Became the Villainess’s Guardian

The situation was over in less than 10 seconds after the first gunshot rang out.
Chief Inspector Baldur was struggling to get up from the ground, Philip was convulsing with intermittent twitches of his limbs, and Edan, who had forcefully pulled the paralyzed Freugne behind him moments ago, was bleeding from his chest.

“…Mr. Edan?”

“……”

He was bleeding profusely from his chest.
It was enough to make one realize just how much blood a human body contained and how it could pour out like that.

Perhaps due to the magic’s aftereffects, a nearby neon sign was flickering brightly. Under that yellowish glow, the blood glistened.

After belatedly grasping the situation, Freugne immediately checked for his pulse.
Whether her hands became stained with blood or not, she grasped his wrist, and just in case, even placed her hand directly on his chest, but felt nothing.

She lightly shook his body and called out his name near his ear, but there was no response, as there always had been before.

She wondered if she might be dreaming, but the acrid scent of blood and the chill emanating from the ground she touched felt too vivid to be false.

“No, no, let me at least…”

Edan had never particularly concealed his regenerative ability.

Since he had committed no crime, while he did not flaunt it to the world, there was no reason to hide it either – it would have been stranger to conceal it.
It was not as if he was leeching off others’ life force, but rather a wholesome ability that did no harm. In that regard, he was in a better position than Professor Magni, who dabbled in mind control hypnosis.

In the distant past, there were apparently attempts to gather those with such special abilities and unravel their principles or extract their powers through experimentation. However, since the concept of genetics had not even been established at the time, they inevitably failed miserably.

While privacy might have been important to Edan, since he was making a living through that ability, he could not conceal it.
Hence, Freugne knew that Edan was a remarkable being whose body parts could regrow as long as he consumed adequate nutrients.

Freugne reached for the snacks that had fallen to the ground, unconcerned about any dirt, but then hesitated the next moment as she was about to put them in Edan’s mouth.

‘Will this even work… to revive him?’

His heart had already stopped, didn’t it? Was he truly capable of recovering from that?
Or rather, setting aside the inability to directly chew and swallow, what if his organs were no longer functioning properly?

There was no way for Freugne to know what even Edan himself did not.
And she had never even considered verifying such a thing.

Had she not seen a future where he was perfectly fine with her, just before arriving at the fairgrounds?

“I’m certain, I definitely saw that there would be no problem-”

And as she muttered with ragged breaths, Freugne suddenly seemed to realize the reason.

The future she had witnessed was, after all, the future that would occur if she had not witnessed it.

When playing hide-and-seek, if one knew the other’s location, it was only natural for one’s gaze to occasionally drift in that direction, no matter how hard one tried to feign ignorance.
And in reality, where variables were incomparably more numerous than a simple game of hide-and-seek, this was even more true.

If she had not seen a future where she and Edan were unharmed a month or even a year from now,
perhaps she would have suggested to Edan, out of concern, that they should not go anywhere this weekend. Edan, though reluctant, would have readily agreed and remained at home.

‘So, was it because of me…?’

This was a thought she could not bring herself to voice aloud.

While Freugne was no stranger to witnessing her own death, witnessing someone else’s, especially someone so close, was another matter entirely.

In her childhood, she had thought she would be able to calmly accept such a sight.
Since she had developed a certain immunity to the prospect of her own death, she had assumed she would be less affected by the deaths of others.

At least, that was what she had thought in the past.

Drip, drop

‘What is this, what’s happening?’

Her vision blurred slightly as tears streamed down her cheeks and fell to the ground – tears she had shed when facing her own impending death.

Rewinding the clock was unnecessary; the mere fact that she could no longer see or converse with someone she had been laughing and chatting with just a minute ago was terrifying in itself.

And what she hated most was her own powerlessness, unable to do anything throughout this entire process.

Had she not striven so hard to be able to confront such blatant dangers?
But how could she possibly prepare for unseen futures like this?

“The hell, why is this bastard here?”

“You know him, sir?”

“Chief Inspector, you shouldn’t move!”

“It’s nothing serious, Collock! His name was definitely Philip. I distinctly recall putting him behind bars not too long ago. Why is he here? Do you know anything about this?”

“No, sir, I haven’t heard anything either! Since there were no issues until we arrived at the fairgrounds today, it must have happened in between, but as for how…”

“Wait, there’s another casualty here!”

“Where, where is it?”

While it had been a relatively deserted street, the commotion would inevitably draw curious onlookers.
People who had been strolling nearby or closing up their shops began to gather one by one.

Indeed, there was nothing that could be done like this.
It was not enough to simply witness the future and respond accordingly. Even the slightest incident had to be brought under control.

And more urgently than that:

“…Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Edan.”

Leaving her hand applying pressure on the wound, Freugne directly chewed on the snacks herself.
What was the point of trying to force-feed him here? It would only result in choking and death.

While she knew that in such emergencies, it was best to leave it to professional doctors, no doctor in Londinium could possibly treat such a severe injury, with the heart grazed or pierced.

She felt no shame or hesitation.
She abandoned any thoughts of what might happen if this failed.

Freugne leaned closer to Edan’s mouth.

Maintaining a respectable distance befitting a mage, allowing preparation time, and prohibiting underhanded sneak attacks.

Excluding personal firearms as well, since even modified guns provide an unfair advantage in one-on-one combat.

It is pointless to invoke such standards typically applied to duels in reality.
Unfair as it may be, what can be done? When has the world ever been perfectly just?

In that sense, the game [Londinium Survival Log] is… let’s just call it a crappy game.
I diligently prepared to face the Demon Lord, meticulously raising my character, only to be unceremoniously killed by a single madman. The assessment of it being a crappy game is well-deserved.

At the very least, even if I die here, the ending credits of my life will be quite dazzling in their own way.

Name: Edan. Highest Education: Bachelor’s Degree.
Life Achievement: Invented the air conditioner. At the very least, I will have left my mark on history in some way. Unless the Demon Lord’s forces bury everything humanity has accomplished, that is.

But that remains to be seen. Perhaps I will miraculously survive this gunshot wound.

Having never contracted diseases like tetanus despite slicing my fingers with saws in unsanitary factories, I can attribute it to developing a robust immunity from my harsh childhood environment.
And since I have never suffered from metal fragments remaining in my wounds, I believe bullets too can be cleanly dealt with in a similar manner.

Of course, that assumes I can consume something.
Since the effect requires swallowing, it seems to presuppose reaching the stomach. For this, I can only rely on people well-acquainted with me, like Freugne or Professor Magni.

‘If not that, is there any other way to survive?’

Contemplating this life-or-death matter seriously, a nugget of knowledge about this game that I had never particularly considered suddenly surfaced.

‘What are the differences between Easy, Normal, and Hard modes? Do the enemies perhaps employ more advanced AI…?’

‘No, it’s not like that. The higher the difficulty, the stronger the enemy’s attack power becomes.’

‘What a crappy game. I should have expected as much.’

‘Are there any other differences?’

‘Chances. While human life is lived only once, why should games be restricted in the same way?’

It was a discussion about difficulty levels.

Since all three shared the same premise of humanity’s downfall as the game’s background setting, and the game company lacked the technological prowess to implement varying enemy AI, they differentiated the difficulty levels through another method.

‘In the most difficult mode, there are no chances.’

‘In the easiest mode, you get up to three. You’ll respawn on the spot with 10 seconds of invincibility, so if an enemy is nearby, just run away.’

And I had likely taken refuge in the so-called “super coward’s haven” known as Easy mode in most cases.

After all, I did not play games to endure stress, but for enjoyment.
Of course, now I wondered if anything might have been different had I enabled console cheats from the start, but dwelling on missed opportunities would only make me more miserable.

However, separate from the question of why such trivial thoughts were suddenly surfacing, there was one more nagging doubt.

‘…How am I thinking right now?’

It did not feel particularly profound, like an exaggerated mindscape depiction, and the surroundings seemed bleak.

After briefly composing myself, I finally realized that the flickering light at the edge of my vision was because my eyes were currently closed.
No matter how hard I tried to force my eyelids open, I could not muster the strength. While conscious, my body would not obey, as if pinned down by scissors.

To be precise, I should add the chilling sensation of a no longer beating heart to that stifling feeling.

But just as I was straining to move, it seemed an unidentified voice echoed in my mind.

‘You only have three chances.’

I felt my heart slowly begin to beat again.
Blood flowed back into my numb hands and feet, and from my fingertips, I could gradually regain control over my movements.

Like someone who had held their breath underwater for too long, or a newborn child taking their first breath in this world,
I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes.