My Desertion Would Be Faster Than Heros’ Obsession

The reason for Benny’s question was obvious—she was worried I might have overheard her crying near the bathroom.

Naturally, I already knew exactly how to respond in a situation like this.

“What kind of rookie asks their senior something like that?”

“Oh! I-I’m sorry!” Benny stammered, her expression flustered. I seized the opportunity to press my advantage.

“Watch your mouth. Honestly, asking your senior about trivial things like this… Back in my day, that kind of thing would’ve been unthinkable.”

Thankfully, this seemed to put an end to Benny’s line of questioning. After all, there wasn’t much I could say in response.

But Benny’s face darkened.

…Oh, right.

Suddenly, I felt the overwhelming urge to smack myself in the head.

Damn it, I’m not a goldfish—why am I forgetting this?

I’d seen how much Benny was struggling last night. Even if I wanted to keep the truth hidden, my words might have just crushed her spirits even further.

What the hell was I thinking when I said that? As always, putting on this uniform seemed to scramble my brain. Did I have some kind of intelligence debuff while in the military?

“No, Benny, you didn’t do anything wrong. The issue is that I can’t tell you where I was…”

I rolled my eyes, desperately searching for an explanation.

What the hell do I even say?

What excuse could I come up with for sneaking out of bed at night? That I suddenly felt like doing gymnastics under the moonlight? Or that I was overwhelmed by the urge to sprint across the training field?

No, something more plausible—

“A…a tryst.”

“Pardon?”

“I went to have a tryst…”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how absurd they sounded.

This wasn’t some aristocratic estate or imperial palace from a romance novel. Who the hell would I even be having a tryst with here?

While I was racking my brain for a way to salvage this ridiculous lie, Benny’s face suddenly lit up with realization.

“Oh! I get it now!”

“What?”

“You’ve been secretly meeting Aquila, haven’t you?!”

…How on earth did she jump to that conclusion?

Still, it seemed like letting her run with the misunderstanding was my best option.

“Uh… Yeah. Sure. But if this gets out, I’ll kill you. Not a word to anyone—not the monsters, not even the rats in the walls. Got it?”

“Yes! I’ll keep it a secret!” Benny’s expression brightened considerably. She looked oddly cheerful, even excited.

I guess in a place this suffocating, hearing about someone else’s romantic drama must be a real treat…

“Haha.”

Benny even let out a small laugh, clearly entertained.

Well, if this misunderstanding had improved her mood, I might as well let her enjoy it.

***

I had planned to observe Benny for at least one more day, but last night, she disappeared again for a long time. She had undoubtedly returned to the bathroom to cry.

There was one likely reason for her distress.

Her comrades.

A month ago, three of Benny’s fellow recruits had died. That was certainly a traumatic event for her.

Shine, Muscle… what was the third one’s name? It wasn’t Kashier, was it?

Something like that. I couldn’t remember precisely, but I did recall that Benny had wept inconsolably when they died.

I’d thought she had recovered since then, but it seemed she’d only been pretending to be okay on the surface.

Has she been like this ever since her comrades died? A whole month?

If Benny had been crying every night for a month, the situation was more serious than I’d realized. I felt ashamed of myself for failing to notice the state of the junior I had resolved to take care of, and I came to a conclusion.

This is beyond my ability to handle.

Sure, if I could help Benny recover mentally, she’d owe me a debt of gratitude. But I didn’t have the confidence to do that successfully. Healing someone’s wounds one by one was the kind of thing novel protagonists or professional therapists did—not me.

It was clear this needed a specialist, so I went straight to Yuri.

“Yuri, we have an emergency.”

“What?!”

After hearing the details from me, Yuri’s face turned pale, and she immediately ran off to report to the officers.

“I… I’ll handle this…”

Dear, stepping in for Taro, who didn’t seem to have the strength to stand, reported the situation to the platoon leader.

As a result, Benny was promptly sent to the company headquarters for counseling.

At least they act quickly when it’s something that could affect their promotions.

With that thought, I checked the pile of laundry. Great, my shirt had monster blood on it again. Time to grab the toothpaste. Why was it that the scent of mint wasn’t limited to my mouth but had to linger on my hands too?

As I stood up with the laundry basket, grumbling, Benny, fresh from her counseling session, ran up to me.

“Salvia! Let me take care of that!”

“Sure.”

I handed the basket to her without hesitation. My military philosophy was that deference was reserved for seniors—not juniors.

Trailing behind Benny with nothing in my hands, I noticed her speaking quietly.

“Salvia…”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Can I… ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, sorry.”

I slapped my mouth lightly. Damn, the military was really doing a number on my manners. I nodded to encourage her, and after setting the basket down, Benny hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“So… do you also think I need to become worse?”

“What?”

My angelic junior was asking if she should become worse? It was like being struck by lightning on a clear day.

“I mean, the other seniors… They all seem to think I’m weak…”

“Hmm.”

I thought back to how the seniors had treated Benny.

“Looks like we finally got an elite recruit, but who knew she’d be so soft?”

“She’ll never last if she makes such a fuss about people dying here…”

Those were Dream and Carrot, who’d just made lance corporal, talking about her.

“Ugh, these days, all the rookies are crybabies.”

That was Yuri, muttering after seeing how much I’d been looking after Benny.

It was true that the seniors seemed to view Benny’s struggles as a weakness.

But they don’t know the most important thing about her.

If they knew who Benny really was, they wouldn’t dare say such things. Even I was cautious around her.

Wait…

This was an opportunity! A chance to help Benny and leave a positive impression on her. If I could say the right thing now…

…But what exactly do you say to encourage someone? Damn it…

“You’re just more sensitive than others.”

I chose my words carefully, trying to convey my thoughts.

“But to survive here, you can’t let someone’s death weigh on you for too long. I’ve lost six comrades myself, so I understand how you feel.”

I met Benny’s soft brown eyes.

“Maybe instead of being consumed by their deaths, you could honor them by living for their sake.”

Benny blinked at me, then opened her mouth again.@@novelbin@@

“Is that… what the seniors think?”

“What?”

“Do they think I’m struggling because of my comrades’ deaths?”

“…They don’t?”

I looked more closely at Benny’s expression. Her eyes weren’t as soft as I’d assumed. Deep within them, I saw something solid and unyielding—an indomitable resolve I couldn’t quite put into words.

“It’s about one of my comrades… Kashier.”

“Yeah, I remember Kashier.”

I totally didn’t, but I nodded like I did.

“I saw it. How Kashier died.”

I also remembered how her batch had been killed by a second-grade monster, a Firehorn. The seasoned seniors had instinctively dodged the flames, but the rookies had frozen in fear and failed to escape.

“Afterward, we let that monster go, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did.”

The Firehorn had fled across the border after we attacked it, and we hadn’t pursued it. Taro had said the creature would probably fear humans now and avoid crossing the border again.

“We should have killed it. But we let it go…”

…What?

Startled by the tremor in her voice, I looked at Benny more closely. She wasn’t just grieving over her comrades’ deaths.

She was furious that the monster that killed them had escaped.

“I keep thinking about it at night. I can’t sleep…”

Her voice, soft but laden with resentment, continued.

“I should have killed it. But I didn’t…”

I didn’t know where to look, so my eyes drifted until I noticed a wound on the back of her hand.

“…How’d that happen?”

“Oh… I couldn’t sleep, and I was so angry, so… I punched the bathroom wall a few times…”

…Wow.

Benny was, uh, tough.

I finally understood.

The Benny who survived to the original timeline wasn’t just strong in combat. She was mentally… well, impressively robust. With her innocent face, she was absolutely lethal.

She wasn’t mourning her comrades’ deaths—she was enraged she couldn’t avenge them. Truly commander material. She was bound to surpass her father and become a general someday.

I’d pegged her as just a sweet, kind girl from her behavior in the original novel. But now I’d uncovered a hidden side of her.

“So, it’s because you couldn’t take revenge…”

“Yes, and…”

It seemed she had more to say.

“One of the seniors told me I was weak. That to survive here, I’d have to stop caring about other people’s deaths and become a much worse person.”

“Hmm, I see…”

It sounded like that senior’s harsh advice was why Benny had asked me earlier if she needed to become worse.

And honestly, there was something else bothering me.

“Did that senior… harass you when they said that?”

“Oh, um…”

“Benny, are you going to tell me who that senior was?”

“I… I can’t do that.”

That confirmed it.

This asshole is absolutely worthless.

I had another epiphany. The senior who’d said that to Benny…

Benny’s never messed up the hierarchy in her speech before.

When she talked about that “senior,” she didn’t use any honorifics. Which meant they were from a lower class than me.

Karon, Jaiden, Milphy.

The culprit was obvious.

Jaiden, you son of a bitch.