Future Diary Survival Game-Chapter 67 : Rescue - 2

Chapter 67: Rescue - 2
Edgar handed over the newly written letter and said.
“You don’t need to bring back a reply. She probably wouldn’t write one anyway.”
“Hmm. It was pretty exciting — is it going to end like this?”
“Go now. I have to prepare to kill that woman.”
“I didn’t know something like that required preparation. Isn’t it just that you’re impatient and want to get it over with because you’re angry?”
“…….”
“Heh heh. Then this will be my last delivery, I guess. See you next time.”
Magireta slipped away.
Edgar stared blankly at the empty space, then rose from his seat.
He approached Cecil, who was exhausted and had neither the strength to cry nor to thrash about.
Benjamin said.
“Are you really going to do this?”
“Yes.”
“…….”
“I will not ask for your help. I don’t intend to be so unreasonable.”
“…….”
“Lend me your sword.”
Benjamin handed the sword over with trembling hands.
Edgar snorted and asked.
“Do you know this woman personally?”
“No.”
“Then why are you taking it so hard?”
“Just because I don’t know her personally doesn’t mean she can be killed. If you look closely, you are very much like the Emperor of the Empire.”
“…….”
“The Emperor didn’t care a whit about the lives of ordinary soldiers. He intended to make them instruments of slaughter and send them to the battlefield.”
Edgar was no longer listening to Benjamin’s words.
He slowly raised the sword.
“I couldn’t follow that Emperor’s orders, so I forced my father into a corner. My father, realizing that my voice would outweigh his, entrusted himself to the Emperor.”
“…….”
“At the end of that, my family was annihilated. The only ones I wanted to kill were the Emperor and the royal family, and the Silver Knights who personally destroyed my house.”
“Yes. I heard you. You went through a lot.”
“I mean! That’s why I cannot tolerate the murder happening right before my eyes!”
“Well… your tolerance isn’t exactly required.”
Then Edgar brought the sword down on Cecil’s neck.
No — he tried to bring it down.
But the next moment.
Thud.
An unreal sight unfolded.
Without any prelude, Edgar’s head exploded.
Benjamin, who had seen his share of life-and-death situations, wasn’t surprised by the spectacle itself.
He was simply at a loss for the reason.
‘Why? What on earth just happened?’
He stared blankly at Edgar’s headless, writhing corpse.
Magireta had said this was the last time and delivered Edgar’s letter.
< I lost. Or rather, I won.
I would give up learning about my future.
Instead, Cecil will die right now.
Thanks to your delaying with letters, the deadline I originally mentioned had already passed.
I enjoyed the exchange of letters these past few days more than I expected.
Let us meet again someday.
I will postpone asking about my future until then.
Until that time, I wish you well. >
Armelia closed her eyes gently upon reading it.
“Ahh. Cecil……”
“Phew. So it would end like this after all.”
“Damn it.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Damn. Was I wrong after all?
Clutching at straws, I opened the Diary Book.
And I noticed.
The peeking page I had checked so frantically over the past few days.
Among them, the passage Edgar had newly written.
< Magireta’s game changes many things each term, but the hidden rule is the same for all terms.
This alone is immutable.
Therefore, revealing all the rules would be too disadvantageous for me.
So I will tell you only three things.
I will omit rules I expect you already know.
First……. >
There, the words ‘Magireta’s game’ were clearly written.
Also the words ‘hidden rule.’
That should be enough to meet the condition.
It seemed he’d realized my trap at the last moment and canceled it, but it didn’t matter.
Once something was written, it could all be checked via the peeking function.
I shouted loudly.
“Diary Book!”
[ Yes! ]
It was already arranged.
The Diary Book disappeared from sight.
I opened the window and looked outside.
The Diary Book flew in front of the carriage, tore out one of its pages, and sent it flying into the coachman’s face.
“Whoa? Hey, what are you doing—”
Screeeech!
The carriage jolted and shook.
We were thrown forward, bodies colliding and tangled.
“Kyaah.”
“Wh-what’s going on? Why did it stop so suddenly?”
“I’m so sorry, passengers. A piece of paper flew right in front of me all of a sudden.”
Rustle.
The coachman peeled the paper off his face.
He was about to throw it away without even reading it.
I shouted in a hurry.
“What kind of paper is it?”
“Ah, yes. One moment. Let me see.”
He read the letter Edgar had written… no, technically the one he had written but not sent.
“It’s some incomprehensible story. It’s letter-shaped… Magireta’s quest? Hidden rule?”
“…….”
“It looks like a prank. Then again, the handwriting is too neat for that.”
“I see.”
“We’ll be on our way again now. Sorry once more, passengers.”
He had read it.
The coachman had read it.
The carriage started moving again.
The group held their breath and asked me.
“Hey, what happened, Mason?”
“What do you mean?”
“The letter we got earlier wasn’t that, was it? And why did a letter suddenly fly through the air…?”
“It must’ve been answered by the gods because I prayed earnestly.”
Someone responded to my joking answer from before.
“That’s not a sufficient explanation, little brother.”
Magireta said.
Right. I knew she would come.
The lips visible under Magireta’s hood were set stiffly.
“What that coachman just read — that was something Edgar wrote once and then burned.”
“I see. That’s surprising.”
“……What on earth did he do?”
“No, I truly have no idea what’s going on. More importantly, for some unknown reason, a commoner ended up reading the letter about the quest.”
“……”
“It wasn’t my fault that the coachman read that letter. You know that, right?”
Magireta silently nodded.
I asked again in a subtly probing tone.
“Then, in this case, who would be the one to face judgment?”
“Hmph.”
She snorted lightly.
“No need to fish for an answer like that. Edgar’s already dead anyway.”
“……”
“But it won’t be long before he revives. No matter how much you rush, you won’t be able to make it in time.”
“Is that so.”
That was all I said before closing my mouth.
But inwardly, I added one thought.
‘What would happen if the coachman kept reading the letter over and over again?’
Benjamin watched Edgar’s resurrection unfold vividly before his eyes.
The shattered head began to reform—flesh and bone knitting back together, a new brain being created.
A miracle, as if time itself had been rewound.
He stood there with his mouth wide open, watching the entire phenomenon.
Before long, Edgar returned to normal and spoke—
in a tone unusually filled with agitation.
“Damn it. Bloody hell!”
“……”
“What the hell happened? How did you—ugh!”
Once again, Edgar’s head exploded.
And a few minutes later, he revived.
“How did this… Aaargh!”
His head burst again.
Then revived.
Then burst again, and revived once more.
By the time Edgar revived for the seventh time, he finally managed to speak to Benjamin.
“The drawer… the drawer.”
“What?”
“In the drawer—there are all the letters I’ve gathered so far. Throw them out the window!”
If he did that, Mason would die.
Because the letters Mason had sent also mentioned Magireta’s game.
Of course, Benjamin, who threw the letters out, would die as well.
But so what?
Benjamin was a valuable man, but avenging Mason was a hundred times more important now.
“Throw them now! Guh!”
When Edgar’s head burst for the eighth time, Benjamin’s body moved on its own.
‘Why the hell am I listening to him again?’
Grinding his teeth, he opened the drawer.
And for a long moment, he just stared blankly into it.
The eighth time Edgar revived, he shouted again,
“I said throw them! Throw the letters!”
“They’re not here. The letters.”
“What? That’s impossible. I kept every letter he sent right there.”
Edgar staggered toward the drawer.
But before he could take even a few steps, his head exploded again.
Even in his final flicker of consciousness, Edgar saw it clearly.
‘They’re really gone.’
He couldn’t understand it.
That every letter Mason sent was actually a page torn from the Diary Book.
And that if the Diary Book so desired, it could reclaim them at any time.
“Ghhh…”
Upon reviving once more, Edgar muttered,
“Cecil. Kill Cecil.”
“……”
“Kill her! Cough!”
When Edgar died for the ninth time, Benjamin raised his sword.
And just before he could bring it down on Cecil—
“Uaaah!”
He twisted the sword’s path with all his might.
Thud.
The blade pierced his own right thigh.
That sharp pain brought a sliver of sanity back to him.
He then used his dagger to cut the ropes binding Cecil and loosened her gag.
“Get a hold of yourself.”
“Ugh… You are…?”
“We have to get out of here. Run as fast as you can.”
“You bastard!”
The revived Edgar let out a scream filled with rage, shock, and agony.
But Benjamin didn’t care.
He would die again anyway.
He helped Cecil to her feet and said,
“I know I’m the last person who should say this, but… I’m truly sorry.”
“……”
“I don’t even know why I did those things. If you head toward the entrance of the capital, Armelia should be on her way.”
“Her Highness, the Princess…”
“Join up with them. You’ll be safe that way.”
“You come too. You’re not a bad person.”
Benjamin smiled bitterly.
“I don’t think I can. Defying Edgar like this is already my limit. I only gained this bit of freedom because he’s dead right now. I think… I’m bound to him by something I can’t see.”
“What do you mean—”
“Hurry. Leave this place!”
“Ugh… Alright. Thank you.”
Cecil staggered but moved quickly toward the door.
But at the last moment, she turned back and asked,
“What’s your name?”
“…Benjamin.”
“Got it. I won’t forget that name!”
Benjamin slowly turned his body.
Edgar, his face a bloody mess, was glaring at him.
“Damn it. You betrayed me.”
“I never got along with you to begin with.”
“You’re one strange bastard… Just like Mason’s group. My talent doesn’t seem to work well on any of you.”
“Talent?”
“It’s an order. Now—”
Crack.
Before he could finish, Edgar’s head was crushed once more.
Benjamin waited silently for his next words.
A few minutes later, Edgar revived again, gasping.
“Your needles that turn people into weapons… use them. Turn the entire Silver Knights into that.”
“……”
“And then control them. Wipe out Mason’s party. With the Noel family’s secret technique, that shouldn’t be difficult.”
“…No.”
“I said do it! I—this body—command you!”
Edgar thrust his hand forward, as if grasping something invisible.
And in the next instant—
Benjamin felt as though his very soul had been mortgaged away.
“Ghhk…”
He grimaced in pain, but turned and walked out of the inn.
Crack.
During that time, Edgar died once again.
It was already his twelfth death.