Chapter 10

  <47 days of hell>(13)

  The paper felt gritty and rough, tasting more like dust and ash than anything meant to be swallowed. But I kept going, tearing it piece by piece, each fragment dissolving into bitterness on my tongue. The words and symbols seemed to pulse with a faint glow, as though resisting. It felt like swallowing sand, each bite grating against the back of my throat. My stomach churned, but I forced it down.

  As the last shred disappeared, I felt a strange, pulsing sensation in my head—a hollow ache, but I couldn’t place why. Just as I was beginning to wonder if I’d done it wrong, a blue-and-red system window appeared in front of me, cutting through the dimness of my room.

  [Quest Completed!]

  I sat back, a strange, uncomfortable emptiness settling over me. The words hung there, confirming what I’d waited for all this time.

  Day 45

  The day started like any other. I woke up feeling numb, still tasting that strange, brittle paper in my mouth. Last night’s “meal” didn’t sit right, and even now, my stomach churned uncomfortably. But I shrugged it off. I’d completed the quest, right? That’s what I told myself, though deep down, the hollowness didn’t shift.

  I walked through the orphanage halls with purpose, stopping to chat briefly with the younger kids. Their faces were blurry to me now, just passing figures in this repetitive play. It was like someone had wiped my memories clean of Minato—or maybe I was doing it to myself. Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  At lunch, I sat beside Kaede, a quiet girl who barely spoke above a whisper. “What do you think is out there, past the gates?” I asked her, trying to break the silence.

  She shrugged, staring down at her half-eaten sandwich. “I dunno. Why? Do you want to escape or something?”

  I chuckled, the sound hollow even to my ears. “Maybe.” Escape seemed pointless, but it was easier to pretend sometimes.

  Day 46

  The day crawled forward in its usual way. I had grown used to this dreary monotony, the way everything around me felt suffocating and faded. During breakfast, I spotted Mark across the room, his gaze occasionally flicking toward me with a guarded suspicion. A part of me wanted to sneer at him, but I knew that would only end badly.

  As the day went on, I felt the familiar itch returning—an urge I couldn’t suppress. I ducked into the restroom and pulled out the compass from my pocket. Its pointed end was dull from repeated use, but I pressed it into my skin, watching as thin lines of red surfaced along my arm. The sting was a brief reminder that I was still here, still able to feel something, even if it was just pain.

  Later, in the hallway, I ran into Rei, a kid around my age who had a knack for disappearing when chores were assigned. “You okay, Hoshino?” he asked, a glimmer of concern in his eyes.

  I gave him a smile that felt foreign. “Just tired, I guess.” He shrugged and moved on, and I was left alone again.

  Day 47

  Midnight came and went, and I was still awake, lying in bed with a sense of restlessness gnawing at me. The memory of eating that cursed paper haunted me, the sensation still vivid on my tongue. Why had I done it? Was it all just a desperate attempt to break free from this relentless loop?

  At exactly 12:00, a strange blue-and-red system window appeared, glowing faintly in the darkness. Its words sent a chill down my spine:

  [You have survived!]

  The moment everything around me froze, I knew something was wrong. The air turned thick and unyielding, trapping me in a strange silence, every sound smothered. Then the first message appeared, floating in front of me in bold, clinical blue and red:

  [Side Quest: Kill Keter]

  [Completed]

  “Side quest?” I asked , trying to understand, but the system seemed intent on giving me no time to think. Another message followed almost immediately:

  [Curse File: Destroyed]

  [Quest: Survive 47 Days]

  [Completed]

  I watched the words flash, each one like a weight pressing down on my chest, and I felt a hollow pit opening up inside me. I’d done everything, reached the end, but there was no release, no sense of freedom—only the cold mechanical finality of a game ending. Then came the last message, cutting through everything I thought I understood:

  [Simulation Completed!]

  [Act 1 Completed!]

  [You have completed the tutorial!]

  [Error!You are too strong for this world.]

  I felt my heart stutter. “Too strong? What is this supposed to mean?”

  The text faded, replaced by something colder, something that seemed to speak right into my mind:

  [Imagine a world where everyone cries, where pain and suffering prosper.][Where no one has to die.][That world can only exist...without you.]

  My vision blurred as the world itself seemed to recoil, the walls closing in. A pressure, sharp and unrelenting, started to clamp around my throat. I gasped, trying to draw in air, but every breath felt as though it was sucked away before it could fill my lungs. My hands flew to my throat instinctively, but there was nothing there to grab—just the crushing, suffocating force that was squeezing the life out of me.

  “N-no… stop… this isn’t…,” I croaked, but even my voice was swallowed by the pressure, leaving me in silence. Colors dimmed and darkened, my vision flickering as I sank to my knees, struggling against the inevitable. It felt like my mind was fracturing, thoughts splitting and merging in chaotic desperation.

  The pressure grew heavier, filling every cell, every corner of my body, and my limbs trembled, unable to resist any longer. My heart pounded one last time, then faltered, and finally… finally, there was only darkness.

  As Hoshino’s last breath left his body, an unnatural stillness enveloped the world. There was no reset, no return to the cycle he had come to know and dread. His lifeless form lay on the cold floor, untouched by time’s merciless rewind, and with his passing, something broke—a rift opened in the very fabric of reality.

  It began as a hairline fracture in the sky above, a small, trembling gap that seemed to breathe with a dark, ominous life of its own. A faint, otherworldly glow seeped through, casting a cold blue hue across the world. Then, as if emboldened by Hoshino's absence, the rift widened, releasing tendrils of blue flame that twisted and writhed, eager to consume.

  The flames spread quickly, snaking across the earth in relentless waves, devouring everything in their path. Forests ignited in azure fire, cities collapsed into ash, and oceans evaporated under the merciless heat. The world became an inferno, a swirling vortex of destruction, with the blue flames creeping over every mountain and swallowing every valley, leaving nothing but scorched, empty land in their wake.

  Far above, the moon shuddered in the night sky, a fractured reflection of the chaos below. It trembled, cracks spidering across its pale surface until, with a dreadful inevitability, it began to descend. The moon fell in slow motion, looming larger and larger as it hurtled toward the earth, a colossal harbinger of doom.

  People scattered in terror, their screams echoing as they fled—some from the collapsing sky, others from the shifting landscape, but there was no escape. Blue flames surged through streets, consuming buildings and homes, while the moon’s relentless descent cast an oppressive shadow over the lands below. It struck the earth with a soundless explosion, sending shockwaves that rippled across continents, tearing the ground open and exposing the raw, churning depths beneath.

  Above the devastation, the sun grew dark and ominous, its once-warm glow replaced by a blood-red hue. It glowered down on the broken world, an eye of rage and desolation, as its crimson rays stretched like claws across the sky. The familiar yellow light was gone, replaced by a sinister scarlet that painted the landscape in shades of ruin.

  Yet the horrors didn’t stop there. People twisted and convulsed, their forms bending and reshaping as something monstrous took hold. Ordinary humans became beasts, their eyes void of reason, bodies mutated into grotesque parodies of what they had once been. They turned on one another in a frenzy, compelled by an insatiable hunger and a mindless rage. Families, friends, and strangers alike were caught in the merciless grip of this transformation, each new creature adding to the chaos that now ruled the world.

  In the shadows cast by the red sun, a silent plague began to seep into the air, spreading like an unseen miasma. Skin grew pale, veins turned black, and breaths grew labored as the disease swept through the remaining survivors, an invisible reaper among the flames and blood. The afflicted fell one by one, their bodies twitching and writhing as the sickness consumed them from within, leaving only hollow, twisted shells.

  The earth itself seemed to groan under the weight of so much death and ruin. Cracks widened, splitting open fields and forests, swallowing entire regions as the planet’s very core destabilized. Rivers ran dry, mountains crumbled, and oceans hissed into clouds of steam as the land gave in to the relentless destruction. No part of it was spared, and soon, even the beasts—the last twisted remnants of humanity—were nothing more than ash on the wind.

  The red sun’s fury grew until its fiery light was all that remained, a final, blazing mark upon a world that no longer resembled its former self. Its rays intensified, scorching the already desolate landscape until there was nothing left but a barren, lifeless rock, a memory of a once-living world. The sun expanded, its dying flames licking out into the void, devouring the earth in one last merciful act of oblivion.

  As the planet crumbled into the fiery maw of the sun, the devastation extended beyond, creeping into the heart of the cosmos. Stars blinked out one by one, galaxies spun into darkness, and the fabric of the universe began to wither and decay. What was once vibrant and teeming with life became a husk, a graveyard of extinguished stars and collapsed realms, lost to the void.

  In the end, there was only silence—a vast, echoing emptiness where creation had once flourished. And as if mocking the destruction it had wrought, a final message flickered into existence, stark and cold against the endless darkness:

  [World Rank: D → C]

  The notification lingered, a last remnant of an unseen system that had orchestrated this tragic end. The universe remained still, a hollow void where life and light had once danced, now reduced to a solitary message fading into the darkness, leaving nothing behind.

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  ?

  As I opened my eyes, expecting the nothingness of true death, I found myself blinking against a burning, brilliant light. A heavy realization gnawed at me—I’m still here

  I couldn’t help but scoff. “So, I can’t even die properly, huh? Figures.” The irony of it stung more than any of the absurd loops I'd been forced through. How many times had I thought I’d reached the end? And yet, here I was, staring at a sky I didn’t recognize.

  As I sat up, trying to piece together where exactly I had landed this time, a strange voice cut through my thoughts, shattering the silence.

  “A will be executed today, Raven Nightshade.”

  The name hit me like a punch. “Raven… Nightshade?” I muttered, staring blankly. The name clawed at something within me, something long buried beneath layers of confusion and forced apathy. That was not my name, and yet, it felt stitched to me somehow. And with a name like that, who wouldn't roll their eyes?

  I glanced up and found myself staring into the eyes of a knight—a figure clad in dark, heavy armor that gleamed in the strange, dim light. His face was hidden behind a sleek helmet, but I could feel his gaze as it pinned me in place. He held a spear in his hand, the tip of it not metal, but pure, flickering flame. The heat radiated out in waves, licking at my skin, a sensation that felt far too real for comfort.

  “Who are you?” I asked, forcing a mocking grin. “My welcoming committee?”

  The knight said nothing, just reached down and grabbed me, his grip like iron around my wrist. I yanked my arm back instinctively, but he didn’t budge, dragging me forward as if I were nothing more than a rag doll.

  “Oh, great. So, kidnapping? Really original,” I sneered, my voice dripping with sarcasm. But deep down, a pang of panic began to take root. This was different. My body wasn’t looping back, wasn’t resetting like it always did. And as much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t care, that I wasn’t fazed, something about the finality of it all made my chest tighten.

  The knight remained silent, dragging me through a path lined with stone walls, his fiery spear illuminating the way. My attempts to wrench free felt increasingly useless; his grip was unyielding, and every step hammered in a reality I wanted to deny. This is real. This is happening.

  Eventually, the path opened up, and I found myself facing a massive wooden platform. A guillotine stood at its center, its sharp blade gleaming in the strange light, waiting. I stared at it, something icy trickling down my spine as I recognized the inevitable.

  The knight pushed me forward, his grip never loosening. I stumbled, catching myself before I hit the ground, only to look up and see a crowd gathering around the platform. They filled the area, faces blurred and indistinct, all murmuring and whispering as they gazed at me. I could feel the weight of their stares, the raw judgment in their eyes.

  “Execute him!” a voice rang out, followed by another, and then another. The crowd’s cries grew louder, building into a relentless chant, a chorus that seemed to echo in the pit of my stomach.

  I swallowed, forcing a smirk as I took a step forward, shrugging off the knight’s grip. “You all seriously think this is going to break me?” I said, my voice ringing out, equal parts sarcasm and defiance. “Do your worst. I’ve died a thousand times. One more won’t change a thing.”

  The crowd’s roar swelled, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a twinge of… something. Something that I had long thought had died within me. It was more than fear; it was a kind of dreadful acceptance, the kind that sinks into your bones and refuses to leave.

  The knight seized my shoulder, his grip pulling me back to the platform. My struggles were feeble, my sarcastic facade crumbling as I was pushed toward the guillotine. They forced me down, my neck pressed against the cold wooden block, the blade gleaming above me.

  I took a shaky breath, my mind racing. I could feel the weight of it all—the futility, the endless cycles, and the nagging, bitter truth that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be coming back from this one. The fear was raw, more real than I’d felt in ages.

  “Any last words?” someone sneered, their voice dripping with disdain.

  I glanced up, feeling my smirk return, brittle and bitter. “Yeah,” I whispered, my voice low. “This game was rigged from the start.”

  As the blade hovered above, I felt the weight of all the loops, all the resets, press down on me, along with a strange, bitter calm. Somehow, this felt different, real in a way none of the other loops ever had. And yet, a part of me, that twisted, worn-down part, couldn’t help but smile.

  I lifted my head just slightly, enough to sneer at the crowd, voice dripping with the sarcasm that was now my armor. “So, you all needed a shiny blade and a whole show just to take me down? Not exactly creative, are we?”

  A ripple went through the crowd, but their anger only fed the smirk that tugged at my lips. “Here’s a tip for the next execution—try making it 'interesting' next time.”

  And then, just as I felt the finality of it sink in, my last thought hung in the air, bitter and sardonic, “End of the line, right? …..Finally.”

  ?

  End of volume 1.