The Kind World
Aris ran.
She ran aimlessly, even with her combat mode turned off.
Tears flowed from her eyes.
“It’s all my fault.”
The events of just moments ago flashed through her mind.
When Shinji transformed into a monster and attacked her.
Aris couldn’t retaliate in time.
Frozen in shock at her identity being revealed to the entire student body.
If it weren’t for him, Aris might have already been dead.
“What’s so great about being the strongest in the academy…?”
The strongest in the academy.
The perfect superhuman Student Council President.
That’s who Aris was referred to as.
But the might of the strongest in the academy was helpless against mental trauma.
Even her prized Lightning Gift and superhuman abilities.
Her ocean-like magical power.
None of it helped.
And so, Aris sensed death approaching.
In truth, she might have thought that death wouldn’t be so bad.
Maybe it would be easier to just die than live while being pointed at by everyone.
Perhaps those thoughts lingered subconsciously.
“I’ve caused so much trouble…”
But not for Kim Deok-Sung.
He blocked Shinji’s attack, standing in her way.
And as a result,
It was because of her.
To protect her, he got hurt.
That realization was unbearable.
She cowardly ran away.
[President, have you been lying to us all along?]
[I’m disappointed.]
[You little country bumpkin.]
[To deceive everyone, this is the worst, the lowest.]
Voices accusing her echoed in her ears.
Aris bit her lip.
“I’m just…nothing…”
Someone like her, who caused trouble.
Someone like her, who deceived everyone.
It would be better to just disappear.
She ran without a destination in mind.
“President?”
“Ma’am?”
People around her called out as they spotted Aris, but she couldn’t respond.
So she ignored them and kept running.
The place she arrived at was…
“Ah…”
The rooftop of the Main Building.
A place overlooking the academy where the culture festival was taking place.
Safety fences lined the railing, and a view of abandoned ventilation fans and old desks greeted Aris.
“Ahhhh…”
Aris walked like a zombie.
The rooftop.
A place with no one around.
In her first year, when she couldn’t adapt to the academy and felt out of place, this was her only sanctuary.
Her hand clutched the safety fence.
The lively campus, bustling with the festival, came into her view.
Yae enters.
“I… am…”
What should I do?
Swallowing back the dialect, Aris bit her lip.
*
It hurts.
The wound on my arm is still throbbing.
Blood is flowing.
[Partner, do you at least know where Saionji-san is?]
‘Of course.’
I know.
In this situation, there’s only one place she could be.
When I left the ruined old school building.
“You!”
I hear a familiar voice from afar.
I turn my head.
A beautiful girl with striking platinum blonde hair and blue eyes.
It’s Olivia.
She runs towards me.
“W-what’s going on?! You’re bleeding…!”
Olivia’s face turns pale.
She touches my blood-soaked left arm with trembling hands.
Today, her touch feels especially warm.
“It’s nothing much, but more importantly…”
I’m sorry, but there’s no time to chat with Olivia right now.
I need to find the missing Aris.
At the moment I braced myself for Olivia’s tsundere lines.
“…You have something urgent to do, don’t you?”
Olivia speaks in a serious tone.
She doesn’t puff her cheeks, stutter, or act tsundere as usual.
She looks at me and says,
“But you can’t just go around like this, all injured. Really… Where on earth did you get hurt like this?! Making your faithful maid worry like this… You fool, idiot, sea cucumber, sea squirt, anemone…”
With a trembling voice, Olivia tears the hem of her long Victorian maid dress.
She ties the ripped fabric around my arm.
“No matter how busy you are, you need to take care of first aid. Honestly, you can’t do anything without your dedicated maid this way! You should be grateful to me! Got it?”
Olivia forces a smile and ties my arm in a makeshift bandage like a ribbon.
“Okay, all done.”
Olivia beams.
“Olivia, I…”
“Shh.”
Olivia presses her finger to my lips.
“You don’t need to say anything right now. Go on. You have something important to take care of, right? It’s okay to explain later…”
She gives me a gentle smile.
“Just hurry back! Got it?”
“…Yeah. Thank you.”
After leaving my words of gratitude, I head out of the old school building with her seeing me off.
“Ahhhh! It’s the Black Beast!”
“What’s that? Is it blood?”
“What was that loud noise just now?”
“The club president has such a sad look on her face. Did she get dumped by the Black Beast?”
I hear the murmurs of extras as I dash across the campus.
As always, most of it is useless chatter, but there’s some useful information sprinkled in.
So Aris is headed this way.
I spot the main building.
My guess was right.
Aris must be on the rooftop.
Climbing the chaotic stairs of the main building, probably due to the recent commotion.
Drip, drip.
Blood seeps from the fabric soaked in red from my arm.
Thud.
I open the rooftop door.
Whoosh.
The wind blows. The fan spins.
There she is, near the rooftop fence with the striking blue sky behind her.
Saionji Aris.
Saionji Aris.
Her silver hair sways, and her anxiously trembling silver eyes meet mine.
“Ki, Kim Deok-Sung······.”
The sight of a beautiful girl leaning against the rooftop fence, like something out of a visual novel CG, wasn’t really pleasing.
Thud.
She closes the rooftop door.
“······.”
Aris stutters.
As she lowers her head, she bites her lip.
To be honest, I don’t understand it intellectually.
Why does being from the countryside even count as a complex?
Why was something so trivial used to ostracize people?
That doesn’t mean I’m underestimating human malice.
Ostracism, or what’s called “ijime” in Japanese, often starts from seemingly trivial things.
Just look at how kids nowadays have coined terms like “Huger” to mock those living in rental apartments like Humanxia—it’s clear that tragedies in reality are far less cinematic than fiction.
Unlike in fiction, where there’s often a grand catalyst or dramatic storyline, real-world tragedies lack coherence and significance.
What starts as a slight difference can evolve into sustained group bullying.
Aris went through such a childhood.
Some tragedies are more unfortunate precisely because they’re so ordinary.
She has had an uncomfortably realistic past that sucks away the charm of the light novel world, incompatible with the exaggerated quirks of fictional characters.
“······D-don’t come near me!”
Aris shuts her eyes and lowers her head.
I remember those青春物 (coming-of-age stories) from my high school days, light novels that were all the rage back then.
Usually set in high schools, they featured protagonists who would ponder dreams and youth while building harems with the heroines.
At the time, I was totally immersed, praising them as masterpieces and life-changing works.
Embarrassingly, I even thought of myself as akin to those protagonists and idolized them as role models.
But ten years later, looking back at those same stories feels different.
In my late twenties now, I can no longer relate to the adolescent dilemmas of youth, dreams, and ideals I once had during high school.
It’s natural that coming-of-age stories feel cringeworthy. I wondered why they took trivial matters so seriously, acting like the world was ending over nothing.
Honestly, fantasy isekai stuff is much better.
Yeah, that was the case.
“I, I······. I······. am hurting you······. and lying to everyone······.”
Why are we making such a big deal out of nothing?
This is cringeworthy.
I wouldn’t have empathized with Aris’s troubles if I saw this situation as a story before my reincarnation.
But now, everything’s different.
This is not fiction; this is reality.
And Aris is not a heroine from a coming-of-age story but a real person.
The Student Council President, the strongest in the academy, Saionji Aris.
“······I deceived everyone. I······. I······. don’t deserve to be the Student Council President······. I······.”
Acting tough but weak inside, she’s just a lost teen genuinely struggling with youth and dreams over trivial matters.
She’s still a teenager.
Not an adult like me, but someone with worries and thought processes typical for her age.
Just a young student.
That’s all.
Thud.
Aris collapses.
My wounds throb.
Blood seeps out from the cloth Olivia tied.
“Senpai.”
“······.”
Aris doesn’t respond.
She was shaking.
Like a girl her age, she sat down and cried.
I reach out my hand to her.
“Take it.”
Aris’s gaze shifts to my hand.
She speaks with a trembling voice.
“I, I don’t deserve to hold that hand······.”
I expected her to say that.
Getting into a verbal struggle here isn’t advisable.
I don’t have the confidence to rescue her with cringy lines that tug at teenage emotions, common in youth stories.
So, I need to show it through action.
Instead of answering, I grab her wrist.
“Hi, hiyah?!”
A scream escapes Aris’s lips.
I lift her up with strength and pull her into an embrace right away.
“Kim Deok-Sung······. Th-this is······.”
Aris stutters her words.
I can feel her body trembling like a willow tree.
“It’s okay, Senpai.”
I gently pat Aris’s head.
“No one in this world will blame you for not being fit for the position of Student Council President. No one will hold you responsible. No one thinks you deceived the world.”
In fact, in the original story, no one blamed her either.
It must still be the case now.
“If anyone dares to blame you, I’ll take responsibility and handle it head-on. So.”
Aris flinches.
“Trust me.”
“B-but······.”
“This world isn’t that harsh.”
This world is kind.
Especially because it’s a light novel world, even more so.
“If you can’t trust yourself, then just trust me instead.”
Aris’s eyes widen at my words.
Her face turns slightly red.
“I will take responsibility for you. Everything. I’ll endure any arrows of blame.”
Her mental collapse was my fault.
So, I have to take responsibility.
Just like when Hoshino Kasumi shielded me and got hurt, or when Eri changed completely from the original story, or when Olivia returned home early due to engagement issues, or when Evangelin got hurt stopping the enemy for me.
It’s all my responsibility.
Aris’s face flushes bright red up to her ears.
She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face against my chest.
“······Is it true? Even someone like me, who has hurt you······? Are you really saying you’ll take on the responsibility? Are you saying you’ll be my shield······. Is that it?”
Aris continues to stammer with a trembling voice.
I gently pet her head.
The softness of her silver hair feels pleasantly against my palm.
“Yes. I will.”
“Ugh, hwaah······. Hwaaaah······.”
In response to my words, Aris burst into tears instead of speaking.
It was the tears of a girl her age, not the Student Council President Aris, the strongest in the school.
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