Chapter 6
"Goddess-sama, your instant ramen will be ready in six seconds."
"Exactly three minutes. You're remarkably precise."
"My internal clock has become incredibly refined."
"You were a clock hand, after all."
"Still, is it really okay for a goddess to eat instant ramen?"
"Some days I feel like it. Normally, I say I live on mist."
"Are you a hermit? Still, I'm happy you only show me your usual self."
"I've spent longer as an inanimate object than as a living thing, so I'm treated as one."
"I need to reincarnate as a living thing next time, at least."
"Please reincarnate intending for that to be your last time."
"Then, Goddess-sama, how about drawing from the suggestion box? I'd like to borrow some of your luck for a change."
"I don't want to lend you my luck, but fine. Let's see... From the pen name west: 'The Voice in the Hero's Head Who Announces Level-Ups.'"
"Ooh, that's a winner."
"A winner? Hmm... Well, I suppose it's better than dirt or a door."
"As expected of you, Goddess-sama. Next time, draw for me instead of a social game's gacha."
"You're dead and you're still playing those? Your phone contract's been canceled, hasn't it?"
"I can manage with Wi-Fi."
"Don't connect a line to this place."
"But don't you watch TV here?"
"I connect when I want to watch something. That's fine for me."
"Then let's add your options. Is it okay if I can talk?"
"How do you plan to announce level-ups without talking?"
"I could put up a sign in the hero's head, like this."
"That would be a distraction. Go ahead and add it."
"I'd prefer the hero to be a girl."
"I want to stop you, since your ulterior motive is obvious."
"That's rude. Besides, since I'll be inside their head, I can't do anything bad."
"Then I'll set it so the hero will be a man if you have ulterior motives."
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"Oh, the highest-rarity featured unit showed up."
"I'm back. That damn hero got the better of me."
"So you did have ulterior motives."
"My plan to mutter lewd words endlessly has gone completely down the drain."
"I want to give myself a compliment today."
"Anyway, I should report in. I became the voice in Hero Misch's head who announces his level-ups."
"Even that report is pretty chaotic."
"I was assigned to him when he turned ten and reached Hero Level 1."
"So he wasn't Level 1 from the moment he was born."
"Otherwise, he'd be something like a Level 1 villager or a newborn."
"That's true. If you put it that way, reaching Level 1 in anything at ten shows promise."
【Congratulations, Hero Misch. You're now Level 1.】
"That was how I introduced myself."
"What's this?"
"It's a window that appears in his head when I make an announcement. If I want, I can make it appear outside, too."
"He must've been startled to suddenly see something appear in his head, but it was a fairly peaceful start."
"He replied, 'Whoa, what is this? Creepy. That's messed up.' So I spent the whole day screaming death metal at him."
"How childish."
"The next day, I greeted him in a hoarse voice, saying I was the person who announced his level-ups."
"You left an even worse impression."
"At first, Hero Misch denied my existence, but after five years of convincing him, he finally accepted me."
"He turned fifteen before I knew it. His level must've gone up in that time."
"His level couldn't go up unless he accepted me."
"Your childish behavior wasted five years of a promising hero's life."
【Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life at Level 1?】
"I kept showing him that, and it was an effective way to persuade him."
"That's a threat."
"And so Hero Misch set out on his adventure."
"His adventure as a hero had begun."
"The first monster he fought was a slime."
"A classic."
"Let me recreate my own contribution."
【The hero attacks, but misses.】
【The hero attacks, but misses.】
【The hero attacks, but misses.】
【The hero attacks, but misses.】
【The hero attacks, but misses.】
"Is that hero terrible at fighting?"
【Let me take over.】
"That's what I told him."
"I don't want to hear that kind of announcement."
"He yelled at me, 'You're the level-up announcer, so shut up.'"
"He's got a point."
"There was a battle announcer, too."
"There was?"
"There were people who announced commands, people who announced status, and so on."
"How many people were inside that one hero?"
"I felt bad about taking other people's jobs, so I did beatboxing as background music until he leveled up."
"That's a subtle kind of nuisance."
"The person in charge of the background music got mad at me."
"There was one of those, too?"
"They told me that if I was going to do it, I should join in with their song."
"You were beatboxing over someone else's performance, and they still invited you to join them?"
"My beatboxing and the music person's a cappella created such a beautiful harmony that it got everyone fired up for battle."
"I can't say background music is a bad thing, but it was echoing inside the hero's head, right?"
"The other announcers brought out their own instruments, too, and before long we had a small orchestra."
"They were a lively bunch."
"Afterward, Hero Misch got mad at all of us."
"Naturally."
【Sorry. Also, you've reached Level 2.】
"That's what I said to him."
"You even neglected your job. By the way, did you only announce level-ups?"
"I explained things like stat increases, too."
【Your Attack increased by 10. Your Defense increased by 10. Your HP increased by 20. Your Magic increased by 20. Your Intelligence increased by 10. Your Luck didn't go up, but that's just a decorative stat anyway.】
"That's subtly irritating."
【You learned Fire. But it isn't worth spending your MP on early in the game, and it's too weak to be useful later, so there's never really a good time to use it.】
"That's none of your business."
"A lot of monsters early in the game are resistant to fire."
"That was actually useful information."
"By the time he had steadily reached Level 10, Hero Misch had gotten quite strong. Let me put my contributions up to that point into a digest."
【The hero reached Level 3. He's still weak, though.】
"Annoying."
【The hero had reached Level 4.】
"You forgot to announce it."
【The hero reached Level 5. But is there any point to numbers that are just for show?】
"You're denying your own existence. Is that philosophy?"
【The hero reached Level 5. Good for you!】
"You miscounted."
【The hero reached Level 7. You went up two levels at once!】
"You tried to cover up your mistake."
【There was a time when the hero was Level 8.】
"You forgot to announce it again."
【The hero reached Level—Ah, yes, I'm coming! Man, delivery drivers, thanks as always for your hard work.】
"Don't send delivery drivers into people's heads."
【The hero reached Level 10—Hey, what's wrong, Choice Announcer? Breathe! Please, keep breathing!】
"What happened to the Choice Announcer?"
"The system was set up so that whenever Hero Misch's mental level increased at a multiple of ten, one of the people in his head would die at random."
"This suddenly got horrifying."
"I'd completely forgotten I'd set that up."
"So it was your doing."
"When Hero Misch learned about it, cruelly enough, he decided to focus on leveling up and kill all of us inside his head."
"That's an effective way to bring peace to his mind."
"We were residents inside his head, and we had no way to fight back except by talking to him."
"Even so, you were making life pretty unpleasant for him."
"We kept asking the people Hero met for help."
"How can people inside his head talk to people outside?"
"Goddess-sama, you said it was okay if I could talk."
"So that's what I meant. I let my guard down."
"Rumors spread that people would suddenly hear a voice calling for help while talking with Hero Misch, and people began to fear him."
"Horror, indeed. He must've resented you even more."
"And just like that, Hero Misch reached Level 20."
"Time for Russian roulette."
【The hero reached Level 20—D-delivery driver!】
"What a terrible case of collateral damage."
【How dare you hurt the delivery driver! But another one will appear soon—the second, the third—Oh, hello! Cash on delivery, right?】
"Another one really did show up right away. How much stuff are you ordering?"
"The pizza guy was a victim at Level 30, the plumber at Level 40, and the electrician at Level 50..."
"A whole string of innocent bystanders became victims. Is there an ordinary house inside his head or something?"
"It's a three-bedroom apartment. It has the drawback of not being able to go outside, but it's pretty comfortable."
"We're still no closer to figuring out how people get in from outside."
"Hero Misch had killed a number of innocent people, but for some reason, his anger toward us only grew."
"It's horrifying that you can say 'for some reason' with a straight face."
"At last, he learned how to enter his own head and attack us directly."
"He must've been driven pretty far. I can understand how he felt."
"But I beat him back."
"How are you beating back a hero who's over Level 50?"
"Of course. I'm in the same party as the hero, so the experience points are split among everyone."
"You were leeching experience? That's some serious parasite play."
"I was Level 80, after all."
"How was the experience being split if the hero was the one fighting?"
"Hero Misch became obsessed with leveling up, convinced that the level difference wouldn't matter once he got stronger."
"It must've been a real trial, knowing that the people he wanted to get rid of were leveling up, too."
"More innocent people lost their lives."
"You people sacrificed far too many others."
"And then, at last, tragedy struck."
"It had been happening for quite a while already."
"After a fierce battle, Hero Misch killed the notification people inside his head one after another."
"Impressive, when they were higher level than him."
"We were all capped at Level 99, so we were the same level."
"You made it that far. I almost want to cheer for you now."
"But I beat him back again."
"The root of all evil survived."
"I was Level 198."
"How are you over the maximum level?"
"It was an option."
"I knew it. And that rate of experience absorption is absurd."
"Experience is divided according to your Luck stat. My Luck was maxed out, after all."
"Didn't you say it was just a decorative stat?"
"But once all the other announcers had died, it got awfully quiet."
"Maybe the hero finally calmed down, at least for a while."
"My beatboxing still echoed mournfully through his head every day."
"You kept pestering him anyway?"
"Unable to give up, Hero Misch teamed up with Demon King Goshii to try to defeat me."
"The hero and the Demon King teamed up just to defeat someone living inside the hero's head? Didn't it turn into a fight?"
"Demon King Goshii was Level 80, and he was easily defeated by the hero, who was capped, so he surrendered."
"Thanks to you, there couldn't have been any moving moment where they saved the world."
"They both came into his head and challenged me, but I beat them back."
"The level difference was too much for them."
【Oh, hero! How disgraceful to lose!】
"You're taunting them."
"But then Demon King Goshii came up with a clever plan. If he reset Hero Misch's level, the hero could start leveling again. Then, if they could arrange for me to be the only one inside his head when his level reached a multiple of ten, they could defeat me."
"They turned your own option against you. That was almost a battle of wits."
"But it was hard to make sure I was alone in his head, where you never knew when some unrelated person might appear."
"Unrelated people don't normally appear inside someone's head."
"So Demon King Goshii sacrificed himself to keep watch. If someone died at random, there was a fifty percent chance of defeating me. And if Demon King Goshii died inside Hero Misch's head, he'd just be kicked out."
"I see. If his level was reset, then challenging you over and over would eventually ensure your defeat."
"Well, Demon King Goshii died all one hundred times he tried."
"Your Luck was maxed out. That sounds harder than pulling a highest-rarity unit in a social game."
"But at last, one thing brought our conflict to an end."
"Oh? It looked pretty hopeless, but you managed to settle it somehow."
"They turned off notifications in the settings."
"Why didn't he think of that sooner?"
"In the end, they were never turned back on while the hero was alive, and he lived out the rest of his life that way."
"Even I wouldn't turn them back on."
"Anyway, here's your souvenir."
"You were only inside his head. How did you manage to get a souvenir?"
"A G○○gle Play gift card."
"You just went shopping, didn't you? I'll take it, though."