If I'd Known, I Would've Just Lain Down Comfortably
A tangle of tree roots lay hidden in a spot that, had I simply walked past nearby, would have been completely screened by the trees and gone unnoticed.
I raised the Scissors Blade toward the withered, half-starved looking roots and shouted in desperation.
“Open…! Open… open, damn you!”
Wait—how had I turned these roots into a door the first time I entered the Abyss Forest?
With the Predator Species right on my heels, that dizzying sense of pursuit made the events of only a few hours ago blur into fog. I couldn’t remember the details.
Rushing only made everything less efficient. Yeah, that was exactly it.
It was like fumbling with a drink lid when your hands are shaking too hard—everything just slips and spins uselessly.
A choking pressure clamped around my throat as if someone were strangling me. I clawed at my own hair, then finally had no choice but to move to the next plan.
I can’t run anymore…! I’ll settle it right here…!
That plan was the last resort I’d been saving: a head-on fight.
Just blocking a single strike with the Scissors Blade had nearly knocked me senseless moments ago. Charging in now was pure, reckless suicide.
The gap between us was so hopeless that even managing to wound the thing would have counted as a miracle. This was no different from throwing my life away.
But what else could I do? Running would only burn the last of my stamina and willpower. Without a way to open the door, I was going to get caught eventually anyway.
…Damn it. At least the Scissors Blade will cut. If I can just land one solid hit…
The ground itself seemed to shake harder with every second. How much time did I have left? Seconds, at best.
I closed my eyes, forced every emotion down as hard as I could, and focused on the Scissors Blade the way I always did.
Using it wasn’t actually complicated.
First you wake the sleeping blade with the energy inside your body. Then you link your will to it, like opening a channel…
And once you draw out the power seething inside—there. The Scissors Blade that can cut anything appears.
Yeah. Honestly I have zero confidence. And that thing isn’t going to wait around for my feelings.
How easy life would be if everything went the way you wanted. But people who get to live like that are rare enough to count on one hand.
Things never flow the way you hope; trouble always shows up midway. That’s life—cruel enough to make you cry.
While every nerve I had was locked on starting the Scissors Blade, something changed.
In the pitch-black darkness behind my closed eyelids, a strange sound reached my ears.
Crack. Crrrack-crack.
If I had to describe it, it was the dull, heavy noise of someone twisting a tree until it snapped.
A sound like that should have come with a presence—yet the air around me stayed completely empty.
As if something that wasn’t alive had simply decided to move on its own.
The moment I understood that, I whipped my head toward the noise.
What filled my vision was the tree roots themselves, twisting and writhing as though they possessed a will of their own.
It was the exact same vivid sensation I’d felt the first time I entered the Abyss Forest—the door opening.
“Th-this is…”
I stared blankly as the roots gradually linked to a dark space beyond them. Then, without a second of hesitation, I threw myself into the half-open gap.
Screeeeech!
Right behind me the Predator Species, now only a breath away, let out a grotesque howl.
It sounded exactly like a train slamming on its emergency brakes, wheels screaming against the rails.
Yet somehow that roar felt like confirmation that I’d made the right choice.
Maybe… that thing can’t pass through this door.
It was less a reasoned conclusion and more a desperate wish.
Because if the Predator Species followed me through the door I’d just forced open—and it showed no sign of closing—then all I’d done was move a few steps closer to death.
“Guh…!”
I hadn’t thought about landing at all. I hit the rough ground hard, half-rolling, half-crashing.
Scrapes bloomed across my skin; one ankle twinged with a sharp, throbbing pain as if it had twisted on impact. But there was no time to sit there complaining about it.
The alarm blaring inside my skull forced strength into my arms and legs. I shoved myself upright and raised the pure-white gleaming Scissors Blade, eyes locked on the door I’d just come through.
It’s coming!
Beyond the roots, a colossal monster so vast it stole the words from your mouth thundered closer, shaking the earth with every step.
Apparently it had no intention of letting me escape. Once it closed the distance, the Predator Species flung one of its bizarre, double-elbowed arms through the doorway like a spear.
The force packed into that pale, repulsive limb was so immense that the arm blurred into afterimages, flying at me like an arrow.
“Haaaaah!”
Dodging an attack that fast from this range was impossible for me right now.
To evade it I would have needed to shift my weight and push off long before it started. Trying now would only get me swept up and crushed into paste by that sweeping limb.
With every other option gone, I stepped forward instead of back and swung the Scissors Blade with everything I had.
Meeting it head-on without flinching—yeah, that was definitely the stupid choice.
The Predator Species’ arm was meters thick. What I was doing was basically trying to cut a speeding car in half with a sword.
Common sense said I wouldn’t even deflect it; I’d just get pulped.
I hadn’t been hoping for anything grand.
Even if my abilities had recently reached the peak of what a human could do, I still couldn’t slice falling buildings or cut mountains in two.
That was the realm of superhumans who flew through the sky and lifted entire structures. In theory I might get there someday, but I still had a long, long way to go.
So the future I expected was simple: my pathetic resistance would mean nothing, and the Predator Species’ attack would turn me into bloody mush. I couldn’t even imagine anything better.
Slash!
Yet the brilliantly flashing Scissors Blade delivered a result so shocking I almost couldn’t believe it.
Following the exact path of my upward swing… the Predator Species’ arm was cleanly severed!
The cut was so perfect the cross-section stood open and raw. The enormous impact packed inside the limb twisted and scattered to both sides…
And so, at the mere cost of being drenched in the Predator Species’ blood, I stood unharmed in place.
It was a genuine miracle. An ant toppling an elephant. Anyone who knew the Abyss would have called it impossible and showered me with praise.
What I didn’t know was that miracles apparently come with a price.
The instant the arm was cut, a hideous agony—like rats gnawing every inch of my body—crashed over me.
“Guhhh…!”
The cause was painfully obvious. Overuse of EP—the fuel that powered the Scissors Blade.
You spent EP to wake the blade, but that wasn’t the end of it.
Like the fuel in a lighter, keeping it active and actually cutting something also burned EP. In practice you needed far more than just the amount required to start it.
Until now I’d almost never emptied my entire supply, so I’d been curious what would happen if I did…
Apparently I’d just answered that question in the worst possible way.
“Hhk—ghk… augh!”
It hurt. It hurt so much I wanted to drop right there and roll around in the Predator Species’ blood.
Even so, in the middle of that extreme pain I clawed at my own thighs, fighting to stay conscious.
Severing the arm had been an unbelievable result I never expected—but it was still only one arm.
If a second attack comes now… I’m finished…!
Willpower alone couldn’t overcome pain like this. Not for someone with an ordinary mind like mine.
The best I could manage was to keep my upper body upright and wheeze through gritted teeth so I wouldn’t collapse.
Screeeeech!
The one silver lining was that even a Predator Species could feel pain. Or maybe having an arm split open like string cheese just hurt no matter what you were.
Agonized screams echoed through the gap in the roots, and the ruined arm began dragging itself back inside like a discarded pile of meat.
I had to stop it. If I let it recover that arm, the other one might come flying next.
I knew that perfectly well—yet all I could do was endure the full-body torment and refuse to fall.
I… can’t move.
Admitting it left me hollow. What had all this suffering been for?
Still, I didn’t want to regret it. I’d done everything I could. Escaping this far was already impressive. In the end it had all been for nothing, but…
Noise… I’m sorry. I might not make it home.
There was nothing left I could do. Only an apology to Noise, waiting back at the house.
I quietly closed my eyes. I didn’t have the courage to watch my own end with them open.
…Yet no matter how long I waited, the grim fate I’d braced for never arrived.
The ringing in my ears from the pain had delayed the realization, but the Predator Species’ ear-splitting noise had completely vanished.
Could it be…?
Holding onto that fragile hope, I slowly cracked my eyes open—and the sight that greeted me made my tensed shoulders sag in pure relief.
The door that had connected to the Abyss Forest was shut. All around me was the familiar, pitch-black darkness of the Data Trash Heap, so thick I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face.
What that scene told me was crystal clear.
What… the door closed…
This nightmare stretch of time was finally over.
And I… had survived.
“…Haa… never going back to a Delic… ever…”
Thud.
I flopped flat onto my back in the disgusting pool of Predator Species blood.
I’d been half-stubbornly refusing to fall this whole time. If I’d known it would end like this, I should have just lain down comfortably from the start.
How the hell am I supposed to get home…
In the dense darkness where I couldn’t even see my own hand, I muttered the thought blankly inside my head.