Prologue: I Should Have Just Retired
Dragged to the battlefield at nine years old, I spent ten years in the meat grinder.
Another four years followed, mopping up remnants and rebuilding the empire.
To put it bluntly, I went through absolute, unadulterated hell.
So when it was finally over, all I wanted was to retire... until someone came knocking.
"I'll give you one billion gold. Just take an assignment at the academy."
It was simply far too much money to refuse.
What's the worst that could happen? I thought. It's just a school.
With that naive optimism, I set foot on academy grounds. And what greeted me was absolute madness.
"Status window!"
"Aaargh! Why did I have to become the villainess of all people?!"
"Now that I've returned, I will stop the fall of the North at all costs!"
A litRPG gamer, a transmigration villainess, and a regressor? We had the whole damn set. Honestly, if it had stopped there, I might have counted my blessings.
"Black magicians! The black magicians are invading!"
"The Demon King has resurrected!"
"Hold the line against the demon race!"
Naturally, that classic academy-trope duo—the dark sorcerers and the Demon King—had to crash the party too. And if you thought that was bad enough, there was the icing on the cake:
"Kyle, you belong to me. I won't let anyone else have you."
"I never should have let you slip away back then..."
"Ah... Hero, why must you only have one body?"
"Hmm... how many pieces should I slice you into so I can keep you forever?"
"If you don't love me, there's no reason for me to live..."
Is this a harem story or a psychological horror?
If I hadn't been reincarnated and had instead transmigrated into a web novel, I probably would've been yanked into this mess right in the middle of typing a 57,000-character wall of profanity to that bastard author, blowing way past the usual 5,700-character complaint limit...
Lost in these useless, spiraling thoughts, I buried my face in my hands.
"Ah... fuck. I should've just retired..."
All I had left was pure, bitter resentment toward my past self, who had let a mountain of gold blind him into marching straight into this living hell.