Dahlia helped Nick up and propped him against a fallen tree trunk.
A filthy breastplate lay on the ground nearby, smeared with fluorescent green and bloodstains that had already begun to blacken, like a Picasso abstract. This thing, together with his feign death skill, had saved Nick's life.
The Claymore anti-personnel mine, also known as a directional mine or broadsword mine and nicknamed "front toward enemy," was an explosive commonly seen in military movies and games.
Although he had padded his chest beforehand with a piece of advanced armor supposedly capable of withstanding a plasma cannon, Nick had never expected to survive. After all, he wasn't one of those movie directors who could make old Newton turn in his grave at the drop of a hat.
The instant he was blasted away, more than half the bones in his body had practically shattered, and his brains had probably been shaken into a slurry. He had never expected the guaranteed reward his Golden Finger had given him back then to be so effective, actually dragging him back from death.
Nick had reason to suspect that the skill he had obtained on his first trip into a movie wasn't a guaranteed reward at all. His Golden Finger had simply thought he was too weak and deliberately given him an incredible lifesaving skill.
Still, whether he survived didn't really matter all that much now. This mission had most likely failed. Nick looked at the battered survivors around him, feeling somewhat dejected.
Stan, the guy in prison clothes who had seemed like a comic-relief character, had died in the end. His head had now been placed on his corpse, his face still frozen in the crazed smile he had worn before death.
Hanzō lay facedown on a patch of grass, his upper body bare.