As Long as You Have the [Shop] Skill, the Dungeonized World Is a Breeze ~The Bullied Youth’s Payback

Chapter 83 – The Truth About That Day

Hearing Ryudou’s words, I was left speechless. In my confusion, I barely managed to escape a hit from a zombie. It was a bit too close for comfort.

But naturally, Kuzuhara was even more shocked than I was.

“…W-What are you saying? You… killed…Tomoe…?” (Kuzuhara)
“What? It’s too early for your hearing to be going bad. Kukuku.” (Ryudou)
At least, it didn’t look to me that Ryudou was joking or lying. But that might just be because I didn’t know much about him. It could also be another strategy to sway Kuzuhara’s mind again.

“…You’re lying. After all, you liked Tomoe, didn’t you?! You adored her so much!” (Kuzuhara)
“….Yeah, that’s right. It’s true that meeting her was the only light in my life.” (Ryudou)
“Then… then there’s no way!” (Kuzuhara)
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” (Ryudou)
“….?!” (Kuzuhara)
“Tomoe… didn’t choose me. Even though I loved her most in the entire world, she chose you.” (Ryudou)
“…! Don’t tell me, you… that’s all?” (Kuzuhara)
“Haaah?! That’s all? What the hell do you know?! What do you know about how it feels to be betrayed by the only woman that I would do anything for?!” (Ryudou)
“Betrayed…?” (Kuzuhara)
I could understand why Kuzuhara was upset. Ryudou’s opinion was completely wrong.

Tomoe didn’t betray him. She was just being honest about her feelings.

In love, feelings weren’t always reciprocated. In fact, it was more likely that they wouldn’t be reciprocated. However, even after an unrequited love, people would become stronger for it and live on in pursuit of finding new love.

But Ryudou probably had the misunderstanding that his feelings for Tomoe were genuine and unique and that she harbored the same feelings for him.

“Me! She should have chosen me! But…! But why?! Why did she have to choose you?! Why did she have to choose you of all people?!” (Ryudou)
“Ryudou…!” (Kuzuhara)
“When I was sent to the orphanage, I knew that everyone in my world was scum. My parents and all of the people around them didn’t care about me. They only saw me as a toy or a tool to make money.” (Ryudou)
His words conveyed painfully well that he had grown up in a terrible environment.

“But when I met Tomoe, I thought that maybe if it was her, she would accept me for who I was. I thought that she would love me as a person and as a man. But… she didn’t choose me in the end.” (Ryudou)
“B-But you… gave me your blessing, didn’t you?” (Kuzuhara)
“…Blessing? …How long are you going to keep talking nonsense, Kuzuhara? It was at that time… that I started my plan.” (Ryudou)
“….! No way, you… everything was…” (Kuzuhara)
“Yeah, that’s right. When you and Tomoe were at the height of your happiness, I aimed to destroy it all.” (Ryudou)
“T-Then that… guy who hit Tomoe with his car, Akuma Gouzou, was he…?” (Kuzuhara)
“He’s just someone I paid a large sum of money to play that role.” (Ryudou)
“No way…!” (Kuzuhara)
Chake had told me that Akuma Gouzou was the man who ran over and killed Tomoe when they were out together on a trip.

“At that time, I was planning to send both of you to the afterlife together. But you managed to survive because of that bitch.” (Ryudou)
Kuzuhara was frozen with shock at the truth, which came so easily out of Ryudou’s mouth. Even if they were now enemies and aiming to kill one another, they both loved the same woman. No, even now, Kuzuhara must have thought that, like him, his love for her still hadn’t changed even now.

But now, Ryudou revealed that he no longer had feelings for Tomoe and that, on the contrary, he had been the one who killed her. It was no wonder that panic would begin to set in.

“Well, it still worked out. Even though Tomoe died, my hatred still didn’t fade. So I decided to put all of this hatred on you instead. By making a mess of everything in your life, I can finally be free of this hatred.” (Ryudou)
Ryudou continued to talk like he was gloating.

He deliberately acted as if he had feelings for Tomoe, then continued to plan and execute his scheme to frame Kuzuhara.

He attacked Kuzuhara’s companions one after the other, gradually depriving Kuzuhara of friends, all in order to create a situation where people would begin to realize that hanging out with Kuzuhara would only invite disaster.

And as it turned out, many of Kuzuhara’s friends did leave him. However, there were still some people, including Chake, who wouldn’t leave Kuzuhara’s side. That was a result of his personal virtue.

But after Kuzuhara was framed for the murder of Akuma Gouzou, Kuzuhara lost all of his friends except Chake.

“I knew that if I did this, you, who had the wrong idea about my feelings, would take the blame on yourself. Everything you did was in the palm of my hands.” (Ryudou)
“…….” (Kuzuhara)
“After you were sent to jail, I should have had you beat into the hell called loneliness by that point. But there was an exception.” (Ryudou)
…He was probably talking about Chake.

“Because of that baldy, my plan still wasn’t complete. You didn’t fall into complete despair. So I thought about it. How could I take everything from you and utterly destroy you? …And then, the world just happened to be thrown into an uproar. This was it, I thought to myself. I… could use this to my advantage.” (Ryudou)
Kuzuhara boldly claimed to carry the word ‘evil’ on his back, but in reality, he was a person overflowing with a sense of righteousness.

As a result, Ryudou foresaw that there would be people drawn to Kuzuhara’s nature and would want to join him, so he gathered information on them and created circumstances where he could threaten them at any time.

After that, he threatened Kuzuhara’s followers into becoming his pawns and began to use them to gather information on Kuzuhara, which then initiated this current match. Here, he planned to expose the entire truth and destroy Kuzuhara’s heart, plunging him into the depths of despair.

“But everything went wrong because of the irregularity,” Ryudou said, glaring at me.

He was truly a spiteful and vindictive man who was obsessed with Kuzuhara to a nearly pathological degree. Although things didn’t go his way, he must have been insane to think that everything would work as he planned. I could only shudder in fear and disgust at the fact that he killed his lover and used his own former feelings as a ploy to destroy Kuzuhara, who lived on.

“What do you think? This is the truth. Everything, everything… was just your misunderstanding. You felt guilty about me, didn’t you? So you went to jail. But it was a pointless act. Do you know how many hundreds of women I laughed and slept with during the time you were in prison? Those five years were a complete waste of your life! Kuhahahahah!” (Ryudou)
What an irritating person. Ohsaka was just like this too, but Ryudou had an even bigger screw loose than him. Honestly, just being around Ryudou was stressful.

“Oi, oi, you’ve gone so quiet! What’s the matter, Kuzuhara! Are you feeling the despair yet? You are, aren’t you?! My bad, but I was planning to destroy you from the beginning! I don’t care one tiiiny bit about that bitch at all right now! How un~fortunateee~!” (Ryudou)
Hearing him loudly spouting nonsense, even Shiki and Sol complained inwardly, making their displeasure clear.

“I want to throw up listening to this.” (Sol)
“What an utter fiend.” (Shiki)

I wasn’t feeling great hearing this either, but I didn’t feel anger rising in me either. After all, Ryudou’s emotions weren’t aimed at me.

When I looked at Kuzuhara, the actual target, he was just quietly hanging his head. Even though Ryudou had been his enemy all this time, he had probably thought that Ryudou still loved the same woman as him and still had feelings for her even now.

However, the person in question had already erased his feelings for Tomoe and become a heretic who would kill her just because she rejected him.

I wonder what kind of emotions are swirling in Kuzuhara’s heart right now.

“What’s wrong?! Show me your face! Show me that face, colored with despair!” (Ryudou)
Ryudou’s provocation echoed throughout the chamber. As if complying with him, Kuzuhara slowly lifted his head.

At that moment, everyone who saw his face, Ryudou included, was startled. I had assumed that he would either be brimming with anger or, as Ryudou said, submerged in despair.

However, my expectations were betrayed in an abrupt fashion. After all, Kuzuhara had a sad, melancholic expression as tears streamed down his face.