Chapter 15
#015
1.
Oddly enough.
A pure voice like blue hydrangeas at dawn echoed through the underpass.
“You're Cedric Montreban, aren't you?”
Why?
Why the hell is that samurai bitch here?
Ceres, did you snitch again? No, we didn't even have any contact this run.
Then Isis? No, it wouldn't be her. She has a precept. Could the precept itself have been fake?
That too is strange. I already verified the truth with the coin.
Then how did she find me faster than expected?
Enough.
Thinking about it now is pointless.
Put the important things first and the unimportant things last.
Survive.
That's the goal I have to achieve above all else in this situation.
But my body, which needed to move right now, was still frozen.
Honestly, after spending a pretty damn good week as John Wick, I had even briefly thought...
If I had my Eye of Laplace and the Big Magnum Revolver Hero, maybe I could somehow manage to escape...
Those were the delusions of a fool.
“Huh? You were with your big sis? Nice. Makes things easier.”
But facing that crazy bitch again made me realize just how absurd those delusions were.
Impossible.
Make do with my wits? With quick improvisation?
Even that only works if you're good enough for it.
I knew it instinctively.
The entire hundred-meter stretch of this underpass was that woman's 'sword domain' (劍域).
“Huff, huff...”
My skin prickled so badly it was twitching. My breathing grew ragged, as if hyperventilation was about to hit.
Just facing her made sticky sweat trail down my chin.
It must be because of the trauma.
No, calm down. You're John Wick.
It's not the trauma.
It's just that that woman's horrifying presence is crushing me.
It's the result of my avoidance-based defense mechanism, wanting to die quickly and regress just to escape her.
But...
Was that really such a bad thing?
I must've made some mistake this run. This time, let's cleanly admit failure and take the next chance...
In my weakening mind, a black-and-white Nietzsche photo appeared and sternly snapped at me.
'Hey, you left your universalizer in the studio apartment.'
Oh, right, fuck!!!
My precious universalizer!
After summoning it once, it wouldn't fit in my inventory, so I left four behind in the studio apartment.
And you think I'm just going to die like this?
An hour after rolling around in the shit and becoming Necropolis's J. Gatsby?
Absolutely not! I haven't spent a single penny yet!
Think, think, think.
Don't stop thinking. What I have. What I can do. Use every variable available to get out of this situation.
Right, the universalizer! Should I offer it half the money and ask it to save me?
That's stupid. There's a 58,000% chance it'll kill me and just take the universalizer.
Right, I have the 「Myobeop Chungseong Scripture」. An SR-rank chaos joker.
I wasn't sure I could control it. But now was the time to do something—anything.
Furube, yura-yura. Here we go.
“Furube...”
I quietly opened my inventory and reached in.
No—I tried to.
“How utterly disappointing.”
"...Huh?"
A truly grotesque sight unfolded.
Why is my hand over there?
My precious right hand had been severed at the wrist and was rolling around in the mud.
Even though I was concentrating every nerve I had, all of this.
The Eye of Laplace detected 'nothing.'
Delayed agony slammed into my brain.
“......!!!!”
I suppressed a scream and tried to pull out the Myobeop Chungseong Scripture with my other hand, but...
-Spurt
My other wrist was gone too.
Ah, fuck. I can't take this.
“Shiiiiiiit!!!!!! That hurts!!! You bitch!!!!! Don't use Bokmaeojuja, I said!!!!!”
As I screamed and thrashed, Arbel, who had been on my back, tumbled off.
Even after that shock, she still didn't wake up.
Well, even if she had woken up, nothing would have changed.
I hadn't even felt that overwhelming presence from Arbel when she'd gone ballistic after I kissed her.
A being from an inhuman hellscape that could trample a mere human—or maybe even another wizard—like an ant.
That was the essence of the death that had come for me.
“Your sister was boring, but... I had high hopes for you.”
Think. Think. Don't give up.
The Eye of Laplace contemplates and predicts physical laws. Then that woman's attack isn't a physical law?
Then what principle does her attack operate on?
Why did the lights in the underpass suddenly go out? Right! It was the same when the manor was first attacked. Back then, night had fallen.
What does this phenomenon mean? A preparation for the attack? A countermeasure?
How many tiers? What name? Where from? What faction? Why did she attack me? Is there anything I can gain from talking? What did she expect from me?
“Still, it doesn't seem like there's absolutely no hope, and it'd be a shame to end it like this. You think so too, right?”
The woman's eyes, singing softly as she spoke, turned to Arbel, who was lying helplessly on the floor.
A smile curved her lips, as if she had discovered something interesting.
“I'm being generous. This is your last chance.”
Like the breathing of someone on the verge of drowning, the bubbling frenzy in my mind came to a stop.
“I'm going to count to three.”
An icy chill, as if freezing my gut, stopped my thoughts.
“Three.”
"...Hey, don't."
“Two.”
“Don't do it, you fucking bitch!!!!”
Because I instinctively knew what that bitch was about to do.
“One.”
“Shit!!!!”
The moment the countdown ended, I squeezed my eyes shut and hurled my body toward Arbel.
But with no meaning, with no warning.
Arbel's sprawled body gave a single twitch.
My body only slid late across the floor and rolled.
“What a shame, Cedric.”
Blood welled in thick beads along the red stitch line on the sack.
Bright red blood spread like a spiderweb across the broken tiles.
All I could do was sprawl in the mud and watch helplessly.
“......”
As if she'd already lost even the slightest interest.
She looked down at me impassively.
“......”
I crawled toward Arbel on all fours.
I'm sorry, Arbel.
Looks like this was as far as I got again.
I bit down on the disheveled sack.
At the very least, I covered Arbel's body, split in half, with the sack again.
I just wanted to do that.
I got to my feet.
A wave of dizziness spun through me.
The blood gushing from both wrists without stopping was drawing this run's brutal ending across the floor.
“You were unlucky, Cedric.”
I was going to die soon.
My body would be split in two and dropped into that horrifying space full of death.
But.
“Hey.”
This wouldn't be the last time.
“Pray that I'll still be unlucky in the next run too.”
Was it because of the blood loss making my head strange?
Even amid the awful pain and fear, a feral grin kept slipping out.
“The next run?”
“When we meet again, if I happen to have an app that can rewrite common sense—”
I engraved the woman's face in my cornea as she tilted her head, puzzled, and rested a hand on her sword hilt.
“—you'll be looking at hell.”
I hoisted the severed wrist where my middle finger should have been.
With a snort, a silver flash burst forth, as if she'd heard a petty joke.
A fleeting flash.
My consciousness scattered into the darkness.
Nietzsche said it.
What does not kill me makes me stronger.
And in this godforsaken world—
“See you next time.”
There is nothing that can kill me.
======
『 ED 1. I Don't Know Your Name 』
Regrettably, you met death in the most trivial way.
It was the obvious ending brought about by your ignorance and negligence.
Well, I don't know whether this will comfort you, but...
You still have plenty of chances left to fail.
<Run Summary>
▶ Achievements earned: None
▶ Titles earned: None
▶ Challenge: +26 pt
※ Death penalty applied ※
[ Late Response ]
[ One-Armed ]
- You begin with your left arm severed.
- Applies until the end of this route.
「The Curse-Repelling Talisman」 prevents [ One-Armed ].
Remaining uses: 4.
May you reach transcendence at the end of arrogance and folly.
======
#
I was thrown once again into the very heart of death.
An endless emptiness.
When I come to this place, it's as if a few gears are forcibly knocked loose and my thoughts start to slip.
Deep thought becomes impossible, and one second passes like a year, a year like one second.
Once I get out of here, it feels like only an instant has passed and the memory almost disappears, like I really pressed some 500-million-year button.
The 500-million-year button dumps you somewhere with nothing at all, though.
The difference is that this place is full of disgusting deaths.
“Fuck...”
I didn't want to come here because of this.
Don't give me the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and penalties—just let me click the button and regress!
A long, long time passed.
Then, as I drifted for an eternity at the bottom of death like a trash bag swept along by the current.
Lick.
I felt a rough tongue lick my cheek.
“Because there won't be a big sis at the academy.”
"...What?"
“If I go there, I can't be with big sis.”
“Y-you...?”
The third run began.
"...What was that just now?"
3.
A vigorous, powerful start to the third run.
Until my body, forced into a tedious puppet show by the death penalty [Late Response], was dropped into Necropolis.
'Aaaaaah!!!! Agh!!!! Aaaaaah!!!!'
My inner self was weeping tears of blood.
There were two things a man could never get numb to, no matter how many times they repeated: being drafted again, and the old refrain 'Sal-eori Sal-eori-ratda, Cheongsan-e Sal-eori-ratda.'
If my body had been free to move, I would have been clawing at the floor and ripping out all my hair until I turned into James Bond.
'Guhhh!!! Fuck!!!! Fuck!!!! My money... my universalizer... my SSR....'
How hard had I worked to pull an SSR!
I was just about to escape Necropolis and become a casino VVIP at an Aden resort where milk and tanning oil flowed, slurping apple-mango bingsu fed to me by Arbel in a reverse bunny-girl outfit!
My ideal paradise vanished like a mirage—ah, my nostalgia.
At least Arbel came back to life.
But the Universalizer I left behind in my studio apartment? No matter what happens! Absolutely! It's never coming back!
Why!
Why the hell!!!
Why had that bitch shown up there, of all places?
And faster than in the previous run, too.
I didn't even meet Ceres this run.
Instead I met Isis, but she had a 'precept.'
The only commonality between the two deaths was this:
that crazy bitch came looking for me less than three hours after a wizard had seen Arbel.
Are all wizards connected by some divine thread?
Was it reckless to reveal my identity after all?
There are too many variables.
The worldbuilding is too complicated!
My head is getting more and more complicated too.
Then let's reinterpret it simply, using genre conventions.
When I die, I regress to the moment I chose an option.
Based on the clause in the penalty [Late Response] that says 'applies until this route ends,' it's possible to infer that the 'route' is determined by the point at which I chose the option.
Couldn't [Death Game LV.0] be an ability that, when I die, lets me loop within the route until the next choice appears?
'Wait, a loop?'
I came up with a dizzying hypothesis.
Route, loop, regression.
An endless cycle of fate.
Could that crazy killer be some fate, some worldline, the boss of this route, or something like that, impossible to shake even if I repeat the run?
An inevitable encounter regardless of my actions?
And within about a week?
Getting possessed as a count family's wastrel and ending up terminally ill is a cliché too, but this was terminal illness (literal)...
'Fuck.'
That bitch isn't a death variable; she's a death constant.
She's a monstrous bitch who can turn a person's arm into a Zealot before you even have time to pull the 「Myobeop Chungseong Scripture」 out of your inventory.
At this rate, unless I had some real common-sense-altering app, I wouldn't stand a chance against her—and she'd auto-spawn a week later?
As I mulled over my troubled thoughts,
I opened my eyes after being forced into a nap in the shabby little room where the Universalizer no longer shone.
-Ding
I received a notification from the status window.
What is it?
「Dying Message from the Future」
- Rank: C
- Description: You receive a letter from your future self. It's not a love letter.
- Effect: Upon death, you can receive a hint about the cause of death in the previous run, limited to five characters.
- Note: Automatically activates immediately when the run restarts. Single-use.
"Oh, right."
I had this, didn't I?
The joker I picked up together with the Curse-Repelling Talisman—my death insurance!
Sorry! I had zero expectations, so I completely forgot about it!
Still, unlike those K-scumbag insurance companies, it actually contacts you right away when the customer croaks.
This situation was impossible to get a handle on. I desperately needed a clue.
If it were the future me, I'd definitely have tucked a good hint into five characters.
I believe in you, Cedric.
I unfolded the note.
On the worn, tattered note, five dark-red characters were written vertically, as if in blood.
Man
Neung
Hwa
Beo
Ryeo