The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 3
EP.3 Raging Flames (3)
The three people’s shadows flickered wildly as they walked down the hallway. Unlike the stable light of modern fluorescent or LED lights, the oil lamp’s flame was always unsteady, causing the shadows to flicker slightly. But now, the shadows were shaking much more intensely than they had been earlier.
My hand, holding the lamp, was shaking.
“Huh? What’s wrong with you? Did you eat something bad?”
The old woman asked. Her expression didn’t convey much concern; rather, it was more of a curious look.
I never showed any emotion when I was around her. Most of the children were scared of her, but I could keep my feelings hidden. Not because I had any extraordinary skill. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be shaking like this right now.
When I was young, I had dreams of becoming a voice actor. I had my own—
…No, no, this wasn’t the time for that.
I needed to think about how to understand this situation.
There were no wounds on my body. I didn’t feel any pain. So there was no evidence that I had been beaten by that man. The pain I felt then was so real it was hard to believe it was just a dream or a figment of my imagination.
The feeling of falling face-first onto the floor of the carriage. The disturbing sensation of something breaking inside my mouth. The hard, small object moving around in my mouth, the metallic taste of blood from somewhere torn, the blurred vision—
Thud.
The old woman hit my leg with her cane, causing me to stumble slightly.
“You useless brat. Can’t you even hold a lamp properly? The flickering light hurts my eyes. What are you going to do if my eyesight gets worse?”
The old woman’s eyesight was far from poor. She could see a child misbehaving from one end of the room to the other and rush over to hit them with her cane.
But I tried my best to stand straight.
I felt cold sweat running down my back.
I didn’t want to get hit again.
When was the last time I had been hit? It must have been over ten years ago. Especially as an adult, unless you get into a fight, you don’t get hit. It’s not a good look to be the one who throws the first punch. People don’t want to be around someone who resorts to violence.
Even though I didn’t feel the pain right now…
If things continued like this…
“Sister?”
I jumped at the sound of Claire calling me.
Turning my gaze, I saw Claire looking at me with a worried expression.
…Right. I had been sold off instead of Claire. And I had been beaten. I didn’t know the exact reason, but considering the man’s talk about preferences, it seemed the person who wanted to buy me had a taste for that.
I thought to myself that if I faced the same situation again, I shouldn’t have stepped in. If the person waiting outside was the same as before, the same thing would happen again.
And if I didn’t go through it, then Claire would be the one to suffer.
What should I do? How can I get us both out of this situation?
My mind raced, but no matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t come up with anything a five-year-old could do.
“What are you whispering about? Keep your eyes forward and walk straight. The gentleman is waiting.”
We had barely exchanged a word. Claire had called out to me, but the old woman grew irritated at even that small action, tapping my leg with her cane.
“….”
We couldn’t say anything. We had seen a child beaten mercilessly with that cane before. Even more so, I had been exposed to brutal violence before, so I was more terrified.
I could only hope that the person waiting up ahead wasn’t the same man I had seen before.
And then…
“Now, go and say hello.”
The old woman said.
When I looked up, I saw a man wearing a high-quality coat and a silk hat. He had a monocle over one eye and a thick mustache on his nose.
“Ah…”
Seeing the look of despair on my face, the man responded with a curious look.
“Oh.”
From that point, everything proceeded exactly as I remembered.
*
“….”
I woke up again, curled up.
I was back a few minutes ago.
“Sister?”
Claire called me.
At her words, I opened my eyes. I looked at my arms—still no wounds. There was nothing rolling around in my mouth, no metallic taste like blood, and my vision was clear. I had returned to the moment before we met that man.
Claire looked at me with confusion as I quickly checked my body again.
I looked around.
The other children were watching me.
Had I… reset the time?
Or was it some higher being, maybe the one that had sent me into this world in the first place, who had reset the time for me?
With my mind struggling to function under the weight of fear, I tried to recall the lore from the game world. In this world, gods do exist, but whether they possess personal attributes is uncertain.
Over the different series, the lore has changed several times, but the portrayal of the gods has remained consistent. Players often theorized that these gods might be the same being, exerting a force similar to the will of the world itself. This idea of a god creating a kind of predetermined narrative was sometimes criticized by players as a “lazy storytelling trick” to keep the story moving.
Was this just another one of those tricks?
Could a god really reset time? And if so, by what criteria was time being reset?
Couldn’t time have been reset before I was beaten? Did I have to be in mortal danger for it to happen? But no, it wasn’t mortal danger. It was excruciating, and I felt like I was going to die, but the man didn’t intend to kill me. He had purchased me as a product, after all, and destroying me entirely during processing would have been a waste.
If that’s the case, then… was this my ability?
“Claire!”
Once again, the increasingly familiar and unsettling voice called out.
“The gentleman who will take you has arrived! Come out and be happy!”
Once more, the situation was repeating itself.
*
I still didn’t fully understand my ability. I couldn’t control it freely. I didn’t know if there was a limit on the number of uses, or if there was a maximum amount of time that could be reset in a single use.
I had no idea how I’d ended up with such an absurdly powerful ability, or what the person who gave it to me might be thinking—
—but I didn’t have the luxury of pondering such things.
Getting hit was terrifying. I wasn’t someone used to pain. I was the kind of person who, if I got a paper cut while reading, would spend the whole day wincing at the sting, or if I pulled a muscle, would lie down and whine about it.
Even so, I had plenty of opportunities.
I confirmed it once more.
I could reset the time.
This time, it had happened the moment I saw the man’s face.
“Sister?”
I opened my eyes to the same voice I’d heard countless times now. There were no wounds on my body. I was still unharmed.
And by then, I was starting to get a vague sense of what might trigger my ability to reset the time.
Strong emotions or a desperation.
Whenever I regretted my choices and my emotions fell apart, I always ended up back at this point in time. I didn’t know why it was this specific moment or if I could change the moment. There simply wasn’t time to think about those things.
“Claire!”
And once again.
“The gentleman who will take you has arrived! Come out and be happy!”
Time repeated itself.
*
Even after experiencing the same event three times, adjusting to it wasn’t easy. It’s like starting a new office job, it takes about a month to get used to it and stop making mistakes. But here I was, repeatedly facing a life-or-death situation… Or, to be precise, the tipping point where a life could either be ruined or not.
The pain from being hit didn’t make me immune to suffering. No, in fact, no one could ever become immune to pain. A five-year-old’s body certainly wasn’t tough enough to hold the punches of an adult man.
But still, I racked my brain furiously.
What should I do?
How could I ensure that both of us would avoid such a horrible fate?
It didn’t seem like telling the man that we were useless would help. After all, personality wasn’t a requirement by his standards. He intended to “process” us in his own way.
Claire stabbing a noble and setting fire to a brothel would happen much later. If Claire were to go instead of me now, I might be okay, but she would suffer for years.
In that case, it was better for me to do whatever I could to protect her, especially since I seemed to have an opportunity.
Let’s not think about things like the number of times I could do this. Let’s just pretend it didn’t exist. Even if it did exist, it was meaningless because I didn’t know how to use it properly anyway.
As I pondered what to do, I remembered that I was holding an oil lamp.
Something I could use immediately.
“Is this the child?”
The man began approaching me.
There was no time to think.
Without hesitation, I hurled the lamp with all my strength toward the man.
“What—?!”
The old woman shouted in surprise, and the woman standing behind the man screamed. I had no idea what Claire was saying.
The lamp was thrown by a five-year-old… didn’t set the man on fire.
Smack!
Before the lamp could reach the man’s body, he swung his cane, knocking it away.
The lamp shattered in mid-air, spilling oil and igniting a small fire, but that was all.
“……”
The man looked at me, his expression unchanged.
“Ah.”
I was screwed.
*
“Sister…?”
I had returned once again.
Luckily, before the man could do anything, I was able to reset time. With each repetition, I felt like I was getting better at this.
There didn’t seem to be any special conditions for reversing the time. It simply happened when I desperately wanted it to.
I still didn’t know how to rewind time further back than this point. Even if I could, it wouldn’t be useful right now.
“It’s okay.”
I reassured Claire.
I still had chances left.
In fact, the more time passed, the more things were turning in my favor.
*
This time, I threw the lamp again.
But I didn’t throw it at the man.
I threw it at the old woman standing next to me.
Thankfully, Claire was standing closer to me than to the old woman, so she wasn’t covered in the burning oil.
“Aaaaah!”
The old woman screamed in agony, thrashing around like a madwoman as the fire engulfed her. At first, the flames had only caught on her legs, but as time passed, the fire climbed higher, consuming her upper body as well. The flames rose so high that her face was no longer visible.
The problem was, I had never done something like this to a person before.
No matter how terrible a person might be—even if they were the kind of person who would sell children to a brothel—on the outside, they still appeared human. Even when I thought about hitting someone I hated, my hands would tremble uncontrollably. But this… this was outright incineration.
Claire, standing beside me, was just as frozen as I was, staring at the scene—
Then I felt a hand suddenly grab my shoulder.
“Ah…!”
The rough hand yanked me backward, making me fall—
*
—Again.
Setting the man on fire wouldn’t work. Burning the old woman in front of him hadn’t frightened him either.
In that case, I needed to try something different.
“Claire—”
I waited for the old woman to approach.
“The gentleman who will take you—”
Then I stepped forward, saying I would go instead. The old woman grumbled, while Claire looked at me with a bright smile.
“Well, since you’re already here, you might as well carry this lamp.”
I accepted the lamp.
And as soon as it was in my hands, I smashed it against the floor of the hallway leading to the entrance, shattering it into pieces.
“You little…!”
A few drops of oil splashed in my direction since I had thrown the lamp towards the entrance, but fortunately, none of it caught fire.
“What are you doing—?”
The old woman’s words were cut short.
I grabbed the old woman’s collar as she leaned forward with her cane raised and spun her around with all my strength. No matter how strong she was for her age, if her upper body was hunched forward, even a little strength would cause her to lose her balance.
“You crazy bitch…!”
With eyes wide open and both hands clutching her cane, the old woman lost her balance and fell into the blazing pool of fire on the floor.