Dating Sims and Romance Targets
Late into the dawn, Dominating Hands' Air Fortress cruised steadily high above the clouds. Paradise stood alone on the open deck, bathed in faint moonlight.
"From the looks of it," she murmured quietly, "she's finally catching on."
On the smartphone screen resting in her palm, footage played of Lee Se-ah trembling and breaking out in a profuse cold sweat.
"Come to think of it, what was Lee Se-ah's ability again?"
Watching the feed with an impassive gaze, Paradise slowly closed her eyes.
Swish—!
A cascade of cards fanned out around her in an instant, hovering in the midnight air.
"The Concept of Foresight, was it?" Rummaging through the floating array, Dice tilted her head and muttered, "I'm sure I copied it somewhere..."
The Concept of Foresight was an extraordinary power whose very existence was known to no one except its bearer, Lee Se-ah, and the Child of Prophecy known as Lumia. Under normal circumstances, it was impossible for Paradise to possess it. Holding more than one Concept at a time was fundamentally out of the question in this world.
"...Ah, found it."
Plucking a card inscribed with a percentage sign from the swirling deck, Dice closed her eyes and snapped her fingers.
"Mind if I take a look with you, Ms. Lee Se-ah? Mine's a single-use copy anyway."
When Dice opened her eyes, they shone with the same vivid azure hue as Lee Se-ah's.
She did not see the moonlit deck or the pitch-black sky. What unfolded before her was the heart of a metropolis reduced to total ruins.
The moment she took in the sight, the color drained from her face. For someone who always wore an unbothered, playful smile, such an expression was exceedingly rare.
"It's just like... that day," Dice murmured, her voice trembling faintly. "How strange. I changed so much this time. Why is the ending still the same?"
A wave of revulsion churned in her stomach. She wanted nothing more than to shut her eyes and terminate the vision right then and there. Yet she forced herself to keep watching. There was always the slim possibility that something, anything, had shifted. With heavy, deliberate steps, Paradise walked forward through the dust and rubble.
Soon enough, a crowd gathered in the middle of the devastation entered her view.
"Nothing's changed at all," Dice whispered with a bitter smile as she quietly slipped between the figures.
Lying before her was Trauma, his mask completely shattered to reveal Kang Haneul's face. His eyes were closed peacefully as though he had merely drifted off to sleep, but his skin was utterly devoid of color. Judging by the gaping wound torn through his chest, his life had long since slipped away.
"Except for that child."
It was a sight she never wanted to witness again, yet she couldn't tear her gaze away. A new variable had appeared—one that didn't exist in the conclusion she remembered.
"Ariel, was it?"
A young girl knelt on the shattered pavement, cradling Trauma's lifeless body tightly against her chest. It was none other than Ariel Everray. With her fingers tightly laced through Kang Haneul's cold hand, she squeezed her eyes shut and wept inconsolably. The sight was harrowing in its desperation.
"...Haa." Dice let out a deep sigh, turning her eyes away with a furrowed brow. "Did you die saving her? While handing over Justia's ability in its entirety?"
It wasn't difficult to deduce what had happened. To the current Kang Haneul, besides his goal of exterminating every last Grotesque, there was another purpose: protecting Justia's only living kin, who hadn't died on entrance ceremony day in this timeline. No matter how much she thought about it, that was the only reason Kang Haneul would end up dead at this juncture.
Staring down at him in silence, Dice reached out a tentative hand toward his face. But her translucent fingers merely drifted through his cheek without making contact.
"Still... where are those people? Why aren't they here?"
After gently tracing the contours of his face a moment longer, Dice stood up. "Shall I go look for myself?"
Though it was a single-use card, the copied Concept of Foresight manifested far more powerfully through Paradise's magic than in Lee Se-ah's hands. Shifting her vantage point toward someone she was intimately familiar with was practically effortless.
The vision blurred and reformed in an instant, and as it did, Dice's expression hardened into stone.
"Kang Haneul... is this your revenge?"
A hollow laugh escaped her lips, though her eyes remained entirely cold and lifeless.
"How very like you."
Kang Haneul's older sister, Great Order. Dressed in a sharp suit at home, she had evidently been waiting for someone with an eager heart, only to find herself staring dumbfounded at a breaking news broadcast on the television.
"It really is a revenge so typical of you."
Moments later, Great Order shot up from her seat, her face pale with abject horror, and bolted out the front door. On the dining table she left behind, a bowl of clumsily prepared homemade kimchi stew sat completely untouched, faint wisps of steam drifting into the empty room.
"...Ugh."
A sharp, searing pain tore through Dice's skull, forcing a groan through her gritted teeth. "Pushing it this far really is too much...?"
Feeling a warm trail of blood trickling down from her eye, she hastily snapped her fingers.
Fzzzz...
The azure light faded from her eyes with a faint sizzle, and the world dissolved back into reality.
"Haa..." Leaning her weary frame against the deck's railing, Dice sighed heavily. "Single-use cards really have terrible efficiency."
She looked up at the moon hanging in the night sky and murmured softly, "I wonder if Ms. Lee Se-ah saw the same thing I did."
Even with the same ability, there was no guarantee they had viewed identical scenes. What Dice had searched for was this world's ultimate ending. Lee Se-ah had likely foreseen something else entirely, but judging by how pale her face had gone, she had undoubtedly glimpsed something very close to the truth.
Collecting her thoughts, Dice forced a light smile back onto her lips. "It's fine. Whatever happens, the future isn't set in stone yet."
She understood the nature of foresight all too well. The visions granted by the Concept of Foresight were never absolute destiny; they merely reflected the most probable future under current conditions.
"I can change it. However many times it takes."
Her confident murmur trailed off, and her head sank lower.
Changing the future was possible in theory. In fact, she had already succeeded in altering several major events. Yet preventing Kang Haneul's impending death required a fundamental, structural solution.
"Mmm..."
Right now, Kang Haneul sustained his life on sheer vengeance against the Grotesques and Lumia, combined with a lingering debt of guilt toward Ariel. In other words, once all those debts were settled and his revenge was complete, he would lose every shred of will to continue living.
Then what was the countermeasure?
There is a way.
It was surprisingly straightforward: someone simply had to become his new purpose for living.
"Hey."
"...!"
Startled out of her deep reverie, Dice squeezed her hands into fists and whipped her head around toward the voice.
"What's got you so spooked?"
Kang Haneul stood on the deck, holding his Trauma mask loosely in one hand.
"...Did you just get back?"
"Yeah. Thought I'd drop by to say hello."
Dice blinked once, then quickly slipped back into her trademark teasing grin as she raised a welcoming hand.
There really is only one way to keep you alive, she thought, stepping forward with languid grace. I have to become a part of your life.
Her eyes caught the silver moonlight, shimmering with unspoken depth.
"Kang Haneul."
"...?"
She closed the distance between them, stepping firmly into his personal space.
"If you have some free time, want to make a drinking bet?"
Giving him a sultry, catlike smile, she stretched her arms, lightly brushing her soft frame against his chest.
"First one to pass out loses." Leaning in close, she whispered softly against his ear, "The loser has to grant the winner a wish. How about it?"
Kang Haneul stared at her blankly for a second, then scratched the back of his head with an awkward expression.
"Sorry, but I already have plans today."
"What?" Dice's flirtatious expression faltered, replaced by genuine bewilderment.
Looking mildly apologetic, Kang Haneul pointed over his shoulder. "I promised to play a dating sim with Pandora."
Right where his finger pointed, Pandora's small head was peeking out from the deck's stairway access.
Seeing Dice stand there in frozen disbelief, Pandora sent the text straight to Dice's smartphone, then trotted over on quiet feet.
Tugging firmly on Kang Haneul's sleeve, she pulled him along and led him down the stairs, leaving behind only the glowing screen of her warnings.
Left entirely alone on the expansive, empty deck, Dice stood completely still.
"...Wait. Did I just get dumped?"
Muttering in stunned disbelief, she tilted her head curiously, then turned to follow them downstairs.
"What on earth is a dating sim anyway?"
Apparently, Kang Haneul had a fondness for these things called 'dating sims.' If that was the case, there was only one course of action for her.
"...Maybe I should join in?"
With a sly smile creeping back onto her face, she quietly made her way toward Pandora's room.
Around that same time, inside Lee Se-ah's office.
"Haa... gasp... haa..."
Drenched head to toe in cold sweat, Lee Se-ah lay sprawled across the floor, groaning as she struggled to pull herself up onto trembling hands and knees.
"Ugh... uugh..."
With an ashen, bloodless face, she began muttering in sheer disbelief.
"Lumia...?"
"Why are you attacking me?"
Her eyes steadily filled with creeping, suffocating terror.
"Why would you suddenly betray me...?"
Ring-ring, chime ♩
Behind her trembling form, her phone on the desk gave a quiet chime.
Lumia's message sat quietly on the glowing screen of her smartphone.