The morning after the school attack, an announcement arrived from the school that classes would be canceled for the day.
Roughly speaking, the content was something like: "We’re checking whether any tricks have been played on the school, so students should study at home or in their dorm rooms."
Of course — the number of students who would think "The teacher told us to study, so let’s study!" was a minority.
Looking around the area in front of the station, even though it was a weekday, high school-aged boys and girls were hanging around. From them, I could only read the feeling of "Lucky that school is canceled."
I myself felt the same way — after receiving a message from Niekawa that said "Shusawa, you said the tests are coming up and that you were going to study! Are you okay!?", I had replied "I’m tired from yesterday so I’m taking a break, sorry. I’ll make it up later" and come to the station area.
"Nothing changes, huh."
I muttered while sipping coffee in front of a convenience store.
The fact that the Sacred had been driven to the brink of defeat, the fact that there had almost been casualties — they had completely forgotten all of that and were simply enjoying the holiday that had suddenly appeared.
That was probably a sign of their trust in the existence known as the Sacred.
If one thought about it calmly, just the appearance of a Monster Villain in the middle of town was a major incident.
Monsters with power beyond humans running wild according to their desires — of course that was scary.
But even so, the reason everyone could still enjoy their daily lives was because the champions of justice — the Sacred — were there.
Even if a monster appeared, they would definitely defeat it. Therefore they could feel at ease.
The attack by a Diabolic also seemed to be not much different from a Monster Villain incident for the majority of people. Some strong-looking guy showed up, but the Sacred protected us like always, so all’s well that ends well — that was the feeling.
But.
There was one thing that was different from usual.
"Look at this, the photo of that Vigilante! I got a really good shot of him, right? I uploaded it to SNS too, and the notifications just won’t stop!"
"For real? You’re famous now! ...Leaving that aside, you didn’t evacuate?"
"Since the Sacred were going to defeat him anyway, taking photos from nearby was better than running away, right? And thanks to this, my followers have been increasing like crazy!"
The word "Vigilante" that occasionally mixed into the rumors I overheard.
A word that did not exist in the game I played in my previous life was flowing through rumors, television, and online news. From that fact, I could feel that I had changed the future.
——Originally, Niekawa would have died, and Sacred Saber would have been violated by Alter.
The death of a good-natured person with leadership qualities, and the public humiliation and defeat of a transformation heroine of justice.
Those things would have destroyed the illusion of the champions of justice who protected everyone, and become the catalyst for people to condemn the Sacred out of self-preservation, malice, and desire.
But that future had changed.
With the tentacles I had stretched out, I had grasped a different future.
——Though, of course, I had only finally managed to stand at the starting line.
Protecting the Sacred and fighting alongside them.
I had chosen that path and had only just begun to run. There were still mountains of obstacles.
But for now.
Just for now, I wanted to immerse myself in the satisfaction of having protected them, of having been able to do it——
"Huhhh!? Isn’t that Senpai Shusawa~!"
——or so I had been thinking.
A noisy junior came running over, so I reluctantly turned my gaze in that direction.
Reiko, dressed in easy-to-move short pants, stood in front of me while saying "What a coincidence~!"
"Yo junior, what about studying at home? A student’s main duty is studying."
"Senpai Shusawa, could you look in a mirror for me~?"
While saying "Geez," Reiko stood beside me.
At this close distance, I sometimes thought Does this girl like me...? If I confessed, maybe I could get a girlfriend in one shot? — but in reality she had no such intention at all.
My own experience and previous-life game knowledge taught me that she simply closed the distance all at once once she became friendly with someone. In fact, there were apparently junior boys who had misunderstood and crashed and burned, and in the game there had even been an erotic scene where she was gang-raped by that type of people out of spite.
Seeing the face of a character who was usually noisily bright cloud over was pretty erotic — no, wait, this is bad.
"...Senpai, what’s wrong? Why did you suddenly lean forward?"
"Ah, well — I’ve been a bit concerned about the conversations I’ve been overhearing here and there, so I was kind of secretly trying to listen closer."
I couldn’t say it.
"I was imagining a scene where the junior girl smiling next to me is being raped and screaming" — no matter how you looked at it, that made me a dangerous person. If I were a girl, I would have sprinted full speed to the police box.
Perhaps my prayer of Please don’t notice various things got through, because Reiko looked around and nodded largely with "Ah, I see!"
"Man, it’s great, right! ’Vigilante Atel Octo!’ Apparently he swooped in and saved the Sacred, right~?"
——Wait a second, what the hell is that name? I’ve never heard it before.
The relief from the topic changing was blown away in one shot. At the same time, my son that had been starting to react also calmed down.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but my head remained exquisitely confused.
"...Atel Octo? I don’t remember hearing that I introduced myself — who named him that?"
I strained my ears toward the conversations of the students around us.
And then — whoa, they’re really saying it. They’re saying "Atel Octo." What’s going on? What happened after I withdrew...!?
"It was me. Look, please look at my article!"
A smartphone was thrust at me.
The SNS account of the school newspaper club with multiple articles lined up. Among them was an article titled "A Hero Who Fights with Tentacles as Weapons! His Name is Atel Octo (".
"He seemed nameless, so this humble Haga Reiko tried naming him. Then — somehow the rumor spread that I had directly heard it from that tentacle guy."
"You were left behind at the school, so the story got exaggerated that you met him directly... Also, there’s only one parenthesis at the end of the title article."
"I was planning to write ’(provisional).’ You see, I was thinking of uploading the article faster than anyone else, and in my hurry I made a copy-paste mistake in the draft and it ended up like that... Yesterday I fell into a deep sleep early, so by the time I woke up and noticed the copy-paste mistake, the rumor had already fully spread..."
I didn’t say Are you an idiot...
In the end, she was the kind of person who would be chosen as a Sacred — a transformation heroine of justice. I knew her nature was good even without looking at previous-life knowledge.
She had probably wanted to spread positive opinions under the title of a school student before negative opinions about the Vigilante could appear. Therefore she had surely started writing the article right after returning from her first battle where she had been driven to the brink of defeat.
"Well, don’t worry about it. Maybe that Vigilante is actually happy that ’I was saved the trouble of thinking of a name.’"
"Is that so... If he’s happy, then I’m happy too."
Looking at Reiko laughing "Ehehe," I sincerely thought that taking action at that time had been the correct choice.
In stories or collection of lewd CGs, I was fine with girls going through terrible experiences — but I didn’t want the acquaintance standing next to me right now to become like that.
——If I hadn’t had the knowledge from my previous life, I might have said some nonsense like "Just once is fine" and lost to desire.
After all, I was a man who generated tentacles for violating women with the power to materialize desire. If there was a chance, I would want to do such acts. Especially if my face was hidden after becoming a Monster Villain — I might have gone wild thinking that as long as it wasn’t found out, it was okay.
But the previous-life game knowledge had sealed off my worthless excuses.
If you don’t help at all, or if you lose to desire and violate them — they will fall into ruin, just like in the original story... it had said.
Therefore, I think I was able to take action.
Therefore, the junior who was working as a transformation heroine of justice was still smiling like this.
"’Vigilante’ is Latin, right — so black ’Atel’ plus eight ’Octo’ makes Atel Octo! How is it? This style that doesn’t easily rely on German...! You can praise me as a junior with a promising future, you know~!"
"’Vigilante’ was Latin, huh... I didn’t know."
I muttered quietly. Completely first time hearing it.
Because I had just pulled it from a word in a manga I had seen in my previous life. That one about a hero academy.
I had just named myself with the feeling of "I’m not a hero but I’m working hard for peace," so I couldn’t help breaking out in a cold sweat. This would be embarrassing if it was found out...!?
"On top of that, since he has eight tentacles like an octopus, it’s a double meaning combining octopus and octo! Man, Atel, octopus, octo! This naming sense while unifying it in Latin! I’m scared of my own talent...!"
"Isn’t ’octopus’ English?"
Reiko froze solid.
——I thought she was waiting for a retort, but she was serious? For real, junior?