Fled Without Realizing I Had Prevented the Apocalypse

“Here, eat this.”
After the trash harassing the girl collapsed, the imperial soldier who helped her took out some bread he had brought from somewhere.
The bread wasn’t covered in dust, didn’t have mold growing on it, and didn’t have traces of someone biting into it and spitting it out.
It was just soft bread.
The girl, who couldn’t hide her wariness towards the soldier, carefully bit into the bread.
“……!”
It was delicious.
There might be other words to describe it, but this was the only one that came to the girl’s mind.
For the first time, she felt regret for not knowing more words. The fact that she couldn’t describe the taste of this simple bread in more detail seemed like it would remain a regret for the girl for quite some time.
“I have one more, so eat slowly.”
Watching the girl hastily consuming the bread, the soldier took out another piece from his pocket.
Then, without doing anything to the girl eating the bread, he simply waited for her to finish eating it all.

The girl knew that even this waiting was the soldier’s consideration for her.
Right beyond the back alley, even from that dark place, she could feel gazes.
Eyes full of greed and envy.
It was only because the soldier was by her side now, but if the soldier were to leave, they would immediately approach the girl and snatch the bread from her mouth.
After all, bread this soft and large was a very rare ingredient in the back alleys.
“Munch, munch….”
And so, the girl ate all the bread the soldier had given her.
She ate it all, not leaving even a crumb or a fragment.
“You’ve finished it.”
After confirming that the girl had eaten all the bread, the soldier slowly got up.
Dusting off his buttocks and putting on the hat he had taken off, he seemed to be thinking of leaving.
“…What do you want?”
Living in the back alleys of a small city, the girl who thought there was nothing to learn had learned just one thing here.
That is, there’s no such thing as kindness without a price.
The people living in these back alleys or the commoners wandering the streets.
And even the nobles who occasionally come to the back alleys and pretend to care by giving food.
Everyone shows kindness with a price.
Even if the recipient of the kindness isn’t in a position to pay that price, the giver naturally takes something in return for their kindness.

Therefore, the soldier in front of her must have the same purpose.
“If you want my body, even though you gave me two pieces of bread, that’s a bit… It’s too precious to give this appearance away for mere bread, you know?”
The girl asked what the soldier wanted.
If she was going to pay a price anyway, it was better to know what price she had paid, or would have to pay.
“What I want.”
At the girl’s words, the soldier’s footsteps stopped.

He turned his head to look at the girl.
Even in the blurry impression, his clear eyes seemed to be looking through her somehow, making the girl shiver slightly.

“Y-yes. What you want. Since I received two pieces of bread, I’ll grant what you want in return. Even if not right now, when I’ve grown more.”
Nevertheless, the girl boldly spoke to the soldier.
The soldier’s eyes were somewhat chilling, but it didn’t feel bad.
If he had bad intentions, he would have done something to her already.
At the girl’s attitude, the soldier seemed to ponder something for a moment, then threw something towards her.
“This, this is…!”
Although she had never seen it before, the girl knew what the soldier had thrown.

A brilliant light that filled the girl’s eyes completely. So noble that it momentarily brightened this dark back alley. A gold coin with the imperial emblem engraved on it.
With her eyes wide open, the girl picked up the gold coin, and the soldier said,
“Take that gold coin and achieve what you want.”
“…What do you mean…”
“That is what I want.”
The soldier’s words were resolute.
The girl’s pupils shook.
She had asked about the price for kindness, but what came back was even greater kindness.
Although the soldier said this was the price for kindness, to the girl, it seemed like mere pretense.
No one would look at this and call it a price. They would just think they received charity.
“Do you know what I want? If I just waste this money on something strange, it’s just throwing money away…”
So the girl was puzzled, but.
“Wasting money on useless things isn’t something you would do.”
The invisible future. And the soldier’s answer, seemingly certain of her actions, rather confused the girl’s mind.
**
“Sigh…”
Lying in the room provided by Beatrice’s guild, I let out a deep sigh.
My head has been complicated lately.
I thought there wouldn’t be anything to be complicated about now that the doom that was supposed to come hasn’t arrived, and I’ve dealt with everything I remember needing to handle, but I feel even more complicated than before dealing with these things.
“At least back then, I had a clear goal…!”
Prevent the world from being destroyed.
The days of moving under such a goal were certainly tough, but at least the purpose was clear.
But now that one goal has disappeared, I rather feel like I’ve lost my way.
Even Beatrice’s tutoring was like that.
I taught her techniques for using manipulation magic, but that’s not the end.
She seems to be getting the hang of it by practicing continuously, but she’s lacking that decisive blow.
It wasn’t strange for her to struggle in the first place, since the technique I taught was a magic formula that Beatrice had never learned originally.
However, the duration is the problem.
It’s strange for high-ranking superhumans to receive tutoring from another superhuman in the first place, but even if they do, it usually ends in about a month at most.
Once you reach the position of a superhuman, you realize that you have to build up your rank on your own.
The only thing is to refer to the methods others have used in the process of building up.
So I originally thought about a month too, but….
“A month is far from enough.”
Beatrice’s rank that I saw in the game ends at 5th rank.
Of course, it’s questionable whether the game’s information has any meaning now that we’re past the ending, but in any case, it means she remained at 5th rank until the end of the game.
She herself said she could move on to the next rank if she put her mind to it, but once I started tutoring and saw Beatrice’s condition, I could be certain.
“She absolutely can’t go in that state.”
Beyond simply surpassing the limits of skill or magic formulas, at the superhuman level, the criteria for rank are divided by the mental image one bears.
Rank is ultimately an answer decided by oneself. It’s close to one’s own tower revealed to the world.
The mental image implementation displayed by those who have built up seven ranks is also created from such a concept.
However, Beatrice doesn’t have an answer she holds for herself.
The answer she seeks towards the world. The end she has decided for herself.
It means all of these are lacking.
I don’t know how she came to 5th rank in such a state, but from the next rank, it’s really impossible.
This wasn’t a guess, but a certainty.
And if she doesn’t show results even after a few months, Beatrice’s side might stop receiving tutoring from me.
‘It would be fortunate if it ends with just that.’
The spider that collects gold coins. How Beatrice acts when she suffers a loss in a deal is already widely known.
She ties up the trading partner to somehow squeeze them dry to make up for that loss.
It’s called the spider that collects gold coins because it’s like a spider dealing with those caught in its web.
Would someone like her leave me alone, who has caused her tens of millions of Sel in damage?
“She might start by settling the interest that has been exempt until now.”
The reason I was able to pay back the huge sum of 2 billion was partly because I handled tough jobs, but also because she didn’t charge me interest on the debt.
The groundwork I laid for her in the past. She said she wouldn’t charge interest because she was able to grow as a guild leader thanks to that one gold coin.
However, if I cause this much damage, Beatrice’s side probably can’t stay still any longer.
It’s more surprising that they’ve tolerated this much just for one gold coin I gave in the past.
“Tsk…”
If Beatrice deliberately tries to increase my debt, even I won’t be able to pay it all back.
After all, most of the means by which I was paying back money came from the request fees that came into Beatrice’s guild.
So I need to show results enough to handle the money she spent somehow, but….
“You seem to have a lot on your mind.”
“Of course I do…?”
Bang-!
I jumped up from my chair at the sudden voice.
At the same time, I put some distance between myself and the end of the room.
Although I clearly hadn’t felt anything, someone wearing a veil was standing in front of me.
A woman who had naturally entered my room with her face covered by a white silk cloth.
I glared at her without letting my guard down at the fact that a superhuman of such a high rank that even my sensing couldn’t detect had entered, but.
“If you had so many worries, was there any meaning in leaving my side?”
Eventually, the face revealed beyond the removed cloth presented an unbelievable sight.
“Y-Your Majesty the Emperor?”

The one above all. A woman standing alone in the vast imperial territory. The emperor of a country with thousands of years of history and the commander of the special forces I belonged to.
…And the very person who put a bounty of billions on my head to catch me.
“Smile, for that is how blessings come.”
The Emperor was right in front of me.