People often don't know much about their own condition.
I think there are seriously few people who can confidently say they truly know exactly what state their health and mind are in.
Of course, it goes without saying that I, too, cannot accurately grasp what state I'm in.
Anyway, people commonly conclude their self-assessment by thinking that their hardships are simply due to accumulated fatigue from physical labor, or mental exhaustion from monotonous, repetitive work.
That's why the way to find out what Saran was truly worried about right now... well, it wasn't anything special.
It was simply continuous conversation.
"First of all... you're a Hero, right, Saran?"
"Yeah."
"But as far as I know, I've never seen anyone like you before, so could you tell me briefly what kind of Hero you are?"
So I started by asking a question like this first.
Because I truly didn't know.
With Batori, it had been easy to talk because I knew she was a rookie and a low-ranking hero, but.
In Saran's case, I hadn't even received her profile, and had only heard that she was having a hard time, so I had to start with what kind of person she was.
"Hero... I do work a little different from ordinary Heroes."
"Is that so?"
"Normal Heroes receive reports filed with the Association, take requests matching those reports, and then deploy. But I don't."
"...Then how do you work?"
I watched her as she continued speaking while sipping warm coffee, and asked slowly.
"The shadows... is what you'd call it. Yes, the shadows. I handle criminal organizations that aren't publicly known. The kind of organizations the Hero Association finds difficult to openly disclose to the public. The ones that traffic drugs, kidnap people, and harvest their organs."
"...I see."
Yes, it was the kind of story I could understand.
The world appears stable thanks to Heroes on the surface, but in reality, it's quite a chaotic society.
In such a society, there was no way everything could be made public.
That there was a Hero working almost like a secret agent was somewhat surprising, but not so much that I would make a huge fuss about it.
"Then are you busy with that kind of work? So busy you can't rest?"
"Hm... no, not that."
"About how many times a month do you do that work?"
"About once or twice a week. It's not busy. Of course, raiding an organization takes quite a bit of time, so I do have to work the whole day."
"Hmm..."
For now, it didn't seem like her worry was simply that Hero work was difficult.
As she talked about her work, there was no expression or tone that suggested she was really having a hard time.
She spoke as if she were talking about something boring.
And I didn't get the sense that she was burned out either, because... it just seemed like she'd been working without any motivation from the very beginning.
"I suppose I should be careful about pressing you for more details."
"That would be best."
When counseling Heroes, I usually asked a lot about the difficulties they faced in the course of their work.
But in Saran's case today, doing so in a setting like this...
...seemed difficult in a department store cafe.
Of course, since it didn't seem like working as a Hero itself was the hard part, I naturally moved on to the next question.
"What do you do in your free time?"
"...Free time?"
"Days when you don't work. Please tell me what you usually do."
"......."
After all, a person's day is one of two things, right?
Working hours and leisure time.
So if it wasn't difficult during the process of Hero activities, the direction of my questions naturally had to turn this way.
"I just stay home with the TV on, or spend time on my phone."
"Do you spend time meeting other people? Don't you spend time with friends?"
"I don't."
"......."
Hmm.
"Then do you ever go out to enjoy something, or enjoy eating out... is there nothing like that?"
"Not really."
Hmm...
"...What do you usually eat?"
"Delivery."
Mmm...
"...So when you're really not working, you just stay quietly at home, and when you need something, you just order it online, meaning you keep staying at home?"
"Yeah."
Mmmm......
Yeah.
This, too, was a common thing.
There were more than one or two people who holed up at home during their time off.
I figured it was probably even more common for Heroes who do physically demanding work.
...Though when I considered her as someone who works about one day a week, it did make me think more deeply in many ways.
To briefly summarize Saran's situation:
[She works in secret, about once or twice a week.]
[But it is tough work.]
[On days she doesn't work, literally, she tends to spend her time quietly at home without meeting anyone.]
She was living a life that could be summarized in exactly three lines like this.
Where could there be a reason for worries to accumulate from this?
Though it was enough for such a question to arise, after hearing her story roughly... I could infer what part was making things hard for her.
"Hm."
"What."
"Ah, I think I know a way to resolve this, to some extent."
That was the literal truth.
I could roughly think of a solution.
Well... normally, unless counseling is truly for something at the level of a mental illness, solutions can be found through casual conversation like this, and the solution was simple as well.
"What solution?"
"It's simple."
"Tell me. I've been feeling stifled and exhausted lately... I mean, I have no idea why. What's the problem, and how can I solve it?"
"Now, just a moment... please calm down. I'll tell you slowly."
"...Okay."
...The moment she heard that I had figured out a solution, Saran inundated me with questions.
I was a bit flustered by her,
but it wasn't a big problem.
It just showed how much Saran had been struggling recently.
"Just... go out and walk around, interact with friends and talk with them, and spend time comfortably."
"...What?"
"I'm serious."
"...Lie."
Yes, this was also a reaction I could anticipate.
Usually, people often think their problems are a bit more complicated and difficult.
In the end, humans are social animals, and they tend to belong to society, interact with others, feel various emotions, and think various thoughts.
Especially in Saran's case, she must have had no situation at all to say anything about the work she did or her own condition.
In that process, she must have felt isolated.
While isolated, continuously spending time without being able to relieve any work-related stress, and living a daily life of repetitive structure every day, her sense of suffocation must have deepened.
"Your daily life is monotonous. You could say it's fixed. On days you don't work, you sleep late, wake up whenever you want. You just order whatever by delivery, right? And after that, you just watch videos on your phone."
"Yeah."
"You spend a few days like that, then do Hero work, and then go back to that daily life. This is a daily life that keeps spinning like a wheel."
"Yeah."
"Normally, people relieve stress and suffocation through hobbies, and feel a sense of openness by spending time talking with others. But in your case, the work itself is quite secretive. You mustn't have been able to easily bring it up."
"...Yeah."
Saran began nodding more and more at my words.
Could it be that she was beginning to understand what I was saying?
Of course, in the end, it might just be my personal opinion, but at least the state I had assessed Saran to be in was like this.
"That's why I recommend that you develop a hobby, and interact with the Heroes around you, sharing your daily life lightly even if just a little."
"With whom?"
"Um... How about suggesting dinner or having a drink with a Hero you often meet while working?"
In the end, it was a structure where someone in the same industry would inevitably be more comfortable.
Because being a Hero wasn't an ordinary job.
And since she was quite a unique case even among such Heroes, it would naturally be difficult... that's why I recommended a Hero acquaintance.
"There isn't anyone."
"...Huh?"
"There's no one among the Heroes around me that I particularly meet. The Welfare Bureau Chief is someone I had a slight connection with a very long time ago, when I debuted six years ago."
"...You've been working for six years?"
I wasn't surprised that Saran didn't really have anyone she interacted with.
But that six years had passed since her Hero debut was a story that seriously surprised me.
From her appearance, I had felt she was a bit older than me, but that her Hero debut was already six years ago...
"Could your age be...?"
Heroes debuted at a minimum age of twenty, so at the very least, twenty-six.
As expected, working without having properly received her profile beforehand... this kind of situation was inevitable, so it was very troubling.
"Twenty-six."
"Ah...."
...That meant, for roughly five to six years while working, she had spent every day with that kind of routine, silently handling work alone without anyone to interact with, living a repetitive daily life for at least over five years.
When I first mentioned the solution.
That she had suddenly approached me, and had continuously shown reactions indicating she had no one to meet... I was beginning to understand.
"Haha...."
...What should I do?
I looked at Saran, who was watching me quietly, and thought.
Normal Heroes often collaborated, so it might not be a problem for them, but Saran's case was unusual, and she hardly had any Heroes she normally interacted with.
And yet, it would be too difficult for her to talk about her worries to just any ordinary citizen.
Then who would it be right for Saran to talk to?
The conclusion that came at the end of my thoughts was only one.
"...Saran, would you like to meet with me regularly?"
"What?"
There simply was no other viable way than for me to personally meet with her regularly for treatment.
Really, literally.
I was someone who knew quite a lot about Heroes' secrets, someone who belonged to the Hero Association, and finally, someone who had already heard Saran's story to some degree and thus knew the circumstances well.
I was also dumbfounded that I seemed to be turning a suddenly arranged appointment into something even bigger, but...
Still, how could I just ignore someone who was struggling?