Voices reached me.
"—Nooooooooooo!? Wolka, Wolka!!? D-Don't die!! You can't dieeeeeeeee!!"
"A-Ah...!! Aaaaaaaa...!!"
"Senpai!? Senpai, stay with—agu!?"
So noisy. My vision was a blurred mess where I couldn't tell up from down. I tried to shift my body with the sluggish weight of someone tossing in their sleep.
—It seemed I'd blacked out for a moment.
My master was wailing at the top of her lungs. Honestly, she was being way too dramatic. She usually spoke with that haughty, elderly affectation and acted like the bossy senior, but the second she faced something unexpected, she'd lose her head and stop seeing anything around her. This was nothing; I'd just taken a bit of a hit while covering for them. There was barely even any pain.
Something strangely slimy was trickling down my face.
"Ugh... ah, a potion, huh? Thanks..."
"Eh? Wh-What are you saying... Wolka, what are you talking about!? Wolka!? No, no, no, stay with meee!!"
Master got even louder. Wait, if this wasn't a potion, what was this liquid? I wiped my face with the back of my hand. My vision cleared slightly, and I looked ahead. I saw Master’s tear-streaked face—her expression was a bit much—and then I saw it.
Right behind her, an "enemy" was raising its scythe.
I think I reacted pretty well, all things considered. I sprang up like a bolt of lightning, grabbed Master's arm, and tried to leap back with everything I had—or that was the plan.
The moment I yanked her arm with all my strength, my balance collapsed. My body just wouldn't cooperate. The result was that I was left wide open to a lethal blade swung with terrifying, beautiful precision. There was nothing more I could do.
"—!!"
Fortunately, it wasn't a direct hit. The tip of the scythe just grazed me; you could almost say I'd successfully evaded it. It wasn't a fatal wound, nor was it the kind of injury that would normally make me collapse from the pain.
—That is, if the scythe hadn't been so absurdly huge that it was taller than I was.
The right side of my face was gone. The blade had sliced from my forehead down through my cheek, taking my right eye with it. Agony scorched my entire body, a pain so intense I hallucinated that my skull had been split in two. I crumbled to the ground in a heap, helpless.
Master let out a scream so piercing you'd think she was the one who'd been cut.
—The Life Reaper.
The true master waiting in the deepest reaches of the Gouzel dungeon, a place that was supposed to have already been conquered. It was a literal god of death that reaped the lives of adventurers. A top-tier monster so dangerous that even an S-rank party would have to prepare for total annihilation upon encountering it.
Memories flooded my mind. Understanding hit me as suddenly as the gushing blood. And that understanding looked exactly like despair.
Why?
Because I remembered.
Because I finally realized.
(Ah, damn it—)
—I know this guy.
—I know how this goes.
—We all die here.
I’d spent seventeen years thinking this was some typical isekai reincarnation, but I couldn't have been more wrong. We were going to die here. Any second now, a swarm of monsters would come pouring out to swallow us up. I’d be torn to shreds until there wasn't even a decent corpse left, and my comrades would die in despair after being stripped of their dignity.
That was the kind of story this was.
(Why—why realize it now?)
If I’d only realized before we entered the dungeon—no, before that teleportation trap sent us to the bottom—we could have turned back without a second thought.
It was that degenerate dark fantasy manga, the one that had wrecked my emotions with its beautiful art and its utter lack of mercy.
We were that "mob party," the minor characters who existed only to be slaughtered in the early chapters to show how high the stakes were.
That was us, and this was the very scene where we were supposed to be wiped out.
This world didn't have a shred of mercy, not even for someone who'd reincarnated from another world.
To finally realize it when I was already half-dead... I was in checkmate.
"N-No... I don't want this... Noooo..."
Master was holding me in her trembling arms, mumbling like she was delirious. She wasn't dragging me away to escape, nor was she trying to put distance between us and the enemy; she was just desperately clinging to a life that was fading right in front of her. It was a pathetic, meaningless defensive reflex.
I didn't even have to look at her face to know she was completely broken. Master had always been a bit of a glass cannon emotionally, despite her acting like a mature adult. I felt bad for being such an unreliable disciple.
What about the others?
The party's strongest vanguard, the brown-skinned heavy warrior—she was slumped over in the corner of my eye, staring into space with hollow, unfocused eyes. Sorry. It probably made no sense to have someone weaker than you jump in to save you like that. Of course you'd be stunned. My body just moved on its own; forgive me.
Our last hope, the youngest genius swordsman—she’d been sent flying against the far wall. She couldn't even manage a whimper, let alone stand up. Hey, she's the youngest girl in the party. How could anyone have the heart to blow a kid away like that? Right, a monster wouldn't have a heart. Damn it...!
And as for me—I was literally "covered in blood." I couldn't find a single spot on me that wasn't bleeding. Even the back of the hand I’d used to wipe my face was stained crimson, and... hey, my left leg is hanging by a thread. I can see the bone! That’s disgusting! So that's why I couldn't keep my balance? You’ve got to be kidding me!
The magic the Life Reaper had used as a counter against the heavy warrior—that "complete negation of defensive magic" bullshit—I really wish that had stayed in the world of games and manga. ...Well, I guess this literally is the world of that manga.
Nobody could move.
No matter how we struggled, it was a dead end, just like the original story—
(—Wait, maybe not.)
Maybe it was because the blood rushing to my head had been forcibly drained, but my thoughts were becoming strangely calm.
That’s right. If everything was supposed to go according to the original work, then things were already different.
Because someone who knew that "original work" was standing right here. I actually remembered how to kill this thing. In the original story, the protagonist—who’d be arriving soon—would take this thing down easily using a specific method.
Sure, it was an irregular monster. It was on a completely different level from your average trash mob. It had overwhelming attack power and a cheat-level immortality. One hit from that scythe was an automatic ticket to the afterlife. It didn't matter if you were decked out in mythic-grade gear or had the divine protection of a Saint.
This thing existed to feed adventurers despair before they died. That’s why it didn't just kill its prey quickly. It would hoard its instant-death skills, show off its immortal body, and slowly reap lives while toying with the massive gap in power.
The reason it wasn't finishing me off as I lay broken on the ground—the reason it was just looming over us, watching Master scream—was so it could soak in our despair.
But there was actually one simple, clear way to pierce its immortality.
If you could pull it off, you could theoretically take it down solo without much trouble. "For a guy with a fancy name like 'God of Death,' he really wasn't all that much"—that was the inner monologue of the Berserker, the original protagonist who’d beaten this monster in just three pages.
And if I killed this true boss, the monster swarm that slaughtered us in the original story would never spawn.
I could overwrite the story.
"..."
If I was going to die anyway, I might as well go out swinging.
I remembered a scene from the manga where the protagonist used mana to force his mangled legs to move. I didn't remember the exact mechanics, but I'd been an adventurer in this world for seventeen years. There was no reason I couldn't pull it off for a few seconds.
It was a strange feeling. My mind was clear, devoid of even a hint of fog. I felt cold, detached—and incredibly pissed off.
Don't screw with me. Being wiped out by a "first-time-only" gimmick like this was just stupid. The feeling of being toyed with, following a script that ended in my death from the very beginning, was just plain offensive.
And besides,
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Wolka, it's my fault, it's my fault, it's my—"
—Seeing my Master look so pathetic, with tears dripping onto my face like that, made me want to burn through what little life I had left.
She must be terrified. She probably never thought it would end like this. She still had so many things she wanted to do, dreams she wanted to fulfill. She didn't want to die. She wanted to live, more than anything.
I’d already died once a long time ago. Reincarnating here felt like a strange, impossible dream. It wasn't that I had a death wish, but if I could die while actually accomplishing something, I felt like maybe that was the whole reason I'd been brought here.
Fine then.
I hated that "Annihilation Ending" from the bottom of my soul anyway.
I’m going to tear this bad ending apart before I go.
I’d found a use for my life.
I forced strength back into my fading body and shook off Master's arms. I visualized stitching my mangled left leg back together with threads of mana. Master was screaming something, but I tuned her out. I didn't need fear anymore. I poured every last drop of my power into this one moment. One second to form the spell. One second to execute. Stand up. I can stand. Step forward. Wipe everything from my mind except for that thing’s existence. I just need to last twenty seconds. I won't think about what happens after that. I just have to get inside the reach of this arrogant bastard and—
My sword—
—Well, life really is full of surprises.
Ten days later, for some reason, I’d actually survived my desperate attempt to avoid the bad ending, and...
"—No! I won't! Nooooo! I’m never, ever letting go of you again, no matter what...! We’re going to be together forever and ever and ever!!"
"...Listen, Master,"
"Geez, Senpai, you don't have to do a single thing, okay? You don't have to push yourself anymore. You can just leave everything to us from now on!"
"No, I’m saying,"
"Stop. Just stay still. It’ll feel good, I promise. Leave it to me."
"Wait! Hold on, just let me—hey, wait—"
The party had definitely become... strange.
I can wipe my own damn body!