Chapter 6: Training, a relationship, and more choco milk?! (1)
[You have extinguished Zero Of The Past.]
[You have used your Investor's Skill—Farming Zone(I)—and earned three gold coins.]
[Zero Of The Present and Zero Of The Future have been notified about your achievements.]
[You have killed the phantom in the presence of a protagonist, Estelle Silverheart, with the intent to teach her. You've been rewarded with a loot box.]
Benjamin went over the voice's messages and validated his boons. He received a small black box that had materialized before him before anyone noticed.
Checking the content of his side character's role and mission again, Benjamin also confirmed his first assumptions about those uncanny schemes of which the emotionless voice had spoken before he woke up in the new world.
He also picked up new suspicions, but those had better have been confirmed with Estelle first.
The owner of the name that had appeared in Benjamin's mind had been fretting before the arena.
Assisted by his Investor's Keen Eye, Benjamin could see where her concerns were coming from.
He was no longer free from troubles, either, for Zero Of The Present and Zero Of The Future were now aware of him being in their world.
He was older here and could notice, even without his skill, that Estelle hadn't seen much of the world. He picked up the loot box and strolled over to her side.
Once he was close to her, Estelle lifted her eyes, glazed with tears, and parted her lips, but Benjamin had beaten her to the punch and spoke first, intending to set the record straight between them.
"Living with someone else within you must be terrible," he said. He'd seen many people like Estelle in the past, and each of them was having a life-and-death battle with a foreign existence living within them, which was mainly to take control over the body and be free of another's presence.
"Y-You believe me?" Estelle replied as though skipping a few important steps or questions, but she was just that overwhelmed by Benjamin's statement.
In her whole life, only her mother and sisters believed in someone else.
It didn't mean her life had been easier and all those wrong things another existence had done were condoned, for Estelle grew up in her royal father's mansion with other step-siblings and their mothers and supporters who hadn't let any chance to admonish the devoted to goddesses mother and her daughters slip through their fingers.
Benjamin, unaware of all, nodded and replied, "I believe in myself who saw you being controlled by someone else. I don't know anything else, so I'd rather have you confess all to me. I'm not a god, though. Remember that."
Since he didn't have any inexplicable belief or liking for her but believed in himself instead and had said the last sentences in a joking manner, Estelle cut loose and smiled.
It was far from her ecstatic and relieved smile, but the effort and relief behind it were seen by Benjamin.
Estelle nodded, "It's terrible. Really terrible."
In comparison to her latest confession of her worries, which was as long and to the point as it could have been, those four words weighed much more.
It didn't take an Investor's Keen Eye to see through it.
Benjamin folded his arms and waited for her to open herself. Before long, Estelle's harsh life outside the shrine was laid out before him as she explained about her father not believing in her, her step-siblings bullying her, and her other self taking matters into her hands, resulting in everyone getting pissed at her.
It was a roller-coaster of emotions.
Estelle sighed, "I wanted to summon a low phantom, a kind I deal with every month. But she suddenly took over me and summoned that terrifying orc! I was so worried about you… b-but…" Estelle's looked directly into Benjamin's eyes, "You're The Executioner!"
Although she was still concerned about Benjamin, despite knowing about his past fame and skills, the more he fought against Zero, the more those feelings got abated.
He hadn't even used her talismans! At some point, Estelle was only disturbed about herself as she thought she had disappointed her new friend.
"You also were holding back, right! You haven't used your arms!" Estelle added with stars gleaming in her green eyes.
Benjamin tilted his head and feigned ignorance, "Huh? But I used my hands, though?"
"Eh?" Estelle blinked. "When did he use them? I didn't see!"
"Your thoughts are escaping you," Benjamin chuckled, "I used them for the move before the finisher. Lowering myself down before him was the fastest way to escape his vision. Had I not used my hands to get footing, I would have broken my balance, gotten myself in an unfavorable position, and more. Well, I was done with him."
"W-What happens when you go all out? Like when you use your hands to fight, too?" Estelle's curiosity was like a mantle that she had thrown over Benjamin so as not to let him go.
He could see that she had imagined some cool stuff.
He shattered that imagination with the truth.
"Nothing as cool as you imagine. With my hands out of my pocket, I can properly transfer the weight of my body to my kicks, and I am no longer limited to just moving with my legs. In a nutshell, I'm much more versatile. Of course, while I prefer fighting with legs for most of my time, I know how to throw a punch. The sad truth is that just kicks alone wouldn't have been able to bring me to the top. So I learned how to fight with the entire of my body."
Estelle's eyes sparkled now, "So… you won't leave me alone. Right?!"
Benjamin sneered, "Oh? You no longer feel conscious of asking me to fight for you?"
Estelle's cheeks lit up in shame—an adorable wolf woman had taken over her place.
Benjamin poked at her more, "Benjamin is so strong that he will fight in my place!"
"No! No! That's not what I thought! Maybe at first… no! No!" Estelle protested! "This is your payment for staying in our shrine! You must help me if you want a home! A-Also! You can't leave me anyway! There are too many evil spirits, and you can't eat them! They aren't edible! You can't survive alone! Parri is the only one who can leave us to buy stuff, but she's my parrot! You can't snatch her!"
Benjamin unfolded his arms and flicked Estelle's forehead, "I'm not gonna steal anything from anyone who wanted to earnestly save me."
"Oh," Estelle's smile widened, "So you would steal from others… forget I said that!"
Since she was so blunt, Benjamin decided to be honest, too.