It felt like he was swimming in a vast ocean, completely submerged beneath the surface.
‘What am I even here for?’
The darkness was endless. And yet, somewhere above, light spilled through.
“….”
Vanitas slowly opened his eyes.
Before him, several fragments hovered like moments suspended in time.
Then, all at once, reality pulled him in.
And he lived a life, remembering the one he’d been trapped in for three long months. The emptiness it left behind lingered, slowly swallowing his soul.
There was a sense of automation in everything he did. The days blurred together, driven by a need to numb it all.
He drowned himself in alcohol, forgetting what he was here for, forgetting what any of this meant.
No, he had already forgotten where he even was.
But the only thing he knew was…
“Hell.”
He was living in hell.
A professor? The title meant nothing to him. He had no motivation for it. As long as the suffocating feeling in his chest could be dulled, he’d continue day after day, trying to drown out all the noise.
And so, for the first time in a long while…
“Haha…”
Vanitas Astrea had lost the will to live.
It didn’t take long for the same events to repeat themselves.
“Professor.”
The voice echoed through the empty halls of a home he couldn’t recognize. This was probably after Vanitas Astrea had been exiled. Perhaps it had played out the same way as it did in the game.
And the only person who ever managed to pull him out of that long daze now stood before him.
“…Karina.”
Karina Maeril. Her eyes held a familiar mix of pity and contempt. The scorn on her face said it all.
Vanitas turned to her, the bags under his eyes dark and sunken.
“You’re still here, huh?” he scoffed.
That told him everything. There was no Julia Barielle. All the pieces had aligned the same way again, just like before, leading to Karina Maeril becoming his assistant.
Although… assistant was a generous term.
Truthfully, she had left him long ago.
“…I can’t even begin to pity you,” she said, her voice flat, distant.
Her words didn’t sting, not because he had already expected it, but because Vanitas no longer had the capacity to feel their impact.
He stared at her with a blank expression blank, as if she was just another nuisance in the endless repetition of his days.
“I didn’t ask,” he muttered.
Karina stepped forward, approaching him. There was no point in keeping her guard up anymore. He wasn’t the professor she had once admired, nor the one she had grown to despise.
That person was long gone.
All that remained was a hollow shell of a man broken far beyond repair.
Karina sighed and raised her staff, pointing it toward him. Vanitas merely looked at her, unflinching.
“…So this is how it ended for him in one of them, huh?” he laughed.
Magic began to gather at the tip of her staff. The air grew colder by the second as the creeping frost blanketed the room as if a blizzard had appeared out of nowhere.
Her blue eyes were frigid, mirroring her magic.
And once again, the cause of his demise was someone who resembled Kim Minjeong.
It was exhausting having that face look at him with such an expression again.
“I’ll ask you one last time,” she said. “Did you kill my mother too?”
“.…I never asked for any of this.”
“Excuses.”
He didn’t even know if this conversation was real. Maybe it was part of a route in the game. In every route he remembered, Karina had vanished from the University Tower after Vanitas Astrea was apprehended.
Maybe this was where that path led.
Wind began to stir around him, swirling as he prepared to defend himself. If he was going to retaliate, now would be the time.
“….”
But then, his brow lifted slightly.
Crackle—
The wind was crystallizing.
The mana he had summoned was locked in place, completely rendered frozen.
“So this is your stigmata, huh?” he muttered.
An ice so cold it froze everything.
From the lack of incantations, it seemed to be her ability.
Cracks formed beneath his feet, webbing outward as frost crept up his legs. Karina didn’t say anything.
The ice climbed higher, layer after layer, until he could no longer move.
Until he could no longer speak.
Until everything…
“….”
Froze.
* * *
Another reality.
He had seen it coming. Somehow, death in this realm was never a finality. And that only confirmed what was obvious.
This wasn’t where he belonged.
Even so, that didn’t mean the time spent here was meaningless. Everything he went through, every psychological break, every physical blow, had been real. The pain, the exhaustion… all of it had taken its toll.
And more importantly, Vanitas Astrea….
“How could you kill Mother!”
….Was meeting his end.
Before him was Astrid. Her rage was palpable, and Vanitas couldn’t move, not because he lacked the ability, but because his body was slowly being crushed under the weight of her magnetism.
He could move, perhaps. The Vessel Trait Roots granted him a level of physical resistance.
But Vanitas didn’t bother.
Ah. Once again, he was going to die by a familiar hand.
And once again, it was all connected to someone resembling Kim Minjeong.
‘Did you curse me, Minjeong-ssi?’
‘That I would never truly escape you?’
‘That I would never forget you?’
‘Did you come back just to haunt me because of the circumstances that led to your death?’
Of course, he knew exactly what caused her death.
During his military service, his identity had been exposed. The same people who once abducted his younger sister, Chae Eun-ha, had discovered the existence of Kim Minjeong, his benefactor, former middle school teacher, and later, his lover.
They blackmailed her, extorted her, threatened her in every way they could… until she was pushed to the edge.
Until she jumped.
And yet, even knowing all of that, Chae Eun-woo wasn’t mature enough to stop himself from blaming her.
But that didn’t mean he hadn’t sought revenge. He did, every step of the way, until it all led to the sequence of Acheron, the codename he took as a spy for a rebellious faction working against the Korean government.
Because the very people responsible, the ones who tormented him, had taken his little sister, killed his aunt, and had blackmailed Kim Min-jeong and her family, were all deeply connected to that same government.
‘I wonder… did you resent me for your unfortunate circumstances?’
‘Was loving me the biggest mistake of your life?’
It had to be.
But did it really matter now?
That was a life he should have let go of long ago.
“….Astrid.”
“Mother loved you. So why… why…!”
“Just kill me.”
Crack——!
Just like that, the world turned dark.
* * *
Death after death after death.
He had lost count of how many times he had died.
But now, he understood. There was likely no route in the game where Vanitas Astrea ever lived.
And in every version, every route, they were all tied to the same woman Vanitas Astrea had committed the greatest sin against.
Julia Barielle, the Imperial Queen.
If one thought about it deeply, it made sense. Her death had marked the beginning of everything. The irreversible spiral of sin.
It was her death that pushed him beyond the point of return, dragging him deeper into the rabbit hole with every choice that followed.
Looking back, he was almost surprised at how long he had survived in the version of reality he’d grown used to.
Because in every other, Vanitas Astrea had always been the same.
A middle-game boss. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just another obstacle the player had to face halfway through the first school year.
And even in the absence of a player, those affected by the chain of events following Julia’s death always found their way to him.
It was exhausting.
Seeing the same people who once clung to him, revered him, and respected him now looking at him with nothing but contempt.
And the worst part? There was nothing he could do about it.
Because fate always found a way. No matter how much he struggled, no matter what choices he made, the outcome never changed.
But what hurt the most in every route was when it was Charlotte who delivered the final blow.
‘This is how it always was, isn’t it?’
‘I wonder how you really felt, Vanita, knowing you did everything you could to protect the person you loved most, only to become the reason for your own end.’
‘No… maybe I do know.’
In the form of Julia Barielle.
‘Ah, I feel like drowning.’
‘This feeling… No matter how disappointed you are in me, Julia… Karina… if you face me with that expression… it feels like I’m in my youth again.’
He couldn’t help it.
He still loved her.
With that face, how could he not?
She was the one who had taken him in, healed his broken heart… and then shattered it all over again.
‘Ah, I want to go back.’
‘This time, I’ll do everything right.’
‘I’ll make sure my parents quit the company, even if I have to become a problematic child.’
‘I’ll be sure to kill my aunt with my own hands.’
‘And then I’ll come find you again.’
His thoughts drifted absentmindedly as he faced death after death.
He hardly cared anymore.
* * *
Countless realities, yet in none of them had he survived. Still, he walked forward, seeking the one path that mattered.
All to find Margaret.
To get out of this living nightmare.
The journey had been arduously long and cruel. He wasn’t even sure how many years had passed now, if time even held meaning anymore.
“Just kill me and be done with it.”
And with those words, Vanitas met death once again.
Until a certain moment, somewhere along the flowing river of realities and fate itself, he noticed something.
A single finger, lying limp on the ground. He approached it slowly. He didn’t need to think.
There, unconscious, was a little girl with flowing snow-white hair, clad in a torn and disheveled dress. Her small form looked out of place. Her appearance here disrupted the very stream of realities, as if she, who embodied reality itself, was never meant to be here.
But Vanitas didn’t need to ask who she was.
There was no mistaking it.
It was undoubtedly Margaret Illenia.
He gently picked her up, cradling her against his chest as he gazed at the reality that lay before the girl. A kingdom burning, reduced to ashes.
And so, he walked toward it.
The stench of blood, scorched concrete, and fire entered his sense of smell. The particular kingdom seemed to have been overrun by demons.
With the child held protectively in his arms, Vanitas summoned wind around him, a swirling barrier that shielded them both. Winds reminiscent of Astrid’s magnetism, he killed demon after demon.
Only then did the pieces fall into place.
This was Illenia during its fall.
And Margaret… she wasn’t supposed to be with him. She had slipped through the very fabric of reality and was pulled into the river of fate due to the instability of her stigmata.
He remembered what she once told him. How she was that little girl who was often lost.
Now, it made sense.
Margaret had been slipping from one reality to another, drifting unknowingly through worlds not meant for her.
And now that he thought about it… this was the first time he had ever encountered her in any of his countless repeating loops.
That single connection pulled at him and from the corner of his vision, he saw it.
A distant fragment of a reality calling out to him.
He looked down at his hand, watching as his fingers slowly began to vanish, breaking apart like scattered puzzle pieces.
“Sorry, but this is where we part ways.”
With a quiet breath, Vanitas gently laid the unconscious Margaret beneath a tree. He raised a wind barrier around her to shield her from any demon that would come close.
Because he knew exactly how the story would play out.
And as the final pieces of him came undone, as the last fragments of his form faded into the wind….
Crack—
Vanitas disappeared.
* * *
Perhaps it was that single encounter with Margaret, but ever since then, Vanitas had been able to trace her thread, finding glimpses of her in countless realities, even though he hadn’t seen her in so long.
The first time he found her again, however, the circumstances were far from ideal.
Margaret had gone completely mad, killing countless people with her blade, only to fall at the end of the Sword Saint’s sword.
Vanitas stared at her lifeless form, concern etched across his face as he took in the scene.
“Ah… you had a hard time too,” he muttered.
At that moment, the Sword Saint pulled his sword from Margaret’s body and turned toward Vanitas, who had just appeared out of nowhere.
“Sword Saint.”
“….You are?”
“Kill me too.”
“Huh…?”
If his suspicions were right, then Margaret was looping, just like him.
“Or do I have to fight you first?”
“You’re—”
“Just like you? I’ve had this conversation before. No, I don’t have another soul inside me.”
“….”
The conversation was ambiguous. Vanitas, realizing he was wasting time, launched a windblade. The Sword Saint deflected it with a single swipe.
His brow lifted slightly upon realizing the absence of an incantation.
But Vanitas didn’t stop. Wind gathered around him as the two clashed.
The Sword Saint was good practice.
Vanitas wasn’t worried.
After all, he had beaten the Sword Saint before as the player.
But the difference between Vanitas Astrea and the player quickly became clear.
“It seems like I can’t beat you.”
“What a strange man. Do you belong to the cult?’
“No, but Lance Abelton does.”
“….”
Vanitas lay bloodied on the ground, staring up at the gleam of Aston’s blade poised to strike.
He hadn’t used any complex spells. At best, his efforts had grazed the Sword Saint’s cheek.
But that didn’t matter.
Slash—!
What mattered now was that he wouldn’t leave Margaret alone anymore.
If it was possible, he would loop with her.
He had come to realize a certain fact after every death.
There wasn’t a single route where Margaret had killed him. In fact, there was never any sign of her at all.
Maybe they had been looping together all along.
And then, Vanitas witnessed it.
Margaret’s loop.
The same sequence, over and over. Her parents’ deaths, the fall of Illenia, and Margaret desperately trying to change it all, only to fail every time.
And when she failed, she died.
Bang!
Vanitas killed himself too whenever she did.
The resolve to end one’s own life wasn’t something most people could even begin to think of.
But Vanitas was far past the point of reason. His journey had been nothing but tragedy. The fact that he still moved forward surprised even him.
Maybe he was just tired.
Eventually, he made contact with her.
Margaret, who had long since given up, just like he once had.
That was the reality of this place. They were the same. If anything, he had suffered more.
Even in a world where death wasn’t the end, he still found himself wishing for it.
The mental exhaustion was too much for a single person to bear. But then again, hadn’t he always lived unhappily?
If so, what made this any different?
That certainly wasn’t his mindset when the journey began, but it had become his truth now.
Under the rain, Margaret sat beneath a tree, arms wrapped around her knees with tears in her eyes.
She looked up at him.
“Ah…”
Vanitas stopped in front of her.
“You… found me again…”
Just like back then.
“Let’s go home, Margaret.”