Prologue

"Souls Light Nobly", commonly called Sourai, was a manga filled with depressing elements.

The main plot was standard fare. A boy grows stronger to protect his precious childhood friend and fights against an evil organization called the Vanguard Church.

However, the journey there was incredibly harsh.

He'd be tortured by his enemies just for their amusement. His childhood friend's family would be killed without her ever knowing. The other companions all had heavy pasts of their own. The world was brutal to begin with, so events like these happened constantly.

The faces of despair and tearful expressions rendered in the manga's beautiful art style were drawn with such passion that readers often remarked you could tell the author's preferences. Online, people went so far as to say, "The author of Sourai draws manga just to cloud pretty girls' expressions."

That was part of the manga's charm, but even so, I'd often thought, "Can't this world be just a little kinder…?"

Yes—I'd thought of it as someone else's problem.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Ahh, it's over…"

In an instant, I understood that I had come to the world of "Souls Light Nobly".

It felt as though information had been hammered directly into my brain. Most likely, when my consciousness entered this body, the body's memories flowed into me at the same time.

… Hard to believe, but that was the only explanation.

This was the world of "Souls Light Nobly"—a manga filled with depressing developments.

The surroundings were a dense, gloomy forest. Night had already fallen. Without a single streetlight, this place was quite literally pitch black.

Naturally, there wasn't a person in sight. Instead, I could hear wolves growling in the distance.

In the Sourai world, areas uninhabited by humans were dangerous places crawling with monsters.

A lone girl in a place like this—it was only a matter of time before she'd be attacked.

That's right. I, who should have been lounging around in modern society according to my memories, had ended up in a girl's body.

Normally, I'd want to mourn my lost companion or check what my new body looked like, but right now my life was in danger. There were more pressing matters.

I already knew this body's name. The information hammered into my brain naturally included details about her.

Her name was Bloom. And since she was a character from the manga, I already knew her abilities to some extent.

"Bloom's power is… ah, she's already borrowed the Soul Reaping arts…"

The contract with the Death God had apparently already been completed.

My shoulders slumped as I realized my survival rate had just dropped even further.

Bloom—meaning the current me—wielded the Soul Reaping arts. It was a power granted by the Death God that built upon and enhanced Bloom's original ability, her Soullight.

This power specialized in guiding others to death. In the original work, it was so powerful that she was nearly unbeatable in one-on-one combat.

The price was that the more you used it, the closer you yourself drew to death.

"Those who deal in death will eventually be captivated by it, and in the end, choose death themselves."

In the original story, Bloom's mind deteriorated more and more each time she used her power.

Every time she appeared before the protagonists, her complexion grew worse, the cuts on her wrists multiplied, strangulation marks appeared on her neck—and by the final battle, she had completely lost her sanity and was spouting incoherent nonsense.

After many fierce battles with the protagonists, Bloom ultimately slit her own throat.

She left both the protagonists and us readers with an extremely bitter aftertaste.

"No, I absolutely don't want to use a power like this… Ending my own life by slicing open my own neck? Absolutely not…"

However, this world wasn't kind enough to wait for my hesitation.

"—"

Before I knew it, a monster had appeared before me.

An amorphous, viscous creature. A slime.

While slimes were often classified as the weakest monsters, in the Sourai world, they were not to be underestimated.

Unless you destroyed the core inside its body, it wouldn't stop moving. And once it got close, it would absorb you into itself and dissolve you with digestive fluid.

I couldn't imagine dealing with this using Bloom's delicate body.

It seemed I had no choice but to use the power.

"—Let the invitation of death be here."

When I spoke the cursed words, I felt power welling up from within my chest.

It seemed I could draw out Bloom's Soullight without issue.

Soullight was the miraculous power of converting the soul's radiance into strength. It was fundamental to this story.

"Death God's Scythe—Soul Taker."

When I spoke the name that surfaced in my mind, a large scythe materialized in my hands.

The jet-black handle was longer than Bloom was tall. The massive blade curved like a crescent moon, as if eagerly awaiting prey to reap.

Faced with the thing closest to death in this world—the Death God's Scythe—even the supposedly mindless slime trembled, its gelatinous body quivering as if in fear.

The Death God's Scythe was a tool personally crafted by the Death God to reap lives.

If its blade severed a neck, it would completely sever that being's connection to this world.

Immortal bodies, miracles of resurrection, the tricks of time leaps—all were powerless before this blade.

Absolute death. That was the true nature of Bloom's power.

I swung the scythe straight down at the slime's core.

With a quiet slicing sound, the slime burst apart.

Its core severed in a single strike, the slime met complete and utter death in an instant.

"Phew…"

Confirming this, I released the tension from my body and let out a sigh of relief.

When I deactivated the power, the scythe vanished on the spot.

Once all that was done, I suddenly noticed something.

"… Huh, there's no backlash from the power…?"

I couldn't feel the adverse effects I'd feared.

In the original work, Bloom's power would severely drain her each time she used it, sometimes even driving her to self-harm.

I examined my inner state.

The moment I summoned the scythe, I had certainly felt as though death was right before my eyes.

If this followed the manga, my mind should be gradually eroded by that strange allure, but…

"—Ah, so that's how it is."

In the original, the more Bloom used her power, the less she could resist her longing for death.

Death is something unknown that the living have never experienced.

Perhaps death would bring salvation. Perhaps you could be reborn as a new self.

Such faint hopes set one's heart ablaze—and that was precisely why death held a mysterious allure for the living.

What drew the living most strongly to death was, in the end, its rarity as "something no one has experienced."

Because no one knew what lay beyond, people could find hope in it.

—But I, having died once, already knew.

Death was simply nothingness.

The end of life. Nothing lay beyond.

You merely watched as your sense of self faded away, as if it were happening to someone else.

Salvation, heaven, hell, the next life, judgment, reincarnation—none of it was relevant.

The self ends with death.

In that moment of fading consciousness, I had become certain of this.

That was why my current self was already someone different from who I had been in my previous life.

"Death's Allure won't work on me, Death God."

If that was the case, then Bloom's ability—the Soul Reaping arts—had no drawback for me.

The disease of being captivated by death, eventually leading one to seek their own demise. The cursed power that drew you closer to death the more you wielded it.

It wouldn't work on someone who had already experienced death.

"… Ahh, I thought this was the worst-case scenario, but maybe it's not so bad after all."

With this, I could ignore the mental side effects of the Soul Reaping arts.

Using this power, I might be able to do what I wanted to do.

Unable to suppress the impulse welling up from within, I murmured:

"—With this, I can watch my favorite ship to my heart's content."

"—Huh, your favorite ship…?" I thought I heard the Death God's bewildered murmur from somewhere.