“Ah!
Ah!”
When he came back to his senses, Natsuki Subaru was still standing at the starting point—the dark underground cave.
“Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot—!”
He immediately hugged his own body.
Sweat poured down from him without stopping, and his eyes trembled violently.
The pain he had felt just now was absolutely not fake.
He was terrified to the extreme, but he had no idea what had just happened.
He had been completely swallowed by flames.
Burned from the outside all the way in, until even his skin and organs had been scorched.
That piercing agony had almost made him collapse on the spot.
He was only an ordinary high school student.
For him to endure such torture was simply too much.
Inside the freezing underground palace, in the biting cold darkness, Subaru kept repeating those strange words about his whole body being hot.
Because that was exactly what he had just felt.
Only after an unknown amount of time passed did Subaru finally manage to calm his heart.
“I… didn’t die?”
He looked around again.
This place was familiar.
No, more than familiar—this was clearly the place where he had started.
Why had everything gone back here?
“But everything just now felt so real…”
Subaru recalled everything that had happened earlier.
That monster was definitely not something that should exist in human society.
And he had certainly been burned alive by its flames.
“Don’t tell me… everything just now was only a dream?
Haha, how could there be a dream that real?”
Subaru immediately began sorting through his current situation.
His ability to accept strange circumstances was surprisingly strong.
“First of all, this isn’t the world I’m familiar with.
Yeah, that should be right…”
“This is another world!”
It was not that different from the otherworld reincarnation stories in light novels.
But if it was reincarnation, then he should have been reborn, not still stuck in his high school student body.
“So it’s summoning.
Isekai summoning.”
“Damn it!
If this is a light novel plot, then at least give me some kind of cheat ability like a normal protagonist!
At the very least, give me an Excalibur or something!”
Subaru slumped down onto the ground, feeling discouraged.
“Don’t tell me… this is my special ability?”
“The power to predict what will happen in the future?”
Subaru immediately guessed what his supernatural power might be.
If his ability was to predict the future, then that would be amazing.
It meant he could know everything before it happened, no matter what he did.
That was practically an invincible cheat ability.
“But… predicting the future where I die horribly… and that burning feeling that felt like I was really there…”
Subaru felt like his logic and reasoning did not quite fit together.
But right now, he still had too little information.
There was no way to figure anything out properly.
“Ahh, I guess there’s no helping it.
This time, I’ll try the right path.
No matter what, I’m going right!”
He did not want to run into that terrifying monster again.
That thing was definitely not something an otherworld hero at his current level could defeat.
Although, if he raised his level, maybe he would be able to beat it?
Subaru comforted himself with that thought.
Since he had come to another world, he absolutely had to become a super powerful guy like the protagonists in light novels.
“When that time comes, weak monsters like that will go down in one punch each.
One kick, and a whole group of them will be wiped out.
I’ll crush them easily!”
Subaru had completely forgotten the pain of being burned alive just now.
He slapped his cheeks, took out his phone again, and this time, he headed toward the right path.
After a while, Subaru once again arrived at the split road that decided his fate.
The split path was still filled with a fear that made his brows tighten.
And that unsettling presence was clearly coming from the road on the right.
But going right was the correct answer.
Whether that was actually true or not, this time, he had to go there.
Because if he went left, he would run into that hateful monster again.
He did not want to taste the horror of being burned by flames and having his whole body melt away a second time.
“Ahh, whatever.
Maybe at the end of this path, a truly wonderful otherworld life is waiting for me!
Just thinking about it gets me excited!”
Subaru encouraged himself like that and forced down his fear.
The air was clearly heavy, but he still stepped onto the even worse path on the right.
As he went deeper, this road did not look much different from before.
However, the unpleasant feeling remained.
His mood, the feeling of sand beneath his feet, everything became unbearably uncomfortable.
It was as if something heavy was pressing down on his body.
His pace was clearly slower than before.
Compared to the left path he had taken in his “prophetic dream”, he was moving much, much more slowly.
It was not that his weight had increased.
Nor was there some invisible curse sitting on his back.
In truth, this was not a problem affecting his body.
His body felt heavy, and his feet refused to move.
All of it was a mental issue.
A person’s mind could greatly affect their body.
If a mentally exhausted person raced against someone full of energy, the difference would immediately become obvious.
“My body feels so heavy… Damn it, what the hell is going on…?”
Subaru silently swallowed his saliva.
It felt as if he had to pull each heavy foot out of the sand before he could take another step.
His stamina was still there.
His legs had not gone weak, and he was not unable to move.
Even so, his hands and feet refused to listen.
It was as if his flesh was going against the decisions of his reason and soul, showing an instinctive resistance that slowed him down.
Just walking straight forward took twice as much time, stamina, and mental strength.
Even Subaru could not help feeling tired.
There was no one beside him.
Not even a single living thing.
There was no one who could share the pressure weighing on his mind.
He could only swallow the large amount of negative emotions rising inside him and pretend nothing was wrong.
He continued walking forward, but the situation did not improve.
The path felt narrower and narrower.
Subaru could only pray that the way ahead was not a dead end, or else all his effort would be wasted.
After walking down the right path, around another hour passed.
The passage had become so narrow that, at most, two people could walk side by side.
That actually made Subaru breathe a small sigh of relief.
At the very least, a centaur like monster like the one from before definitely would not be able to move freely here.
And then, a door finally appeared before Natsuki Subaru.
“An iron door?
At a time like this?!”
Subaru’s anger reached its limit.
Negative emotions destroyed his reason, and he directly punched the iron door.
However, the pain he expected never came.
The moment his fist touched it, the iron door shattered and disappeared.
“What… What the hell…?
Hmph.
Fine, at least you know your place!”
He continued moving forward.
About another hour passed, and a second iron door appeared before him.
Subaru used the same trick again, trying to see if he could break it open with his fist.
“Ow!”
The expected shattering did not happen this time.
Instead, the pain of striking something solid shot straight into his brain.
“I can’t… open it?
Damn it!
The last one opened, so why won’t this one open?!”
Subaru pounded on the iron door with all his strength.
He did not even notice that blood had started seeping from his palm.
His eyes were filled with hostility, an extremely heavy and violent hostility.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!!”
No matter how much he vented, it was useless.
If it would not open, then it would not open.
After realizing that he had no way to continue forward, Natsuki Subaru could only grit his teeth, turn around, and leave.
The way back was much, much longer than he had imagined.
His already unstable mind completely broke down after running into this obstacle.
Negative emotions crushed him, and his consciousness began to grow faint.
“Damn it, what kind of bastard summons someone here and then just leaves them alone?!”
“I’m so thirsty.
I’m so tired.
I want to kill that monster!”
“It only looks scary… If I get serious…”
Thud.
Natsuki Subaru collapsed onto the ground.
He had lost too much stamina.
The cold pressed down on his body.
He was thirsty.
So thirsty.
And hungry.
He took the snacks out of the plastic bag and began chewing and swallowing them in large mouthfuls.
But that could not solve the problem of having no water.
And it definitely could not help him deal with that centaur monster.
“So cold… It’s getting colder and colder.”
Hypothermia.
When the human body’s core temperature dropped below 35°C, the body would enter a hypothermic state.
If he stayed fully awake, his body’s resistance to the cold would still be somewhat decent.
But if he accidentally fell asleep…
Subaru did not know any of that.
He only felt incredibly tired.
His mind was tired to the point of collapse, and his body was so exhausted that he did not want to move at all.
Slowly, he closed his eyes.
“Ahhh—!
Cough, cough, cough!!”
Natsuki Subaru gasped for breath.
He was back.
He had returned again.
“It wasn’t a dream…”
This was not a prophetic dream.
This was real.
Everything had truly happened.
All of it was real.
And there was only one condition for activating the rewind.
“This is…”
Return by Death.