3
“Buddy, you gotta work on those wrinkles.”
“…Huh?”
Suddenly the world shifted, as if he had blinked, and Subaru’s consciousness went blank.
When he came to, Flop was standing in front of him, pointing to the space between his own eyes. Flop began massaging the spot, demonstrating for Subaru.
“Good fortune won’t come to those who can’t smile and don’t have any room in their hearts. You’re about to look for someone to join you on your journey, right? You need to find a good match,” Flop said, smiling.
“…”
“In that case, smooth out those wrinkles, relax your face, and act like you’ve got it all together. That’s the look of a capable man.”
Flop then began stretching and kneading his cheeks.
The gesture felt eerily familiar. Too familiar. Subaru stiffened, realizing it was the exact same conversation they’d had a few minutes ago.
“Hey, whoa now, wait just a minute…”
Subaru broke out in a cold sweat, and he covered his face with his hands.
“Not hide, relax!” Flop said in a loud voice, misunderstanding Subaru’s reaction.
But Subaru wasn’t composed enough to respond.
When he looked around, the street and surroundings seemed disturbingly familiar. It was his first time in Guaral, so he shouldn’t have been intimately familiar with the city. Still, his memory wasn’t bad enough that he didn’t recognize a place he’d just been.
In other words…
“…I Returned by Death?”
For an entirely different reason from last time, Subaru’s face tensed. He had no idea what had even happened.
Trying to process the incomprehensible situation, Subaru felt the cold sweat soak through his clothes. This was one of the most terrifying scenarios imaginable—a moment he had lived through repeating itself. It wasn’t simply déjà vu. It was something that had truly happened, playing out again.
And that could mean only one thing: Subaru had died and come back to life.
“But…why?”
There had been no warning signs. It was as if the world had simply cut out in an instant, like a light switch flipping off. The abruptness felt so unreal that Subaru briefly wondered if his ability had malfunctioned—as if Return by Death had forgotten the “death” part and simply rewound time.
“What am I, stupid? No, I’m an idiot,” Subaru muttered, correcting himself.
As ridiculous as it sounded, he had to trust Return by Death. In all the time he’d had this power, it had never activated without him dying first. If time had rewound, then Subaru had died. That much was certain.
“…Okay, I’ve accepted it’s true. Now figure out what to do next, me,” Subaru muttered, pressing a fist to his forehead in an effort to steady himself.
If he accepted that he’d died, the next step was identifying what had killed him. He replayed the moments leading up to his presumed death, trying to piece it together.
“…There’s nothing…”
When he thought back, there was nothing obvious to suggest a threat. They’d been heading to a bar. Flop had been talking. He had heard the sounds of the main street in the distance. The shady alley smelled ever so slightly. Then there had been a faint, dissonant sound he’d barely registered.
None of these things pointed to anything that should have been life-threatening.
“Damn it, why am I always like this…!”
He cursed his lack of caution. If he had been more attuned to changes in his surroundings, perhaps he wouldn’t feel so powerless now. Even so, he forced himself to keep thinking.
“…It’s sort of like the first time Shaula killed me,” Subaru muttered.
He remembered the first time they had crossed the Auguria Dunes on the road to the Pleiades Watchtower. Shaula, defending the tower, had killed him with a single shot—a beam of white light that obliterated him before he could react.
The experience had been horrifying. Not knowing what had happened, not knowing what had killed him, only knowing that he had died.
In that sense, this was eerily similar to that first death in the desert.
However, unlike that time in the Auguria Dunes, Subaru was inside a city—a completely different setting. This wasn’t a place where it felt like his life was on the line every second.
“What’s taking my life in this situation…?”
When he thought of sudden, unannounced death, Shaula’s sniping immediately came to mind. But that scenario clashed with where he had died: an alley. The buildings on either side weren’t particularly tall, and the location wasn’t open enough for a sniper to have a clean shot.
“…Buddy? Why are your wrinkles getting worse again?” Flop asked.
“Ah…”
“Didn’t I just tell you? Furrowed brows scare away good fortune! And it’s really hard to chase it down once it’s gone, especially since I’m usually riding a cart!” Flop gestured dramatically, trying to lighten the mood.
Subaru froze, not because of Flop’s antics but because of the implications of his current train of thought. If Subaru had died, the most logical way to start was by questioning the person who had been with him.
If he hadn’t been killed by a sniper, then the next prime suspect was Flop.
Flop had been with him and was the closest at the time of his death. However, when Subaru thought back, there hadn’t been any indication that Flop had tried to attack him. While there were plenty of people in this world capable of killing Subaru in an instant without him noticing, Flop didn’t seem to be one of them.
“First of all, would he even have a reason to kill me?”
The most plausible explanation was that Flop had been feigning kindness to rob him. But that didn’t make sense, either. They’d met in the line outside the city gate—Flop could have lured Subaru away and finished him off in a less conspicuous location.
The timing, method, and motive didn’t line up.
Every time someone or something had killed Subaru, there had been a reason for it. Even demon beasts acted on instinct or purpose, following a kind of twisted logic.
“Flop, why are you being so kind to us?” Subaru asked suddenly.
“Hmm?” Flop raised his eyebrows. “What brought that on?”
“Ah, sorry for the sudden question. I’ve just been feeling a little nervous,” Subaru replied, forcing an awkward smile while his heart pounded in his chest.
I don’t have a logical reason to doubt him. So it all comes down to whether I can believe his answer.
He wanted to believe that the O’Connell siblings, who had been so kind and helpful, did not have any ulterior motives.
Flop nodded, seemingly deep in thought. “It’s nothing too complicated. Me and my sister doing right by you, your wife, and your little niece is just…”
“‘Is just’…?”
“Revenge!” Flop declared, spreading his arms wide.
Subaru blinked, stunned by the cheerful tone that clashed so starkly with the unexpected answer.
“Listen here,” Flop continued, touching his forelocks. “Way back, my sister and I lived every day not knowing if it would be our last. Abandoned by our parents, raised in an orphanage… It was a rough place, let me tell you!”
Subaru vaguely imagined a run-down facility, far worse than anything he could picture from his own world.
“Every night, the kids would dream about escaping. And one night, me and my sister managed it. That first night without a beating, I swore I’d get revenge,” Flop said, clenching a fist.
“Revenge…on the people at the orphanage?”
“No, not them. On the world.”
Flop’s fist tightened as he leaned forward with a passionate look in his eyes.
“Those adults who beat us—they weren’t happy, either. They were miserable people taking out their frustrations on us unhappy children. Could there be anything more pointless?”
“…”
“So me and my sister decided to break that cycle. I became a merchant, and we set out to bring as many people as we could out of misfortune, just like the person who helped us escape that night.”
“…That’s your revenge on the world?” Subaru asked quietly.
“That’s right. Helping you and your family is just another step in our fight against the world’s unfairness.”
After finishing, Flop scratched his nose, looking a little embarrassed.
Subaru was speechless. The raw honesty of Flop’s words struck him deeply, and for a moment, all his doubts faded.
“Thank you, Flop. I’m glad it was you and Medium who we met in that line,” Subaru said.
He had planned to decide whether or not to trust Flop based on his answer. But the response he got went far beyond what he’d expected.
He decided to trust in Flop O’Connell’s righteous vengeance against an unfair world.
With that resolve, Subaru turned his attention to the looming threat.
“Flop, I’ve got a bad feeling about this alley. The feng shui’s no good. The hexagram we’d pull would be awful. Can we take a different route?”
“‘Feng shui’? What’s that? Is that why your brows are so furrowed and your eyes are like that?”
“It’s an ancient practice that’s got nothing to do with my eyes! I’m serious. This alley’s no good. We can take a detour, so please.”
While relying on Flop’s goodwill, Subaru rather forcefully moved the conversation along.
If he trusted that Flop was not the culprit, then the next priority was avoiding the death that was approaching. Whether from a sniper or something else, there would be an attack of some kind. He needed to evade that attack and escape an unwelcome death.
“Not that there were any welcome ones… Maybe once or twice.”
And those instances had been welcome only because of looming situations and nothing else. Unless there was something that could only be fixed by dying, Subaru would never choose death. As he thought about those sorts of moments, Subaru began to understand Flop’s desire to get revenge on the world.
“Huh, all right. If you’re feeling that strongly about it, why not? It’ll be a bit of a detour, but we can take another route,” Flop agreed easily.
“I appreciate it! Ideally one with lots of people. Let’s take a main street.”
“Got it!”
Grateful, Subaru followed as Flop led them back to the main streets, avoiding the shady alleys as much as possible.
Subaru felt a flicker of relief. Whatever had killed him before, he was taking precautions now.
“All right, buddy, from here—,” Flop began, turning to point to a new road.
But then, his eyes widened in alarm.
“…Ooo.”
Subaru opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before he could speak, blood spilled from his lips.
“Gah…?!”
In the blink of an eye, something hot and sharp sliced across Subaru’s neck.
He felt his head forcibly jerked back as his throat was slit, blood pouring from the gaping wound.
“Guh…!” Subaru choked, pressing both hands against his neck in a futile attempt to stanch the bleeding.
The wound was too wide, too deep. He could feel his life draining away.
Take off my clothes, stop the blood… No, first escape. Find the enemy…
His thoughts blurred as his strength faded.
Flop is here. Sorry for doubting you. I believed you after, though that might not make up for it. But Flop is here…
“…eemmm…”
…Rem is back at the inn… I have to get back to her, even bleeding out. Get back and take her away. It’s dangerous. Take her by the hand and drag her away, even if she hates me. As long as she lives. If she doesn’t… So I have to stop this blood.
Stop, stop, st-st-st-stop, stop it, stop…
“Ugh.”
-op.
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