<CHAPTER 01>
Isn’t there a dream like that.
The kind where the sensation against your skin.
The field of vision stretched before you.
Even the scent that pricks your nose.
Everything is unbearably vivid, yet the moment you open your eyes it all vanishes like a mirage.
I was in exactly that kind of dream.
Hot, it’s burning!
The setting was a volcano where scarlet magma boiled as if it might erupt at any second.
The place I stood was a sheer rock pillar rising sharply from the middle of the magma like a cliff.
Here, I always waited.
To plunge into the magma and die.
It was a dream I had countless times.
So many that I had often bolted to the bathroom the moment I woke and splashed cold water over my bare body.
And yet I could never remember why I had done it.
Even when I grabbed a pen the instant I opened my eyes and scribbled frantically.
Even when I turned on a voice recorder and muttered through the haze.
There was never anything worth salvaging.
It was as if someone had poured cleansing solution straight into my brain.
But while I was inside the dream, I remembered everything.
And right now was the finale of this damned play.
It’s almost time to say the lines.
Sure enough, just like always, my body turned on its own.
To face the people gathered at the mouth of the volcano, watching me.
The bridge between us had been severed, so none of us could approach the other.
I had cut it down myself only minutes ago.
Not that anyone would have come even if it were still connected.
But I needed at least the bare minimum excuse for myself.
Toward them, I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“You’ve all had it rough because of me, haven’t you~? As you wished, I’ll give you a present, everyone! You won’t have to be bothered by me anymore!”
Puh-shoom—!
A massive bubble burst below.
The magma surged upward with surface tension.
The air warped in the violent heat rising like a mirage.
It was finally time to die.
My heart pounded as if it would leap out of my chest.
Not because I was afraid.
If that were the case, it would be easier.
I stared straight ahead.
A blond-haired man stood there, bracing himself against the rugged rock face like a support pillar.
A man who stirred my insides without fail.
A man who, just as unwaveringly, flaunted an ironclad wall around himself.
Every time, the hazy smoke cleverly obscured his face.
At best, I managed to capture his silhouette.
And yet, the way my heartbeat accelerated like a reflex told me everything.
This pounding must be love.
If this isn’t love, then I dare say love does not exist in this world.
Before his very presence, my heart always swelled and ached.
It was a disastrous emotion.
Within it, I finally revealed my last gift.
“You know.”
The hand gripping the dagger trembled like the corners of my lips that I forced upward.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The pounding grew louder.
When it reached its peak and felt ready to burst my eardrums—
“It was filthy being with you, and let’s never see each other again.”
As if cursing my thrashing heart, I drove the blade into its center myself.
A blue beam split my heart open and spilled downward beneath my feet.
At the same time, familiar messages appeared one after another.
[ You have completed the final quest.]
[From this point onward, when vitality reaches 0%, you will return to Earth.]
[Vitality: 87%]
Strength began draining rapidly from my body.
My legs trembled, but I managed to stay upright.
It was too early to wake.
[Vitality: 56%]
Panting, I lifted my head.
The blond man still had not moved.
They all stood stiffly as if they wanted to confirm my death with their own eyes.
Heh.
For some reason, I couldn’t stop laughing.
[Vitality: 21%]
Why was that.
For a fleeting moment, I felt like it wouldn’t matter even if this were reality.
Then a voice, like a hidden thought, seized my mind.
If I had been stronger, would you not have abandoned me?
You… would you have chosen me instead of her?
The dream always ended the same way.
But this was the first time I had thought something like that.
As if I had become someone else, my emotional circuits spun wildly.
The numbers before my eyes ticked down and then stopped.
[Vitality: 0%]
At last.
My broken body toppled backward.
Scorching wind lashed at my ears.
The crimson liquid flicking its tongue drew closer.
As if it were a warm blanket, I relaxed and welcomed it.
[After-service for returnees is being executed!]
[To maintain the world’s entropy, all memories except base memory will be erased.]
[Deleting memory…]
As those strange messages flickered past, an even stranger thought echoed within me.
Truly, dying was nothing to me.
[01-7327 Server shutting down.]
[Return commencing.]
Just as my death had meant nothing to you.
***
Tiriririrring, tiriririrring.
The sound that had echoed like a game effect in my dream was soon replaced by an alarm.
I rolled over and savored that jewel-like moment for a second before forcing my upper body up.
“Ha… life………………”
It was four in the morning, so I must have slept for an hour or two at best.
The heavy fatigue squeezing my head suggested I’d had that mysterious dream again.
After a few irritated swipes, I finally turned the alarm off.
“Ugh, so annoying.”
Ever since one app disappeared and shifted the display layout, this kept happening.
Out of habit, I always tapped where the game used to be first.
Even gone, it still torments me. What a trash game.
Once, I had sacrificed even my mealtimes for it.
***
An RPG where the saintess heroine— the player— defeated the Demon King alongside her companions, blending vivid battle action with a reverse harem storyline.
It was also the vicious game that shattered my cute little no-spending creed into full-scale microtransaction hell.
I even took on an extra tutoring job just to pursue the main male lead, the Hero.
No matter that he was just polygons beyond a screen, back then it was another life to me.
But despite all I poured into it, the game was riddled with bugs and service outages.
It wasn’t that the game had bugs.
It was as if the bugs had a game inside them.
Worse, there was no sign it would ever improve.
No matter how much users bombarded it with one-star reviews or inquiries.
The company responded only with unprecedented silence.
Naturally, walked the path of natural death.
Eventually, a server shutdown notice was posted across all servers.
The official reason was that the resurrected Demon King destroyed the world or something like that.
I clung stubbornly to the one server that wouldn’t close because of a bug.
But at some point, the game turned into an empty shell and deleted itself from my phone.
Back then, I had truly felt like the world was collapsing.
Unfortunately, real life remained very much intact.
After being beaten down day after day, even the story faded from memory.
I could barely recall the characters’ names or faces.
If not for Ending World, I would have escaped this basement long ago.
But what would regret change.
Muttering painful lessons about living within my means, I trudged toward my desk.
While my eight-year-old laptop finished its turtle-paced booting, I checked my tutoring student’s progress.
Page seventy-two today should be fine, and I’ll print the summary after my PC café shift.
I opened the browser to back up my files and logged in.
As if it had been waiting for me, a notification flashed.
Strangely enough.
I only use this account for backups, so I never even get spam…
Thinking I might have been hacked, I hurriedly opened the inbox.
The subject line read: [To Lamia].
Not a flashy spam title.
Not even a visible sender address.
Just five plain letters.
“…………Did I send something to a foreign friend by mistake?”
Tilting my head, I clicked it.
The world began spinning.
No, maybe it was my body spinning.
The ground vanished beneath my feet.
I tumbled endlessly through pitch-black darkness.
Was this what they called death from overwork.
……Damn it, I can’t die like this!
My parents, who had thrown me at each other the moment they divorced.
My father’s voice on the day I entered high school, calling me to a 24-hour soup shop and telling me to go live with my mother.
I still remembered it vividly.
After that, I did every job that made money.
I survived by gritting my teeth against the world.
If only out of apology to myself, I had to live longer.
I couldn’t let my life end as a few dull lines tucked into a corner of some portal site.
You heartless, shameless bastards! At least wash my face before killing me! Are you even gods? No, I’m sorry! I was wrong about everything! Just let me live one more time!
As I begged and cursed every god I knew—
My swirling vision suddenly cleared.
The staggering stopped as if gravity had returned properly.
I gasped and slowly blinked my eyes.
Ding, ding.
A familiar sound rang beside my ear.
[[Welcome back to Apotheosis].]
…………What.
What avocado.
