Beyond The Dream: Priggish God Damn!

Keep Being Myself

The second mission never be appeared.

I just found out from Elrene that no matter how fast one completes the mission, to go to the next mission one has to wait for all the Hero Candidates to successfully complete the current mission.

If the Hero Candidate is declared unable to continue to participate in the Trial Of Heroes for some reason, the next mission will be continued with the decision that the Hero Candidate who is unable to complete the current mission is declared failed and will be thrown to a random place.

Random places, sometimes arriving at the most terrible places, sometimes arriving at the happy places to live a normal life.

After a few days passed, for the umpteenth time I wake up in a dream that I do not know what it is. Luckily, I now have the Ghost Sprinter Gear which one of its functions can restore my mental fatigue and strengthen it instead.

In the end, I fall asleep in the dream world after nightfall and wake up again in the real world to welcome the cloudy morning.

...

The clock on the wall says 6am, but I'm well-groomed and ready to go to work. Lately, I always wake up before the sun rises. Unlike when I was so depressed by the life of two worlds, with one of the worlds in my dream.

Although I'm not sure the world in dreams really exists, but that's all I can be sure of right now. There's no way I'd believe in such fiction until I experienced it myself.

After breakfast finished, I immediately go to my workplace.

Dark clouds are covering the sky and blocking the sunlight, the wind is blowing quite hard.

My skin do not feel cold, but I don’t feel the need to shiver from it. I'm quite familiar with this cold feeling, it usually makes my body tremble uncontrollably. But now I'm walking so leisurely on the sidewalk.

Actually, the train schedule to my workplace is still over an hour. However, I choose to wait there in hopes of finding the nearest coffee shop.

"Oh? I've been here many times, but I didn't realize there was a coffee shop huh...”

As an ordinary office worker, I’m required to arrive on time. From home to work, I don't have time to pay close attention to my surroundings. I only see what I need without looking at anything else, such as a place to buy groceries.

It never occurred to me that I now have free time to relax at the coffee shop before going to work.

"Wow... It's a shame that employees like you stop by here, sir..." A man wearing a waiter's uniform comes over after I sat on a chair where the table was still empty, or actually there weren't any customers at this coffee shop.

“Hiro, just call me like that. For now, well... I just happen to have more time to relax here while waiting for my train to arrive..." I smile in response.

"Hiro-san huh? You can call me Junki. So, what do you want to order?”

Looking at the list of drinks and food options available in this coffee shop, in the end I still choose black coffee without sugar.

The sky was really upset, but that doesn't affect me to be upset too. Staring at the dark clouds moving in the wind accompanied by coffee made me feel more relaxed.

Black coffee without sugar is my favorite drink. When I get home from work early, I always brew black coffee using ingredients I have at home. It's not difficult to make, because anyone who loves coffee can certainly do it as long as there are ingredients.

Ah... This calmness is really new to me. Unexpectedly, I who is a slave worker can feel comfortable in the morning before starting work. The hard days before I think will end and be replaced by days that will always feel bright.

Very different from the dose of black coffee I made, made by an expert is indeed more stable. Not too bitter, but still quite thick. The aroma feels right when inhaled by the nose.

'Perhaps, I'll start a new routine this morning...'

Slurp...

Finished. It was the last sip.

Gazing for a moment at the still cloudy sky, putting down the payment for the black coffee, I say goodbye to Junki to leave for the station.

"Be careful on the road, Hiro-san!" Junki exclaims while waving one hand.

...

On the road, a ball’s bouncing. Then, a child run after it without realizing the danger is approaching him. No one’s able to react to the boy's actions, even his parent who only briefly diverted their attention from her boy is unable to save hers who is now in danger.

I who just emerged from the turn of the sidewalk see this, without thinking immediately run very fast towards the boy.

People haven't even blinked, because before they panicked to see a child who was in danger, while they were aware that no one would be able to save him, they are stunned to see the boy suddenly move to a safe place.

The boy innocently looks up at me, blinking a few times before he points at the ball that is now rolling down the side of the pavement.

I smile a little while stroking the boy's head. Squatting down to equalize the height so that face to face can meet each other, I also say "You are a brave boy huh..."

Before the boy is about to point back at his ball as a signal for me to pick it up, I have already moved and come back with the ball in question.

It happened in a relatively short time, people even until now have only blinked once and forgot to breathe. They still look at me in disbelief, that I was able to move so fast. Watching it on footage might just think it's a modified video. However, they are now seeing it with their own eyes.

"M-my dear!" cries a woman running frantically towards the boy I have just saved.

However, both the mother and the boy are the same. Perhaps, her boy's recklessness is passed down from his mother. Now, I'm again showing people the extraordinary thing to save a woman who recklessly runs across the street without looking left and right to see if a vehicle would pass or not.

Yes, there is another vehicle that coincidentally is speeding towards the woman. Luckily, me with my body that is no longer a normal human being able to move quickly like before. If it is a normal human, it would most likely not be able to move as fast as before the second time around.

It is possible for humans to use the hidden potential in the body to move very quickly or survive the fall of a durian fruit or something else as a form of self-defense from a condition, but it takes time to be able to do it in succession.

As for me, moving that fast isn't the hidden potential mentioned. Rather, I’m able to consciously move very quickly according to what I experienced in a dream.

Just realizing that she’s just about to take her life but is saved by the same person who have saved her son made the mother of the boy I saved bow several times to thank me and apologize, because she and her boy have troubled me successively.

"Geez. Don't think about it. You better go after him…” I point at the child of the woman in front of me.

"Ah! Y-yes, alright. Once again I say, thank you very much..." the woman said with a bow before she finally run to her beloved boy across the street with tears in her eyes, because she’s feeling touched that she have survived the danger.

I take a deep breath while smiling slightly as I watch the woman leaves. Remembering how careless a mother and daughter were, I shook my head before walking away from there.

'What a strange dream, right?' I smile as I look up to the sky as I’m walking down the sidewalk to the Bus Stop where I first met the woman I had fallen in love with.

It’s still far from the scheduled departure of my train, so I chose to go home by bus. And because of that, fate made a child's life not be snatched away by a traffic accident due to his mother's carelessness. Namely, with the presence of myself that accidentally passed through this.

Arriving at the Bus Stop, I’m stunned because I see a woman who had not been seen for several days. Or, actually the day after the meeting I returned home by train. I think, that woman only used the bus once to travel long distances and not like me who always used the train to get home.

"After a few days of holding back, it's finally healed..."