[Would you like to try again?] Ding!
The text of the status window flickered again in front of my eyes.
It was shining with a golden glow, sparkling even.
I could have sworn I was dead.
I sacrificed my life at Jisheer’s shrine, making the choice to save everyone, including Pina.
[Retry.] Click!
“What the hell…?”
As if this wasn’t the end.
The status window generated a retry button right in front of me.
Just as I was about to place my hand on it—
“You’ve awakened, Lee Soo-hyun.” Whoosh!
The ground, like a balance, shifted as someone approached me.
A woman who dropped sand dust with every movement.
“Pantoze…?”
She looked exactly like Pantoze, the sand spirit, no matter what anyone said.
I replied to her with a dumbfounded expression.
How on earth am I still alive?
“Yes, it seems this is the first time we’ve met. I’m the goddess you spoke with through the status window.”
The goddess gestured as if drawing emojis in the air.
“I’m Pantoze, the Goddess of Emotions.”
“….So it’s real.”
Seeing the comical phrases from the status window I had been looking at all along, it seemed that she was indeed the same person.
“It feels a bit strange to meet without using the status window.”
Pantoze scratched her cheek with an embarrassed expression.
“How am I alive, no.. wait a minute. What on earth is happening?”
She closed the distance step by step.
I expressed my grievances to the being who claimed to be a god.
“You were bored of fighting the Demon Kings just to have a happy ending, weren’t you?”
Even after clearing the sequel, [Black Heart], the ending hadn’t changed.
The game company, Fantasia, had sent me an email saying they could save the Nameless Saintess, Pina.
“If it only involved character love lines, they promised to give me an ending for Pina.”
So I tried my best.
“…You said I could save Pina.”
In the end, I failed.
“…….”
The lover I cherished is dead, and even my close companions have all perished.
If it was going to be like this, was there really any reason it had to be me?
“If you had properly told me the reason why you prevented me from fighting the Demon King…!!”
“If I told you, your wish would be ungranted.”
Just as I was about to shout my last words, Pantoze interrupted me.
“…A wish?”
A wish.
No matter how I thought about it, she was speaking a word I couldn’t comprehend.
What does that even mean?
“That’s correct. More precisely, it’s the wish you and the Nameless Saintess made.”
Once again, the balance tilted, and this time a man with monocles descended beside us.
A man whose lower half was like an octopus.
“I wanted to meet you. I was curious how strange you really are.”
“..Akasha? Is this, by any chance, a place where the gods have gathered?”
The owner of the library where everything in the world is recorded.
The God of Intelligence, Akasha, was flailing his octopus legs, trying to shake hands with me.
“Yes, this is the place where the God of Light and the God of Darkness are resting.”
I refused that handshake.
Then, Akasha looked around with a slightly disappointed expression and continued.
“Welcome to Fantasia’s scales, where you can see all world lines.”
As if to prove his words, bizarre landscapes passed before my eyes.
A white serpent coiling around a black world tree, biting its own tail.
Like two creatures forming a continuous loop, they seemed to embody yin and yang.
“So, you’re saying you’ve just been sitting and watching because of that wish?”
The scales reflected the scenery of the world I was in.
Seeing the gods appearing one after another, I was dumbfounded.
You could have informed me about the Demon God from the start. You could have prevented Pina from dying.
“We had our reasons too, Lee Soo-hyun.”
At that moment, a heavy sound of thud—! resonated as the scales tilted once more.
“Because it was a wish that even bent time and space, we, as lower gods, couldn’t intervene.”
A wolf made of steel appeared, blocking my way.
The God of Will, Tardun.
“I never wished for anything like that. Tardun.”
“No, you might not remember, but you have already made a wish.”
What kind of wish could possibly reduce someone to this miserable state?
“You were originally a reincarnator in this world.”
As my questions only seemed to grow, a nun with dragon horns slowly approached and spoke up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.. Lee Soo-hyun.”
The same figure as the one I saw in the shrine.
The God of Reason, Jisheer, was fumbling with her black veil, stammering.
“Jisheer? You were here too?”
“I was quite shocked when you ignored the invitation I sent through the saintess… and immediately chose to take your own life.”
The nun, looking at me, seemed to squirm uncomfortably.
I guess she was quite taken aback when I stabbed a dagger into my heart right away.
“I originally intended to explain everything…”
She mumbled with her head down, her voice crawling toward the ground.
Come to think of it, I had sacrificed my life without hearing the saintess’ words completely.
“You were the one we carefully selected, Lee Soo-hyun.”
Then, the foremost Pantoze began to speak first.
The identity of the status window I had known as the producer of the sequel, [Black Heart], and the God controlling emotions.
“In order to find a way to avert fate, we decided to simulate this world.”
Pantoze carefully conveyed the truth to me.
“Is that the [Night Heart Trilogy] I created?”
“Yes, exactly, Lee Soo-hyun.”
The first part, [Night Heart], was created by the God of Intelligence and the God of Will.
The sequel, [Black Heart], was made together by the Goddess of Emotions and the God of Reason.
The reason why the original work and the sequel felt like almost entirely separate games.
“This was the result of our efforts to properly select a hero.”
The four gods who could be collectively called Fantasia had all agreed on choosing me.
“Then the reason the Grand Route ending didn’t exist…?”
The reason I achieved the global first kill with Magic Hat but no ending appeared in the game.
“Normally, Magic Hat would have been an invincible Demon King.”
So my assumption that he was a Demon King that couldn’t be killed from the beginning was correct.
If that’s the case, then could it be——
“You were originally the Hero of Conviction and reincarnated into the body of a game character.”
“Why past tense?”
Pantoze spoke about me being a reincarnator in the past tense.
No matter how hard I searched my memory, I couldn’t recall anything related to that.
“Right now, you’ve come here in your original body because of a wish.”
“……!!”
Pantoze delivered the shocking truth to me.
The fact that I had initially repelled Magic Hat in Licht’s body and traveled back in time to this place.
“You are the inheritor. More precisely, your soul has been inherited.”
“So that means.. I must have met the Nameless Saintess, Pina…”
We must have met at some point.
The fact that the Nameless Saintess recognized me when she was still alive in the shrine.
And the strange obsession Magic Hat had with me all made sense now.
When a soul is inherited, memories from the previous lifetime typically do not carry over intact to another world line or timeline.
“What kind of wish did I even make…?”
But I had no even a fragment of that memory left.
Even though I was also an inheritor like the Demon God, I had no memory of meeting Pina, the former saintess.
“Lee Soo-hyun’s wish was for Pina Grancia’s happiness.”
I couldn’t accept it all at once.
“You said the Nameless Saintess couldn’t be happy in her position.”
“……..”
Still, I couldn’t believe anyone but me would make such a wish.
The thought of wanting to gift Pina, who had no name, no memories, no power, and no abilities, with a new life.
Wishing for the God of Light to turn back time so that she could regain everything she lost.
“So that’s why you came to the academy.”
“Yes, the moment Pina Grancia loses everything is at that time.”
Finally, I could understand why I returned to the point where the Grand Hertz Academy existed.
It was during the time before she became the Nameless Saintess.
“Wait, then why did you prevent me from hunting the Demon Kings?”
I retraced something odd in my question.
If it was truly for Pina’s happiness, then it would make sense to defeat all the Demon Kings of the Hero Church.
It was because of those powers that she became the Nameless Saintess.
“That’s… because we, lower gods, are not allowed to interfere with acts that defy fate.”
“…So, you tested me?”
You congratulated me when I connected with Pina, yet you intervened when it came to facing the Demon Kings—it was ironically contradictory.
“Yes, that was decided by the God of Light and the God of Darkness.”
Interfering with actions that defied time and space was prohibited.
“You have reincarnated, possessed, transitioned, and have undergone ‘inheritance.’ You are the Hero of Conviction.”
The God of Intelligence, Akasha. The God of Will, Tardun.
One by one, the God of Reason, Jisheer opened their mouths.
They had selected reincarnators, possessors, and transfigured heroes from different worlds.
Ironically, all those features resided within me.
“The Grand Route is when all world lines converge into one.”
Finally, Pantoze smiled as she gazed at the floating status window beside me.
“It’s the key to weaving countless dark and sad worlds, creating a single possibility.”
The goddess was explaining the meaning of the Grand Route to me.
Originally, Pina Grancia’s fate was one where she could never be happy.
No matter what she did, she would certainly become the Nameless Saintess.
To break that fate, I had to fully cultivate her as the beloved hero.
“So I had to make the Affection Level 100 percent.”
That was the reason I had to connect the love lines of those around me.
“Actually, that was just a game of numbers.”
“..Huh? What does that even mean?”
Upon mentioning the Affection Level from the status window, Pantoze smiled and even chuckled.
“That’s not an absolute figure; it serves as a measure of how completely love has developed…”
If fate was obstructing their love,
No matter how much they like each other, it wouldn’t reach 100 percent.
“So that’s how it was.”
“Even if it’s the same 10 percent, Pina’s Affection Level felt quite different compared to others.”
It wasn’t a numeric representation of how much your partner thought of you. It was not an absolute figure.
“According to your decision, I simply wrote down that number for you.”
That was an ironic truth.
But oddly, I felt a sense of relief from that fact.
Pina had liked me, regardless of the numbers on the status window.
“Wait a minute, then what exactly was Pina’s unspoken wish?”
Suddenly, a question popped up, prompting me to ask Pantoze.
This shabby body, not worthy of Licht.
And the fact that my mana didn’t emit at all—what was going on here?
Was there a solid reason I had mistakenly thought I was merely possessing this game?
“That… I think it’s better if you hear it directly from Pina.”
The goddess pointed to the place where a large white serpent was swirling.
In those scales, I saw her disappearing and crying.
“Is it true? Has she really come back?”
I realized the diamond queen card that had just been in my arms had disappeared.
“Yes, thanks to your sacrifice, everyone has been revived. Honestly, I was surprised too.”
Pantoze added something to the status window text.
[With the abilities of the inheritor, a retry is possible.]
“You must return now. Back into their arms.”
The inheritor can revive in another timeline or world line even after dying.
“…Thank you. Really.. thank you.”
I expressed my relief at the overlapping heartbeats within me.
I placed my hand over the status window that read, [Would you like to try again?]
The moment everything could revert to its original state.
[b>[I won’t miss it now. Licht.]
As the status window text changed, a black rose pattern emerged.
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