Chapter 20: I Just Tried To Be Kind (3)
Chapter 20: I Just Tried To Be Kind (3)
Was it just a joke, or was it something she really thought about?
Either way, it felt good.
They say compliments make even a whale dance, so I was pleasantly pleased with Yumir’s words.
“Thank you, Yumir. I think this is the first time I’ve heard someone say that I’m handsome.”
“Huh? Really? You’re joking.”
“It’s true.”
I typically wore a goblin mask while on duty, so the chief was the only person who knew my face.
Come to think of it, the chief has seemed to favor me more since I took off the transformation and met her directly.
However, she never once said that I was handsome, so Yumir’s words must just be pleasantries.
Don’t take it to heart…
“Yumir, you’re also very pretty. I’m sure there are many people who want to confess their feelings to you. Be careful with the high school students. If they’re your classmates, they’ll all be keeping an eye on you.”
“Huh? I’m not in high school. I’m a freshman in college.”
“…I thought you were a high school student.”
“I’m an adult. I’m a fresh 20-year-old who just started college this year.”
Yumir made a V sign with her hand and propped it under her chin, and I felt invigorated by her radiant energy.
Come to think of it.
The original protagonist was also a freshman in college.
“Yumir, still, be especially wary of men. All men are wolves. They are beasts struggling to seduce women.”
“What about you, sir?”
“I may be a wolf, but I’m not that kind of wolf. I’m a noble and lonely wolf.”
A stranger dropped into this world.
A lone wolf that could never fit in the world of sheep.
“Somebody I know once told me to be wary of the person who says they are not that kind of wolf.”
“Then you should be careful too. Not just with me but with all men. I’m saying this because I see you as a younger sister.”
“People who say that often want to hear the word ‘oppa’ and then try to woo you.”
“That’s not it. It’s purely from a place of innocence.”
“I’ve heard that’s also a way to woo someone.”
“You sure have a lot of jokes, Yumir.”
“Hehe.”
Yumir squinted her eyes and held up her cola glass.
“Okay, I will. I’ll be careful of men, as you’ve suggested. And you too.”
“That’s good. It seems you’ve understood a bit of what I’ve said.”
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It was a warning for her to even be wary of me, and thankfully, Yumir seemed to have understood well.
‘It would be troublesome if she fell for the protagonist and blocked my path.’
What if Yumir fell for the protagonist?
The moment I tried to assassinate him, she would throw herself at the protagonist, shouting ‘No!!’
[My love, Yumir! Oh, this damn world, let it end!!]
There was also a chance that a meteorite would come flying.
Not just the heroines, but even pretty extra characters could be the protagonist’s first pick.
The setting of this world might be a light novel, but this world is reality.
In crude terms, the protagonist could suddenly awaken to a deep, dark world and come to like men, or he could awaken to robotic mechanics and fall in love with machines.
The fate of this world was very precarious.
The meteor ending was dangerous, but the process of the protagonist’s development leading to the meteor drop and turning evil was also dangerous.
I didn’t mention this in the review because it was a spoiler.
The author committed a tremendous mistake that an author should not make.
The so-called ‘burning’ situation occurred, where the readers who said it was okay to serve a lethal dose of nationalistic fervor every day and even demanded more started burning and writing a 5700-character statement in the comments in no time.
In the end, the author abruptly ended the story with a meteorite, probably due to mental strain. But I could not understand the author who described the protagonist going insane at all.
The protagonist going mad was honestly beyond my understanding. Still, the author who wrote such a development was the really mad one.
So we had to be careful.
To ensure the protagonist’s heroines didn’t suffer from the so-called ‘NTR’.
To prevent such incidents where the heroine was brainwashed by the villainous Goblin, got some sort of parasite planted at the back of her neck, and attacked the protagonist while saying she had devoted her body and heart to ‘Lord Goblin’.
…It was actually a funny thing since I was instructed to woo the heroines and persuade them to join the organization’s cause.
So the protagonist needed to be killed.
If I were to woo one of the heroines or a woman who wasn’t a heroine, and the protagonist destroyed the Earth shouting, ‘My woman got NTR’d! I’m going crazy! Ahhh!’ killing him was to prevent such a thing from happening.
‘It’s more convenient for me.’
Rather than sweet-talking a guy and taking care of him, it’s much faster to just cleanly chop off his head.
So, I was a villain.
If I had thought about persuading and taking care of the guy, I would’ve become a hero.
“Yumir, can I ask you something about relationships?”
“Wow! What an interesting topic. What is it? I don’t know much, but I’ll give advice!”
“It’s about someone I know.”
“Usually when people say ‘someone I know’, they mean themselves.”
“… It’s really about someone I know.”
Looks like this wouldn’t work.
Rather than from the perspective of the protagonist who got his girl stolen, I’d have to tell the story with a Doh Tae-yang concept where I was the one stealing the girl.
“Let’s say there’s a man A and a woman A. They had something like a fling going on. Besides woman A, man A has B, C, D… roughly up to F.”
“Wow, he’s a playboy. Is that man by any chance you?”
“I wish, but no, it’s not me. And there’s a man B.”
“Is that you?!”
“…No. Man B woos woman A. Woman A, disappointed in man A, who doesn’t pay attention to her, falls in love with man B.”
“Ah….”
Yumir’s eyes sparkled.
“Thus, man B and woman A fall in love, but then man A appears and says, ’ Woman A loves me, but why did you steal my woman?; He asks man B. What should man B say to this man A?”
“He’s a madman, right? …Oops. Sorry for the harsh words. Man A is just… too awful.”
Yumir gave a raw and vivid reaction.
“He’s a playboy seeing this girl and that, but he starts a fight when his fling catches the eye of another man. He sounds like a psycho.”
“To that extent?”
“Of course. Ah, but that could happen.”
Yumir, holding a pasta fork, grinned.
“What if man A thinks he is better than man B?”
“……?”
“Like, man A is an S-grade superpower holder, but man B is just an ordinary person, not even a superpower holder. Or man A owns a building and is a café owner, while man B is a rider who delivers to that café.”
Why were the comparisons so specific?
“Let’s say you’re man A. The girl who was deeply in love with me fell in love with a man who was far less attractive than me. What would you feel then?”
“Well.”
Of course.
“Isn’t it natural to fall in love with a man who loves you?”
“……Wow.”
Yumir covered her mouth with her hand in surprise.
“I didn’t expect that kind of answer.”
“What did you expect?”
“I thought you would ask how she could like such an unattractive man or question if you were worse than him.”
“If that actually happens to me, I might do just that….”
I shrugged lightly.
“It’s not like I’m stealing someone’s girlfriend. It’s just a fling.”
“So, you mean to say, you’re man B, who has just taken a woman from a slightly better man than you?”
“It doesn’t seem like the story goes that way, but sure, I’ll take it. It’s better than being man A. I’d rather be a loving couple, albeit with an inferior one, than a pathetic playboy.”
“Hehe. You’re indeed an interesting person.”
“Indeed?”
“I just thought you were special from the moment I saw you.”
Yumir lifted her glass filled with cola towards me.
“Really, like a feeling that you’re not from this world?”
What was with this girl?
“…Are you insinuating that I’m a global-level outsider? Student?”
“Ah. You found out.”
“Do you know about Confucian etiquette and the Eastern land of manners, student?”
“I’m Canadian.”
“But we are in the Republic of Korea.”
Astonishing.
This world.
To treat me like an old geezer.
“I have friends too. Even though it’s difficult to meet, I have friends I contact frequently.”
“But it seems like you don’t have friends to have a meal with on Sejong Island?”
“Do you know the phrase’ rudeness,’ student?”
“Hehe.”
Yumir reached out to me with a ‘V’ made with her hand again.
“I can relate! I’m also a world-class outsider.”
“Real outsiders don’t go around announcing that they’re outsiders.”
“I don’t even have friends, let alone someone to have a meal with.”
“Well, from now on, you can start dating and make friends, right?”
“But we already started dating today, friend.”
Flutter, flutter.
Yumir’s hand continued to wave up and down, and I reached out my hand to shake hers.
Complicated.
Is this what it means to be an insider?
Or did I, as an otherworldly being in this world, just discover my ability?
Mind reader? Psychometry? Did she just figure out my true self through our handshake? No, that’s not it. I didn’t feel any hint of using mana.
“Teacher Do. From now on, I-”
Yumir’s head, just as she was about to say something with a bright smile, suddenly jerked back.
And then.
“Watch out!”
Yumir stood up from the table and pounced on me.
I fell backward along with the chair—
Splash.
With the sensation of something touching my face—
Crashhh!!
A powerful explosion resounded, and the wall of the restaurant was destroyed.
Eeeeng—–
The ‘runaway’ alarm started ringing on Sejong Island.