The second day at the mansion began with magic.
Not dramatic magic.
Not "fireball obliterates mountain" magic.
No.
This was the deeply humiliating kind of magic where a grown man spends twenty minutes trying not to accidentally implode his internal mana circulation.
Roswaal stood across from me in the training room, arms folded inside his robes, looking painfully entertained.
"Againnn."
I exhaled slowly.
Controlled breathing.
Mana circulation.
Open Gate carefully.
Guide flow.
Do NOT panic.
Especially do not panic.
Because apparently mana responded poorly to panic.
Which was unfortunate for me personally.
A faint darkness gathered around my fingertips.
Cold.
Thin.
Unstable.
Roswaal smiled wider.
"Acceptable."
I focused harder.
The darkness spread outward in a small ripple—
"Shamak."
The room flickered.
A haze of distorted darkness expanded briefly across the floor before dissipating harmlessly.
No explosion.
No vomiting blood.
No shattered Gate.
Success.
I nearly cried from relief.
"I DID IT."
Roswaal clapped slowly.
"Ohohohoho... functional mediocrityyy."
"THAT COUNTS."
"It does."
Honestly?
Best compliment I'd received after coming here.
Though that was fake, I was pretty sure he had already checked the Gospel and saw something is wrong.
Unlike Subaru's first attempts at magic—which were basically magical self-harm speedruns—I was learning properly.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Terrifiedly.
And fear, it turned out, was an excellent motivator for not detonating your internal organs.
Roswaal stepped closer.
"Shamak is not meant to overpower opponents directlyyy."
He gestured lazily.
"It blinds. Disorients. Creates openings."
Tactical.
Controlled.
Useful for people who valued survival over heroics.
Perfect.
I nodded aggressively.
"So basically ninja smoke bomb magic."
Roswaal blinked once.
"...Sure."
Over the next two days, my routine stabilized.
Morning:
Magic lessons with Roswaal.
Afternoon:
Trying not to die from anxiety.
Evening:
Trying not to think about future arcs.
The last part was difficult because future arcs included:
Cults.
Whales.
Rabbits.
And emotional devastation.
So naturally—
I ignored all of that and focused entirely on surviving Arc 2.
Which unfortunately brought me to today's problem:
The village trip.
The moment Emilia casually mentioned visiting Irlam Village after lunch, my soul immediately attempted to evacuate my body.
"Oh!" Emilia said brightly. "You should come with us today."
I froze mid-drink.
Puck noticed instantly.
"...Why does he look like he just saw his own funeral?"
Because I basically had.
The dog.
The tiny fluffy satan dog.
The adorable little Mabeast puppy carrying death curses like biological landmines.
Subaru got bitten there.
Then spent several loops dying horribly because nobody realized he was cursed.
Meanwhile I had:
No Return by Death.
No loops.
No spare lives.
And exactly zero intention of getting infected by demonic puppy malware.
Still—
I couldn't refuse.
Because if I stayed behind?
The curse still happens.
Someone still dies.
Probably children.
And unfortunately, since I am a 'Prophet', this status makes me not adopt the status of:
Guy Who Allowed Child Massacre To Preserve HP
Very inconvenient status.
So now—
I was walking toward Irlam Village alongside Emilia, Rem, Ram, and several villagers.
Completely terrified.
The village looked peaceful.
Children ran through the streets laughing.
Villagers waved warmly at Emilia.
Everything looked wholesome enough to qualify for a fantasy tourism brochure.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because I knew there was a hidden death beast somewhere nearby disguised as a puppy.
And I was scanning the crowd with the intensity of a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
Rem noticed.
"You seem tense."
"I am always tense."
Ram nodded immediately.
"True."
At least she understood me.
Then—
I saw it.
Small.
Brown.
Fluffy.
Running between children harmlessly.
The puppy.
My entire nervous system activated like someone pulled a fire alarm directly inside my spine.
"THERE IT IS."
The children laughed as it bounced around them innocently.
One little girl picked it up happily.
And every survival instinct I possessed screamed:
DO NOT TOUCH THAT THING.
I knew better.
Because unlike everyone else here—
I knew the future.
Or at least enough of it to be dangerous.
My eyes remained locked on the puppy.
There you are.
The world's cutest murder attempt.
Emilia noticed my expression immediately.
"You've been staring at that dog for several minutes."
"Because it's evil."
"...It's a puppy."
"It's an evil puppy."
Puck floated beside her.
"I think you've officially become paranoid."
"I prefer 'survival-oriented.'"
The puppy looked directly at me.
For a brief second, its eyes felt wrong.
Predatory.
Hungry.
Ancient.
Then the illusion vanished.
The children continued laughing.
And I continued sweating.
Because I wasn't trying to decide whether to expose the Mabeast.
I was trying to decide whether to go through with something incredibly stupid.
Something I knew would hurt.
Something that might cripple me.
Something that, unfortunately, made sense.
Because of Subaru.
A memory surfaced.
Not from my life.
From the anime.
Subaru had been cursed by these things.
Everyone remembered the curse almost killing him.
Almost nobody paid attention to what happened afterward.
The curse never truly disappeared.
It lingered.
Dormant.
Inactive.
Like magical scar tissue buried inside his body.
And much later—
When another blood curse tried to affect him—
The dormant dog curses interfered.
The systems clashed.
The damage was reduced.
A bug in the world's magic.
A software conflict.
An exploit.
My expression twisted.
Subaru accidentally discovered it.
And now I'm about to intentionally install malware into my own body.
A sane person would never do this.
Unfortunately—
A sane person wouldn't be living in Re:Zero with Emilia.
I took a deep breath.
Then started walking toward the puppy.
Emilia blinked.
"Hm?"
Puck tilted his head.
"Oh no."
"What?"
"That's the look you get before doing something catastrophic."
"Fair."
The puppy trotted toward me.
Closer.
Closer.
I stopped a few feet away.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Every instinct screamed at me to back away.
To run.
To let Rem handle it.
But I knew exactly what would happen if I did.
The Mabeast would still curse someone.
Maybe a child.
Maybe multiple children.
And I'd lose my one chance to exploit the future.
One bite.
Kill the source immediately.
Dormant curse acquired.
Future curse resistance unlocked.
Probably.
I immediately hated every word in that sentence.
The puppy lowered itself.
Its muscles tensed.
It knew.
Somehow, it knew I had seen through it.
The creature lunged.
Pain exploded through my left hand.
Its teeth sank into flesh.
Hot.
Sharp.
Deep.
Children screamed.
Emilia gasped.
Puck shot upward.
And I pointed directly at the puppy.
"THAT'S A MABEAST!"
The disguise shattered.
Corrupted mana burst outward.
The puppy's body twisted grotesquely.
Fur darkened.
Limbs elongated.
Its jaw split apart with a horrifying screech.
The village square erupted into chaos.
Rem moved instantly.
No hesitation.
No confusion.
Her morningstar flashed through the air.
CRASH.
The transformed beast slammed into the ground.
CRUNCH.
The second strike crushed its skull.
Dead.
Immediately dead.
For one glorious second—
I thought it worked.
Then my arm exploded with agony.
The bite mark burned.
Then froze.
Then burned again.
I looked down.
Black veins were spreading outward from the wound.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Steady.
Like cracks spreading through ice.
My stomach dropped.
...Oh.
Right.
Consequences.
The world tilted.
My body hit the ground.
A wave of freezing pain surged through every nerve simultaneously.
It felt like liquid winter was being poured directly into my veins.
My muscles seized.
My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
I heard Emilia shouting my name.
Heard villagers screaming.
Heard Rem running toward me.
But the sounds were becoming distant.
Muted.
As if I were sinking underwater.
The black veins crawled further up my arm.
The curse was dead.
The caster was dead.
The kill command had failed.
But the curse itself remained.
Trapped.
Dormant.
Alive enough to hurt.
Not alive enough to finish the job.
All according to keikaku.
Translator's Note: Keikaku means plan.
Translator's Note 2: I was actively being poisoned while thinking this.
Unfortunately—
"All according to keikaku" hurt far more than expected.
My vision blurred.
The cold spread deeper.
Into my shoulder.
Into my chest.
Into my bones.
And as darkness swallowed the world, one final thought crossed my mind.
Please let this be future-proofing and not the dumbest thing I've ever done.