Chapter 4: The Day of Destiny

The ending got a little confusing, but they had been incredibly fun days. After graduating from my time as Tiera-chan, the female mercenary, and parting ways with Liz-senpai, my journey continued.

"Even if you stop liking me, please don't stop liking female mercenaries...!" Just kidding.

Obviously, that was a lie. You can hate female mercenaries all you want, just keep supporting me. And vote for me so I can take first place.

Meeting the person I was looking for in this vast world, where I didn't even have a proper sense of direction, was practically a miracle. Even so, by wandering around and traveling, I think I managed to interact with a fairly decent number of characters who had already been implemented.

I am both "私" and "俺", so the consciousness of a "woman" and the consciousness of a "man" coexist within me, completely overlapping each other. On top of that, the consciousness of an "inhuman" and a "human" overlap as well. That's why I'm able to interact casually and without prejudice with pretty much any kind of being, and that turned out to be extremely useful for expanding my social circle.

For example, I have absolutely none of the slight nervousness or embarrassment one tends to feel when talking to someone of the opposite sex. And when I meet someone who is obviously non-human in appearance, the first thing that comes to mind is, "(ﾟ∀ﾟ)人(ﾟ∀ﾟ) Same here!" Except you, magical beasts. You're food.

Even so, humans are all different. Their hearts are complicated things. There were some people I simply couldn't become friends with.

One popular shota-type character was even younger than he had been in the original story, and for some reason he was constantly picking fights with me. Every time we met, he'd hurl insults at me, and worst of all, he wouldn't even make eye contact with me. There's no mistaking it: he hated me. What a shame. My attempt to build connections had failed.

Also, I wonder what was up with the few people who started acting strangely whenever it was time for us to part ways. It was similar to how Liz-senpai had been toward the end, so—just in case—I took measures before they could go berserk like Liz-senpai. I'd gotten the hang of dealing with it during my farewell with her, so when I handled them the same way, everything worked out somehow.

Well, I probably didn't need to worry in the first place. Liz-senpai was someone who had been driven to the brink by a pretty dark past. I think her rampage was the result of bottling up too many things. Like, she finally made a friend, only to have that friend leave, which ended up triggering some old trauma or something.

If I told them, along with a few other things, "(As the story progresses,) we'll definitely meet again someday (as part of the protagonist-kun's faction)," then—would you look at that! For some reason, everyone accepted it. I think I got more and more polished at handling these situations with every repetition. For me, who understands both a woman's feelings and a man's feelings, there are no blind spots when it comes to human relationships!

As for my combat skills, I think I've polished those up pretty well too. The Sword Saint-chan, an SSR character, dismissed me with a single word: "Inexperienced." But I can hold my own reasonably well, and besides, I'm supposed to be a healer in the first place. So there shouldn't be a problem.

Speaking of healers, though. I'd suspected something was up because there were so few healers among the implemented characters, and sure enough, there really weren't many healers in this world itself. So I traveled around treating all sorts of people, partly as training. Healing magic only activates when there's an actual injured body part, so it's surprisingly difficult to practice. Ever since my days in the mountains, repeatedly injuring myself and then healing myself had become my standard training method, but pain is still pain, so if there was someone who was already injured, it was obviously better to practice on them.

There were plenty of times when I went around healing severely wounded soldiers on battlefields and ended up being called the "Emerald Angel." It's impossible to feel bad about being praised, so that was a genuinely wonderful experience.

That's why, in one village, I got carried away and started acting all, "That's right, that's right! Praise me! Worship me!" But it looked like things were about to turn into a full-blown religious organization, so I ran away as fast as I could. Come to think of it, I never did meet the implemented character who was supposed to be in that village. I wonder where they were? Did I get the village's name wrong?

Oh, right. There was also that time I flew over a country in the middle of a war and fired a large-scale healing spell down on both armies. That was an experiment to see the maximum range and maximum number of targets I could handle, but unlike the absurdly overpowered "human rights" characters, I didn't have the power to pull it off. Once I increased the area and number of targets, the effect weakened so much that all I accomplished was producing a pretty green light. The battlefield being enveloped in a pale green glow was beautiful, but making a dramatic entrance only to have absolutely no effect was about as pathetic as it gets, so I immediately fled. That's a dark chapter of my past I'd rather not remember.

I wonder what kind of joke those two warring countries are making about me. Just thinking about it makes me depressed. If there's any saving grace, it's that I was wearing black robes, so all they could really identify me as was some gorgeous, well-endowed woman with long, pale-green hair.

And so, while doing things like that all across the continent, my journey continued.

Looking back on it now, I think it was quite an eventful journey, and honestly, not a bad one.

Oh, right. I almost forgot the most important thing. The thing I improved the most during this journey: my cooking. While becoming familiar with the food cultures and ingredients found throughout the continent, I also received instruction from people I'd befriended. My cooking skills had already reached a respectable level. If I told you they'd surpassed the taste of Nama Inoshishi by a comfortable margin, you'd understand just how impressive that was. Five years of dedication hadn't gone to waste.

Even the Sword Saint-chan judged my cooking as "Splendid." Heh heh, I won.

Of course, during our sparring match with swords, I was defeated in an instant without even understanding what had happened. Damn it.

And so my journey continued. Then, on the day when the number of days recorded in my diary reached 1,685, an indescribable sensation suddenly swept through my entire body.

I had this mysterious certainty that something was present in the direction the sensation was pointing.

That's right. The protagonist-kun from the original story had descended into this world.

And then—

"Urgh!? Ghh... this is... quite something, isn't it...!?"

What the hell is this incredibly intense, indescribable sensation...!?

Even though I'd half expected this, I see. So this is what it's like.

It's not some gentle little thing like my body getting hot and my heart going thump-thump.

How should I put it? It feels like I've suddenly been subjected to several times the gravity I'm accustomed to. I've never actually experienced anything like that, but I'm pretty sure that's the best way to describe it. There's an unmistakable direction to it, accompanied by a definite force, and my body is literally being pulled toward him!

That's right! This is the will of "Earth" herself. The power I borrowed to make up for "my" pitifully weak soul really isn't something as simple as I'd thought.

But even so! Both "私's" will and "俺's" will are firmly resisting it. My consciousness and thoughts haven't been taken over in the slightest.

My goal hasn't changed! I will take first place in the popularity poll, save my little sister, and return home!

...Phew. As long as I keep my will strong, I can suppress it quite a bit. It's not perfect, but it's not like I'm completely helpless against it either.

For now, then. I'll use this obsessive power of "Earth" to hurry over to the protagonist-kun.

All right. The main story begins now.

And, the battle to reach first place in the popularity rankings begins...!