The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 299 Cat Pago (12) - Diary, Fourth Entry. At first. He wasn't particularly serious about it. He wanted to ask the opposite, but wouldn't it be scary if there was someone who, upon hearing the suggestion 'A ghost is tormenting you in dreams? Then try thinking of the ghost in that kind of way!', immediately went 'Ah! This is the answer!' and became absorbed in it? Since his uncle had gone to the trouble of buying them, and his part-time colleague had come looking for a solution, he figured he should at least skim through them out of courtesy. That was about it. "The protagonist is a young man going from one part-time job to another... Due to financial difficulties, he moved into a studio apartment with ominous rumors. There was a murdered vengeful spirit there. Huh, how common, so common." "The heroine appears as a terrifying ghost to others, but only the young man can see her true nature? So he can see her as a normal beautiful girl? Isn't that too convenient?" "What, there's a bound spirit attached to the neighboring house, the upstairs house, and the house across too? They even have gatherings among the bound spirits? Does this make any sense... Though they are pretty cute." "Damn, this eunuch bastard. Damn this pushover bastard. Shit, you're not going to eat that? There's a feast right in front of you and she's openly asking you to partake!!" "Wait wait wait, hey! You bastard author!! That's not right! The main wife should be Airi! Abandoning the first love who he met first and built the longest relationship with, and giving all the focus to some new heroine with improvised settings about red threads of souls and whatnot—what kind of bullshit is this!!" -Ding-dong! 《Excuse me! I'm here to repair the door!!》 "Huh?" Sato, who had been getting heated up, unconsciously turned his gaze away from the computer screen. No, this person said he couldn't come the same day because he was backed up with work and could only come tomorrow, so why again— ah. Only then did Sato check the time. And he realized. A whole day had passed. Slightly embarrassed, Sato roughly tidied himself up and then dealt with the repairman. "Can you fix it?" "I'll have to completely replace the handle and the lock mechanism. At least the door itself is fine. It was broken so precisely at specific points." The repairman seemed curious about how on earth the doorknob had ended up like this, but when Sato just gave an awkward smile, he didn't pry further. It was the admirable attitude of a proper member of society. After he left. Since he was already up, Sato took care of various physiological needs including eating, then naturally finished reading the books he had been reading and moved on to games of the same original works. (E/N: Including eating but not excluding other things) "Huh." Sato opened his eyes at his desk. Looking at the clock, quite a bit of time had passed and his body ached here and there. It seemed like he had just dozed off while reading. But the problem wasn't that. "...I didn't have a nightmare?" More precisely, it felt like he had slept and woken up in such an exhausted state that he didn't have the luxury to dream about anything. It definitely felt like he just closed and opened his eyes, like he hadn't even slept properly yet, but time-wise several hours had passed and it felt like he had really lost out. Normally, this wouldn't be a good thing. But for Sato right now, it was a good thing. Sato reached for a new work again. There was a lot to do. *** Quite a bit of time passed after that. The manager's face, who was digesting a schedule of 16-hour workdays every day to fill little Sato's absence, became gloomier with each passing day, but it wasn't to the point where he would just collapse or become completely worn out. Ordinary middle-aged men would have been groaning long ago, but truly the masculine energy of baldness—no, a receding hairline—was terrifying. As long as he didn't end up unable to secure even minimum sleep time like before Popuri came, he was managing to endure well enough. "But then couldn't you just hire a new part-timer?" "I want to hire someone too! But no one comes! Security guard jobs at strange hospitals, hotel cleaning jobs with tons of manuals, anyway all sorts of bizarre part-time jobs are setting abnormally high wages and sweeping people away!! Damn these guys with no business ethics!!" ...Aren't those supernatural anomalies? Popuri suddenly thought so, but didn't bother to step forward. It wasn't to the point where she would openly avoid them like before, but on the other hand, she hadn't become close enough with supernatural anomalies to proactively seek them out when no acquaintances were involved. "What about Sato-san?" "My nephew? Hmm. I don't know." The manager scratched his chin. "The dark circles are still there, and he's still gaunt, but considering that, his eyes are relatively bright, and he seems to be eating better than before." "He's not obviously fine, but anyway he has improved compared to before." "That's what I'm saying. It would be nice if he recovered quickly and came back. ...Hm?" At that moment, the manager's face became very strange as he checked his phone. Popuri tilted her head. "What's wrong?" "He says he thinks he can come back to work?" "That's good news. The manager will also be able to have a human-level work schedule." "But he says he got dumped." "......?" *** Little Sato opened his eyes with a familiar sensation. No, strictly speaking, the expression 'opened his eyes' was somewhat flawed. Because he was currently in a dream. As Sato lay on the bed, the sound of water dripping—drip, drip—could be heard from somewhere. That sound, as if water drops were falling on dry ground. That sound that had kept Sato in terror was closing the distance faster than usual. As if it was angry that during this time Sato had been sleeping like he was unconscious from extreme fatigue, giving it no chance to torment him. As if this time it would thoroughly torment that human in fear and pain. And Sato. Casually got up from the bed. "...S-sorry. I've been too neglectful lately. There are so many accumulated works piled up that even though I think I should sleep, my hand keeps reaching for the next one." A moment of silence. An overwhelming silence came, where even the water drops falling from the body seemed to slow their falling speed for a moment. Regardless, Sato looked at the ghost. Specifically, from the tips of her feet to her head, very calmly and stickily. "Oh, you're pretty today too." The ghost flinched and stepped backward. In Sato's line just now, there was something that transcended life and death, something that would make any woman feel instinctive revulsion. "The white dress suits you very well, and your long straight hair is so lustrous. But your body is too nakedly visible. Be careful, if other men besides me see you, they might harbor wicked intentions. All men are wolves, you know. Not me, though." Sato let out a laugh that went "heh, heh-heh." Goosebumps rose on the ghost's arms. But soon, as if she wouldn't be pushed back, she showed off her blood-covered wrists, the cutter knife, and her blood-soaked clothes. Sato closed his mouth for a moment. Just when the ghost thought she had regained control. "Whew, oh my oh my." Sato sighed and shook his head back and forth. For some reason, the ghost felt something welling up inside her at that gesture. "Airi-chan. I told you, didn't I? You need to treasure your body. No matter how much I'm not paying attention to you, you shouldn't try to get attention through self-harm. Of course, even that side of Airi-chan is cute, but..." Swish!! This time it wasn't just stepping back—the ghost distanced herself from Sato with movements that were halfway to fleeing. It was a reaction as if she had seen something black, shiny, fast, and tenacious crawling out from her feet. What the hell, who is Airi-chan! More than that, what's with that excessive self-consciousness! Then Sato got up from the bed and began approaching the ghost. The ghost desperately tried to give Sato sleep paralysis, but for some reason it didn't work at all. Sato closed the distance with his steps. The ghost cried out urgently. -Die! "Ah, tsundere. Truly textbook." -Die! Die! Die!! "That disheveled appearance. A dojikko, what an excellent attribute." -Die! Die! Die! Die! Drop dead!! "But Airi-chan. I think you should make an effort to dress yourself up sometimes. Of course I can understand those lacking parts too, but it would be better for Airi-chan. Oh, or perhaps you want me to take care of you...? Sorry, I was being oblivious. You can keep being like that from now on." -Just die! Just die! Go out and drop dead!! "Haha, getting all shy." -Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!! The ghost ran toward the window. And as if she didn't want to be in the same space as Sato for even one more minute or second, she smashed through the window with her whole body and fled. The dream shattered. *** -Ding-a-ling. "Welcome, oh it's Sato-san." "Yeah. Sorry I couldn't come in all this time, Hanamori. I can work normally starting today." "That's good news. But I heard you said something about being dumped or whatever, what's that about?" "Uhm, it's just wordplay. I did deliberately act even more unpleasant. You could say it's another way of saying mission success." "Huh? Anyway, if you succeeded, please explain the process a bit. I need to write down supernatural countermeasures and such." "You're asking me to commit social suicide?" "What?" "Oh, no, well I'll help within reasonable limits. Within reasonable limits." *** --- --- --- 『The Woman in Nightmares』 A type of supernatural anomaly that appears in people's dreams and gnaws at their psyche through various horrifying appearances or situations. The victim gradually wastes away from extreme stress, but this is particularly nasty because to those around them, it just looks like the person is causing a fuss by themselves. The situation in dreams fundamentally gives absolute control to the supernatural entity, while the tormented side is thoroughly forced into the role of 'victim' who can only suffer. The strategy is to use the fact that the entity appears in the victim's 'dream' against it. Dreams are fundamentally spaces closely connected to a person's psyche, and conversely, this means it's possible to confront the supernatural entity using techniques similar to lucid dreaming. Since people often can't even recognize that they are 'dreaming' while in dreams, counterattacking isn't easy, but conversely, if you can just recognize that it's a dream, counterattacking becomes possible depending on your mental state and mindset. I would like to record the specific counterattack method if possible, but since the person who used that method avoided specific mention, there's currently no way to know. However, judging by the fact that various subculture works related to ghosts were of great help, the process of recognizing and thinking of the ghost as something other than an 'object of fear' seems quite important. (E/N: ************************************************ is the way to defeat ghosts!) --- --- ---