Chapter 4: If You Die Again
The Queen’s fingers remained intertwined with Ren’s.
Soft. Cold. Possessive.
The crying girl nearby still trembled on the ground, too terrified to move even an inch. Ren’s heartbeat pounded painfully inside his chest.
This woman. This monster. She could destroy people with a single glance. Yet right now she held his hand like something precious and fragile.
The contrast made his skin crawl.
"Please..." the girl whispered shakily. "I-I didn’t mean to touch him..."
The Queen slowly looked toward her. Her crimson eyes were emotionless again, empty in a way that made the air feel colder.
Ren immediately tightened his grip on her hand.
"She apologized."
Silence stretched between them.
The Queen looked back at him quietly for a long moment. Then the killing intent surrounding the entire area disappeared instantly, like a flame being snuffed out. The terrified girl collapsed completely in relief before scrambling away as fast as her shaking legs could carry her.
Ren released a slow breath.
Thank god. For now.
But the Queen stepped closer again. Too close.
"You protected her."
Her voice sounded calm. That was somehow worse than anger.
Ren carefully swallowed.
"She would’ve died."
The Queen tilted her head slightly.
"And?"
Ren stared at her in complete disbelief.
"And?! She’s a person!"
The Queen remained silent for several seconds. Then she softly asked something that caught Ren completely off guard.
"Would you cry if I died?"
"What?"
Her crimson eyes locked deeply onto his.
"Answer me."
The atmosphere became strangely heavy again, as if the world itself was holding its breath waiting for his response.
Ren frowned slightly.
"Why are you asking me that?"
The Queen’s fingers tightened around his hand.
"Because every version of you says something different."
Every version. Again. That same terrifying implication sitting beneath such ordinary words. How many timelines had existed before this one? How many times had he died? And why was she the only one who remembered everything while he woke up with nothing?
Before Ren could respond, the sky darkened.
[Ding!]
[Emergency Regional Quest Activated.]
[The First Calamity Boss has appeared.]
[All nearby awakened humans must participate.]
[Failure Condition: City Destruction.]
A deafening roar echoed across the entire city. Buildings trembled violently. Students and monsters alike froze at the same moment.
Then came the screams.
Something enormous was moving in the distance. Ren slowly turned his head toward downtown and his face paled instantly.
A gigantic humanoid creature towered above the buildings. At least fifty meters tall. Black armor covered its body while crimson fire leaked from the cracks in its skin. Each step it took destroyed entire roads beneath its feet.
[Calamity Boss Identified.]
[The Executioner]
[Threat Level: B-Rank Disaster]
[Estimated Human Survival Rate: 2.1%]
Ren’s stomach dropped.
B-rank? Already?
That was impossible. In the previous timeline humanity hadn’t encountered a B-rank disaster until months later. The timeline was accelerating in all the wrong directions.
"The timeline’s changing..." Ren muttered quietly.
The Queen observed the giant creature with complete calm. Almost bored, like she was watching something mildly inconvenient approach from a distance.
Across the city people panicked completely. Cars crashed. Buildings burned. Awakened humans desperately fought weaker monsters while trying to evacuate civilians. But compared to the gigantic creature walking through downtown, everything else felt completely meaningless.
Then the Executioner stopped moving.
Slowly its burning eyes turned toward Ren. No. Toward the Queen.
For the first time since appearing, the monster showed something unexpected.
Fear.
The Queen sighed softly.
"Annoying."
Ren looked at her immediately.
"You know that thing?!"
"It knows me."
That answer somehow felt far worse than a yes.
The giant monster let out a furious roar and charged directly toward their location. The ground exploded beneath each of its steps. Students screamed from every direction.
Ren’s survival instincts exploded.
"We need to move!"
But the Queen didn’t move at all. Instead she gently touched Ren’s face again, completely ignoring the approaching disaster behind him like it was nothing worth acknowledging.
"Why are you always worried about everyone else?"
Ren stared at her like she had lost her mind completely.
"Because people are about to die!"
The Queen’s expression softened strangely.
"And if they die?"
"Then...."
Ren stopped mid-sentence.
Because deep inside he realized something horrifying. The Queen genuinely didn’t care about humanity anymore. Not even slightly. Only him. Every concern, every thought, every drop of emotion she still possessed was pointed entirely at one person.
That realization sent chills through his entire body.
The giant monster got closer. Closer. Every step shook the campus beneath their feet. Ren could finally see its massive burning axe dragging across the street and leaving a trail of cracked concrete behind it.
Then the Queen leaned close to his ear.
"If you ask me to..."
Her voice became dangerously soft.
"I’ll erase this entire world for you again."
Ren froze.
Again. She said again.
Before he could even process those words, the Executioner crashed into the academy walls. Buildings collapsed instantly. Dust and flames exploded in every direction. The giant monster raised its burning axe above them.
Students nearby sobbed in pure despair.
"We’re dead..."
"RUN!!"
But the Queen simply looked annoyed, like someone had interrupted a private moment she had been waiting a very long time for.
The monster roared and swung its axe downward. Toward Ren.
Time slowed.
Ren’s body reacted before his mind could catch up. He pushed the Queen away from him.
The massive flaming axe crashed down.
BOOOOOOM!!
The ground shattered violently beneath the impact. Pain exploded across Ren’s entire body as debris and flames consumed him. His vision blurred at the edges. Blood filled his mouth. The world tilted sideways.
Far away he heard screaming.
Then silence. Complete silence.
Ren struggled to breathe beneath broken concrete, every breath feeling like swallowing fire. Everything hurt. His body felt completely destroyed. But through his blurry vision he could still see her.
The Queen stood frozen several meters away.
Her crimson eyes wide. Her expression unreadable for exactly one second.
Then it broke completely.
For the first time, true fear appeared on her face. Not the cold controlled kind. The raw desperate kind that belongs to someone watching something irreplaceable fall apart in front of them.
"...Ren?"
A single drop of blood slid from Ren’s lips.
The Queen’s entire body began trembling. Not from sadness. From rage. From something far older and far darker than either.
The sky darkened unnaturally in an instant. Black lightning exploded across the heavens without clouds, without warning, without reason. The ground cracked throughout the entire city. Every monster nearby collapsed trembling against the earth in terror.
Even the gigantic Executioner instinctively stepped backward.
Fearfully.
The Queen slowly turned toward it. Her expression no longer looked human. Crimson cracks spread across her pale skin like fractures through porcelain. Reality itself distorted around her body, bending and warping like heat above burning asphalt.
And when she spoke, the world shook beneath the weight of it.
"You touched him."
The Executioner tried to retreat.
Too late.
The Queen raised one trembling hand. Then the giant monster’s body exploded into millions of pieces instantly. No fight. No resistance. No sound except the wet aftermath of something enormous ceasing to exist all at once.
The entire city went silent.
Humans. Monsters. Everyone who was still alive stopped moving and stared at the woman standing amidst collapsing reality with tears running down her face.
Then the Queen rushed toward Ren desperately and pulled his broken body into her arms. Her hands trembled violently against him. Blood soaked through her black dress immediately but she didn’t look down at it. Didn’t acknowledge it at all.
"Ren..."
For the first time tears appeared in those crimson eyes. Real ones. The kind that don’t belong to monsters or queens or ancient things that have forgotten what it means to be human.
And Ren realized something terrifying lying there in her arms.
The Queen wasn’t afraid of the world ending.
She was afraid of losing him. Again.
She held him tighter against her, her whole body still shaking as her tears fell silently onto his broken face.
Then she whispered against his hair, her voice barely holding itself together.
"If you die again..."
Her crimson eyes slowly darkened into something beyond monstrous.
"I’ll kill every living thing in every timeline."
