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Our place at the school was basically in the young lady’s room, more precisely, a section of the room that had been assigned to her. It felt more like the living room belonged to the young lady, and we stayed in the adjacent room.

In that space, there was a waiting room and private rooms that we both used. In other words, we were treated quite well. We had snuck out of the room where the spirit was and quietly slipped back in, only to hear a mischievous voice say, “Why are my guards so free?”

“We’re sorry, Miss Nataphilia.”
“W-We apologize.”

The owner of the voice, Miss Nataphilia, seemed to be grumpy, her small lips slightly pouted, but she soon returned to her usual calm expression.

“Don’t worry. I was just teasing you. You are just nominally my bodyguards. As you know, our contract states that you have priority in achieving your own goals. I was just a bit worried. The academy was getting quite rowdy. I even began doubting whether you two were involved.”

Seeing the young miss’ relaxed face made me feel a bit sorry, as things were just as she had imagined. We weren’t simply involved. We were the culprits. Luckily, Toriyama, or rather Fini, had taken the blame for it, so we probably wouldn’t be suspected.

“Oh my. It seems you were involved.”
“Miss Nataphilia.”
“You promised to call me, Lia, remember?”
“Miss Lia. We’ll explain everything later, but would you please give us some time alone? Truth be told, we, too, are finding it hard to handle the current situation.” Michihisa explained to her.
“Fine. But make sure to come to me once you’re done. This is an order, understood?”

After saying this mischievously, Miss Lia returned to her room. Seeing her leave, I finally felt relaxed enough to be able to talk with Michihisa.

“Say, Michihisa. Why didn’t you say anything while I was talking with Toriyama?”
“You know, you pay attention to the weirdest of things, Yume.”
“What? I guess I do, but I found it strange.”

I knew I had no right to judge, since I often left the talking to him, but that was exactly why it caught my attention. Was there something that had made Michihisa unable to speak? It would have been incredibly insensitive not to notice. And once something piqued my curiosity, I tended to fixate on it.

Michihisa sighed, as if talking was difficult, and then began to speak like he had finally given up.

“It’s mainly because I was reminded that the only one who can talk with Toriyama is you, Yume. You see, seeing Toriyama come back in that overpowered, godlike state, I thought that maybe he could easily help everyone. So that’s why I asked him. The face that Toriyama made when I asked him that… Just remembering it sends chills down my spine.”
“What? Was it that scary?”
“I wouldn’t say scary; rather, it was emotionless. Like he’d put on a Noh mask.”

I was surprised to hear that. Maybe Toriyama had made it so that he would only appear that way to Michihisa. He certainly seemed like he had the power to do that now.

“It was after you talked with him, Yume, that I realized how Toriyama sees us, how he sees me. I’d tried to push my opinion on Toriyama without thinking, so after that, I decided it would be better if I just shut up.”
“I see. That’s so strange.”

Michihisa had always been someone who could maintain good balance in his relationships. But it seemed that even he could be shaken when someone important was involved.

“The truth is that ever since coming to this world, the only one who’s had a proper conversation with Toriyama has been you, Yume. Considering this, I believe that you are the only one who can speak with him, Yume.”
“I see. I guess that’s true.”

I had nothing more to say about it. But when I thought about Toriyama, my heart ached. Of course it did. Toriyama said that he’d only help the people who didn’t interfere.

It’s not like we had done anything good to him. We simply had not interfered. And despite this, there were only 4 of us in that group. Once again, I was reminded of how harsh Toriyama’s situation had been.

The only thing I’d managed to do back then was speak slightly with him. It was by no means anything noble. In fact, I only had regrets about it. Yet from Michihisa’s viewpoint, Toriyama was someone he hadn’t talked with and someone he couldn’t talk with. Yet he’d tried to cling to his goodwill. If I were in his shoes, I too would’ve shut up.

Besides, I didn’t talk much to begin with.

It felt presumptuous to assume I fully understood Michihisa’s feelings, but I could at least grasp why he hadn’t spoken.

“I see. Then let’s move on to the next topic. Michihisa, can you decide on three people you want to save?”
“Three… I can think of ways to decide, but it’s hard to choose…”
“But in the end, you won’t choose not to help anyone, right?”

I wish that everyone who had been kind to me could be saved. But that was a wish far too big, and we hadn’t done anything to deserve it. If we had saved the world, maybe it would’ve been different. But all we had done was run away. And yet, having to make decisions about life and death, especially when it involved people close to us, was painfully difficult.

I couldn’t choose.

While I was struggling with that thought, Michihisa made a suggestion.

“As I said earlier, what we can do is just tell our requirements to God, and we can leave him to make the decision…. Like, we’ll let him decide which people he’d be okay with keeping alive and ask him to choose the top three of them who’ve been good to us¹.”

That suggestion wasn’t bad. In fact, it was far better than being paralyzed by indecision. It might sound like we were giving up responsibility, but I truly couldn’t choose just three people to save. If God made the decision, even if it wasn’t entirely fair, I could accept that.

And perhaps the people who were saved would accept it too, knowing that it was because God had chosen them.

“Are you alright with that choice, Michihisa?”
“I am. And we can save three people. I’m fine with that.”
“Then let’s do that. Also, how much should we tell the miss?”
“I guess we can’t avoid telling her who we are and about the collapse of the world.”
“I guess you’re right. Let’s tell her just that then.”
“We’ll save that for tomorrow. Let’s take today to rest.”

With that, Michihisa ended the conversation, and our long day finally came to a close.

1. Robinxen: That’s a pretty clever way of handling it if it works. If you don’t know the full rules at play you won’t feel a guilty conscience, but you can also add just enough specificity that you can feel meaningful. If it works though…

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