Chapter 4
I felt faint for a moment and, clutching the armrest of the chair beside me, steadied myself. As my vision cleared I hurriedly looked around.
“Cough, cough…! Is everyone alright?”
“Yes, Hero. Fortunately the explosion happened where there were no people. The passengers and crew are safe!”
The former airline security officer brushed the smoke away from his eyes with his hand as he spoke.
As he said, the passengers and crew didn’t appear to be seriously injured. There were some small scratches here and there, but nothing major.
“I’m sorry, Hero. I spoke too hastily when I called you that…”
He bowed to me with a serious expression and apologized.
It was true that because he’d exposed my identity I’d nearly been killed, but I hadn’t expected the terrorist to have accomplices either.
I accepted his apology without hesitation.
“It’s fine. Honestly, I didn’t expect there to be accomplices either.”
By the way, I’d been wondering why they hadn’t tried to assassinate me directly and instead went through the trouble of crashing the airship—but apparently they only had information that “the Hero chosen by the goddess will be on this airship,” and they didn’t know exactly who that would be.
“Uhm, excuse me—this isn’t the time for that…!”
At that moment his niece, a flight attendant who’d come running up from behind, spoke up. She must have been some distance from the explosion site because she looked unhurt.
“There! The place where the explosion happened! It’s the room with the magical flight apparatus!”
“W-what did you say?”
At her shout, the former security officer replied in a startled voice.
The magical flight apparatus—put simply, it was the equivalent of an airplane engine.
Unlike a fuel-burning engine, it used magical power, so at least there wouldn’t be a large chain reaction of explosions. But without it, the airship would naturally fall.
As if to back up that thought, the airship began to shake wildly.
“Passengers, our airship will attempt an emergency landing due to hull failure. Please remain in your seats and fasten your seat belts.”
A tense announcement came through, and the crew started guiding passengers back to their seats.
A crash after all! I’d tried so hard to stop it—wasn’t I changing things? Couldn’t I change the set story? Was this fate?
I sat in my seat and bit my teeth. A flood of injustice rose up inside me.
But it didn’t last long.
A thought came that not everything was the same; some things had changed. A tiny glimmer of hope stirred.
Originally, the explosion had occurred at the bow, the pilots were lost, and the airship plunged rapidly into the sea, leaving almost no survivors.
But this time the explosion had happened at the stern, and fortunately all the pilots were safe.
They’d said there was an auxiliary device at the bow that could keep the ship flying briefly in case the main flight apparatus failed.
So with this, couldn’t we possibly make a safe emergency landing on the sea?
I decided not to let go of that thread of hope.
Inside the rocking airship, people cried out to the goddess.
I was the only one who was different.
Goddess Hagionia or whatever—if I die again I seriously won’t forgive it!
This is an unfair contract! I never believed in gods to begin with, and I never wanted to be the goddess’s chosen hero and save the world.
Sure, I enjoyed the game—enjoyed it! But who would like it if that game suddenly appeared in reality?
Adventures that save the world are fun only when kept a safe distance beyond a monitor.
Everyone, squeezing out a faith they didn’t have, prayed to the goddess to save them—while I, the one person chosen by her, cursed the goddess.
It was a thoroughly ironic situation.
A short moment later, while fear hung heavy in the air, the airship hit the sea.
The impact—thud—was so strong it made me think of the instant before dying in a traffic accident.
If a landing on the sea felt like this, how much worse would it have been to hit land?
But relief was brief. The hull had been pierced by the explosion and water was coming in, so we had to get off the airship as quickly as possible before it sank.
“This way, this way!”
The crew moved people toward the escape boats in an orderly fashion. The passengers, terrified, still followed instructions calmly, and fortunately everyone was able to evacuate the airship without major commotion.
“There’s an uninhabited island over there! Let’s anchor and wait for rescue!”
Following the captain’s order, the boats carrying people headed toward the uninhabited island.
Coincidentally, that uninhabited island was the one I’d reached in the game after rescuing a crew member and swimming ashore.
I let out a hollow laugh.
It felt like I’d changed a lot, and yet the big picture hadn’t changed. It was amusing.
Well, the biggest thing had changed.
I looked at the people who had survived. The accident was supposed to have only two survivors, but now almost everyone had survived.
Except for just one person.
The man who destroyed the stern’s magical device—there was no sign of his body. Whether he’d been blown to pieces or gone missing, I couldn’t tell.
He’d been a villain who tried to kill me, but I felt strangely odd.
What could the Demon Lord want that was worth sacrificing his life to kill me?
I couldn’t understand it.
The surviving terrorist who kept yelling at the island got on my nerves too.
“You fools who worship a false goddess! Don’t you get it? One day the great Demon Lord will descend, and you will all fall into living hell!”
He’d been shouting like that for minutes.
Geez—don’t they ever get tired?
We spent a few hours in the temporary shelter set up on the island.
The surviving passengers and crew were able to board the rescue ship that came to Mid Isle.
In the original game, I would have been the only one who gathered firewood to make a fire, wandered the island forest looking for food, fought monsters I encountered, and scavenged parts to repair a magic radio to request rescue. Only after all that would a rescue ship arrive.
I’d skipped the tutorial entirely.
Well, I had struggled to save people and fought a little, so maybe it wasn’t entirely cheating.
While sipping the hot tea the rescuers handed out, someone called my name.
“Er, Hero!”
When I turned, the two relatives—the aunt and uncle who’d fought with me to stop the terrorist—were standing there.
“We wanted to give you something to thank you for saving our crew and passengers today. It’s small, but please accept it.”
The flight attendant handed me a pouch shyly. It felt heavy and jingled—was it money?
“Ten thousand bain. I saved it bit by bit from my salary.”
Bain was the currency used on the Edaphosia continent. Considering I had about 100 bain in my inventory, this was ten times my entire fortune.
Come to think of it, during the tutorial she’d rewarded me with 10,000 bain and ten Rainbow Stones for rescuing her when she’d injured her leg. Even though the tutorial had changed, her reward remained the same.
Rainbow Stones were what you could call “cash” currency. You could purchase them with real money and use them in-game. They were small, rainbow-colored gems imbued with magical power and could be used for strengthening equipment.
They were a very valuable currency, so they’d surely come in handy someday.
As I expected, she also handed me ten Rainbow Stones.
“And this… I heard these gems are really helpful for mercenaries and adventurers. My uncle gave them to me, but I’m not going to be an adventurer, so I’ll give them to you.”
Her uncle stood beside her and cleared his throat awkwardly.
‘So that was the backstory.’
I hadn’t known that the Rainbow Stones the flight attendant gave me during the tutorial had been from her uncle, who in the game’s storyline would have died in today’s crash.
In any case, even with the tutorial changed, I’d still received the tutorial rewards safely.
Just then, a big fanfare sounded out of nowhere.
[Level Up!]
Lv.1 → Lv.2
Combat Power +10!
Total Combat Power 30 (Equipment effect +10)
Yikes—that startled me.
A pop-up suddenly flashed with a loud sound at an unexpected moment. My heart nearly dropped.
It looked like I’d gained the experience for finishing the tutorial quest and leveled up. A little warning ahead of time would’ve been nice.
“Um, Hero? Are you okay?”
The flight attendant asked, worried by my sudden shock.
I’d been chatting with her and then abruptly stared at empty space in a fright—her confusion was understandable.
“Oh, no. Thank you. I’ll keep these safe and use them when I really need them.”
I accepted the two pouches she handed me like they were sacred and put them in my inventory.
After I closed the inventory, conversation didn’t continue. The niece and uncle just stood looking at me.
“Is there anything else you wanted to say?”
I asked cautiously. The former security officer cleared his throat and fidgeted with something.
A moment later, surprisingly, he handed me the leather belt he’d been wearing.
A holster hung from the belt, and inside was a pistol that looked well used and worn.
“W-why are you giving this to me…?”
I asked, embarrassed. The old man’s face flushed as he began to speak.
“When I saw you shoot inside the airship, you looked like a green shooter just starting out. The power of the mana bullets was weak, but your agility and your aim—hitting the target exactly—were impressive. It made me think that heroes chosen by the goddess are somehow different.”
His unexpected compliment made my cheeks and earlobes burn.
“Th-thank you.”
As a veteran shooter, his praise felt especially meaningful.
Of course, my agility and aim weren’t innate—they were abilities I’d gotten after falling into the game—but still, the sudden compliment embarrassed me a little.
“This gun is the weapon I cherished and used when I was an active security officer. Now I will be living as a monk in the temple. I no longer need weapons… If it won’t be a burden, I’d like to give it to you, Hero.”
He said it with a solemn expression.
