Diary of Guarding Monster Girls

The key is sincerity for sincerity!

It's no exaggeration to say, my stress tolerance is extremely strong!

(Hands on hips)

———— [What follows is a 6,300-word tragic yet somewhat exciting life story of my twenty-five years. There's sorrow, but if you don't want to read it, you can skip to the next section!] ————

When I was four, my father passed away from leukemia, leaving just my mother and me to depend on each other.

I barely have any memories of my father; over twenty years have passed, and I only remember the last look I gave him and the time he took me downstairs with a cane to buy ice cream.

Furthermore, he was someone who didn't arrange things after his death properly. He didn't let down outsiders but did let down my mother and me, an irresponsible father and husband.

(Alright, I admit that I often kill off the "father" character in my previous novels myself, which indeed was influenced by reality, yeah.)

When my father died, the treatment for his leukemia had already drained all our family's savings, leaving us with nothing but no debts.

Later, my mother felt she couldn't raise me on her own, so she found a partner, hoping to give me a childhood with a father.

However, before I turned six, my grandfather used this reason to drive us out of the house, and even when my mother sat on the ground weeping bitterly, he never turned back— I learned of this only after growing up; my mother never mentioned it when I was little as she didn't want me to harbor resentment towards my grandfather at a young age.

By the way, this grandfather of mine had my father secretly sell a over-100-square-meter house by the train station to repay his debts when my father was sick and later denied ever doing it. The money and house were gone eventually.

He also once promised to leave the small old house he lived in to me, but later gave it to the step-grandmother who moved in less than a hundred days after my real grandmother passed away.

That step-grandmother didn't allow me to visit my grandfather and even threw away all the photos left by my father.

When my grandfather passed away a few years ago, she spread rumors among ignorant relatives saying that I was unfilial, blaming us for deliberately not visiting my grandfather, painting us as utterly wicked.

She later exchanged the house and could no longer be contacted, or perhaps didn't dare face us.

Continuing from before, after that, my mother and I had no place to live and had to start renting.

My mother also separated from the partner after I graduated from middle school— I didn't really need his presence, but that's a story for another time.

From four to seventeen, those years were relatively peaceful. I never suffered much, and my mother did her best to give me a life not unlike that of peers.

I'm quite thrifty too, a homebody who doesn't like going out and never took extra lessons.

Oh, except for my inherent allergies like asthma + allergic rhinitis + a bunch of other random allergens causing chronic illness, everything else was alright.

(Mold++++, dust mites++++, house dust mites++++, weeds++, peaches++, pollen+, peanuts+, wheat flour+, cornmeal+, Large Flatfish+, animal epithelium+, red peppers+, grass/grains+, hay dust+… I'm allergic to these and some other unremembered allergens.)

My studies weren't bad either. In the first year of high school, my grades peaked; without division between arts and sciences, I ranked seventh in the entire grade.

There weren't many students in our school, just about three hundred in a grade. I even got some scholarships and certificates. (I think there was a scholarship, not quite sure, but certificates were definitely there.)

(By the way, the high school I attended was still a regular school when I was there, but has since self-evolved into a key high school. So now, I can claim to be a graduate of a key high school.)

During that time, I also held a small position as a deputy minister in the student council organization department, participating in organizing school activities now and then.

I also started dating a girlfriend for the first time— although it ended after less than eight months when she cheated on me.

Those days were quite happy, until I found out the real situation at home in my second year of high school— my mother was nearly breaking down over money issues.

Simply put, back then, while living with the later partner, someone had stolen from my mother's credit card to repay project costs.

After they broke up, he still used to pay in installments for a while, but disappeared without a trace in winter when my mom broke her bone and couldn't go out during my first year, and he was never found again.

Later on, we found out he used the embezzled project money to buy a new house, remarry, and have a child, living quite comfortably.

Right, his eldest son, who's a year older than me, even went to a military school. Thinking about it, it's kind of ironic.

My mom didn't tell me at first until the credit card hole grew too big to hide, and she confessed to me completely.

Several banks urged repayment, borrowing from friends and relatives.

Honestly, such dismal news was slightly too shocking for a student preparing for college entrance exams.

In the winter of my second year, my mother and I sat in the square, and she said we didn't have enough money for a bar of soap.

My mother said she was sorry for not giving me the life I should have had.

She was probably so depressed that she saw no hope and wanted to die and erase her debts— of course, I didn't let her, I finally managed to talk her back from it.