[A Protagonist That Happens to Pass By]

The musical ensemble begins to play a calm melody, while the stage is gradually illuminated.

A man narrates tonight’s opera performance with a solemn voice.

It is the story of an exiled princess said to have existed once upon a time.

Having lost her country due to the conflict among its people, she barely escapes alive from the castle with the help of her loyal vassals and swears to take revenge the rebels who robbed her country.

The princess’s heart is gradually attracted to a youth she met in the passing months, and she come to ask herself whether taking revenge is something that she really wants to do, whether her dead family really wish for that.

Her vassals cut off her inner conflict, declaring that taking revenge itself is the mission of her family.

Moreover, her existence gets exposed, making the ruling government to continuously target her life for national well-being; companions who she shares joys and sorrows with die one by one, entrusting their hope to her.

The feelings entrusted to her, responsibility as a member of the royal family.

In the days filled with nothing but battle, the only solace for the exhausted princess is her secret date with the youth.

But one day, the princess finds a corpse on the battlefield she partook in as the rebel army.

It is the corpse of the youth she loves, he got caught up in the battle and killed.

Piercing his back is a long sword engraved with the crest of her own royal family.

He was attacked by the rebel army under her command and lost his life.

That fact makes the feelings she has been turning away from overflows; on the battlefield, the princess expresses her grief through singing while holding the corpse of the youth in her arms.

“……She sure is amazing.” (Sakurai)

The Diva Luisina’s acting and singing that can express the sorrow of the princess is so lifelike even to the amateur’s eyes, even I, who is paying attention to the surroundings, end up having my eyes fixed on her before I know it.

When I look to the sides, both Higaki and Iris is focused on Luisina’s vocal solo; Higaki even forgets to hold the sword beside her, while Iris have begun to shed tears in large drops with a handkerchief in hand.

Even when I look over the audience seats with the opera glasses, I find no one looking away from her; Akano and Ether is natural, but even Amanai, who was initially uninterested, is attentively watching it unfolds with bated breath.

And no one notice the red mist that begins to spread throughout the venue… even Amanai doesn’t seem to notice, however, is that okay?

Well, ‘Blood Mist’s’ debuff effect is ineffective on people level 25 and above anyway, there’s no way that the protagonist gonna be manipulated, so it’s fine.

In any case, right now all eyes and awareness are directed to Luisina alone, and no one notices the changes in the surroundings.

Luisina sure is capable to be able to prevent the audience, even including those in the second-floor seats, from noticing the spread of red mist.

The existence of the mist can be noticed before it is inhaled, but when inhaled, it will no longer be possible to notice the mist…

In the original game, the mist still takes effect regardless you can see it or not, so it might be useless to worry about it.

However, that ability to make people lose themselves truly suits the one called the Diva.

(Oh, now I can start moving without anyone knowing.)

With that in mind, I look around the surroundings, and start to act immediately.

So that the two girls don’t notice, I grab the back of my seat and, using all the strength in my arms, slowly lift my body.

After arriving at the handstanding position with my feet almost touching the ceiling, I slowly lower my body to the back of the seat. Due to the opera house being completely carpeted, no sound of footstep is made.

I slowly but surely use the ‘Shishū’ skill to stretch out some threads, being careful not to make a noise.

The threads pass over Higaki and Iris’s heads, fly out of the second-floor seats, and spread out in all directions.

([Nuiage: Cat’s Path]. In the original game, it was a skill to stretch out threads around the field, slightly raising the evasion rate of all allies, but when it turned into reality, it became a skill to make paths of thread in the place where there’s no path……. It sure is convenient.)

While thinking so, I make paths to the stage where Luisina is and the doorway where the Shitty Lizard is.

Even though I called it a path, the stretched-out thread is springy, so it would continuously bounce when you’re treading on it. It requires a certain amount of sense of balance to be able to move on this thread alone, however, you make good use of it without a problem if you use the ‘Shishū’ skill while moving.

In addition, in the original game, Luisina, a vampire demon-kin, had a motion of growing wings and making a diving attack from high altitude in battle. If, at that time, she gets entangled in the threads and obstructed, it’ll be a bonus opening…… as I thought, the ‘Shishū’ skill is so convenient. I’m sure that all thread users are strong characters.

After finishing stretching out the threads, I quietly go out to the hallway and head for the small window on the south side.

Finding the small window specified in the prior discussion, I open the small window slightly and hung a close to the fluorescent color yellow cloth.

This is a message for those who will help in this time’s case. As long as they’re not dead drunk at the bar there, they’d notice it.

“Now then.” (Sakurai)

Since I’m gonna throw Van Dead, aka Shitty Lizard, to Higaki and Iris, and Yang to Amanai and co, I’ll be dealing with the Luisina and Valov duo.

To be honest, I want to deal with all the enemies by myself, but due to compatibility, it’s a pain to deal with the three people other than Van Dead, who can be crushed in spare time, at the same time alone.

My purpose this time is to earn money to regain a calm leveling environment, and to add to that, I quite like with what will be of the opera house later.

Therefore, only for this one time, I decided to bear the burden imposed on me.

“Dammit, to think that a day would come when I would let experience points… experience points go…! Curse you, human society…!” (Sakurai)

While lamenting the current situation where the humanity that I should’ve thrown away in the past is being revived, I decide that when this is all over, I’d buy lots of food with the left-over money and hole up in a suitable dungeon for about a month.

I must cleanse this body that has been dirtied by the secular world by leveling……! For that reason, I must free myself from the chain of debt as soon as possible……!

Even while thinking about such things, I return to the second-floor seats where Higaki and Iris are, and listen to the singing voice that I could hear even from a distance.

The event would begin with the vocal solo at the final stage of the opera, starting from the scene where the princess who is driven into a corner, surrounded by enemies, goes mad, saying, “If the world is such a sad, painful place, everyone should just die!”

The people who heard the phrase, “Everyone should just die,” would follow the instruction of those words of Luisina due to the effect of ‘Blood Mist’, going rampage as if to act on the despair and anger of the princess and starting to fight to the death with the surrounding people.

I put a farewell letter for the two, who are still lost in Luisina’s singing, on the chair, erase my presence and the sound of my footstep with the ‘Stealth’ skill, and start moving to the 2nd floor area.

Then I sneak into a private room closest to the stage, before quickly strangling the two men who are there with a thread, making them lose conscious, restrain them, and push them to the corner of the room.

After that, until the turmoil begins, I kill time by practice-swinging with Luisina’s singing as the BGM.

While keeping the noise down as best as I could, I continue to swing my drawn sword calmly so as not lower the experience value gains, so as to check my movements, and so as to occupy myself.

Still, I sure am still quite far from hitting the counter stop of the swordsmanship skill.

For the required experience points from skill level 10 to 11 to be a lot more than the total required experience points from skill level 1 to 10, is this the end content of my life? Is this the woe of those without talent?

Eh, but doesn’t that mean I can continue leveling until I die? What, that’s the best, ain’t it… oops, it’s about time, huh.

“If the world is such a sad, painful place, everyone should just die!” (Luisina)

The singing announcing the start of the event echoes throughout the opera house, and finally, the ‘Horror Drama’ by Luisina Mateos begins.

“Gyaa! M-my hand! I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch!”

“What are you looking at! Got a complain!? I’ll kill you!”

“Every last one of you is just a nuisance! Die! Die!!!”

“Oh, it’s started. Let’s wait a bit and go.” (Sakurai)

I leak out a smile at the rumbling-like hustle and bustle of the lower floor, and wait a bit until the turmoil regularize; when the people on the first floor begins to rampage and there’s no more people paying attention at the stage, I kick off the fence of the private room and jump toward a thread.

Then, stepping on the stretched out ‘Cat’s Path’, I use the recoil and jump to a ‘path’ further ahead, heading for the stage.

Beyond my line of sight is Luisina, who’s looking at the fighting people in a sullen manner, and Yang Lan, who have thrown his instrument away and stand by her side.

I feel a little doubtful because the attendant, Valov, cannot be seen, but since the everyone has open hostilities, I have to start acting. Acting according to circumstances (just think about the rest later) is the best, right?

“Lesse, it’s gonna be easier to throw Yang over with a thread than to bring Amanai over here, huh. And that’d make it freer to fight on the stage.” (Sakurai)

I take a position above Luisina and co with my drawn sword and decide on my next course of actions.

Fortunately, probably because they think that things are going well and there’s no one going to attack them, they let their guard down; they just watch the mobs rampaging from the stage without even going into the demon-kin forms, which are also their battle forms.

Particularly Yang Lan, he’s only cackling and pointing at the people killing each other.

However, since he has such a bad personality, I can surprise attack him without hesitation!

Let’s go, ‘Black Sword’! Tonight, I’ll have you guys paying my debt! Thank you so much for your one-sided cooperation!!

I released the thread that supported my body and start free falling, then, with the ‘Flame Sword’ skill, I swing down my flame-cladded sword——while intentionally aiming at the space between Luisina and Yang!

“Flame Sword, ‘Fire Snakes’!” (Sakurai)

“——!” (Luisina)

“Uoh, watch it!?” (Yang)

In response to my surprise attack, Luisina and Yang separate to the left and right and jump away, as I had expected.

However, following the sword, six ‘fire snakes’ attack both of them, widening the distance between the two with me on the center. Alright, separation complete.

“Who are you?” (Luisina)

Luisina, whose hem gets scorched under the attack of the ‘fire snakes’, throws me a question with undisguised hostility.

In response, I try to give my name while smiling deliberately, but… suddenly, I remember the words Amanai said in front of the opera house.

[I don’t want to do things that’d disturb the original game flow.]

If, for argument’s sake, I give her my name here.

The person involved in the turmoil and resolved it would be changed to ‘Sakurai Torū’ instead of ‘Amanai Hayato’.

For the original game protagonist, the September opera house event was an important event where the protagonist, who so far was only a socially unknown student, be clearly known by the ‘Black Sword’.

For that attention to be directed at me, wouldn’t that trouble Amanai?

(There’s also a character of the Thieves Guild who comes into contact with the protagonist because the ‘Black Sword’ pays attention to him; if he becomes unable to meet them, he’d surely be angry.)

To be honest, I’m planning to go meddle with the ‘Black Sword’ even after this, so I’m not going to give a damn about the original game and the likes, but in the places where I can make compromise on, wouldn’t it be better to be thoughtful and go along with the original game?

The reincarnated person who also had played the game and from the same place as me.

Even in front of the opera house, he voluntarily made concessions first; now it’s my turn to give way to Amanai.

Besides, I have little interest in fame and relationships with people anyway, as they are in the way of leveling, so I basically have no need of them.

(In short, this is a win-win!)

“You’re not going to attack me without even giving me your name, aren’t you?” (Luisina)

“Oops, my bad, my bad. I just decided on a name to call myself with after considering various things.” (Sakurai)

“Haah?” (Luisina)

Pointing my sword at Luisina who doesn’t try to hide her irritation, I cast my eyes on the wary Yang on the other side for a moment.

Then I firmly and clearly give my name so that it would resonate throughout the opera house.

“My name is Amanai Hayato! A protagonist that happens to pass by!!!” (Sakurai)