Honestly, I Don't Know What I Expected: Running Away.

Honestly, I Don't Know What I Expected: Running Away.

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Commissioned by Patreon Special

Wordcount: 2529

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I should really die more often.

My life in the Loki Familiar revolves around training idiots, making sure idiots do what they’re told, and handling the care and treatment of idiots. My follow handlers were decent people, but Landrock, Riveria, and Deimne weren’t enough support by a long run. Though I did my best to make most of the systems I made and set up as easily managed by the lowest common denominator, I’m just a regular man. I make mistakes. I need to fix the mistakes that occur due to my mistakes alongside my mistakes.

Therefore, when someone makes a mistake, it’s my mistake, and I need to fix all the mistakes.

I made the mistake of trying to get other people to be useful, so now I’m paying the price. 

Or, rather, I had been paying the price.

Officially, I’m now dead. The Loki Familia is without Hikigaya Hachiman. The Freya Familia tried to poach me while I was running away, then I decided to blow up a city block when confronted by Ottar. The official story is that I’m dead and left behind only my hat and some parts of my coat. 

The truth was that all I had to do to avoid being noticed was stay in the sleazier parts of town while not wearing anything I typically wore. Going without a mask, a hat, and a reinforced coat was strange, but getting armored up in boring, utility plates and a helmet worked out just fine for concealing my identity. 

And, having my identity be concealed as one of the thousands of generic fantasy characters in Orario is easy as heck.

Thank you, fodder, for being so worthless that you’ll only be numbers in the history books at the end your lives. 

If not for your help, I’d have definitely been tracked down by all the people who hate me for one reason or another.

I really wonder why people hate me.

I’m pretty great.

Heh.

Well, whatever the case, I avoided the more vanilla parts of Orario while doing my best to not make waves in the NTR wasteland that was the seedy, criminal underbelly of Orario. As much as I wanted to put the whole place to the torch, crusading against it on simple principle that it can be labelled as NTR anything, making waves was a good way towards being found. Reputation went both ways. It kept the lower tier trash mobs off of you, but it also invited bigger fish to try and take you on. If I kept beating the big fish, it would only be a matter of time before bigger Familias took notice of me and I was discovered. 

Basically, I had to make like human scum, do my best to just exist and make ends meet, and be unnoticed by everyone and everything.

Like I said, I should’ve died a long time ago, because doing those things were second nature to me.

My corporate slave progenitors told me that being listless and useless will never get me anywhere in life… but here I am living it up after pretending to die!

Hah! Take that! I’m winning at life by being a loser!

Wait.

…

Not being involved with the Loki Familia anymore freed up my time, especially since most of the Familia was focused on expeditions and the castle always needed to be defended. The amount of people who could be spared in the Familia were very few, too. I created a very tight ship. People who were recovering from expeditions were helping the Familia out by providing security, watching over newbies in the lower Levels, and recruiting more people. Everyone had a job, everyone worked hard, and thus there was nearly no one available to look for me.

There were breaks and vacations, but I broke those too.

If you want to spend time not working, then you’re spending time with your co-workers/battle buddies. You want to go to a café? Take your partner with you? So what if they’re not interested! That’s no excuse. You’re spending time with them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You’re going to get to know your partner like the back of your hand, because that partner’s going to keep you alive, and the rest of your group will be the rest of your body… which will also be keeping you alive!

Therefore, you’re still technically working when you’re note!

My apologies, wage-slave progenitors, but I’ve create a corporation in this besmirched world.

One that enforces employee social gatherings too.

Indeed, I may as well be an evil overlord form another world now, but please be happy that your son has inflicted this pain upon others instead of suffering it himself. Hmmm, what? You’ll disown me for that? Well, to be honest, if my son did the same thing I’ll disown him in a heartbeat too. In light of that, my salary-chained menial paternal units, you are free to destroy my shrine and cast me out of the family record for my actions.

Please destroy my computers and systems though, I might be a monster, but I deserve a speck of mercy still, right?

However, that’s not important.

What’s important is that I’ve found myself with a stray that met all the requirements of a main character.

White hair, red eyes, and an outlook on life that would get anyone else killed very fast. 

Without a doubt, given the fact I’d found him wearing only a light jacket, a knife, and a pouch on the first level of the Dungeon, he should’ve been dead the first time he came in. Instead, I came across him a few weeks ago, then kept coming across him over the last few weeks. Then, when I thought he’d died, he walked up from a lower level. No training, no companions, and with a big grin, Mr. Not!Albino was still alive after everything he did, with his shitty equipment, and nothing else to his name.

Technically, I was hiding out from the Loki Familia until things simmered down and I could find a different way to achieve my objectives, but I wasn’t the sort to ignore finding either an additional meatshield or the protagonist that I needed to punch through the rest of the Dungeon. 

So far Bell Cranel was looking to be the latter.

“Sensei! I did it!” Level 1 and he was already dealing with Minotaurs. Of course, given how I was able to increase the rate people gained Stat points and his own ludicrous Skill, calling him Level 1 was a misnomer. He’d hit the maximum threshold for his Level 1, and was not building up his Stats for the next Level, but he had a body that was naturally inclined towards combat. As expected of a Shounen protagonist, just his raw abilities were to be envied by even the strongest. “And, it dropped something too!”

“Congratulations. You’re mediocre amongst all Adventurers now. Would you like some applause?” I sheathed my own weapon while dousing his enthusiasm. Killing a Minotaur was a good feat for beginners, but in the furthest levels the Dungeon sent armies of monsters that could charge and turn Minotaurs into paste with utter ease. Killing a Minotaur was more of a step forward than something to be celebrated. “Well, Cranel? Would you?”

“Y-you don’t need to be mean about it, Sensei! That was a hard fight you know!?” 

“For you, maybe. I know a girl who killed one before she was a teenager.”

“Guah!”

Naturally, I wasn’t going to mention that girl was the Sword Princess. 

I’ve come to conclude that I’ve been doing something wrong in how I’ve been teaching everyone I’ve met. It wasn’t a matter of being too harsh in training, or being too aloof, but letting my students get too full of themselves. Not to the point where they got themselves killed, but still full enough themselves to make their own decisions and be needlessly flamboyant. 

I needed the people I intended to use to barge into the end of the Dungeon to be confident in battle, but doubt themselves wherever else, so that they’ll look to me for guidance. It’s the perfect plan, but I didn’t have the luxury of being an entire government, a society intent on ensuring rigidity, or a parent with a control complex, so I had to make do with demolishing Cranel’s glory-seeking tendencies before it even took root.

It was surprisingly fun to crush someone’s hopes and dreams of glory, I’d suggest everyone do it at least once in their lives, but a warrior without confidence is completely worthless. 

So, after giving Cranel a handkerchief, I worked on not spoiling him like everyone else I’d taught.

“Hmph, fine. I suppose this does merit a celebration. Even if it’s mediocre and average as an achievement. I’ll make you dinner… enough for you to share with your Goddess to.” Given how large my Valis funds were, I could’ve easily taken Cranel out to eat somewhere. Heck, I could’ve even gotten him some better clothes, weapons, and potions. However, that was how I’d treated my last set of students. The moment they got even a little something done, prizes and achievements fell from heaven onto their lap, and that didn’t count what I was going to give them. Wallenstein got new armor, new weapons, and new potions as a matter of course, while looking to me for extra lip service and attention. Yep, I definitely spoiled my last students. Cranel’s receiving only the Hikigaya Austerity Package to ensure he didn’t become a glory-hog.  “You want anything, kid?”

“Oh… uhhh… I’m good with anything, really!” Ah, meekness and humility, how great it is to see the two of you. Neither of you are around the Loki Familia. I understand. They’re stuffy and hard to get along with on most days. Some might say they deserve to act like they do, but that’s not the case. No one deserves to not listen to me! I’m me! It’s not like I’m asking for much anyway! Just unwavering obedience and loyalty. That’s all. Wait, where are the two of you going? Get back here and praise my meekness and humility! “Thanks, Sensei!”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get you cleaned up and paid, so we can get to sleep early.” Well, technically, Cranel was the only one who needed to sleep early. I didn’t need to sleep. I slept so that my mind could reset and not become a seething mass of unstoppable momentum that I couldn’t hope to escape. “So, do you prefer chicken or—

I stopped in my tracks as I took in the signs, before picking Cranel up by his shirt and breaking into a sprint.

“S-sensei!?”

“Don’t talk! Keep your mouth closed so you don’t bite your tongue!”

It’s a testament to Cranel’s ability as a student that he complied without asking, because the explanation he would’ve asked for would’ve been quite embarrassing to say aloud.

I’d forgotten that the Loki Familia had an expedition ending today.

Naturally, any expeditition that intended to come out would have the Dungeon trying to keep them in. As Familias ascended through the floors and the Dungeon lost its ability to summon high-level threats, it turned to quantity over quality, and spammed whatever it could at the Familia. 

We were in the area that Minotaurs spawned for the first time.

Loki Familia was ascending.

I’d forgotten that they were.

So, technically, it was my fault that Cranel was not in an unacceptably dangerous situation, especially since I couldn’t use my usual talents without being found out by the Familia. While I was confident in my abilities to survive a herd of fleeing Minotaurs, my higher focus on magic and supplementing frontline fighters made it so that I couldn’t protect someone else without it. It’s one thing to be in the backline and zap things to death, but another thing entirely to keep someone safe using only melee combat against massive monsters armed with enormous weapons. 

The simple solution was to run away with Cranel in my arms, so that was what I decided to do.

However, monsters tended to run quite fast when they were being purged from existence by the Loki Familia expeditionary force. 

It was to be expected that a few would catch up.

…

Of course, I feared the worst when I threw Cranel ahead and stood my ground. A few Minotaurs kept running even though I activated by Feign Weakness skill. Well, it was less of a skill and more me overtly crying out for help and acting as though I have a limp, before rounding on my opponents and killing them. Monsters were not smart. They acted upon physical tells and taunts. Using their own instincts against them is pretty much second nature to any half-decent Adventurer. 

However, due to my lack of practice in fighting without magic, I found myself wondering if Cranel was alive after the Loki Familia cleaned up from a successful expedition.

Presumably following the plans I left behind.

Now, I wasn’t concerned about Cranel, but instead I was concerned about myself.

How would I feel later if he had the gall to die from one of my plans, which has never thus far resulted in the death of another Adventurer? Years of work, planning, and teaching idiots would go down the drain if he died. I wasn’t concerned about him at all. All I cared about was that the systems I set in place that kept the Loki Familia popular amongst the lower Familias, and thus the large majority of the regular population, was working as intended and generating both PR and Valis. 

Yeah, I was so worried about Cranel fucking over years of hard work by dying that I forgot about a key part of that system.

Namely that Level 5s and above would be sent out from the main force to protect lesser, non-affiliated Adventurers.

So, for the first time after a few weeks of faking my death, I happened to look upon Wallenstein.

Standing over the corpse of the Minotaur, with my student covered in blood at her feet, she looked like shit. The jacket I’d had made for her was patched up by someone with shit skills. There was dirt on her face. The sword she was using was chipped, despite the fact I paid good money to make in indestructible, and the less said about her pasty complexion the better. She was dead on her feet, barely able to keep standing, and whatever image she was supposed to be showing off or the sake of the Familia was nowhere to be found. 

In short she was showing all the signs of someone who went too far, got their ass kicked, and was lucky to be alive. 

She was so tired that, despite the fact she was probably the only one who I thought would recognize me, I was able to pick Cranel up and give her a nod of thanks without being noticed. 

Seriously, she was lucky she wasn’t getting herself killed acting out and searching for glory in the Dungeon.