Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 146: Arc 3, - 56: What I Choose to See
"Dude! Dude! Left!" Ramond’s voice peaked through Jotou’s headphones.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Jotou’s fingers clacked on the keyboard, moving the mouse left and right as his character in-game, slashed with a sword to the oncoming swarm of giant bugs.
"Hurry! We need to make it into the next round!" Crispy added more noise through Jotou’s headphone.
"You two are dead! Stop backseat gaming!" Jotou yelled through the microphone attached, as Jotou took a breath and took out the waves of enemies, dodging every second so that he did not take damage.
Another team made it into the qualifiers at the top of the screen as Jotou made it to the final boss, a giant minotaur wielding an axe.
"You got this!"
"Take all your potions Jotou!"
"I’m saving them for next round, shut up! I can do this!" Jotou grunted before attacking the enemy. Its health bar dropped with every slash and before long, the three shared the same screen.
"Victory!"
"Hell YEAH!" Crispy yelled.
"Let’s gooo!!!" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Jotou fell back in his chair, wide smile as he beheld the victory screen, making their way into the competition. "Okay, okay, next round, next round! Don’t die!"
"You should pick a healer Jotou, Crispy’s already the best mage and I’m only good for range. Then you can tank the hits," Ramon suggested.
"Who needs a healer? Just use your damn potions properly. I’ll switch my armour to tank more hits, but I’m sticking with the sword," Jotou selected.
"Just kite the mobs, should be enough. You just need to tank the last boss," Crispy added.
"I can kite the boss’s attacks to make it miss. Just make sure to hit it, I do less damage by using this armour set."
"You got spells right?"
"Yeah, but they carry over, I want to save them for like the final rounds."
"K, k. Let’s keep going," as Crispy stated they spawned into the new dungeon map they would have to go through.
"Okay, we loosely stick together, mark the areas we’ve explored with a torch. We see a huge mob room back off, don’t engage unless we’re all there.
Need healing pots, call it out. In case of anything I got an AOE spell to spare on a horde," Jotou strategized their next moves.
"You could’ve just picked mage to do more damage if you’re going to kite everything," Ramond spoke.
"I don’t know man, I like the sword’s playstyle. Now if I could do heavy damage instead of needing to tank and protect, I’d like it more."
"We get it, we get it, stay alive," Crispy mocked.
Jotou chuckled, "Sorry, sorry. It’s still just a game. Let’s still have fun."
"That’s more like it!" Ramond charged headfirst into a room and fell into a spike pit with poisoned tips and took constant poison damage till he died.
Like this the hours went by, moving up round by round to their surprise. On the final round, following Jotou’s strategy of making the boss miss its attacks by dodging, the other two chiselled away at its health.
Jotou tanked the damage, eyes glued to the screen before he unleashed all his spells at once and downed every potion that enhanced his strength and speed.
The boss stood no chance as all its health got drained in a fraction of a second and huge colourful numbers popped up on screen.
The final two contesting teams in the round... and they got the victory screen first. Their headphones nearly burst each other’s eardrums with their cheer.
Jotou panted back onto his chair, laughing. They’re monthly reward popped up on screen, a new armour set with intricate graphics and special affects as well as bonuses to stats.
Jotou stared and rotated the design over and over, looking it over with a grin. Before Jotou could equip it, another screen popped up.
"MVP!?"
"Nice Jotou!" Crispy cheered.
"Ah," Ramond’s smile could be heard through the headphones, "Should’ve gone to me."
"You died almost every godamn round," Crispy replied.
"Yeah, I took all the hits dude."
"Uh huh."
Jotou laughed taking a breather, exhausted from the hours of gaming, "Thanks for playing guys, that was really fun. Best performance for us in years. Nice work you two."
"Yeah, it was," Ramond logged off the game.
"There’s next month too," Crispy reminded.
"We’ll see, I’m tired with all these commissions. If I can make it, I will," Jotou breathed before they said their goodbyes. Jotou couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.
Reality slowly hit him as the clock in his room had ticked beyond midnight. The idea of tomorrow and the next day and the next day hit him after immersing himself for so long.
All the anxiety seeped back in as if it was pushed back for a few hours. Still, Jotou smiled. He could choose to be sad that it’s all over, or happy with the memories he made and the fun he had.
_
’Yeah. I can choose to remember the happy moments rather than all the moments that make me feel worse...’
And with that thought, after hearing the beep of that device, the memories flooded into Jotou’s mind...
_
Daiyu licked her chocolate ice cream, walking alongside Jotou with his vanilla cone. Maybe seven or eight years old. The memories grew hazier the further in the past they were.
Daiyu accidentally licked too hard, causing her ice cream to flop onto the sidewalk. "No!" Daiyu stared at her ruined dessert.
Jotou peered down, then looked to his own he had barely eaten having just bought it. Giving her the ice cream would make her happier... Or...
"Hey Daiyu," Jotou called.
Daiyu frowning over her dessert faced the boy. Daiyu’s eyes widened as the vanilla ice cream was smothered onto her face. As Daiyu wiped her face, she only heard laughter and footsteps running away.
"JOTOU!!!" Daiyu licked the ice cream on her face before chasing after him with a grin.
_
Jotou smirked as she saw Fumeko getting caught for her crimes on their very first meeting. The beginning of an adventure for the both of them.
_
Crispy held the dropper right over the beaker, showing it off to the judges of the science fair. Jotou moved along all the materials needed, helping Crispy with his project.
As Crispy dropped the last drops of the chemical, the liquid within the beaker changed colours, from red to orange to yellow and then violet before- "Sizzle..."
The liquid began evaporating at a fast rate. "POOF!" Smoke popped up into the air, staining the papers around them and the judges’ notes.
They lost in the end, but all the experiments leading up to it, only for it to literally blow up in their faces, the two couldn’t help but laugh.
_
Jotou watched the redhead from behind, as she solved their case with confidence and professionalism. Jotou couldn’t forget when she called Hotaru amazing...
The face of the wolf-girl turning around in a blush, completely thrown off her game for a few seconds.
_
Jotou sat beside Ramond, helping him with his homework during breaktime. Jotou twelve years old; Ramond a year younger.
His memories flew by, day by day defending themselves against bullies. Jotou would always step forward, bringing his left arm over Ramond as he faced their bullies.
And years later, an arm extended to the passenger seat of the car where Ramond sat. Jotou nervously looked at the road, bringing his arm over Ramond whenever he would hit the brakes.
"Jotou, don’t hit the brake so suddenly, just ease on it to slow down till you stop," Ramond wished he had more seatbelts on, "And please keep both hands on the wheel for now."
"I’m just worried if you fly out the windshield," Jotou justified, his arm still extended.
"That doesn’t happen Jotou, we’re going really slow. Now, just weave through those cones and park at the end," Ramond breathed.
Jotou nodded, hunched over the steering wheel, holding it with both hands, "Watch me ace this," a grin grew as Jotou pressed down the pedal.
"Jotou- JOTOU! SLOW! SLOW!"
Jotou smirked, not slowing down as he weaved through the cones on the road without ever using the brakes. He could catch the sight of Ramond’s terrified face in the corner of his eye.
Jotou turned the wheel and braked at the end, one cone barely hitting the back of the car. Ramond held onto anything he could for dear life.
"Oh thank the lord, I’m alive," Ramond grunted.
"Hey, I’m not that bad! Did it with style points too," Jotou peered out the window.
Ramond raised his brows, looking out the other window, "Not wrong there. Still, you should probably check if that last cone made a scratch..."
"Aw shit..."
"You didn’t think of that did you?" Ramond grinned.
"Your face was priceless though."
"Yeah, good luck explaining it to your dad."
"Oh no..."
Ramond chuckled patting Jotou on the shoulder as Jotou fake whined.
"At least you learned to drive."
"Yeah," Jotou perked back up, "I thought it was gonna be way harder."
_
Sat in a circus tent, Jotou watched the entire display of performances and death-defying stunts. Meeting the cheerful elf at the end of it all.
Knowing now the show was all her, it only made it that much more impressive. That day, Jotou helped her up and brought her into the party...
_
Every memory, every moment, every smile, flashed in Jotou’s memories, like the device was trying to probe and erase her memories as well, but it could not.
Jotou being praised by his teachers and classmates, receiving compliments on his academics when he was younger, on his debating skills when older and gaining compliments for his art.
Even the people who Jotou had come to hate. Jotou could remember, his parents getting him his first bicycle and teaching him how to ride it so he could join Daiyu.
Maybe in all that hatred, there was some compassion towards them. Perhaps hatred born from what Jotou knew they could be, but never were. Jotou called it Stockholm Syndrome after all...
Crispy trying to catch a frog to dissect and falling into mud, puling Jotou alongside him. The two laughing it off as they were hosed down in the gym showers.
Kaleb gifting Jotou a brand new drawing tablet with dozens of new features as a belated birthday present. And gifting him back the first drawing he made on it—a rough sketch of Kaleb.
_
"Ow!" a little Daiyu fell off her bike and scraped her knee.
"Oh no, are you hurt? Come on, let’s go to my house," Jotou aided her up.
"My house is right there we can go to."
"But my house is closer, it’ll take us less footsteps to reach. Come on! We need to make sure it doesn’t get infected!" Jotou pulled her along without Daiyu having a say in the matter.
"I can’t wait for my mom to meet you!" Jotou opened the door to his childhood home...
The memory played itself as Daiyu told the story to all of them—the car going on an empty road past midnight. Even before that crash...
Jotou witnessed the comfort of his friends and joking smiles. For all his spitefully mischievous behaviour, they’d still stick around... Why? Why around someone who was so depressing now...?
Or is that just how Jotou saw it...? A feeling that he wasn’t worth it. Perhaps because, Jotou cared; hidden behind it all, Jotou couldn’t hide the love for his friends.
If you don’t put care into something, then how could it matter? Jotou chose to care and that’s what mattered; and that’s what his friends would see...
In a past life, or in this one.
