Any kind of battle, negotiations with difficult merchants, as long as he saved, he would be able to win. At the very least, he could keep losses at a minimum, and made things go to their advantage.
It was all thanks to save and reset. That was how we were able to slaughter the magical beasts of the central continent without difficulty, silence Zaneji’s formidable merchant guild in an instant, and pave roads and bridges in just a few months.
Even so, it was painful to have to watch it all over and over again. The negotiations, driven by competing interests, the soldiers dying time and time again. And the welcomes of the towns, repeating in between like unskippable cutscenes in an RPG.
In a world where adventures could be reset so easily, everything started to lose its sense of reality. No matter who died or disappeared, it no longer felt like it meant anything.
It was all just a task.
Something happening in a far away world that was beyond the screen of his tablet.
However, that Hero who had burned his tent… He alone was different.
An intruder from another world, breaking through the screen and appearing on his side.
“…What was his name, again?”
There was something caught at the back of his mind, and so he brought out a data folder.
He had gathered data on the Heroes. Currently, he and the kobold had been the only ones remaining in Morania. The others were all grayed out, which meant that they were dead.
“Sheto…”
The name burned into his eyes. Still, the creature felt strangely far away.
He scrolled down and then stopped.
Here, there were details on the Heroes, including images of their faces.
“Saegusa…Keita?”
As soon as he said the name, his heart stirred.
He felt that he had heard the kobold desperately call that name through the screen.
“What…that’s ridiculous.”
A strange coincidence. That was all.
This was not an unusual name.
Still, he could not shake off that image. Of the boy raising his wooden staff and struggling against him.
“Wooden staff…?”
It was a foolish thought.
Add the character ‘圭’ to ‘木’, and you get a single kanji.
There was no real proof. It was just a coincidence that happened to match a memory from his past.
Besides, this wasn’t shogi. It was only a game.
The loss of one piece would not change anything.
“Don’t worry… This is just…”
He realized that he was speaking out loud. As if to erase his anxiety.
In the lonely tent, Yasuharu continued to sit, completely still and silently as the unknown fear took a hold of him.
—
Morning.
There was a thick mist, the same as yesterday.
Poro stood quietly, catching the faint hint of water in the air. There was also a subtle acrid scent lingering, mixed with the smell of blood.
“So… no night raid after all.”
They had kept watch in shifts on the Hero’s orders, but the night had remained uneventful.
He had heard the enemy forces had already been thinned to nearly half. The lizardmen and the boar-mounted orcs had been wiped out by that star spell.
“What…is this…”
A sense of emptiness welled up within. Everything felt strangely hollow.
That time, he had not been able to eliminate the enemy. Keita. In fact, the Seer’s Hero had predicted it, and kept the strategist and general nearby in order to crush the enemy’s plans.
Poro and the others had been nothing but bait.
“I am nothing more than a fool.”
Everything had unfolded exactly according to the Seer’s script. That was all there was to it. No matter what they thought, it made no difference.
They were nothing but pieces placed on a god’s game board.