First, You Have to Live
Misfortune has a way of arriving without warning, right in the middle of a happy moment.
It was my birthday. Using the occasion as an excuse, I bought a whole chicken on the way home from work, and once I was back I unpacked it, pulled a can of beer from the fridge, and cracked it open. Between the grind of office life and a commute from hell, a whole day's fatigue seemed to loosen, just a little, as the beer went down.
"Haaah— yeah. Days like this call for chimaek. Fried chicken and beer."
I'd only meant to drink one can. Somewhere along the way it became two, then three, and even after the chicken was gone I knocked back several more. The fridge was empty after that, so I figured I might as well play a game. Still thoroughly drunk, I pressed the computer's power button out of habit.
Whirrr—
The whine of the cooling fans filled my room. The instant the screen lit, I went looking for the game I always played.
It was a simple turn-based RPG with dating-sim elements stirred in. Four hundred hours of playtime. I had already seen every ending and hunted down every hidden element, and the CGs and achievements had all been unlocked ages ago, yet I still couldn't put the game down. I hadn't found anything else that was this much fun, and after playing it for so long I'd grown too attached to throw it away.
That day, too, I logged in and hit New Game.
And then—
That was a memory from my previous life.
Looking back, what a wretched way to go.
That memory was the end of it. I was reborn in the body of a fifteen-year-old boy. The one mercy was that this place was the world of Everbloom, the game I had loved. A glance around was enough—the scenery was the same one I had stared at for years, and I recognized it at once. Better still, I had been reborn before the main story had even begun. For someone who already knew how the plot went, there was no greater stroke of luck.
Of course, getting used to it took a good while at first. I had been an ordinary man who simply went to the office, and now I was in a body that had grown abruptly younger, trying to hunt monsters. It refused to feel natural. Even so, seven years had passed since I arrived, and I had become a proper B-rank adventurer.
...Hundreds of hours sunk into the game, and seven years living here, so why was I still only B-rank?
Climbing to S-rank or A-rank is a hassle in its own right. From the start, my goal was to earn just enough and live simply. And if I went poking around everywhere just to raise my rank and ended up affecting the story, that would be a real problem.
I'd rather not watch the information I have turn into scrap paper.
Money was running low, so for the first time in a while I had gone out on an ogre subjugation. The moment I stepped into the Adventurer's Guild, the familiar receptionist was there to greet me.
"Hello. How can I help you?"
"I'm here to confirm a completed commission."
I took out a few ogre horns and held them out to her along with the request form. She gave the horns a quick look, then stamped the slip.
Thock—
A crisp sound, and a red seal landed in the completion box.
"Good work. This one didn't even take you half a day, did it?"
"What can I say? I'm a little too competent."
"You never hesitate to say that sort of thing about yourself."
"Well, a certain receptionist never praises me, so somebody has to~"
"Pfft."
She laughed as if she didn't know what to do with me. The woman with the light brown hair was named Mariel. She had been working here ever since I reincarnated and first registered with the guild. Matching the reward listed on the form, she dropped several gold coins into a pouch and held it out to me.
"The reward is six gold coins, Rian."
I took the pouch.
"Nothing beats coming here after a job."
"Because you're here to get paid?"
"That too~"
I gave her a small smile.
"And I get to see your face, Mariel~"
"There you go again."
Truly, nothing was more fun than teasing Mariel.
"Do you happen to have time tonight for din—"
"I don't."
"What if I cook?"
Mariel turned from the papers she was sorting and looked at me.
"Then I suppose I have to come~"
"You said you didn't have time."
"I have to eat dinner anyway~"
"Then come by my place once you're done with guild work. I'll grill steak."
"You're inviting a woman into a house where a man lives alone?"
"Why? Does that bother you?"
Mariel let out a short laugh.
"Now that I think about it, not really. I'll come by after work~"
"See you later, then."
"Okay~ Make it delicious."
After seven years of this, we had become something like friends who ate dinner together. I waved to Mariel and left the guild. Outside, the sun was setting, and a red dusk was spreading across the sky.
Mariel said she was coming, so I'd better buy enough meat for at least two.
Heading for the market, I turned into the alley I always used as a shortcut. I was about halfway down when I saw it. In a corner of the narrow alley, beside a weathered old wall, someone had collapsed.
Well, in a rural town like this, you did occasionally come across a body just like—
"......?"
A passing glance had made me think vagrant. Looking properly, it was a child with blue hair, collapsed on the ground.
Why is there a child in a place like this?
And more than anything else, that blue hair nagged at me. As far as I remembered, only one person had hair of that particular sky blue.
Rubera Fragrans.
The final boss of the main story. The witch who had annihilated an entire kingdom by herself. Anyone who had played Everbloom would never forget the scene—her blue hair streaming above the ashes of the kingdom she had destroyed, crimson eyes fixed on the protagonist's party.
Cold sweat broke out on its own. If this child really was Rubera, I was in serious trouble. I stepped closer and carefully lifted an eyelid. A scarlet iris showed beneath it.
"......"
It really was Rubera. If she died, everything would go off the rails. Desperate, I pressed my fingers to her neck.
Thump.
Faint, but unmistakable—a pulse. She was still alive, yet her condition was terrible. Her body was cold, and her breathing was far too shallow. Her arms and legs were a mess of wounds that hadn't been staunched, and blood kept seeping out, little by little.
Rubera's past had never appeared in the game, so I had no way of knowing whether this had happened in the original story. One thing, though, I knew for certain. Left like this, she would die before anyone else found her.
My head began to throb. If I saved Rubera and events followed the original, a kingdom would fall. But if I left her here and she died? The annihilation of a nation might never happen—and because of that, a key figure who was supposed to join the protagonist's party never would. Then the party wouldn't be able to push through the next chapter. And if, in the course of that, the protagonist's party was wiped out...
It would not end with the destruction of a single kingdom.
"...Haah."
"You. First, you have to live."
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