episode_0006

After that… it was a predictable story. He becomes a warrior at the warrior selection ceremony held in the imperial palace.

The selection ceremony was held in the imperial capital, and the structure was such that if you pulled out the holy sword bestowed by the sun goddess, you would naturally become a warrior.

It was a ritual that had been performed for generations and was no different from a continental custom.

If you were chosen, you could immediately become a warrior without considering class, personality, or image.

What a fortunate story.

I entered the imperial capital with such settings in mind.

“Welcome!! Anyone can become a warrior if they choose!!! People who are looking to turn their lives around!! Those who think that they are the warrior chosen by the goddess!! Come forward and draw the holy sword!!!!”

“You need stamina to pull! Buy some food!”

“Ugh! I failed again!! This was my third attempt.”

In the center of the capital, the selection ceremony was already in full swing.

As the host continues to speak at the top of his lungs, merchants who have caught the scent of money stand on the street and sell food, and people who are trying to turn their lives around try to draw the holy sword but fail every time.

On a makeshift throne set up for the royal family, the king was watching the ceremony with a bored expression.

The warrior selection ceremony has been going on for 14 days now… so it’s definitely bound to get boring.

Since only one person was chosen from the entire continent, the selection ceremony often lasted more than a day.

Even when I was dropped from the game, the warrior selection ceremony was still in progress.

Even taking that into account, two weeks was a pretty long time.

They say that in normal cases, a warrior will emerge within a week.

Perhaps because of this, there were quite a few people in the square. The event had already lost most of its energy.

Thanks to this, the atmosphere among people is more about anticipation than what kind of warrior will emerge.

The feeling of anxiety about what would happen if the warrior did not appear was even stronger.

The King is probably thinking the same thing. That’s why he’s thinking of a crazy plan to go on an expedition to the Demon Realm without any warriors, and he’ll put it into action soon.

I guess you’ll want to end this boring selection ceremony soon.

In that situation, all emotions were mixed together: a hint of anticipation, anxiety, selfishness, boredom, etc.

I stepped forward.

“Okay! Another new challenger······ Huh, huh?”

Passing through the crowds of the square, passing through the presenter, and finally standing in front of the Holy Sword.

The host, who was looking at me from behind, ignored me, probably feeling something like fear. I also had a fear-related curse.

“···Hmm.”

I also ignored the king’s eyes that were looking at me with displeasure.

Instead, he looks into the holy sword in front of him.

A sword embedded in a solid rock, a direct copy of the myth of Excalibur.

Tens of thousands of people have tried and failed to pull this off.

Among the challengers, there would have been a knight who was called the best in the empire, and there would have been a tower lord of the Great Tower.

“Don’t try quickly. You’re going to fail anyway.”

Watching the king babble in front.

I drew the holy sword.

Swish!

There was no resistance.

I couldn’t feel the weight of the Holy Sword itself, nor the feeling of it hitting the rock.

The holy sword fit snugly in my hand, as if it had always been mine.

The holy sword’s form revealed in this way.

A double-edged sword appears, shining brilliantly in the sunlight, the grace of the sun god.

“!!”

“!!!”

The shock that spread throughout the surroundings was a bonus.

A kid who was unpleasant from the first impression, pulled out the holy sword without a hitch that no one had been able to pull out for two weeks.

It must feel like not only your mind is being ripped off, but your soul itself is being ripped off.

All kinds of noises resonate around.

“What, what!” The loud presenter’s voice is shocked.

“This can’t be happening!” The escort knight exclaims in surprise again.

“I guess the end of the world has truly arrived… Are there so few talented people on the continent?”You can even hear the mutterings of old citizens nearby.

The humans I just met today are already fucking with me.

It was such a funny situation that I couldn’t help but chuckle.

It seems like everyone is feeling uncomfortable with the unexpected situation, so what can we do?

I have already drawn the Holy Sword, and this is a situation that cannot be reproduced even by manipulation. The countless people who have already failed for 14 days have proven this.

Likewise, it was impossible to render it invalid.

How can you invalidate a custom that has lasted for hundreds of years in this country just because you don’t like it?

There’s no way that’s possible.

Even if it were possible, the current king was not that great of a man.

“He, I appoint you as a warrior···.”

Thanks to that, I was able to be selected as a warrior without any trouble, but I only experienced some trouble.

It was quite a sight to see the king awarding me a title with a shit-eating face.

It was painful to see the warrior party members having a seizure when they saw me······.

*

What the!? This guy is a hero? You’re kidding me!!

The empire’s fate is over… Is it destined to decline in the end?

Enen, if it is your will, I will believe and follow it for now.

Wrong. I can already see evil overflowing from his soul. Is this guy really a warrior? Or a spy sent by the Demon King’s army?

These were the words I heard when I first encountered them after becoming a warrior.

They had high expectations for the warrior in particular, so I guess the disappointment they felt was great.

All sorts of curses of dislike were stuck to my body.

I don’t know how I will appear to the other person… but it probably won’t be a good feeling.

Because of that, I felt like I was on a rock from the very first time we met.

“But if you think about it, it seems like it was better back then.”

Of course, looking at it now, it was better back then.

At least back then, we were both awkward with each other, so he couldn’t openly tell me.

But now that the distance has narrowed to some extent, it’s just me who gets bullied every day.

They say that being teased made us closer. Is this a proper human relationship?

“What are you thinking about by yourself?”

As I was hiding my bitterness like that, the knight in front of me asked me.

I answered with a vague smile.

“Ah, I was just thinking about random things.”

“Tsk, look straight and walk. Can’t a warrior even do basic reconnaissance?”

How dare you just blurt out something like, “How long has it been since I saw you?”

Well anyway, this concludes the story of how I became a warrior.

The rest is what happened over the past half year… This is an obvious and boring story, so let’s skip it.

I was just fighting a monster and got beat up.

I was bullied while cooking rice. There was a funny and sad incident where I couldn’t sleep with everyone because I was suspected of being a member of the Demon King’s army while on night watch.

You may have had a fight on the street because of different opinions, been insulted, or been called incompetent for stepping forward.

For example, when a monster’s skin was ripped off, I deliberately delayed healing the wound, and at some point, the dismantling work was postponed to be solely my responsibility.

···It’s just stories like this.

The curses associated with fate were much more vicious than I had imagined.

Curses related to distrust, dislike, and malice seem to have a stronger effect the longer you meet someone, rather than the first time.

It only took half a year for the members of the warrior party, who were supposed to trust and rely on each other, to begin to doubt and hate me.

It has become what is commonly called a hateful face.

Slowly blossoming the doubts within me and making them certain. This is the true effect of the curses placed upon me.

This is why we can’t build relationships.

At this party right now, do you know what they think of me?

“No matter how I look at it, it’s suspicious… Isn’t that really the Demon King or one of his subordinates?”

“Certainly, there is a possibility. When I saw the author’s soul, it was as black as darkness.”

It was the dark curtain.

It’s needlessly disliked and suspicious. It’s the perfect thing to suspect of being a mastermind.

The story that Lily and Adele are currently talking about is that they suspect me of being a member of the Demon King’s Army.

‘It’s a cliché, it’s a cliché.’

As it turned out, there was a mastermind behind the warrior party.

It’s such a cliché. So obvious that people can easily think of it.

As easy as it is to think about, it’s easy to get lost in it.

If you roughly put together a scenario, it will be easier to have confidence in it.

“Let’s keep pressuring them for now. If they get psychologically overwhelmed, they’ll show something.”

Perhaps the reason why they keep harassing me is related to that.

But since he is a warrior, he cannot directly banish him, so he wants him to leave himself.

Just like company employees who recommend resignation.

It was a situation that made me sigh.

“Sigh···.”

As is the case with the human mind, it usually has a fluid nature.

It means that it is not constant and always flows like water.

As such, it was bound to change in many different ways depending on the situation.

The resolution to live diligently that one makes late at night is easily scattered by the fatigue that comes in the early morning.

Even the determination we made on a special day naturally wears away like a rock on the beach as time passes.

By the same token, the determination I had at first was wearing away.

To put it simply, it means I’m tired.

The dark times of the past six months have been enough to exhaust me and make me feel regretful.

The ugly side of the heroines who always look great in the game.

The expression of contempt and annoyance that came to me in real life.

Amidst countless looks of contempt, suspicion, and persecution, I had no choice but to endure it again today.

‘Should I quit?’

The words I’ve repeated hundreds of times so far.