Another side

　The once quiet forest was filled with a murmur and screams of fear.
　The lower-grade spirits fled from the immortals who suddenly appeared, the few middle-grade spirits, some with lower-grade spirits in tow, some challenged the battle alone, and some realized the disadvantage and disappeared from the scene.
　As if in response, the dark elves who were guiding them rushed out, confusing the testers, and the demon-prepared troops began to move.

This is the right thing to do, right?
"Yes, enough is enough.

　In the midst of the chaos of this forest, if there was even one higher level spirit in the forest, the story would be different, two men in robes were looking down on the chaos of the dark elf forest.
　The one nodding with satisfaction at the current situation from an elevated perch is deeply robed and his face cannot be seen, but you can tell it's a man from the quality of his voice.
　The other, whose face is uncovered by the uncovered hood, is more visible.
　He is young, no older than twenty, or at least close to it.
　A young boy-turned-young man with dark hair and a young face is anxiously examining the incident.
　Just from this conversation alone, it's clear which side is higher.

"Well then!　Tell me how to get this thing off!

　However, the relationship was not a healthy one, the relationship between the threatened party and the threatened party, between the assailant and the victim.
　And in the young man's right hand was a dull gray caged hand, and in his hand was a dagger with a muted presence.
　At first glance, the dagger looked like something you could find in any weapon shop.
　A reasonably skilled blacksmith would see that the blade was forged by a skilled blacksmith.
　But that's as far as it goes.
　It takes a first-rate blacksmith to recognize the discomfort of the dagger's essential existence, its scarcity.
　A weapon is fundamentally something that evokes a multitude of emotions.
　A beautiful weapon evokes admiration through beauty, a sharp blade inspires fear, and a mighty power inspires longing.
　This dagger does not evoke any emotion.
　No, it does not.
　To the eye of the beholder, the mere presence of the dagger would have made it even more suspicious.
　But the young man who possessed it had a fear of the dagger.
　He held out his right hand as if to appeal to the man who was nodding with satisfaction at the scene in front of him, desperately wanting to let go of the dagger as soon as possible, let alone a second later.

I've done everything you asked me to do!　You promised you'd get this off me if I did everything!
Yes, it was.

　The man replies without averting his gaze from the scene in front of him, as if the young man's cries and circumstances are worth nothing more than a stone on the side of the road, as if it doesn't matter.
　This attitude irritates the young man, but that doesn't mean that he should be so quick to act.
　No, it didn't.
　The young man understood.
　This man could not be hurt by this d*mned sword.
　That the youth and the man were so far apart in strength that they couldn't even lay down their lives to take a shot.
　So this is how you do what you are told and fulfill your promise with the possibility that you might be able to save yourself.
　You tried to solve the problem in such a way, but the man between your eyes refuses to fulfill his promise.

Psssss!

　The young man's anger has passed its zenith and is overflowing with the gesture.
　Still unable to raise his outstretched right hand.
　The man, sensing this figure in the atmosphere, did not have any emotions.



　The man and the young man met three months ago.
　It was a coincidence that the young man got the job offer from the Mao Corporation.
　He couldn't go to college, couldn't find a job, didn't have much time on his hands, and was lightly despairing of life.
　Then I encountered a fantasy, which was enough to give me a faint feeling that I was special.
　He can use magic and, by chance, meet like-minded people.
　The young man was one of the testers, conquering the dungeon with his friends.
　It was off to a good start.
　It was good at first.
　Learning to use magic in training was a life-changing experience for the young man.
　In addition, the fact that he had a high aptitude for magic aptitude six among his peers further increased the young man's stature.
　Then the young man heard a rumor about a man.
　It's about an old dropout before thirty.
　He was always falling apart in training and could do little.
　I heard from my colleagues that there was such a crushing colleague.
　When he heard that, the young man looked down on the adult completely, saying he didn't want to become such an adult and that he was different.
　Yes, at that time, I still thought I was special.
　But when the training was over and the real battle came, the faint sense of superiority that comes with being unable to properly evaluate oneself was of no use.
　The goblins chased me around when I could have easily defeated them, and even if I did, I didn't gain much experience.
　The only thing waiting for him was not the image of himself, which was as easy to capture as in a game, but a poor boy who was blocked by the wall of reality.
　This can't be it, the young man thought over and over again.
　This can't be it.
　I could do better.
　So he tried to talk to his buddies, but five of them at first said he was boring, then one, then two, and finally the lad was all alone.
　Yes, it has happened.
　It would have been better if he could have just given up there and walked away too.
　A different future might still have awaited him if he could have dismissed it as unsuitable and thought about getting a different job.
　But the young man could not abandon the special (fantasy).
　Unwilling to leave the ordinary and the extraordinary, the young man made a hard decision and huddled with the other parties to make a fresh start.
　At first, every tester's party was willing to welcome him as an added asset.
　But in a way, it was a natural consequence of the gap between the ideals of failure and the reality of failure, and his inexperience with frustration, that his relationships were distorted.
　Sometimes being young is a positive thing, and sometimes it is a negative thing.
　I wonder how he looked to others, who never bent his own will and did not listen to the opinions of the people around him, as he recklessly pushed forward with his recklessness, saying that this is definitely better.
　The party that welcomed him described the young man as cheeky and quickly distanced themselves from him.
　The young man could not understand their attitude.
　He wondered why, and why they wouldn't understand him.
　Still, he did not give up.
　He even consulted his personnel officer.


　Thanks to this, I was able to get an offer for another party.
　This time, he tries with all his might, but the result is the same.
　The party does not accept a young man who believed in the righteousness of his twisted ideas.
　And the person in charge of the party was warned about the consequences of his actions.
　The young man's actions were wrong and must be corrected.
　From the point of view of the young man who thought the person in charge was his ally, the warning was nothing but a betrayal.
　To the person in charge, it was just advice to help a well-meaning and capable young man, but to him, a word of denial sounds like a betrayal.
　That's why he distanced himself from the person in charge and thought he was the only one he could trust.
　Then he suddenly remembered that he was an old man who had dropped out of school.
　There was an old man who had dropped out.
　I don't feel comfortable taking on the dungeon alone.
　No, I'll be fine on my own in the future, but for now I think it's necessary.
　I remembered that I wanted to be the vanguard, so I decided it was better than nothing and looked for the old man I heard about.
　I hadn't heard any rumors that he had quit the company, so I figured he was probably fighting inefficiently all by himself anyway, and what I found was a scene that belied the young man's expectations.
　I was able to find the rumored old man.
　He appeared leisurely from the dungeon's exit.
　When he found him, a happy smile appeared on the young man's face.
　But the smile was short-lived.
　A man a little younger than the old man followed the old man, followed by a man and a woman who seemed younger than the young man, and behind them two women of the same age, arguing with each other.
　Then a dark elf woman walks up to him to greet the old men.
　The woman's face was happy to see that the old man had returned safely.
　You could see in her expression that she liked the old man.
　A harmonious scene.
　A friendly scene.
　Such words flashed through the young man's mind.
　I wanted to scream at him and tell him it was a lie.
　I wanted to scream and say why are you laughing when you're in such pain?
　But as a result, the young man was helpless.
　Because the emotions were out of control and unintelligible.
　And then, when his emotions had calmed down a little, he could not believe it anymore and ran away as fast as he could, letting his emotions distract him from the scene.
　He was under the illusion that the world was the enemy.
　From that point on, the young man's only action was to hang on to this world of specialness.
　He was solely driven to act alone and eager to make his place in the company.
　But even that action was wearing down his spirit.
　He took on dungeons as if he were immersed in them and only returned to the room he had rented with his part-time job money to sleep and eat.
　Like a recluse immersed in an Internet game, he continued to challenge dungeons day after day.
　One step forward and one step back, three steps forward and two steps back.
　The frustration of not being able to conquer the dungeons as the young man wished, and the frustration of not being able to do so well, led him to ignore the advice of the person in charge and pursue only the strength of the game.
　One day, a man appeared in front of the young man as he was challenging the dungeon as usual.

You're pretty strong.

　At first I thought it was another tester talking to me.
　Dressed in a black robe, he was unable to see the full extent of the situation.
　Suspicious, the young man thought.
　But the young man had never met a language-speaking enemy in a dungeon, so he was wary, but decided that the one before him was a colleague he had stumbled across in the dungeon.
　Watching the young man fight and praising him for it was probably what made the young man less wary.
　That's how the young man meets the man.
　And the young man's mistake.
　In an environment of negativity, the presence of a man who would throw words of affirmation became a stronghold for the young man.
　It was only a matter of time before he got to know such a man.
　It was only a few days after their meeting that the young man and the man, feeling a sense of familiarity with what the man said about not getting along with the current party, secretly met up in a dungeon and began their conquest.
　The young man was very grateful for the fact that he could try to attack the dungeon two or three times a week, although not every day.
　In addition, a man who was perfectly in tune with the young man's behavior and tried to give him a flower was the ideal companion for him.
　From then on, it was as if his previous difficulties were a lie as he was able to attack smoothly.
　The young man, wondering if all his hardships were for this day, turned his previously depressed face around and happily took on the dungeon.
　As the young man began to show results and change the atmosphere, the reaction of the people around him was also favorable.
　It was as if the barrage of advice from those in charge had died down.
　Everything was turned around and this was the golden age for the young man.
　Every day is fun.
　It was a day when he was enjoying his days so much that he could forget about the past.
　A man gave the young man a gift.
　The man says he found it in a treasure chest when he was in a dungeon, and the man, who is not good at close combat, says he doesn't need it and wants the young man to use it.
　Thus, a gray cage and a seemingly ordinary dagger are presented to him.
　It's a cheap but sturdy item that you can get in the shallow hierarchy, and the young man thought it would be better to be able to fight in close quarters, so he accepted it.
　The man also encouraged him to do well, and from that day on, the young man began to wear a basket and dagger.
　And the young man was even more pleased that good things would continue to happen.
　Both of the man's gifts were magic items.
　The caged hand could disappear with the weapon in its hand at will, appearing when you wanted to equip it.
　In addition, the dagger is a distraction, and despite its appearance, its sharpness exceeds the young man's expectations.
　It could strike unilaterally without being noticed by the enemy.
　This was truly a moment of supreme power for the young man.
　The dungeon monster was no enemy before that power.
　So the young man was oblivious.
　The man's malice, and his true intentions.
　It was shortly after he left the man that he thought it was strange.
　He left the dungeon and tried to sell off the drop to his usual tool shop, but the clerk didn't notice the young man.
　With a single cluck of the tongue, you try to shout at him, but he doesn't respond.
　The young man kicks the counter with a thud and leaves the store, ruining his good mood.
　As he walked through the underground facility, he saw a tester's party he had worked with in the past out front, swearing that he would write a report on the shopkeeper.
　Wanting to make them regret their exasperation with the shopkeeper's attitude by boasting about their recent saga, the young man proudly stands in front and calls out to them, but the testers do not stop and bump into the young man.
　This attitude angered the young man.
　But the testers do not hear his shouting.


　The young man is not seen by the testers, who touch the empty space and make fun of the testers who stumbled around on their own with question marks.
　Don't ignore them, the young man shouts, but they don't hear him either.
　On the contrary, the men walk away, twisting their heads in a strange way.
　There's nothing natural about the gesture.
　Nor did I sense any malice in their blatant disregard.
　Even the young man thought that behavior was strange.
　I thought the clerk and the tester were strange.
　Quickly, a cold sweat broke out with a bad feeling.
　The young man talked to everyone as if to shake off his imagination, but no one recognized the young man.
　A sense of loneliness assaults the young man.
　No one will look at the young man.
　No one will listen to the young man.
　With each gesture, the young man's body temperature drops.
　And so the young man runs off.
　He ran to the rocky plaza characteristic of the demon king's dungeon, thinking that a man would surely see him, even though they hadn't met up.
　The man was there.
　Relieved that he was still there, the young man was worried that this man might not recognize him either, but he suppressed his fears and slowly walked to the man.

Hi, how does it feel to have special powers?

　The man notices the young man easily and speaks to him, as if to get rid of his anxiety.
　But his voice is not that of a normal, calm man.

"Dumbass, nameless.

　Everything was in the palm of his hand, and the man smiled at the young man and called him the name of the young man who had lost everything.