Chapter 021: Crossing Nature and TheĀ Truth
āOutsideā¦ The outsideā¦ā (Hikaru)
I survived and got out of the forest.
According to the map, thereās still 15km before I reach the closest place with people.
The name of the location is already not Eastern Demonic Lands. It is now the north plains of the Rafeed Ward in the Ringpill Continent.
I walked unsteadily just like that, and went up a slightly elevated hill.
When I looked back, the way too vast forest that I was walking in until nowā¦no, mostly ran my way out of, spread before my eyes.
āI got outā¦ I survivedā¦ā (Hikaru)
Tears naturally came out from me.
It still isnāt over yet. My life in this parallel world is just beginning. Thatās all there is to it.
[Pin Pon Pan! It is time to announce the rankings for the total viewers of the Chosen!].
A voice suddenly resonated in my head.
The same voice as the time when I obtained that shining flower and when I learned Create Undead.
Total Viewers Rankingā¦ There was such a thing?
[Congratulations, Chosen Number 1,000, Kurose Hikaru, you shone as the number 1 in the 1st Total Viewers Ranking! As a prize for winning, you have been awarded 3 Points!].
Even if I am told I am number 1, I could only think āfiguresā.
I did an adventure of life or death for 10 days.
I donāt know what the other Chosen are doing, but I am certain that I was having the roughest of times.
[And! From here on, you can get messages from the viewers on Earth! A mailbox has been added to the Status Board, so please confirm it.]
I thought I would have an astounding amount of messages since thereās a billion viewers, but it looks like God is choosing the ones with āstrong emotionsā, so it seems like it doesnāt end up being that many.
If used correctly, I could learn about the state of things over on Earth.
When I opened the Status Board, I certainly did get 3 Points.
If only this had come a bit fasterā¦ I did think that, but I am still alive here.
I see a fortress-like thing far off in the horizon.
There was nothing resembling monsters, and the wind felt good.
āHmā¦? Mail isā¦wait, eeeh?ā (Hikaru)
There was a ā on the mailbox, but the next instant I thought thatā¦mails began to pour in with a ponponponpon sound, and they increased to several hundreds in an instant.
God should be filtering, and yet, since the denominator is high, the amount must be high as well.
Letās see, what messages am I getting?
āI still have nightmares of this moment.
āI was feeling a sense of accomplishment. I had survived 370km of despair.
āI was number 1 in the total viewer count. Everyone is cheering for me.
āThatāsā¦what I believed.
A peaceful scenery of a light green plain that stretched as far as the eye could see.
A blue sky and gentle sunlight.
In this relaxed atmosphere of this parallel world, what appeared there was aĀ realityĀ that I didnāt imagine.
<<He seems to be enjoying his isekai life even after killing his girlfriend. Just die already. What are you surviving for?>>
<<After killing his girlfriendās family, he is going all OP isekai protagonist? I am ashamed to be japanese like him. HIKARU is currently trending on twitter throughout the whole world. This is a national disgrace. Give me a break.>>
<<Is the air of the isekai tasty after taking away the future of Nanami-chan and obtained power?>>
<<Drop to hell. No, hell would be lukewarm for you.>>
<<You should have been eaten alive.>>
<<Every time I see you desperately trying to live, I end up thinking that Nanami-chan must have wanted to live too. Why are you clinging to life so much, yet for othersā¦moreover, the life of your girlfriendā¦why couldnāt you think about hers the same way as yours? You are a fiend. I hate you. Die already.>>
āI couldnāt even breathe.
All the mails were spitting out insult after insult of me.
Everyone was wishing for my death.
I couldnāt understand immediately what was going on here.
<<You apparently stabbed her several times on the stomach. I am impressed you can even do that. You are worse than a beast.>>
<<Even though you killed your childhood friendās whole family, you really have the guts to enjoy your isekai life without showing any signs of doing such a heinous act. You are the worst monster out there.>>
āNanamiā¦diedā¦?ā (Hikaru)
Nanami was a childhood friend of mine that I grew up together with like a sibling, not my girlfriend, but thatās not whatās important here.
Right now, what I could gather from the opened messages was thatā¦
And for some reason, I am being treated as the one who killed her.
<<I am glad thereās a messaging system. I will be sending the other Chosen your way. I will definitely make sure you get punished. Sleep in fear.>>
<<If that were me, I would give up. How can you continue living on as if nothing?>>
<<I trust God to do a ranking for the most unpopular one too. The kind that properly gives a penalty to the highest ranked one, that is. Being sent straight to hell as the penalty sounds nice.>>
<<DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE. DIE AT ONCE ALREADY.>>
<<How do you feel being the most wanted dead in the whole world? You did something worth that, you know. Understand it. Understand it and kill yourself.>>
All the messages were overflowing with anger at me.
The hammer of justice towards a heinous killer they canāt get their hands on.
I couldnāt understand anything.
I thought there would at least be some people cheering for me.
I figured there would be some who would be watching in amusement, but I at least believed that they would be happy about me managing to survive.
āNanamiā¦diedā¦? Just like thatā¦? She didnāt come to this worldā¦? Uncleā¦and auntieā¦died as wellā¦?ā (Hikaru)
I muttered this at no one in my disbelief.
I thought that just like how I am alive here despite dying, Nanami as well would be living here in this world.
In this parallel world where I know no one, my one sole objective was to reunite with Nanami.
The reason why uncle and auntie didnāt show up that day was because they were killed too?
ā¦But I can tell from the messages.
I ended up understandingā¦
It should have been transmitted immediately that Nanami didnāt come to this world.
Something that can be found out as soon as they enter the house or call the police.
The bodies of Nanami and her parents were there.
Only my shoes were left at the entrance.
Did the real culprit manage to get away? He must have set it up in a way to pin the murder on me.
The contents in my stomach churned out.
Being exposed by direct animosity, discovering that Nanami and her parents are dead; those two realities were enough to shock me in my entirety.
I couldnāt even stay standing, and ended up falling in place.
I couldnāt even breathe properly.
I actuallyā¦knew it already.
I saw the lifeless Nanami after all.
But I wanted to believe it.
I couldnāt do anything but believe.
By believing that Nanami had come here, I managed to maintain the will to get out of the forest.
I myself was also too occupied with my current situation.
If I didnāt face forward, I wouldnāt have been able to move my feet.
<<Your parents and your twin sisters couldnāt stay in Japan anymore and moved out. Well, they will soon be found out even overseas. Donāt you think it should be better to die as an apology?>>
<<Your twin sisters are apparently super intelligent. Well, they aināt got a future anymore though.>>
<<Your house was literally burning.>>
āWhyā¦ Whatās with thatā¦?! What the hell is going on here?!ā (Hikaru)
My tears werenāt stopping.
I was so desperate to stay alive, I couldnāt even stop to think about what was happening on Earth.
Butā¦what else could I have done?!
I was suddenly thrown to this world!
Me being here alive is because of good luck, or maybe bad luck.
It is not like I am here because I wished toā¦!
There were a mountain of things I wanted to say.
But those words were not coming out from my mouth.
My emotions were overflowing, and they were being overwritten by a different emotion.
āMe, killing Nanamiā¦? Thereās no way I would do thatā¦! She is my childhood friendā¦! She has been together with me since the day I was bornā¦ Why the hell would I kill herā¦! Me and Nanami were killed! I had no intention of coming here!ā (Hikaru)
By the time I noticed, I was already shouting at who knows where.
āI went there to give my final farewells to Nanamiā¦! When I didā¦I was stabbed by an unknown student of the same grade! Nanami was already killed by the time I got thereā¦!ā (Hikaru)
It was a pointless explanation.
There was a part of me that understood this.
I have seen flaming on the internet countless times.
Thereās two methods to stop the flaming. Stop the fuel. What I am currently doing is basically like fueling the fire endlessly.
It will most likely just escalate.
āā¦My familyā¦My family has nothing to do with thisā¦! What did my family doā¦!?ā (Hikaru)
In the end, this isekai transfer that the world was dragged into wasnāt unrelated to me.
My family, Nanamiās family; it destroyed both households.
The messages continued increasing.
Are there also messages from my parents and sisters within these?
I had no courage to open them.
āDamn itā¦ā (Hikaru)
I wanted to disappear already.
No matter how much hate I am exposed to, the reality of me surviving those 370km of despair wasnāt allowing me to choose death.
[Announcement from God. It seems thereās a number of Chosen who havenāt noticed the place where the item you brought to the parallel world is stored at. Please tap the Brought Item in the Status Board and materialize it. The things that havenāt been materialized will be erased, so please keep that in mind.]
An added announcement from God.
Now that they mention it, you can bring an item to the parallel world.
Mine was a sudden transfer, so I didnāt prepare anything. Of course, it must be empty.
And yet, I still opened that optionā¦most likely because I had a feelingā¦
When I tapped Brought Item in the Status Board, a single album materialized and dropped coldly to the ground.
āā¦ā¦Ehā¦?ā (Hikaru)
A pastel colored photo album.
What Nanami was holding in her chest till the very endā¦
And what I touched lastā¦
I grabbed that with my trembling fingersā¦and opened the front cover.
āNanamiā¦you idiotā¦ What were you planning on doing by bringing something like this to a parallel worldā¦..?ā (Hikaru)
A photo of the time when she and I were lined up together with our parents when we were in elementary school.
A photo of when I fell down a pond at Distiny Land.
A photo of when my sisters and Nanami fell asleep after playing themselves tired in a gaming competition.
A photo we took of when we lined up with our puffy uniforms at our entrance ceremony in middle school.
A photo we took jokingly while we were talking through the window.
A photo of the borrowing race where the borrowed thing that was asked of her was āchildhood friendā.
A photo of when my parents went to check on her after hearing she had passed the entrance exam for high school.
The photos had Nanami smiling.
The photos had me smiling as well.
āGuhā¦ Damn itā¦ā (Hikaru)
By seeing these photos, that reality became ever more real.
Maybe everything that happened on Earth was a lie?
By being in a parallel world, a completely different world, I couldnāt help but think that way.
But the fact that the album that was originally in the hands of Nanami is here means thatā¦Nanami is deadā¦and she didnāt come here.
Someone was laughing at me who was drowning in tears.
Laughing at me, telling me to stop the fake crying, to stop pretending to be sad.
Laughing, telling me that I am the one who killed them.
Laughing at me, a mediocre high schooler that doesnāt have a single special trait.
The Nanami in the photos was smiling.
The me in the photos was smiling too.
Laughs directed at me were coming from somewhere far.
Laughs directed at me were echoing right by my ear.
āI must have broken at this time.
I began feeling gazes in bright places.
Gazes filled with animosityā¦hatredā¦and curiosity.
ā[Darknessā¦Fogā¦].ā (Hikaru)
1 billion real time viewers.
1 billion people were directing animosity towards me on Earth.
They were waiting with anticipation, waiting for the moment I mess up.
The moment I fall to the ground pathetically and die a dogās deathā¦
I cut off those gazes with the darkness.
In this deep deep darkness, those gazes wonāt reach.
I closed the Status Board and began walking.
I didnāt feel like heading to the fortress.
I wanted to sinkā¦sink deeply into the very bottom of the darkness.
Letās live in a place where no eyes will reach.
So that no one will be hurt anymore.