Hesitantly— I inched forward.

  With shaking, frightened movements, I cautiously turned him over as if I was touching a corpse.

  His body slumped over like a motionless doll, and a renewed stream of blood spurted out of his abdomen. I flinched reflexively, half thinking that he would cry out in pain, groan, or move a limb. However, there was no response from him. There wasn't even the slightest reaction. For that matter, I wasn't even sure if he was breathing, and I was too scared to get close enough to find out.

  All I could see was the continuous flow of blood steadily draining from that gaping hole.

  My eyes had turned completely bnk.

  It sort of felt like I had dissociated from my body, as if this was some type of mental firewall that my brain had thrown up to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the sudden onset of psychological trauma. It was something like watching myself in the third person, or pying a video game where I was controlling myself as a character.

  There was noticeable g between my thoughts and actions, and it felt like every input that I sent into the game console was put through a filter that subtly changed the final response of my avatar. Video game dialogue was particurly frustrating like this. There were only four choices that your character could say, but it was never precisely what you truly wanted.

  For example, currently I was putting my hands on top of Kang Jiesu's abdomen and desperately applying pressure to the bleeding wound.

  —I didn't tell myself to do that.

  I didn't want to touch anything scary, frightening, or repulsive.

  His guts were hot, warm, and mushy like a pot of cooked spaghetti with too much meat sauce.

  + + +

  ...

  I hated this.

  I hated this so much.

  I hated everything about this.

  This isekai setting was stupid. I hated it.

  Didn't God reincarnate us in order to give us a better life?

  This felt like a complete betrayal. It was too cruel. Why would God do this? We were just a bunch of high school kids.

  I didn't want to live in a universe where horrible things kept happening in front of me.

  + + +

  There was a sudden ctter of metal on the floor.

  With my arms deep in Kang Jiesu's warm guts, I didn't have any spare hands. The bangs of my untied hair, now sticky and stained with red, had gotten in the way of my eyes like a forest full of hanging vines. I didn't have the luxury to brush it out of the way, and I could barely see anything through my thick clumps of hair.

  And it didn't help that my vision was already blurry to begin with.

  That being said, a fuzzy warm golden glow began to illuminate all of my surroundings.

  ...Did I get something strange stuck in my eyes?

  I squeezed my eyelids shut and tried to rub my face against my elbows so I could see more clearly.

  + + +

  A Little Urban Legend

  Some people called it the sword that existed before all swords.

  Since it existed in a time before swords, it wasn't a sword at all. In fact it was an un-sword, or the perhaps the opposite of a sword. Still, people called it the ultimate sword of all swords, because it was an infinite number of times better than a sword. Why would you need a sword if you had the un-sword? It was nothing like a sword and in fact it was terrible at being a sword. Still, it could defeat any sword.

  The unbeatable unusable impractical ideal sword.

  The only relevant sword that made things irrelevant.

  A highly logical illogical sword.

  —A brilliant shining sword.

  + + +

  I stared at that monstrosity of a glowing metal stick.

  While I had never seen anything like it before, I could only think of one item that fit that kind of description.

  「Excalibur」— the legendary wish-granting sword that always fulfilled the wielder's deepest desires.

  It had fallen out of the closet where Kang Jiesu had appeared from.

  ...Did he have it with him this entire time?

  + + +

  I reached out to grab the hilt, but the sword itself seemed to mock me.

  My hand passed straight though the shining handle, as if I was grabbing at air. The sword was completely intangible, and it was impossible for me to touch it. I frantically tried to reach for it, there was no way for me to pick it up.

  My heart instantly turned bck.

  —Was this some kind of shitty joke?

  Why?

  Why Why Why?!

  Why couldn't I use the sword?!

  This was seriously too much for me to handle.

  I wanted to cry.

  In fact, I had already burst into tears.

  As I raked my brain, I recalled that there was some kind of prophecy. The King had mentioned some kind of summoning ritual. Stel and the Prime Minister had mentioned it could only be used by a Hero. There were clearly multiple criteria, but I never paid attention to the myths and legends closely enough to remember the exact details. I was never a spiritual person, and I never believed in luck, fate, or karma. As a rationalist, that kind of stuff didn't seem real. To me, it seemed dumb and nonsensical for a ruler to blindly count on a fairy tale to bring about Deus Ex Machina, and I discounted that type of wishful and irrational thinking from the beginning.

  Was this my punishment?

  I had underestimated the holy sword.

  The shining light began to fade, and the metal started to the dissolve in the air.

  Heartbroken, I watched the one thing that could possibly help me...... slowly disappear into nothingness.

  ?