A wave of violent, spinning dizziness crashed over him — as though his soul were being wrenched by force from a twisted, mangled body.
The darkness receded.
His vision blurred for a brief instant, then snapped sharply into focus.
Shido Makoto found himself standing once again in that corridor leading to the dining room.
Beside him were the other five — including Wrench, who should by rights have been reduced to a pulp of flesh and bone.
He was staring tensely at the half-open door ahead.
The aroma of food.
The dim glow of the wall sconces.
The expressions of fear and hesitation on his companions’ faces.
Everything was exactly as it had been ten minutes ago.
Shido Makoto felt not the slightest ripple of inner disturbance.
He had not the least difficulty adjusting to this jarring, impossible scene before him — if anything, he felt a faint urge to curse.
Why?
Because he was a person with a special ability.
Not something granted to him upon crossing worlds — he had already possessed it in his previous life.
He simply hadn’t realised it until the day Daiun-san took him away.
Because his ability — the power he had named [Rollback] — could only be triggered by death.
Usable only once per day, resetting at midnight, it allowed him to reload from his point of death and return to ten minutes prior.
By rights, possessing an ability as broken as this, Shido Makoto should never have ended up crossing worlds in the first place.
And yet — perhaps it was simply fate that he and Daiun-san were destined to meet — on that one day, within the span of barely an hour, he had been struck by three of them.
It had happened on the pavement.
A runaway Daiun-san came barrelling straight toward him; at the last possible moment, trusting his instinct for danger, he barely threw himself clear.
He hadn’t even taken a few steps before another Daiun-san came roaring down on him.
That time he didn’t dodge in time.
He was sent flying.
And then [Rollback] had triggered, sending him back to ten minutes before.
Shido Makoto had been completely stunned.
But before he’d even had a chance to make sense of it, a third Daiun-san pulled smoothly away from the kerb, pressed the accelerator, and with effortless ease sent him off to another world.
What rotten luck — the cooldown on [Rollback] hadn’t expired yet.
Otherwise he might at least have had one more chance to struggle.
Shido Makoto let out a quiet sigh inside.
He hadn’t expected that this last-resort ability, his deepest insurance against death, would find its first use in another world — and all because of a trap this insidious.
Rule One’s snare ran far deeper than its wording suggested.
It didn’t merely prohibit deliberate noise.
It extended even to certain instinctive reactions — a scream triggered by shock, the sounds of motion made while dodging an attack.
More insidiously still, the puppet-people would actively make feinting, threatening gestures — baiting their victims into making a sound.
It was a first-encounter kill, plain and simple.
Shido Makoto didn’t believe anyone could suppress the instinct to flinch and dodge in that instant, without any prior knowledge of what was coming.
Because no one knew whether those puppet-people would actually follow through with the strike.
No one dared bet on it.
The will to survive overrides all reason.
There was no time to think further.
Shido Makoto watched as Wrench, standing beside him, began to open his mouth — on the verge of repeating his fate.
He immediately raised a hand and made a sharp hushing gesture.
At the same time, he looked directly into Wrench’s eyes and mouthed the word: quiet.
Wrench was startled by the gesture.
The cry that had been rising to his lips was forcibly swallowed back down.
He looked at Shido Makoto’s eyes — unnervingly, almost eerily calm — then glanced at the grotesque puppet-people in the dining room beyond.
Cold sweat broke out on him instantly.
He wasn’t stupid.
He didn’t understand how Shido Makoto had known to anticipate the danger, but he could read the warning in those eyes perfectly well.
Seeing that, Shido Makoto mouthed two more words: follow me.
Then he was the first to step forward into the dining room.
This time, he moved with even greater care than before.
His shoes met the wooden floorboards in near-perfect silence.
Shirogane Kei gave Shido Makoto a long, searching look.
She didn’t know what had happened, but her sharp instincts told her that in the space of that single moment just now, something had changed in this young man — something she couldn’t quite name or explain.
She asked no questions.
She simply lightened her footsteps and followed close behind him.
Programmer, Artist, and Xiao Hui followed suit — each of them holding their breath, creeping in one after another.
Shido Makoto did not head toward the position where he had died before.
He led the group in a small detour, choosing seats at the far end of the dining table — a stretch of empty chairs well away from the puppet-people.
They all sat down.
Once seated, Shido Makoto observed the puppet-people once more.
Just as before the Rollback — they continued to cut at the food on their plates with mechanical precision, paying no attention whatsoever to the six living people who had just arrived.
The food on the dining table gave off a rich, enticing aroma — an undeniable temptation to people who had woken from unconsciousness without having eaten a single thing.
“Gurgle—”
An ill-timed sound rang out.
Xiao Hui went rigid with fright, both hands flying to press over her stomach, her eyes darting anxiously to the puppet-people all around.
Fortunately, the puppet-people showed no reaction at all.
Shido Makoto felt a measure of reassurance settle in his mind.
It seemed, then, that these kinds of involuntary physiological sounds — the kind beyond anyone’s full control — fell, for the moment, within the tolerance of the rules.
Xiao Hui was clearly at the end of her tether.
On top of the ordeal of fear, the torment of hunger was eating at her; her nerves had been pushed almost to the point of collapse.
Trembling, she reached out slowly toward a bread roll sitting in the shared serving dish at the centre of the table.
The bread looked golden and soft — undeniably inviting.
“Don’t.”
The Programmer, seated beside her, was quick-eyed and quick-handed; he shot out an arm and pressed down on her wrist.
He didn’t dare speak above a whisper, warning Xiao Hui in nothing more than a breath of sound.
Xiao Hui shot him a disgruntled look, looking a little put out, but in the end she withdrew her hand.
Shido Makoto took it all in.
It prompted him to notice a detail he hadn’t had time to consider properly before.
Every puppet-person, from beginning to end, focused solely on the food on the plate directly in front of them.
Whether cutting or eating, their movements never strayed beyond the boundary of their own dish.
The bread, the fruit salad, the cheese arranged at the centre of the table — not a single puppet-person had reached out to take any of it.
They were as though obeying some instruction: only eat what belongs to you.
[Please refrain from touching personal items within the manor that do not belong to you.]
Shido Makoto’s gaze sharpened.
A bold hypothesis took shape in his mind.
The utensils set before each of them — perhaps those counted as items allocated to them specifically.
But the food arranged at the centre of the table, those dishes that appeared to be shared and communal — their ownership did not belong to any of them.
Those, too, might be considered private property of the manor.
If Xiao Hui had actually taken that bread roll just now…
…
And so the six of them sat rigid in their high-backed chairs, like prisoners in a cell.
Daring not to speak.
Daring not to move.
Daring even less to touch the food set before them.
Hunger and fear gnawed relentlessly at their reason.
At last.
“Dong — dong — dong —”
The grandfather clock struck eight.
Eight o’clock in the evening.
The maid who had been standing at attention beside the dining table suddenly rose, turned to face them, and said in a tone utterly devoid of feeling:
“Dinner has concluded.
Guests, please follow me to your respective rooms to rest.”
The six of them felt as though a death sentence had been lifted.
Wrench even let slip a long, involuntary breath of relief — before catching himself almost immediately and clamping his mouth shut.
With the utmost care, they rose from their chairs and fell in behind the maid, not one of them daring to cast another glance at the puppet-people.
Through a small door in the corner of the dining room, they entered a new corridor.
The maid came to a stop partway along it.
She unclipped a ring of keys from her waist and began to distribute them.
“Mister Programmer, Room 101.”
“Miss Xiao Hui, Room 102.”
“Mister Wrench, Room 103.”
“Miss Artist, Room 104.”
“Miss Shirogane, Room 105.”
“Mister Student, Room 106.”
…