[Title earned 'Heaven's Fool']
The air was hot.
The land had been painted in blood, some of it dried—almost turning brown—and some still sticking to whatever surface it was spilled on.
Grotesque trees made of dangling limbs protruding from the mountains of bloody corpses, piled upon the barren land.
Not a sound. Not a breeze. Just still silence—and a battlefield full of corpses and rusted swords. The air was hot, sticky, and carried with it the taste of copper.
My gaze drifted towards one semi-intact sword among the thousands of broken remains. In its blade, I saw a reflection that was—but at the same time wasn't—mine. White hair, stained with blood. Dim golden eyes. Wounds everywhere—jagged cuts, torn flesh, and a fist-sized hole in the torso.
But the pain didn't affect me, it wasn't even me who was wounded.
These wounds weren't mine.
It wasn't my blood that poured like a waterfall.
They were Aureus's. And I was just there for the ride.
'Another bad run. I'll get it right next time,' I thought.
And then…
"I can't…not anymore."
My—his—lips moved. The skin cracked, cut, and covered in blood. His voice filled with despair, pain, and multiple lifetimes of anguish.
'…Huh?'
Usually, a "Retry" option would pop up by now.
But it didn't.
Aureus grabbed a nearby sword with his one remaining hand and raised it to his throat.
'Stop. Don't–'
I couldn't move. I couldn't stop him.
The blade dragged across his neck, slow and deep. Blood sprayed out, but something was different. The wound didn't try to close. No form of healing dared to attempt to block the fountain of blood.
Because a skill had been activated.
[Using Skill: "Permadere"]
One of the most broken skills in the game. A weapon in the form of a skill.
It made any kill permanent. Didn't matter if you were undead, immortal, divine, or a reincarnator. If you took a fatal blow under the conditions—that was it. Game over.
Forever.
But why the hell was he using it on himself?
The screen faded to black. Until text appeared.
[GAME OVER]
[Retry: Unavailable]
And then it hit me. A permanent game over.
[Game deletion commencing: 1%]
'What?!'
[4%]
[9%]
I didn't want to accept it.
'No, no—!'
[13%]
'I was so close…'
[16%]
My heartbeat spiked. Dangerously so. I knew it.
All of this… years of playing this accursed game over and over. It couldn't just vanish.
"No. This has to be a joke."
It was a garbage game. Nobody cared about it anymore. But–
I cared.
I played it.
I played it like it meant something.
Every day. Every night. Every run. I wasn't just playing for fun anymore—I was trying. Trying to change something. Trying to save the hero. Even if I didn't know why at this point.
To find a way out.
To rewrite the world's ending.
To change what seemed etched in stone.
I knew Aureus wasn't real. But after 165 playthroughs, his pain had felt as real as anyone else's.
[84%… 86%… 89%… 9– iERR0R!]
'…Huh?'
[Are you confident?]
What?
[Are you confident you can defy fate?]
Before I could answer—
[Prove it.]
RealityThe breeze slipped in through the hospital window.
A nurse sat beside a comatose teen, peeling an orange.
He had a VR headset strapped to his face.
He always did.
"He should wake up in a few minu—"
The monitor spiked.
Beeping turned into frantic alarms.
"Code Blue!"
Doctors rushed in. Beta-blockers. CPR. Shock paddles.
Nothing worked.
Then—
One long, flat beep.
"Time of death: 14:00."
The boy who had been chained by the finite semblance of hope for nearly a decade had finally been set free.