* * *
Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down the bridge of his nose.
“Ranshel, are you okay?”
Ranshel lifted his head.
In the room filled with the faint air of early dawn, the now-awake servants were all looking at him.
The tips of his fingers ached belatedly from clawing the floor raw.
His mind was a mess.
What had he just been doing?
No, more importantly—
‘How did I look to them?’
If the game judged him to be mentally unstable, he was in trouble.
He could be sent to the cathedral and locked in a prayer ward.
If things went badly, they might drive nails into his head in the name of healing.
Ranshel turned his eyes to Zen, who looked both concerned and watchful.
Gary had said Zen, a senior among junior servants, was just waiting for a chance to be promoted.
‘If he thinks there’s something wrong with me, he’ll report it to the stewards immediately.’
He had to act first. Ranshel swallowed and opened his mouth.
“…I had a nightmare.”
“…What? A nightmare? You’re saying that was all because of a dream?”
Zen let out a baffled sound.
Ranshel, looking down at his own hand, made a tearful expression.
“Well, it’s just… in the dream… young master was chasing after me.”
The gazes of the nearby servants shifted.
Ranshel muttered gloomily as he wrapped his fingertips with his other hand.
“I kept running and ended up at a dead end. I was so scared, I started scratching the wall with my hands… I don’t even know when I woke up. I just came to my senses and—like this…”
What happened?
Did the young master’s evil spirit curse him?
No way, could those rumors actually be true?
As the servants murmured uneasily, Zen came over with a medical kit.
“…Let’s wrap your fingertips in bandages for now. Thankfully, there’s no bleeding, so just wear gloves while working so it doesn’t get worse until it heals.”
‘So I still have to work, huh.’
Ranshel, for once, felt grateful for this merciless work environment.
He had no intention of giving up his position as Zavad’s attendant to anyone else.
“Everyone quiet down and get back to your posts. Let’s keep what happened today a secret. If I hear anyone gossiping outside, you’ll get demerits.”
Zen seemed to have decided to keep this matter under wraps.
It would be a problem if rumors about Zavad spread in the servants’ quarters.
He probably didn’t want to cause any trouble he’d have to take responsibility for.
“Especially you, Gary! If you get any more demerits, a pay cut won’t be the end of it. You know that, right?”
“Ah, got it.”
Gary, who had been standing off in the distance holding a prayer book, trudged back to his bed.
Gary’s bed was right next to Ranshel’s.
Now that he thought about it, that must’ve been intentional since Gary was in charge of training.
Ranshel, now bandaged, lay down naturally, and locked eyes with Gary, who kept sneaking glances at him.
‘So he was already marked as odd, huh.’
He’d need help often, so this worked out.
Ranshel curled up his lips into a sly smile.
Startled, Gary quickly turned his back and lay down.
Silence fell over the dormitory.
Everyone was a servant who worked day in and day out.
They needed to rest before dawn if they wanted to survive the labor of midday.
Even Gary, who had been tossing and turning, eventually fell asleep, his breathing falling into a slow rhythm.
Only Ranshel remained awake.
He pulled the blanket over his head, all the way up.
Then, covering his mouth, he cried silently.
He couldn’t make a scene again.
He had to endure this godforsaken game, no matter what, and accomplish his goal.
It had been a terrible nightmare.
And yet, he was almost relieved that it was just a nightmare.
His body still wouldn’t stop trembling.
A particularly long night finally passed, and morning arrived.
The other servants in the room moved sluggishly with vacant expressions.
Ranshel couldn’t fully gather his thoughts either.
He hadn’t slept properly, and after crying so much, his ears felt muffled like they’d filled with water.
It must’ve all just been a dream.
Ranshel, dazed, began to climb the stairs, but was immediately stopped by a nearby servant.
“You’re not supposed to go into the young master’s room today. Did you forget?”
“…Ah, right. Yes.”
Ranshel answered out of habit and turned his body away for now.
What’s going on?
What day is it, anyway?
His head creaked like a broken machine, but his feet moved on their own.
Ranshel staggered toward the garden, where the gardener Petro stood, wearing a straw hat.
His heart thumped anxiously.
Just imagining the sickle that had crushed his skull and the iron chain that had strangled his neck sent chills down his spine and stiffened his joints.
‘…That was really just a dream?’
Ranshel approached him as calmly as he could.
Even without thinking hard, words came from his mouth—as if reciting lines from a predetermined story script.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Fine, of course!”
Gardener Petro snorted.
“Unlike last week, I won’t be collapsing today.”
They’d had this exact conversation once before.
Ranshel barely resisted the urge to laugh in disbelief.
“That’s a relief. Just in case, please have some water first.”
Not long after, Ranshel dragged the unconscious Petro into a corner of the flower bed and became certain of it.
‘The game’s timeline has reset.’
Today was the day Petro killed both him and Zavad.
[Mini Game Over]
This game was originally a dating simulation, but within it were mini-games that utilized character traits for battle elements.
The game system had classified Ranshel following Petro into Zavad’s room as a ‘mini-game.’
There, he had used up one of his backup lives.
And now, having defied the flow of time, he had returned to the early morning of the same day, before the incident.
Just like hitting a reset button after losing in a mini-game.
‘Which means Zavad dying is also a possibility.’
Since a reset makes it as though nothing happened, Ranshel is the only one who remembers.
No one else has a clue.
The question of how a target character could die before even meeting the heroine didn’t matter—because this was a game.
Death wasn’t final; you could just go back.
There were five chances.
One had been used.
Now four remained.
Normally, when all your backup lives—represented by black hearts—turned into empty ones, the event would be considered a failure.
The player would then return to the last save point to replay it from the beginning.
But Ranshel had no such thing as a “save point.”
He was nothing more than a petty villain.
He wasn’t the honored heroine, nor was he a player granted endless opportunities.
Once he faced the final, true death… Cha Eunseong would disappear.
And the original Ranshel from the game could simply return.
“…Wake up.”
The old man’s eyelids fluttered open after being drugged.
His gentle demeanor made Ranshel nauseous.
Looking into those cloudy eyes made his entire body shake, his breath tighten like he was being strangled.
He stood at a crossroads.
If he didn’t deliberately change things, the exact same events would happen again.
It was no different than selecting the same choices during gameplay.
Should he change the situation right now?
* * *
