Chapter 82 – I Hate Those Three People.

The debt is gone.

The moment I heard those words, the emptiness that came with seeing the studio I lived in before, the uncertainty about the future, and the thought of meeting the three of them again disappeared like melting snow.

No, to be precise, the joy and surprise were so great that there was no room left in my heart for thoughts of those three.

Debt gone? Is your severance pay also stored in your bank account? The two things I needed to obtain to make my dream come true were so easy to obtain?

After turning 20, my life was so full of hardships that I thought that getting paid from May Ruina or receiving severance pay from the emergency room would definitely not be easy.

Even if severance pay could be obtained somehow, regardless of whether it was legal or not, the problem was the compensation that May Ruina would receive.

In fact, the fact that May Ruina, the world’s third-largest hero and nicknamed a saint, would not keep the promise she made to me is a strange thing that cannot be understood by common sense, but I had a feeling that something would happen.

If I were to ask you to explain why I felt this way, it would be very difficult… But I guess I could just say that I had an ominous feeling that that would happen.

Since these ominous premonitions often turn out to be reality, I was very nervous, but I had just heard from Nice that the debt that was originally supposed to be repaid with the compensation received from Mei Ruina had disappeared.

I was a little sad that I felt like I had won the lottery, even though it was definitely a fair amount of compensation, but that little sadness was quickly dissipated by the joy that filled my head and heart.

Yes, the lingering affection I felt for those three people was not towards those three people. It was a lingering feeling about the reward I would receive from May Ruina!

When I realized that these strange feelings towards the three people were actually towards the conservatives, not the three people, I felt like something that had been sitting on my chest was falling.

Common sense tells me that it makes no sense for me to feel any regrets toward those three. It’s not anyone else, it’s me who was treated like that by those three.

I kept my mouth shut, feeling relieved that the difficult problem had been solved, but Nice seemed to have made a mistake. And he let out a laugh.

A truly absurd laugh that you might hear when you see someone who has gone too far beyond the topic.

Nice let out that all-too-familiar laugh and then opened his mouth and spoke in a dry voice that didn’t contain the slightest emotion.

“Did you have any expectations? Did you plan to form a special relationship with the three of them through treatment?”

“Yes?”

“The treatment that Mr. Stay gave to the three people, which I cannot possibly understand… No, no one living in this world can understand, is definitely amazing, no matter what the process was. First, no one has even been able to discover the reason why the three of you became like that.”

A sudden compliment from Nice’s mouth.

For me, who is only an F-class awakened person, compliments are something I rarely hear, so I shrugged my shoulders and raised my right hand to the back of my head, even though I knew clearly that this compliment was a build-up to emphasize the words that followed.

Shrugging your shoulders because you like a compliment and scratching the back of your head out of embarrassment, this is the most standard posture that a person receiving a compliment should have.

“However. That’s it. Mr. Stay’s role ends there. Well… I personally don’t like talking back, so I’ll just say it out loud. It’s okay to think of it as Tosagu Top. Because that’s right. Mr. Stay’s value fell to the ground the very moment the three of you returned to normal.”

However, the most standard attitude to receive this praise was immediately broken by Nice’s harsh words that followed.

The hand that had been placed on his shoulder and the back of his head dropped again, and Nice continued his speech regardless of whether I did so or not.

“If the three people who are selfless enough to sacrifice themselves to save this world ask to meet with Mr. Sinistay on the pretext of treating them, he will not be refused. “They are true heroes with dignity and character that cannot even be compared to ordinary people like us.”

“······What?”

Altruistic…? Dignity and character? A true hero?

It was a clear fact objectively that those three closed the EX-class gate that almost destroyed the world and became vegetative due to the curse of the crack state.

Yes, those three people definitely made self-sacrifice for the world.

But that’s it.

I was the one who experienced the true colors of those three first-hand, so I could never agree with what was coming out of Nice’s mouth right now.

So, as she gritted her teeth and tried to refute, the words she said to me on the first day she met Nice flashed through her mind.

[From now on, your job is to take care of the three awakened people. Well, he won’t cause a scene or anything, so you don’t have to worry about that. All three people are in a vegetable state.]

[These are probably people you know. I’ve met you before. May Ruina, Dain Adamas, Mir Ryuin. They all know each other, right? Well, it doesn’t seem like a good relationship from your perspective… But I’ll give you twice as much as you originally received, so it’s okay, right?]

[For the past month, the association, major guilds around the world, and the Holy See have been working together to find a treatment method, but ultimately failed. The three people will have to stay in bed in a vegetative state for the rest of their lives. The Vatican, which reveres the hero May Ruina and calls it a saint, has also confirmed that the recovery of the three is impossible, so this fact will not be overturned.]

… Now that I think about it, Nice, I didn’t use honorifics for those three people back then like I do now. Even when talking about those three people, they only spoke in a dull way, as if they were just handling things, like people who had taken on a troublesome task? There was no such thing as treating the three as heroes like now…

The moment my thoughts reached that point, goosebumps ran through my whole body.

At this moment, thoughts that I didn’t need to think about filled my head, and at the same time, my eyes, which moved unintentionally, met Nice’s eyes that were looking at me.

The look in Nice’s eyes when I met him like that served as great evidence to convince me that the thoughts that only existed in my head were true.

“But I can never stand by and watch the three people who saved the world… The heroes who deserve to be called the best of all time, go through hardships because of you, Mr. Stay, who has absolutely no use value. It is no exaggeration to say that the time of the three of you that you will infringe upon without even knowing the topic is the most valuable in the world!”

Nice, this guy… He plans to separate me from those three and then use that to gain points from them…! I plan to say, ‘I took care of the annoying truth that dared to save the world first.’

A change in attitude unfolding before your eyes.

The change in attitude, which seemed so blatant in its intention to use me as a scapegoat to gain points from the three people who would soon wake up, made me feel dizzy for a moment.

But even for a moment, something I wanted to say occurred to me, so I shook my head, rebooted my dazed mind, and spoke to Nice, who was trying to go overboard here.

“So, Mr. Stay, I’m thinking of wishing something from the three of you…”

“Hey Mr. Nice, I’m telling you because I think you’re misunderstanding something.”

“······What is it?”

“I hate those three people.”

Words that came out so easily.

My true feelings have remained unchanged since the day I first met Dain Adamas, Mir Ryuin, and May Ruina.

“Really. If I had to choose between ‘We must meet, or we should not meet,’ I would choose ‘We must not meet anymore.'”

Even though a lot had happened in the past month, I still hated those three people.

“You know Mr. Nice, right? Because you belong to the Central Intelligence Agency. What kind of relationship did I have with those three in the past?”

And the basis was also clear.

“······That’s right.”

What happened to me at the hands of those three was not something I could just ignore, to the extent that even Nice, who was trying to stick a straw in front of the three people, couldn’t say anything when the words ‘I don’t like it’ came out of my mouth.

“To begin with, I didn’t even get an apology for what happened in the past. But you can’t have good feelings for those three.”

It was a month when I took on the big plan to rewrite the crazy girl, that is, I shortened the distance between my body and mind with the three people.

During that time, I didn’t even hear a single apology from the three for what happened in the past.

“So you don’t have to worry that much. Since the debt was gone in the first place, there was no longer any reason to go to the three people. “I’m not going to those three.”

So, this was my sincerity without any lies.

“Well, I see…”

“Then I’ll just leave. I have to rent a room today. Thank you for coming here. Good luck.”

“Oh, yes.”

Since I said everything I wanted to say, there was no need to meet Nice face to face.

I was very grateful that they paid off my debt and even gave me severance pay, but there was no reason to feel any more special gratitude to a person who was planning to use the three people to get in trouble by kicking me out in the first place.

I packed my luggage and left Nice behind.

Then, suddenly, something I felt like I needed to say came to mind, so she stopped for a moment and turned her back to say it to Nice, who was looking at me with a slightly confused face.

“Well, please take care of sending my regards to the three people. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do it.”

With this, I fulfilled my final duty as a caregiver.

Now, let’s go make your dream come true.