(Dammit! Am I an idiot? No, I am an idiot! To think I’d forget about this event...!)
Zenon Ash—or rather, Seto Haino—scolded himself, drowning in regret over his own carelessness.
Ever since he’d been served his "Game Over," he had lived a listless, lethargic existence, dragging himself through each day without a shred of purpose. Because of that apathy, he had completely overlooked the combat-heavy event triggered here in the Insect Museum, and now he found himself right in the thick of it.
The other students were also struggling against the insect-type monsters that had swarmed the sector he was assigned to guard. Having neglected his training, Zenon was forced into an agonizingly difficult fight.
Despite the situation, he had two things going for him.
First was the fact that the insect-type monsters had shifted into a semi-human form mid-battle. To any rational person, an enemy power-up was a disaster, but for Zenon—who was still traumatized by the Black Crab monsters that had once crushed him—this hybrid appearance was actually a blessing. It didn't trigger the same visceral revulsion as the smaller, purely insectoid forms that reminded him of those black horrors.
His second stroke of luck was the equipment Claire had prepared. She had been worried he’d be mocked for having substandard gear in front of the other students, and thanks to her foresight, he was at least able to keep himself alive.
Zenon’s reincarnation bonus meant his base stats were high; while he lagged behind the other protagonists, he wasn’t weak by any means. He was just starting to get a handle on the monsters when a sharp scream pierced the air.
"Someone! Help! Please, someone help us!"
He spun around, startled, only to find a mother huddled on the ground, clutching a small child. They were surrounded, and the monsters were closing in for the kill. Zenon’s breath hitched, but he quickly suppressed his rising panic.
(There’s no way I can save them. Risking my life for a bunch of mobs... how ridiculous.)
Saving them wouldn’t accomplish anything. Rescuing nameless mob characters wouldn't raise his affection levels, nor would it grant him any items. He was just about to leave them to their fate to save his own skin when an impossible sight caught his eye.
"Get back! Stay behind me!"
To save the mother and child, Claire had leapt into the center of the swarm, throwing up a Wall of Light to buy them some time.
She looked strained as she desperately fended off the monsters, and the magical barrier was already beginning to spiderweb with cracks. This was bad—at this rate, Claire would be slaughtered right along with them. Panic flared in Zenon's chest, his heart hammering against his ribs as his breathing turned ragged.
(What do I do? What can I do? There has to be a way...!)
If it were just mobs, he would have abandoned them in a heartbeat, but Claire changed everything. She was the only thing of value he had left in this world. There was no way he could just stand by and watch his favorite character die.
He tried to think of a plan, some way to rescue her, but Claire was being cornered faster than his mind could move. The sound of the insects slamming against the barrier echoed through the hall. The moment he saw Claire sink to her knees, her face pale with exhaustion, Zenon was already sprinting.
"Stop it! Get away from her!"
The same terror he’d felt when Isaac had tried to steal Claire from him drove his feet forward. Driven by a desperate need to keep her safe, he launched a reckless, suicidal charge. And in that moment, luck favored him a third time.
"Gugyaaa!?"
He lunged blindly, and the tip of his sword somehow found a gap in the monster’s thick carapace. The blade sank deep, delivering a fatal blow in a single strike. Riding the momentum of his desperation, he began to swing his sword like a madman.
"Aaaaaaah! Get back!"
His stats and sword aptitude were high to begin with; as long as he hit a weak point, he could deal lethal damage. After taking down the first monster with a lucky critical hit, he used his superior weapon to cleave through the torso of a second. But as it fell, a third monster pounced from the side, pinning him to the floor.
"Gah! Get off! Get off me!"
He held the creature’s snapping mandibles back with both hands while firing a Photon spell point-blank at another monster closing in. But that was his limit. He was surrounded, his sword was out of reach, and if he used magic on the one pinning him, he’d blow himself up too. This was checkmate.
It was over. If this was how it was going to end, he should never have acted so recklessly... but just as Zenon began to curse his own impulsiveness, it happened.
"Gyue!?"
"Eh...?"
A clean vertical line appeared across the torso of the monster holding him down. It let out a choked screech and slid apart in two perfect halves. Zenon watched in stunned silence as the remaining beetles were decimated in the blink of an eye. He looked up, wide-eyed, to see a hand reached out toward him.
"Are you all right? Any injuries?"
"A-A-Ah... I-I'm fine..."
Realizing that the person concerned for his safety was the exchange student, Ryuga Renjou, Zenon answered with a trembling voice. He had seen Ryuga’s strength in the game, but witnessing it in person was a different beast entirely. Before he could process it, Claire was at his side.
"Zenon-sama! I'm so glad you're safe! You risked everything to save us... thank you! Truly, thank you so much!"
"No, I..."
He trailed off, his voice thick with shame. In the end, Ryuga had been the one to save Claire. He had only managed to kill two of them. If Ryuga hadn't shown up, he would have been dead. He hung his head, unable to meet her eyes, until he felt a small hand grip his own. It was the mother Claire had protected.
"Thank you. Thank you so much! If you hadn't stepped in, we would have been..."
"......!"
Zenon’s heart swirled with complex emotions. He didn't feel like he deserved her gratitude, especially knowing he’d originally intended to let her die. As he sat there, Ryuga turned to Claire.
"Forgive me for interrupting. I’m looking for my sister. Or Fee, Yugo’s younger brother. Have you seen either of them?"
"Your sister... Lady Yui? I’m sorry. We haven’t seen either of them."
"I see... I guess this way was a dead end. I’ll keep looking, though. You all should evacuate as soon as possible."
Zenon watched them for a moment, his mind blank, until a realization struck him like a physical blow. He remembered seeing Yui and Fee together that morning.
(Wait. Yui is almost certainly with Fee right now. In the game, Yui gets caught up in a specific event when she goes to the restroom with the player. If the script is holding, Fee must be acting as a substitute for the protagonist...)
If that were the case, Fee was currently being hunted by a Magic Armor Beast. There was no way a frail kid like him could survive. He’d meet a grisly, horrific end. And when that happened, Yugo would be devastated. He might never recover. The thought of the man who had ruined his life suffering the loss of someone so precious made a faint smile touch Zenon’s lips... but it vanished almost instantly.
(Why? Why doesn't this feel as good as I thought it would?)
Even as he pictured "Scum Yugo" screaming in agony over his brother’s corpse, he felt no sense of triumph. Instead, a hollow, gnawing pain settled in his chest. He gasped as he realized the truth. He had felt that same agony when he thought he was going to lose Claire. Fee was to Yugo what Claire was to him—the one thing he couldn't live without.
Now that he understood the weight of that loss, his mind drifted back to the incident with Isaac. Yugo had saved him then. He still hated the guy—hated him for being a piece of trash, for being the reason he’d fallen so far—but he couldn't deny that he owed Yugo his life. Before he even realized what he was doing, Zenon was shouting at Ryuga’s retreating back.
"W-Wait! Hold on!"
"?"
Ryuga stopped and looked back, confused. Zenon’s stomach did a somersault from sheer nerves, but he forced the words out, pointing toward a distant corridor.
"There’s a restroom that way! It’s tucked back in a maze of hallways, so it’s easy to miss, but... but they might be hiding somewhere like that!"
"........."
To an ordinary listener, it was a statement of questionable helpfulness. However, these words, spoken by Zenon in a state where impurities like his protagonist charisma had been stripped away—his words as Seto Haino—carried a certain desperation that commanded attention.
"I understand. I'll check it out. Thank you for the help. Stay safe."
"Ah..."
As Ryuga changed his direction to the way Zenon had pointed, Zenon's throat and heart trembled. Watching Ryuga's back as he ran toward where Yui and the others were, he ruminated on the gratitude he had been shown. For the first time in a long time, the heavy, suffocating clouds over his heart seemed to part, letting in a single ray of light.