Infinite Loops Are Exhausting
“Happy twenty-eighth birthday, Lancel Dante! Why the long face on such a fine day?”
Clap clap clap!
“Happy eighteenth birthday, Lancel Dante! Why the long face on such a fine day?”
Clap clap clap!
With the sound of applause, Lancel Dante had looped back another ten years.
The first time he'd experienced this phenomenon, he'd thought, 'Is this what they call regression?'
He hadn't been particularly shaken.
As someone who'd been whisked from twenty-first-century modern society into this world overnight, he was more than prepared to accept something like regression on top of it all.
But starting from the second time, things changed.
“Happy birthday, Lancel Dante! Why the long face on such a fine day?”
The third time.
“Why the long face on such a fine day?”
The fourth.
“Why the long face?”
The fifth.
“Long face?”
The sixth.
“?”
Only then did Lancel realize.
'This isn't regression. This is a prison.'
A prison.
He opened his eyes at eighteen.
And at twenty-eight, he returned.
A life spinning endlessly in a ten-year corridor.
A literal prison of time.
'What round is this again?'
Honestly, he'd lost count.
He remembered the last time he'd bothered tallying it up was the tenth round, so he knew it was well into the double digits.
If someone asked what he'd done with over a hundred years of life, he wouldn't have much to say in response. Lancel hadn't lived any grand existence.
“Lancel, now that you're an adult, you'll serve the empire.”
The Dante family was a traditional knightly house.
Any child born here, boy or girl, received a knighthood the moment they came of age.
“Now, speak. What is a knight's duty?”
“To slay the criminals and monsters lurking in every corner of the empire, and to eradicate the rampant rebels and heretics.”
There was no such thing as career exploration like in the twenty-first century.
1. Become an exemplary knight.
2. Bear children and raise them to be exemplary knights.
That was the sole earthly mission and calling of everyone in this house.
Knight.
They lived as if that single word had been hammered into their skulls.
“Lancel, with your outstanding talent, you will surely rise to greatness as a knight. Never bring shame to the family name.”
“Yes, Father.”
Lancel had faithfully played the loyal knight for the first three rounds.
He had nothing else to do, and knighthood suited him well enough. By the end, he'd earned the moniker Dawn Knight resounding across the continent.
From the fourth to eighth rounds, he'd slacked off. Lounging like mold, pitching in just enough to earn his keep now and then.
In the ninth, he'd wandered as a vagrant. Roaming fishing villages and farmlands, lending his sword where needed and scraping by on odd jobs.
From the tenth onward, he'd kept a writer he'd scouted in a previous loop by his side to pen a continental travelogue called Islands and Seas.
Why? The seafood in those parts was that damn good. He figured he must've been that bored.
And from subsequent rounds.
'Screw it. Just live carelessly.'
Lancel had truly followed his whims.
But apparently, he'd gone too far.
“La-L-Lancel Dante... Do you even know what you've done?!”
It was the hall of a certain ducal party's aftermath, swept by terror and hysteria.
The nobles' frozen faces had long drained of color.
“Yeah. Couldn't hold back and killed him.”
Blood dripped steadily from Lancel Dante's blade.
“You mad bastard! The one you murdered is His Highness the Sixth Imperial Prince! That's high treason!”
“I know. His speech was so repulsive, my hand just slipped to the sword.”
“Re-Repulsive?”
Lancel silently gazed down at the dead man.
The party floor was staining red. A chuckle bubbled up unexpectedly.
“Still, it's pretty encouraging, isn't it?”
“What?”
“The fact that even the great empire's royalty dies from a single sword stroke.”
“Hah...”
“Blessed by the gods, my ass. Just another beast spilling bright red blood and flopping over, Your Highness.”
“...You're quite the lunatic, Lancel Dante!”
“Glad it shows.”
“Seize him! Traitor who slew His Highness the Prince!”
Lancel offered no resistance as they took him down.
“Easy, easy. I'm not running anywhere.”
“You scum-sucking wretch, don't expect a clean death! You'll burn at the stake—tied and roasted alive!”
“Uh. That does sound...”
Too late for regrets.
Bound head to toe, Lancel was promptly carted off to the capital, Rodnis.
'Come to think of it, is this my first time actually seeing Rodnis?'
Born in the sticks.
Wandered the sticks.
For a guy who'd clung to the frontiers, this was his first trip to the capital.
He'd figured it'd happen someday, but not like this.
'It's filthy huge, just like they say.'
The trouble hit the moment he passed through Rodnis's gates.
“...?”
Fallen Lady Simulation
Imperial Year 822, July 1st. Clear weather.
Emergency Event Occurred!
'Traitor Lancel Dante.'
'What the hell?'
Lancel blinked dumbly at the text floating before his eyes. It was the first such phenomenon he'd seen since waking in this world. Yeah, even racking his brains over more than a century of memories, this was new.
'Fallen Lady Simulation?'
What was it? Felt familiar somehow.
“Treason. Murder of imperial kin. Blasphemy against the throne. Blasphemy against the court. Blasphemy against the divine. For these crimes, Lancel Dante is sentenced to burning at the stake! All citizens of the capital shall witness your death! Tremble in fear, Lancel Dante! You shall suffer eternally in hell!”
Even as the death sentence rang out.
“Bring forth the criminal!”
Even dangling from the gallows peak.
'What was it?'
Lancel's mind wandered elsewhere. The memory teased at the edge of recall.
“Light the fire!”
Embers hit the pyre's stacked wood. Flames roared up the alcohol vapors in an instant.
As dizzying pain engulfed his toes and began charring his skin, lightning struck Lancel's brain.
“Ah.”
He got it.
The source of the déjà vu.
'Sis's romance-fantasy game!'
—How is it? Fun, right?
—Eh, it's okay...
It was an indie game his real sister had made.
He'd sugarcoated his lukewarm review out of pity. Its name was Fallen Lady Simulation—exactly like the popup when he'd entered the capital...
'Holy shit.'
Worldview. Place names. Character names. The unnecessarily complex game systems and lore.
The romance-fantasy game he'd politely skimmed just the basic endings for—memories of that damn thing started resurfacing.
Every sight and sound from this world slotted perfectly into place, one by one.
He shuddered.
The searing pain scorching his body faded to black oblivion by comparison.
If he'd known, he should've visited the capital sooner.
Whoosh!
With one final question lingering, Lancel turned to ash.
'But wasn't the protagonist of this game... a girl?'
She was.
The protagonist of the game.
The lady of a fallen baronial house.
The woman who would soon enchant a prince and become empress.
The absolute pivot deciding this great empire's fall or peace.
That woman's name was.
* * *
[Fallen Lady Simulation]
Week 3 of February has passed for 21-year-old Marygold!
Charm 35 → 36 up! Virtue 42 → 43 up! Elegance 21 → 29 up! Sensitivity 33 → 38 up! Allure 12. Mana 3. Strength 26. Vitality 11 → 10 down. Faith 65 → 54 down. Condition 37 → 25 down. Karma 0. (Penalties start at 50+)
- Ranked 32nd in court etiquette class.
- Praised for cleaning a magnate's mansion. Pay raised to 8 coppers.
- Broke a liquor bottle while serving at a tavern job. Deducted 3 coppers. Severely scolded. Condition slightly down.
- Begged by a street urchin. Reluctantly gave 1 copper to escape. Condition slightly down.
Met Guard Captain Ot. Affinity up! Guard Captain Ot introduced Swordsmanship Academy. Can attend starting next week.
Princely Murderer Lancel Dante Vanishes as Execution Smoke!
TIP: Condition is too low. How about a picnic for a mood boost? (Costs 1 silver)
...