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Volume 3 Chapter 11.2

Translator: Kureha
Editor: Weasalopes

What happened to Hirsohi was worse than what everyone had imagined.

「… well, that’s just cruel…」

「… no wonder you ended up having a phobia…」

Hiroshi told the full story to his friends afterwards, to which Tatsuya and Makoto gave a mumbled comment. Others could not believe such a thing have happened and was frozen on the spot completely silent.

The following is a shortened version of what Hiroshi has told.

It was on Valentine’s day during the second year of middle school. It started with at the beginning of the first period when Hiroshi discovered a time bomb under the name of acquaintance chocolate hidden in his desk. He saw the chocolate from an anonymous sender and immediately knew something was odd. So, he has decided to pretend that he didn’t saw the chocolate, but that plan has failed. The girl who was sitting next to him noticed it and told everyone in the class. This was a very unfortunate moment for Hiroshi.

Six months prior to this incident, the bullying towards him was getting worse by the day. The bullying took place as if it was a daily routine for everyone else. Even with this incident, it was hard to say that it was bullying at the initial stage. After all, all they asked for him to do was to take a bite out of the chocolate and give his opinion.

If this was just disgusting chocolate, all he needed to do was take a forceful bite and lie about how delicious it was; everything would have ended there. However, this chocolate had mince which has clearly gone off in it and all the extra seasoning was a complete mess as well. Understandably, when Hiroshi took a bite, he ended up spitting the chocolate right out. Then, the girls from athletic clubs pinned him down, punched him a couple of times and forced him to eat all the chocolates.

Seeing that Hiroshi was acting weird, the boys in the class tried to stop the girls. However, in general, that would be an act of rejecting chocolate which was given out on Valentine’s day. So, even the girls who weren’t actively bullying Hiroshi was joining in as well. No male student would have been able to step into this situation. If the male students had joined in, Hiroshi’s phobia towards female would have been a phobia towards people and he would have never been able to leave the hospital.

As eating something like that would obviously cause some type of illness, Hiroshi started showing signs of food poisoning before the lunch break. Fortunately and unfortunately, he ended up throwing all the contents of his stomach at the nurser’s office. If he hasn’t vomited then, nobody would have even considered the incident and his bullying would have only gotten worse.

Another fortunate thing for Hiroshi was that morning, he hasn’t eaten any breakfast as he has slept in. Also, he ate his dinner the previous day earlier than usual, so he has been fasting for over 12 hours. As his stomach would have been practically empty, the only possible cause of food poisoning was the chocolate.

The incident was also brought to teachers’ attention as the symptoms of food poisoning Hiroshi had was severe. He was on a blink of death for three days and three nights. Due to other symptoms he had, Hiroshi had to stay at the hospital for another two weeks. While he was at the hospital, the girls who have forced him to eat the chocolate came to apologize when his relatives were absent. The girls quietly went back home after they apologized for the incident and the bullying they have done previously. However, the few friends Hiroshi had in his class saw the chocolate incident coming and secretly took a video of the incident as well as the girls’ apologies. This matter became a major issue when the video was uploaded to a streaming website.

As the cruel scene of bullying was streamed all across Japan, some of the couples in Hiroshi’s middle school broke up from horrible fights. Due to this, some of the girls had a petty hatred towards Hiroshi and have attempted murder on him. However, the culprit who has left the chocolate in his desk has not been determined yet. Before the attempted murder, some of the girls have gone up to Hiroshi and placed the blame for their breakups on him (the hospital has prohibited visitors yet some of the girls managed to sneak in, pretending to visit someone else at the hospital). So, Hiroshi ended up developing his phobia and for about two months, he was under intensive care. He received special treatment via 24hr VR system and went to counselling for another six months. He wasn’t able to go to school until the end of summer vacation. Even then, he would go straight to the nurse’s office and only go to his class once or twice a week.

By the start of summer vacation, Hiroshi has moved to the suburb which he currently lived in. So, in his last year of middle school, he has only gone to school for a total of two weeks.

「By the way, what do they mean they still can’t find the culprit?」

「Tis easy, nobody knows for sure who put dat chocolate in my desk.」

「What?」

「Unfortunately, no matter how many times we’ve looked back at za security footage, dere was nobody in za class who could’ve placed dat chocolate in my desk.」

Only looking at the question of “who put that chocolate in Hiroshi’s desk?” all his classmates were innocent. There were still three suspects outside his class. However, two out of three suspects have no trace of making chocolate close to Valentine’s day. Also, the last time their household has bought minced meat was over a month ago, so it was unlikely that those two were the culprit. The third suspect has sold off their house, moved overseas and have not returned to Japan since. The reason for their sudden departure was their father has been assigned to an oversea work to make up for the loss which he has caused to the company. As there was nothing suspicious about the leave, apart from the period, and due to the suspect being under juvenile law, the police department could not force the family to come back to Japan, unless there was sufficient amount of evidence. Thus, the investigation has been postponed. 

「So, dat’s why chocolate triggers my phobia. I used to like chocolate but after dat incident, I can’t even stand the smell o’ it…」

「That’s understandable…」

「Wait, is that why you look a little tense whenever you see a dish with mince in it?」

「Ye, tis ‘ight, but since there were allot o’ chocolate ‘round it, it didn’t really leave the impression o’ there bein’ meat. So it doesn’t trigger my phobia as badly as chocolate does.」

Hiroshi added with a weak smile but Haruna could not smile at all.

「By the way…」

「Hm?」

「You don’t seem like the type of person girls would hate on so much…」

「Oh~ Makoto-san, ya underestimatin’ how bad middle school girls are towards a lame guy like me.」

Haruna gave a bitter smile and agreed with Hiroshi as if to be reminded of something. Mio also seemed to know something along those lines and mumbled “one point to Sensei”.

If it was around middle school, the majority of the judgement was made from one’s appearance and the impression the person gave out. Personality trait was barely taken into consideration. However, the judgement was still fairly mild in middle school. Hiroshi’s reputation among girls was much lower in high school.

However, Hiroshi’s personality trait could have been perceived as lame even before the incident. He was hopeless around people and was kind of a cry-baby. It was the type of personality trait which frustrated other people. However, none of this justifies the bullying which he has gone through. After all, the traumatic experience that he went through also enabled him to be a cry-baby.

「Also, I had a mighty bad Rhinitis ‘round that time n’ snuffles seem to really get on other’s nerve. So, I was getting’ picked on ever since I was in primary school. I wasn’t an outgoin’ person or was athletically talented so it gave them more reason to pick on me.」

「I see.」

「Tis how it is, guess that’s what ya call a social food chain and the Jail Experiment .」 

In most cases, kids enrolled in one primary school will enrol into the same middle school. If someone was getting picked on in primary school, it was guaranteed that they will get picked on in middle school as well.

And to be ranked at the bottom of the social food chain commonly meant that nobody would respect that person as long as they were enrolled in that school. For Hiroshi, happiness was playing as a craftsman in Fairy Tale Chronicles and that he at least had few friends in his class. There were also few female friends, but they have only ever interacted in the game, so it didn’t really count. If anything, the most unfortunate part of this incident was many of the teachers indirectly encouraged this social food web. Since most of those teachers were female, it only enabled Hiroshi’s phobia.

Humans are species which lose themselves in a routine to a point they forget the most fundamental morals. So, no matter how cruel their actions are, the brain subconsciously determines the action as normal. As the result, they are completely unaware of their harmful action, growing oblivious to the fact that they are no better than the person which they are picking on. The experiment which has proved this theory was called the Jail Experiment.

「I’m starting to remember some stuff from back home and it’s really pissing me off.」

「Remembering what?」

「Like the newspaper articles, they all suggested that there was something wrong with the person who was getting bullied.」

「Now that you mention it…」

「Even if the person getting picked on had some problems, the bullies were the ones attacking them in a group. There’s no way a single person can defend themselves from a group attack. But every single article said that there was something wrong with the victim, so they should do something about the victims of bullying.」

「It depended on the case as well. But the journalists did make similar sort of comments even if people died as a result of bullying. Though, there weren’t a lot of supporters for the extreme cases of bullying.」

Among the articles which highlight issues relating to bullying, there was only a handful which pointed out the issue on the persecutor’s side. Even then, most of those articles were suggesting that there were issues on both the bullies side and the bullied side. In the few cases where the situation has improved, the problem itself was never fully resolved. If the issue really was only on one side, even though it would result in emotional damage, the bullying would never escalate into something like Hirosi’s case as long as they worked on that one issue.

「So, tis what happened. Thanks to my therapist n’ rehabilitation at Fairclo, I managed to recover ‘nough to go to a mixed-gender school. But am still scared of anythin’ relatin’ to female even if I’m in a safe distance.」

He said as he rubbed his neck. He almost passed out when one of the girls choked him with a force which nobody would believe a middle school girl could have. So, he could not stand within arm’s length from any female without showing a sign of a panic attack, unless he prepared himself for it. Even if he tries to punch one of them, Hiroshi will start to worry that the punch would piss the girl off and they might try to kill him afterwards. Even simply approaching a female was a chore to him.

However, when he was playing the game, he didn’t really see himself as a human. So, ever since he was teleported into this universe, there was less psychological pressure when it came to interacting with a female. Yet, there was still some limits to how much he could tolerate. If one of the females was in contact with him for a long period or show even a hint of murderous intent, he would be close to blacking out. Even with chocolate, if it wasn’t wrapped or was placed within Hiroshi’s reach, it will start to trigger his phobia.

「If that’s the case, why didn’t you just transfer to all-boys school?」

「My family was gettin’ the house renovated so we had to temporarily move to a different house. The new place was a propurty provided by the construction company n’ it was a cheap room on the second floor of the buildin’ in type 1 industrial area. Cause the apartment had an inconvenient build, I had to enrol into a school dat I could go either by walk or by bicycle. But the all-boys school in my area was either all-dorm style, had a real bad reputation or real far away from home. So, I couldn’t really go to any of em.」

「Oh~ I see where you’re coming from.」

「Haruna-san, ya know too?」

「Yeah, If Hiroshi-kun’s house is from walking distance from our high school, then there aren’t any decent all-boys school in the area. If it was within the central industrial area, then a decent all-boys school would be about an hour by car. That area has a lot of factories so I can imagine it would be impossible for you to go there.」

Everyone stood there in silence as Hiroshi and Haruna chatted about a topic which only the locals can understand. They couldn’t understand what they were talking about, but they understood that Hiroshi couldn’t enrol into all-boys school. Especially with all-dorm high school would mean Hiroshi couldn’t hide if bullying started. So, all-dorm school was most likely not even an option from the beginning for Hiroshi.

「Welp, stuff happened n’ the school which adjusted some stuff for me after hearin’ my condition, I was recommended the high school I’m currently enrolled in. They said ‘t would be the best high school for some like me to go to n’ they supported me lots through the enrolment process. If ‘t was a different high school, I think I would’ve become a shut in straight away.」

「… I see.」

After hearing the full story, Makoto felt the heavy feeling weighing her down. She thought it was strange that someone who had the mentality to go against Helininferno could breakdown so easily whenever a female was involved. For Makoto, who had a higher combat skill then Haruna, she couldn’t understand how someone with a defence status that can easily block off advanced magic can have a panic attack so easily.