-When he first met that person, he thought he was a madman.
It was in a border town at the northwesternmost edge of the Vollachian Empire, a place that did not even deserve a name on a map. Wind and sand raged year-round, and the residents wrapped their faces in rags and walked with narrowed eyes, as if the whole world were forcing them to bow their heads.
Vigel was crouching beneath a dead tree at the entrance to town, reading the stars for a passing merchant. The merchant paid three copper coins and received the answer, "Head east tomorrow and you'll make a fortune."
Vigel knew that was nonsense-there would be a meteor shower tonight, and falling rocks would block the eastern road, making it impassable. But the merchant left satisfied, and Vigel weighed the coins in his hand, thinking tonight's dinner was settled.
He had every basis for speaking honestly, yet deliberately led people astray instead. Naturally, Vigel thought he was merely having a little fun.
After all, in a place no one noticed, he had to find something to amuse himself. Perhaps this was also the usual way of surviving in this poor, backward border town.
But for some reason, the more Vigel weighed those coins, the more wrong they felt. He hurriedly wiped away the smile that had spread across his face at finding some amusement and solemnly examined the markings on them.
"Fuck!"
He slapped his thigh.
"That bastard gave me counterfeit coins! That shameless scumbag said he was a reputable merchant from Kararagi, but he was a swindler!"
"No wonder that guy looked so unconcerned... Looks like my precious astrolabe will be gathering dust along with me again today."
With both parents dead, Vigel could only cling to the beloved astrolabe he had spent a fortune buying, the two of them depending on each other to get by.
Despite possessing the almost overpowered Divine Protection of "Prophecy," on the Empire's barren soil, where martial strength reigned supreme, a comparatively weak "squishy" like him could barely survive without resorting to petty theft and shady dealings.
Perhaps he ought to find another way to live.
As he was thinking this, he saw that person.
A black-haired young man in strange clothes was standing before the battered wooden sign at the town entrance, looking up at the words
"Welcome to-"
on the sign, its name worn illegible by wind and sand, with an expression as solemn as if he were deciphering some ancient secret text.
Vigel narrowed his eyes.
The man's clothes-dark fabric so soft it seemed absurd, without a trace of stitching-had a string of curved symbols printed across the chest that Vigel could not read.
In a place where people would not throw out a blanket until they had patched it three times, those clothes looked like something from another world.
"Could he be a juicy mark?"
His anger at having just been cheated vanished in an instant.
"-Hey."
Vigel spoke, only to be startled a moment later by the man's appearance.
The black-haired young man turned around.
His face was young, but his eyes were different-that gaze that found everything novel yet feared nothing was something Vigel had only ever seen on babies and dead people.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, hello!"
The young man grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth. He hurried over, crouched beside Vigel like an old friend, and reached for the astrolabe on his lap.
"Is this for fortune-telling? That's awesome! If you set this up outside a convenience store, you could definitely make-"
Vigel slapped his hand away.
"Don't touch."
"Oh, sorry, sorry."
The young man withdrew his hand, but his smile grew even wider.
"My name's Natsuki Subaru! I'm a... Hmm, how should I put it... a lost traveler?"
"Lost?"
Vigel looked him up and down.
"You got lost and ended up here dressed like that? Do you know how far it is to the nearest town?"
"No."
"Where are you from?"
"Hmm-"
Subaru tilted his head and gave it some serious thought, but in the end, all he could squeeze out was,
"A convenience store?"
Vigel stared at him for several seconds, then silently put his astrolabe into its cloth bag and stood up.
"Right, another madman. I can't be bothered talking to madmen... Is the Empire's forced labor really that good at driving people crazy? I heard we've been fighting the Kingdom of Lugunica lately, too... Ugh, probably another poor bastard who lost his mind trying to dodge conscription. Lucky those recruiting officers look down on a scrawny prophet like me..."
Vigel talked to himself as he moved away from the young man he had just met. He had hoped to fleece him, but now his face held nothing but disappointment.
"Hey! Don't go!"
Subaru chased after him, his steps as light as if he were walking on clouds.
"I really am lost! And I've been hungry forever! I saw you take that merchant's money earlier. Could you buy me a meal? I'll repay you! Sumimasen!"
His hands were empty, like a refugee fleeing a disaster, and all that remained in his pocket was a white plastic bag crumpled like a wad of paper. Vigel did not recognize the object, however, and merely thought it was something worthless.
"Sure. How will you repay me, then?"
Vigel's desire for amusement flared up again. He wanted to see what this oddball could produce.
He had even wanted to tell this oddball's fortune, but at the thought of his empty pockets, he dismissed the idea.
"Well, about that..."
Subaru tilted his head again and thought bitterly. It seemed the only thing he could use was that ability he loathed.
Feeling he would have to go all in, he said,
"I could tell you tomorrow's weather, or how future events will unfold?"
"...I have the Divine Protection of 'Prophecy' myself. I can read the stars on my own. I don't need you to do it for me."
"Then-help you fight?"
Considering this was still within the so-called Empire, perhaps combat support and the like were the only things in high demand.
Poor Natsuki Subaru had been shopping at a convenience store one moment, only to rub his eyes briefly the next-and when he opened them, he had somehow arrived in another world.
Even if he had been transported to another world, surely he ought to have been given a cheat or something. Yet after standing on a deserted stretch of sand and calling out for ages, he had not even gotten a system panel.
Utterly disappointed, Natsuki Subaru could only look for somewhere inhabited first, but fate seemed to be playing a joke on him, throwing him here without leaving him any way to survive.
Exhausted and hungry, he walked through the wilderness for a full day and night. He ate everything he had bought at the convenience store, leaving only the lousy bag, yet still failed to find even a small village or town. He only barely managed to find a nearby oasis, keeping himself from dying of thirst.
There was no system, no goddess or spirit to accompany him. All he could hear around him were the roars of wild beasts and the rustling of various small witchbeasts.
But the large witchbeasts were even more terrifying.
A lion-faced, humanoid monster dragging a long tail had lunged at him more than once.
During their first encounter, Subaru did not even have time to see the creature properly-he only remembered a gust of foul wind rushing into his face, his vision filled with tawny fur and serrated fangs, followed by agony spreading from his left shoulder through his entire upper body.
His final awareness lingered on the sight of his severed arm flying away, as clear as footage played in slow motion.
The second time, he learned his lesson and tried to hide in a crevice between rocks.
But the witchbeast's claws tore straight through the rock face and dragged him out along with the rubble.
This death came a little faster, but the pain was no less intense.
He clearly remembered the moment his chest was pierced, when even breathing became nothing but futile spasms.
The third time, the fourth... Each death took so little time that before his body could even grow completely cold, he was back at that starting point on the barren sand.
But the pain was real every time, and the fear was fresh every time, as if someone were tearing open the same wound over and over without ever allowing him to grow accustomed to the pain.
Worst of all was the confusion in his memories-
Experiences from some loops would inexplicably vanish, as if some force had forcibly gouged a piece out of his brain;
Other memories would suddenly flood back at the worst possible moments, making him crouch on the sand and dry-heave, his stomach churning with blood and scraps of flesh that were no longer there.
Subaru finally began to understand that this world had no beginner protection period and no tutorial quests.
The only thing he possessed was the ability to start over again and again-but every new start meant enduring the torment of death once more.
"Watashi... Watashi d-don't... don't want to die!!!"
"If I'd known, I would've washed my cup before going out. If I'd known, I would've said something to Mom before leaving..."
Start over, losing memories of everything but the pain.
Start over, the painful memories suddenly crashing into him, then hurting so much that he wanted to start over again.
To put it more nicely, he finished the snacks in his bag, started over, ate the snacks again, then started over again, though Subaru never did manage to get fat...
After several deaths, his survival instinct drove him to piece together his previous experiences. Only then did he finally survive by taking another concealed path, eventually finding this seemingly forgotten town.
The fact that he could stand on this unfamiliar sand and speak to this silver-gray-haired young man was already a miracle built from countless "restarts."
Hearing those words, Vigel stopped and glanced back at him.
Subaru was not particularly scrawny, but beneath that strange fabric, there was no sign of any training.
Vigel had seen plenty of people who claimed they could fight. They ended up either with broken bones or their pockets picked clean.
"You?"
"Don't judge me by my looks. I'm actually-"
Subaru rose onto his toes and tried hard to puff out his chest, only to lose his balance and wobble.
"-I'm actually really good at taking a beating."
Vigel took a deep breath.
"You can't even brag properly."
"That's why I wasn't bragging!"
Subaru answered with complete conviction.
"I said 'taking a beating,' not 'fighting.' There's a fundamental difference!"
In his twenty-two years of life, Vigel had heard plenty of stupid remarks.
But this particular kind of stupidity was genuinely a first for him. Yet somehow, his desire for amusement turned into kindness, and he answered without thinking:
"...Fine. Come with me."
Dinner that night was black bread hard enough to bludgeon someone to death, accompanied by a bowl of bland vegetable soup.
Subaru wolfed it down as though he had not eaten in months, even licking the bottom of the bowl clean.
Vigel leaned back in his chair and watched him as if looking at an idiot, a freak.
Then he asked where he had come from.
"What backwoods wilderness did you grow up in?"
"A convenience store."
"That again? Is that a place name?"
"Not really."
Subaru put down his bowl, his expression turning unusually serious, and even more dejected.
"Strictly speaking, it's where I... um... was for the last time."
"What do you mean, 'where you were for the last time'?"
Subaru did not answer immediately.
He watched the flickering flame of the oil lamp on the table and fell silent for several seconds.
"Mr. Vigel, do you believe someone could fall into this place from another world?"
Vigel's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"You mean-another world?"
"Oh, you know about that?"
"-Something like that occasionally comes up in the stars."
Vigel picked up his own bowl and took a sip of the soup, which had already gone cold.
"The stars sometimes stray from their paths. Some stars shouldn't be in that part of the sky, yet there they are. Some call them 'visitors from beyond the heavens,' and others call them 'arrivals from another world.'"
He set down his bowl and looked at Subaru.
"You're saying you came from another world?"
"Yes."
"What's your proof?"
Subaru held out his right hand.
Vigel leaned closer to inspect it-no scars, no birthmarks, nothing that could prove anything.
But Subaru's next words stunned him:
"I died once... A monster bit off one of my arms first, then chewed me to pieces while I was still alive..."
"No, I should say-I've died lots of times. But I think the way I died was different every time..."
Subaru's voice was calm. So calm that it did not sound as if he were talking about himself, but reading someone else's story.
"Every time I die, I seem to go back to a 'save point.' I start over. Like a game. Except this shitty game has no walkthrough or pause button, and I don't get to choose the save points-"
Despite saying such bleak, chilling things, he merely smiled.
After all, having cried and screamed, he would no longer cry.
He could only accept this reality.
"But at least I can still start over. Right?"
Vigel remained silent for a long time.
At first, he had thought Subaru was crazy. Later, he had thought Subaru was deliberately trying to scare him into giving up his money.
But now-looking into those black eyes, which seemed truly unafraid of death, looking at him as though he really had died many times, it was all so utterly absurd, yet for some reason Vigel felt he had to believe him. Could this person truly be so pitiful?
Like him, Subaru possessed a seemingly overpowered ability, yet was still toyed with by fate. Gradually, he could no longer say whether what he felt was sympathy or something else.
The oil lamp's flame danced in his silver-gray eyes, reflecting an unsteady light.
Vigel, who had initially wanted to mock him, ultimately squeezed out only one sentence:
"...Are you serious?"
"When have I ever not been serious?"
"When you were crouching at the town entrance looking at the sign."
"Oh, that."
Subaru scratched the back of his head.
"The words on that sign had been worn away by the wind and sand, so I was guessing what it originally said. My guess was, 'Welcome to Pauper Town.'"
"It's 'Welcome to White Sand Town.'"
"-No wonder nobody wants to come."
Vigel suddenly laughed. It wasn't a polite, perfunctory laugh, but a genuine, low chuckle that rolled up from his throat.
"You-honestly, you're really interesting."
"Right? I think so too."
"But those things you said-"
Vigel stopped smiling and tapped the tabletop with his index finger. "If they're all true, what are you planning to do next?"
Subaru's smile slowly faded too, giving way to thought. He lowered his head and looked at his empty hands.
"...I don't know. By the way, is there a final boss here?"
"A what?"
"The biggest bad guy! The kind of supervillain who needs to be defeated!"
Even though his ability seemed to have no combat power whatsoever, he was still excited at the thought of becoming a hero. After all, since he was here, he might as well make the best of it. Maybe he could even recruit a few companions with extraordinary fighting prowess and save this other world together?
That was the heroic fantasy unique to Natsuki Subaru.
"If you mean the Demon King... that's ancient history. The 'Hero' defeated him hundreds of years ago. Even the Hero himself has probably turned to dust over those centuries. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are only natural, after all."
"So it's all over already?"
"I seem to have heard the Demon King had a daughter, but I suppose the Hero probably defeated her long ago too. Still, what do heroic deeds have to do with ordinary folk like us? Those two big countries are still fighting a war, aren't they? For people like us, just staying alive is a rare privilege... never mind keeping our bellies full."
"I see. Got it, then."
Subaru raised his head, his black eyes shining like two fragments of stars beneath the light.
"Both sides are at war, so neither the Empire nor the Kingdom is a safe place. I've heard things are relatively peaceful over in Kararagi-and I don't have anywhere else to go anyway. I might as well head that way and see if there are any opportunities."
He paused, then gave Vigel an earnest smile.
"Thanks for dinner tonight. Want to come with me? We could look out for each other on the road... besides, this place really is a dump. Wouldn't staying here be a waste of a seer's talents?"
Vigel was indeed deeply moved.
He couldn't stay here any longer. He had to go somewhere more suitable and find an opportunity to grow.
Even though this was an idea he already had, he was still surprised that a few words from someone else could move him-and a stranger full of strange behavior, at that.
Vigel looked into those eyes. He had seen countless people's eyes-greedy, timid, despairing, numb.
But he had never seen eyes like these. They seemed to have been burned by something, yet also filled with something, as though a lion lay hidden within them.
Empty, yet heavy.
"All right. But on one condition-I get to lead this team. Consider it repayment for your dinner."
"Huh?"
"What, you don't want to?"
"No-"
Subaru froze for a moment, then smiled.
"You got it, Boss Vigel!"
Vigel stood and walked to the window. The night had grown late, and stars spread across the cloudless sky like a shattered mirror.
"I don't know which world you came from, but if what you said is true..."
He looked back, his left eye taking on a faint blue-silver sheen in the starlight.
"Then your star must still be waiting for you somewhere, and your story is bound to be wonderful. So I'm joining you. Let's find a better path together."
That night, Vigel recorded Subaru's "star pattern" on his star chart-a blank space without a single mark.
He didn't tell Subaru about this discovery, only saying:
"Your star doesn't want to talk to you. We'll try again tomorrow."
Meanwhile, Subaru lay on the hard wooden bed, gazing at the unfamiliar stars outside the window, and suddenly said:
"Mr. Vigel, if I really do find what I want to do-would you be willing to do it with me?"
Vigel rolled over, turning his back to him.
"Depends."
"On what?"
"On whether it's worth dying for..."
"Wait, that's not right. Aren't I supposed to be hiring you?! I'm the boss of this team!"
Subaru fell silent for a while, then smiled.
"You got it, Boss Vigel!"
"I don't know yet whether it'll be worth it. But I can promise you one thing-you'll definitely think it's stupid."
"Now that's something to look forward to."
Vigel muttered those words and closed his eyes.
Outside the window, a shooting star streaked across the sky. No one noticed it. Nor did anyone know-that shooting star would shine again after four hundred years of darkness.