“Hey Shian. What’s with the long face? Did something bad happen?”
“Ah? Shut up…! Be quiet old man.”
One day, Shian was called by another reincarnated student, Egos Cutman.
Shian did not attempt to hide his displeasure, and called the boy that was his age an old man.
It made sense, considering Egos was almost forty before he reincarnated.
Egos Cutman… Name before reincarnation, Egoshi Kirio.
He was the kind of person commonly seen in isekai stories, an adult male who worked for a black company and spent most of what little free time he had on games. This meant that much like Shian, or rather, Mizuiro, he was more of a casual gamer when it came to Luminous History.
Also, perhaps because of his busy days, or maybe because of his age, his memory was vague, and he was one or two steps behind the other reincarnated students when it came to knowledge of the game.
Because of this, he was outdone by the others in what could be called the hero derby, but he seemed to be enjoying this world in a carefree fashion.
“How rude. I mean, it’s true, but right now, I’m a high schooler just like you. Why not get along as the casual videogamer gang?”
The way he spoke reeked of old, leading Shian to click his tongue at him.
He felt that Egos was strangely overly friendly towards him.
Shian would welcome this behavior from a cute girl, but felt creeped out by this favorable treatment that came from someone who, despite not looking it, was a middle-aged man. But Egos seemed to not care, and simply continued.
“They’re all getting so serious about being heroes, it’s so annoying! Why not take it easy and be happy, right?”
“That’s rich coming from someone that tried to outwit the others too. Is that how a dirty adult does things?”
“Well… But I don’t care about being a hero as much as those hardcore videogamers. I’m good with just a happy life in this world. I got caught up in that damn black company, so I’m done with that kind of crappy life. The time has come for me to finally do my best and live happily in this world.”
He appeared to have no competitive spirit, and shrewdly looked around for any weakness in people around him… That was Egos.
He said he had no interest in being a hero, but that was not the truth. Slowly but steadily, the idea of wanting to rise in the world if the chance presented itself crept up inside him.
Egos was different from the relatively young reincarnated students, but was nevertheless strangely honest with his greed… That was how Shian saw him.
Having him as a friend would place him in a good position to betray him, but he also did not feel good about having him as an enemy.
Shian figured the best outcome would be for him to get him to cooperate, but be kept at a moderate distance.
“So? What do you want? Did you come here just to make fun of me?”
“No… I just saw a kind of interesting request. Do you want to accept it with me?”
“Request? Is there any reason why you want to accept it together?”
Shian frowned, thinking it was strange to invite a fellow reincarnated student that was not even in his party, and Egos responded with a proud smile.
“I told you, there’s an interesting one. It’s one that doesn’t pop up unless you raise a specific student’s favorability past a certain level. It has a sub-quest and the reward is good, and since the others weren’t that interested, I saw an opening and fulfilled the conditions… But there was a bit of a change to it.”
“Change? What changed?”
“I’ll tell you more if you promise to accept it together. All I’m gonna say… Is that there might be a chance to take Melt and An from that scum Yuugo.”
Shian twitched.
Those were popular characters in Luminous History, that he wanted both in his party and his harem, but were unable to be recruited due to some unknown problem. The possibility of taking them away from Yuugo was enough to grab Shian’s attention.
“…Fine, you got it. Tell me more.”
“Don’t be like that. If we work together, this plan to take the popular heroines will work. Let’s get along, fellow casual videogamer Shian…!”
And thus, these two formed an alliance, and began some sort of creepy plan.
But to tell the story of this interesting request, we have to rewind a little and change the setting.
It was several hours before this, when Yuugo was speaking to his friends in the same corner of the courtyard as always.
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