1.
Death.
It was death—the same sensation I had felt once before when I fell from a building.
The feeling of sticky blood settling over me, my body growing cold.
A sensation as if time itself had slowed, tossing me into a void of absolute nothingness.
The icy darkness devoured my body, and I couldn't even keep my mind together.
Yes, this was my second death.
.
.
.
.
.
“Huhk, khh. Ggh…”
My consciousness, sinking deep beneath a dark sea, was forcibly dragged back to the surface.
It felt as if someone had grabbed me by the collar and hauled me upward.
I opened my eyes, wondering if I had somehow ended up in hell even after dying, but no.
The throb of my heartbeat.
The rough breath of life spilling from my lungs.
They proved I was alive.
I rested my arm on the cold balcony railing and let out a long breath.
There was a cartridge in my hand.
A brand-new, hot-off-the-press cartridge I had only just received.
“...I came back?”
The fact that I hadn't yet inserted the cartridge into my body pointed to a specific moment in time.
Back when I was with Silver Wolf, after clearing the quest, preparing to insert the cartridge on my own.
“What the hell...?”
Ding!
A bright alarm sounded.
It sounded exactly like a game alert.
- [Game Life] (LV.■■■) is being activated.
Something was different.
Following the kindly displayed status window, a new window appeared before my eyes.
=====
[■■■■]
▶ User - “Adrian Servet”
▶ Title - [Audience]
▶ Points Held - 535 Pt
▶ Relic - [ ]
♠ Shop
◆ Light Cone (Locked)
♥ Path (Locked)
♣ Abnormal Mediation (Locked)
- At present, ■■■ cannot be applied to ■■ with ■■ 사■ 페■■.
=====
Why are you only showing up now!
My status window!
At last, the true protagonist had revealed itself: the status window.
“...Fuck.”
Now that I thought about it, this was bullshit.
What kind of awakening condition for a status window is death?
It was a horrifying sensation I never wanted to feel again.
It felt like shoving my head back and forth between a scalding hot bath and an ice-cold one.
For now, I needed some time to sort out my thoughts.
2.
Guys, I made it!
I’m so fucked! Fuck!
All right, I’d already done a bit of thinking before even checking the status window.
That crazy woman who showed up out of nowhere like a ninja and turned me into a criminal.
And then that crazy woman appeared back then.
“Hello, Adrian. I’m the crazy woman.”
Thinking about it again, there was no way I could beat her.
She wasn’t even in the same category as human beings like us.
She was so strong she might as well have been something merely wearing human skin.
Like a human standing before a tiger.
Ah, ancestors. I finally understand what it feels like to be bitten by a tiger while walking a mountain path.
So this is what a tiger disaster means, damn it.
“Haa... seriously.”
If she had definitely identified me and was chasing me, there was no solution.
At my current level, I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t win.
Even if I had [Game Life], that absurdly broken regression ability.
“Infinite regression...”
There’s a genre like that.
The protagonist dies, returns to a certain point in time, and keeps challenging impossible obstacles forever.
A transcendent cheat code that smashes through any obstacle by brushing it off with, “Oh, I’ll just turn back time~”
The problem is.
That’s not really the trend these days.
Even if infinite regression exists, the standard now is to make you suffer so much you’d almost rather die, before finally letting you be happy.
Look at the regressors from the other neighborhood.
Some guy who supposedly got a regression cheat but couldn’t die for over 300,000 times because natural death was included too.
Our famous Joonhyuk, whose name alone everyone knows.
Mr. Ju, who taught us that even 13 regressions are already a pain in the ass.
No!!!
My dream is to live comfortably with women around me and never have anything happen.
I do not want to suffer through that kind of insane bullshit!!!
“Aaaagh!!”
But I had come back.
Even the abilities I’d built up had been reset.
For now, I had neither 55 million credit points nor anything else. I was still just a lowlife.
How hard had I worked to earn that money?
And now it had all vanished so emptily, just like that, after a life-risking gamble.
All because of that crazy woman.
If it hadn’t been for her, I could have lived large with Silver Wolf.
First, the thoughts I sorted through before opening the status window, my heart pounding.
That woman had definitely identified me and come after me, expecting something.
“Adrian Servet.”
“I found you, though it took some effort.”
“You’re below expectations.”
In other words, her goal was to kill me, but my abilities were below expectations.
And from the part about finding me after much effort, it meant it had taken her some time to track me down.
I didn’t understand.
Why would such a transcendent powerhouse want to kill me, when I was still nothing but a bug?
I really didn’t know. I couldn’t know, and no matter how I thought about it, nothing came to mind.
Don’t tell me she knows about regression...?
Hmm, no matter how I thought about it, I still couldn’t figure out the reason.
Even if she knew about regression, wouldn’t she have ripped off my limbs, kept me from dying, and chained me up instead?
The idea that she knew about regression was rejected.
That was impossible.
There was still no reason for her to kill Adrian Servet, the trash-tier LV.9 underclass nobody from Neon City.
If there was a trigger.
There were only two things I could think of.
First, the 55 million credit points from the gambling den.
Second, the cartridge.
Seriously, there was nothing else.
Nothing notable had happened for four months, and those were the only two unusual things.
But sending a powerhouse like that just because I won 55 million credit points?
Rejected.
That was not someone a gambling den could possibly handle.
Then....
That left only one thing.
“Dammit!!!”
My solo level-up, the one I was about to have snatched away the moment I got it.
It had become a cursed burden.
Right before dying in the previous loop, I had barely managed to share the cartridge with Silver Wolf.
For a moment, I wondered if that choice had gotten Silver Wolf killed there.
My blood ran cold.
My mood suddenly plummeted.
Didn’t I say it? Even if I died, I wouldn’t lose what was in my hands. The moment Silver Wolf dies before my eyes, I’ll use whatever means necessary to find the source of that death, tear it apart, and kill it.
“My head hurts. What am I supposed to do now?”
That was enough thinking for now.
It was time for dopamine.
Just what kind of amazing thing was this, that it had stayed hidden since after my first death? Let’s take a look.
An alert window had appeared, and there was an exclamation mark.
Of course, there was also the status window we knew so well.
=====
▶ Quest Cleared (!)
▶ Challenge Achievement (!)
=====
Ah, shit.
I realized it.
The status window had only thrown me two choices in that unfriendly way and then disappeared.
The reason was simple. I hadn’t died, so the unlock hadn’t properly triggered yet!
That’s why it hadn’t even told me the quest details.
The two choices had only appeared because they absolutely had to.
『Quest - illegal orphan』
▶ Conditions Hidden
- Difficulty: High
- Success Reward: A cartridge that can be leveled up.
It was now certain that Silver Wolf had some kind of condition.
And the reward was known too.
It was even a cartridge that could be leveled up. If you knew what a cartridge meant on the planet Punk Road... even tycoons and corporations would come running with their eyes on fire.
But I can’t use this cartridge.
If I do, that crazy woman will come running over and turn me into a criminal.
Next.
The cartridge would be sealed away for now.
The challenge achievement was pretty classic.
Something like an achievement you’d see in a game, or a condition cleared by performing some action.
It seemed like even light actions were enough.
Visiting a location, buying something.
Things like that would remain even after rewinding the timeline, and the points granted for clearing a challenge were the same.
It was a shame they couldn’t be repeated, but....
If they could, this would be a total trash game.
========
▶ Ch■ ■■ Ach■ (!)
- Encounter the ■■ of the ■■■■.
========
But what the hell is this?
Why are all the letters broken?
This challenge gave the most points. A whopping 400 Pt. I don’t know who the hell it is, but if I meet them, I’d even bow down to the floor for them.
And the clear condition was easy too.
Encounter means you met them.
How nice would it be if all challenge achievements were like this?
By clearing it, I also got a weird title.
【Audience】
The title’s effect is...
- The chance of receiving the ■■ of ■■■■ increases.
Even this text is broken.
Does the status window even work properly? What a piece of shit.
“Then the important thing is what I can do with the points.”
I’m already excited.
My heart is racing.
At the bottom of the status window, I could see the shop—obviously the place where points were used.
Below that were some unusual categories: Light Cone, Path, and Abnormal Mediation.
Unfortunately, all of them were marked locked.
No way, right?
Like the status window itself, they’d only unlock after dying once.
What if the condition was something like: die 10 times to unlock Light Cones!
Die 100 times to unlock Path!
Die 1,000 times to unlock Abnormal Mediation!
If it was that kind of trash game, I’d have to smash the operator’s head in with a hammer.
Right before pressing the shop.
I was dying to check it right then and there, but...
I was tired.
Death wasn’t something you could just click past.
Even now, I was barely forcing down the trembling in my legs.
And I wanted to show this status window to Silver Wolf and look at it together with her.
If she saw the status window, maybe I could ask for help from Silver Wolf, who had real talent when it came to games.
For things like this, you had to approach them with a reverent heart.
If I opened the shop and it only had some random gacha, I’d probably be unable to stop my shaking fingers from clicking it.
And then I’d stay up all night.
“Hoo... Adrian, you’re not a beast. Hold it in, hold it in.”
I went back into the room.
Silver Wolf was lying there under the blanket.
I carefully got into bed, looked at her, and wrapped my arms around her.
“Mm...”
Silver Wolf shifted a little.
Apparently not uncomfortable, she came a little closer and leaned against me.
I will never lose her.
Whether it’s a person, an object, or money, I have no intention of losing anything that belongs to me.
And though it was still too early for that.
Someday, I would definitely find that crazy woman and kill her.
With that resolve burning in my heart, I closed my eyes.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register