Xian is just an undergrad who liked to play games. A certain type of game that involved a lot of pretty girls with both good and big personalities.
Recently he's been obsessed with playing fantasy themed dating sim games with a dash of academy life and action, a genre popular with males his age.
He just liked they way characters were drawn, those perfect plethora of curves, vibrant colors of their hair and heavenly voices. In short he's just a hardcore fan who would scream at a character he found he found attractive. In his eyes they looked incomparably better than the stale reality he lived in.
These days in particular, there was one game he'd been repeatedly 'conquering' again and again for only one reason. A flexible game where you can date characters and have an academy life with them. Grow strong, interact, catch their interest and then the story progresses. He finished the stories of everyone he wanted except one character.
In hopes of finding an easter egg and a hidden route, he wanted to save an antagonist character who always met a bad end.
And that character is a villainess in the game.
She wasn't the major villain per se, but one of the many hurdles the player eventually has to go through, and most of the time, a rival and enemy of the heroine that the protagonists stick with.
Sometimes, she dies early depending on the choices the player makes, caused by another character in the game. Sometimes she gets defeated for a heroine's development in the story. Sometimes she's an enemy of the academy and betrayer of humanity who appears as a strong boss.
He wanted to ask the developers why they made such character like her a villain and also absolutely unlucky at the same time? There's one thing that astounded him when he discovered that character. He unmatched beauty that hit all the right spots for his type.
She immediately caught his eye and thought that she definitely had a route from somewhere out there.
After all, with her appearance, long silky dark crimson hair, on top of gothic black dress and pale porcelein skin with matching sharp pretty face, she was drop dead gorgeous. Instantly, she carved a place inside his heart at first sight.
Just like how a wise man once asked, 'If evil, why hot?' she was the epitome of that question. And to Xian's fixation towards beauty, she more than met his tastes.
But contrary to that, she was discarded in more ways than one, sometimes vain and sometimes dramatic without really playing a significant role.
There was even a route where she got married to a random old noble after being stripped of her position as an heiress. A route he absolutely couldn't forgive! Such a goddess-level beauty wasted... it was too much for his heart to take.
So like a true connoisseur and gamer of this genre, he dedicated himself into somehow getting involved with her and to be the first one in finding any route's that can save her.
But… His patience was really being tested by the game.
"Damn this bitch!" He would involuntarily fume at her for appearing at a very crucial moment as a hard boss instead, with a chance of team wiping the party when his members are already exhausted. Or died in vain due to some aftereffects on an event.
'What an unfortunate character.'
His first few attempts that ended in failure soon turned to fifties, then hundreds and then he counted no more.
Until finally, a strange event led to him applying as her butler early on, she finally had a new and unseen interaction.
"Finally! Is this her prelude route?" He was overjoyed to find that he was finally able to open her route.
His character stood, facing the said villainess, flanked by two swordmaidens clad in black.
[You're my new butler?] Said the very girl he'd been trying to save countless times.
Unfortunately, the game ended at that. The credits rolled and her visage slowly faded into darkness.
"What!? Are you kidding me?"
Angered with how lackluster that felt, he almost smashed his laptop.
Until an email notification from the game developers reached out to him and appeared on the screen, harboring its company logo. A black rose of falling petals surrounded by thorns. It was so sudden and unexpected that he felt scared. He never reached out to the game developers nor gave anyone his address recently. He was just... holed inside his room and didn't have a chance to talk with anyone.
Xian was familiar with this development. He had never been one to believe in god or whatever fiction he ever read, but at that moment, his heart trembled. It's either a spam, a scam, or the thing he was thinking of.
He felt ridiculous for expecting something like that.
'Gulp'
But, if there's a sliver of chance that it is... Maybe he can live his life differently.
'It can't be, right?'
He clicked the email open, and the screen turned white. Then, the white light kept expanding beyond the screen as it swallowed him and the surroundings.
He found himself in an empty white space, only with his laptop placed in the table.
'It seems we have a dedicated one here.' A voice that came from all directions echoed in his ears.
"?… Is this what I think it is?"
'Yes.' Another voice answered.
Xian took a sharp breath. Had he finally died after all those sleepless nights of trying to find a way in that game characters route? Or is he just dreaming right now? After fiddling with the choices, he finally found where the route could be hidden.
It was in the surefire bad end route.
The route where the protagonist chooses no route, nor heroine but instead goes to the academy without prior starting point that contains a heroine. At first release, the game was famous for a Harem route theory that many fans tried to accomplish before, but to this day no one has been able to do it.
And in one of the very early starting points, he took the protagonist to the high level area estate where the character he was trying to save resides. After several attempts, he was found by an attendant, and it lead into the cutscene where he stood before her.
Thus, the game ends. Turns out, there was this kind of surprise for the one who will discover it.
"So? What now? Do I have some sort of reward?" Knowing that he might only get vague answers, he didn't bother questioning the entity talking in his head. Instead, he went straight to the matter of this meeting. For all he knew, he might just be hallucinating and dreaming.
'You do. But it's more of a punishment.'
"A punishment huh? But why?"
'It is also a sin to die, unable to take care of your body. And therefore here we are.'
He was stunned for a moment. He really did die?
"How ridiculous." Xian let out a wry laugh, finding his death very amusing. But he wasn't that disappointed. He was already feeling dead for quite a while anyways.
'But, since you died doing what you love with dedication, you have reached our hearts and we have prepared a special punishment just for you.'
"?" Xian tilted his head with an incredulous expression. 'Special Punishment?'
'From now on, you'll be punished by reliving what you love, over and over again. Until you reach the end. The proper end. We will be watching you then, O dedicated one.'
"What I love? What do you mean? Hey!"
Alas, he didn't get any further answers, and for the second time, everything went white.
***
He found himself standing in front of a familiar woman. Cascading black hair, red tinged and freely flowing from her shoulders, she sat like an empress in her throne. Her breathtaking beauty was reflected in the face he knew very well and is just as beautiful.
"You're my new butler?" Guarded by two women wearing the signature tight black armor of their dukedom, she looked down upon him with an ever uninterested gaze.
"So, why is a thing like you just standing there?" She spoke in a heavenly flat tone he always adored. A voice he fantasized of in various reactions and pitch.
Stunned, Xian could only open wide his mouth in shock. He was really in the games world.
What now?
"Tsk, unpleasant."
But before he could even process anything.
She beckoned for one of her guards who nodded and took a stance as if drawing a blade. Then his vision spun as the color of read burst, blocking his view.
He realized that he'd been beheaded.
That was his first death and regression.