After what to be just a vivid hallucination, Xian found himself standing before Carmillia once again.
His hand flew to his neck. There was no wound beneath his fingers, yet the sharp and cold sensation was the last thing he felt from his neck. There was neither pain nor resistance, only the terror of realization as his view spun.
Carmillia sat exactly as she had moments ago, her deep-green eyes regarding him with the same cold indifference. The two swordmaidens stood beside her, unmoving.
He had definitely been beheaded, but time had somehow rewound and brought him back.
"Damn bitch." But there was no joy found in coming back as his curse spilled out before he could stop it. Frustration twisted his expression, the same thoughtless irritation he had directed at Carmillia through countless failed playthroughs.
The moment Carmillia frowned, the same swordmaiden stepped forward without hesitation, her longsword leaving its sheath for an instant.
Xian barely saw the swordmaiden move and all he could think of was to step back. Although it was useless once she put her foot forward ever so slightly for a longer reach, as if to expect his very action.
A cold line crossed his neck and his vision spun for the second time. The same vision spinning, the same red curtain and the same cold gaze.
Xian found himself in front of the villainess once again, a shiver running down through his fine, almost making his knees buckle.
He returned at the same hall where Carmillia remained seated. The swordmaidens had resumed their places, and there was not a trace of blood upon the floor.
Xian clenched his jaw with all his might.
'Fuck.'
This time, the curse remained in his head. Dying once had stunned him. Dying twice taught him something far more useful. Carmillia was no longer a character trapped behind a screen and whatever he said now could cost him his life if he wasn't careful.
Before she could speak, Xian lowered his gaze and bowed as deeply as he could without appearing ridiculous.
"I greet Her Highness, Princess Carmillia Montagne." He had no experience serving nobility, but years of games, novels, and animation had at least given him something to imitate.
Xian remained bowed, acutely aware of the swordmaiden standing only a few steps away. Then he noticed something floating above Carmillia's head in his vision periphery.
A black heart. Inside was the number 19.
He recognized the interface immediately.
In Rozenfall: Romance and Ruin, black signified animosity. Dark crimson was worse, representing hatred severe enough to provoke immediate violence. Nineteen placed Carmillia dangerously close to that threshold.
The affection system had followed him into this world.
"Hmph." Carmillia tilted her head, her displeasure plain upon her face.
"The head butler will teach you what you need to learn. I expect no more than a week of preparation." A week?
Xian knew nothing about being a butler beyond what he had seen in entertainment. He wanted to object, but the phantom sensation across his neck persuaded him to remain silent.
"As you wish." He bowed once more.
Carmillia studied him for a moment before rising from her seat. The two swordmaidens followed as she walked away.
Xian cautiously glanced toward the longsword user.
A gray heart floated above her head.
50.
Neutral.
She had no particular hatred toward him despite having killed him twice without hesitation.
Xian watched her leave with Carmillia. Black armor concealed most of her appearance, but he committed what little he could see to memory.
They would meet again.
When that happened, he would remember what she had done to him, even if regression had erased it for everyone else.
"Hah!"
Once they were finally gone, Xian gasped in relief. His legs gave way beneath him, and he dropped to the floor as though he had just finished running a marathon. His chest heaved while cold sweat spread across his skin, leaving his entire body trembling.
It had been his first time being murdered, and he had already endured it twice. Normal people usually don't ever get to experience that one after another.
Neither death had been painful. The blade had passed through his neck too quickly for him to feel more than a cold touch, but the sensation of his head separating from his body remained disturbingly vivid. He could not even keep up with the swordmaidens move.
'Shit! Shit!
The helplessness was worse than the pain could have been. Xian could barely force himself back onto his feet. Part of him wanted to curl up and remain on the floor, while another wanted to strike the nearest wall until the anger left his body.
It took several minutes for his breathing to settle enough for him to think clearly.
He was inside Rozenfall: Romance and Ruin, the game that had consumed the final days of his life.
It had never been particularly popular outside its genre, but its fanbase was fiercely devoted. The developers had filled it with branching routes, brutal endings, obscure prerequisites, and enough variations to keep players searching through repeated playthroughs. Some characters possessed several possible endings within a single arc, which encouraged fans to dissect every interaction and compile discoveries as though they were uncovering buried treasure.
Among all those characters, few were as notorious as Carmillia Montagne.
Players had given her the title The Guillotine Flower.
She earned it through her preferred method of dealing with opposition. Carmillia rarely dirtied her own hands when a command was enough. Enemies, servants, political rivals, and even the protagonist could be condemned to beheading with only a few words from her.
She was responsible for more bad endings than some of the game's major villains, often arranging for the protagonist and his companions to be framed, captured, and publicly executed.
Xian had always known that.
Knowing it through a screen, however, had been very different from kneeling before the woman herself and hearing her give the order.
Following Carmillia's whims was no safer. She would use the protagonist for her own purposes, then destroy his entire run by betraying him once he had served his purpose.
Avoiding her was hardly better. Carmillia could appear midway through the game as a surprise boss equipped with absurd mechanics and overwhelmingly high attributes. By that stage, even her swordmaidens had disappeared from her side because she had grown strong enough to no longer need them.
Either way, the player lost.
Many players believed the developers were deliberately tormenting them by making such a beautiful villainess an infuriating adversary rather than a heroine or even a minor romantic option. Eventually, however, the community discovered that Carmillia possessed endings of her own, obtainable only under highly specific conditions.
The problem was that none of them were happy.
They were tragic, hollow endings in which Carmillia was ruined, discarded, or killed before the story continued as though she had never mattered. Whether her fate affected later events depended entirely on the decisions the player had made before reaching her ending.
For all their apparent madness, the developers had placed an incredible amount of effort into the game. Its complexity earned it a devoted following, and players eventually began calling it the Dark Souls of dating simulators.
Then Xian discovered it, became obsessed, and died from neglect while playing.
'At least I got through.'
He had already died twice since arriving. Was it not excessive for his life to end so easily? One death had been caused by staring at Carmillia for too long, while the other came from cursing at her. Two minor mistakes had earned him the exact same punishment.
Her foul mood had probably made matters worse, but that was no longer the most important discovery.
A smile gradually spread across Xian's face.
Time had reversed when he died.
He had regressed.
Better still, the game's affection system had followed him into this world, allowing him to see how others regarded him.
Even so, this was no casual playthrough. Every decision could cost him his life, and every conflict carried consequences that could no longer be undone with a simple click. He was not safely controlling a character from behind a screen anymore.
He was the one standing inside the game.
The developers had designed most events to unfold alongside one another rather than allowing every route to disrupt the rest of the game. There were still countless prerequisites and interconnected choices, but a careful player could experience nearly eighty percent of the available events in a single playthrough before reaching the infamous bad ending.
That meant Xian could witness those scenes for himself.
More importantly, he had arrived at the earliest point in the game's timeline. The academy term would not begin for another month. In the original game, that period was skipped while the protagonist trained the attributes that would later determine his class placement.
Xian now had an entire month the player was never allowed to experience.
Naturally, the events he looked forward to most were the special scenes unlocked after successfully conquering the heroines. Rozenfall was exactly that sort of game. Once enough progress had been made with a character, increasingly intimate encounters became possible.
Surviving the Montagne household had to come first, of course. He could hardly pursue anyone if Carmillia had him beheaded before the academy term even began.
"Are you the new butler?"
Xian looked up.
A thin, almost emaciated old man stood before him. His white hair had been neatly combed back, and a bow tie rested beneath the collar of his immaculate suit. He resembled the conventional image of a butler, aside from lacking the broad and imposing build Xian had come to expect from fiction.
His tired eyes and weary voice made him seem as though every word required more effort than it was worth.
Xian was not fooled.
The Montagne household was filled with dangerous and complicated individuals, and the old man before him was no exception. He was the estate's head butler and the right-hand man of the dukedom's patriarch.
"Yes," Xian replied, keeping his answer brief and respectful.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
"Then write your name and sign this contract."
The old man handed him a sheet of parchment. Its surface felt rough beneath Xian's fingers, and after examining it more closely, he realized that it had been made from finely treated leather rather than ordinary paper.
The terms were strict. They demanded complete secrecy, obedience, and cooperation with the Montagne household. In return, the position offered a salary far greater than Xian had expected a butler to receive.
He had spent part of his former life searching unsuccessfully for a well-paying job. Somehow, one had finally found him after his death.
"I will train you and teach you how to attend to the young lady as her butler," the old man said. "Do bear in mind that a mistake may cost you your life."
The warning was delivered so plainly that it sounded less like a threat and more like a statement of fact.
Death from failing at what, exactly? Folding clothes? What a world.
"I'll be in your care."
Xian signed only one name: Xian. He left the space for a surname blank. Since the game's protagonist had entered the story as a commoner, doing the same seemed less likely to attract suspicion.
"Xian, is it?"
The head butler studied him with an unreadable expression before folding the contract and placing it inside his coat.
"Follow me."
What followed was a tour of the estate where Carmillia would reside until the academy term began. Nobles who disliked sharing the Royal Dormitories often purchased land near Rozenfall Academy and built private residences of their own. Instead of returning to a dormitory after class, they returned to estates filled with servants, guards, and retainers.
As more noble families settled around the academy, the surrounding land became a collection of minor courts. Rivalries, alliances, and political schemes unfolded between the future leaders and influential figures studying there.
Merchants, laborers, and commoners gradually followed, transforming the settlement into an academy city. Beyond the academy grounds, however, noble authority still ruled nearly every aspect of life.
The tour ended before a modest wooden door.
"Rest," the head butler said. "Your training begins at dawn."
Xian's eye twitched. Dawn itself was not unfamiliar to him. He was simply more accustomed to still being awake at that hour than waking up for it.
The sleep schedule of a true shut-in.
"Understood."
The head butler shut the door, leaving him alone.
At least he had been given a private room. That alone probably placed him above most of the estate's servants.
Ironically, the room was larger than the one he had lived in on Earth. It was sparsely furnished, however, with plain wooden walls, aging furniture, and floorboards that creaked beneath each step. The entire place possessed the rustic appearance he remembered from the game, though it looked considerably less charming when he had to live inside it.
As Xian stepped farther into the room, something reflected movement near the wall.
A mirror. Curious. he glanced toward it and stopped. That was when he realized something he should have noticed much earlier.
He did not look like himself.
Or the protagonist.
The man in the mirror was taller and broader than Xian had been on Earth. His red hair was cut neatly along the sides, while sharp, menacing eyes gave him the appearance of someone constantly looking for trouble. He had a defined jaw, a high nose, and features that carried a natural arrogance even while his expression remained neutral.
He looked like the sort of major villain who would eventually reveal himself to be a werewolf. Xian lifted one hand.
The stranger in the mirror copied him.
'This is me?'
He tried smiling, but the reflection looked less friendly and more like a man concealing some threatening scheme.
No wonder she disliked me.
His appearance was nothing like that of the game's protagonist. The protagonist had been designed to appeal to most of the heroines, with black hair, a gentle smile, and an approachable face. By comparison, Xian's piercing gaze and sharper features made him look like a rebellious noble or a regal villain dressed as a butler.
Still, there was one obvious advantage.
'At least I'm more handsome than the protagonist.'
Xian's satisfaction lasted only a moment.
"Hmm?"
If he had not entered the protagonist's body, then what had happened to the protagonist?
Had the empty route placed him somewhere else? Would he still appear when the academy term began?
Because if he did, things would become far more complicated.