【Love or Dead】
Why did I take such actions?
To explain that, I have to talk about 【Love or Dead】, commonly known as 【LoD】, and about myself.
【Love or Dead】 is a galge.
It’s a typical gal game where the protagonist, Yuto Sano, deepens his relationships with four heroines, including Satsuki Saionji, and eventually gets together with one of them.
Since it was drawn by a famous artist, it was treated as a reasonably popular game when it was first released.
However, it was quickly branded as a kusoge.
The reason for that was the scenario.
In 【LoD】, the heroines who don’t end up with the protagonist are guaranteed to die. They either commit suicide out of grief for not being with Sano, become self-destructive and sell their bodies, get raped, or suffer unfortunate accidents…
It really is a terrible situation…
Still, the heroines’ illustrations were cute, and the characters’ psychological expressions were detailed, so it was popular with a core audience. The scenario had a certain addictive quality, so I thoroughly completed each heroine’s individual route. The times I soaked my pillow with tears are bitter memories.
That’s enough about 【LoD】, let’s start talking about me.
In my previous life, I was a NEET. It would be cool to say that I met a tragic death in my previous life, but I failed my university entrance exams, repeated a year, and failed the exams multiple times, which broke my spirit. Since then, I had been living off my parents, but I felt pathetic for causing trouble for my family, so I took a large dose of sleeping pills and committed suicide.
When I woke up, I was living my second life as Satoshi Iriya.
I started working hard from the moment I was born so as not to cause trouble for anyone like I did in my previous life. Thanks to that, I think I succeeded to the point of being called a genius.
After that, I cheated a little using my knowledge from my previous life. Since this world is based on reality, the names and events were almost the same as in my previous life. In other words, I knew what stocks and FX would make money, so I earned as much as I could from elementary school. By the time I graduated from junior high, I think I had close to tens of millions.
My parents were creeped out by me. They couldn’t believe that such a prodigy could be born from ordinary parents, so they even had a DNA test done. When they did that, I decided to leave this house. And when I entered high school, I left home.
Just like in my previous life, it seems that my existence brings discord to my family.
A turning point came for me when I entered high school. I chose an ordinary high school. Why did I end up enrolling in this school? With my current academic ability, there was no way I would have chosen such an ordinary high school.
Those questions were answered when I saw Yuto Sano, who was the same age as me and had enrolled, and Satsuki Saionji and the other heroines. I remembered. I, Satoshi Iriya, am a mob character in the world of 【LoD】.
No, I was also shocked that I remembered such an unremarkable mob character, but the reason why I enrolled in this school became clear.
If that’s the case, I decided to enjoy the world of 【LoD】 and watch the love comedy of Sano and the other heroines from the closest possible position, but Yuto Sano in front of me was a total scumbag.
He was a womanizer, indecisive, and a person who couldn’t take action when it mattered and always blamed others. And yet, he was incredibly prideful. He was a mob protagonist who I really couldn’t understand why he was popular.
Because of that, there was no prospect of his favorability with the heroines increasing at all.
I had decided to treat him as a kusoge protagonist and ignore the romance that had no chance of happening, but then I suddenly remembered a dangerous fact.
That was the fact that if the protagonist and the heroines don’t get together, the heroines will die. And, this is the most important part, for some reason, I, a mob character, would also get caught up in it and die.
No wonder I remembered the mob character Satoshi Iriya. There was a picture of him dying every time, and I remembered his name because it was written in one of the routes, though I forgot which one.
If things continued like this, I would die. Panicked, I had no choice but to make Sano achieve the Harem Ending, the only happy ending in 【LoD】 where no one dies.
So, I secretly helped the protagonist and the heroines with their romance from the shadows. I really did my best. I even spent a lot of money because it was for my survival.
However, that kusoge protagonist continued to choose the worst options at crucial moments, and with his favorability with the heroines only half-raised, he ended up with the Total Party Kill Ending, where no one was saved.
Once we entered the Total Party Kill route, there was nothing more I could do. I tried to run away many times along the way. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape the scenario of this world.
Then, I decided to rewrite the scenario and intervene directly, but the World’s Compulsion kept nullifying my actions.
In the online novels of my previous life, stories of mob characters surpassing the protagonist were starting to increase, but there was no way a mob character had such qualifications. A mob character has a role as a mob in this world, so there’s no way they can exceed that scope.
The story of this world revolves around Yuto Sano. It’s impossible to overturn that. I was destined to die as a mob character the moment the Bad Ending was confirmed.
Dying is scary. I struggled to avoid it until the very end, but I couldn’t stop the flow of events once we entered the Total Party Kill route.
Every day, I kept remembering the image of my death, and before I knew it, I hated the world of 【LoD】 itself. I cursed the creator of 【LoD】, wondering why I had to die.
My fear of death and my hatred for this world were in conflict, but at some point, my hatred surpassed my fear of death.
From then on, I accepted my death, and I started thinking about how I could get revenge on the creator of 【LoD】.
However, no matter how I thought about it, there was no way to get revenge. In the first place, I didn’t even remember the creator’s name, and they weren’t even in this world.
Still, when I was thinking about how I could somehow get a hit in, I suddenly remembered that there was no picture of all the heroines dying only in the Total Party Kill Ending.
There was a picture of the heroines right before they were hit by a car. And after the blackout, the picture that was shown with the Bad Ending text was of Satoshi Iriya lying on the ground bleeding, and
『A high school student was hit by a truck that ran a red light. BAD END』
That was the only text that was displayed.
This creator must be a scumbag who gets excited about killing girls. This sentence must have been based on the assumption that all the heroines were hit by a car and died. I also thought so when I reached the Total Party Kill Ending.
However, it wasn’t explicitly depicted that the heroines died.
I bet on this possibility.
I would sacrifice my life to save the heroines. I would die, but it would be an undesirable ending for the kusoge creator.
I was able to confirm the safety of Sakurazuki and the others right before I died.
Serves you right, you scumbag.
There were still things I wanted to do in life, but I felt refreshed just by getting back at them. I hope that the heroines who supported me in my previous life will be happy.
“Guh!?”
Even so, my whole body hurts like hell. It’s really annoying that there’s pain even after death. Could it be that my destination is hell…?
When I cautiously opened my eyes, I gradually started to see light. I was trembling, thinking that I might see the cauldrons of hell, but what I saw was a ceiling covered in inorganic white tiles.
“S-Sensei! Iriya-kun has woken up!”
A scream-like voice echoed in my ears. It was a noisy, yet somehow nostalgic voice. I tried to sit up to see who it was, but I couldn’t move at all. Or rather, I couldn’t feel my right hand at all. The rest of my limbs and body were burning with pain, but only my right hand was as calm as the sea.
“Iriya-kun, can you understand me…?”
“Sakura…zuki?”
For some reason, Sakurazuki was in front of me, looking at me with a pained expression. At that moment, my whole body went cold.
Could it be that the scene I saw before I died was a lie? Did I fail?
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get my voice out properly, and I stammered. While my thoughts were in chaos, a single tear ran down my face.
“I’m glad… I’m really glad.”
“…Wh…y?”
As I listened to Sakurazuki’s sobbing words, an impossible possibility floated into my mind.
“You were hit by a car while protecting us. Don’t you remember?”
I do remember that. I was going to sacrifice my life to save the heroines in order to get back at the kusoge creator.
“You were bleeding so much, and your whole body was covered in injuries. You were on the verge of death for a whole week, you know?”
━━━It was a choice I had abandoned at some point. Something I had given up on.
“Thank you again for saving me, okay? My savior. I’m so glad you’re alive…”
It seems I survived…
━━━
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