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I looked at the dice that had been handed to me, and sure enough, it had the numbers 1 through 6 written on it. It wasn’t like the strange ones you see on variety shows, and as I held it in my hand, I didn’t think it was rigged either. That meant a maximum of six people could be saved.

“So six max?”
“That’s right. People in this world don’t exactly have a good image of God. And while I, as a Demigod, have some leeway in saving them, for those of you who aren’t Demigods, this is about as much as God can permit.”
“But why a dice?”
“Do you know what a TRPG is¹?”
“I’ve heard the term.”

I had basically always been alone, and the very idea of working together with someone, or even talking to someone while doing something, felt terrifying to me. I didn’t know much about TRPGs. To me, they were just some group activities for social butterflies.

“What a coincidence. I, too, don’t know much about them. I was always alone, you see. So, when I asked God why he’d chosen this, he said that it would be fun to leave it up to chance like in some kind of TRPG. And so we’re here. There’s not much I can do from here on out. That being said, please hurry up and throw it. It won’t do well for either you or me to stay here any longer.”

Toriyama was urging me, but I found myself hesitating. The idea that this one throw would determine how many lives I could save was weighing on me. I knew this was an opportunity. We had gone from a situation where we couldn’t help anyone to one where we could save at least one person. That alone should’ve made me happy. But even if we could save six people, would we be able to choose them?

Choosing to help six people meant bearing the responsibility of abandoning countless others. My hands trembled at the thought. Honestly, I would’ve felt more at ease if I had rolled a zero. But there was no zero on the dice, and even if there had been, wishing for it wouldn’t have been right.

This one chance was a gift from Toriyama, who gave up one of his wishes for us. No, that wasn’t quite it. Saving us had likely cost Toriyama another wish, meaning he’d given up two of his wishes on us. From what I’d found out, there were six spirits in total. That meant a maximum of six wishes could be granted, and already two of them had been spent on us. One-third of them, gone.

I couldn’t let that go to waste. Even thinking that way, I still found it hard to throw. I looked at Michihisa with a desperate look, but he shook his head slowly, as if to say he couldn’t interfere.

The fact that Toriyama had given me the dice in the first place meant I was the one who had to roll it.

I steadied my mind and clenched my trembling hands. I forced myself to ignore the loud pounding of my heart and rolled the dice. I threw it as far as I could, where I wouldn’t see the result right away. It was just one roll, but I had never felt so nauseous in my life.

The dice left my hand and rolled across the ground with a soft sound before coming to a stop in the distance. I could only close my eyes and pray while Toriyama went to check the result.

“I see, I see. The number that came up is 3. So, you can choose three people to save.”
“Three…”

It was good that it wasn’t the lowest, but it wasn’t exactly a number to celebrate, either. I didn’t quite know how to respond².

“Well then, it seems our time has run out. You two should use stealth to hide yourselves. Oh, and as for the three people you want to save, just pray to God nicely and tell him who they are. Goodbye.”
“Ah! Toriyama, wait a…”

Before I could stop him, Toriyama vanished. At that exact moment, I heard several footsteps echoing from the passageway behind us. Maybe this time, the castle guards had finally broken in.

I signaled to Michihisa with my eyes, and we hid as best we could. Getting ambushed in a narrow hallway would’ve left us with no escape. Here, at least, we had a bit more space, and by waiting for them here, we could think of a way to escape.

There were things I wanted to talk to Michihisa about, but surviving the situation came first. So I held my breath and waited to see what would happen.

◇◇◇

After some time passed, the stairs, which had been so noisy when Toriyama ascended them, were now silent. Michihisa, who had been curious about the situation, had already gone to check. My stealth was an imitation created with Jack of All Trades, so it wasn’t as good as Michihisa’s. In times like these, I had to rely on him.

Michihisa returned a short time later, saying, “It seems to be all right now.”
“Did Toriyama do something?”
“Probably. There was a lot of blood on the stairs. So much so that one would think that people had died there.”
“I see. Well, that makes sense.”

I was sure that Toriyama had acted as a decoy. If he went out boldly, pretending to be the one who had stolen the spirit, all the attention would naturally fall on him. For someone as strong as Toriyama, he wouldn’t have a hard time taking down some of his pursuers.

However, this was a school. Finding the body of a castle soldier in a place not normally associated with such conflicts would be a problem. They would’ve likely collected the bodies right away.

“Let’s go back while hiding.”
“Yeah.”

We exchanged a few words and headed for the stairs. The stairway to the basement was poorly ventilated, smelled of blood, and was overall unpleasant. If I were still the girl who’d escaped from Fraus, I would’ve felt sick and probably would’ve sat down just from the smell.

But now I could somehow endure. Perhaps it helped that the darkness made it hard to see the blood clearly, but when I thought about it, I realized I really had been through a lot.

Luckily, the end was already in sight. While I believed we were fortunate to be in this position, I somehow didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment.

1. Robinxen: Do you know what a tabeltop rpg is? What kind of question is this. Do people exist who have never played a board game?
2. Robinxen: I would have a hard time if someone asked me to choose three people from my life to save too honestly…

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