Chapter 2: There's No Way I Could Leave Riona Behind and Run Away

After a little while, I finally left the shopping mall and started heading home. I’d apparently stayed longer than I’d expected, because it was already getting late in the afternoon.

Since the shopping mall was located right in front of the station, the area was pretty crowded. The streets were packed with people who looked like they were either finishing up their club activities or heading home from work.

For now, once I got home, I planned to lie down on my bed and read the light novels I’d just bought.

As for my weekend assignments, I could easily finish those on Sunday, so I’d leave them for later.

I was thinking about that as I waited for the traffic light to change, standing in line with the other pedestrians at the crosswalk, when a sudden, piercing scream rang out nearby.

“KYAAAAAA!”

I turned toward the sound and saw a man dressed entirely in black, with his hood pulled over his head. He looked a little older than me, and he was slashing a woman across the arm with a knife.

I couldn’t tell whether he was drunk or high on some kind of dangerous drug, but he was clearly not in his right mind. The woman’s scream was like a trigger, and the entire area immediately descended into chaos.

The scene had turned into complete pandemonium, and there was no telling when the man might attack me next. If I didn’t get out of there quickly, I could very well end up getting killed.

“D-Don’t come any closer!”

But then I heard a familiar voice nearby. Despite being in a situation where my own life was in danger, I instinctively stopped in my tracks.

I looked in the direction of the voice, and to my surprise, I saw Tsurugi Riona, the girl whose pencil case I’d picked up just a few hours earlier, and her older sister, Tsurugi Reona. Unfortunately, it seemed the two of them had gotten caught up in this incident as well.

“R-Riona! Get up, quickly!”

“…I’m sorry. My legs have given out. I don’t think I can stand. Just leave me here and get away, at least, Onee-chan.”

“There’s no way I could leave you behind and run away!”

Apparently, the younger sister had become too frightened to move. And to make matters worse, the man hadn’t missed his opportunity. Still acting strangely, he had now locked onto the two sisters as his next targets.

While he was focused on them, I could escape. Given the circumstances, surely nobody would blame me for abandoning them.

“Someone… Please save Riona…”

But even after hearing that faint, almost vanishing plea from nearby, I found myself completely unable to choose to abandon the two of them.

There was a very real possibility that today could end up being the day I died. But if I left them here, I’d definitely regret it for the rest of my life.

And besides, even if I did end up dying, I’d be going out protecting two beautiful girls. That would make me incredibly cool, wouldn’t it?

With that thought in mind, I charged at the man from the side, throwing my entire body weight into a tackle just as he was about to bring his knife down.

“…Thank goodness. I somehow made it in time.”

The two girls looked at me as though I were their savior, but it was too early to relax.

The man hadn’t uttered a single word, but he was clearly furious at having been knocked aside. After regaining his footing, he turned his attention to me and charged.

I somehow managed to hold out against his relentless attacks, dodging his wild knife swings and using my bag as a shield to block them. But I didn’t think I could keep this up for much longer.

Fortunately, it seemed I’d managed to buy enough time. The police officers who had rushed to the scene after receiving an emergency call finally arrived.

“This is the police! Stop resisting and drop your weapon on the ground immediately!”

At that point, surely everyone thought the man would finally surrender.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what happened.

Realizing that he was at a disadvantage, the man suddenly changed targets. He went after the younger Tsurugi sister, who was still sitting on the ground with her legs too weak to stand.

Knowing that this was bad, I instinctively threw myself between the two sisters and the man.

At that very moment, an excruciating, burning pain shot through my back.

“AGHHHHH!”

The pain of being stabbed in the back with a knife was far beyond anything I’d ever imagined.

Ah… I might actually die here.

But if my life was the price for saving those two, then I guess that was fine.

If I got another life after this, I wanted to be reincarnated into a fantasy world of swords and magic, where I could go all out with overpowered cheat abilities and finally live a life where I was popular with girls.

Those were the ridiculous thoughts running through my mind as my consciousness slowly began to fade.