I Run the Protagonist’s Favorite Café in a Hopelessly Depressing Game World - V1 Chapter 1.4

I Got the World Completely Wrong

Shikiko smiled brightly and put her arm around Tamaki’s shoulder.

“But… ehh? I never thought the great Tamaki would actually apologize to me.”

“Wha!”

“You’ve got some surprisingly cute sides, huh. I’m starting to see Tamaki Omuta as a soft character.”

“Who are you calling soft! Let go! …Your strength, it’s too strong!”

“After-effect of magic.”

The two of them started making a fuss.

This was the reconciliation event that happened around the middle of the game.

It normally triggered when they ate together, so I never expected it to happen so early.

──?

I felt something off in my own thoughts.

Why did I try to serve Tamaki food in the first place?

I knew it would be a big deviation from the original story.

And yet… why.

I shoveled the leftover Napolitan on the silver plate into my mouth.

Still no taste.

It had been taken a long time ago, and I hadn’t tasted anything since.

I turned strong suspicion toward my own actions.

The usual Aoi Komeiji—the strongest witch—would never have made such a blunder. I never made mistakes. I steadily piled up advantages and won. That was how Aoi Komeiji was supposed to live.

And yet lately I’d been acting strange.

It probably started around the time Shikiko came for the part-time interview. If I wanted to avoid changing the game’s flow, I should’ve casually turned her down. Instead I made the excuse that it would be easier to watch her and ended up hiring her.

This was weird.

Extremely weird.

Abnormal.

The fact that I hadn’t even noticed the strangeness until now made it even more abnormal.

“Some kind of mental manipulation by someone──”

That was the only possibility that came to mind.

I was the strongest in the world, after all. The perfect target to use as a pawn.

But a question remained. I was acknowledged as the strongest by everyone, including myself, so my resistance to things like brainwashing was also abnormal. Unless it was a witch with even more magic power than Aoi Komeiji, it should be almost impossible.

…No.

If it was one of the game’s characters.

If it was the work of the cheat-level beings running wild in Witch or.

Unfortunately, that made sense.

I was called the strongest witch, and I believed I could win in a direct fight against them. But if they approached me when I wasn’t on guard and used underhanded methods, who knows. Maybe they could twist my actions without me even realizing.

“…? Boss, is something wrong?”

“Ah, no… it’s nothing.”

To Shikiko’s worried question I answered that I just had a slight headache.

“Maybe you got hit by their lovey-dovey yuri atmosphere.”

“Yuri atmosphere!?”

“I’ll be resting in the back. Go ahead and flirt as much as you want.”

“Wait a second! Tamaki and I are not like that!”

“People in that kind of relationship always say exactly that.”

“Nnnn devil’s proof! Once the trap is set you’re already labeled and doomed to lose!”

Tamaki stomped her feet.

She actually had quite a childish side.

…Well, of course.

Tamaki Omuta had only been in this world for about five years.

She wasn’t just childish—she basically was a child.

I smiled wryly, left the two of them there, and retreated to the back room.

◇

“Hey… still no sign of Aoi?”

“I have constant access to every surveillance camera in the country… but nothing.”

“A woman with that great a figure is pretty rare, right? I even suspected a few times that she might actually be a guy.”

“But she doesn’t show up on any camera at all. If we ignore gender, there are people who look almost exactly like her.”

“But she’s a guy, right? Then it’s someone else. Magic can only be used by women.”

Inside a dark room.

Several screens glowed faintly.

Even though every surveillance camera in this country—the Astraedia United Kingdom—could be viewed, the witch named Aoi Komeiji was nowhere to be found.

“Maybe she already left for another country.”

“Crossing the barrier? Even Aoi couldn’t do that. Outside the barrier is covered with millions of monsters.”

“Well—if she focused entirely on moving at full power and spammed magic without thinking about the consequences, maybe.”

“Aoi isn’t the type to make a bad bet like that.”

Mizuka Asamura, who used to be in Aoi Komeiji’s party, looked up at the ceiling with a dejected face and finally let out a sigh full of hidden exhaustion.

Her glossy golden hair looked dull, and deep dark circles sat under her eyes.

“Aoi… where on earth are you?”

Aoi Komeiji.

The strongest witch in the world.

She suddenly announced her retirement from dungeon monster subjugation and then vanished—someone very, very important to Mizuka.

It had been several years since they lost contact, and Mizuka was finally reaching her limit.

“Mizuka… you shouldn’t push yourself so hard. You’ve been increasing the number of monsters you subjugate lately, yet you’re flying all over the country looking for Aoi, right? What about your sleep? Lack of focus can get you killed. I’m sure the Aoi Komeiji you admire would say exactly that.”

The witch with thick round glasses—Mayuko Tobitsuka—gave her opinion.

She probably wasn’t sleeping much either; she had terrible dark circles too, but her words were proper.

“Mayuko, you’re at your limit too. Your consciousness drops every ten-odd seconds.”

“Eh? Really?”

“Want me to prove it? …One, two, three, four—see, you dropped.”

“…Ha! I didn’t realize I was this cornered.”

Mayuko scratched the back of her head, looking embarrassed.

I didn’t think there was anything to be embarrassed about, but strong witches tended to be weirdos.

She was one of them.

“Haa… seriously. Aoi really is hard to understand. She was so passionate about defeating monsters, yet suddenly announced her retirement. The way you panicked back then was something else.”

“You were going crazy too, Mayuko.”

“I lose to you there. I’m famous as a pure and modest maiden.”

“A pure and modest maiden doesn’t lock herself in a room for days staring at screens. At least take a bath.”

“Ah… now that you mention it, that concept did exist. Nostalgic.”

“You even forgot the concept!?”

The two of them acted cheerful.

But the limit was close.

Their emotional support, Aoi Komeiji, had disappeared. It was only natural.

──Their feelings had piled up tremendously over the years of no contact.

Piled up so much that if they reunited with Aoi, they wouldn’t hesitate to lock her up so she could never disappear in front of them again.

It was supposed to have started as pure friendship and such, but now it had become completely clouded.

Well, it was all because of that certain man—no, witch—who left without any proper explanation.

Couldn’t be helped.

“…? I just felt a chill…”

The scene changed back to the café.

Aoi, who had moved to the back room, suddenly shivered at the sudden chill that hit his shoulders.