Night had already swallowed the estate.
The Noctyrr household, usually alive with soft voices and movement, had settled into silence. Lanterns glowed faintly in the corridors, guards had taken their positions, and the world outside rested under a calm, indifferent sky.
Caelum sat on the edge of his bed.
His posture was relaxed.
His expression was not.
The royal seal lay on the table beside him, its crimson wax catching the faint candlelight. He had not touched it since morning. He did not need to.
Its presence alone was enough.
'So it begins,' he thought.
He leaned back slightly and let his gaze drift to the ceiling. The patterns in the stone were unfamiliar, yet strangely normal to him now.
This room.
This body.
This life.
They were not his first.
---
He had not always been Caelum Noctyrr.
That truth had settled into him quietly, without drama or resistance. It had not shattered him. It had not confused him.
It had simply… existed.
He had lived before.
In another world.
A smaller one.
A weaker one.
A world without magic.
Without nobility.
Without bloodlines.
He had been human.
Ordinary.
He had gone to school, wasted time, played games, complained about things that never truly mattered.
And among those games—
There had been one.
One that stood apart.
One that had felt wrong from the start.
Final Condition.
Even now, the name stirred something in him.
Not nostalgia.
Not fondness.
Wariness.
He remembered the first time he had seen it.
The warning screen.
The unusual disclaimer.
The message no one took seriously.
This is not a game for the light-hearted.
He had laughed back then.
He had been arrogant.
Curious.
Bored.
He had thought he was smarter than most.
He had thought he could handle it.
He had been wrong.
---
He remembered his first playthrough.
Confident.
Careless.
Dead within hours.
Not "game over."
Not "retry."
Just… cut.
The screen had gone black.
No explanation.
No hint.
His character had simply ceased.
He had stared at the screen, confused.
Annoyed.
He remembered his second attempt.
Slower.
More cautious.
He remembered his third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
He had tried everything.
Kindness.
Manipulation.
Distance.
Aggression.
Silence.
Nothing worked.
The heroines were not NPCs.
They did not behave like scripted characters.
They reacted.
They adapted.
They remembered.
They resented.
They obsessed.
And worse—
They did not coexist.
They clashed.
They sabotaged.
They destroyed each other.
And him.
Again and again.
'…It was never designed to be fair,' he thought.
'It was designed to break.'
He had seen routes collapse for no clear reason.
Flags trigger without warning.
Scenes change without logic.
Endings that felt incomplete.
Wrong.
Unfinished.
There was always a sense that something had been taken.
Something he had not seen.
Something he had not understood.
He had never completed the game.
Not once.
No matter how carefully he played.
No matter how calculated he became.
The endings were always… hollow.
Like something had been cut away.
---
And then—
He had died.
Not dramatically.
Not heroically.
No truck.
No light.
No last words.
Just… gone.
One moment he existed.
The next—
Darkness.
And then—
Warmth.
Sound.
A voice.
A woman crying.
Hands holding him.
Calling him a name that was not his.
He had opened his eyes.
And the world had been different.
The ceiling.
The air.
The gravity.
The presence of mana he could not see but could feel.
He had been small.
Weak.
Confused.
But not afraid.
He had understood.
Immediately.
'…So this is that world,' he thought back then.
Three years.
Three years in this body.
Three years in this world.
Three years inside the game.
And every single detail matched.
The nations.
The geography.
The races.
The political structure.
Even the minor houses.
Even the side routes.
Even the tragedies.
All of it.
Real.
Too real.
---
He closed his eyes.
The memories came easily.
Too easily.
'This is not a coincidence,' he thought.
'It never was.'
He shifted slightly, resting his elbows on his knees.
His fingers interlocked.
Steady.
Calm.
Focused.
In the game, this was the phase before everything collapsed.
Before the Queen's route began.
Before the gathering.
Before the attention.
Before the obsession.
Before the chains.
He remembered the scenes.
The dialogues.
The choices that led nowhere.
The ones that led to disaster.
He remembered the execution route.
The burning.
The chaos.
He remembered the Queen's eyes.
The madness.
The devotion.
The destruction.
He had watched it all.
Again and again.
And now—
He was here.
Inside the role.
Not controlling it.
Living it.
'…Interesting,' he thought.
There was no panic.
No shock.
No denial.
Only calculation.
Only awareness.
Only adjustment.
Because unlike last time—
This time, he was not blind.
He knew the routes.
He knew the personalities.
He knew the flags.
He knew the points of no return.
And most importantly—
He knew how badly things could go wrong.
---
He stood and walked to the window.
The night air was cool.
Clean.
The estate lay below him, quiet and protected.
Guards patrolled.
Lanterns flickered.
His family slept.
Jena.
Lucien.
Thyrene.
Eliya.
They were not in the game.
Not originally.
They were… additions.
Changes.
Variables.
He did not know why they existed.
He did not know what they meant.
But he knew one thing—
They mattered.
Not emotionally.
Not sentimentally.
Strategically.
And… something else.
Something he did not name.
'They are leverage,' he thought.
'And they are weakness.'
He did not like that.
He did not dislike it either.
He simply acknowledged it.
He leaned his forehead lightly against the glass.
The reflection stared back at him.
Young.
Beautiful.
Too beautiful.
He still found that strange.
In his previous life, he had been average.
Unremarkable.
Here—
This body drew attention without trying.
And attention was dangerous.
Especially in this world.
Especially in this game.
'The Queen is only the first,' he thought.
'She never was the worst.'
There were others.
Many others.
Women who did not love gently.
Women who did not share.
Women who did not let go.
Women who destroyed what they could not possess.
He had seen them.
All of them.
In different endings.
Different failures.
Different disasters.
Each more chaotic than the last.
And he would face them again.
Soon.
---
He straightened.
His expression was calm.
His eyes were clear.
Focused.
Alive.
'This is not a story about survival,' he thought.
'It's about control.'
He did not need courage.
He did not need motivation.
He needed precision.
He needed patience.
He needed restraint.
And he needed to never forget—
That this world punished mistakes in ways no normal world ever would.
He did not know how.
He did not know why.
He only knew—
That every wrong choice had a cost.
And that cost was never small.
He turned from the window and walked back to the bed.
Sat.
Exhaled slowly.
Not tired.
Not stressed.
Centered.
'So be it,' he thought.
'If this world wants to test me…'
His lips curved faintly.
Not in a smile.
In acceptance.
'…then I'll answer properly.'
The royal gathering was coming.
The Queen was waiting.
The routes were opening.
And the game—
The real game—
Had finally begun.