Seiji turned around and saw a tremendous red flame slowly exploding as if it was a blooming flower!
The heat wave that Seiji sensed became even more powerful. Many enemy monsters were instantly vaporized by this heat wave.
Seiji now understood how that giant crater was created when he saw this majestic scene.
He increased the strength of his defensive barrier and kept running away without looking back.
Although he didn't obtain the information that he wanted, he still obtained critical information.
Voidfire was surprisingly easy to talk to—if Seiji ignored how chuunibyou he was. At least Voidfire had a friendly attitude. Seiji had a much better impression of Voidfire than of Kamitani.
If it had been possible, Seiji would have wanted to talk to Voidfire for a while longer. Unfortunately, the circumstances didn't allow for this.
Of course, having a friendlier attitude didn't mean that Voidfire was a good person. Seiji knew that he had only a very limited understanding of Voidfire due to only having talked for such a short time. It would be unwise to easily trust a high-ranked member of the Messengers.
But no matter what, Voidfire's phone number and password might really be able to stop this incident before it even started.
There was also the issue of what Voidfire had said to him… Seiji didn't know how much Voidfire had seen through him. But even if Voidfire was just pretending to have seen through him, it was true that Seiji had been moved.
Seiji wasn't restraining himself to protect humanity or the world. He was restraining himself to protect himself. This was what Seiji truly believed.
However, such a major calamity had happened now. Should he truly continue restraining himself?
Seiji destroyed all the remaining monsters chasing after him and successfully entered invisibility. However, he didn't immediately return to his Spirit House. Instead, he stood on the rooftop of a random building while facing the mist and the gigantic cherry blossom tree. He entered a state of deep contemplation here.
To be honest, he really was incredibly strong… More accurately, he was incredibly strong because of his system that he self-named as the dating sim system.
As long as he stopped restraining himself, or as Voidfire put it, "released his power", it was a definite that he could be far stronger than he was now.
No, it should be said that if he abandoned all inhibitions and used his system to its maximum potential, even Seiji himself didn't know how much he could power up by!
Yet, that was also the problem.
If he became too strong, the power he possessed would even make himself afraid. Maybe undoing the seal would end up destroying the world… Such a chuunibyou phrase might really come true with him.
Maybe this was all just his own arrogance, his own shallow self-righteousness and pride. But, since his full power potential was unknown, it indeed seemed possible.
Seiji was honestly quite scared of this possibility, since if he abandoned all inhibitions… He felt like it would be difficult to say if he would still be himself.
But if he still kept restraining himself from not using his powers too much, could he truly just sit back and watch this catastrophe unfold with so many lives lost?
All the scenes he saw out on the road flashed back into Seiji's mind… Such tremendous misfortune and tragedy had been right before him. He definitely couldn't just ignore it all.
This was no game or movie. This was tragedy in real life!
And even if he ignored the fate of strangers, what about all his friends?
Even if he protected all his friends' lives, their friends and relatives would also be harmed.
In that case, should he protect every single connected person, or simply give up?
Protecting more connected people seemed reasonable, but as long as he went down this path, this would only endlessly expand to him needing to protect more and more people who were all connected. In the end, he would still have to take the so-called path of "saving the world".
So if that was the case, shouldn't he just stop restraining himself and do everything that he could to protect everyone? Wouldn't that be far more efficient?
The only obstacle was his own way of thinking… or, more accurately, his own "fear".
In the end, his own fear was just his worry about what could potentially happen. Things might not develop towards the worst-case scenario that he feared. Yet, the harm that had befallen everyone in the city, along with the massive amount of lives lost, had already concretely happened before his very eyes!
His own mental weakness compared to the tremendous number of lives here? It was obvious which should be more important.
Seiji wanted to resolve himself to use his powers to the fullest.
However, there was still a tiny part of himself in his heart that resisted.
This part unreasonably, selfishly, emotionally struggled to resist like a young child throwing a tantrum.
'This is no good!
'You're just an ordinary person with some special powers!
'Stop being so self-righteous! Don't fall into the trap of becoming prideful!
'You can't become a hero who saves the world! Nobody can do that, it's impossible!!'
'Shut up…' Seiji wanted to shout that out loud, but in the end, he remained silent.
Seiji felt fatigued. Standing around on this rooftop wouldn't accomplish anything, so he finally opened up the portal to his Spirit House and entered within.
Everyone looked at him and heaved a sigh of relief when they saw that he seemed to be alright.
After responding to Natsuya and everyone else's concern, Seiji sat down by a table and removed his helmet.
"I found Voidfire and talked to him for a little… But unfortunately, I didn't obtain very much information. That's because the Catastrophe Goddess noticed us and attacked with many spiritual monsters. I managed to escape after some effort. I don't know what happened to him."
After that, silence.
"Seiji… are you really alright?" Natsuya saw from his expression that he didn't seem very spirited.
"I'm really fine…"
"But your expression doesn't say that you're fine," Chiaki spoke up. "What did that Voidfire say to you?"
Seiji didn't seem to be injured anywhere, so his lack of energy must have been due to the conversation with Voidfire, Chiaki surmised.
Seiji responded with silence.
Everyone began to worry about him when they saw him like this.
"Seiji… if it's possible, please tell us," Mika also spoke up. "Although we might not be able to help you, perhaps telling us about it will make you feel better."
Shika and the others didn't say anything. They simply expressed their concern through their expressions.
Something flashed in Seiji's eyes as he felt all this.
He clasped and placed both his hands on the table in front of his face. He used this classical pose to cover half of his expression.
"Voidfire told me that he saw through me. I don't know exactly how much of me he saw through, but his words indeed gave me an impact. As for why I was so impacted, it's because of this catastrophe, and because of all of you…" Seiji then looked around at everyone as he said this.
"Everyone… To be honest, I've actually been hiding a special power of mine from you all. This power is incredibly strong, almost inconceivably strong. Since it's far too strong, I don't dare to casually use it. I cautiously hid this power of mine and kept it as my ace of aces.
"But now, I'm beginning to feel like this way of treating my power could be wrong. If I had used it more actively, and done certain things more proactively, perhaps this entire incident never would have happened. And even if it was destined to happen, perhaps it wouldn't have been so terrible.
"In summary, if it wasn't for me being afraid of my own power, if only I had used it more properly, perhaps many people could be saved, or maybe they wouldn't have been hurt at all…
"And now that such a catastrophe has happened, even if we slay the Catastrophe Goddess in the end and resolve the situation, there will still be several hundred thousand people that died! Perhaps… no, it's almost certain that some of those people will include people you know, or even your friends and relatives.
"And, I can stop all of this.
"I can do better than this.
"I should do better than this.
"As long as I set aside my fear, and stop restraining myself for no good reason, I can… become much stronger, to the point where I can protect many, many people!"
Seiji clenched his hands.
"But… even though I clearly know all this, even though I know what should be correct, I'm still… afraid. I'm afraid that I won't be myself anymore.
"Although it sounds rather chuunibyou, to the point where I think I'm being completely illogical, I'm still afraid. I'm afraid to imagine what I'll become—tragic, depressing, fake.
"Just because of my fear, I haven't been able to save others that I could have, and I keep hesitating… I'm so useless. I'm the worst."
Seiji then laughed out loud. He had no idea what emotions his laugh contained.
"Everyone, please tell me… Just what should I do?"
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