The Cursed Gamer, Book 3

Chapter 436: Foolish Expectations

Chapter 436: Foolish Expectations

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"So... now what?"

It was a conversation Neji had with Momo a very long time ago. Back when he was hiding inside the Arcane Plane with the girls. They spent eight months there, while a World War happened outside.

Neji and Nejire's parents died at the hands of Nawab's subordinate, that woman – Ujir. Along with Momo's parents. It was a foolish choice to bring the four parents out of Neji's inventory because the result was their death.

Momo initially blamed him, it was a stupid thing to do which she and everyone else knew, but Neji didn't mind. When she calmed down, she apologized. Nothing was his fault, after all. Rather, he was dirtying his hands for their sake.

"What do you mean?" Neji asked her back. The two of them were sitting on the peak of a tall mountain that reached above the clouds, their bodies resting against one another under the moonlight.

"Well, you said the situation outside is bad, and a World War is going on," Momo asked. "What do we do after we defeat the Gods? Should we rebuild Japan? Become rulers of the remaining world or something?"

She sounded oddly confident that they would win against the Gods. Neji looked at her from the corner of his eyes, while both of their heads faced the moon. "I don't know. We can decide that after we fight the Gods. And after we see what the state of the world outside is."

He knew what the state of the world outside was by now, but the girls didn't know that. The girls knew he was killing people outside, but they didn't know what extreme. They thought he was just killing the villains, and while that was true... he had killed a lot of heroes and in some cases civilians too. For what it counted, the only time he killed the civilians was when they were destined to die. Like if a nuke was falling on a country and was sure to destroy everything, then he'd slip in there and do a quick job of the numbers right before the nuke would hit.

The girls knew he had dirtied his hands... but they didn't know how much. Except for Kimi and Nejire, he told them about it. He needed to share the burden with someone, even if it was just a hug they could console him with. But really, wasn't it hypocritical of him to victimize himself when it was he who was killing them, context or otherwise?

"You think," she nudged closer to him. "...I can heal the world? Can I revive all those who died? That's the Phoenix's job, after all."

Was it? "We'll see." Neji hugged her shoulders. "I, uh, don't think the world will survive. If life remained after the war, it would all perish when the Gods attacked. There is a high chance that the planet won't be inhabitable by the time we finish them..." he left out the part 'if we can'.

"Mars, then?" Momo replied after a long silence. "With my powers, I can make that place habitable. I think. You also stole Kamui Wood's powers, so we should be able to grow trees there with it."

It hurt Neji a little seeing her try to bear all of the destruction on her shoulder. While he was only thinking about how to survive, Momo was here contemplating how she should repair the world. Neji didn't like that. Why must she bear his faults? The Gods were after him, not these foolish girls... Really, should he have fallen in love with anyone?

Though these days in DxD he didn't think like that anymore, but during his time in the Hero Academia world, he actively forced himself to not fall in love unless the person had a particularly strong quirk that might help them survive. Nemuri Kayama was the exception to that rule, but perhaps that was why he was too ashamed to embrace her even after he saved her brazenly. Because he had seen... no, he had killed Mina and Ochako with his own hands when he could have saved them.