In this world, one percent of the population possessed innate abilities called "Divine Protections"—things like walking on water or ignoring the effects of wind. Though even among that lucky one percent, most ended up with useless ones like "never mixing up salt and sugar."
Among all Divine Protections, there was one that only a single person in the world could hold at any given time: the Divine Protection of the Sword Saint. And the Dragon Sword Reid in Reinhard's hand—named after the first Sword Saint—could only be drawn by the holder of that Divine Protection, and only when the enemy was deemed strong enough to warrant it.
He was certain he hadn't lost the Divine Protection of the Sword Saint. So why? Did the Dragon Sword consider that child a worthy foe, or did the child actually possess a second Divine Protection of the Sword Saint and see him as an enemy?
Reinhard stared in puzzlement at the direction Yimi had run off to.
Those little legs were flying under the pressure of pursuit, though having to shake those three meant she didn't head straight for Subaru right away.
Each consecutive reset left another layer of that nauseating smell on Subaru. By now, Yimi could detect it in human form from halfway across the city, so even without knowing the streets well she could track him precisely—it was just a matter of distance.
If you had the ability to reload upon death, you'd surely get smarter about things, right?
Piecing together Subaru's overall experience: after splitting from Yimi and the fruit stall owner, he'd been expecting some kind of isekai adventure, only to immediately get cornered and beaten by three muggers in an alley. Then a silver-haired girl calling herself "Satella" saved him, and she had something important that had been stolen.
So to repay her, he started helping the girl search for her stolen item. After asking around, he successfully tracked it to the thief's hideout by nightfall. But the moment he walked in, he found two bodies—and then something in the dark gutted him, killing the silver-haired girl who'd followed him in as well. He never even saw the killer clearly.
The thief herself wasn't some ruthless murderer. In fact, during the first loop when Subaru had no clue what was going on, he'd chatted amicably with her for quite a while. He'd nearly traded his flip phone—disguised as a magic device—for "Satella's" stolen item, when the client who'd commissioned the theft saw the deal falling through and showed her true colors with a blade. She didn't even spare the child who came to check on the noise.
"This is ridiculous—this big-chested woman is terrifyingly strong." Subaru stood off to the side, heart still pounding as he watched the dark-haired woman with her slightly deranged smile.
He'd come early hoping to change the fate of the thief girl, her guardian, and "Satella" all getting killed, but Subaru had overlooked one thing: there was zero trust between him and strangers. Knowing nothing about how this world worked, he had no way to explain something like "your client is going to kill you, and you can't beat her" either.
On the brighter side, something unexpected had shifted the order of arrivals. Instead of the stomach-slicing psycho showing up first, it was "Satella," who'd come looking for her insignia.
On the less bright side, the psycho had followed right on her heels—and "Satella" couldn't seem to overpower her.
"Old Man Rom!"
The thief girl screamed as the old man who'd raised her took a blade to the neck and crumpled. Meanwhile, "Satella" could only fire ice bolts that the woman deflected with surgical precision, since her contracted spirit had already gone to sleep for the night.
The woman maintained her unbroken smile and turned toward the screaming thief. "What a bad girl. No resolve to fight—you should at least cower in a corner."
Subaru looked at the half-elf girl launching nothing but ice bolts. "Don't you have some kind of one-hit-kill finisher?"
"I do, but if I unleash it, everyone except me would probably get caught in it."
What kind of self-destruct bomb logic was that?
Helpless. Was it time to reload again?
Subaru recalled the cold and terror of his previous deaths. That experience was absolutely not something you could sum up as "got killed, then died." And who could guarantee one hundred percent that this death wouldn't be his last?
Would there really be another chance after this one? That woman also had the charming habit of gutting people and spilling their intestines. With his athletic-at-best physique, there was no way she'd bother giving him the efficiency of a clean throat-cut. The sensation was too agonizing to bear…
"Dumbass!"
A crisp child's voice spitting out a filthy word successfully drew every pair of eyes in the room.
"Wait, don't tell me—" Subaru looked toward the doorway. Sure enough, the cat-eared girl he'd set up twice was standing there, hands on hips, glaring at him with the fiercest baby scowl he'd ever seen.
That fruit stall owner was unreliable… Though to be fair, the man had a livelihood to watch.
"What an adorable little kitty. Terrible timing, though."
"Hey, you wouldn't actually go after a child, would you?"
Subaru tried to stall with conversation. He knew perfectly well this woman didn't care whether her target was a child or an old man—but then the little pipsqueak in the doorway pulled out a wooden object.
It looked like a miko's gohei. Did this world have those too?
The dark-haired woman licked her lips, turning to face the child. "It's only a stick, but drawing a weapon counts as showing resolve, I suppose?"
"Watch out!" The half-elf girl shouted a warning, but couldn't move fast enough to stop the dark-haired woman's inhuman speed.
Watching the woman flash into striking distance, Yimi's eyes flickered with confusion. She'd only come to settle things with the stinky person—why was someone else trying to hurt her too?
Because the timeline had reset so quickly before, Yimi hadn't gotten a clear look at this woman at all. The blade that sheared through her gohei and slashed toward her neck carried genuine killing intent.
"Hm? A Divine Protection?"
The woman didn't see the expected result of her strike being twisted away. Instead, a white barrier flashed for just an instant—and as a half-vampire, she felt instinctive revulsion from it.
She squinted against the discomfort, then felt the broken tip of that little wooden stick poke into her navel.
"Fantasy Nature!"
"What is that?!" Subaru threw up his hands to shield his face.
This was the first time Yimi had successfully pulled off the technique she'd learned from Reimu. Last time she'd tried it against Reimu herself, the output had been so weak it got swatted aside instantly.
Like a vast moon hung at close range in the night sky, a sphere of pure spiritual energy took the form of a Yin-Yang Orb and sat where the building had been, obliterating the entire structure along with a stretch of empty street around it.
No actual Yin-Yang Orb, not even seven layers charged—far weaker than when Reimu herself had used it to flip the entire Scarlet Devil Mansion. But it was enough.
"We're saved?" Subaru sat on the ground, staring blankly at the gash that ran from beside his feet all the way outward. He couldn't process this turn of events.
Just like that? The cat-eared toddler he'd met at the very start had saved him?
Then he watched as said toddler marched toward him, fuming, the broken gohei clutched in her raised little fist.
"Hit you!"
Bonk—right on his forehead.
A kid's strength wasn't much, but the gohei was hard enough to make Subaru's eyes roll back.
"Hey, are you okay?" The half-elf girl rushed over, anxious and confused, propping him up.
"Satella…" Subaru murmured the name she'd given him in the first timeline.
"?"
The half-elf let go. The unprepared Subaru's head cracked against the floor, and this time he was genuinely out cold.
"Oh—I'm sorry!"