"Y-You...!"
Of course, Shymine, who was staring at Raive the entire time, noticed what he did. She gasped in a mix of shock and incomprehension.
"Why did you eat all the candies?!" She growled.
The reward should be split between them properly. However, she had just seen Raive consume everything as if it had belonged to him in the first place.
But worse, Raive paid her no heed.
Instead, he reached for the level 2 scroll and quickly unfurled it for his own use.
[Skill Upgrade Scroll (Lv. 2)]
[Using this scroll will upgrade Auto-Load to level 2.]
[Do you wish to proceed?]
"Yes!"
Raive’s answer contained zero hesitation.
After all, to prepare, he even consumed all the stat-up candies before using it this time!
[Upgrade Scroll consumed successfully.]
[Auto-Load is successfully upgraded to level 2.]
"..."
He waited a bit, but realized that other than the level increasing, nothing else happened. No new features for the skills, or an increase in save slots at all. He felt slightly disappointed, but just shrugged it off.
Then, he kicked the icy ground as if looking for something.
"Hey, Raive! Answer me! Why did you do that?!"
Shymine was still behind him, trying to get an answer. She was the only one who had energy to spare to speak, after all. Hershey was still healing the unconscious Khamish, while Therese was already breathing hard from holding back the pain of her broken leg.
Again, Raive didn’t care.
After a few seconds of ignoring Shymine’s shouts, he finally found what he was looking for.
A fragment in the shape of a triangle the size of his palm. The edges were sharp enough that just holding it made his palm bleed.
"Perfect." He whispered.
Of course, he only had one use for it. And that’s to force a restart.
His first option was actually the magic sword, but with Khamish knocked out, there’s no way to get it from him. As such, he had no choice but to improvise.
"W-What are you doing...?"
Seeing him hold the object—a fragment of the rosebud monster’s "teeth"—she felt a chill run down her spine. She forced herself to stand up, despite her shaky steps, and rushed toward Raive...
But she was too late.
"I hate this..."
With such a casual comment, Raive pressed the teeth to his chest, then pushed hard in one go. As if not to give himself a moment to hesitate.
Given its unmatched sharpness, the teeth went through almost like a hot knife cutting through butter. His heart was punctured in one go, creating a large hole. Blood seeped out fast, creating a dark stain over his black blazer.
"NO!"
Shymine reached Raive’s side a step too late.
She caught his falling body, but without strength, they could only fall to the ground at the same time.
"W-Why did you do this? Are you crazy?!" She growled, eyes turning red with tears bubbling up. "Did you get cursed?! Wait a minute, Hershey should be almost done! Hang on...!"
"..."
Raive stared at her beautiful face, now stained with tears.
He could feel her hands applying pressure to his chest, as if to stop the bleeding. But with his heart punctured, no amount of pressure would work.
Weirdly, the pain he felt was just the initial puncture. Almost as if taking an injection. Other than that... nothing.
Of course, it’s not that his incoming death felt peaceful.
He could feel the dread coming in. The cold rushing from the tips of his fingers toward the center of his body. His body heat dispersing.
And obviously...
His heartbeat slowing down.
[User’s Heart had Stopped Beating.]
[Please select which save slot to load.]
[Confirmed selection: First Slot.]
[Auto-Load activating...]
[Success.]
The next moment, he opened his eyes and blinked.
He was back outside, standing before the green dungeon entrance, with a hand pressed against it.
"I..."
He pressed a hand toward his chest, feeling his heart beating again.
Thump. Thump. A calm rhythm like no other.
Many people say that committing suicide is hard. One might think they could do it, but chicken out when it comes to actually doing it. But to Raive, he didn’t even feel a bit of resistance. He just did it, almost as if he was just cutting his nails or picking his nose.
’Still, doing that didn’t feel so great.’
If possible, he would like to avoid doing that again.
However, he was sure that if the need arose, he would do it again without hesitation either.
"I guess I got a few screws loose." He whispered to himself.
"Huh? Did you say something, brother?"
Hershey, who was nearby, barely heard him say something, but couldn’t quite catch it. Of course, he didn’t repeat what he said. He just turned to everyone and began the briefing.
How they were about to enter a dark cave.
That the enemy were plant-like monsters.
That the correct path was just straight ahead.
And that the boss monster was hiding in the ceiling.
With all the information from his "precognition" that he provided, their clearing speed this time went a lot faster than before. If they took about two hours previously, in half an hour, they were already at the boss room during this loop.
"Ice lance!"
With a single attack, the boss monster fell from the ceiling. And then, without giving it a chance to attack, Shymine followed it up with a wave of freezing air.
The poor rosebud boss monster froze instantly, unable to even show them its scary true appearance. With a short delay, the boss’s corpse turned into a few floating items instead.
"I guess that’s fast enough." Raive nodded, visibly pleased.
After all, during this loop, Shymine only got injured at the start. And with Shymine and Therese splitting the burden, they managed to reach the end much more safely and with enough leeway to fight another boss if needed.
It was a perfect speedrun of a green dungeon!
"Now, all that’s left is to distribute the loot."
Raive, as the acting leader, stepped forward, reaching for the loot.
And then...
Once again, he put on an altruistic mask.