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Translator: Tsukii

Editor: Yonnee

Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 46: Fudou Niito

It had been a long time since he first felt that he was somewhat twisted compared to others. 

Fudou Niito, from childhood, was already broken somewhere. 

What exactly was weird and twisted about him? It was difficult to put it into words.

It wasn’t anything that could be pinpointed clearly, and he looked normal on the outside—at very least, for the life he had lived.

It wasn’t like he lacked or had too much emotion either. He wasn’t a good person, but he was also not a criminal.

He didn’t break the law, but he did consider the merit of doing so before. 

He envied those who were more blessed than him, but also felt superior looking down on people who were not as privileged as himself.

He was a person you could find everywhere: normal… but slightly twisted and not really considered as a good person… but still the type of person you could find everywhere.

He looked dark and serious on the surface while he thought of many funny things inside… but it’s not a weird thing. In the current generation, there were more people than you could count who acted like Braggart and Net Benkei¹.

At very least, he had no such abnormality that was apparent if you went by first impressions.

It wasn’t like he had a hobby of torturing insects and small animals, but instead he had common hobbies in the modern world, which were watching foreign movies and immersing himself in fiction.

Some may consider that as weird, but it was still within the normal scope of weirdness.

It was merely the level of “he might be a weird person, but such a person existed everywhere.”

But he really was twisted somewhere.

For example, there was this instance in his childhood —

On the way to school, he saw a lump of flesh on the street, which was actually a cat that was hit by a car, sprawled on the road.

His friends were terrified and tried not to look at it directly.

However, Niito didn’t feel any fear or disgust. Not even when he looked directly at it.

He did feel bad for the cat and also felt a slight contempt for the driver who ran over it.

In the end, he didn’t possess “something” that others had.

For example when he was in middle school —

He had one female classmate who was not at any fault whatsoever, she just happened to catch someone’s eye, then she ended up being bullied by male classmates.

It was a mass number of boys against just one girl who they treated as a toy for their entertainment.

They beat her up meaninglessly, made her cry, and also recorded a video of her in such a pitiful state using their cellphones…

He did feel disgusted by it and, going by his own moral compass, he felt that it was wrong.

So he bullied them back.

It wasn’t like Niito himself was bullied and he wasn’t particularly close with the girl either.

In the beginning, he tried to treat the bully group as friends on the surface.

But he couldn’t stand the disgusting sight that was repeated every day, so he tried to change it into something that was acceptable for him.

First, he tried to convince the group leader — but it was no good, so Niito hit him.

Of course the bully fought back, but Niito wasn’t fazed in the slightest.

It wasn’t like he had no sense of pain. It hurt a lot, but he still kept his fists in front of him to repay twice what he had taken.

Whether it was break time, in the middle of class, or during the commute to school, as long as Niito saw him, he would hit him. Over and over, he would keep hitting him until he cried.

Even if the teacher scolded him, or whether his parents were called and gave sermons as well, the same routine repeated.

That kept happening until the other side no longer came to school… then he continued again toward different bullies.

Ah, this is fun

I see, now I could understand why that bully group did all those disgusting acts.

This was fun. It’s very fun. It’s addicting.

Against those weaker than me, hitting others while feeling like a hero of justice was a very pleasant experience.

If one looked at the whole situation objectively, Niito was frightening during this time.

But at the same time, Niito’s heart still functioned normally.

While hitting and being hit, he felt like he was on a detached plane, as if he was only doing game commentary, trying to talk with other people he couldn’t see, all the while feeling delighted inside.

Ok, Player Niito did a full power attack! It was super effective!

Ooh, he received a counter-attack! He might be in a pinch!

But he won’t back down! And Megaton Punch here! He did it— he managed to overcome his low accuracy and hit the target!

Ok Punch BOOM!

KO! It’s a KO! Player Niito did it!

I’M STRONK!

If one were to put what he thought into words, it would be like that.

Even as he was thrust into such situations like fighting with other people, he still thought this way so normally that it became weird.

It was the same as when he played games or read manga with his peers — he was still the bright and pleasant Fudou Niito.

During the time he did all that, he felt neither anger nor hatred.

Sometimes he felt remorseful for himself or felt like being drunk on the feeling, and other times he had the expression of a merciful smile.

After he bullied all the bully groups to the point that they no longer came to school, he approached the first bullied girl as if he was her savior.

It‘s already okay. Those who bullied you were already silenced.

As he said that, he thought things like that would raise flags, or that it would be troubling if she started to get attracted to him—those normal yet abnormal thoughts.

“No… don’t come closer! It’s scary!”

But what awaited him was rejection.

As he looked around once everything was over, the gazes that looked upon him were full of fear.

The teacher who once treated him normally now looked at him coldly, as if he was a problem child, and later his family would look at him like he was trash.

He was suspended from school for some time and, at one point, his actions were also featured on TV news.

It was an obvious result… Everyone but a fool knew it. 

He had previously read a badly written “Kuon no Sanka” fanfic. The protagonist there was like “I beat down the bullies so I become popular!” but… reality wasn’t anything like that.

Those kinds of weird people only ended up being hated.

They receive bashing from people around them, get gossiped around, and then Niito thought—

“Ah… I see. Bullying was a bad thing after all. Wow, this is something. Since I bullied the bully, now I became the bully instead. It’s obvious that my actions are hated. Ah, I’ve done it. I need to reflect on this seriously.”

To him who still talked normally as if nothing happened, how did other people now perceive him?

Of course he did feel sad being treated coldly by friends, teachers, and family. But since he knew it couldn’t be helped, he no longer minded it.

Even so, while looking at the surrounding reaction, he finally realized he somehow became weird.

So he came to understand it then, but all the while still being light-hearted as usual.

— Ah, I see. I was that kind of person… the so-called scum, I guess.

Well, scum could use his scum ways to meld with his surroundings and live normally.

It’s okay, no problem.

You could do it if you work hard.

The thing he lacked was a sense of reality.

He always somehow — had a feeble sense of reality, as if his own body was a game character he was manipulating.

Just like gaming, if there was a very bad guy, it was obvious for that guy to be hated by others.

He did feel disgusted by the unlucky and sad development that the character went through, and it wasn’t weird to think that he wanted to do something about it.

There, the person who was branded as the bad guy by the game and hated by everyone like “what a cruel person” in this universe, then the next day the player controlled their protagonist to meaninglessly kill travelers, steal and run from shops, destroy buildings around him, basically doing so much scummy acts while having fun and laughing giddily. If it was like this, even the bad guy from yesterday would look comparatively decent. 

It wasn’t a weird thing to do, and neither was his conscience destroyed.

It wasn’t like the said person suddenly conjured two extreme personalities. It was all normal.

Because it was not reality.

Within a fictional world, they only tried to have as much fun that was permissible within that world’s rules.

But if you brought that kind of behavior to the real world, it was clearly out of place.

Fudou Niito was that type of person.

He always saw the world in a third person point of view, and he wouldn’t even treat himself as his own self, but like somebody separate instead.

As if he himself was also a character within a game.

And one who controlled it was the other him who was out there somewhere. 

It was reality, yet at the same time it’s not. He was living in such a bizarre mindset.

He was aware of his own unusual tendencies as he reached adulthood, and so he started restraining himself.

That’s why, he chose a way of life wherein he wouldn’t be involved with other humans as much as possible, and so he became a Web Writer that could work alone at his own home.

As his reality and hobbies lie in the fictional world, he didn’t understand the gravity of his own death, thinking “well such is life” and even enjoying it… Meanwhile, he truly immersed himself into the events within the game and felt burdened.

Elrise and Niito were the same at their core.

Both of them were twisted in some way or another.

They were serious about the weirdest things. While the things they should be serious about were treated as other people’s business. 

But Niito had noticed that Elrise started to change.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that their bodies were different, or because they worried about different matters.

While Elrise and himself had the same roots, little by little… she had started to diverge from Niito.

It was currently just speculation. There was no proof.

But he did have some expectations for it.

If it was on the other side of the world… Perhaps, even he could change.

Perhaps he could see how he changed.

As he raised such expectations for his other self who split away from him, Fudou Niito took action.

---

After passing through a few stops on the train, Niito arrived at the address written on the back of the game package.

Because it was the company that sold such a game, he thought it would be bigger, but it seems to be a small company that merely occupied a section of a multi-tenant building.

There were signs attached next to the building, and there he saw the name of the game company.

It was located on the 5th floor.

Niito immediately entered the building and went to the 5th floor using the elevator.

He found the company he sought, then immediately asked the receptionist.

“Good afternoon. What can I do for you?”

“I’m Freelance Writer Fudou who made an appointment on the phone. Is Ijuuin-san here?”

“Ah, yes. Please wait a moment… Ijuuin-san! The person who asked to meet you has arrived!”

The receptionist directed some slight suspicion toward Niito’s appearance, but outwardly she was still a professional.

She didn’t care about it too deeply, and called for the man inside the company.

Before Niito came here, he did make an appointment, but this Ijuuin-san was the Project Leader of “Kuon no Sanka”.

Normally, there’s no way a person of high stature would attend to a small-time web writer, but while talking on the phone, Niito managed to bait the man with a few words.

And those words were… “Elrise, 102.” 

That alone might be too vague for most, but 102 was the original Elrise’s weight.

Elrise, who was part of Niito’s reincarnated soul, only weighed 44 kg, so anyone who asked would answer with that number instead.

If anyone said, “Elrise is a 102 kg Pizza,” fans would beat that person up.

In other words, it was a code that wouldn’t incite a reaction if they didn’t know the game prior to its change.

The one who caught the code (bait) was a man called Ijuuin.

Without a doubt, he knew.

Since he was already sure of this, Niito let out a fearless smile.

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