“End it here.”
The Jang Youngwoong I’d faced before had been impeccably put-together.
Whether he’d stepped forward proudly as Seoul’s representative, or stayed hidden in the back—it had been the same.
“I don’t know how you have that kind of power as a human. I don’t know what those monsters that suddenly started appearing are. And above all, I don’t know how you noticed my secret and were able to be free of it.”
But not now.
A man who’d grown gaunt and haggard.
If you looked wrong, he’d pass for a skeleton with skin barely clinging to it.
At first, I couldn’t even tell whether he was the same person as that Jang Youngwoong.
“But I know one thing. Even if I repeat this thousands more times, I probably won’t be able to stop you.”
“No—who the hell shows up out of nowhere and starts spouting—!”
“Wait.”
The soldiers tensed at Jang Youngwoong’s sudden appearance.
I held them back and stepped forward.
“You’re giving up a bit fast.”
“You are......?”
“Honestly, I thought we’d have to do this a few hundred more times.”
At that.
Jang Youngwoong stared at my face, eyes widening, and said.
“So that’s it...... it # Nоvеlight # was you.”
His gaze shifted around.
He spotted First Lieutenant Kim, staring back at us with a confused expression like he had no idea what was going on, and he said.
“The one resisting this power...... wasn’t First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok. It was you.”
“.......”
“Hah, haha. My god. I kept assuming it had to be the First Lieutenant...... what a ridiculous mistake.”
This was the point where we’d only just crossed into Gangwon.
The point where First Lieutenant Kim hadn’t even checked that his level had changed yet.
He must’ve gotten his answer from that expression—the one looking at the man who’d appeared out of nowhere like none of this made sense.
“Haha. You said I’m giving up fast? Maybe that’s true. To be honest, it’s not like I’m out of strategies in my head. But I’m not an idiot either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even if I somehow show restraint and buy time while stopping your rampage...... reinforcements will arrive within a day or two, won’t they?”
“......Ahem.”
Just like he said.
Ever since this repetition began.
The instant my feet touched Gangwon ground, I’d been requesting troops from the Legion.
“We failed to stop a force of barely a hundred men from rampaging. If the Legion’s main force arrives, we won’t have a chance. The only answer is suppressing you within a day. But that felt nearly impossible.”
“Still. You had some room left, didn’t you? If you kept going, you might’ve found an opening eventually.”
“That possibility isn’t zero. But there’s another way, too, isn’t there.”
Unlike them, who could keep repeating this fight.
The moment we got suppressed even once, defeat was guaranteed.
It felt early to give up already, but—
“Something occurred to me. We’re all people trying to survive together. Do we really need to fight like this......?”
“What are you—”
“Maybe others wouldn’t know. But you’ve already noticed to some extent, so there’s no point hiding it here.”
Like he had a lot to say.
He dropped down in front of me with a heavy thud and said while looking at Seoul’s scenery ahead.
“Do you see that view?”
“I had to repeat thousands of lives to reclaim that view.”
“.......”
“To be honest, it was never easy. It was so brutally hard, but I kept repeating the same time, clenching my teeth, holding on to the hope that if I just kept going like this...... someday I might be able to overcome this ruin completely.”
He said that much.
Then he looked at my face and spoke.
“Four thousand eight hundred seventy-two.”
“......What?”
“The last number I counted. After that, I gave up counting.”
It was a number that came out of nowhere.
But I could tell what it meant.
“What the hell are you.”
So.
I couldn’t help but be horrified.
“How many times have you lived through this repetition?”
*****
[00:00:00]
One day.
Jang Youngwoong stared at the transparent window that had appeared before his eyes.
[Beginner protection system is lifted.]
He stared.
But reading it was not easy for him.
Letters so blurred, so dark.
By the time he’d practically given up on reading what it said—
{......You poor child.}
‘......?’
A voice came to his ear.
No—directly into his mind.
{Pitiful, miserable child. I can see the regret piled in your heart like a mountain. How many days did you spend in regret.......}
A voice laced with sorrow.
At that warm voice, Jang Youngwoong felt like tears might fall.
{Don’t be sad anymore.}
And then.
{If you want it, I’ll give you a new chance.}
That gentle voice.
Held him softly and said.
{A chance to correct that regret.......}
At those words.
Even though he couldn’t move a single finger.
With a hazy mind, just barely—
Nod.......
He nodded.
Then.
FWOOOOSH......!
His body.
Felt like it was being dragged somewhere.
“Huh?”
When he came to.
Before his eyes was—
“Hon?”
“Huh? Huh.......”
“What are you doing? You’re not going to work?”
People he hadn’t seen even once since the day the world ended.
No—more precisely.
People he’d met much later, when he’d dragged his exhausted body back home......
Only to find them as rotting corpses.
“Hon......!”
“Huh? What’s wrong with you?”
His family.
And only then did he realize.
“It wasn’t a lie......!”
He’d been given a chance.
“This time, I can do better.”
A chance.
To rewrite everything he’d regretted.
*****
He didn’t know what that voice was—the one that had given him this chance.
But it was a chance granted after a miserable failure.
He swore he wouldn’t waste it.
This time, no matter what.
He would survive while protecting his family.
“......Why are you buying this many things? What are you even going to do with them?”
“You don’t need to know.”
The day he returned was one month before the day the world ended.
Once he realized that, he poured in all his assets—pulled loans, too—preparing for the day the world ended.
At first, he hoped everything he’d lived through had been nothing but a dream.
He hoped all his preparations would be useless, that ruin itself would never come in reality.
But.
-GRAAAAAAAH!!!
“Of course not.”
In the end.
The day the world ended arrived.
“There has to be information I can use at this point.......”
If there was any mercy at all.
It was that he was an awakened person specialized in gathering information.
He had a lot of information from his previous life.
Information he hadn’t been able to use properly back then.
But the only reason he hadn’t been able to use it was that by the time he’d acquired it, it was already too old to be useful.
If he knew it in advance, he was confident he could survive somehow by using it.
In the first life, he’d been separated from his family and barely managed to survive alone.
In the life he was given again, he tried to survive together with his family no matter what.
Just because he knew a little more information.
Trying to survive this ruin while dragging along two non-combatants......
It was an absurd greed.
CRUNCH.
“Huh......?”
It didn’t take long to realize that confidence was delusion.
“Ah. That’s how it is.”
The result of insisting on greed.
Before his eyes were his family’s bodies—cold, eaten apart by monsters.
“This ruin.”
As he stared at the grotesque monsters closing in to devour him after swallowing his family.
He understood.
“From the start...... it was built so you can’t overcome it.”
Inside that hopeless realization.
He died even faster than in his first life.
And when he came to—
“Huh......?”
He was again.
Back to one month before the day the world ended.
“You said you’d give me a chance.”
A ruin that could never be overcome under normal circumstances.
But.
“You never said it would only be once.”
If he was given the right to retry endlessly.
That changed things a little.
“No matter how impossible this ruin is to overcome.”
If he kept trying.
Someday.
He might be able to overcome it.
*****
After that.
Tens, hundreds.
No—thousands of repetitions.
He began his struggle against the ruin that had swallowed the world.
That struggle wasn’t easy.
“People...... don’t awaken.”
In the chance granted again, most people failed to awaken.
Even the rare awakened who did appear would reach a certain level, then suddenly stop growing.
He soon understood why.
“Those who failed to awaken in the first life and died...... can’t awaken in this new chance either.”
He didn’t know who had given him that chance.
But that unknown force that created awakened people.
Seemed to be something separate from the [System].
Even if a new chance was granted.
Awakened people couldn’t grow beyond the numbers they’d reached in the first life.
“If you can’t increase the number of awakened indefinitely, you can’t overcome this ruin with just ‘a reasonable number’ of people.”
Then.
The answer was simple.
“Save as many humans as possible.”
Beyond “a reasonable number.”
Save as many humans as possible.
“......You’re saying the Prime Minister is alive?”
“Hm. Looks like they’ve rallied around him. Connections with other regions are cut off for now, but this won’t last long. Soon the military will handle the monsters.”
On the fourth repetition, he learned a shocking fact.
Key government figures he’d assumed all died.
Some of them had survived for quite a long time even after the day the world ended.
He decided to cooperate with those government figures.
“That group that’s been rapidly expanding lately...... if you’re at this level, you’re worth accepting. Welcome aboard.”
He died repeatedly, learned new information.
Shared that information with government-side figures, and steadily pushed through this ruin.
The process was fairly smooth.
And for the first time, he saw hope—that if things continued like this, he might someday overcome this ruin.
But.
“It’s good that you’re capable...... tsk, tsk. You should’ve known when to stop showing off.”
“Your Excellency...... what is this?”
“You’ve noticed your standing in the group is getting too big, haven’t you?”
His twelfth death wasn’t caused by a monster.
It wasn’t even caused by an enemy.
“You’re capable, but you seem to know nothing about politics. Your influence was growing to the point it threatened me, and you did nothing. If it’s going to be like that...... I have no choice but to act first, before you take my seat.”
“Cough.......”
“Don’t take it too unfairly. Well...... you won’t be able to feel wronged after you’re dead anyway.”
A death from betrayal by someone he’d considered an ally.
Then, he understood.
“He tried to save as many...... as many people as possible.”
But.
Sometimes......
“There are people you have to kill.”
“Hon? What kind of murderous thing is that in the middle of getting ready for work?”
He seized the opportunity and assassinated the Prime Minister.
He handled it cleverly using monsters, so no one suspected him.
“Th-then...... don’t tell me.”
“From now on, Minister, you are the Acting Authority.”
“My god.”
Next, the head of government became a minister of a certain department.
A person who would’ve died originally, but survived because he’d cooperated with the government.
Unlike the Prime Minister who betrayed him, the man was a decent person.
But—
“I-I never studied for something like this kind of situation!”
There was always a reason people died early in the original course of events.
Despite his high position, he was far too timid and incompetent to overcome this ruin.
“We need someone else.”
In the next life.
The operation to rescue that minister was not carried out.
“So you’re saying the President, the Prime Minister, all the ministers and so on...... every legally designated Acting Authority is dead, so I, a vice minister, have to exercise the minister’s acting authority, and then act as the Acting Authority?”
“That’s correct.”
“What the hell kind of bullshit is that?”
After that.
Even those who were legally qualified to become the head of the nation.
But lacked the ability or character for it.
After he replaced all of them—
“You know this is nonsense too, right? If I can help it, I don’t want to play along with word games like this.”
“But we have no choice. People are rallying around the government. If a lawful person doesn’t take the helm, society will collapse rapidly.”
“......It’s nonsense, but....... Haa. If doing it saves people, I guess I have to bark a little.”
Only in the eighty-second life.
Did the turn finally reach someone with the ability to handle the leadership position, and the government faction could be stabilized.
“Why did you save me! You could’ve saved the Chief of Staff instead of me!”
“It was a mistake. But you survived, so...... you’re the highest-ranking person in the military base.”
It wasn’t only the government.
After dying a few times and identifying the monsters’ weak points occupying the military base.
He succeeded in reclaiming it, but there was no person or system capable of using the equipment he’d secured.
He needed someone who could rebuild the military’s structure and train people into soldiers.
“Defending the nation is my duty, so I’ll take the position for now. But...... remember this. I’m not following you. I’m only being faithful to my duty.”
“I understand.”
He drove the military’s highest commander—someone who would’ve survived over a month even without his intervention—into death.
Secured a highly capable general who would’ve been attacked by monsters and die within a single day as soon as the day the world ended began.
And entrusted him with training and commanding the army.
“I need to keep him alive...... and for that, I have no choice but to let his family die.”
It was impossible to save everyone.
After that, he began choosing who would live and who would die.
“These people aren’t awful, but they’re useless, so it’s better to sacrifice them here.”
He killed those who would hinder his survival quickly.
He saved those who would help his survival, even if it meant sacrificing others.
“Like.......”
Then.
He suddenly realized.
“It’s like I’m a god.”
Before he knew it.
He’d become a reaper with the power to decide the living and the dead.
