"Wallet—check. Phone—check. Compy and cup noodles—no problems. Jersey and sneakers are in one piece. And naturally…"
He hiked up the hem of his jersey and craned his neck backward, straining to get a look at his back.
Around his waist and in the middle of his back—no scars to be found, and, more importantly, the extraordinary situation of having two knives embedded in him had not occurred.
"Phew, thank god. A scar on your back is, like, the ultimate disgrace for a swordsman. I mean, I technically had a spot in the kendo club, so even if I stray from the path of manhood, I can't afford to stray from the path of the swordsman."
Muttering to himself, he patted his intact back all over, found one single long hair growing near his shoulder, waged a fierce battle against it before yanking it out, and finally let out a breath of relief.
"So this means… it's that thing, right? As unbelievable as it sounds…"
He blew the pulled hair away with his breath, touched his chin with his free hand, and surveyed the street.
He hadn't changed locations—he was in a corner of a street stall, not far from where the greengrocer had been. The shifty-looking shopkeeper, surrounded by dubious-looking pots and plates, was shooting him dirty looks, but Subaru leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, showing no intention of changing his attitude.
The sun hung high, the breeze was gentle, and the main street was bustling with crowds. Occasionally, a lizard-drawn carriage trundled through. Subaru was already starting to get used to the dust—the most he managed was a halfhearted wave of his hand in front of his face.
All traces of injury had vanished from his body without a trace. The Compy tucked in his stomach could be savored over and over again in an infinite loop—an unbeatable deal. And the chin he was touching was smooth and unimpeded.
"To think I'd forget about my own special talent—how pathetic."
He had once prided himself on a craftsman's trick: reading the passage of time by the growth of the stubble on his chin. A privilege reserved for beings possessing a certain level of male hormones, applied as one of his rough-and-tumble tricks. He had been positively enamored with this ability.
And he was now certain.
The stubble on his chin had not changed at all from right before he'd gone to the convenience store.
"So it's that thing, isn't it."
He held the hand that had been on his chin out in front of him, snapped his fingers where the crowd—and the stall owner—could see, "—It seems like every time I die, I get reset to the starting state."
He decided to treat as his conclusion the very notion he had been dismissing as idiotic.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "Return by Death, huh… That's basically a 'lose and die' ability, isn't it."
In the original, the power was more like "defeat them and roll it back," but given the pattern of coming back after losing, the phrasing suited his current situation better, he felt.
"To put it more properly… this is what you'd call 'time regression,' right?"
Limited as it was, he could now consider that he was carrying out what was popularly known as "time travel." In short, Subaru was a dream "time traveler."
Honestly, it had come up as a possibility until just fifteen or so minutes ago, but he'd avoided entertaining it because the conditions were so impossibly strict.
He'd felt like the scenario where a wandering superhuman healer happened to pass by would require fewer clearance conditions.
Still, the very conditions he'd deemed impossible…
"Time magic is the most broken category there is—there's no way I'd have it right from the start. And time travel is the stuff of dreams; it's practically impossible in reality. Logically speaking."
Having said that, he tilted his head—what was logical about an "isekai summoning" story in the first place?
Once he thought about it, even the stubborn denial he'd been clinging to until moments ago began to feel pretty hollow.
"And when you factor in that it's 'Return by Death,' all the unnatural bits up until now slot together perfectly…"
His first death had been when he and
His defenseless abdomen had been slashed open. He couldn't even scream to warn anyone. He'd dragged Satella down with him—a worst-case scenario with no room for excuses.
His second death had been when Old
His third death had been just moments ago—barely fifteen minutes in the past.
Truly, no death could be more fittingly described as a dog's death.
To be taken out by some bottom-tier mob character from the very start. It had the sour aftertaste of a poorly made ADV game that plants a BAD END event at every single choice.
"Wait, does this mean I've died three times in the span of just half a day…?"
When you considered that most people only experienced death once in a lifetime, dying three times in half a day overturned common sense in every conceivable way.
He'd lived a pretty average life for seventeen years, but when he thought about it, he'd technically lived through seventeen years × three hundred sixty-five days × three deaths—somehow, that was a little moving.
"Or maybe I'm just spectacularly bad at living without despair."
The reason his body couldn't keep up with the repeated instant-death events in this world was that he still hadn't shaken off the atmosphere of the lukewarm world he'd come from.
Getting lured into obviously dangerous places all too easily—that was probably another factor in why he kept dying.
"Judging from the causal relationship between the first and second times… I was probably killed by Elsa twice."
The first time, the one lurking in the darkness of the Loot House had been Elsa.
The large elderly man's corpse had been Old Rom—he'd been right about that. He couldn't imagine a scenario where Old Rom was killed at that location independent of Subaru's slip of the tongue.
"Felt was inside the loot house at that point… but I couldn't confirm that far."
Naturally, Old Rom would have gone along with Felt's negotiation.
If so, her involvement was indispensable to the circumstances of Old Rom's murder. Cross-referencing with the second encounter, there was a high probability that Felt's greed had caused negotiations to collapse.
"Maybe she provoked them needlessly and was silenced for it."
Felt, with her fierce competitive streak, was entirely capable of something like that.
And that silencing had just happened to be completed right when Subaru and Satella arrived—that was probably the outline of the first death.
"The second time is simpler. I just happened to be present at that same silencing scene."
Thinking about it, after Subaru and the others were killed, had Satella visited the loot house?
He knew about her magical abilities, but whether that murderer would have given her the time to chant was a seriously dicey proposition. Nine times out of ten, Satella would have been at a disadvantage.
"Anyway, I've been killed by the same person twice. Keep it simple—Elsa is a landmine character who's guaranteed death upon encounter. Case closed. And besides…"
Subaru heard his own voice, cool and detached, from inside his chest.
What need was there to even consider the possibility of encountering her?
The only place he could run into her was, frankly speaking, the "Loot House."
And the reason for going there was "Satella's insignia"—and the purpose of recovering the insignia was rooted in "repaying the debt of being saved by her."
But for Subaru, who had been sent back by "Return by Death" to the moment right after his summoning, the fate of that debt had literally vanished into the mists of time.
Satella's cold, detached reaction during their third encounter had made that crystal clear.
She didn't know Subaru. Which meant, conclusively, that the Satella of this timeline and Subaru had no relationship whatsoever—and the debt he'd owed had ceased to exist.
If that was the case, he should forget about the insignia entirely and avoid the BAD END flag of encountering that threat once more.
He didn't know why a situation like "Return by Death" had been set up, but if he had the ability to know what lay ahead, he should take advantage of it. Steer clear of the landmines he could—that was the correct move.
A staple of time travel stories. Without that, there'd be no point.
"Fortunately, I already know my phone can fetch a decent price. I don't need to rely on Old Rom—I can just find a shop that looks trustworthy enough and hock it for seed money."
Twenty-odd holy gold coins—it was hard to gauge exactly how much that was, but he figured it was enough to stay at a decent inn for a few nights. From there, he could bide his time and wait for the right moment to pounce.
"Well, what exactly I'd be pouncing on is still TBD."
He had no standout expertise, no particular passion pursued to the extreme. Broad and shallow in every kind of information—that was the modern man's MO, and Subaru was no exception.
"After selling the phone, I'd probably have to find some shop that'll take me on as a day laborer before the money runs out…"
He was deeply anxious about whether someone with zero work experience could pull it off, but even the blackest of labor environments had to be better than getting stabbed to death. At least he shouldn't end up dying three times in half a day.
"If that's the plan, it's simple. Better move fast before the sun goes down. Right, old man?"
"I thought you'd been muttering to yourself for a while, and now what's this—'right'? I don't know any 'right,' me!"
The owner of the stall next to him—a street vendor selling those dubious pots and plates, with a turban wound around his head—answered Subaru's appeal for agreement with an exasperated look. The shop didn't look like it was attracting customers regardless of Subaru muttering away beside it.
"Should I sell my stuff like this too, I wonder? But if I sell it alongside this sorry-looking pot, will anyone actually buy it? What do you think, old man?"
"Don't call my merchandise sorry-looking while you're selling next to me! Who do you think you are?!"
"I'm a man who'll one day make a name for himself as a tycoon. Call me the Phone Mogul. …Doesn't that thing on your head get itchy? Why do you wear it? Are you bald?"
"I don't understand you and you're incredibly rude! Go somewhere else—you're bad for business!"
The shopkeeper's vaguely effeminate manner was positively icy.
The hearts of strangers dealing with other strangers—same in every world, he thought with an internal sigh.
"But you know, there are genuinely good Samaritans out there who'll go out of their way to help others even when they're the ones in a bind."
Someone whose precious possession had been stolen—chasing after the thief.
Helping a useless stranger, spending time healing that stranger, then trying to leave without even asking for thanks.
Going along with a useless stranger's self-indulgence, only to meet a terrible end.
"Going through it three times, you start to understand certain things. No—if I didn't understand by now, my brain would be truly pitiful. But mine's not that far gone."
"What are you on about now?"
"There's probably a pattern. You could even call it destiny. —No matter how many times I redo it, this is how events will play out. For instance…"
First time, second time, third time—Satella's insignia gets stolen by Felt.
Both the first and second times, Old Rom was killed in the loot house. In the first loop, Felt had probably been killed there too.
If that was the case, what happened to Satella—who would have arrived at the scene of the loot house—during the second loop?
The useless deadweight wasn't there, but could she have beaten Elsa?
"I don't know. Still don't know. But there are things I do know."
If he left the fourth loop—this one—as things stood, Felt and Old Rom would definitely be killed. And Satella and Elsa would cross blades.
So what if those two died? A petty crook who fenced stolen goods on the side, and a bullheaded little girl who shamelessly tried to sell pilfered items at top dollar.
Both of them were criminals—the world would be a cleaner place without them.
"Ugh—I really am a modern kid through and through, aren't I? I used to mock this kind of feeling like crazy back in front of my computer."
Sympathy, mercy—he thought those were stupid. That was how he'd carried himself.
At least, he'd never considered himself a hypocrite about it. He genuinely believed he was an emotionally detached person, and that all modern people had similarly thin feelings.
That was why he'd convinced himself that, no matter what situation he found himself in, he'd accept it calmly without much emotional turbulence. Acquaintances dying—even a few of them—fell squarely within that scope.
"And yet, I can't stand it. It makes me sick. Neither of them is anywhere close to a good person. —But I can't just sit by and watch people I've met die when I know it's coming."
It was, in the end, just an act he'd been putting on.
All of it had been a virtual sensation. The moment it gained real weight, his convictions crumbled—proof of how paper-thin they'd been.
It wasn't like they were deeply held beliefs to begin with, so no real damage in having them stripped away.
"And besides, Satella… or rather, I can't abandon that girl either."
Calling her by name—he figured it was probably an alias.
Looking back, in the first world, she hadn't seemed all that eager to say it. And the third world's interactions had been on top of that. He felt it keenly whether he liked it or not.
In short, there hadn't been enough trust. Her affinity was too low, so the name-acquisition event had rolled a failure.
"Well then—next time, I'll just have to make sure she tells me her name for real."
Right there on the spot, he did a deep squat, then stretched his body out with a long "Hnnng!"
Starting into his radio calisthenics with a "Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha!", Subaru left the stall owner utterly speechless.
He ran through the second set of radio calisthenics in front of the stupefied man, worked up a good sweat, then turned back to the shopkeeper, threw up a sharp salute, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. —Right, old man?"
"Yes yes yes exactly, so get going already!"
He'd aimed for a cool, resolute look—but the lousy reaction nearly made his cheek twitch.
Given a perfunctory push on the back, Subaru bolted away from the street vendor, who had sunk back into his deep, silent thoughts.
He pushed through the crowd for a while, running about two hundred meters.
"Now then…"
Subaru stopped and ran a hand through his short bangs.
Putting on an unnecessarily cool air, he glanced left and right, then casually leaned against a wall and shut his eyes while running a hand through his hair again. And then: "Where would a fake Satella go to hang out?"
A worryingly directionless declaration—and he was already off to the races.