Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Chapter 235

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TL: ALT

Chapter 235 – On the Roof

◇??? Point of View

After a long, boring day at work, there’s nothing better than climbing up to an unfamiliar rooftop.

I’ll pick an appropriate-looking apartment building that looks like it’s not well maintained, and after making sure there are no people around, I’ll slowly climb the fire escape, trying to keep my footsteps quiet.

Compared to when I was a kid, the management of all buildings has become stricter, but if you’re determined, you can still find buildings like this, even in the city center.

“This is easy.”

The only thing blocking the way to the roof is a waist-high fence.

There’s no need to get out the lock-picking tools I have in my pocket.

If I get caught on the roof without permission and they find something like that in my pocket, I’m sure the police will drag me off.

But I won’t make that mistake.

No, I can’t stop myself from doing this harmless act of trespassing because I might get caught.

Especially after having to listen to the long-winded ramblings of people who seem to live off the dirt.

“Man, this is so tiring.”

I smoked a cigarette and then put the butt in my pocket ashtray.

Whether they find out or not, it is against my policy to throw cigarette butts on the roof.

I’m not a thief or a litterer.

I just want to borrow a place that no one else is using for a while to relieve my stress.

I don’t intend to cause anyone any trouble.

“Damn, I never get any good information every week.”

I’m a magazine journalist.

You’ve probably heard of the Weekly Bunshu.

If you’re a bit of a news fan, you might even know the term “bunshu-hou.”

My job is to surprise the world with scoops that even the big newspapers can’t get, and that’s the business model of the Weekly Bunshu.

Bunshu has a tip window on the Internet.

Thanks to the effectiveness of the Bunshu cannon so far, the window is flooded with information that the general media wouldn’t hear about.

There are whistleblowers from private companies, and there are stories about people pulling each other’s legs in the political and bureaucratic world.

From the vulgar to the scandalous, if it’s a story that satisfies the voyeuristic tendencies of readers, it’s all good.

Coupled with the recent distrust of the media, there is no end to the tips that come into the magazine, good or bad, that have nothing to do with ideology or editorial policy.

However, to put it bluntly, the majority of the stories submitted to the magazine’s online submission site are garbage.

It’s not even on the same level as a mixture of wheat and chaff.

It’s like trying to find a grain of gold in a pile of rotten garbage.

The motives of the informers are also different.

There are probably very few people who are motivated by a sense of chivalry.

Even those who seem to be reporting for the public good often have ugly desires hidden under a noble cause.

They want to use other people’s scandals to advance themselves.

They want to bring down someone they don’t like.

The motives may vary, but as long as the information is accurate, we don’t care.

We just listen to the stories of these heroes wearing masks of righteousness of their own making while subtly praising them.

No, those guys are better.

At least they act out of concern for the public image of their cause.

The worst kind of whistleblower is probably the one who is in it for the money.

There are those who make their living by blackmailing people, and there are those who pretend to be respectable members of society on the outside, but secretly sell company information to make money.

I know a number of real scumbags who threaten people involved in scandals by going to the press, extorting as much money as they can, and then selling the information to magazines when they can’t get any more.

Today, I was forced to listen to a long story from one such informant in a semi-basement bar where the smoke from the cigarettes obscured my vision.

It’s depressing to have to spend a long time talking to a middle-aged man like a rat in a sewer, relentlessly asking for money and stingy with information, even if it’s part of my job.

“Is it time to quit?”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

At first, I was drawn to the stimulation and excitement I didn’t get in my everyday life, but lately, I’ve been spending more and more time up here on the roof.

I climb over the railing and stand on the edge of the roof.

It’s not a very tall building, but still, if I fell, there’s a good chance I’d die.

The thrill clears my mind and head.

The edge of this building is the realm of death.

Everything on the side before that is the realm of life.

Okay, I’m alive.

I may hang out with some shady characters, but that’s all inside the edge of the building.

“Why did I become this kind of person?”

I guess it started in high school.

It was a closed high school, like a shithole.

I didn’t get along with the teachers, and I ended up dropping out after two years.

I didn’t have to study, but I did well enough, and I was actually good at sports.

I don’t want to brag, but I’m not that bad-looking.

The only person who was worthless was my mother.

No, the teachers were also worthless.

I heard later that the year I left school, there was a suicide because of bullying.

Apparently, the suicide note was leaked on the Internet and caused a big stir.

I felt like I was suffocating in that suffocating environment, so I ran away from home and school and started going from house to house, staying with friends and women.

I led a pretty miserable life, but thanks to that, I made connections with all kinds of people. I also made friends who could tell me stories about the dark side of the world.

I think I was trying to justify myself by exposing the dirty side of this boring everyday life.

It’s not my fault that I can’t adapt to this world; it’s the dirty world that’s to blame for my inability to adapt.

I wonder if I should just jump off the roof… This thought comes to me every time I stand on the roof of a building.

But I have no intention of making that choice.

However, by confirming the fact that death is only a step away, I can stay in the realm of the living.

I will still choose to live.

There’s no point in me, who can’t die cleanly here, worrying about the purity or dirtiness of my way of life.

If I die because my life is boring, it would be an insult to the girl who was a junior in high school with me.

I didn’t have any connection with that girl while I was in high school…

If I had stayed in high school and witnessed the bullying, would I have tried to do something about it?

I might have said that even that kind of trouble was exciting and intervened without being asked.

In the end, another boy tried to protect the girl, but he couldn’t, and the worst possible outcome occurred―apparently.

I was in the same class as that boy, but he didn’t make much of an impression on me.

But if he was the kind of guy who could do something like that, it would have been interesting to hang out with him.

Because of the contents of the suicide note, the boy was the subject of much debate on the Internet.

People said things like, “He was trying to protect her out of some ulterior motive” and, “He didn’t know what he was doing and was just making wild guesses.”

But I think…

That guy didn’t run away, he fought.

Even if the result was bad, the fact that he tried to fight is admirable.

And what about me?

I just run away from trouble and sulk about the world, and yet I’m making a living by writing about other people’s scandals.

If I were doing it for fun, there would be some redeeming quality to it, but in my case, it’s just that I don’t know what else to do.

“There was a thrill during the nuclear crisis.”

When the Okutama Lake Dungeon was on the verge of collapse, the Japanese government, under pressure from the U.S., covered up the fact that there had been a nuclear attack by China, Russia, and North Korea――

Bunshu was the one who broke this incredible scoop.

Or rather, it was me.

The joy of publishing a scoop that I had risked my life for was something special.

However, after the birth of the Tozaki government, I began to have my doubts.

“I must have been used.”

I thought I had done it on my own, but the information I had was probably part of Seiji Tozaki’s plan to take over the government…

That’s what I think now.

Tozaki was close to the center of the government at that time, in the Orimura administration.

He wasn’t in a high position like a minister or one of the top three party officials, but he was apparently able to go in and out of the prime minister’s residence as an advisor to the former prime minister.

Of course, there was a possibility that he knew sensitive information.

By deliberately leaking this information, Tozaki tried to bring down the Orimura government.

After that, he gave that famous speech and became Prime Minister.

“I just don’t understand. There are too many strange things going on.”

Why was Tozaki, who supposedly had a business background, so close to Prime Minister Orimura?

If he was close to the Prime Minister, why did he plot to overthrow the government?

After the plot was fulfilled, why was Tozaki able to become a candidate for the party presidency?

Why was Tozaki, who lost in the single-seat constituency of the House of Representatives and only won one seat through the proportional representation system, nominated as Prime Minister?

It’s not as if Tozaki is very popular within the party, and I’ve heard that the power of a Diet member who loses in a single-member constituency and is then returned through proportional representation is weakened within the party.

He wasn’t even a serious candidate for president.

“If you don’t have the confidence to become president in the first place, you wouldn’t even think about ousting Orimura. It’s a loss to pull down the incumbent Prime Minister who’s pulling you up if you think about it normally”.

In short, it seems that Tozaki had predicted this outcome from the beginning and then leaked the information about the nuclear crisis in a way that made it difficult to tell that it was a leak.

And what’s even stranger…

“This world… or rather, this country. Everyone is acting like a completely different person.”

Tozaki’s big speech certainly had a unique power to appeal to the audience.

However, I also thought that once they calmed down after a night’s sleep, the excitement would fade.

For better or worse, the basic tendency of the Japanese is to resist change and try to find a safe middle ground, avoiding extreme arguments.

I can’t help but think that there is something behind the fact that such an unrealistic “extreme argument” as “If the population is declining, then we should bring in people from another world” was accepted by the public overnight.

“Well, I guess we’re talking about what’s behind it…”

I also tried to talk to the editor-in-chief.

He’s an old guy, stuck in his anti-authority ways like a late-blooming student activist, but he’s brilliant at his job.

He also says he feels something is wrong with the way public opinion is moving.

It’s not that he’s a left-winger and doesn’t like right-wing public opinion.

It’s not that. Even if public opinion is drifting to the right, it’s not like it’s going to change that drastically―that’s the feeling of someone who has worked in the media for many years.

But that feeling is not necessarily shared in the newsroom.

Whether they are young or mid-career, there are more people who have changed their beliefs in the same direction as public opinion.

If you think about the common point, “I think it’s a little too extreme…”

The people who have become more extreme in their beliefs and enthusiastically support Tozaki’s plan to introduce immigrants from another world are the people who voted for his party in this election――

“Is that possible? It would make more sense to think that the people who were originally supporters of his party just switched to supporting Tozaki.”

However, there were also quite a few busy magazine journalists who didn’t have time to go to the election.

As for those people, even those close to his party didn’t see their arguments becoming more extreme.

“This is getting really weird…”

Seiji Tozaki had changed public opinion in this country overnight, just as he had imagined.

It would probably be quite dangerous to try to find out the secret behind it.

The danger doesn’t just come from the interference of those in power.

With public opinion boiling over like this, what kind of attitude would ordinary people have toward someone who took action against them?

“Like, “He’s a spy from the enemy country, kill him!””

After laughing mockingly, I get a straight face.

“In a world like this, it really could happen.”

About six months ago, there was an incident in which a group called the Men’s Association, which engages in hate activities against women, and an extreme women’s group called the Women’s Association, which advocates the extermination of men, had a violent clash in a dungeon.

Normally, this incident would have caused a huge stir, but because of Tozaki’s great speech, it was treated as a minor incident.

That’s not the only reason why this incident is already forgotten.

Such incidents have become commonplace.

“Everyone has their own principles and beliefs. If they’re not questioned, they resort to violence. It’s like the 1960s.”

No, I hear that even then, only a small number of students made a fuss.

Now, it’s as if the Japanese people have suddenly “awakened” to politics, and there is a constant stream of political discussion.

What’s more, it’s all focused on “how to increase the national power of this country” and “how to use immigrants from other worlds to achieve this.”

The discussion has even evolved to the point of “How should we protect our best resource, the corridor to the other world, from other countries?” and “What should we do if other countries invade to take the corridor?” and even “Japan should develop its own nuclear weapons” and “We should revive the conscription system and form a national defense force of explorers.

Voices of concern about accepting immigrants were suppressed, and there was even an incident in which a politician who advocated a cautious approach to immigration was injured when a stone was thrown at him during a campaign tour.

A group of lawyers who raised concerns about human rights violations against immigrants were subjected to constant protests, threats, and harassment by an anonymous group, and their offices were even set on fire.

Those who oppose the Tozaki Line are all lumped together under the newly coined Japanese-English term “Ancien Régime” and are the object of national hatred.

On the other hand, the otherworlders who have begun to be accepted have appeared on television, and they all praise this country, saying that they are honored to become a member of a wonderful, civilized country like Japan.

All the people who appeared were beautiful elves, dark elves, and young men and women who were beastmen.

Their affiliation was currently being negotiated with the powerful Explorers Guild, and from what I heard, they were going to be traded for over a billion yen each.

The thing shining around their necks on TV is the “Freedom Contract Collar,” which the government says is made in factories on other worlds.

The overseas media are all pointing the finger at it as a slave collar, but the Japanese government insists that it was not designed with that intention and that it was simply designed so that it would not get in the way of exploration. The domestic media has raised no questions about it.

The beautiful elf spokeswoman, Haruka Shinozaki, who has a somewhat pensive air about her, is much in demand by the media, and it is safe to say that there is not a day that goes by that she is not seen on television.

The acceptance of otherworlders has only just begun, but if the test case is successful, we should soon see a flood of otherworlders pouring out of the corridors deep inside the Okutama Lake Dungeon.

“That’s it, there’s no point in even firing the Bunshu Cannon.”

Of course, the first priority of a scoop is to serve the public interest.

However, it is clear that there is another motive for readers to jump on scandals in industry, politics, government, or the entertainment world that have nothing to do with them directly.

It is the pleasure of “justice,” which is almost like a lynching, digging up those who have done wrong and beating them down until they are satisfied from a position of superiority.

The bottom line is that they’re bored.

They’re bored, but they’re always dissatisfied, and they’re bored, but they’re busy with all kinds of things in their daily lives, and their feelings are just wearing away.

Weekly magazines are a good way for them to find an outlet for their unfulfilled desires.

Of course, the noble cause of achieving social justice is not wrong, but in the end, the raison d’être of commercial magazines is to write about what their readers want to read.

But for some reason, a politician named Seiji Tozaki has stolen that role.

“So is this the end of an era where people find criminals on the Internet or in the media and then collectively beat them up anonymously to get their revenge?”

These days, everyone is afraid of being labeled a “member of the ancient regime.”

Once you’ve been labeled as such, you’re subject to fierce attacks from those around you, both in real life and online.

So-called online lynching also seems to be on the rise.

The number of people who have their photos and addresses posted online is clearly increasing, and there is even a trend towards condoning it.

Don’t miss this unprecedented opportunity that has opened up before this country.

Therefore, any means are justified.

This is the current public opinion in this country.

Even if the media isn’t digging up criminals one by one, it’s easy to find targets for attack anywhere and anytime.

At work, at school, and in the community.

It’s easy to find Regimers among your neighbors.

If you express doubts about the Tozaki Line, show a cautious attitude, or simply ignore it, you’ll automatically be branded a Regimer.

Now, you can have the enemies you want to defeat right on your doorstep.

In fact, it has become a world where you can feel thrills, ironically.

For me, the ordinary and the extraordinary have been reversed, and the extraordinary has become the ordinary.

But I don’t like this extraordinary.

Under this new everyday life, where dissent is suppressed with force and air, my breath will be even more stifled than before.

“The thrills you are given are not interesting. Fine, then I’ll investigate it.”

I was surprised that I had said those words.

I’m not a righteous journalist.

Some of my colleagues think I am, but I’m not.

I’m just an ordinary information provider, not much different from the rats I met today.

But in this crazy everyday life, it’s people like me who are always looking for the extraordinary and who can stay sane.

I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse, but it’s certainly exciting.

As I thought, the rooftop is stimulating.

“Seiji Tozaki. I’m going to expose what’s behind that flat face of yours to the light of day.”

I crushed the cigarette pack in my hand and shoved it into my suit pocket.

From the edge of that pocket, my own twisted and bent business card fell to the roof.

It seemed that I had put it in my pocket and then sent it off to be cleaned, and it no longer resembled a business card.

It was now just a piece of waste paper, but considering that I had trespassed on the roof, it would be out of the question to just leave it there.

‘Tsukito Haruhara’―I picked up the business card with my name written on it in a curt Ming-style font and left the rooftop behind.

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