TPDSA 42

Chapter 42

The Prince Died, So I’m Starting Over!

A chill wind brushed the nape of my neck.

Feeling a cold tingle, I turned my head and looked around.
Only then did I notice the faces of the statues I had passed by without much thought.

They were all Lu.

“…There sure are a lot of identical statues, huh?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Well, yeah…”

An eerie feeling crept up on me, and I rubbed my forearm. Goosebumps had risen from my shoulders all the way down.

“You’re both right and wrong. They are the same human, yet also different humans.”

The young priest spoke as if reciting an ancient myth.

“Lu was the first human crafted by Ra. The moment Lu opened his eyes for the first time, Ra fell in love with him.”

“R-right…”

“Ra and Lu built a home together. Soon, countless children were born to them.”

“I see…”

“When their first child was born, Ra was so overjoyed that he granted the child the ability to use magic. That child became what humans call the first witch.”

“That’s… impressive.”

Even though my replies were halfhearted, the priest continued his tale without hesitation, like a storyteller lost in his own world.

So the Third Prince, who was a descendant of the witch, was somehow a distant descendant of a god?

It was such nonsense that I couldn’t even laugh.
Listening to this absurd story was starting to wear me down.

I stifled another yawn, but the priest didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Ra believed he could be with Lu forever. But it was not possible, for the time of gods and humans flows differently.”

“Ah… I see.”

“So, Ra decided to turn back time each time Lu’s life came to an end.”

The priest, who had been staring at the statues all along, suddenly fixed his gaze on me.

His crimson eyes gleamed with an otherworldly light.

For once, I couldn’t just dismiss his words lightly.
It almost felt like he knew something—something real.

“…You said he turned back time?”

“Yes. Ra repeatedly twisted time to bring Lu back to life.
But on the 1,151st turn, Ra began to wonder about something.”

“…And what was that?”

“Ra began to question whether the Lu he once loved and the Lu living his 1,152nd life were truly the same person.”

“…Of course they’re the same person, aren’t they?”

Same face, same personality, same soul—surely that makes someone the same person.

I’d never once thought the people around me in my first life were different from those in my fourth.

They were identical—down to their smallest gestures and the words they said.

“Their personalities and behaviors are the same… It’s not reincarnation; time was just turned back. If that doesn’t make them the same person, then what does?”

I realized my voice had a defensive edge to it.
A strange sense of unease welled up inside me.

“The ‘1,152nd Lu’ had no memory of being the original Lu.”

“…Memory? That’s just something that returns with time, isn’t it?”

Anna from the fourth cycle, unlike the previous Annas, had never gone on a picnic with me.
But that didn’t mean she was a different Anna.

We could always go on a new picnic—it wasn’t something irreversible.

Even if I was the only one who remembered now, that memory could be shared again someday.

“As long as one person remembers, that’s enough. You can relive the same experience together.”

“Experiencing the same thing doesn’t mean it’s remembered in the same way.”

“Well, maybe, but—”

“Ra gradually lost faith. He could no longer be sure whether Lu—and Ra and Lu’s children—were truly the same as before.”

The priest walked forward again.
Or at least, I thought he did.
At some point, I couldn’t even tell which direction was forward or back anymore.

Everywhere around me stood statues of Lu—identical except for the clothes they wore. The sameness blurred my sense of direction.

It felt like I was trapped in a maze with no exit.

Finally, the priest stopped walking.
Before us stood yet another statue of Lu.

“…Huh?”

But this one was clearly different.

Unlike the others that stood still like wooden dolls, this statue was sitting on the ground, writhing in pain.

“Ra implanted in the ‘1,152nd Lu’ all the memories that every Lu had ever possessed.”

“…And did that work out?”

“As the same yet different memories surged endlessly within him, Lu’s mind fell into chaos. He could no longer tell what he liked or hated, nor what convictions he had lived by.”

After three regressions, I’d sometimes felt the same way—like I might go insane.
Sometimes I couldn’t remember which memories belonged to which life, or whether something had already happened or was yet to happen.

I wasn’t exactly like Lu, but I could imagine how he must have felt.

“Lost in confusion, Lu went mad. Though he still loved Ra, he began to feel a deep, instinctive fear of the omnipotent god.”

“…And then?”

Without realizing it, I’d been listening intently, swallowing hard.

The priest paused dramatically, like a seasoned storyteller, before continuing.

“Wandering in despair, Lu decided to cut himself free from the chain of torment.”

“How?”

“Lu became the first priest of humankind.”

“…Huh?”

The story had suddenly veered off course.

A priest? Out of nowhere?

“Lu devoted himself not only to Ra but to all gods. Because of that, Ra could no longer exert direct power over him.”

“Ah… I see…”

“And so, the 1,152nd Lu finally met true death. His soul perished and vanished completely from this world.”

“…Oh.”

That was anticlimactic.

It seemed the priest just wanted to brag about how ancient and detailed his religion’s mythology was.
Even the way it ended—a bittersweet tragedy—was textbook myth-making.

I wasn’t sure why I’d listened so seriously.
Maybe it was just because his whole demeanor had changed.

“Ra must’ve been devastated…” I said flatly, with not a hint of sympathy.

“No.”

The priest denied it coldly.

“Ra was… curious. He could not understand where he had gone wrong.”

“I see…”

“What do you think his mistake was? Giving humans memory? Reversing their time? Or falling in love with one?”

The priest suddenly grabbed my wrist.

His grip was inhumanly strong—it felt like my arm might snap.

“That hurts!”

“Answer me.”

“I said it hurts!”

“Answer.”

“Ugh, fine! How would I know? Trying to hold onto someone who didn’t want to be held—that’s the mistake!”

I swung my arm until he finally let go.
A red mark was left on my wrist.

“I’m leaving!”

“Do you truly believe that?”

“Which way was the exit again?”

“Do you think you would make a different choice?”

“Well, there’s always more than one path to take…”

He kept saying only what he wanted to say, so I decided to do the same.

Turning away from him, I stomped forward irritably. The identical statues stretched endlessly into the distance.

When I glanced back, the priest was still standing there, staring at me.

‘Ugh, what a creep…’

I quickened my pace.

But no matter how far I walked, the path never ended.

“How big is this place?”

The thought that this might be the life Lu had repeated over and over made it hard to breathe.
And if this was my own future too… the nausea hit hard.

‘No. I’ll never fail in this life!’

I slapped my cheeks to snap myself out of it.

Just then, I caught sight of a shadow—a human silhouette moving faintly.

I rubbed my eyes.

A curtain had appeared where moments ago there’d been only empty space.
Behind the white fabric, a small figure was faintly visible like a stain.

‘The Third Prince!’

That small, round head—I recognized it instantly.
I was sure it was him.

I quickly crawled under the curtain.
If I couldn’t find a door, I’d escape this way instead.

The cloth stretched on endlessly—it took forever to crawl through.

“…Miss Lulupel?”

But to my relief, the Third Prince really was there on the other side.

“Your Highness!”