Honestly, I Don't Know What I Expected.

 Honestly, I Don't Know What I Expected.

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Commissioned by Patreon Special

Word Count: 1712

Beta'd by: Rem

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Good morning, Wage Slave Progenitors, it’s me, your son who has been missing for over a decade. Unfortunately, I’m not actually writing you a letter, because leaving around memoirs to give to one’s distant family is a death flag I’m not willing to tolerate. Regardless, I’m going to tell you about my day, aloud in my mind, on the off chance that I’m actually the protagonist, and the past ten years was just a horrible, horrible oversight due to Zaimokuza’s shitty writing.

Today, there is a girl asleep in my embrace.

Now, before you tear down my altar, my righteous and honorable parents, please heed your foolish, misguided son’s attempts to explain his situation.

She’s legal.

Oi, oi, oi! I said, don’t strike down my altar! Put those hammers down!

Lying atop me is Aiz Wallenstein. I have known her since she was ten years old, and she is now twenty years of age. Like most situations, this isn’t my fault! She’s just too childish to freaking grow up! I raised her, taught her, and looked after her every step of the way of her journey, from the first floor of the Dungeon, to the seventy-fifth the whole Familia is now on!

In essence, I’m not doing anything lewd or inappropriate by forcing a young, blonde, and striking woman to sleep with me!

I’m being immoral and terrible by raising the most likely protagonist I’ve come across as a weapon to bust through this world’s shitty setting and get to the end as quickly as possible! This situation, with a scantily-clad woman holding onto me, is not due to me being a lecherous, lustful monster, but because I lack any compunctions against utilizing another person’s dreams to turn them into a weapon I can toss at my enemies without hesitation!

In other words, this situation is a side-effect of my ingratiating myself to the hero of this story, whom I’ve thoroughly trained and brainwashed, not an indication that I’m a pervert.

So, knowing that, please simply turn my picture face-side down, leave me to gather dust, and cease giving me any offerings.

Thank you very much.

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“You need to start sleeping in your own room, Aiz.”

“No.”

Ah, instant rejection; you’ve trained extensively over this timeskip, I see. While I’ve been messing about and trying to get home, you’ve studied the blade. Despite my various defenses and stupidly overpowered body, you have inflicted as much damage to me today as you did when you’d first gutted me in middle school. As expected, I am no match for you. Please, do not leave. Just end my suffering now. Have a shred of fucking mercy and kill me, for both our sakes.

Because, if you don’t, we’re both going to be embarrassed by how much you’re going to put me down. People will probably get ideas, and you don’t want your reputation getting involved with mine, even if I am part of the premier Familia of Orario. It’s not you, rejection-chan, it’s me. For your sake, I ask of you to end my life, so that you can live peacefully for all eternity. Let this be the end of my route. My CGs are shitty, anyways.

Ah, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, then.

“Oi, that wasn’t a request, Aiz. That was an order.” Seeing the direct approach falter, fail, and cause me massive damage, I elected to press onward, heedless of any form of self-preservation. If I valued my life, I wouldn’t be trying to convince a Level 7 Adventurer to do something she didn’t want, or attempting to reach the end of the Dungeon. I am a man lacking in shame, self-consideration, and propriety. No matter how ugly my face is going to end up, I’m going to slam it against the brick wall, until the wall feels bad enough to let me through. Suffice to say, the only way to defeat me completely is to studiously ignore me—which is what you’re doing right now. Dammit, Aiz! “Don’t ignore me!” Said the man in his mid-thirties, to the girl of twenty years. “I might be a lower Level than you, but I’m still your senior, y’know!?”

Aiz answers to my demand by divesting herself of her night shirt.

While I was sure there would be random rays of light in the filthy, filthy illustrations of whatever Light Novel I found myself in, no such grace was provided to me. Stop that! Stop that this instant! You might not consider me a man and have no problem with doing things like that, but please be more considerate! I am a man! A man who cannot kick a woman out of his own room or bed, set his own personal boundaries, or look at a woman undressing without shame, but I am still a man! Until Hachiman Jr. decides to grow a brain and leave me to my misery, I am a man!

“Let’s eat out for breakfast today. I want something sweet, Hachiman.” That answer is too blasé for a girl getting ready to bathe in my shower! Aiz, where have I gone wrong in raising you!? Do you seriously expect me to believe that I’m the only one you’ll do this around!? I’ve raised you, trained you, and cared for you for ten years, yet you’re this comfortable around men!? I knew the Hiryutes were a bad influence on you! Amazons are too brazen, dammit! “Can you wash my back, Hachiman?”

Oh, Kami-sama—no, not you, Loki—please, deliver some divine knowledge upon your meager servant.

What the hell is happening with my life, right now?

The only difference between this month and the last, whereupon Aiz started making my life a daily challenge, is that I’ve begun training Riviera’s student. What has happened to the cute, easily manipulated, blonde glutton that I raised? Why is she now a voracious young woman who seeks to make my life a living Hell?

What’s that you say, Kami-sama?

Aiz has a crush on me and is jealous?

Well, to that answer, Kami-sama, there is only one phrase to be said.

You’re better off dead.

…

Trash is a term I utilize in many different contexts. It is a word I utilize to label certain individuals as waste (Level 1 Trash; which can be recycled), as people who are better off in a landfill (Level 2 Trash, which takes too much effort to be recycled), or, most of the time, destined for the incinerator (Level 3 Trash, which is better off polluting the atmosphere than actually existing). I have labelled many individuals as waste and destined for landfills, but there are very few individuals who are incinerator fuel.

Most of them happen to be in my “To Kill” notebook back home, which I’m sure was never found, because I hid it amongst my more salacious magazines. Mother, who cleaned my room, probably incinerated the whole box. It was a worthy sacrifice, all you softcore actresses, but I still apologize for all the hard work that has been wasted.

Anyway, I never thought I’d put that moniker upon myself.

Why?

Because, Aiz was happily clinging to my arm, consuming a treat, and having a grand time… while a young, white haired, and scarlet-eyed boy stared at us with tears in his eyes from the corner of an alleyway.

I have become the very worst of Trash, Level 3, an item that would be burnt to a crisp even if doing so punched a hole through the whole ozone layer, as I have inadvertently NTR’d a young soul.

While a weak, spineless individual would posit that this situation is entirely my fault, that I have allowed Aiz to have her way with me, without any form of refusal, I must say this: it takes one to know one.

The fact of the matter is that I valued Aiz’s happiness above my own and that of Side Character A’s. Here and now, while we still struggled in this world to reach the end of the Dungeon, Aiz’s happiness was paramount to me. While I had friends and companions amongst the Loki Familia, who’d taken me in when I’d been insane and helpless, Aiz was the first individual who I became invested in.

Yes.

That is the correct term.

No matter how harsh those words are; they’re true.

I’d raised her from when she was an orphan who’d just lost her family. When she left the Familia in the middle of the night to train, I’d chastised her, before coming along every night afterward. I’d reasoned her strength, rapid growth, and abilities made her my best chance to get back home. That was my initial reason of training Aiz Wallenstein.

However, slowly but surely, matters changed over the last decade, especially as the Loki Familia neared the 100th Floor, where I was sure the End waits. As I watched her grow, in both strength and character, I became unacceptably invested, and when I tried to pull away, she would reach out for me without hesitation. First, she’d done so through tears, then through words, and finally I found myself being brought back by a simple tug on my sleeve.

Truthfully, I didn’t know if I could leave her behind.

The day when I reached the End of the Dungeon, when I presumed I could go back home, became less of a dream and more a nightmare. A nightmare where I left Aiz and returned to a home where I’d been gone for over a decade, without anyone remembering me. Or, if I magically returned home without any time passing, I would still have to leave Aiz behind. Even if the choice was made clear to me, at the End, I didn’t know if I could choose to leave.

I’ve become, without a doubt, a piece of trash.

Yet, inexplicably, Aiz doesn’t care.

Even after I’d confessed my circumstances to her, and told her that I would leave, she still stays by my side.

Honestly, I don’t know what I expect to happen anymore.

But, for now, even at the cost of my own happiness and that of others, I would do my best to make sure she could smile.

It was the least I could do.

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