ISBER 2

Chapter : 2

Bad Ending Route: I’ll Save You All

The Weakest Character’s Future

Three days later, a sudden thought hit me.
A dream that never ends, no matter what I do.
If this isn’t a dream, then…

“Wait—did I actually die from over-gaming?”

I muttered to myself while staring at the hellish mountain of homework in the library.

“Lana, w-what are you suddenly talking about?”

“Yeah, if you pulled all-nighters playing games for a whole year, you could drop dead.”

But I was so out of it that Pina’s words didn’t even register.

“Are you okay? Are you sick or something?”

“I can’t keep up with this schedule! Getting up at 6 a.m., studying until 11 p.m.! I didn’t study this hard even when I was a senior!”

I slammed the desk, nearly losing my mind, and Pina tried to calm me down.
But I couldn’t take it anymore. I bolted from the library.

“This is torture! Someone get me out of here! It’s already been a week!”

“L-Lana, wait!”

Aren’t wizards supposed to go outside and cast cool sparkly magic?
Why are there so many classes and assignments!?
At this rate I’ll rot and die stuck to a desk!

Did I really die gaming⁈ No!! I don’t want this! Let me out! I swear I’ll cut back my screen time!

Then—dirty water dumped over my head.

The stench of mop water made my nose sting, and the December cold froze me rigid.

I looked up and saw a bunch of girls hanging out a window, giggling.

“Oh dear~ sorry~”

“It’s fine, she smells like a mop anyway, she’s basically a beggar.”

“Aahahaha! I’m dying, that’s hilarious!”

It was Yelina’s gang—the villainous NPC group that bullies Airan.
Yelina flashed her icy blue eyes at me, smirked, dumped the bucket, and walked off.

Even the villain NPCs torment me now?

Airan wasn’t just the weakest character—she was a loner.
A poor girl from a fallen noble family, with only one friend: Pina.

This was my limit.

I refuse to live as Airan—the Bad Ending specialist!

That night, I made up my mind.

“Hey! Student! What do you think you’re doing?”

I decided to climb over the school wall in the middle of the night.

Of course I got caught by security.
This school is strict enough already—why do they guard the grounds this well!?

“Leave me alone! I’m not even a student here!”

“What nonsense! Get down immediately!”

The guards tugged at my legs like a tug-of-war rope.
In the end I fell flat on the school grounds and got dragged to the discipline office.

My punishment for attempted escape: cleaning the stables.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

I slumped to the icy hallway floor.
The cold stung my legs—too real to ignore.

“Did I really die playing games⁈ And get possessed by Airan, the Bad Ending expert⁈”

And now, finally, I accepted reality.

“So this is possession? I’ve read about this in novels.”

I thought as I raked hay inside a huge stable.
After doing it for a week, it was starting to feel routine.
Even the horses greeted me warmly, shaking their heads at me.

Then I remembered something I once saw on social media.

“They said if you die, you reincarnate into the game you played the most.”

I dropped my rake and collapsed.

“You idiot! Why’d you pick a WAR RPG!? Why not a peaceful otome game like ‘Forest of Healing’ or ‘Oops I Woke Up a Princess?’”

No matter how I looked at it, life was unfair!
How is this my fault!?
It’s the developers who made the game stupidly good!

If anyone heard me complaining, they’d probably say entering your favorite 2000-hour game should be a dream come true.

Nope. Absolutely not.

I need to escape.
Because…

“In one year, a secret mastermind starts a war and the students get drafted!”

That’s right.
Time of the Sun—Roas Academy is about the protagonist Raven fighting desperately to stop a bloody war caused by the hidden villain.
Depending on the outcome, the story splits between a happy ending and a bad ending.

But that’s for the main character.

I, Airan—weakest character and one of the twenty romanceable recruits—am nothing more than a pawn tossed between the protagonist and the villain.

“No way! I don’t want to die on the battlefield! Why do I have to trust Raven with my life?! The game is insanely hard! I only saw the happy ending after ten playthroughs!”

I pounded the dirt for a long time before calming down.

The horses looked at me pityingly.

When I finally settled down, I crouched on the floor and scratched out everything I knew into the dirt.

“Today is December 27th. The war starts next January.”

The protagonist enrolls here in March.
He chooses four allies out of twenty, and together they try to stop the villain a year later.

“So basically, I have two possible routes.”

I drew two arrows: ally route and non-ally route.

Ally Route.
Get chosen as one of the protagonist’s four companions and fight the final boss.

“But if even one of the four dies, it’s an instant total wipe bad ending! I took Airan as a teammate and got nothing but twenty-five bad endings!”

I hurled my stick again in anger.

“Bringing the weakest Airan equals guaranteed BAD END! Everyone dies!”

Even I couldn’t beat that ultra-nightmare mode after 2000 hours!

So this route? Impossible.

I scribbled giant X’s all over it.

“So if not that one, then route two…”

I retrieved the stick and continued.

The second route: non-ally route.
Not chosen as a companion.

But this is basically impossible to survive.

Because…

“All the students except the protagonist and his four allies get brainwashed by the villain…”

Which means forced conscription.

My stick snapped in half.

“So the non-ally route is really the brainwashing route.”

“And once I’m brainwashed… Unless Raven chooses the ‘Save Airan’ branch, I die first.”

I saw Airan’s in-game death flash in my head.

It was the scene that showed the villain’s cruelty most clearly.

The villain forces Raven to choose:
Save one student—Airan—or save an entire town.

There is a way to save both, but only if you fulfill a billion finicky conditions.
I didn’t see that scene until my 34th playthrough.

Meaning nine times out of ten… Airan dies.

She always dies first.

“Noooo…”

I don’t want my favorite protagonist to toss me aside like garbage!
Favorite character, don’t abandon me!

“It’s already bad enough I’m stuck in the weakest girl’s body!”

I refuse to get brainwashed and killed by the protagonist!

How am I supposed to beat this cursed game⁈
Do my only options seriously boil down to:
Die alone or Die with everyone!?

That’s not a dilemma—my existence is the problem!

Let me out of this game!
Is there no god here!?

Unbothered by my suffering, the horses started chewing my hair.

I cried into the hay for a long time, then got up and fed them—because they were hungry.

“Lana, your eyes are red. Aren’t you overdoing it?”

“I’m fine. Just haven’t been sleeping well.”

Pina and I were waiting in line for dinner in the school cafeteria.

I sighed.
But food first—thinking later.
Hunger kills stray thoughts.

Besides, this is my favorite part of being Airan.

“May I take your order?”

A servant dressed in black showed today’s menu.

The cafeteria here wasn’t anything like a Korean university cafeteria.
It was grand—like a luxury hotel restaurant—befitting an academy for nobles.

“Roast chicken, please.”

We sat down, and soon our food arrived.
The aroma alone filled me with joy.

Of course—this is a prestigious school.
I was agonizing over never tasting Korean fried chicken again,
but this first-class chef masterpiece smelled divine.

One bite of the crispy salted skin, and tender meat pulled away perfectly,
juices flooding my mouth.

Eating good chicken improved my mood instantly.

There was a reason why food gave stat buffs in the game.
With a meal like this, I felt like I could take on ten monsters single-handedly.

If I’m stuck in this dud character, at least the food had better be good.

As I devoured my meal, Pina handed me a roll.

“Lana, did you hear the rumor?”

“What rumor?”

Pina leaned in like she was sharing a classified secret.

“Lady Lartea and Lord Zennight—apparently they…”

“KYAAAA!”

Suddenly students screamed.
Pina screamed too, staring at the entrance.

“Lady Freya and Lord Aron are here!”