Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Hahahahahahahaha——～

The laughing children have already gone far away.

The naughty child who had been punished simply floated quietly.

Click——click——

It seems like some sound is quietly rising again.

Click——click——

On his arm, where the skin and flesh were rotting from being soaked, a black watch trembled slightly.

Click——click——

The single pointer suddenly began to tremble.

Starting from the 0 point mark.

It slowly moved from that unchanging mark.

In this dark red liquid, in this blood-soaked environment, it finally began to move forward.

Click!

A crisp sound suddenly rang out.

The hands of the black watch moved from 0 to 1.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Let's start from scratch here!

where is this place?

The last memory is of endless pain and a near-maddening despair.

And when the pain ends, what you feel is an endless fall, plummeting into infinite darkness towards an unknown bottom.

Until the body touched something.

Perhaps it's the ground?

Another nightmare perhaps?

Until consciousness awakens again from the chaos.

Until I opened my eyes again and looked around.

What I saw was a brightly lit city.

Pedestrians walked back and forth on the street, wearing all sorts of clothes and showing all sorts of expressions.

Cars drive by silently, stopping at traffic lights or moving forward.

The tall billboards lit up with colorful lights, casting a somewhat psychedelic glow.

Under the cover of night, everything appeared to be in perfect order.

This place seems to be a bustling metropolis, an ordinary big city with nothing particularly special about it.

It's just that I can't hear anything.

Gao Hai, standing in the center of the city square, simply couldn't hear anything.

He opened his mouth, smiled, and spoke.

The car's lights came on, flashed, and maybe even honked?

The images in the advertisement kept changing; I wonder if any corresponding sounds were played.

Gao Hai was unable to hear any of this.

This is a quiet city.

A city so quiet it's almost deathly still, devoid of any sound.

Where exactly is this place?

Why can't I hear any sound?

"what……"

In his hazy state of consciousness, Gao Hai unconsciously made a sound.

It was very clear; he could hear his own voice immediately.

Then he realized that he could still hear sounds.

He simply couldn't hear the sounds of the city, that's all.

【…】

Everyone on the street stopped in their tracks.

All the cars that were moving stopped at that moment.

Even the figures on the billboards stopped what they were doing and turned to look.

"This isn't a city..."

As Gao Hai gradually regained consciousness, he looked around again amidst his murmured voice.

Corpses lay scattered on the ground, their terrified expressions still frozen, yet the ground was already covered in dark red blood.

The crimson color gradually covered the sky, as if the sky reflected the color of the ground, spreading this foul-smelling light.

Flames erupted in the shattered city, and in the ruins, there was no longer any sound of life struggling.

Life here has long since died out.

Everything has been sacrificed.

It's all over now.

It's all over now.

They're just waiting for their next target...

when!

The crisp sound of a bell rang out on one side of this desolate city.

Gao Hai looked up at the source of the sound and saw the huge clock tower and the black hands that slowly moved from the 12 o'clock position to the 1 o'clock position.

In that instant, Gao Hai suddenly felt something being taken away from him. It was as if things that originally belonged to him, like his fingers and eyeballs, his heart and blood vessels, no longer completely belonged to him from this moment on.

when! !

As the bell rang a second time, Gao Hai reached out and gently covered his ears.

He gradually came to understand.

I understand what happened to me and what I will face.

"Are there... 11 more times?"

He was allowed 11 more lives before the pointer reached its end.

So that's how it is.

Even if you die, you can come back.

Even if everything is beyond repair, he can turn things around and start anew.

He has 11 remaining attempts. Before the number reaches zero and the pointer completes a full rotation, he has 11 chances to start over from scratch.

When he has used up all his chances, this phantom-like, eerie city will no longer be a phantom, but a grave that will keep him there forever, giving him no chance to escape, becoming his final destination.

when! ! !

The third chime rang out loudly.

Gao Hai had already raised his head and looked around, at the people who were strolling back as if they were still alive, at this city that he didn't know where he was, that was actually dead, but that was still pretending to be alive.

"So, after all this time, my protagonist's cheat code only activates after I die once?"

Gao Hai chuckled softly.

They struggled desperately for so long.

Ultimately, however, they were helpless and faced total annihilation.

But at this final moment, an opportunity to start over has arrived.

What? Don't you think this kind of plot development is cliché?

"To be honest, I don't really like stories of dramatic reversals, but since it happened to me, I'll just accept it."

"After all, even a cruel hope is still hope."

I feel like I'm being a bit of a 486 (idiot).

But even a protagonist like Subaru doesn't have a fixed number of save points, and he's sent away once he runs out of save points, right?

Of course, that kind of thing is no longer important.

All he had to do was change everything that had happened before.

The blood-red city gradually melted away.

Everything is turning to darkness.

He knew this was a sign that he was about to start anew.

"I don't like anything profound or melancholic, nor do I like the pretentious dark or cruel style."

Gao Hai said to himself, as if he wanted to imprint these words into his consciousness.

"Especially those things that die for the sake of dying, and those who deliberately kill their sisters to prove their path, I find them all disgusting."

"Isn't it enough to just have some simple, happy, and heartwarming scenes? Bad guys get the punishment they deserve, and good guys get the good things they deserve. So what if it sounds a little unrealistic? What's wrong with making yourself happy?"

"Damn it, it's just some weird fantasy about rules, right? Bring it on! I'm going to create a happy world without Gen Urobuchi and that guy from the riverbank!!!"

The darkness receded at that moment.

A familiar, stale smell spread.