Chapter 1 …
Prologue: The Beginning of Survival
One moment of carelessness before the dazzling effects exploding right in front of my eyes, and it feels like my soul might slip away.
But if I stand here absentmindedly with my soul gone, I’ll die soon enough.
How can I be so sure?
“Run! Run now!”
“Azel Biots! The demon of the Holy Kingdom has appeared!”
Amid the screams of the crowd, a familiar name rang out—one that instantly told me exactly where I was.
At a time when the capital was steeped in chaos and terror, Azel stood still, quietly taking in the scene.
People fleeing in panic.
A capital reduced to ruins.
A red-eyed man wreathed in blackish-red smoke.
And the name I had just heard—
“…Azel Biots.”
This was a scene from a game.
‘No—are you kidding me? This is seriously the possession timing?’
There was a huge problem with my transmigration.
Right before my eyes, Azel Biots—the final boss of the game—was in the middle of his last awakening.
I already knew what would happen next.
Destruction.
Once Azel completed his awakening, no one would be able to stop him.
‘If you’re going to possess someone, shouldn’t you at least give them some time to do something first?’
The final chapter of a game standing on the brink of its worst ending.
That was the reality I was facing now.
‘This is insane.’
I’d made a New Year’s resolution not long ago to cut back on swearing, but faced with this unexpected twist of fate, that kind of resolve vanished without a trace.
At last, the end of this long life was approaching.
After repeating that familiar line of narration so many times it made me sick, I finally accepted this miserable reality.
“Yeah… I’m screwed.”
Despite the hollow mutter that slipped from my lips, my mind was working faster and tighter than ever before.
Chapter 1. This Play Ends in Death If You Mess Up
I’d recently been completely obsessed with a bleak otome game.
That was because its content was nothing like an ordinary dating sim.
Everything revolved around a single character: Azel Biots.
Azel Biots, whose route only unlocked in the late game, was the protagonist of the hidden route—befitting the meticulous effort put into his customization.
He was the game’s final antagonist and the enemy of the Holy Empire.
This game told the story of the heroine, Yulia, who fought to protect the world from Azel, who dreamed of its destruction.
As a result, Yulia and Azel stood on opposite sides, and under those circumstances, capturing Azel was, of course, no easy task.
However, what truly caught players’ attention was something else entirely.
“How the hell are you supposed to clear this?! Are the developers out of their minds?!”
No matter what you did, the game always ended in destruction.
Regardless of whether you captured Azel or not, the world was destroyed, and players became obsessed not with romance routes, but with preventing the apocalypse.
And of course, I was no exception.
“Ha! This stupid, trash game! Like hell I’ll ever play it again!”
Just yesterday, after gathering everything I could—official setting books released by the developers, bonus novels, even random scraps of information from community forums—and still getting the destruction ending…
“If I play this again, I’m not even human.”
I finally admitted defeat and gave up on the game.
‘…And now you’re telling me you’re going to possess someone into that world?’
No matter how I thought about it, this was a violation of basic decency.
‘What, did I send the company hate mail or leave curse-filled comments? The only thing I’ve ever truly cursed in my life is going to work! So why me, of all people?!’
But unlike my sense of injustice, the situation was smoothly racing toward the worst possible outcome.
As people fled like the tide pulling back, the once-crowded plaza was soon left with only Azel and me.
Perhaps because I was the last human left, Azel’s red eyes shifted toward me.
My breath caught in my throat.
‘Wow. I might actually die here.’
I faltered for a moment, struck by his devastatingly beautiful face—but now was not the time to stand there dumbfounded, admiring the final boss.
If I didn’t do something right now, I would die.
The instant I realized there wasn’t even time left to despair, a conversation I’d once had with my younger sibling flashed through my mind.
“Are you playing that again?”
“I’m busy. Go out and play.”
“Didn’t you say you’d never play that garbage game again?”
“…This is the last time.”
“How is it always the last time?”
That must’ve been after I’d seen the seventeenth destruction ending.
My sibling had asked while I sat there, hollow-eyed, gripping the controller.
“By the way, that protagonist—Azel, right? Why does he want to destroy the world?”
“Because he’s crazy.”
I’d answered just like that, to their indifferent question.
“Come on, everyone knows that. If someone wants the world to end, of course they’re crazy. What I’m asking is why he went crazy.”
“He’s an infinite regressor.”
“Infinite regression? Oh, like that thing you see a lot in novels these days?”
A life repeated endlessly. A mind worn down beyond repair.
Azel sought to destroy the world to put an end to his endlessly repeating life.
“But how do you beat someone who can regress infinitely?”
What did I say to that back then?
“You can’t.”
That’s right. You can’t. It’s absolutely impossible.
‘How could an ordinary person ever defeat such an unreal being—someone who’s already experienced every possible situation?’
But from my sibling’s voice, rising like a stray thought, I finally found an answer.
‘You might not be able to beat him… but couldn’t you use him?’
“Are you seriously insane?”
For some reason, the praise my sibling often gave me for various reasons resurfaced at that moment.
I knew it too.
This was insane.
But—
‘Who cares? I just need to survive first.’
My survival instinct, now running completely wild, was screaming that this was the only answer.
‘I’ve already tried almost everything in the game. So now I just have to do what I haven’t tried!’
Once I made up my mind, I immediately started walking in the opposite direction of where everyone had fled.
One step.
Then another.
The more I endured the crushing pressure and forced myself forward, the closer I got to Azel.
Up until then, Azel’s face, watching me approach, was utterly indifferent—like someone looking at an ant on the roadside.
As if my sudden appearance meant absolutely nothing to him.
Fine by me.
From this moment on, I intended to shatter that indifferent expression.
‘That’s the only way I’ll live.’
When I finally came to a stop before him—
“Azel.”
At the sound of his name, spoken boldly, a flicker of puzzlement appeared in his red eyes.
“I… I’m here.”
With a bit of effort, tears welled up at the corners of my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.
As the droplets gathered at my chin and scattered into the air on the wind, I forced my trembling lips into something resembling a smile.
At this moment—our first meeting—
Facing Azel, who was recognizing my existence for the first time,
I smiled as though I were someone so desperately heartbroken that even smiling was painful.
“I’m… too late, aren’t I?”
At the end of my trembling voice, the tears finally burst forth.
Now that I think about it, I should mention this: in my younger days, I’d been the ace of the drama club.
‘If you’re dealing with a madman, you just have to go mad with him.’
This was worth a try.
