Transmigrated As The Final Villain of a Death Game-Chapter 172: Fateful Encounter [ 2 ]

"Who are you...?"

"I... This isn’t how it played out."

I tilted my head slightly.

"And how did it play out, exactly?"

He flinched slightly and quickly reached for his scythe.

Before he could grab it, I gently kicked his side. Blood flowed out of his mouth as he shriveled up and gasped for air.

I just stared at him for a few moments.

Judging by how I could basically read all his thoughts based off just his expression, I was now 100% sure that I was right.

This really is the trickster.

Just half a year before he met Kevin.

But something was probably wrong with his Gift. After all, he was someone who would know everything and anything because he could just regress 1 hour with all his information intact.

So for him to not see this coming...

Just what’s going on?

"Argh... What do you want from me? Damn bastards, I knew I should’ve just gone back home..."

I shrugged.

"Tell me your name for starters."

He glanced back up at me and wiped the blood off his lips.

"It’s Rain. How do you know me?"

"I’ve heard rumors. Or maybe I just go up to every single person and ask whether or not they’re a regressor~? Who knows, right?"

Rain’s brows twitched as he turned to Clementine, as if seeking her input in all of this.

Although she was confused and didn’t know the whole story, she said:

"I can assure you Amon’s not going to hurt you. Regression is when you go back in time, right? If that’s really your Gift, then you’re the best person to have in a crisis. So yes, you’re safe."

Giving Clementine a nod of approval, I turned to Rain.

"Like she said, I won’t be doing anything to you. But damn, I never expected to see you without your mask and stupid red cape. It sure is reassuring to see that you’re just a normal person."

Rain grumbled and finally stood up. He calmly reached for his scythe, pulled it out of the ground, and then stashed it away inside his dimensional ring.

It looked like he finally accepted the fact that I actually didn’t want to hurt him.

Though...

"You’re not making any sense."

"I know, but it doesn’t matter. What do you say to joining us?"

"So far, it’s only me and Clementine. We’ll get an old coot called Vincent soon, so if you accept now, you’ll be our third member."

The group name was pretty much a work in progress, so I didn’t even mention it.

Our goal was very simple on the surface.

Reach the ending and save this world from the demons.

At my proposal, Rain deadpanned:

"Is that it? I mean, I’m flattered and everything, but I don’t have the time to join whatever group you got going. I’m plenty busy back home."

"Also, I’m not really that keen on running around with people whose bounties could fund like 10,000 orphanages for several decades."

Orphanages?

What an odd comparison.

Though I definitely understand.

Vincent’s probably going to have the same reaction.

"I see. In that case—"

"Do you need money?" Clementine suddenly chimed in.

"Uh? Well yeah. Why do you think I sought out you two?"

He raised his chin.

"I need money as much as the next person. Though, I don’t want to trouble you two with my sob story, so if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my merry way."

"Wait."

Clementine reached into Vincent’s dimensional ring. After fiddling around for a few seconds, dozens of stacks of cash began falling from the sky.

Thousands of Crowns, no... Maybe even several hundreds of thousands.

It was a lot of money.

But it was Vincent’s money, not ours.

However, Rain was like a moth to a flame as he pulled out a giant bag of cash from his dimensional ring and began running around, collecting all the money that Clementine dropped.

When the money stopped pouring, Rain paused, glancing back at Clementine with puppy eyes.

"Generous patron, m-my bag is only half full... no, it’s only a quarter full. Could you please do that again?"

She narrowed her eyes coldly.

"You just stole from us."

"...Pardon?"

What is she doing?

"I showed you our money, and you thought I was giving it away. I wasn’t. You stole from us, and now I want you to pay us back everything you stole."

"Uhh... Sure?"

Although reluctant, Rain approached her and handed her the bag of money.

Holding the bag in her hands, Clementine shook her head.

"This is not enough."

"It’s all that I got. I didn’t put anything in my dimensional ring."

"That’s not what I meant."

She tossed the bag to his feet.

"You have interest. You had our money for five seconds. So the value of that money to us decreased by five times."

Yeah... Clementine, I don’t think that’s how interest works.

"And every second that passes from here on, that money becomes worth less and less... Do you get what I’m saying?"

Rain gulped in anxiousness.

Honestly, I was anxious in his stead, because when a woman whose primary source of knowledge comes from hentai is in charge of recruitment...

Oh boy.

"I think so, miss?"

"Don’t call me a miss. And don’t try to change the subject either. You owe us, and so I’ll give you two options right now."

She raised a single finger.

"The first option is simple. I’ll give you all the money in that bag, and you can take it home without any strings attached. But only if you agree to join our group and travel with us."

Before he could reply, she raised a second finger.

Her expression turned even colder than before.

"The second option is even simpler. I will kill you now, and you can go through the same set of choices in your next regression. So what will it be?"

Damn.

To say I was a bit shocked to see this side of Clementine would be an understatement.

At the same time, I liked what she was doing here.

It was silly on the surface.

But with this silly offer, she opened up an opportunity for us to find out more about Rain, and why he was doing all of this.

Amongst many other things... I really hoped he’d choose the first option.

And so, after just a few seconds of silence, he spoke.

"I..."