Darkness so thick that even moonlight had abandoned it.
The acrid smell of blood filled every breath.
My body, sticky with sweat and blood, felt suffocating.
Because someone had slumped against me where I sat collapsed on the ground.
"Why……?"
My mind went blank, unable to comprehend the reality in front of me.
How had it come to this. I slowly retraced my memories.
Midir, who had been buried under the rubble, had lunged at me.
Knowing it was coming, I'd drawn up my lightning for a mutual kill.
Midir's claws and my lightning had aimed for each other simultaneously.
But in that split second, something I hadn't anticipated happened.
The Commander, who had been behind me, grabbed me and yanked me out of the way on his own.
Under normal circumstances, a force that weak would never have affected me.
But I'd been sitting collapsed on the ground — I lost my balance and was dragged along helplessly.
Flustered, I fired my lightning at Midir anyway.
The hit made him writhe in agony, and he swung his claws wildly, and——
The Commander took the blow meant for me.
*Is the Commander… dead?*
The thought surfaced unbidden, and I immediately rejected it.
Time hadn't rewound yet. So he wasn't dead.
Which meant this person with his head bowed and eyes closed was still alive.
I let out a sigh whose emotion I couldn't quite name and looked around.
But Midir was nowhere to be found.
"He ran……"
Because I'd ended up in an unexpectedly unstable position.
The lightning aimed at his head had struck his shoulder by accident.
One of his arms had probably been burned to a crisp.
Apparently his fear of the lightning outweighed his hatred of me.
Having assessed the situation, I checked the condition of the Commander lying in my arms.
*The wound… isn't too bad.*
My lightning had reached him before Midir's attack could land cleanly.
Perhaps that was why the blow had gone off-course.
His injury amounted to nothing more than a deep gash across his back.
Well — "not too bad" by Valkyrie standards, that is.
He'd barely avoided instant death. It was still a serious wound.
Left untreated, there was a high chance he'd go into shock within minutes.
In other words, he could die at any moment and it wouldn't be strange.
He was already unconscious, hanging limp in my arms.
I looked down at him in his wretched state and let out a hollow laugh.
*Damn idiot. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to prepare for this?*
It had been a perfect plan.
This was supposed to be the most entertaining part.
And then the Commander had barged in and ruined everything.
Infuriating. Infuriating, infuriating, infuriating.
Who do you think you are, getting in my way?
It felt like a meal I'd spent hours crafting had been thrown into a gutter.
The stress was so immense my head throbbed.
"Haaaaah……"
I squeezed my eyes shut and exhaled deeply.
My insides were boiling. I wanted to scream.
My body trembled on its own from the overflowing rage.
But I held it in. For now.
Because when I thought about it, part of this was my fault.
*Right. My mistake. I should have broken his legs before he could interfere. I completely let my guard down.*
Come to think of it, this was always going to happen eventually.
Was the Commander ever some ordinary person who stayed out of things?
From the very first time we met, he was the type to step forward to protect Valkyries.
Not anticipating this was my mistake. Yes, mine……
Of course, thinking that didn't make the irritation subside.
I'd gone without sleep, working tirelessly to prepare for this moment.
And all of that effort had dissolved into nothing in an instant.
But that's that, and this is this. I couldn't stand the sight of the Commander.
*An opportunity like this — who knows when it'll come again……*
This loop had been a gift from the gods.
Because the Commander had committed a wrong in the previous loop.
It gave me more than enough justification to torment him to my heart's content.
And now I was supposed to move on to the next loop from here?
That would mean losing my reason to despise the Commander.
That's why I'd planned to squeeze every last drop of satisfaction out of this one.
"It's all ruined…… Ugh, it's all your fault."
I glared at the Commander, unconscious in my arms.
Then I tried to move him away from me and lay him down properly on the ground.
Runner's High was still in effect, so I felt no pain, but——
Holding him in this awkward position was making me feel stifled.
He had a wound on his back, so I was in the middle of laying him on his side when——
A terminal slipped out of the Commander's pocket with a soft slide.
*Oh, a message……*
A notification must have come in — the screen lit up.
A bright light asserting itself in the darkness.
I picked it up without thinking, and my expression went rigid.
[ Sepia ⟩ Commander. I'm heading to the location you mentioned. Please wait just a little longer. ]
"This is……"
Thud.
The moment I understood what the message meant, my heart dropped cold.
Sepia was the only medic at the Lumia Branch.
And she was on her way here. Right now.
Come to think of it, the Commander had called for the medical unit earlier.
I hadn't paid it any mind since I'd been planning to go down with Midir anyway.
But for me, right now, this was seriously inconvenient news.
The Commander was gravely wounded, but still had time left.
If the medical unit arrived before it was too late and kept him breathing……
"W-wait. The Commander survives? But Midir is still——"
My lightning hadn't finished Midir off.
He'd probably come back for revenge the moment he recovered.
He would release every Erosion Species he'd hidden in his shadow.
And then defenseless Lumia would be swallowed whole in an instant——
*I called Arishia, didn't I.*
I clutched my head and laughed emptily.
To collect as many anguished expressions as possible all at once.
I'd been in steady contact with Arishia for days.
Telling her something was about to happen in Lumia, that I might need her strength.
I'd even asked her to come this morning.
She might have already arrived in the city.
And as long as Arishia was in Lumia——
The Erosion Species horde was nothing but a mob of weak enemies with numbers on their side.
"Wait, if that's how it goes……"
It wasn't something I'd particularly intended, but——
At this rate, it was entirely possible to clear the original prologue.
The medical unit would somehow keep the Commander alive.
Arishia would wipe out every threat coming from outside.
The escaped Midir would grow stronger and more cunning.
And increasingly terrifying threats would begin closing in on Lumia.
Headquarters, sensing something wrong, would dispatch their finest Valkyries one by one, and——
"……No."
I felt sick.
My plan had been to stay in the prologue only through this loop.
In the next loop, I was going to end the prologue.
But now that it was actually about to happen——
A complicated feeling I couldn't even name churned in my stomach.
Where was this emotion even coming from.
As I caught my breath, I finally arrived at one realization.
*Ah, right…… I'm scared. Right now.*
Moving forward wasn't simply a good thing.
The situation I'd controlled so stably was slipping out of my hands.
That sense of loss became fear, gnawing at my mind.
I might regret this.
No — I definitely will.
There's no way I won't.
My head spun as if I were dizzy.
The sound of my own ragged breathing echoed in my ears.
Thinking.
Deliberating.
Conflicted.
Looking away——
In the end, I looked down at the Commander and made my decision.
"Kill him."
It was the Commander's fault for barging in on his own.
Stepping in front of an Erosion Species attack with a human body.
No matter how I thought about it, he had to have wanted to die.
So I should grant him that wish.
The time reversal was nothing more than a side effect.
I was simply delivering the dream he hadn't been able to fulfill.
*It's fine. I'm not inflicting pain. I'm just disrupting his electrical signals a little. His heart stopping on its own — that's not my doing.*
A disgusting self-justification.
But so what, no one was watching.
Besides, once time rewound, it would be as if it never happened.
My hands trembled.
I had caused people to die indirectly before, but——
Four loops in, and this would be my first murder.
Still, it wasn't anything particularly special.
Erosion Species or human, they were the same kind of living thing.
Physically speaking, I'd just be doing something similar to what I'd done before.
The moment of hesitation was brief.
I climbed on top of the Commander where he lay on the ground and wrapped both hands around his throat.
I would send a current through him into his heart and stop it.
I was genuinely, sincerely intending to kill the Commander right here.
"……Huh?"
But the moment I tried to send the current——
I felt something in my lower abdomen on the verge of snapping.
*Don't do this*, my instincts whispered.
It didn't take long for me to understand what it meant.
The source of power seated in my lower abdomen — the Stigma, issuing a warning.
If I took the Commander's life with my own hands——
*The contract breaks.*
That's a lie. I never made that kind of promise.
Kill the Commander with my own hands and the contract breaks?
I'd never tried to kill him directly before. That was why I hadn't known until now.
"Wh— no, but if that happens……"
My mind plunged into complete panic.
I'd thought everything was in my hands until now.
And it turned out there was nothing I could actually do.
And at the same moment, I realized something else.
If the Commander had no intention of rewinding time——
There was no way for me to force him to.
The revulsion of it — like I was wearing a collar.
Without thinking, I clawed at my own throat with my fingertips.
"Hah, hah…… What do I do, what do I do what do I do……"
In my unstable state, I stared down at the Commander and thought.
I couldn't kill him, but letting him die on his own was fine.
So for now — I'd take this idiot and get out of here.
If the medical unit showed up in time and administered first aid, it was all over.
Even in this desperate situation, I was still scheming to struggle.
But the moment I tried to lift myself toward the Commander——
A searing, unimaginable agony suddenly tore through my entire body.
"Ugh, ghhk……"
Pain so extreme I couldn't spare a single thought for performance.
It felt as though every cell in my body was being shredded to pieces.
In the end, I collapsed face-first onto the ground, making a wretched gurgling sound.
And immediately I understood what had happened to me.
*R-Runner's High… cut out……*
My body was in no state to be described in words.
The minor wounds scattered all over me were the least of it.
I had a serious penetrating wound through my thigh.
And on top of that, I'd been moving around in this condition.
The reason I'd been able to think clearly until now——
Was entirely because I'd been looking away from the pain.
But Trance only lasted a few minutes at most.
The moment that time ran out, every sensation I'd pushed aside crashed into me all at once.
"Hk, hkgh… d-die……"
I lay collapsed, clawing at the floor hard enough to draw blood.
*I want to die*, that kind of pain went on without end.
If only I hadn't used Runner's High in the first place.
With my senses amplified and then flooded with agony——
My fragile mind simply couldn't endure it.
*Consciousness……*
The white that had bleached my vision from pain darkened back to black.
Something irresistible dragged me down toward the abyss.
I reached out toward the Commander, and finally let go of consciousness.
*When I open my eyes again, please let me be back on the train.*
That was the last thought I had before the darkness took me.