325 Its not senseis fault!

On returning to the room in the elf village, there was sensei, sitting on top of the bed grasping her knees. It, its dusk. Since elves age slowly, looking at sensei sitting while grasping her knees like that, its like seeing a primary school girl being sad over having missed a snack. Ahh, what to do. This is supposed to be a serious scene, yet its as charming as a painting.

Also, just next to her, Felmina-chan and Kushitani-san are seated on chairs having a friendly conversation. Or rather, not so much a friendly conversation as it feels like Felmina-chan is firing a barrage of questions as Kushitani-san. As I teleport directly into the room amongst these three very different people, all their gazes shift to me.

Wakaba-san.

Sensei sluggishly raises her head and mutters that.

How are you feeling?

I decided to start off by a asking a harmless and inoffensive question. On doing so, Felmina-chan stared at me with wide-open eyes. Whats with that face? I will talk when its time to talk! Its just that normally Im not serious is all! Once I get serious then even I can do it!

My body is fine. Thanks for worrying about me.

Her body is, eh. In other words, emotionally she still has a long way to go.

Please do not force yourself. After all, there is no longer any need for you to take risks, sensei.

In order to console her, I speak to her as gently as possible. Felmina-chan is making a face like shes about to froth at the mouth and collapse. Whats with that face? Even I have a fragment of kindness within me you know! Or rather, Im actually super-kind okay! Its just that everyone is strange for not realising that you know!

Thank you very much.

Even though sensei is thanking me, she doesnt recover her spirits. It seems like my words werent enough to clear her mood. Even so, the only thing I can do here is to carry on talking.

Sensei, there is no need for you to worry about it. You took action based on what you thought was good. It was Potimas who was at fault for trying to make use of your good intentions.

In practice, sensei has not committed anything wrong. There is the stock phrase that swindlers use to say that those who are deceived are at fault, but its obvious that those who deceive are at fault. Sensei simply did everything that she could possibly do. That surely saved the reincarnators for a start, and everyone is safe since Potimass plot was crushed before it could be implemented. So it turned out alright in the end.

However, that doesnt change the fact that I was an accomplice to Potimas.

Despite all that, sensei continues to worry about it. Hrm. Senseis sense of responsibility is too strong. By nature she burdens herself with responsibilities that she doesnt need to carry and so she suffers because of it. Just because she is their sensei, it doesnt mean that she has the responsibility of having to save the reincarnators, yet she took desperate action using the elves, meaning that when Potimas betrayed her she felt responsible for that as well. She burdens herself with far too many unnecessary things. It makes me think that she should live a more easygoing life. But well, thats exactly whats good about sensei though.

That is clearly your wrong impression, sensei. You were simply being deceived. You have not done anything wrong at all. Besides, Id rather not say this, but whether you were there or not, so long as Potimas was around he would have done something bad sooner or later. Regardless of your actions, that man needed to be dealt with because he was going to take hold of the total energy of the world some day. It was simply your misfortune to be born at that mans side.

It is Potimas who is to blame. In general things are his fault. This is the truth.

In other words, it was a mistake that I was even born then huh.

Gahh!? How did you get to that conclusion!?

Thats wrong. Ive said it over and over, but you are not at fault, sensei.

I immediately denied it, but sensei stayed downcast. Ehhh, ahhh, uhhh. What should I do?

I shift my gaze to Felmina-chan and Kushitani-san as a request for help. Felmina-chan gently averted her gaze. Kushitani-san breathed a small sigh and shrugged her shoulders. Damn! Theyre of no use!

Dont look at me like that please. Its not like I am aware of all of the details for a start and we were also the last ones to come to this elf village. Since both my circumstances and viewpoint is different to everyone elses theres nothing that I can say.

Kushitani-san starts giving excuses. Well, whether theyre excuses or not what shes saying is true though. Kushitani-san and Tagawa-kun both spent a long time outside of the elf village. Accordingly, that means that the amount of interaction that they had with sensei was brief and they had also not experienced much time being restricted in the elf village. Compared to the reincarnators who spent their entire lives confined to the elf village from when they were small, their viewpoint is indeed different. So she wouldnt be able to give an objective opinion.

Well, going by what Ive heard I also think that sensei is not at fault though. Isnt this simply a matter of senseis own feelings? What I think is that sensei herself has to think through and sort out her own feelings about herself.

Are we really the same age? Well, actually, if our past lives are included then shes older than me I guess. There I go escaping from reality again, but in truth Kushitani-san is mature compared to the other reincarnators. When sensei collapsed earlier, she was the first one to move as well. Since Kushitani-san has been around the world as an adventurer, she has proportionally wide experiences, so I guess mentally she has grown up? Well, compared to the reincarnators whove been spending time in this stagnant elf village, shes been through quite a lot.

So there you have it sensei. Ill stay at your side until youre able to sort out your feelings and recover, so I think its fine to slowly ponder things.

Kushitani-san, arent you saying that because you want to take things slowly yourself?

Oh my? Did you see through me perhaps?

Kushitani-san smiles mischievously. Following that infectious smile, sensei also smiled briefly.

Hmm-mm? How strange. Wasnt this supposed to be the scene where I gallantly take senseis troubles away? Kushitani-san has run away with it all, huh? How strange. Its totally strange! So as to ask just whats going on here, I turn my gaze to Felmina-chan. But she stubbornly refuses to look my way!

While Im being overwhelmed with a strange sense of defeat, the others suddenly have a surprised expression. Hm? When I quickly glance at the others, sensei and Kushitani-san and also Felmina-chan are all gazing at nothing and have an attitude like they are listening carefully. Then, their expressions change from being surprised. To being grim. Their gazes shift, to me.

Ah. So it has come huh.

I send an order to the clones hacking the System. Try looking at the personal history of the Voice of Heaven (temp). Considering the reaction of the three people here, I think they probably received some kind of revelation from the Voice of Heaven (temp). And there bingo. Hmm, so whats what?

A World Quest is issued: Will you obstruct or will you support the plan of the Evil God who is scheming to sacrifice humanity in order to avert the destruction of the world?

Argh, damn you D. You sure have intervened in a big way.

Translation notes:

sitting while grasping her knees this is a specific pose often used to evoke sad or meloncholy type feelings, such as in this example.

I will talk when its time to talk as a general comment on Shiros speech patterns lately: for most of the series, when she spoke at all she used extremely brief sentences, often with just one or two words. In this chapter Shiro is speaking complete and proper sentences every time. Her speech patterns are actually very close to Ds, though slightly more colloquial.

World Quest the way this is written indicates that it is a gaming term.

Shameless : Memes aren't something one considers when writing isekai novels...But this...hehehe...does put a smile on my face