Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Enjoy~

TL: ALT

Chapter 11 – Only Those Who Confront It Can Escape

When I got out of the dungeon, it was completely dark outside.

“――Yuto! Are you okay?”

“Whoa, Serika!”

The one who suddenly ran up to me was Serika.

She looked as if she was going to hug me, but then, being an adult, Serika stopped right in front of me.

Serika was checking my whole body,

“Are you hurt or something? Is there any abnormality?”

“I’m fine. Thanks to the accessory Serika gave me, I didn’t get poisoned.”

“Thank goodness!”

Serika squatted down on the spot.

“Could it be that you’ve been waiting for me?”

“It’s because Auntie said Yuto hasn’t come home yet…”

“She’s exaggerating it, isn’t she?”

“It’s not exaggerating! Do you know what time it is?”

“Time, you say…? Whoa, it’s already this late!”

The standby screen on my phone showed “22:03.”

It’s no wonder they’re worried.

“I mean, you showed me your status yesterday, too! I can’t help but worry that something unexpected might have happened!”

“Ugh… that’s true, too.”

I said ‘Escape’ was a failure skill (at the time), and its compensation made my status like a paper.

Moreover, I explored solo without a party.

Even though the dungeon I was exploring was the lowest level, it would be impossible not to be worried about it.

The thought that I might be doing an unreasonable exploration out of desperation… might also come to mind.

“Don’t worry. I’ve gotten so much stronger just today.”

“Geez, that can’t be true. It’s a dungeon with low-level slimes, you know?”

“No, it’s true.”

“Yuto is so quick to be so overconfident. Take your time and get stronger at your own pace. If you can’t win, you can escape. And maybe that’s what your skills are for.”

“…I don’t want to escape anymore.”

Serika looked half surprised and half satisfied when I said this with a frown on my face.

“As I thought. Yuto, you’ve forgotten about it, haven’t you?”

“Forgot? About what?”

“The words you said before. You said, ‘If you can’t win, it’s okay to run away.’ That’s what Yuto said to me in the past, remember?”

“…When was it?”

“The first time was when we were in elementary school, I think. Do you remember that, Yuto? We built a secret base in this thicket area…”

“Oh! We did that kind of thing, didn’t we? After all, this is private property, too.”

“The grandpa who owned the land was angry at us, right? Well, he let us off the hook in the end.”

“That’s right. Huh? Where was that secret base again?”

It was a shack made of tin sheets and cardboard.

I don’t think it’s still there after more than ten years.

“You didn’t notice it? It’s right here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, right here.”

Serika pointed to the black mirror that was the entrance to the dungeon.

“Did a dungeon appear right above it?”

“Sadly, it’s gone.”

“Yeah…”

“But I did find something like this.”

Serika pulled something square out of the void.

From the void means ‘Item Box’ skill.

The square object, about the size of a lunch box, was illuminated by floodlights surrounding the entrance to the dungeon, reflecting a dull light at the corners.

It is an empty cookie tin, a souvenir from a certain dreamland.

There are rusty patches on it.

Serika opened the lid as if it were a treasure chest.

Inside was a tattered and weathered book.

Even so, it was not romantic in the least.

“What is this? ‘How to Proceed with Divorce Mediation?’ Oh, no, wait…”

Looking at the book, Serika’s memory of that time came back to her.

Serika’s parents had been fighting a lot back then.

No, it wasn’t that kind, but it was at the level of seriously considering divorce.

No child would want to go home to a house where both parents were cursing at each other.

Even so, Serika tried to make them reconcile by saying that the reason their parents fought was because she was a bad child.

She would casually say, “Children are a bond between husband and wife,” isn’t she?

But what is a child to do when they are forced to play the role with their small bodies to hold together the repulsive lumber?

“At that time, Yuto brought me here. Then Yuto said, ‘If you don’t want to go home, you can make this your second home.'”

“…I did say that, didn’t I?”

Even though it was in elementary school, it was a funny thing to say.

“You told me to come here anytime I wanted to run away. Whenever I would come here crying, Yuto would always listen to me and give me warm tea in a water bottle and snacks.”

“…That happened, too.”

The secret base is not well made and will break down easily.

I remember riding my bicycle all over the place to find materials to use to shelter from the wind and rain.

I even found some snacks that Serika would like.

“I thought I’d do something about it, so I bought this book. It was a child’s allowance, so it was pretty expensive, but the granny at the used bookstore said, ‘Take it with you.'”

Now that I think about it, the granny at the used bookstore must have been a little perplexed.

A small child was trying to buy a book like ‘How to Proceed with Divorce Mediation’ with a serious face.

“But I couldn’t understand it at all. The book was too difficult. We were arguing about this and that.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“No, that’s not true! I didn’t know anything about the trial, but thinking about it with Yuto made me feel better. I’m not alone. I thought that there were others who would stand up to me together. That’s what I thought.”

“I see.”

“Because Yuto gave me courage, I told my parents. ‘If you hate each other so much, you should divorce. ‘Married couples quarrels have a negative effect on children, so you should just divorce.'”

“Y-you said that?”

“They were both surprised. But that was the beginning of my parent’s divorce. They both said they would put up with it for the sake of the children, but I told them it would have a negative effect on me.”

After that, I know Serika lives with her mother.

Or rather, we are neighbors.

My mother knew the situation, so she was always trying to help Serika and Serika’s mother in any way she could.

“And the next time Yuto encouraged me was when we were in junior high school.”

“Are there more?”

“There are more. Plenty of them.”

“I give up.”

“I entered junior high school and joined the club. But the older students didn’t like me. I wasn’t directly bullied, but some of my classmates said terrible things to me. The advisor pretended not to notice.”

“That’s terrible.”

“That’s what Yuto said then, too. I tried to do something about it. I even consulted with my advisor. But that was a bad idea.”

“…I’m starting to remember. That advisor was Takeda, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right. When I talked to that teacher, he said, ‘Club activities are for learning unreasonable hierarchical relationships.’ He said, ‘If you are upset by such things, you will not make it in society.'”

“It’s a black club activity, as they say nowadays.”

He’s just throwing away his management responsibility as an advisor, isn’t he?

“Maybe. What’s more, the fact that I talked to him about it leaked out to the older students.”

“That’s the worst.”

“So, it started with a terrible argument. I wasn’t even allowed to participate in practice games, and I was always being made to run. When I told the teacher, he said, ‘Don’t try to escape.'”

“Don’t escape, huh? That’s a curse word, isn’t it?”

Don’t escape.

That word is most effective for those who are trying their best to do their best without escaping.

For those who are not willing to work hard from the beginning, even if they are told that ‘you’re not trying hard enough,’ they can simply dismiss it with a simple, ‘I see.’

‘You’re not trying hard enough,’ ‘Don’t run away,’ ‘Push yourself harder.’ …Those words stick in the minds of those who are already working hard until the very last minute.

There is no limit to trying harder.

You can keep doing your best.

You can do better.

If you work even harder, you can aim even higher.

They encourage you to work harder and make the results their own achievements.

They discard those who collapse from exhaustion after working hard, saying they are no longer needed.

Sometimes they wait for the brokenhearted person to voluntarily quit, and sometimes they relentlessly push them until they become depressed and use a doctor’s diagnosis to put them out of work.

School club activities are not profitable, but the ties are more complicated because of that.

But,

“You can just escape, that’s all.”

I say,

“Fufu. You haven’t changed.”

“What?”

“You’re saying the same thing you said in junior high school.”

“…Was that so?”

“You told me to escape from that kind of club activity. You said that since they don’t recognize your efforts, it’s no good to work hard in that kind of place.”

“…I know that, don’t I?”

“Eh?”

“No, I thought I knew better back then. I, too, ended up in a place where I couldn’t escape, and after I was torn to pieces, I had no choice but to escape.”

“Yuto…”

“Moreover, I’ve been fooled so many times. I’ve always wanted to devote myself to something. Otherwise, I don’t feel like I’m living. I know it sounds childish, but…”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But there are people who are very good at exploiting that kind of feeling. They say it’s a rewarding job, that they’re going to give you a lot of responsibility, and you do your best to get into it…. and here I am.”

As I said in junior high school, all you had to do was escape quickly.

“I gave up on everything half-heartedly, and all I was left with was the result of ‘escaping.’ That’s not even good for my resume. Even if I made up my mind to do it this time and got a job, I would get cornered again and end up escaping.”

“…I don’t think that’s true.”

Serika sighed… but she clearly denied it.

“In order to escape, Yuto. First of all, you have to try to fight. Because you’re fighting, you’re escaping. If Yuto escaped that much, you fought the same number of times before that. If you think, after fighting, that you can’t go any further, that you will only be at a disadvantage in the future, then escaping should be the right decision, right?”

“Serika…”

“Just now, when Yuto came out of the dungeon, you looked tired, but you looked so lively. Your eyes looked like you were back in the old days. I would… love to see Yuto like that.”

Me and Serika looked at each other in the thicket illuminated by floodlights.

After a few seconds, Serika’s face turned red.

“A-anyway. I’m glad you’re okay, but please don’t do anything to make me worry. Auntie was worried about you, too.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

What’s with the awkward atmosphere?

“R-right, I have to thank you for the earrings.”

I try to break the awkward silence by forcing the subject.

“No problem. It was the one I didn’t use.”

“That’s not how it works. Well, maybe there’s nothing I can do.”

“Well, I guess so. How about we consider that you owe me one? If you come up with something, you’ll give it to me.”

“Ugh. I’m afraid of Serika’s idea…”

I regretted making such an unexpected promise.