Chương 34: [That Time I Soundly Rejected Any Comparison Between This Story and Redo of Healer]

-MEANWHILE, AT NOT THE DEMON LORD'S CASTLE- Well, stuffing all eight holes in my body with those special leaves has fixed my ugly problem and then some. Now when I bring up my stat screen my 'being ugly' skill has been utterly annihilated, replaced with [Narcissus's Kiss]. Like Narcissus, you have a beauty that could captivate the gods themselves if they couldn't see your rancid, raisin-black soul. Avoid reflective surfaces or at least learn to swim.

"Okay. Now I can grind useful stuff," I assured The Dicter, whose eyes started bleeding the instant they laid eyes on me.

"I was thinking we should start with Ankle Girth. Until my right leg grows back I could use all the ankle I can get."

"Fool." The Dicter snorted.

"Your Ankle Girth skill can and will be improved, but there are more critical qualities that need to be addressed first. Since we first met, you've ended a sentence with an exclamation mark sixteen times… which is sixteen times too many. Capital might be the foundational beating heart of this genre, young one, but it's blood is made of angst. You must be miserable! Tragic! It's through suffering both your power and moral ambiguity are justified!

You must have a deep and impenetrable wellspring of sadness in your stomach if you want to have the power you need to overcome the trials of this world. Or would you rather be some happy-go-lucky, plucky virgin who's oblivious to his harem and who helps people who are in need?!"

"No! Anything but that!" I wailed at the thought of being a considerate and ethical hero: I signed up specifically to be a bad boy antihero and by gum I wasn't going to settle for anything less.

"Exactly. So you must stop using exclamation marks, emoticons, and anything that would suggest joy or personality and you must let every negative thing that's ever happened to you form a toxic sludge of blinding misery that forms the backbone of your entire character arch. Now tell me: are your parents dead?"

"No."

"Was your village destroyed?"

"No."

"Were you abandoned by your former party?"

"I've never been invited to a party before in either of my lives."

"Were you mocked and derided for having the weakest skill or being the lowest rank?"

"I didn't even know what my skills were until earlier today."

"Did you lose a toy train growing up?"

"No, I was training the whole time during the time skips."

"Did your step-brother lock your pet dog in an outdoor furnace and burn them alive?"

"That's messed up, but also the wrong genre."

"Did your former party physically, psychologically, and sexually abuse you, but then time reversed so now you want to return the favor and then some? But like in a PG-13 kinda way." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"No with the hard N."

"Were you a socially isolated shut-in NEET who was misunderstood by the world?"

"By choice for the express purpose of gaming the rebirth system."

"Were you overworked and underappreciated to the point of being reduced to a faceless cog in a brutally unfair system?"

"Well, gosh. Who wasn't?"

"Were you mocked, insulted, and bullied in your previous life before you came here?"

"Oh yeah, all the time. They even stole my favorite Appendix."

"Well thank the various goddesses that we have something to work with then." The Dicter nodded.

"Now, I need you to throw out whatever formed the base of your personality before and replace it with embittered, wrathful hate for those who did you wrong in your past life. Once you have it, pull on that well of hate and have it form the new base of your internal narration. Do it. DO IT NOW!" I stared at the Dicter with hollowed-out, granite-grey eyes. Words. There were just so many words coming out of their mouth. When I was younger and weaker, I let other people's words reach me. Affect me.

I've since learned better. The more you let people's words in, the more they'll just crowd your air with bullplop. Not anymore. Not again. Never again.

"Stop talking. It's annoying," I sighed as I dismissed the Dicter's preachy nonsense with a flick of the wrist.

"You want to keep traveling with me, you'd better learn how to do it quietly. Don't force me to tolerate both your weakness and your stupidity."

"Yes… good… very good, yes…!" That's where the Dicter was wrong. I wasn't good. I didn't have a shred of goodness left in me. Not after what had happened to me. Not after all I'd been through. The people I trusted most in my old life had done a very thorough job of destroying every last trace of it from my body. But in hindsight: maybe that was the only favor they ever did for me. Because with all the goodness gone, I had plenty of room for strength. And revenge.

"Hey Protagonist I got some ice cream Would you like to share? I promise it's not strange as it might seem I just want to show I care."

"Get that crap out of my face." I turned my nose up at the Kobold.

"The only cold dish I'm interested in is revenge. And the only sweet dish I'm interested in is sweet revenge. And the only cone-based dish I'm interested in is the traffic cones they'll put around the chalk outlines of my enemies once I get my revenge. My favorite movie is the Avengers. My favorite British sitcom from the 1960's is the Avengers. My favorite band? Avenged Sevenfold. You'll note nowhere on that list is ice cream. Got it?"

"Okay I guess that means ice cream for me Go screw yourself and climb a tree." I watched the Kobold go with a bitter smirk. The only flavor I enjoyed these days, other than the iron taste of blood in my mouth. He could enjoy his ice cream all he wanted. It was just a distraction from the true darkness of the world. A darkness only I could see. A darkness that would eventually-"Oh thank goodness I found you." Ilia burst out a nearby bush.

"I just got word from the higher ups that they'd be willing to completely forgive your medical debt and give you your old appendix back if you can not be a jerk for the next eight seconds."

"Heh. Forgiveness? Sorry, babe. That word's not in my dictionary. Not anymore. I don't need yours or anyone else's. As an old jerk once told me: go screw yourself and climb a tree."

"Okay well, I guess I'll mark you down for even more medical debt then." Ilia unburst from a different nearby bush.

"Goodbyeeeeeee." Heh.

"Bye" was the only time I said good anymore. Because the best thing people could do for me was leave me the frick alone.

"Yes… yes, this will do just fine…" The Dicter laughed.

"I think you're finally ready, my boy… for your next timeskip. And this time… there will be far less or far more rabies. I don't know. We can't measure it."