The Gal Game Heroines Who Were Supposed to Die Somehow Learned My Secret ～By the Way, Where Did My [Diary] Go?～ - Chapter 02: Love or Dead

Chapter 02: Love or Dead

Why did I act the way I did?

To explain that, I need to tell you about Love or Dead—commonly referred to as LoD—and a bit about myself.

Love or Dead is a gal game.

The story revolves around Yuto Sano, the protagonist, as he builds relationships with four heroines, including Satsuki Saionji, and eventually ends up with one of them. It’s a fairly standard setup for a gal game.

What set LoD apart initially was its gorgeous artwork, created by a famous illustrator. The game gained decent popularity upon release, drawing attention for its visuals.

But that didn’t last long.

Soon after its release, it was branded as a “trash game.”

The reason? Its storyline was downright cruel.

In LoD, any heroine who doesn’t end up with Yuto is fated to die. Their tragic ends vary—some take their own lives out of heartbreak, others fall into despair and sell their bodies, while others suffer assaults or fatal accidents.

It’s completely messed up.

That said, the heroines were incredibly cute, and their emotional struggles were surprisingly well-written. This level of detail appealed to a niche audience, myself included. The dramatic, high-stakes storytelling had a strange allure.

Naturally, I played through every heroine’s route.

And every single time, I cried myself to sleep. Not exactly a shining moment in my past life.

But enough about LoD. Let’s talk about me.

In my previous life, I was a shut-in. It would’ve been cooler to say I died a tragic, heroic death, but that wasn’t the case. I failed my university entrance exams, year after year, and with every failure, a part of me crumbled. Eventually, I gave up entirely, living off my parents while drowning in guilt and shame for being such a burden.

In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore. Overwhelmed by despair, I ended my life with an overdose of sleeping pills.

When I woke up, I found myself reincarnated as Satoshi Iriya, given a second chance at life.

Determined not to repeat the mistakes of my past, I resolved to never burden anyone again. From the moment I was born, I worked hard, pushing myself relentlessly. Somewhere along the way, I think I even earned the title of a “genius.”

Of course, I cheated a little. This world mirrored my previous one in almost every way—names, events, trends, and even the economy were eerily familiar. Armed with that knowledge, I dove into stocks and forex trading while still in elementary school. By the time I graduated middle school, I had amassed tens of millions of yen.

But my success only brought discomfort to my family. My parents, ordinary people leading ordinary lives, couldn’t understand how a prodigy like me could come from their bloodline. Their suspicions eventually led them to demand a DNA test.

When that happened, I made up my mind. I decided to leave. As soon as I started high school, I moved out and began living on my own.

It seemed that, just like in my previous life, my existence only caused discord in my family.

The real turning point came when I entered high school. I chose an average, unremarkable school—an odd decision, considering my academic achievements. Honestly, looking back, I still can’t say why I picked that place. Maybe it was fate.

That question was answered when I saw Yuto Sano, a boy my age who had entered the same high school, along with Satsuki Saionji and the other heroines. That’s when it hit me—I, Satoshi Iriya, was just a mob character in the world of Love or Dead.

Honestly, I was shocked I even remembered such a plain, unremarkable mob character. But with that realization, everything clicked—the reason I had chosen this seemingly random school made perfect sense.

If that’s the case, I thought, why not enjoy the LoD world? My plan was simple: sit back and watch Yuto and the heroines’ romantic comedy unfold from the closest seat possible.

But reality wasn’t that kind.

The Yuto Sano standing before me was a total jerk.

He was a shameless womanizer, indecisive to a fault, and completely useless in critical moments. Worse, he constantly shifted the blame onto others. He even carried himself with an inflated sense of pride, as if the world owed him something.

Honestly, I couldn’t fathom why the heroines would fall for someone like him.

Because of that, there was no way he could raise the heroines’ affection levels. Not even close.

I decided then and there to write him off as a trash protagonist, dismissing any possibility of him successfully navigating his romance flags. I figured I’d just steer clear of the drama. But then, a terrifying realization struck me.

The heroines die if they don’t end up with the protagonist.

And the worst part? Somehow, I, the mob character, get caught in the fallout and die too.

No wonder I remembered Satoshi Iriya, the mob character. He died in every single bad ending. In fact, there was even a CG of his death in one of the routes—a gruesome, heart-wrenching scene. I vaguely recalled his name being mentioned there, which must be why it had stuck in my memory all this time.

If things continued like this, I was going to die.

Panic set in as I realized my only chance of survival was to ensure Yuto Sano achieved the one happy ending in Love or Dead where no one dies—the harem ending.

So, I threw myself into action, working behind the scenes to help the protagonist and the heroines build their relationships. I worked tirelessly, pulling strings wherever I could. I even spent an absurd amount of money, convincing myself it was all worth it if it meant staying alive.

But that useless protagonist kept making the worst possible choices at critical moments.

Despite my efforts, he only managed to awkwardly raise the heroines’ affection levels halfway. He bumbled through every interaction, and in the end, no one was saved. It all culminated in the worst possible outcome: the annihilation ending.

Once the story veered into the annihilation route, there was nothing more I could do. I considered running away countless times, but no matter where I turned, I couldn’t escape the narrative of this world.

If that was the case, I thought, I’d just rewrite the script myself. I started intervening directly, trying to take control of the situation. But every time I did, the world’s invisible force nullified my actions, erasing them as if they had never happened.

In my past life, I’d read plenty of web novels where side characters surpassed the protagonist and rewrote the story. But this wasn’t a novel. In reality, a mob character like me could never wield that kind of privilege.

A mob character has their role in the world, and they’re bound by it. There’s no breaking out of those confines.

This world revolved entirely around Yuto Sano. It was impossible to overturn that. As a mob character, I was destined to die the moment a bad ending was locked in.

I was terrified of dying. I struggled desperately to avoid it, clawing for a way out until the very end. But once the story entered the annihilation ending route, the flow of events was unstoppable.

Every day, I found myself replaying the scene of my death in my mind. Over and over, it haunted me like an unshakable curse. Before I realized it, my fear of death had transformed into something darker—an intense hatred for the world of Love or Dead itself.

Why did I have to die?

I cursed the original creator of LoD, blaming them for everything. The more I thought about it, the more my frustration grew. At first, my fear of death and my hatred for this twisted world were evenly matched. But as time passed, the scales tipped, and hatred began to overshadow fear.

Eventually, I came to terms with the inevitability of my death. But instead of succumbing to despair, my thoughts turned to vengeance. If I couldn’t escape this fate, then I wanted to somehow take revenge on the creator of LoD.

But no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of a way to make that happen. I didn’t even remember the creator’s name, and they weren’t part of this world to begin with.

Even so, I couldn’t let the idea go. I kept searching for some way to strike back, no matter how small. That’s when I remembered something odd about the annihilation ending: there was no CG showing the deaths of all the heroines.

Instead, the game only displayed an image of the heroines just before being hit by the car. The screen then cut to black, followed by a single CG—an image of Satoshi Iriya, lying lifeless on the ground in a pool of blood.

Beneath that haunting image was the cold, detached text:

“A car ran a red light and hit a high school student. BAD END.”

And that was it.

The creator of this game must have been the kind of twisted individual who found enjoyment in killing off female characters. That single line of text, coupled with the incomplete imagery, clearly assumed that the heroines had died in the crash. Back when I first played the game, I had interpreted it the same way.

However, the game never explicitly showed that the heroines had died.

I decided to bet everything on that possibility.

If sacrificing my life could save the heroines, so be it. Sure, I’d die, but it would be an ending that the twisted creator of this awful game would absolutely hate.

Before the end, I managed to confirm that Satsuki and the others were unharmed.

Serves you right, you bastard.

There were still so many things I wanted to do with my life, but knowing I had defied the creator gave me a strange sense of peace. If nothing else, I hoped the heroines—who had been trapped in this nightmare just as much as I had—could finally live happy lives.

“Gah…!”

Still, the pain was unbearable. My entire body felt as if it was being crushed under an enormous weight. If this is what dying feels like, then it’s absolutely horrible. And now, a dreadful thought crept into my mind—was my next stop hell?

Nervously, I opened my eyes. A blurry light came into view, growing clearer with each passing second. I braced myself, half-expecting to see the fiery pits of damnation waiting for me.

Instead, what I saw was… a white ceiling.

Sterile, tiled, and far from what I had imagined.

“D-Doctor! Iriya-kun has woken up!”

A voice rang out sharply, almost like a scream, jolting me further into awareness. It was loud, startling even, but there was something comforting and nostalgic about it.

I wanted to see the face behind that voice. I tried to sit up, but my body refused to move. Worse, my right hand felt completely numb—a void of sensation in stark contrast to the burning pain engulfing the rest of me.

“Iriya-kun, can you recognize me…?”

A face finally came into focus.

“Satsu… ki?”

For some reason, Satsuki was standing in front of me, staring at me with a pained expression. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, her lips trembling as if holding back words she couldn’t yet say.

In that moment, a chill ran through my entire body.

Could it be that the scene I saw before I died was a lie? Did I fail?

I tried to speak, to ask her, but no words came out. My voice caught in my throat, and all I could do was gasp for air. My thoughts spun in chaotic circles, crashing into one another, each more frantic than the last.

As I struggled to make sense of what was happening, a single tear slid down my cheek.

“I’m so glad… I’m really, really glad.”

“…Why?”

I finally managed to whisper, though my voice trembled as much as my heart.

Satsuki’s words, choked with sobs, began to unravel the impossible truth before me.

“You jumped in to protect us and got hit by that car. Don’t you remember?”

Of course, I remembered. I had sacrificed myself to save the heroines. I traded my life, believing it was the only way to strike back at that twisted creator and their cruel game.

“The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Your whole body was covered in injuries… You hovered between life and death for an entire week.”

A possibility I had thrown away long ago—a hope I’d long since buried—was suddenly thrust back into the light.

“Once again, thank you for saving me, our savior. I’m so glad you’re alive… truly.”

It seemed I had somehow survived.

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