Miracle
"Ugh, I hate this... Why do you smell like that bitch?"
Her crimson eyes had frozen over, cold as death. The tip of the dagger pressed into my throat, right against my Adam's apple. A sharp sting flared, and beads of blood welled up, soaking into the collar of my shirt.
Jealousy has mutated into murderous intent.
Observer's Eye has detected a confirmed future.
Outcome: Limb severance and permanent confinement.
I couldn't even draw a proper breath. Adelia glared at me like she wanted to kill me, biting down hard on her lip.
"You... you said earlier in the garden that you knew me, didn't you?"
Her voice trembled faintly.
"You came to me crying. You acted like you understood my reg... ugh, like you knew all about that hellish time."
Crackle.
Causality Constraint activated.
This individual cannot disclose information regarding regressions.
Moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes. A chaotic gaze swirled with murderous intent and sorrow. This wasn't simple anger. It was the agony of 999 lifetimes that no one had ever acknowledged. The devastating betrayal of realizing that the one man she thought might understand her was now reeking of the scent belonging to the saintess she hated most.
"You acted like you'd save me... and yet in just a few hours, you come back stinking of that bitch?"
From her perspective, I wasn't a savior. I was the worst kind of con artist, dangling hope only to snatch it away.
"Answer me, damn it! You fucking extra!"
She refused to say my name until the very end. Speaking the two syllables of "Roy" felt like it would shatter the dam holding back her emotions. So she forced herself to treat me as nothing more than a stranger. An insect.
Crackle.
"Answer me! How far did you go with that bitch? Did you touch her? Did you fuck her?"
The blade sank deeper. Skin tore. Blood flowed. There was no point in making excuses. She had already let go of reason.
I can't talk my way out of this.
I didn't avoid her eyes. Slowly, I raised my hand.
"Does that smell... really bother you that much?"
"Yes! It's disgusting! I want to carve it out of you!"
"Then erase it!"
"What...?"
"If it disgusts you that much, cover it with a different scent!"
Without hesitation, I grabbed the gleaming blade of the dagger she held with my bare hand.
Shunk—!
"Ghhk...!"
A sickening tearing sound. The sharp edge bit into the soft flesh of my palm, severing muscle, scraping bone. A burning pain like molten iron slammed into my brain.
Fuck... this hurts like hell. It really fucking does...!
The agony of being cut by a blade while fully conscious was horrific. I had no room to act cool. I bit my lip to hold back a scream, but the physiological reaction was unavoidable.
Tears poured from my eyes, thick and heavy, completely beyond my control. Not from sadness, but from pain so intense it drove me insane. Still, I didn't let go. If anything, I gripped harder.
When dealing with a crazy bitch, you have to go crazy too.
Drip. Drop. Drip.
Dark red blood burst between my fingers, staining Adelia's pale hand crimson.
"E-Extra!! You... you......!"
Adelia's eyes widened. My tears. My blood. She panicked and tried to pull the dagger away, but I refused to release it. I shoved my blood-soaked hand right in front of her nose.
"Hey, seriously... hic... smell it... ugh..."
My voice shook with pain.
"This will prove it... that my blood... smells stronger than hers."
The metallic, hot scent of iron. That intense smell of blood instantly overpowered Yuriel's lilac fragrance.
Adelia's pupils trembled like an earthquake. It was the scent she had smelled 999 times on the battlefield—the one she was sick of, yet knew better than any other. The one that triggered her trauma. And the sight of a man crying his eyes out and bleeding right in front of her made something inside her mind creak and groan.
That was when it happened.
From behind the bushes, Yuriel's nails dug into her own palms. Red blood dripped down, but she didn't feel it. How could any believer stay still while their 'god' shed holy blood before their eyes?
Sunbae! No! You can't!
Her SAN value plummeted.
Crackle.
The thread of reason snapped.
Flash—!
A brilliant pillar of light erupted from behind the bushes, holy power tearing through the sky and engulfing the clearing. Yuriel, unable to hold back any longer, stepped into view.
"I cannot simply stand by and watch my faith bleed."
Yuriel's voice was cool and clear as she emerged, her saintess robes fluttering. Her golden eyes glowed, but within them burned a beast-like possessiveness.
Adelia whipped her head around.
"Ha... So you really were hiding there. You piece of trash."
"Oh my! Watch your language, Hero... Sunbae belongs to me, you know? How dare you injure that precious body?"
"What...? Yours?"
Adelia's brow furrowed deeply. That single word had struck her reverse scale.
"This extra... belongs to you??"
Rumble—!
Red demonic energy exploded from Adelia's body. It wasn't mere killing intent—it was the fighting spirit of a hero who had survived 999 battlefields. Gravel in the clearing vibrated and floated into the air.
"I'll kill you!!"
Adelia readjusted her grip on the dagger. Red aura gathered at its tip, instantly forming into a massive blade of energy. Yuriel refused to yield, bringing her hands together. A gigantic pair of angelic wings manifested behind her.
"Sanctuary Deployment. In the name of God, I reject the unholy."
Ting—!
A golden wave burst from Yuriel's body, creating an absolute defensive domain that rejected all physical force. In that instant, Adelia kicked off the ground and leaped.
"Disappear!!!"
Kwaaaaaang—!!!
The hero's spear and the saintess's sanctuary—two absolute forces—collided head-on. It wasn't a simple explosion of power. It sounded like the very laws of the world were screaming.
A flash like a nuclear detonation burned my vision white. A deafening roar that threatened to rupture my eardrums.
And then.
......Drip.
As if by a lie, every sound in the world vanished. Perfect silence, without even ringing in my ears. The swirling dust, the flying droplets of blood—everything froze mid-air.
Warning: Absolute Paradox has occurred.
Causality calculations are collapsing.
The space before my eyes began to crack like shattered glass. Through the fissures, tens of thousands of other possibilities poured out.
Crackle.
Reality screamed.
The space split open, and through the gap flooded 'lives that could have been.' Worlds where Adelia had been saved. Worlds where Adelia had been happy. Worlds where Adelia had never gone mad.
Thousands, tens of thousands of 'what ifs' filled the gray space. Like fragments of a broken mirror, each shard reflected a different Adelia.
An Adelia who smiled. An Adelia who grew old normally. An Adelia who never held a sword.
And at the center of every possibility was Roy.
Numerous parallel world lines are temporarily overlapping.
This was not reality. Yet it was not a dream. It was a fissure where laws had broken down. A 'non-existent time' that should never have existed.
Dimensional Discrepancy... 0.3 seconds.
In real time, only 0.3 seconds had passed. But inside this 'gap of the mind' where causality had halted, time lost all meaning and stretched into infinity. A colorless gray world. Only I—the Observer—and Adelia, the center of the world, existed there.
Crackle!
Due to the collision of world lines, the red chains (mental corruption) binding Adelia snapped apart. Or more precisely... the thick shell labeled 'Hero' that 999 regressions had layered over her shattered.
Hssss...
The murderous aura of a killer melted away like snow. Her cold expression crumbled. Her appearance hadn't changed—she was still the beautiful woman with platinum blonde hair. But what I saw was different.
She wasn't an adult. She was the fifteen-year-old girl from the day her first regression began. The girl who lost her family to the Demon King and was forced to take up a sword. Her time had stopped on that hellish day.
Clang—!
The dagger slipped from her small hand and fell to the ground. She dropped to her knees. Her shoulders trembled faintly.
"Hic... I'm scared..."
The voice that escaped her was not that of a murderer, but the cry of a child.
"It's too dark... There's no one here... I'm all alone..."
For 999 lifetimes. Across that eternity, she had pretended to be strong, pretended to be crazy, and endured. But the truth was, she had never been an adult for even a single moment. She had only ever been a fifteen-year-old child, curled up in a corner and crying.
I clutched my agonizing hand and approached her. With a hand dripping blood, I gripped her trembling shoulder.
"Adelia."
She slowly lifted her head. Clear eyes wet with tears. There stood the purest girl in the world—one worn down by every storm life could offer.
"......Who are you?"
She asked. She didn't remember me. Of course she didn't. But instinctively, she knew. In this gray world, I was the only one who wouldn't hurt her.
"It's me."
Instead of answering with words, I pulled her into my arms. Hard enough to crush her. Hard enough that my blood soaked the back of her clothes.
"The one who came to save you."
"......!"
"I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry I left you alone for so long."
Her body, held in my embrace, stiffened, then began to shake violently.
"You're lying..."
She clutched my clothes tightly.
"Everyone ran away... Everyone died... leaving me behind..."
"No. This time, I won't run."
I clenched my teeth so hard the muscles in my jaw stood out. My heart felt like it was being torn apart. The protagonist of my novel, the hero I had loved, had actually been this small, fragile child all along.
"I'll change everything. So you never have to hold a sword again. So you never have to cry again."
With my bloodied hand, I stroked her hair.
"I swear it. On my life. I will definitely pull you out of this hell."
"Hic... Hwaaang...!!"
She buried her face in my chest and wailed. There was no dignity of a hero, no pride. She simply cried like a child waking from a nightmare, sobbing bitterly. Her cries filled the gray space completely.
At that moment.
—Fwaaaa......
Light poured from the small girl in my arms. Memories from other parallel worlds. The 'possibility world lines' where I might have saved her flowed into her.
Hssss.
The girl's body grew. The small, delicate hand of a fifteen-year-old transformed into the callused hand of a twenty-year-old hero. But that hand no longer trembled while holding a sword. Instead, it clung to my clothes like a lifeline.
She lifted her head. The tear-streaked face was no longer that of a fifteen-year-old. It was the face of the 'complete Adelia' who had endured 999 lifetimes of suffering, only to finally meet me and be saved. The fear vanished from her eyes, replaced by blind faith.
"......Ah."
With a trembling hand, she caressed my blood-stained cheek.
"It was you."
Past memories and future possibilities merged. She realized that the savior she had waited for so desperately was the man standing right before her.
"My salvation. My faith. My...... Roy."
She gazed at me with an expression of pure ecstasy. Eyes overflowing with a love so powerful it seemed to encompass the entire world.
But this miracle was not permitted. It was a drastic deviation from the original story. The system judged it a 'fatal error.'
—Crackle crackle crackle!!!
The gray sky tore open in red. The gap between parallel worlds was closing.
Warning: Causality correction process initiated.
Forced reset: Target 'Adelia'
"......!"
Adelia's face twisted. Dozens of red chains erupted from the ground, wrapping around her limbs. The system was trying to drag her back into that cold abyss.
"No... I don't want to...!"
She screamed and reached for me. A desperate cry that she could not lose the salvation she had just found, this warm light.
"Roy! Roy!!"
I desperately stretched out my hand to grab hers. But an invisible, transparent barrier stood between us.
Bang! Bang!
I pounded the barrier with my fist, but it was useless. Adelia's body was being dragged backward. In her eyes, the memories of 'faith' and 'love' directed at me shattered like data fragments and scattered.
She was crying. Even in that final moment as her memories were erased, she tried to keep me in her sight. She opened her mouth. The words she wanted to say most. The words she had wanted to convey after 999 regressions.
"Please... please save me, Roy......"
Her fingertips slipped from mine. In the fading vision, her lips moved desperately.
"......I lㅇ......"
Drip.
Warning: Forced termination.
The world went dark. Her words never reached me.
Pop.
The light vanished and reality returned. In that fleeting 0.3 seconds, the sanctuary had shattered. Adelia sat collapsed on the ground, breathing raggedly.
"......Ugh."
She wiped at her wet eyes with a dazed expression. Hot tears—whose reason she couldn't understand—continued to flow endlessly down her cheeks.
"Why... why am I crying?"
The warm memory of being held and comforted by me had been cleanly erased, but the sense of loss engraved upon her soul remained.
"It feels like... I had a dream."
She murmured blankly.
"There was another woman who looked like me... but wasn't me... holding you."
Her eyes gradually sharpened.
"That woman... was receiving salvation from you. She looked so happy."
She had instinctively sensed it—the 'other self' who had existed in a different timeline and received salvation, if only for a moment. But because that memory had been forcibly deleted, she perceived it as 'someone else, not herself.'
Maddening jealousy swallowed her whole. She didn't know who that 'bitch' was who had been held by me and cried, but she was so envious she wanted to kill her.
"I'm jealous... of that woman..."
She staggered to her feet and approached me. Then she took my bloodied hand and rubbed it against her own cheek. It wasn't murderous intent, but a twisted obsession.
"Hey, Extra."
She whispered softly. Her tear-filled red eyes pierced through me.
"If you come to me again smelling like that saintess bitch, I'll cut it off..."
She licked the wound on my palm with the tip of her tongue. Like an animal marking its territory.
"And... don't come smelling like that woman who appeared in my dream either."
".....What the hell are you talking about?" For a second I almost said it out loud. Phew... I clamped my mouth shut and listened to her until the end. In perfect, upright posture.
"You're my Extra, aren't you? Don't let another woman hold you. Even if that woman is me."
With her ears flushed red, she quickly disappeared into the darkness. As if fleeing in embarrassment.
Once again, silence settled over the clearing. My legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground. Now that the tension had released, my hand hurt like absolute shit.
"Haa... Haa... It's hard to survive in this world."
I looked up at the sky. Even though this other world had forcibly torn us apart, there was still the possibility that she could return to normal.
"Wait for me, Adelia."
I will definitely pull you out of that hell.
But I didn't know.
I didn't know that from behind a tree, the saintess Yuriel had been watching everything.
"......Strange."
Behind the tree, Yuriel muttered while biting her nails.
She had seen it.
For 0.3 seconds.
In that instant when the world had stopped.
She had seen the mask of Adelia, who had reeked of terrible death, peel away. She had seen the cold hero cling to Roy and wail like a child. And she had seen Adelia, after losing her memories once more, shed inexplicable tears while desperately craving Roy.
What on earth just happened?
She had definitely been the one to deploy the sanctuary. Yet even Yuriel could not understand what had occurred within it.
One thing was certain.
The being called Roy could twist 'something' in this world.
"Our dear Sunbae...♡"
Saliva pooled at the corner of Yuriel's mouth.
The scent of death had been addictive enough. Now she had discovered there was an even greater secret.
"Ah... I'm going crazy. I want to know more."
Her golden eyes gleamed with possessiveness.
Her fingers trembled. Her heart raced. Her entire body grew hot.
"Hehe, just watching... isn't enough anymore."
Yuriel licked her lips.
".....I need to touch him myself. Sunbae♡"
She slowly stepped out from behind the tree.
A sticky gaze is observing you.
A chill ran down my spine.
Someone was watching me.
I slowly turned my head.
Beneath the shadow of the tree.
In the darkness, a single pair of golden eyes stared at me intently.
Yuriel.
She wore a strange smile as she stepped out of the shadows, one step at a time.
Saintess robes. A benevolent smile.
But those eyes...
"......"
They belonged to a predator stalking its prey.
The scent of lilacs and blood mingled thickly in the hazy evening air.