Kono Sekai ga Game da to, Ore dake ga Shitte Iru (WN) – Chapter 157

As expected, the comments section will soon be…

I don’t plan to keep you waiting long until the resolution from here, so avoidance is recommended.

After that, no one left the living room, and time passed peacefully, but for me, it felt like walking on needles.

The change happened at 8 PM.

“Well then, I’ll go and give that child a stern talking-to.”

Miz, her eyes filled with quiet anger, stood up, and about ten minutes later…

“I-I’m finally back!”

The useless maid returned.

“Ah. Welcome back, Lilm.”

“Ah, Soma-san! I’m home!! It was awful, please listen! Miz-sama, who was supposed to be my relief, suddenly started lecturing me…”

“Ah, yeah. That must have been tough.”

As the direct victim, I couldn’t really take the useless maid’s side. I brushed it off and got to the main point.

“By the way, how were the room’s conditions? Were there any abnormalities?”

“The room? Ah, the barrier room? Miz-sama and I didn’t enter the room, so I don’t know the finer details… Is something wrong?”

The useless maid tilted her head with a puzzled expression, and I shook my head and chuckled.

“No, it’s fine if nothing happened. Yes. Good, good.”

For some reason, my actions were being monitored by multiple people. If I probed too deeply, they’d find it strange. I didn’t need to push it here; there were plenty of other ways to approach this. I backed off easily.

For an hour after the useless maid returned from her watch, a total of two pairs left the living room.

The first pair was the useless maid and Maki. As the useless maid, eager to salvage her reputation, brewed and brought tea with great enthusiasm, she tripped.

“Hyawa! Aaaah!!”

With a staged scream, she fell, making a large stain on her maid uniform, and went to change. Maki also accompanied her to the front of the room and returned about ten minutes later.

The second pair was Fu and Ena. Fu, fidgeting, raised her hand and said, “U-um, I need to use the restroom…” and Ena went with her. Both returned in less than five minutes.

Otherwise, everyone else spent their time leisurely in the living room, chatting with their companions, watching me, standing with their eyes closed, watching me again, looking displeased while smoking, or watching me yet again.

And then, at 9 PM. It was time for the guard rotation again.

“Alright, it’s my turn now!”

“Ah, wait a moment!”

I called out to Asu, who was about to go on watch, pressed some small, glittering trinket that would delight a child into his hand, and asked him to do something.

“Huh? Yeah. It’s fine—!”

I could feel stares piercing me from all around, but I had no choice. I wanted to feel at ease as soon as possible.

“Well, I’m off—!!”

Fortunately, Asu headed for his watch without anyone stopping him. The results would be known in an hour. As I smiled gleefully, Mitsuki came to stand beside me.

“What did you ask him to do just now?”

“No, I just asked him to check on the room’s condition. …You can confirm it with him yourself, if you’d like.”

When I finished speaking, Mitsuki shook her head slightly and moved away. Everyone here was truly mistrustful. After Miz returned, she took Ringo somewhere. About five minutes later, Fai said, “Tsk! I’m out of nicotine,” and went to his room with Elm. Coincidentally, this meant three users of barrier magic had left the room simultaneously. I glanced at Mitsuki to see if this was alright.

“No problem. I can see everything.”

The immediate reply was unnerving in its reassuring nature. The four of them rejoined at some point and returned about five minutes after Fai and the others left the room.

—At 10 PM. After Fai left, the long-awaited news arrived. Asu, returning from his watch, ran over to me and whispered the result in my ear.

“Alright!”

Ignoring the surrounding gazes, I clenched my fist. Asu looked at me and said, “That’s weird—” before leaving. It seemed Elm asked him something on the way, but I was no longer interested. Everything should go smoothly now… or so I hoped.

Past ten o’clock, and everyone was starting to show signs of fatigue. Amidst this, Asu and Sahzan complained about being hungry, and Elm and Miz headed to the kitchen. I followed them. They seemed to have used up most of the remaining ingredients, but by using a gem infused with fire magic for cooking, they finished the late-night snack in just about fifteen minutes. Incidentally, Asu wolfed down the snack, while Sahzan left more than half. …If you have a small appetite, don’t pretend to be hungry.

A while later, after 10:40 PM, I secretly began preparations for the upcoming event. The surrounding gazes were still focused on me. Looking at the clock was too obvious, so I tried to act as naturally as possible while reserving magic for the event that was about to unfold.

And then, precisely at 10:45 PM. Suddenly, the light in the world vanished.

“Wh-what is this!?”

“What’s happening!?”

From the darkness came someone’s panicked voice. However, I, who had experienced this event in the game, remained calm. In the darkness, I reached out without hesitation and put my hand into my Adventurer’s Bag. Operations within an item box-type storage space do not rely on sight. My hand moved freely even in the darkness, effortlessly retrieving an item…

“I-it’s dark and scary!!”

Suddenly, something bumped into my waist, causing me to lose my balance.

“Hey, who is it! Get off me!!”

“I don’t like the dark! I don’t like the dark!!”

Whether panicking or not, communication was impossible. I gave up trying to push it away and continued with the item operation.

“Ku! Light!!”

A few seconds later, when Shizun used light magic, I had also managed to take out a lantern from my Adventurer’s Bag. I used Fire magic to light the lantern.

“…Damn it… I was supposed to be the one to light the lamp first.”

Grumbling, I lowered my gaze and said, “…It’s your fault, Sahzan.”

“Feh?”

To the self-proclaimed great dark mage clinging to me, I sent a hateful remark.

The room suddenly went dark due to what would be called a power outage in modern times. It seemed to be a malfunction in the device supplying magic power to the mansion, and it was restored in about five minutes without any intervention. As soon as the lights came back on, there was a commotion about Fu being missing, but she was just trembling under the table. Although she seemed mature, she was still age-appropriate and adorable in that regard. A stark contrast to Sahzan, who was not age-appropriate. By this point, very few people were leaving the room. When the power outage ended, it was immediately 11 PM, and Fu, who said she was scared to be alone, was accompanied by Ena to go on watch. They were replaced by Fai, who returned. There was no particular conversation. Between 11 PM and midnight, there were almost no movements, but Shizun, who had not moved once until now, went out for about five minutes accompanied by Elm. The surveillance was gone, but I didn’t feel any joy. I idly passed the time, not doing anything in particular. Time passed slowly. As the appointed time approached, I could sense everyone becoming restless. But it would all be over soon. I waited patiently for that moment.

And then, just before 12:05 AM, the time we had all been waiting for.

“…Well then, shall we go?”

Shizun opened her mouth with a solemn tone, and everyone in the room silently followed.

“Ah, Oto-san…”

“Soma-san!”

We rendezvoused with Fu and Ena at the entrance of the barrier room. Shizun used her key to open the door. The door creaked open, and then…

“…Good. The barrier is still here.”

Shizun let out a sigh of relief. Voices like “Tsk. I knew it.” and “So it was just a prank after all.” followed.

“Oto-san. We should probably check, just in case…”

“Ah, you’re right. Let’s check inside, just to be sure.”

However, Shizun nodded as if reconsidering Fu’s words and created barrier magic with her own hands, applying it sequentially to red and blue Crystals. Gradually, the barrier protecting the ‘Ring of Immortality’ thinned, and behind it…

“I-impossible!!”

There was a pillar with nothing on it, the ring nowhere to be seen.

“The ring is… gone!?”

Fai, peeking from behind, uttered this with an unbelievable expression. A ripple of murmurs spread from there.

“It can’t be. I had been keeping track of the positions of everyone in this mansion. Not a single person stayed in this room for more than a minute…”

As I listened to Mitsuki’s dazed muttering, I cast my gaze sideways. …In the right corner of the room, the “Un” character that I had carved with Fire of Sh was completely gone.

Maki’s Memo

Exit Log
[18:00-19:00 Watch: Elm]
・18:20-18:30
Fai, Soma
・18:40-19:00
Soma, Rilum, Maki

[19:00-20:00 Watch: Rilum]
・19:10-19:15
Soma, Elm
・19:35-19:45
Soma, Mitsuki, Elm, Ringo, Maki

[20:00-21:00 Watch: Miz]
・20:30-20:40
Rilum, Maki
・20:45-20:55
Fu, Ena

[21:00-22:00 Watch: Asu]
・21:05-21:15
Miz, Ringo
・21:10-21:15
Fai, Elm

[22:00-23:00 Watch: Fai]
・22:05-22:20
Soma, Miz, Elm
・22:45-22:50
Power outage

[23:00-00:00 Watch: Fu + Ena]
・23:15-23:20
Shizun, Elm
・23:55-00:00
Everyone