerva first and then conquering Mars had solidified as the standard route....
"Hororororok."
I downed the last remaining coffee and put the cup down.
"I'm leaving now."
"....Already?"
"You're not planning to squeeze something more out of me here, are you...?"
"I'm not that much of trash. It's just....I did want to say thank you..."
Minerva glanced at the cadets.
It seemed she had intended for everyone to say thank you and see me off together, but with them like that, absolutely no way.
"As for thanks, I didn't just give one-sidedly in the first place."
She said she'd feel sorry if she only received and ate? She stuffed bandages, herbs, and all sorts of things into my bag.
Plus the ladle I used yesterday, bowls,
and she gave me spoons and chopsticks as a gift, so this much was a more than profitable deal.
"See you later?"
"...Yes! I will definitely repay you later!"
Uncharacteristically, she raised her hand and sent me off.
Perhaps I received a strange energy from that gesture, because my footsteps down the mountain felt light.
"Already arrived?"
Despite having washed things like bowls in the river on the way down, the sun was still hanging above my head.
I set up the mat, tent, and sleeping bag again, and crawled into the tent.
"Hmm....."
Now there was nothing left to do.
".....ugh."
Right when my thoughts reached that point,
all the tension in my body drained and sleep began flooding over me.
"Let's sleep."
I slept with my belly bare, without a single worry.
Perhaps because it was far safer than I thought, when I opened my eyes, it was already a night full of pearls (pearls) in the night sky.
"Hungry."
Eat and sleep, eat and sleep, poop and eat and sleep and sleep.
Isn't that just fantastic?
I took out the fish I had kept in the container, gutted it, and this time decided to make a pure fish soup.
"Switch to a pot...tear and add some jerky, slice and add some vegetables...."
As always, the vegetables inside were full of things gathered from the forest.
"And....the secret weapon!"
I had brought a handful of rice in a plastic bottle.
Indeed! Koreans run on rice!
Of course, the water was a bit insufficient to properly cook rice, so I decided to just add the rice and boil it roughly.
If it simmered gently like this, it would become either porridge or rice, or something edible at least.
I stirred it shallowly with the ladle, blankly waiting for it to cook...
"....I'm a bit bored."
Was it because we played so noisily yesterday? Suddenly being alone made me feel weirdly lonely.
And so, to soothe this loneliness, something 'like this' was absolutely necessary.
"[Ur's Harp], as 'keyboard'."
Yes.
Solitude always seemed to go together with music.
The sound of burning firewood, the sound of tapping the keyboard, and the singing voice flowing from the keyboard began to spread pleasantly through the forest.
"Kya...! Romance was lit!"
Living in romance and dying in romance.
I sang endlessly like that, and when my stomach felt empty, I ate the boiled porridge.
"Mild...and tasty!"
Eating when I wanted to eat,
Sleeping when I wanted to sleep,
Pooping when I wanted to poop: that life.
Though it was a life like a beast, for modern people who live lives worse than beasts, returning to this primal lifestyle could truly be seen as 'healing' itself.
"It'd be perfect if I just slept like this."
As I leisurely tapped the keypad, sleep crept in gently.
I had just woken up from sleep a moment ago, yet here I was trying to sleep again, like a lazy beast.
But I liked living like this, so what could I do?
I, I, liked this so much.
...But as I said at the beginning,
"....rono...?"
"Huh?"
Life's joys always come with sorrows.
"Chrono....it is you."
"....Mars?"
For when joy is full, sorrow follows behind.
"I'm glad......"
"......uhh?"
Mars, who appeared after tearing through the forest,
was in a complete near-death state and collapsed limp before me.
"....What do you want me to do about it?"