I came back but the world is still a fantasy!? – Garesto Academy – Exam Arc: Chapter I – Those Who Take Advantage of the Test – 04-21: The Second of Day of the Exam Begins (3/4)

“Well, I do feel like the sort of VIP who’d fake his status, but… To be frank, you’re the last person I want to hear that from given how you’ve inherited something as ridiculous as that katana or spiritual power.”

Shinichi and his fox smiled at Tomoe for appraising his status as fake.

After all, weren’t priestesses and other occupations surrounding the occult the biggest frauds?

“I’m not a fraud!” Tomoe said.

“Yeah, I know… That’s why it’s sad,” Shinichi said.

“Kyu?”

Just the existence of spiritual power was already hard to acknowledge, and yet something like a spirit sword actually existed.

A blade so sharp that it wouldn’t chip even when swung against the rocky terrain.

Moreover, it could even power itself up to unleash a spirit slash. That was clearly a weapon that belonged in a manga.

Shinichi found it shocking that this world would have something as fictitious as those sorts of power and weapons. In fact, he was so shocked he could’ve come up with vertigo.

Fortunately, he had already gained some resistance from Falandia.

“…All along I thought this world didn’t have that sort of stuff.”

Or perhaps he just wished that his world didn’t have that sort of stuff.

Either way Shinichi laughed in self-depreciation.

“The world really doesn’t love me, huh.”

Shinichi feebly complained.

He knew this was just his persecution complex acting up, but he still felt like saying it.

By the time he finally got used to Falandia, he found out that he couldn’t stay there, so he desperately tried to find a way back home, but when he did finally get home, he suddenly found out that his family was broken and the world was no longer the same, and then after all that, he even found out that this world had magic in the first place.

“Having a power like that… It’s just plain harassment.”

They should’ve at least erected some kind of barrier to prevent people from undergoing Dimensional Drift(being spirited away).

Wasn’t that their job?

Shinichi wished he could file a complaint to their customer service department.

“Says the guy who used the same spiritual power after just seeing it once! Damn it! Give me back my ten years of hard training!!”

Naturally, that would be how Tomoe felt after seeing copy her abilities after just seeing it once.

She didn’t really understand what Shinichi meant behind his words, but it sounded like he was rejecting something that she desperately studied, so she glared at him.

As a result, all that wariness she had earlier disappeared without her even realizing it.

“So I was right. It really was you last night,” Shinguuji Ryou said.

Tomoe angrily approached Shinichi, but Ryou wasn’t seeing her at all.

Only Shinichi was reflected in his eyes, and fear could even be gleamed from them as he muttered those words.

“Huh?” Tomoe said.

“So you really were lying when you said you didn’t remember anything.” Shinichi said.

“Huh!?” Tomoe said.

“…It’s faint, but I somewhat remember what I did. I wish it were just a dream, though,” Ryou said.

“Huh!?” Tomoe said.

“Kyu~” The fox said.

The conversation of the two boys deeply rattled Tomoe.

The only one who found this whole thing amusing was Shinichi.

Even the girl on his shoulders just sighed and thought to herself, ‘looks like this master of mine has found himself another toy’.

But Shinguuji Ryou didn’t even have the leisure to notice her.

“How come you could suddenly use spiritual power? And what was that speed? Just how were you able to break my sword with that tiny sword of yours!?”

He asked such understandable-yet-in-some-ways wrong questions rapidly.

Shinichi noticed it, but he just laughed and didn’t even bother hiding it.

Apparently, he had no intention of hiding this level of information to these two anymore.

“Because I’m used to handling that sort of mana(energy), just like photons. As for breaking your sword, if something is too little, so it can’t be improved, then you can just focus on a single point to harden it and increase its destructive power.”

“…What do you mean?”

Tomoe asked, but Ryou’s face showed that he was similarly confused.

This was a problem that plagued people like them that were born with plenty of power.

Because of their lack of experience, they never bother to think about efficiency or conserving energy. They don’t think too deeply on the usage of energy either.

But then again, there was also a vast difference between them. After all, Shinichi was even weaker than a normal person.

“…”

Despite Shinichi’s slight prejudice, he continued with a calm face.

“Being able to conjure such a large sword so quickly is worthy of praise, but you conjured it so suddenly that the amount of energy actually wasn’t enough, so all I needed to do was to pierce it with a blade that was overcharged with photon. It didn’t matter that the blade was much smaller.”

“That’s why the size and the total amount of energy across the whole blade didn’t matter…” Ryou muttered in shock.

No matter how much energy is poured into a giant blade.

If it is hit by an attack that focuses on a single point, even if that attack happens to have less energy than the entire sword, the bigger sword would still break. That’s even truer if the bigger sword isn’t even complete.

This was not something that someone needed to teach or realize, this was a common sense that anyone could figure out if they just thought about it.

However, this common sense wasn’t common sense in Garesto.

After all, it was a method that only a weakling could think of.

“What a simple logic, and yet you really made it happen. What was all that talk about only being able to copy others? You came up with something we could have never even thought of!”

Ryou and Tomoe were both shocked that they couldn’t think of something so simple without being told. Tomoe also found it frustrating that Shinichi could use her abilities, something she’s worked so hard to learn immediately, so she glared at Shinichi, but the latter just shrugged.

“This is copying too, though. It’s not my idea, and there are plenty of precedents.”

In Falandia, that is, but of course he didn’t mention that part.

They weren’t wholly satisfied with Shinichi’s explanation, but they knew that Shinichi wouldn’t say any more than that.

After learning his strength last night, they could no longer afford to push their luck with him too much.

“…Well, fine. Anyway, so the reason why you were so wary of him was because you remembered the events last night?” Tomoe asked.

“…Who wouldn’t be wary after something like that? Even if he used spiritual power, he still beat me up while I was wearing an exoskeleton,” Ryou said.

Tomoe noticed that this childhood friend of her was acting strange, but it was also true that no one living in this age could ignore the fact that Shinichi was able to beat him without an exoskeleton.

For some reason, though, Tomoe wasn’t at all reflected on Ryou’s eyes when he said that.

“The matter surrounding me is fine and all, but is that the only reason you’re so scared?” Shinichi asked.

“What, do you want to say?”

Shinichi’s eyes were sharp, so he noticed it, but more than that, he was familiar with this emotion.

After all, the tragedy that made him feel the same emotion Ryou was feeling now was something he could never forget.

It also changes the meaning of being ‘wary’ that Tomoe mentioned, after all…

“Since you remember what you did, then you should also remember the fact that you tried to kill us.”

“!” Ryou flinched.

“Hey, you don’t have to put it like that!” Tomoe said.

“It’s the truth. And that goes for you too. If anything had gone wrong last night, someone would have died. 　And I’m sure no one knows this better than the both of you, right?”

“That’s…”

“…”

The one who shoots, and the one who is shot. It was the truth, so they couldn’t refute it.

They used lethal force, and lethal force was also used against them.

Tomoe had experienced both sides, so she couldn’t help but go pale.

The only reason why Tomoe and Ryou were able to come out alive without killing anyone was because they coincidentally(・・) happened into Shinichi.

But they unconsciously averted their eyes from that truth, so when it was pointed out to them, they were shocked.

“I didn’t do it because I wanted to. My body wouldn’t listen to me. Surprisingly, those excuses aren’t very useful(・・・・・・).”

“”!?””

And then to prod at the opening they showed, Shinichi used even sharper and more accurate words.

From an outsider’s perspective, such excuses would indeed pass.

But to the people who committed the crime, such excuses weren’t enough. After all, they could clearly remember themselves committing the act.

Even if they couldn’t control their body, they could still remember the feeling of the act.

Even if it wasn’t on their own volition, they would still remember the frightened faces of the people they hurt.

No matter how much they scream in their hearts that it wasn’t their fault, they will never be able to forget the pain they caused.

The pain they caused with their own hands, their own weapons, with the power that they so desperately tried to sharpen.

That fear and despair wasn’t something that could disappear with such weak excuses.

“Don’t you think you’re being too naive? You’ve been using spiritual power and the weapons created by Garesto all this time, and yet until now, you still haven’t realized one important thing – they’re both weapons meant to kill.”