93. Pongpong is Off-Limits
93. Pongpong is Off-Limits
"Total mission successes──67"
Point calculation complete
Total points──500 Point
The employee looked slowly at Minerva and me and said.
"...You really succeeded?"
"I told you I could."
The employee looked at me with eyes that seemed almost inhuman and finished filling out the paperwork.
"If you succeed in missions during the internship period, you can receive performance bonuses accordingly. The bonus amount varies depending on the mission achievement points──and you have accumulated exactly enough points to receive the highest possible reward."
"That would be the case."
Because I had aimed for exactly 67 missions and accepted them.
Thanks to that, I could pride myself on having bought about 1~2 weeks' worth of time.
But the problem is, the work doesn't end here.
Now it was the time for the easter egg.
More precisely, it was time for the 'side story.'
"Ah, now that I think of it, did you know? They say that a few months ago, a Siren appeared along the coast and has been attacking our branch."
As expected.
A character-specific event.
When a certain level of points was accumulated within the guild where the heroine belonged, a dedicated event story that allowed you to pursue that character opened up.
Clearing the story could raise the bond rank with that heroine, and event-exclusive CGs could also be obtained.
If you were aiming for a harem ending, this was an event you absolutely had to clear──but honestly, the reason I had been waiting for this event right now was not to pursue Minerva.
[An Oracle has arrived.]
[Main God─Hera:...It wasn't?]
What do you take me for?
I didn't know for sure whether they were viewing me as some harem protagonist, but as I've said time and again, I was a pure love faction member through and through.
As someone who aspired to the pure love faction, would I ever commit acts like a harem protagonist?
It's because I need an artifact.
In the case of Minerva's story event, the clear reward also included an artifact that raised intelligence.
Mars's event gave an artifact that raised strength and stamina, but that part wasn't something I needed right away, so I skipped over it.
I received the coastal request form from the employee and applied.
"The request content varies depending on the degree of achievement. You're well aware of that without me having to explain, right?"
"Can we skip all the miscellaneous stuff and just press the OK button?"
"...If something goes wrong after doing that, who do you think will have to write the incident report?"
"Ah...."
The plight of those in service jobs.
"Ahem! Anyway, about the request achievement and all that, and since your skills seem up to it... would you like to try taking on this mission?"
The employee suggested a mission to me.
Of course, I intended to accept that mission.
"Chrono."
".....What?"
But I couldn't.
To be precise, I could, but I had a hunch that the moment I did, things between Minerva and me might go a little sour.
Minerva, who had at some point grabbed my wrist and stopped me, began to speak to me in a measured tone.
"Achieving 67 requests in one week is... literally an absurd, miraculous feat. Even if you look at them one by one and say they were easy, normally such a forced march is something only someone extremely driven could even attempt, and even if they attempted it, they wouldn't be able to succeed in all of them."
But we succeeded in all of them.
Every single mission, without a single exception.
"And they say that normally, a raid party takes about a month of rest after returning from a raid before they start moving again."
"...We didn't go on a raid, did we?"
"Wasn't the number of boss-level monsters killed by your hands alone at least 8?"
"It was 7.... No, I get it. I get it, so ease up on the grip...."
She seemed to really not want to accept the mission.
Ultimately, we settled on taking a week's rest and then accepting this mission.
"Chrono... has a tendency to handle people a bit roughly."
"Geez, anyone would think I was some kind of evil boss. To be honest, I was rolling around with you, so do you think you were the only one having a hard time? I was struggling too!"
"Normally, if you're struggling, resting is the normal thing to do...."
"It's good to work when you work, and rest thoroughly when you rest."
"............."
Oh.
If she did that well, it seemed like she could even curse with her eyes.
I discreetly took a step away from Minerva.
"That... is just a general saying."
"Chrono is the type who would be excellent to have as a superior."
"Suddenly a compliment?"
I was extremely uneasy.
Minerva smiled faintly at me and said.
"You're diligent, and you don't hesitate to roll around together, so how much would those beneath you get to learn?"
".....Uh, hum."
Looking at her eyes, it didn't seem like pure goodwill.
Could this be a high-level backhanded compliment?
For Minerva to say something like that to me.
It seemed I really had put her through the wringer.
Come to think of it, strictly speaking, it was a state where it wouldn't have been strange for stress to explode at any moment....
Of course, every time, I had used [Power Chord] to lower stress and 'theoretically' maintained the best condition.
But it was to the point where her soul was gradually rotting away, or maybe she was very exhausted from the sensation of forcibly regaining vitality.
"I mean... for me, I'm used to this kind of thing, but still."
People living in the modern era would be familiar with it in many ways.
The forbidden black magic of shoving in caffeine and taurine to forcibly raise your body while your whole body was stretched thin and dying.
The extreme life advance payment of pulling tomorrow's day into today and erasing the next two days from your life.
Something you must never get used to, but had become all too familiar.
An era where night shifts and all-nighters are the norm....
Wasn't this an era that was broken no matter how you looked at it?
Even people were withering away day by day, and meanwhile, didn't the government try to legally extend working hours by 12 hours, claiming it was because people worked too little...
...Looking at it that way, had I done something truly terrible to Minerva?
"W... wow...."
I started to feel it vaguely on my skin.
The things I had brushed off until now thinking 'Isn't that possible?' began to be stabbed by the common sense of 'Was that ever normal to begin with?' one after another.
...Huh?
But if that was the case, what on earth was that state of me and other people in my past life?
Did it mean that everyone from our era had routinely done things that common sense would deem absurd?
Reality was indeed a place more novel-like than novels; no matter how well you set up a story, you could never beat the natural disasters of reality.
"That... I'm sorry. Minerva."
"Huh? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"No. I'm sorry for several reasons..."
"........."
A look that said 'You only noticed now?'
Oh, come on, that's because by my standards, it was a 'normal' thing.
"Chrono... from a scientific perspective, it is said that human labor efficiency drops exponentially after 8 hours."
And, Chrono.
You and I were no different from having worked 24 hours a day for 6 days straight.
"...Didn't we rest in between?"
"Do you know the term combat rest?"
Taking a rest for combat is not taking a 'rest.'
"It is, at most, taking the bare minimum 'rest' needed for 'combat,' so I believe that even 'rest' should be considered part of 'labor.'"
".........."
I... well...
I didn't know anymore.
You were entirely right.
I raised both hands and signaled my surrender.
"People who commit acts based on armchair theories are hard enough, but a person who only moves forward and never looks back is the worst in a different sense."
"Sorry....."
She must have had a really hard time.
Hearing this much, I began to feel, as a human being, that I should also look after Minerva to some extent.
I could just say let's meet later and part ways, but──the Siren event was, after all, an event tied to Minerva.
If Minerva's condition was poor, the possibility of clearing the mission would also decrease.
And even if that weren't the case, shouldn't I look after her as a person?
"...No. Honestly, I don't have the standing to say these things either. Because I was just like Kro."
"Minerva?"
"When I was just pushing forward with passion alone, as for those who fell behind... at first I didn't understand them, but now I feel like I can somehow understand."
"........."
She must have been really struggling.
Her eyes growing increasingly hazy made it even more apparent.
"Minerva, are you free today?"
"Huh? Ah... I do have time, but..."
Good.
Then that's great.
"Let's go out and have fun."
"Huh?"
"Eat something good, rest a bit, and go for a walk."
"Uh... ah, um.... euh...?!"
I grabbed Minerva's wrist and led her.
Minerva was flustered. She didn't resist much, but she said to me.
"Are you... are you asking me out on a date...?"
"What are you talking about?"
You're making a person flustered.
"I have a girlfriend."
"............"
"Two of them, in fact."
"Mm......"
If you added the one I was raising at home, it would probably be about 2.5, but let's skip over that for now.
"It's very awkward when you ask a taken person if they're asking you on a date, you know?"
"...Wouldn't it not matter whether it's two or three anyway?"
"If it didn't matter, wouldn't that be the problem?"
"........?"
"Well."
Minerva slowly looked up at me.
"By any chance, what I said earlier..."
"What you said?"
I answered Minerva.
"Wasn't that meant for me to hear?"
"............."
Minerva silently hid her face with both hands.
That... what was...
"I understand how you feel... but as a human being, a harem is a bit much, don't you think?"
"You're already in a harem."
"You're poking at a sore spot."
Anyway, that was it, that.
"I'm saying let's go out as friends."
"...Haaaaah."
Minerva let out a deep sigh.
"Chrono, you always turn my insides upside down, in both a good sense and a bad sense."
On the surface, a negative message.
"So, are you not going?"
"...You should treat me, Chrono."
But inside, it was positive.
"What are you saying. Of course it's Dutch pay."
".............."
Pong-pong is a no-go, my friend.