Touching Someone's Soft Spot Is Extremely Dangerous
If anyone had been watching nearby, they would have kicked their blankets in helpless laughter for a solid half a year. It was a spectacular, full-body slip-and-fall of the highest order.
I had gone down so hard my nose nearly drilled into the floor, so maybe I ought to count myself lucky that the Scissors Blade — which had been active at the time — hadn't skewered me through. Still…
Right then, the real issue wasn't the humiliation. That idiotic mistake of stepping on the water and wiping out had, completely by accident, led to the best possible outcome!
"…What on earth just happened."
They say a truly unlucky person can fall over backward and still break their nose. What I had just experienced was the exact opposite. I had fallen forward — and instead of getting hurt, I had practically picked money up off the floor.
It was a good thing, no question. If I had let this chance slip away, I might never have gotten another shot at something this important. Even after botching it so badly, I had somehow managed to snatch it at the last second.
But no matter how I turned it over in my head, I simply could not understand how this result had come about. That was the problem.
Sure, all's well that ends well — but for anything to happen, there still has to be a process that makes sense, doesn't there?
"Hmm…. I'm not seeing things. No matter how many times I poke it, this really is that pill bug from earlier."
I prodded the bug that sat neatly skewered through the back on the pitch-black Scissors Blade. It was no hallucination or illusion — the thing was genuinely here, solid and real.
It showed no sign of moving at all. The Scissors Blade must have punched straight through its body and killed it on the spot…
And yet even in that state, the color of its carapace kept shifting from moment to moment, only deepening the questions I had about this particular pill bug.
Haa. This is just giving me a headache for no reason. I'll figure out how a pill bug ended up stuck on the Scissors Blade later.
When a problem has no answer, the smart move is to set it aside and think about it slowly. Having more or less decided that, I gripped the Rainbow Roll-poly skewered on the Scissors Blade, yanked the carcass free with a firm pull, and stuffed it into my bag.
Then I dropped my gaze a little and checked the map floating in front of me. The spot where I was standing sat right on the boundary between the range Polaris's ability had already revealed and the still-uncharted territory beyond.
Hmm… if I hadn't lucked into catching a Rainbow Roll-poly this time, I would have been stuck choosing between stepping off the map into unknown ground or giving up on the pill bugs entirely.
"Whoa… I really did snatch it by a hair on the very last chance. I don't know whether to call that lucky or what."
Like a machine belching smoke from incomplete combustion, the more I thought about it the more tangled my feelings became. I scratched the back of my head for no good reason, then straightened my back and stood up.
I had always been the type to lightly brush off any problem I couldn't solve right away. Of course, those casually dismissed matters sometimes came back later as enormous boomerangs — but that was a problem for Future Me.
Which meant what I needed to focus on right now was…
"What on earth is inside this thing that it still sparkles like a rainbow even after it's dead…. I should check."
After all the trouble I'd gone through to catch this Rainbow Roll-poly, the sensible next step was to find out what was in its belly.
So I decided to stop poking around the Sea Cave any further and head straight home. My bag was already full, and I had more than exceeded the goal I'd set going in… by any measure, this had been a thoroughly satisfying expedition.
"Ah, right. I still need to grab my shoes… well, they'll be somewhere along the way back."
I muttered that to no one in particular, checked the map, and set off at a fairly leisurely pace, thinking to myself that today, at least, I was going to go home and rest properly.
Roughly several hours had passed since I'd decided to leave the Sea Cave and head home.
Without running into anything dangerous like a Virtual Beast or losing my way, I made it back safely.
Well — they say even a cigarette ember the size of a child's fingernail can be seen from four kilometers away on a dark night. Considering the overwhelming presence of a light tower hundreds of times brighter than that… even if I'd wanted to get lost, I couldn't have managed it.
Anyway, the moment I reached my house — my land? — so neatly ordered it looked like someone had drawn a line using the light tower as a reference, the tension I'd been carrying while out wandering just melted away all at once.
It made sense. Compared to this place, where I'd cleared away the scrap-metal piles blocking the paths and leveled the ground flat, the outside was pure darkness without a single ray of light. In that pitch-black junkyard where a monster or a ghost could have jumped out at any moment, there was no way to let your guard down.
In the end, the relief of finally reaching somewhere safe simply released all the tension and fatigue I'd been holding down until now.
"Haa, I'm exhausted…. Is it because I was concentrating so hard following those pill bugs? My body itself isn't tired, but I really want to lie down on a bed…."
Of course, even as I whined, what I was feeling wasn't physical fatigue. I hadn't fought a Predator Species and gotten wounded. All I'd done outside was poke bugs crawling on walls and stuff them into a bag.
But no matter how tough and strong a body you have, what's sitting inside it is still an ordinary person. The stress of fearing the dark and staying alert for danger must have piled up a mountain of mental exhaustion. The Sea Cave, no matter how you looked at it, was not a place you could relax.
Having finished that rough self-diagnosis, I set the Scissors Blade I'd been gripping the whole time down on the ground for a moment…
"Ubvub…. Hnyanyanyanaaak!"
I scrubbed my face with my palms like a cat washing itself, made a noise far too embarrassing for anyone else to hear, and stretched both arms up high as if pulling them toward the sky.
A heroic full-body stretch of the kind only permitted to someone who has just rolled out of bed. It was the sole act of rebellion allowed to a fragile adult greeting a new morning — so doing it in broad daylight carried a faint, delicious sense of transgression…
…Alright, enough weird thoughts. The conclusion was simply that I had stretched. No need to attach strange imaginings to it.
"Mmmngh~ Ahh, that feels better. Maybe I should rest a bit and then do some calisthenics with Noise?"
"What kind of calisthenics?"
"Hmm, well, Noise seems to be fretting about being short these days, so maybe some stretchy exercises to make the arms and legs grow longer… wait?"
What was this? This sensation of my monologue flowing seamlessly into a conversation.
I tilted my head for a moment, puzzled — then a full-body chill of goosebumps hit me, and I spun around in a panic.
And only then did I notice that Noise had somehow come to stand quietly right behind me.
The sudden appearance of someone I had not expected at all made my heart drop with a thud. It was the feeling of walking into a bathroom while thoroughly badmouthing your annoying boss — only to find that boss already inside, washing their hands.
If she had been a ghost, I might well have screamed and collapsed on the spot. With that thought in mind, I addressed her in a trembling voice.
"Eh, uh…. N-Noise, since when…."
"Since Nia started muttering about wanting to lie down on a bed?"
"U-umm. I see. Pretty much from the start, then… ahem. Could you maybe make a little noise when you approach?"
"If I startled you, sorry."
From the sound of it, she had been nearby more or less from the moment I'd arrived…
Even without seeing her face, the atmosphere wrapped around her was clearly off. Even someone as unobservant as me could tell that much in an instant.
This was the kind of thing that, if I brushed it off carelessly… would be dangerous!
"Um…."
"…."
"Ahaha…."
It was cold.
Normally this was the point where an innocent answer would come back. The fact that none did made the silence feel unbearably frigid.
But starting a conversation myself was also awkward. What was I even supposed to say…?
Noise is cute even though she's small? That just sounded like teasing. You'll grow soon? Do Virtual lifeforms even grow? Or maybe… then…
While I was still fretting over it, Noise must have finished her own thoughts. Standing there radiating that unsettling air, she suddenly spoke.
"Not really."
"Huh?"
"I don't really care about my height."
"Uh…. But… a-ah, no. Right? Noise is cool like that. You don't sweat that kind of stuff! Yeah, yeah."
But you… while I was out, you secretly searched for height-boosting foods, height-boosting exercises, height-boosting sleep methods, and all that!
…I managed, just barely, to swallow the words before they left my mouth.
Actually saying that would have been no different from declaring war.
I cannot have a falling-out with Noise…! Anything but that!
Besides, Noise had been rather delicate about certain things lately. Better to handle this with an adult's composure and let it slide gracefully.
Having barely held back the dangerous words, I poured every ounce of effort into lightening the mood around her. Perhaps that was why the Noise who had been radiating pure murderous intent managed, thankfully, to settle back into her usual calm demeanor.
Truly — it felt like I had just shuttled between hell and heaven.