DBCR 02

Chapter 02

It wasn’t over.
I wasn’t dead.

There was none of the pain or shock I had braced myself for. It was just as if someone had turned off the lights—suddenly, everything went dark.
It felt like the world had stopped at the exact moment before I died. No matter how long I waited, the perfect ending never came.
Enough time had passed that my body should have been well and truly dead, yet I remained in that state.

It didn’t seem like the delirium of a dying person. I’d been crushed under a collapsing building—there was no way I’d be calmly hallucinating.

After staying like that for a while, I finally reached a conclusion.

Ah. I see.
This… it’s that.
The afterlife.

I must have died so quickly that I didn’t even have time to feel myself dying, and that’s why I’d suddenly crossed over into the afterlife.

Having reached that conclusion, I regretted never believing in it.
I’d lived recklessly, convinced there was nothing after death—but now that I’d died, here it was.

So what happens now?

Would someone in black appear, hold up a scale of karma, and say, Let’s see how you lived?

If that happened, what was I supposed to say?
That I’d simply lived as best I could?

I hadn’t particularly harmed anyone.
But I didn’t think I’d done many good deeds either.

I wasn’t confident that my scales would tip in my favor.
What seemed trivial to me might be an enormous wrongdoing to them. Or the opposite.

While I was thinking that, my vision brightened, and sound began to return.

So, judgment at last?

Thud—

It sounded like the footsteps of a huge beast.

Thud, thump—

The judge must be enormous.

The sounds grew clearer, sharper.

Clank— clank—

For some reason, it sounded like machinery spinning rapidly.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, scenery rushed past behind me. My body swayed in time with a regular sound, like a heartbeat.

I was inside a train running across open plains. I could hear the sound of the train in motion.

A train to the underworld, then?

Probably. I’d read a fairy tale like that once.

But why a train of all things?

I’d never even ridden one before. No special memories attached to it.
Not my choice, I guess. If the grim reaper in charge of me likes trains, then trains it is.

Still, it was impressive.

I gazed out the window in awe.

The wind swept across the plains, making the long grass ripple like waves. It looked as if transparent hands were stroking the green fur of some gigantic beast. White, towering clouds billowed up beyond the horizon, gleaming like pearls in the bright sunlight.

Had I ever seen scenery like this before?

No. Never.
Not even once.

In the world I knew, skies like this meant one of two things: scorching heat like a griddle, or cold so severe it felt like your blood would freeze. And the sounds that filled the air were always screams, shouts, and noise.

The scene before me now was vast and silent. A refined stillness filled the place.

In a world like this, it felt like I could just drift around, like a leaf fallen into a stream.

I looked around.

This wasn’t an ordinary passenger car. It was like a hotel room on wheels. There was a luxurious bed, and a table and chairs just as ornate. By my feet lay two large travel suitcases, neatly placed.

On the name tag attached to one was written:
“Elfini, from Sanzna.”

A map lay on the table. I picked it up and looked at it. It wasn’t a map of any world I knew. It was unfamiliar—yet the place names felt strangely recognizable.

That’s when I should have realized where I was.

At the time, I simply thought it was a map of the underworld, and dismissed the familiarity as imagination.

Then the map blurred, as if rain had fallen on it, and became covered in stains.

What?

A moment later, clear letters appeared on its surface.

“Greetings.”

I almost threw it.

“It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The letters instantly turned to smoke and vanished, and new words were etched in their place.

“There is something you must do.”

Do a job?
I’m dead—why is there still work?

Seriously, what did I do so wrong?

“This is a task that only you can accomplish in this world.”

I thought the next steps after death just happened automatically.
If I don’t do what I’m told, can’t I die properly? Dying once is hard enough—I can’t do it twice.

“…You must meet him.”

“Him”?

Who is he? The judge of the underworld?

“Before he turns this world into ruins…”

Well, if someone’s planning to do that, I guess they should be stopped.
But…

I already came from a world that was ending—now this one too?

That’s just cruel. I lived in a ruined world, and now even the afterlife is headed for destruction?

“You must meet him.”

So who exactly is this “him” they keep talking about?

“His name is Eirix Verkart.

And…

He will destroy this world.”

The moment I heard that name, I knew something was terribly wrong.

Because I knew that person very well.
And I knew exactly what he did.

Eirix Verkart—that was a name from a piece of writing I knew. And I was the only reader of it.

Why the only reader? Because I was the only person the author ever showed it to.
Why only me… well, there were reasons.

It was a mess of a story. The spelling was completely wrong, the grammar practically invented. The writer had never been to school, so it couldn’t really be helped.

Incidents always happened out of nowhere and ended just as abruptly, and the protagonist always died or lost in the end.

If there was one consistent piece of cause and effect in that chaotic story, it was this:
Eirix Verkart was the mastermind behind it all.

Every protagonist lost to Eirix. After defeating and trampling them, Eirix destroyed the world. As long as a man called Eirix Verkart existed, that world was destined to perish.

“Save the world from him.
Only you can save this world.”

This feels exactly like the opening of a game.

You create your character, log in, and the first thing you see is: Greetings. You have come here to save the world. Then quests, quests, quests. Items, items, items.

But why do I have to do it?

As if it had heard my thoughts, the message continued.

“Because you are the only one who knows this world’s story.
If you do not stop it, this world—including you—will be destroyed.
You will be forced to watch as this world collapses.
That is not something you want.”

That’s some aggressive coercion.

I was dragged into this world without warning, told it’s the setting of a novel I know.
And of all things, it’s a novel where the world ends.

Luckily, I know how the story goes, so I’m supposed to stop it from progressing as written.
If I don’t, the world ends—and so do I.

This is where it really feels unfair.

I didn’t choose to come here. I wasn’t responsible for coming here. If you really want to stretch it, maybe I have some responsibility—but it’s minor, so let’s ignore that.

Wait. If what it says is true, then Eirix hasn’t destroyed the world yet…

So can’t I just kill him now?

As if it had read my mind, new words appeared.

“His death is not your objective.”

Then what is my objective?

I’m not supposed to kill Eirix—am I supposed to persuade him instead?

How?

Destroying a world isn’t something you do on a whim.
It takes unwavering resolve and belief. It’s not something a stranger can stop with a few words.

I waited for an answer, but the message ended there.

Cowardly—it vanished without explaining the most important part.

Alright, let’s整理 the situation.

First, I am now inside a world that was written as a novel.
I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I’m here.

Maybe I really crossed into another world. Or maybe I’m just standing at the complicated border of the afterlife.

I know nothing, so I’ll think about that later. No matter what I conclude now, it’ll probably be wrong.

Next: some entity is giving me orders.
It says the world’s destruction must be prevented, and the mastermind behind it is Eirix Verkart.

I know what’s going to happen, who causes it, and how it happens—and I’m the only one in this world who knows all that. If I don’t act, the world will be destroyed.

That’s the situation.

…

Unbelievable.

Why do I have to do this?