13. Instant Death Resistance

"Uh, so I sneak up close—full stealth skill active—within about thirty meters, hit him a few times with Stone Balls to the head. Secure the corpse in my inventory, then bolt immediately. That’s the plan, right?"

Shiro confirmed the steps.

"Yes. Please be careful."

Mitoka vanished in a blink.

Shiro tried to calm himself, despite his heart pounding from tension. He’d thought this should be a quick, clean operation.

Then, for a split second, he felt a sudden warmth surge through his body. Huh? he wondered, just as an announcement flooded his mind.

——『【Hyper Memory】 has reached Level 4』

——『【Intuition】 Level 1 acquired』

——『【Premonition】 Level 1 acquired』

"Huh?"

Shiro flinched at the sudden mental alert.

"What the hell? Why am I suddenly getting new skills all of a sudden?"

"…Shiro, I have a bad feeling," Mitoka appeared, her voice low and tense, her expression uneasy as if she’d just noticed something.

"Premonition? You can do that too? Wait—wasn’t that one of the skills? I think the trigger for Premonition-type abilities is…?"

He paused mid-thought.

"Wait… no way. Did I just… die once?" Shiro muttered, half-astonished.

"Possible. The 【Hyper Memory】 skill level wasn’t high enough to fully preserve the memory. Some data was lost during the transition."

"…I see," Shiro nodded, accepting it.

He was surprised at how calm he was about the idea of having possibly died—but then again, it was just a guess. Without real feeling, it was hard to believe.

Shiro was oddly impressed by the realization that came with the skill acquisition announcement—designer or not, you couldn’t truly grasp it without experiencing it firsthand.

“【Premonition】 is tied to the world’s time control current pointer. 【Intuition】 is an advanced version of neural simulation. Something’s about to happen. Or has already happened… Either way, Shiro doesn’t yet have any time-space-related skills, so why he’s gained these now remains unclear.”

“So, in other words, maybe this Black Horn Rabbit is even more dangerous than we thought. Or—no, probably not even *maybe*. It’s definitely more dangerous.”

“Indeed. Better safe than sorry. Trust your 【Premonition】 and 【Intuition】 skills. Always be ready to dodge anything, anytime.”

Yeah, that’s true—no telling what’ll happen. Still, Shiro began moving toward the Black Horn Rabbit.

Three of them, no—given their size, better to say three individuals. One was slightly smaller and separated from the other two. Shiro zeroed in on that one.

Trusting his stealth skill, he crept forward, slowly, carefully. When he got within thirty meters, the scale of the Black Horn Rabbit struck him as absurdly disproportionate.

“Whoa, this is kind of surreal,” Shiro muttered, backing up slightly, preparing to cast a spell.

Got it—now. Shiro activated 【Stone Ball】. The moment he focused on the projectile in flight, a sharp, intense premonition flared in his gut, and without thinking, he leapt sideways to his right.

From the side, a sharp *hiss* cut through the air—a black horn rabbit lunging straight at Shiro. Shiro caught sight of it, instinctively trying to dodge, but at that instant, a searing pain shot through his left arm. The impact of the collision sent him flying to the right.

“Uwah!” Shiro cried out, unable to hold back the scream.

“Shiro, dangerous!” Mitoka shouted.

Shiro glanced down at his own arm—his vision filled with the black horn rabbit, its horn deeply gouging the upper arm, then continuing straight forward.

“If my premonition skill hadn’t triggered, I’d have been dead. Hell, I’m still dead!”

Shiro shouted.

Realizing the situation was dire, he tried to stand—but the black horn rabbit lunged again in an instant.

Shiro registered it—“Stone Shield…”—and began to activate the barrier—when agony exploded through his body.

“Ugh.”

He turned his gaze down at his own form—his vision filled with the horn piercing straight through his abdomen.

“Huh… why?”

Shiro muttered, disbelief frozen on his lips.

At that moment, the black horn rabbit shook its head. The force swung Shiro’s body violently through the air, sending him crashing into a tree twenty meters away, then tumbling to the ground.

“Guh… cough…”

Blood trickled from Shiro’s mouth as his vision blurred.

—No way… am I really dying this easily?

He thought it, then blacked out.

—‘Fatal injury confirmed. Activating 【Instant Death Resistance】. Confirming user is 【Apostle】. Confirming 【Instant Death Resistance】 is at maximum level. Executing 【Rollback】.’

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