Author: Himezaki Shiu	Original Source: Syosetu
Translator: Jiro	English Source: Re:Library

Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

After a long climb up the stairs and a battle with the attacking soldiers, we finally lost them and managed to escape the school safely. We passed a person who looked like royalty along the way, but since they didn’t attack me, I left them alone. That alone should have conveyed the situation clearly.

After leaving the capital, my first thought was to head to the Nigel Kingdom or maybe even stop by Fraus before reaching Nigel, but Lullus seemed to have something on her mind. So, I decided to go along with her for a while.

“Does it bother you that I helped them?”
“Yes. You didn’t need to help them that much.”
“That’s true. There was also no need for me to take care of those guards.”
“Then why?”

Lullus asked as if she was genuinely curious. It was as if she were trying to question my qualification as a god. My theory that Lullus had been assigned to monitor me was something that I hadn’t given up yet.

“I don’t know if you noticed this or know about it, Lullus, but do you remember the smaller one of the two? She was the only one of my classmates who listened to Toriyama after coming to this world.”
“I see. I do remember her. So that’s why you helped them.”
“That’s not quite it. The one who helped her out of that sentiment was Toriyama. As for me, I stepped in this time because I felt that if the people I had just saved ended up dying, then saving them in the first place would’ve been meaningless. You could say I was carried along by the lingering intentions from my time as Toriyama.”

If that’s what it means to be a shoulder to lean on, then I suppose I was. And there was also one more reason.

“The other reason is because she’s the only person in this world that I do not hate.”
“Then what about the other one?”
“I don’t think anything of him. He’s just someone I used to know. It’s not like we were ever close.”

If I had been close to Michihisa, maybe things would’ve been different, but sadly, I’d always been a boorish person, and there had never been anyone I was truly close to.

It was a sad reality. And perhaps the saddest thing of all was that if there had been someone like that, someone I viewed as truly close, then God probably wouldn’t have chosen me in the first place.

It was only after I died that I truly understood the value of having—or perhaps not having—friends.

“I see. Thank you.”
“I’m fine with that much.”
“Then may I ask you two more questions?”
“Yes. What is it?”

It was rare for Lullus to ask so many questions. However, I didn’t mind and planned to answer them. Rather, it led me to think that maybe she’d had a ton of questions she wanted to ask but had been holding back until now. These days, I was more forgiving because Lullus had been helping me. But that hadn’t always been the case, so I really hoped she’d forgive me for that.

“Why did you give them the right to make a wish?”
“It’s simple, really. Who do you think should take the credit for saving the spirit this time?”
“Those two… I suppose.”
“I don’t have a wish I want to fulfill, and giving them to someone you like on a whim just seems like something God would do, don’t you think so?”

That was the image I had of God in my head, and after meeting him for real, it wasn’t that far off. Lullus seemed to understand what I was getting at and gave a bitter smile.

“The rest is about what I mentioned earlier. I’d already gone through the hoops of saving them. If I hadn’t given them the right to make that wish, and they ended up doing something reckless, I would’ve had to look for yet another way to save them.”
“So you gave them that wish so they wouldn’t go out and do stupid things.”
“Exactly. So, if possible, I’d like them to stay quiet until the time of the world’s collapse and then live freely afterward. We still don’t know how strong the hero that was summoned from elsewhere might be. So, what’s your second question?”

I had nothing more to say, so I urged Lullus to speak.

“Are we going to meet the king of this kingdom? I believe he’s already shown his face.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Until now, I’d acted with the idea that we had about twenty years left until the world collapses and that we could give them a chance to live out the rest of their lives in peace.”
“So that’s what was going through your head.”
“There were other things, too, like how fun it might be. I also wanted them to remember that the world is falling apart because of them. But now, there’s no time to work with, and I can’t just tell them to live out the rest of their lives. And if I bring this up with the king now, he’ll just plead with me to help him and say he’ll free the spirit.”

I wasn’t saying everyone only acted when there was clear damage, but I believed that tendency was especially strong in larger organizations. Still, since I’d only been a high schooler, there was no way for me to know.

“Considering all of that, we won’t be meeting the king this time.”
“Understood.”

It was very helpful that Lullus was this understanding of the situation. If everyone had been that understanding, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up as a Demigod. Or perhaps the hero summoning wouldn’t have happened at all. Come to think of it, God didn’t ban summoning heroes, did he?

He probably thought it would be fine with the spirits there.

Just as I was thinking about that, I suddenly heard him say in my head, “Can God ask you something too?”

(I wish he had first rung me rather than just speaking.)

“I could have rung you, but you probably would’ve scorned me for that too.”
“I definitely would have. So please just give up already, okay?”
“Haha, you’re the same as always.”
“So, what is it that you want, God?”
“As I just said. I have a question and something that I thought I might share.”
“Could you please tell me what it is that you’d like to share?”
“Sure. It’s simple, really. The Demon Lord has awakened.”
“Whoa.”

(He always drops these bombs out of nowhere!)

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