I had a feeling I was about to enter eternal rest, but my consciousness was quickly hauled back up.
I was neatly laid out beside Dante. Up ahead, Ricardo was looking at my revived body with obvious interest.
"Hah! So if the clock ticks back, the corpse comes back to life!"
He even clapped, as if he'd found it entertaining. Ah... even if I'm alive, there's still no chance. This is hopeless.
Having sensed the end, I stared up at the blurred sky.
Was I getting sentimental because it was time to die? What a useless thing to do.
If I wanted to raise even the slightest chance of a miracle, I should just ram my body in blindly now.
Faust's hollow voice rang out beside me.
She was covered in blood, as if she were on the verge of death. Had she taken an attack meant for Dante earlier?
"Dan... te."
"...Speak, Faust."
"You should think of another way... I will soon cease bodily activity again, so it will be difficult for me to offer effective advice... And the author of the Middle will likely decide to deal with you as well. Getting entangled with the Middle was never meant to be part of the plan."
Haa... so even the greatest genius in the City can't do anything in a situation like this? She claims to know everything, and yet she doesn't even know where she's going to die.
Maybe I'm the greater genius, since I've managed to come up with one way to kill the enemy... or not.
"No matter how many times you turn the clock back, the result will be the same... and if the author gets bored of killing the prisoners one by one, they'll soon come smash your head in. Dante, press the small button on the back of your head briefly... then press it long... times..."
Complex commands kept spilling out of Faust's mouth. Did she have some trump card that could turn this situation around? No way. If she did, she wouldn't be speaking like that.
Ah... was she about to spit out a self-destruct command? What a mess. Unless she'd never attached any real affection to us, she couldn't just suddenly tell Dante to die.
Whatever. Let's just stay calm. After dying once and waking back up, the eye that had been pushed to its absolute limit had returned to normal. Good thing my head doesn't hurt anymore. The dull aftertaste is still tickling my brain, though.
"If you carry out the procedure I described... your head will undergo an explosive reaction after a thirty-second grace period. In simpler terms, it is self-destruction..."
...Excuse me? Did I hear that wrong?
They're really giving up? Telling me to die?
"It was prepared as a final countermeasure in case the [Golden Bough] fell into hostile hands. The blast radius is not large, but its heat and force are tremendous enough to melt even things that count as stars in the City. It was also meant to incinerate that [Golden Bough]..."
"Vergilius? He'll leave before my head explodes... right...?"
"...It seems you realized it while speaking. There is no means to inform him of the current situation, and even if he knew, he has no way to reach us for nearly two hours."
...Ha.
So they know everything, act like they're separate from it, and the result is this garbage? "Reading the flow" my ass. If this is the result of that flow, then the Eye's epithet is going to be ringing in my ears.
A person who doesn't keep their word is the absolute worst. In the end, both Vergilius, who'd been throwing around all that bluster, and Faust, who'd made a fraudulent contract, were the same.
"And the prisoners...? If I disappear, you all will...?"
"I know. My world will end here. That is why I am only telling you this when you reach the very end."
"If I, if I run away by boat until the lake's rules end..."
"...I can't say the probability is zero. But the expected value is low."
"······."
Dante let out a heavy breath.
He must feel powerless. There have been... what, two times like this?
When Siegfried toyed with us, and when we faced Kromer.
Both times, we barely kept ourselves alive thanks to outside help. Would this time be the same?
...No, wait. The situation is different from back then. The fact that they never forced us to self-destruct or anything until the end means that must have been within the flow they'd seen.
Even that was half-baked, so they couldn't predict a situation like this! Ha, ha! I'm the same. How stupid.
It's not easy to drive a situation into this kind of state while holding a power like this.
"...Tch."
"Saramago?"
"...Do you have something to say, Saramago?"
"No, just that everyone here is a bunch of idiots. You, who claim to be the City's greatest genius while looking like this. Vergilius, that bastard who threatened to reclaim company assets. And me, lying here now and muttering that I didn't notice a thing."
I slowly pushed myself up.
Whatever I did now wouldn't change the outcome, but I didn't want to die crawling on the ground like a bug and waiting for the end.
"If I'm going to die anyway, I'd rather thrash around as much as I can and meet a death with some value. Better than crawling like an insect and getting some pathetic death dressed up as a sacrifice. Ah, I'm not the kind of person who says things like this. Really."
"······."
Faust stared at me silently. Did she have something to say? I didn't care. I had no reason or desire to listen.
Ricardo was laughing heartily as he toyed with Ishmael.
...Here I go.
Whoosh─!
"Hm? The zombie from earlier is back. Your outfit has changed a little, though. Is that also a technique?"
"I have no obligation to answer...!"
As soon as Ricardo dodged my attack, he countered lightly. A clear strike aimed at the head. Well within my prediction range.
────!!!
"Kgh...!"
"This really is amusing. How are you seeing and dodging it?"
I say I dodged it, but a brush of it still blew away about a fifth of the surface of my face.
This time, the convenient recovery with no delay is impossible. Once I take damage, the next exchange will inevitably go against me.
But maybe even that thought is a luxury.
This time, an attack came in from an angle I couldn't even properly evade.
"But I'm not interested in you right now."
BOOM────!!!
Once.
The clock turns.
"Hmm... but was a technique like that even allowed to exist in the City? I'll have to ask my big sister when I get back."
───!!!
Twice.
The clock turns.
How many times did that meaningless slaughter go on?
By the end, the only people still burning with something close to desperate will were Ishmael and me.
"I've... crossed so many waves... If my life were endless... I could go anywhere...!"
"Mm~ That was a pretty good attack just now. But maybe next time!"
With a casual swing of his arm, Ishmael's body was crushed.
...Why was Ishmael so desperate?
As for me, I was already half in resignation. What I was doing now was only part of my own self-satisfaction; I didn't have that kind of fixation.
Suddenly, I became curious about her past. Quite seriously, in fact.
"...I'm getting bored of fighting the same way over and over."
Ah. Damn it. I'd struggled desperately, but in the end there was no escaping the possibility of total annihilation.
"Shall we go for the main event~ and smash the clock?"
"...!"
"No...! Dante! Run! Get away somehow!"
Ishmael clung to his pant leg, trying to stop Ricardo's advance even if only by hanging on.
I wasn't much different. I was only swinging mechanically at attacks that would become fatal if they landed, begging him to pay even a little more attention to this side.
"Ha, if you're still desperately stalling even after going through all this, then that must mean that person is incredibly precious to you."
"The Manager... Dante... Dante can't...!"
"I... can't... go...!"
But Ishmael's desperate scream and my bleak attacks never reached him.
The final moment was truly drawing near. All resistance was meaningless, and even the flailing that amounted to little more than a tantrum failed to draw any response.
Or so I thought.
"······."
Ricardo stopped short of Dante and looked across the lake.
Not only him. I, Dante, and Ishmael were all looking there too.
There was a small boat there. Much smaller and more shabby than the one we had come on.
A tiny skiff with only a huge harpoon hanging off it, and a lone figure seated inside, was slowly drawing closer through the fog.
Who... Ah. Ahaha!!
"Ha, hahahahaha!!!!"
"Why...?"
Ricardo stared at the boat as if he'd forgotten every word in his mouth.
Well, of course he would. One of the countless miracles on the Great Lake that I had given up on long ago was coming right now!
A giant harpoon. A tiny skiff. And that outfit, like he'd thrown on a raincoat.
I know him. No, anyone who walks this lake would know him! How could anyone not know the most famous Fixer on the Great Lake!
Before long, a small light pierced through the fog from that boat, and something flew in at a speed too fast to see and slammed into Ricardo's shoulder.
──────!!!!!!!!!
A sound followed that couldn't quite catch up to the object flying through the air.
It was a harpoon. A very large harpoon.
And the man on that boat... leapt across a distance that no ordinary person would even dare to imagine clearing, and...
lightly, he sprang onto the deck of the Lobotomy Corporation branch.
"Ha... you..."
Ricardo, with a harpoon the size of a man embedded in him, forced the words out.
"Old man... I thought you were just out here catching fish in the lake... But after becoming a Color, you really did catch a bluefin whale... and now you've got nothing in sight, so the Middle looks like a whale to you too? You should know what it means to attack me."
"The Middle is no different from a whale. But I'm not here because of that. I've simply come to catch the fish I lost."
"Ha... ha... of course you would... You know the Middle never forgets, don't you?"
"Well, if there's room to write it in that stingy little book of yours, go ahead and jot it down."
He yanked on the harpoon. Hard.
"Hup..."
Ricardo seemed to be trying to hold on, but the man seeing that said briefly,
"If you hold on, you'll break."
KRAKAKAKAK—!!
And then one of Ricardo's shoulders was torn clean off.
If it had been me, my entire upper body would probably have been dragged away with it. Let me be grateful I never became the enemy of that monstrous man.
"Still sharp despite the rot."
"Fine, fine, I get it! I'll back off. But you'd better remember this. The Middle always remembers. What I did doesn't matter; the Middle remembers anyone who turns their back on it and never forgets. And it always pays them back. In whatever form that takes..."
With that, Ricardo hurriedly withdrew.
...We lived. We actually survived. Hah!
The old man, who had somehow solved everything on his own, approached us and said,
"I'm looking for the fish that swallowed my meat and sank this vessel. Are you lot fishers too?"