Capítulo 30: Upside/down

A/N->

[]- Thoughts

" "- Human speech

[" "]- Some kind of Foreign being speaking.

<>- Some kind of order, special phenomenon, special move, etc.

Now, let us begin without any ado.

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"Do you want to talk about it?", Aether whispered into my ears. His feathery voice seemed to linger with too much inspiration from a very particular someone.

It maddened me...

"Do I look like I want to talk? COME ON, look at my face and take a guess..."

"Okay. I won't ask about it. But won't we be pretty bored if we can't spend our time doing something fun?"

"Yeah, fun for me. It would be a TORTURE for you to hear it..."

"Come on. Pretty please?", I could feel the smug smile of Aether as I hear him say this. I wanted to break his jaw that very moment.

"OKAY", I said half-heartedly. I forced myself to not keep him in the dark.

"Remind me to erase your express sequence. He is turning too much human, too much like me. Is the writer just spewing random bull now?"

"I don't know who the writer is. But I will assume you don't particularly like him. Still, on the note of communication, I am transmitting brain signals from your Unimatrix into your brain. Thus we would have a short-range telepathic communication."

"You just made that up, didn't you?"

"Yeah"

"Remind me..."

"I am sorry what were you saying?"

"You little Mickey Mouse piece of SHIT!!!"

"Give me a chance", I said without trying to look too pathetic. I was too messed up anyway. So I focused on the situation ahead of me. I was stuck in a rather spry dilemma and this argument was already getting on my nerves.

"I insist you do it", My voice was laced with both steel and venom, warning them against disapproval. As my heart raced with anticipation and fear seized my body like frost, I could barely see, much less figure out what my temporary hosts thought of my foolish statement.

'Get your act together Hiro. You fail this, you WILL fail them'

I shook my head in frustration. The pain and numbness had made me blind to where I stood. I was merely a child throwing random tantrums while playing as an adult. I failed to see the bigger picture. One where I, no matter whether a Dragon Slayer or the Unimatrix, would disappear if these two even wished so.

But could you fix what was irredeemably wrong? Foolishness was so deeply ingrained in my brain that it had erased any semblance of rational thought from my one-track mind. Which had already been side-tracked to revenge. What was going to start as an adventure, had already gotten far out of the flipping hand. It has become personal.

And I would not rest until I pay Zero back in full, for all her blessings she has so kindly WASTED UPON ME!!

As an unholy visage covered my treacherous face, I couldn't tell if I was the one speaking. Black bile, sweetly bitter rose from my throat and I relished it. I wanted to remember this feeling with my whole being, his burning desire for cold, cruel revenge.

A murderous laugh was all I could make out, "Hmm heh heh haa haaaaah hhahaaaahhhahahaha!"(Use google translate. This sounds like laughter in Japanese if you play the audio. I swear). I was forced to cover my face, lest my rage spill would over and make me do something I regret.

I was at the end of my ropes and literally at the end of the line, "I WILL SELL YOU A CHANCE TO MAKE A DECISION FOR THE FATE OF A PLANET. I WILL NOT INTERFERE! For just a single moment, you have the voice of reason under your orders in return for a wish of mine. DO WE HAVE A DEAL?"

I knew what I was doing. Selling the fate of billions of life forms just to get a wish. But I had already fallen down the proverbial gutter, what more did I have to lose?

["MOTION DENIED"]["MOTION ACCEPTED"]

A grim smirk adorned my face as I looked toward the acceptor of my deal. Belicus, heh, always the angry one, had accepted without any regard. He was far more interested in bickering and chatting with Selena than keeping me here. And I can't thank him enough for it. I didn't even care if Serena seemed to hurt.

["But we will choose the planet now. It will be..."]

My ears refused to hear the blasphemy that seemed to spill out of Belicus's mouth. My mind refused to play this sick game all over again, powerful gods playing with me like puppets, enjoying their game of trickery and unfairness. It should already be over. Why do I have to live this moment again and again and AGAIN?

["Earth 1001613151441. We hereby pass the proposal of its anhilation]"

<Kneel>

Hiro's eyes had hardened and turned into narrowed slits as he transfixed the two in a hostile glare. His nostrils flared as he stared at their faces. His face was contorted in rage.

His feral fangs bared open as if he wanted to tear them apart with his own teeth. He looked at them with fist clenched, shoulders rolled back, willing himself to calm down.

Nothing was going his way.

["Motion Accepted"]["Motion Accepted"]

["Voice of reason has already accepted. Carry motion forward..."]

"BELICUS! SERENA! I WILL KILL YOU! IF YOU DO THIS, I WILL MAKE SURE NOT EVEN YOUR REMAINS ARE FOUND. I WILL CHASE YOU TO HELL AND DESTROY YOUR VERY SOUL! I WILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUR KIND AND I WILL NOT STOP UNTIL I DO SO! I WILL MAKE YOU FEEL SO MUCH PAIN THAT NOT EVEN THE REAL GOD WOULD BE ABLE TO FIX YOU!"

"REMEMBER MY FACE! THESE HANDS, THEY WILL SEE YOUR DESTRUCTION. REMEMBER ME AND MY NAME THAT EVERY CELESTIALSAPIAN WILL COME TO FEAR."

"I DARE YOU TO CARRY THAT MOTION FORWARD!!!"

["5"]

All my thoughts were a wreck, banging into me like a train, with its horns blowing over. Bleeping faster and faster, like my heart was about to burst out.

["4']

But somewhere in my heart, I asked myself. Did I consider myself worthy enough to decide others' fate like that?

["3"]

Was I that much of a bastard? A piece of shit so bent on getting revenge...

["2"]

I screamed, screamed to no one. "DON'T YOU DARE DO THIS TO ME!!! YOU KNOW HOW TO FIX THIS...FIX IT, REVERSE TIME OR SHIT!!! I DON"T GIVE A CRAP...HELP ME OUT OF THIS... YOU ARE A GOD!!!"

No one answered. Who would be foolish enough to answer a murderer?

Not Me.

["1"]

A cold murderer who does anything to get what he wants or was I a cynical psychopath who thought his family would love him if he killed, slaughtered, butchered, children, women, fathers, sisters...

["ZERO"]

I closed my eyes. Like I had closed my mind to all this unnecessary violence. I felt like I was in gory fanfic or something. Its writer is not even half decent to write a damn straight scene. Like that bastard of a writer was purposefully making me go through all this. Just for a sick joke.

I was the parody guy who is supposed to spit in the faces of that overpowered Isekai bubblefucks. Yet my life itself was no less a parody. No world-building, no Slice of Life or Romance. I was stuck in this mickey-mouse life.

My life was "Guts" and nuts. And I had just "CSGO'd" my life's purpose.

"Just do it... End it here"

*Pfft*["*Ahem*Sorry. WE WON'T BE DOING THAT. To make sure you aren't pussy enough to give up halfway, we had to put you through all this." ]

["Consider this a 'passing' gift from Vi. This course's not for jokers. But congratulations human. You lasted 12315.462 seconds more than the other guys. This was to test your conviction because the life of a single planet cannot be bigger than the life of an entire universe."]

I guess I wasn't built strong enough. Well, could you blame me? As my cold body hit the bottom, a plague of thought was kind enough to enter my mind.

These pieces of shit will find something jokes in everything. So why don't I solve the problem for them? You see it's pretty simple, you just have to take a knife, hold it against your throat, and press slightly so you have a clean cut. And then slice as your life depended on it. And trust me, it will.

Catch my drift yet? It's easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, the chaddest problem solver of all time (A/N-> DO Not try this at home. Please. Seriously, when will people learn to take a joke? But anybody who does it, is totally GAY!!!)

"Ugh..."

< Sometime later>

"Gah!"

I woke up with a jolt, right in the face of the two other beings in this dimension. I sit there flabbergasted at what I had done, and what they did. The situation had blown so out of proportion.

I had to resign myself to the only choice left.

An exit and hopefully a restart into this bland recurring story.

But though many people wish for a happy ending, life always doesn't roll that way. Sometimes you just have to ride the powerful waves or risk getting crushed by them.

So I looked up, determined to stop beating around the bush, and got straight to the point, my anger and hatred diminishing ever so slightly.

"Why?"

["Because you are needed?"]

"I couldn't do anything to her. All my power, training that I had done, just gone...Didn't put a scratch."

["You were never to defeat her alone. Only united can you get even close to being a fair match."]

"And why would I do so? I can't die. At least you won't let me. So what's stopping me from just sitting here doing nothing? And even if you did throw me out, who's to say I will continue my supposed 'adventure'?"

["You get to know..."]

It didn't take me a second to reply. After all these exaggerated blow overs, I didn't know what to do with myself. When I came in, I was a kid with plans, terrible plans, but fun plans. I dreamed about what I could do when I went into those worlds, and how the characters would react to my powers. And how I could make or break something.

But now, it's different. No longer do I have those plans, and nor am I going to follow them. I can't let some people suffer just because I felt like having a longer adventure, just because I thought the villain could be redeemed. No, from now on my moves will be swift and as brutal as necessary. No flare but no goofy adventure tale either.

I will become the type of guy that drop-kicks any asshats that deserve it. I might go challenging people but it wouldn't be for entertainment only. And for a goddamn time, I am going to stop these filler chapters which the writer of my life novel is too happy to write.

For how much longer am I gonna be stuck like this? I haven't visited even the first world yet!!!

"What is there to know about?"

["How to get them back"]

"How?"

"You need to collect the pieces that have scattered out. Now each piece of One's remnants is paired up with each of the guardians. However, be warned Hiro Narukami. If you miss even a single piece of the puzzle, you will never be able to meet them again."

"You can bet on it".

["Then off you go. Until we meet again."]

Don't want to be that guy, but I don't truly didn't want to be a kind-hearted good fellow anymore. What I must do required precision and cruelty. There was no place for emotion. Never was.

Nor do I have the 'I will be a hero' disorder anymore. I know I can't save everyone and I won't nag about it...

*Sigh* ok maybe I will, but not too much!!!

"Wai...Whooahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh", and thus my journey had begun.

I had proverbially fallen down the hell hole. I didn't even want to know why all this commotion had happened.

I was more interested in what was before me. Looks like my visit to the first world is in order. Finally out of those clammy claustrophobic places, I could take a moment to breathe afresh and enjoy the view.

As speedy winds, actual winds grace my face one more, I truly begin to appreciate being alive once more. Yet not completely out of the cheerful hysteria, I could barely hear Aether screaming my ear off. The black cascade of the night sky was slowly receding, giving way to the light of a new day.

Living in dark and colorless dimensions had numbed my brain from those recurring sceneries. I had completely forgotten how beautiful the world of living looked. How utterly breathtaking it could be, how magnificent its glory was. All around me in the parade of gleaming stars, sparkling even brighter stood the sun. Its fiery blaze lit up the blue sky, clouds, and all that stood under it.

The sun looked redder than a rose and announced it's rise to the world.

["Hiro! Hiro! You didn't select a destination. And you are falling from several thousands of feet high! Do you even know where you are going!?"].

Judging by his worried voice, I couldn't dismiss this away as a bluff. I carefully brought the transporter out from my pocket dimension, like really, yanked it out from there. I carefully examined it, trying to get a grasp of where I even was. I didn't want to be NEAR any dangerous places in the condition I am currently in.

Yet I could only be bedazzled by the beauty of the bustling contraption before me. The city, if I am even correct, could be called a sub-continent, judging by its size. It was built like a fortress, surrounded by walls from all sides. A river of clear blue water cut right through the city, and its channels divided the city into millions of smaller sections. The city did indeed possess a sacred sanctity of its own and was like a vibrant oasis in the desolate landscape.

I was familiar with this city, or I had seen this somewhere. It looked vaguely familiar with the place I had wanted to be. Or I could be completely wrong and this city could turn out to be something entirely different. It could turn out to be the Shiganshina District from Attack on Titan or even the corrupt empire's kingdom from Akame ga Kill. And who's to say it is not the beginner town of the death game SAO?

I would have waited and admired it more but I was running out of time.

I was missing necessary body parts and motor functions, it goes without saying I had to be super careful and even have to find a hospital quickly.

I needed things done. And fast. So I tried looking at the teleporter to get some help...

The thing was crushed, completely crushed, bent out of shape. The face plate that showed the destinations was completely blackened out, with pieces of glass sticking out of its surface. It also had holes on its sides, which I don't doubt were buttons for different settings. And on the top-most corner, a button was seemingly jammed into it's frame.

This thing wasn't even in the condition of showing time, much less help me hop dimensions. And yet, by the sheer stroke of luck, it was working. It was alive even after all this shit.

["Hiro! We are dangerously close to the surface! I don't want to be an omelet splattered on the roadside!!! Do something quickly!"]

"Is the suit working?"

["It would support one last linear flight before you would eventually have to repair it!"]

It was funny how Aether was fussing about being turned into a splatter. Even I didn't care that much. If I survived everything that's happened, I would survive this.

<"System Online. Processing Boot-up Program... Flight systems online... Damage on the right thruster left legs thrusters non-functional">

"It will be enough", I shouted as the suit encased my body in less than a second. It compelled itself to be arranged in small pieces across my body, intelligently forming necessary parts only. And within seconds, I had two arms and one prosthetic leg attached to me. Holes formed on my palms and feet, they glowed blue. And pure repulsor rays started pouring down. Fighting tooth and nail against gravity to slow my descent.

"Fire systems at full go. We need all the power we can get!"

The suit pulled it off. I was able to stop a few hundred feet before colliding with a nearby building. I am glad I didn't.

I was barely hovering in the sky, unscathed purely because of my luck. Jittering and shaking uncontrollably as my thrusters switch on and off randomly.

'It seems my luck is on overtime today. I barely managed to stabilize before those winds could knock me down. *Whew* That was too close for comfort.'

I found myself surrounded by a jungle of concrete and bustle. Tall buildings made of wood and concrete dominated the scenery, with small traces of frequently occurring silhouettes of people. I was too high to make out anything about them properly.

As I looked over, my HUD lighted up and marked buildings in blue, after marking the humans in orange. Yet even without it, I could see the variety. These were not normal people, because as far as I know normal people didn't have long ears or have a tail sticking out of their rear.

"Aether, can you hear me?", I quipped in the comm of the HUD.

"Yes, I can hear you, Hiro. We are in a really bad condition. The outer hull has been severely breached and we are leaking oxygen. Power is at just 3% left. I suggest you eject the suit for now. I am barely managing our flight right now!"

"Ok. I will do...", I proceeded to angle myself forward to travel away, looking for a safe place to land. It wouldn't do me any good to disrupt the peace of such a beautiful city.

<"Flight system destabilized">

<Poof>

Oh shit...

"AHAAHAHAHAHAH". The suit suddenly went off, and with that my movements. I had completely forgotten that the suit couldn't move an inch without any power. So no matter how much I writhed on the inside trying to get out of this metal coffin, I could do nothing as I watched the black wooden roof of a building approach my face. I would've asked Aether where my backup power was, had I not been too busy falling.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"<Crash><Boom>

....................................................

As I crashed into the nearby building, I couldn't help but notice how close it looked to a hotel. Through the crevices of my blurry vision, I saw people sitting there, having their daily meals.

However, with splinters of broken wood pieces sticking into my cheeks and forehead, I could only get a good look at the person on whose table I had fallen onto.

A guy wearing a green jacket with a crooked look on his face, before I lost my consciousness. He seemed more distressed than angry.

"Ugh, HELP ME", was the only word I could make out of my mouth before I fell unconscious.

As I floated in a once-in-a-while peaceful dream, I was unappreciatively brought back to reality by a jerk. I was reminded by my subconscious that I had fallen down and crashed into a building.

The first thing I did was to check my body for cuts or marks. Or for anything to indicate that I had been poisoned. But there were none. I was as clean as a baby.

I tried listening carefully to figure out what the people outside were saying, only to find that I couldn't.

'My dragon senses should not fail like that.'

I looked around, only to find myself in a room. I was lying in a white bed, small but magically cozy. I had to make a visible effort to lift my head from the addicting confines of the bed and force myself to look around for something that would give me information. Or an exit in case of emergency.

Immediately my sight was met by wooden walls, glossily polished but with little to show for it. The room was a little too minimalistic for my taste, just containing the necessities. I figured I was in a healing room of some sort. The room was just dimly lit with a single candle providing all the light in the room. There was also a sweet smell of lavender in the air, no doubt from the incense sticks they had used to keep the room fragrant.

It also had a dresser, white in color, with one of its drawers sticking out. Within that were some of the longest needles I had seen in my life.

'If they used that to treat me, I am glad I was knocked unconscious.'

<Creak>A glint caught my eye as the door in front of me parted ever so slightly and a plethora of people came in. Young, old, human or other, men, women, and children. All had come here just for a view of the strange anomaly that had destroyed their building, shattered its roof, and interrupted their meal time. But in the forefront of it all was a part I could definitely claim I knew.

The group of people gradually approached me. I could already make out the distress in their voices, still struggling with the idea if I was one of their enemies or a lone meteorite.

So I started with the most basic question in the entire history of mankind. It was sure to give me insight into important information.

"Who Are YOU?"

I had to feign surprise as I curled myself defensively in the hospital bed. I guess my behavior was somewhat warranted. After all, I was surrounded by people from all sides. The small room was already beyond its holding capacity.

However, my next question hit the home run.

"WHO AM I?!!" I was an all-natural in this sort of acting. Having been a loner all my life, I had mastered the art of social awkwardness, like a true proud otaku.

An Anemic enemy was better than a healthy one...

As soon as I said that, all the people's chatter died down. Now they stared at me with curiosity rather than fear and urgency. They seemed to accept this excuse more readily, possibly because it helped their conscious more than getting to know I was one of the Demon King's general.

Ignorance was truly blissful...

A girl moved towards me and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me frantically.

"You fell here from the SKY! Did you truly forget it? I guess you are a numbskull after all", I didn't even have to look to find out who spoke those words. Those words were so close, so perfectly tailored to the character Aqua that I didn't have words to describe it.

Aqua was just a regular teenage girl. She could be cute when it gave her an advantage and cruel and annoying when something bored her. Just like a real girl, she changed moods as many times as a regular girl changed her clothes.

Yet I still liked her. She was far more expressive and truthful, brutally so, unlike the fake smiles and giggles the real-world girls seemed to freely throw everywhere. <Insert Coffin dance song here, as the author proceeds to prepare his own deathbed. I am truly sorry to any of the honest-to-God girls who read this.>

Possessing divine beauty, Aqua has light blue hair and eyes, a slim figure with ample breasts, long legs, wide hips, and blue waist-long hair that is partially tied into a loop with a spherical clip.

Aqua uses a sleeveless dark-blue feather dress with white trimmings, an extremely short dark blue miniskirt, a green bow around her chest with a blue gem in the middle, and a translucent purple underskirt, and detached white sleeves with blue and golden trimmings. She wears thigh-high blue heeled boots over white stockings with blue trimmings.

Sometimes Aqua wears a divine relic in the form of a translucent pink hagoromo, which can disappear and reappear around her at her will. Her hair clip resembles an H2O molecule. She is the great Arch-wizard of the Kazuma party.

<Snatch> Somebody snatched me from Aqua's grasp and proceeded to shake me even furiously. I could barely keep my head straight from the force being used. This red-clad chunibyo was stronger than she looked.

I feel she would have screamed inside my brain if she could. "Did you get hit by a meteor? And how did you survive such a beautifuldevastatingexplosion?"

"I don't know what you are talking about...Though I am sure I haven't met this meteor guy you keep screaming about." Absolute immunity. Trust me, life's a lot better when you do this. As they say 'Ignore the problems, continue your Grind...'

"Oh! I am so sorry.", she seemed embarrassed. I guess shaking a guy she didn't know must not have looked good on her profile. (No dirty double-meaning sentences here. Do not even look)

Megumin is someone I would describe to be a pure, kind-hearted young woman. She seemed pretty fun to be around and I genuinely liked her. She was pretty normal.

'Wellexceptwhensheridesherstaffleudlyandmoansaboutdoingfieryexplosionsonhardandsturdythings'

Megumin is a young girl with shoulder-length dark brown hair (smooth black in light novel) and oddly languid crimson-colored eyes. She has fair skin, a light complexion, and doll-like features. Unlike her classmates on Crimson Village, who has a more developed body, Megumin seems to have a delicate under-developed figure.

Megumin wears classical witch attire such as a black cloak, a red robe, orange boots, and a black wizard's hat, all with gold border and trimmings, alongside a black choker, belt, and fingerless gloves. Megumin's right leg is wrapped in white bandages and a black stocking on the left one. She carries a brown staff with a floating red gem.

"AaaaH... how I would like to be hit by a hard meteor", oh boy this was a dangerous one. That obscene panting could only belong to one individual in the entire anime history. Lalatina The Darkness.

Well, I can explain her in three magical words.

MASOCHIST! IRREDEEMABLE MASOCHIST!!

Born with the innate desire for pain and public exhibitionism, Darkness has a pretty straightforward personality. She likes things that give her pain and fantasies about being violated in different ways. That is literally what she thinks all the time.

Darkness is a 5'6" tall young woman with graceful features and alabaster skin, Darkness is drop-edge gorgeous. She is well-endowed and also has light blue eyes and straight, long blonde hair, usually kept in a ponytail tied with a braid and red hair clips secured on both sides of her bangs.

She is usually seen using a yellow and black sleeveless dress with silver trimmings that hides her body (plump in the right places), black chainmail, and a silver armor composed of metal greaves, sabatons, tasset, shoulder plate on her left side, wing-like cloth perched upon her right shoulder and a cuirass with a red bow.

And Oh god do I love her. I mean every hormonal teenager would. She is extremely 'family-friendly'. So much so that you can watch her episodes with your TV at full volume. (Please don't do that...). Besides this, she is sometimes the running gag, a true pioneer of a CRINGEX100 personality.

"HEY, you all! Cut the guy some slack!!! He might have concussions for God's sake!!!"

It goes without saying I like Kazuma. He is everything I would want in a friend. He is one of the few Isekai protagonists that I actually liked who generally has to work his shit to get things done. He is a funny guy like me and actually values his friends, unlike some people who just scream, "With the power of friendship, I will defeat you..."(I mean sure there are other examples, but most Isekai protags are just "Ugh").

He is the true pioneer of Gender equality, a quality which even I strive towards, and he is ready to drop kick any rotten woman that deserves it. He is everything an otaku will be if he gets sent to a fantasy world before dying a shitty death.

Kazuma is a 5'4" (162 cm) tall young man weighing 120lb (54 kg) with slightly spiky chestnut-brown hair and green eyes (brown eyes in the light novel). His usual outfit initially wore a green tracksuit, but later he started using an adventurer outfit consisting of a gold-trimmed green mantle, white shirt, pants, and leather boots. He wore a short sword on his belt, later replaced by his short katana, Chunchunmaru.

"Ugh, ouch! Hah...". Feeling this was not the proper time to introduce myself I faked a headache and immediately dropped to the bed. Writhing in fake agony, I tried and failed to stop the pain eating away at my head.

I grabbed the hands of Megumin from the bed since she was leaning beside me the whole time and proceeded to present to the audience the most cliched dialogue in history.

"I don't... I don't feel... so good" and fell unconscious. My plan seemed to work as people began clearing out, having accepted the wait to give me time to recover myself before they could ask further questions.

But I could feel her eyes on me. The suspicious blue eyes now seemed to follow my every move and told me that we WILL talk about this later.

I didn't know Aqua had enough brain power to figure out the hints I had purposefully thrown her way.

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