I Killed the Game’s Heroine - Chapter 8

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Chapter 8

Arc 02: Today, I continue living in the game world. Today, and tomorrow as well.

My younger brother once said, “A pretty girl must be good at cleaning, cooking, and just about everything else. A superwoman, right?”

If she’s pretty, she’s perfect! That kind of nonsense.

He said it so confidently, but I’m not sure if he even has a shred of dignity to begin with.

Still, my brother isn’t some idiot who goes crazy over a pretty face.

He’s been through a lot with me, working all kinds of jobs to pay off the ridiculous debt our parents left behind.

Even while doing all that, he studied, went to college, and eventually got a decent job.

In the process, he went through all sorts of hardships, even getting scammed and tangled up with a gold digger.

And the most important thing? That same brother, who spews nonsense about pretty girls, once worked for a cleaning service and cleaned the house of a woman he thought was stunningly beautiful.

He had been hired by someone who, even in my eyes, was as pretty as a celebrity.

Naturally, he was all smiles, saying, “If she’s that pretty, the house must be spotless! There won’t be much to do!”

But when he got there, he faced a hellish nightmare and came back with dead eyes, having lost all hope and positivity in humanity.

I mean, why would someone who’s good at cleaning even need to call a cleaning service?

My brother, too naive to realize that simple truth, fell into deep despair.

If he had entered this game world with the same emotions he had back then, I wouldn’t be surprised if an A-grade malevolent spirit had appeared. Or maybe even a deity would have been born.

Anyway, despite seeing that horror, it wasn’t long before he was back to saying, “A pretty girl is invincible! A superwoman!” But he never mentioned that particular woman again.

Judging by his hollow eyes, I’m not sure if he erased her from his memory or is just pretending not to know.

Whatever the case, what I’m trying to say is that no matter how beautiful someone is, if they’re a mess, they’re a mess.

Just like Nokra’s house proves right now.

“Are you some kind of animal?”

“…”

Nokra, at a loss for words, opens her mouth and then closes it like a fish, unable to respond to my pure and reasonable question.

Good. If she had answered, I might’ve drawn my sword right then and there.

Grinding my teeth, I looked at the trash heap she dared to call her home.

An apartment building. 10th floor, Unit 1003. Until I stepped inside, it looked like any other apartment.

But as soon as the door to Unit 1003 opened, I was greeted by a whole new world.

What I saw were piles of garbage filling the entrance. The variety was almost impressive.

I’ve slept in abandoned houses and parks, so I could’ve understood if at least the trash was in plastic bags.

But no, the trash was scattered all over the place—in its raw, unorganized state, filling the rooms, the living room, and the entrance.

It reminded me of the lair of malevolent spirits I had seen in a haunted ruin just a while ago.

Some people walk through long tunnels to face snowy fields, but why do I have to face this trash heap? And at this hour!

“You know, I did say the place wasn’t very organized…”

“Not very?”

“Okay, maybe a lot…”

Nokra trailed off, flashing a sheepish smile, but I could see the cold sweat running down her forehead.

Seeing her like that, I realized she never expected me to actually accept her invitation. She hadn’t prepared for this at all.

Well, sometimes people just act on impulse.

I decided to be understanding about that.

But first, I had to deal with this house, where I’d be staying until the Sethani was dealt with by the protagonist kid.

“Go buy some.”

“Huh?”

“Garbage bags! Go buy them all!”

75 liters!

I kicked Nokra and ordered her to buy garbage bags.

Judging by the state of this place, I’d need bigger ones, but at this hour, only convenience stores would be open, and they’d probably only have 75-liter bags.

As I stared at the trash covering the house, I tried to estimate where to even begin.

Even though she was offering me a place to stay out of kindness, it’s not easy to let someone sleep in your home.

Thinking of my friend and his mother, I felt a tiny pang of guilt, so I decided to show my gratitude by cleaning the house.

I’d show off the cleaning skills I’d honed, to the point where a cleaning company once asked if I wanted to work for them full-time.

That company went under after messing with their part-timers’ pay, but my cleaning skills were still intact.

I picked up some cleaning tools and rags from a corner of the house, which had never been used and were covered in dust.

***

The cleaning was done by the time the sun had risen, around 8 o’clock.

The apartment’s garbage disposal area had been bombarded with trash.

An elderly man who came to collect recyclables early in the morning saw the mountain of garbage and exclaimed, “What the hell!”

But in the end, the house was clean.

At least now, there was space for someone to lie down and sleep. And the hellish scene of rotting noodles tangled with feminine hygiene products was gone.

Nokra screamed when she saw the clean house, but I stopped her by throwing one of the discarded items at her face.

To be honest, saying I stopped her because she was being a nuisance is just an excuse. It’s not like someone who starts deep cleaning in the middle of the night cares about that.

I drank the sports drink Nokra had bought for me and smiled in satisfaction at the now-clean house.

Nokra, meanwhile, was curled up in a corner, crying from the shame of seeing all the things that had come out during the cleaning.

“Thank you… You’re really amazing. How can you be so good at cleaning… You’ve got so many talents…”

“You have to learn a lot of things to survive.”

“…”

She sniffled and stopped crying, looking at me. She seemed to be thinking about how to respond.

I found her expression amusing, so I added a sarcastic comment.

“But it’s really hard to make a house this messy. Are you raising pigs or something?”

At my words, she collapsed.

She tried to make excuses, saying she hadn’t had time to come home, which is why the trash had piled up. But that was just an excuse, so I snorted.

“You’ve really worked hard… We should eat breakfast, right? There’s a place nearby that delivers, even at this hour… How about some meat for breakfast?”

“Sounds good.”

Meat is the best.

When I nodded with a grin, she laughed softly and thanked me again, telling me to rest.

But this body has better stamina than my original body, so even after more than eight hours of cleaning, I was only sweating a little, not tired.

So, as she started ordering food on her phone, I continued to think.

What I was thinking about was the Sethani.

The information about the Sethani that had been forcibly shoved into my head went like this:

There was a child with Spirit Power. Both of the child’s parents were exorcists, and although the child didn’t seem special on the outside, they were actually the most talented Spirit Power user in existence.

Their talent was so extraordinary that they were even born with the ability to hide their Spirit Power to protect themselves from malevolent spirits.

But that very ability led to tragedy.

The exorcist couple, for some reason, were obsessed with having a child with Spirit Power.

But because of the child’s ability to hide their power, the couple mistakenly believed the child had no Spirit Power and treated them as if they didn’t exist.

Or rather, “treated as if they didn’t exist” doesn’t quite cover it. It was more like they used the child as a punching bag to relieve their stress.

If they had just thrown the child out on the streets, the kid might have ended up in an orphanage.

But the exorcist couple was somewhat famous, so they pretended to care for the child in front of others while secretly kicking and beating them behind closed doors.

What do you think happens to a child in that situation? Naturally, the worst possible outcome in this world occurred.

What was it again…? A possessed entity? Something that’s born when someone with Spirit Power accumulates more curses and resentment than they can handle?

The Sethani was born that way—an entity that kills lost adults in the dark and takes in wandering children, only to curse them to death.

Let’s see, how did the protagonist deal with it again?

Oh, right. My brother said the protagonist teamed up with a spirit friend and, through friendship, effort, understanding, and love, helped the Sethani resolve its grudge.

…How?

My brother clearly mentioned that the Sethani was a monster beyond A-grade because of the child’s extraordinary talent before becoming a possessed entity.

But how the hell did they deal with something like that?

I know the result. I understand they used the spirit’s power, understanding, and sympathy. But what was the process, damn it?

If exorcists could just sit down and have a counseling session to defeat malevolent spirits, they’d all be carrying psychology books instead of swords.

So there must have been something more. I’m sure my brother explained the process, but—I can’t remember.

When I try to recall it, all I can think of is my brother’s nonsense about “Look at those thighs! They could crush a watermelon! If I got caught between those thighs, I’d gladly pass on!”

And while spouting that nonsense, he’d show off a body pillow with a picture of a character lifting her skirt.

Great. I’ve remembered something disgusting. Time to forget it.

I shook off the horrible image from my past and decided to ask someone who might know the answer to my current question.

I wasn’t sure if Nokra, who had been crying about how filthy she was and how she’d never get married, would give me a proper answer, but I asked anyway.

“I’ve got a question. If something is A-grade, that means it’s insanely strong, right?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah, that’s right. If a malevolent spirit has a physical form, it could wipe out an entire city if left alone…”

“Then, is it possible to defeat a malevolent spirit by understanding and talking to it?”

“Don’t even think about suicide, kid.”

Nokra’s face turned serious as she explained that a malevolent spirit’s words are curses, and some spirits can kill people just by repeating certain phrases. So, you should never listen to a malevolent spirit.

Her words only made me more curious about how the protagonist managed to defeat the Sethani.

I wasn’t desperate to know, but I was at least like, “What the hell, how did they do that?”

I scratched my head and decided to stop thinking about it.

Not my problem! So who cares!

I repeated that universal truth to myself as I waited for the food to arrive.

The dish Nokra ordered was stir-fried pork. These days, you can even get stir-fried pork delivered in the morning, huh?

Come to think of it, people even deliver on foot now. Should I try it too?

As I was thinking about that, the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of the food.

Nokra, insisting that the homeowner should be the one to receive the food, went to get it.

My eyes naturally followed her to the door.

Was it just my subconscious reacting to the presence of another person, or was it something else? I wasn’t sure, but my eyes focused on the delivery person beyond the door.

Through the crack in the door, I saw the delivery person handing over the food and exchanging a brief greeting.

She was a girl with shoulder-length, light purple hair. Judging by her appearance, she looked like a middle or high school student, about the same age as my current body.

Her eyes were droopy, like a sad cat’s, and she had noticeable dark circles under them.

Since it was early in the morning, she was wearing a thin hoodie. I could sense a faint trace of Spirit Power from her.

Nokra raised an eyebrow at her, but my eyes were drawn to something else.

Beyond the delivery girl, at the opposite end of the hallway, I saw something with blue, corpse-like skin.

Even though it was 8 AM and the sun had risen, the hallway was strangely dark, making it stand out all the more.

It was dressed in a white shirt and suspenders, like some kind of young master, but its eyes, where the whites should have been, were pitch black. Its face was swollen as if it had been beaten, and its eyes burned with rage and hatred.

So that’s the Sethani.

I recognized the purple-haired delivery girl as one of the main characters in the game.

And I realized that this was the moment when the protagonist would see her, save her, and the story would begin.

I knew this was all part of the plot, but I was still planning to pretend I didn’t see anything and move on.

After all, the protagonist would save the girl, and she’d end up in his harem, or whatever my brother called it.

Even though the Sethani’s hateful gaze was aimed at Nokra, I didn’t care.

But then, in that brief moment, the Sethani’s eyes met mine through the crack in the door.

And the burning hatred and rage in its eyes suddenly turned into pity and sorrow.

—What is this awful, ominous feeling?

As a chill ran down my spine from the unsettling gaze, a window popped up, as if mocking me.

[You have been cursed by the Sethani.]

[A-grade Malevolent Spirit Sethani seeks to save you.]