Regarding the Matter of Beautiful Girls Relentlessly Seeking My Body (Experience Points)
“Tatsu-nii… help me…”
A few days had passed since I had learned about Aina’s circumstances and started actively transferring experience points to her. On a day like any other, I went to visit Aina in her room, only to find her crying and asking for help.
I had no idea what had happened, but Aina, who would normally never act, was genuinely distressed. This was no small matter.
“If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it. What happened?”
“Well… Ai-nyan…”
Aina, her face twisted in distress, showed me the screen of her smartphone.
“I got completely flamed…”
“…Huh?”
The issue Aina was consulting me about was far beyond anything I had imagined.
“Uh… You don’t mean your house caught fire or something, right…?”
“…No.”
“You mean the kind of ‘flaming’ where a celebrity gets publicly shamed for cheating?”
“…Yeah.”
“Or the kind where a part-time worker at a restaurant does something stupid and gets exposed online?”
“Ugh! I already told you, that’s exactly what happened! Just look at my phone already!”
“O-okay.”
Frustrated, Aina shoved her smartphone right in front of my face. I obediently looked at the screen and saw a flood of replies on a major social networking site.
Aina’s casual post had received an overwhelming number of responses, most of them saying things like:
“Slut.”
“Whore.”
“Don’t post videos, you filthy disease-ridden girl.”
“Acting like an idol, but you’re just ugly.”
“Prostitute.”
“Go die.”
It was a flood of childish, low-level insults that seemed like they came straight from a group of immature middle school boys. Even as I watched, notifications kept popping up—more and more comments pouring in.
When I first heard it was an online scandal, I had thought, Oh, it’s just that, but seeing it firsthand, it was far worse than I expected. For an ordinary girl like Aina, this had to be unbearable.
“How did this even happen…?”
“Well, when I uploaded my last dungeon exploration video, I used a lot of skills I hadn’t before, and my stats had improved drastically. Then people started posting things like, ‘There’s no way she got this strong just from diving into dungeons. Ai-nyan must be sleeping around with a bunch of guys to power up.’ And from there, it just kept escalating…”
It seemed the root cause was that she had used my experience points to level up significantly.
“I don’t care if people badmouth me…”
Tears welled up in Aina’s eyes as she scrolled through the screen with a trembling hand.
“But when they start saying horrible things about Sa-nyan too… I can’t forgive them. I can’t take it.”
She showed me more comments:
“Her sister is probably selling her body too. If she’s blind, what else could she do?”
“A blind little sister who waits for artifacts while her prostitute sister sells herself—what a pair.”
The cruelty of the words made my fists clench with rage.
“This is disgusting. It’s way too much…”
“Ai-nyan and Sa-nyan didn’t do anything wrong. Why do we have to be treated like this…? We’re just trying our best. Sa-nyan is just trying to live her life. Ahh! Another insult about Sa-nyan! Stop it! You don’t know anything about her! You don’t know anything about us! What gives you the right to say this?!”
Tears streaming down her face, Aina screamed at her phone. I grabbed the device from her hands and tossed it onto the bed before pulling her into a tight embrace.
“Stop looking at it! Don’t take seriously the words of cowards who hide behind anonymity to hurl insults!”
“But… but… everyone… everyone is saying it…”
“Who’s ‘everyone’?! Do you even know a single one of them by face?! Do you know their names?!”
“I… I don’t…”
“Then don’t listen to them! Look at me, Aina!”
I held her shoulders and locked eyes with her.
“…Ah.”
“Who am I?”
“T-Tatsu-nii…”
“What am I to you?”
“…Someone important… A friend.”
“Between the faceless masses on SNS and me—who will you trust?”
“…Tatsu-nii.”
“Then listen to me. Aina, you’re doing your best. Sana is a good girl. Neither of you have done anything wrong. Understand?”
“…Yeah.”
“Don’t let the garbage on SNS get to you. Got it?”
“…Yeah.”
“Good. Now sit down and take a breath.”
I guided Aina to sit on the bed and shut off her smartphone, slipping it into my pocket so she wouldn’t see it anymore.
She stared blankly into space, lost in thought.
Wanting to comfort her, I went to the kitchen and made some hot cocoa. When I handed it to her, she seemed calmer.
“Here, hot cocoa. It’s hot, so drink it slowly.”
“…Yeah, thanks.”
Aina took a small sip, then let out a deep breath.
“It’s good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
After slowly drinking her cocoa, Aina finally spoke again.
“Thank you, Tatsu-nii. I lost control there for a bit.”
“Can’t blame you. Anyone would freak out over something like that. But… what will you do now? You don’t have to keep making videos to be a dungeon diver, right?”
Hearing my suggestion, Aina shook her head.
“Ai-nyan is a solo dungeon scavenger. It’s inefficient, so I can’t make a living just from dungeon profits. I need to keep making videos too.”
“I see. But if the backlash continues, it’ll be hard to keep going.”
Once again, she shook her head.
“No. If I’m getting flamed, that means I have attention. My revenue will probably go up. But…”
“But you’ll have to deal with nonstop harassment, right? No one can withstand that forever.”
“I’ll endure it. I can handle it.”
“Well, I can’t handle it. You’re like a little sister to me now.”
At the word “sister,” Aina looked both happy and disappointed at the same time.
“But… there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Actually, I think there’s one way to prove your innocence.”
“Really?”
Her eyes lit up with hope.
“Maybe. But it’ll be tough on you. Are you willing to do it?”
“I’ll do it.”
She answered immediately, her eyes full of determination.
“Alright. Then next weekend, we’re going somewhere far away.”
“…Huh?”
Aina’s trial was about to begin.
