[Reberu] ga Arunara Agerudesho? Mobukyara ni Tensei Shita Ore wa Gēmu Chishiki o Ikashi, Hitasura Reberu o Age Tsudzukeru

[Who’s Behind You Now*, Leveling] [1]

In Amanai’s life, he had never regretted dropping his eraser by this much.

When he turned and bent down his body to pick the eraser he had dropped, a suspicious person entered the corner of his view.

He stared in shock at the suspicious person…Sakurai Tōru who was practice-swinging while his face was facing stock-still toward the teacher in the back of the classroom.

What was weird about it was that he couldn’t hear any ‘sounds’ from Sakurai who was practice-swinging.

The sound of his sword that was sheathed in the scabbard[2] cutting through the wind, the sound of his clothes rustling, or the sounds of his footsteps as he was moving about, he couldn’t hear any of them at all.

The rhythm of his swing was inconstant, soon after he made several tempestuous swing, he started swinging at a slow speed so as to correct the deviation of his movement.

He was impressed at his movements that was so practiced that it could be said to had been ingrained in his body, but that just increase the eeriness of his head that looked as though it was fixed in space.

(Wha—!? Just, what’s that guy doing!? The heck is he up to!?)

An acquaintance – temporary – of his was just simply pantomiming in the back of the classroom.

Moreover, although he was mostly expressionless, he would make a sloppy face from time to time, as though something joyful just came to his mind.

Usually, Amanai would just pretend to have nothing to do with him and wait for the storm to pass.

However, Amanai, who knew that Sakurai was also a reincarnated person like himself, couldn’t ignore him.

He didn’t want anyone to see his eccentric act and thought that he was the same as him since they were from the same hometown.
That was why a mysterious sense of duty to do something about it welled up in him.

However, he couldn’t come up with a concrete means and ended up just staring down at his desk.
The lecture didn’t enter his ears anymore.

(That’s right, teacher! Why doesn’t the teacher say anything !?)

When he raised his face vigorously along with the feeling that an electric current ran through his body, he looked at the figure of the teacher who kept talking about ‘how useful hot springs are in life’.

This teacher, who was in charge of this class called ‘labyrinth studies’, taught the knowledge necessary for exploring dungeons, such as the type and structure of dungeons, and traps and floors with special effects within them.

In the original game story, he was a teacher who most players indebted to because they were able to acquire skills that could make dungeon exploration easier when they attend his class.

Amanai locked eyes with that teacher, the teacher gently smiled at Amanai while continuing to talk about the benefits of hot springs.

The teacher’s mentality that was refined in the twenty some years of his life did not show any discomposure, and his words were spoken without hesitation.

Amanai, looking at his figure, perceived for certainty that the teacher’s mentality came from the fruition of his experience in life, not from his setting as a game character.

But putting that aside, he also certainly perceived that the teacher was prioritizing the fact that Sakurai was listening to his story about hot spring seriously, and not to mention paying himself attention, he instead began to get excited in his lecture.

(Damn, this hot spring otaku is no good! The students usually don’t listen to his lecture about hot spring properly, so now one does, he started to get excited!!)

Before he was a teacher, he was a hot spring otaku, he was a man who was fascinated by the wide variety of hot springs that spring up in dungeons.

He, who possessed the one-of-a-kind ‘Hot Spring Appraisal’ skill, had always starved for a comrade, and he discovered that possibility in the suspicious person, aka Sakurai, so to him, his existence was now like a rough diamond that was 10,000 times more valuable than his rabble of students.

Even at the expense of the remaining 37 minutes of class time, the teacher was resolved to lure…nay to drag him to get into hot springs.

Anyway, this cut off Amanai’s hope.

Abandoning the option of relying on the unreliable teacher, Amanai thought again.
The topic was whether or not to speak to the suspicious person whose displaying his eccentricities at full force in the back of the classroom.

Some might think that he just had to leave him alone to begin with, but inside Amanai, Sakurai’s presence had already swollen up to the same level of a fly buzzing around his ears.

Once he noticed him, he couldn’t help but be bothered about him.
As long as he didn’t make him stop, he wouldn’t be able to settle down.

If, he had a suspicious person repellant spray and there were no one around, Amanai would have sprayed Sakurai without hesitation.

However, they were now in a classroom packed with students.
If he raise his voice all of a sudden and scold the suspicious person at the back of the class, he would inevitably stand out, and he was not yet prepared to be known as someone who was acquainted with such an eccentric person by the people around him.

(He said that his purpose was leveling, but does he usually take it this far!?)

He does.

Because of Sakurai who was driven by such a simple and clear principle, Amanai Hayato would continue to spend the remaining 35 minutes of class time while feeling distressed.

The sigh he exhaled at the end of class was really, really deep.

“Yo, Amanai.
Why do you look so tired?” (Sakurai)

“Because of you!!” (Amanai)

“Come again?” (Sakurai)