Published: September 2, 2025
Satou here. The last time I did self-analysis or self-improvement was during job hunting.
I’m just not in the mood to look inward.
◇
I set my bag down by the bed and sat on it.
Arisa started to take off the cloak she had been wearing over our bed and then casually began to strip off her inner clothes, so I lightly hit her head to stop her.
“Ow! What’s this? Weren’t you feeling attracted to me?”
“Save that for ten years from now.”
“Oh, come on... such a rare opportunity to ravage a young boy’s body...”
While she joked, Arisa fixed her disheveled clothes and sat on the bed opposite mine.
“The thing you wanted to talk about this afternoon? Did something happen?”
“Where do I even start...?”
“Just say everything. You know the saying: ‘The king’s ears are donkey ears’—meaning secrets never stay hidden.”
Wasn’t that more for when everything eventually comes out in the end?
“Well then, why don’t you try saying everything except the hard parts? If I order you not to tell anyone, you won’t be able to say it anyway.”
“Hm... alright.”
When I explained, I slightly changed the story to say that when I arrived here, I used a disposable skill to attack from long range and wiped out the Scale Tribe settlement.
I spoke quite stiffly, but for some reason Arisa gave a wry smile.
“What’s wrong? That’s not a tall tale, is it?”
“I understand that, but the unique skill is our trump card, so we have to keep it under wraps.”
“Sorry, I’ll be careful.”
“So what’s the consultation about? Was the wiped-out Scale Tribe Liza’s family or something?”
Arisa asked while hugging her knees on the bed. Her new skirt was long enough not to show her underwear, so I felt at ease.
Liza’s family was said to be a tribe living in a marshland far from here. Years ago, they lost a conflict against the weasel tribe and were destroyed, I heard during a roasted frog meat party. Apparently, when the family was wandering, they were caught by human tribe slave hunters. They also said it was too terrifying to approach Dragon Valley.
“No, that’s not it. I accidentally wiped out an entire tribe, but I didn’t feel any guilt. Even if I did, I just switched my feelings on and off like flipping a switch. I can detach so easily it’s like someone else is controlling my mind...”
If Arisa hadn’t used mental magic on me and manipulated my mind, maybe I wouldn’t have even noticed...
“If this were your past life, you’d just dismiss that as paranoia!”
“That’s not quite it. It’s more like vacuum-packing the ‘guilt’ and tossing it into a closet... it’s hard to explain.”
“Hmm? So you were cold-blooded from the start or something?”
“I was a programmer, so I like thinking efficiently, but no one ever called me cold-blooded. If a game I made got criticized online, I’d be down for a few days.”
“Oh, so you were a game developer? What kind of games did you make?”
“I’ll tell you another time. But more importantly—”
“You want to know what causes the ON/OFF switch?”
Arisa interrupted me with a sly smile.
“Probably because your MND (mental strength) is high?”
“True, it’s high, but...”
“When VIT (vitality) is high, you can take a punch, right? MND is like that but for your mind. Of course, if you consciously think about it, guilt would bother you, but unless you’re a masochist, it disappears quickly.”
Is that so?
So it’s not some mysterious interference, just a matter of status values...
◇
“Okay, next question.”
“Alrighty, bring it on!”
Arisa teased me, but having someone to talk to like this was reassuring.
“According to that logic, if INT (intelligence) is high, memory should improve, but I feel like I’ve been forgetting things more than before. What do you think?”
“Geez, you’re already showing signs of amnesia at your age?”
When she tried to chop me, I quickly guarded.
Her flustered and unrefined posture was so cute I decided not to punish her.
“Just kidding. INT raises comprehension and memory, but it’s not uniform. If high INT meant no forgetfulness, the absent-minded scholars wouldn’t exist, right?”