Ch.315315. A Regressor Who Commits Suicide Does Not Return

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! So annoying!”

“Heh.”

Hearing Elenoa’s tantrum-like scream from behind, Aria’s lips curl up slightly.

She seemed quite pleased about getting one over on her friend.

As I stare at her blankly, she notices my gaze, blushes, and quickly turns her head away.

“W-well… I-I’m only like that with Elenoa! I’m actually quite nice to other people!”

“I don’t think it’s bad at all.”

“Huh?”

“The way you bicker with Elenoa. It’s proof that you’re close.”

I meant it as reassurance, but Aria’s face turns even redder.

Kids this age tend to be embarrassed about mentioning friends or friendship, so that was probably why.

“W-we’re not close. It’s just… comfortable, that’s all.”

She clutches her skirt hem and mumbles quietly, looking so cute that I nodded with a silent smile.

“Right, I must have misunderstood.”

“…”

“Is there anywhere you’d like to go? A café or restaurant?”

“A-anywhere is fine with you, Professor. But…”

Aria hesitates, then responds with a curious expression.

“Are you always this gentle? I mean, normally? No, when you’re in that other body, you’re quite different.”

Judging by how she’s pointing toward the royal palace, she must be referring to when I’m in Deus Verdi’s body.

“Am I that different?”

“The atmosphere is the same! But you’re somehow kinder than usual? I feel like I’ve become a s-special existence to you, Professor.”

Aria’s face, which has been red for a while now, shows no signs of returning to normal.

But she wasn’t wrong. I had spoken to her as Shinwoo Kim while in Deus Verdi’s body before.

At that time, I told her about my past and expressed gratitude for everything she had done as a hero, bringing it to an end.

But this was the first time meeting her directly as Shinwoo Kim.

I’ll be honest.

Uncharacteristically, I felt a bit excited.

“You are a special existence.”

“…Pardon?”

“It’s a bit early for lunch, so let’s go to a café.”

Aria freezes in surprise. I walk ahead, then turn back to her standing there staring at me, and grab her wrist.

“Eep!”

“We don’t have much time.”

I take Aria to a café. Since I can’t taste anything with this artificial body, I order the cheapest coffee, while buying cake and juice for Aria.

These were the drinks and desserts she mentioned as her favorites in the original game.

“How did you know I like these?!”

Aria, still looking down at her wrist while seated at the table, asks me with surprise.

Getting one right might be coincidence, but both would be surprising.

“I know quite a bit about you, in my own way.”

“T-that’s amazing.”

With a slightly bewildered expression, Aria picks up her fork. As she puts the sweet treat in her mouth, a smile naturally spreads across her face.

“Mmm! Delicious!”

Seeing her cheeks puff out happily makes me feel good too.

Though I couldn’t taste the coffee, it felt as sweet as if honey had been added.

‘Is this how fans feel when meeting their idols?’

Through the screen, in Deus Verdi’s body.

Aria Rius, whom I had seen so many times.

The protagonist of the game Retry, who gave me so much hope and taught me so much.

Meeting her as Shinwoo Kim gave me a strange, warm feeling in my chest.

I wanted to do more for her, to make her happy.

And I wanted to applaud the fate that would allow her to finally put everything down.

A brilliant path.

An infinitely brilliant path lies before this child.

“It’s nothing special, so listen while you eat.”

“Eep!”

Aria responds while munching on her cake. This would be completely unacceptable etiquette when I’m Deus, but now it just seemed cute.

“The gods came to me, saying that you’re no longer the one burdened with fate—I am.”

“Kack! Keh! Keh-keh!”

Aria immediately grabs her throat and starts coughing violently. It was so loud that everyone in the café turned to look at us for a moment.

“Drink.”

I offer her drink, which she desperately sucks through the straw before slamming her hand on the table.

“I-is that true?! They really disappeared? That’s what they said?!”

“Yes, so you don’t need to worry about anything anymore.”

“Ah…”

Her mouth hangs open.

Her expression showed such a complex mix of emotions that I found it difficult to gauge her feelings.

Aria probably felt the same way.

I casually sip my coffee while basking in the sunlight coming through the window.

Creating an atmosphere of peace.

Showing her, who likely feels guilty toward me, that this is nothing.

“P-Professor…”

“Were you going to say you’re sorry? We already finished that conversation before. I said I would take your fate in your place.”

“But!”

The difference between simply taking over her role and completely changing the cast must feel significant.

She seemed to think she had completely handed over her burden to me.

“Aria.”

I slowly erase my smile as I speak to her.

“You are now completely free from fate. Not just a role division between us, but truly liberated.”

“…”

Tears well up in her eyes. No matter what I say, the knot in her heart won’t untie.

Because in the first playthrough.

Aria Rius clearly remembers the path of hardship she walked.

“And now, I can finally tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“About your future.”

Which no longer matters.

“About the death you would have faced in the second playthrough… and what I intended in the first.”

“Ah.”

The trembling stops.

She doesn’t seem as shocked as when I told her about fate earlier.

It meant that this small girl, only 18 years old, had sufficiently anticipated her own death.

“Of course, if you don’t want to know, I won’t tell you. But the reason I want to say this is…”

“Because of the Professor from the first playthrough, right?”

“That’s right.”

Deus Verdi whom Aria Rius met in the first playthrough. The man who, pushed by urgency to survive, broke Aria Rius.

The girl who mistook that for love.

“I think you’ve overcome it all now. You should be able to hear the truth about him… no, about me.”

A moment of silence fell.

A tense moment where I could see droplets of water sliding down the glass.

After taking a deep breath, Aria nodded once.

“If you hadn’t killed Luanes, and he had succeeded with his plan…”

I speak the bitter truth.

“You would have died by his hand.”

“…What?”

Perhaps it seemed too sudden.

Aria stares at me with wide eyes. But it was clear.

That was the truth.

Because.

“You’re the one who destroys the world in the first playthrough.”

“What? N-no. Wait. What do you mean?”

“There were complex reasons.”

Ironically.

From that point on, the player cannot make any choices.

Essentially, you just read the script that unfolds like a novel, mechanically repeating familiar battles.

It gave the unpleasant feeling that the game was mocking the player, saying you can’t change anything about the predetermined fate.

That was one reason why Retry was called a terrible game.

“What was the King of Orpheus like in the first playthrough? Was he possessed by a demon? Or was he insane?”

“…He was possessed by a demon.”

“Yes, that’s where it begins.”

Aria Rius’s status rises higher and higher after saving the kingdom.

Eventually, the king’s obsession with protecting his authority causes problems.

He attempts to assassinate Aria Rius.

Like Saul feeling jealous of David.

However, mere assassins would never succeed against Aria, the strongest in the kingdom.

Nevertheless, the endless stream of assassins and rumors spreading throughout the kingdom.

Pressure mounting from all sides.

It wasn’t just King Orpheus who felt threatened by Aria.

The Republic of Clark, the Kingdom of Zerman, the Han Empire, and others.

Especially Zerman, which starts a war during one episode, had properly witnessed Aria’s might and was looking for an opportunity to kill her.

At some point.

The girl who had just graduated becomes the enemy of the world.

Those she had saved either turn their backs on her or are executed for speaking the truth.

Princess Elenoa’s death becomes entangled, making her not a rebel but an ill-fated girl who tried to reveal the truth about Aria.

Simply being good with a sword.

Being strong.

It had no effect against the invisible, enormous power.

Her friends who traveled together?

When fighting Dante, she saved the continent through their sacrifice. Her friends became cold corpses, their souls annihilated by Luanes’s magic.

“S-so?”

Aria’s lips tremble and her skin turns pale. But her resolve remained.

“In that broken state, you commit massacres beyond what Heralhazad showed. The Griffin Kingdom is destroyed, and you die surrounded by the armies of many countries.”

“…”

“Finally.”

The reason this story could continue to a second playthrough.

“You regret and repent. You believe that if you had one more chance, you could do much better. You develop a desire to apologize to those you killed.”

Aria was a bright child, but not one who was perfectly mature mentally.

I knew this well, having seen it many times before.

Aria, who had become a murderer, returns to being a hero at the very end, like a ridiculous story.

“Start again.”

But there was no change.

Throughout the second playthrough, script-like monologues from Aria flow.

That she will save everyone.

That she won’t break.

That she will atone.

And when you reach the ending.

“The same conclusion arrives.”

That was the cruel part of this game.

The protagonist’s end, after dozens of hours of immersion trying to change the future, somehow flows identically to the ending seen in the first playthrough.

Fate.

The name the gods attached to the story seemed quite appropriate.

“There, you make one choice.”

Ironically.

In the first playthrough, where you were forced to read the script, one choice is given.

Aria, who sees assassins coming for her after graduation.

A forcibly presented choice.

– Will you commit suicide? Y/N

You have no choice but to press it.

Otherwise, the same ending as the first playthrough unfolds.

The ending of a returnee who changed nothing.

A girl becoming a cold corpse in her academy dormitory, soaking in a pool of her own blood.

Just by that.

She saved countless people.

And also.

Broke the chain of tragedy.

A returnee who commits suicide does not return.

She was a girl who had to shine brighter than anyone to save the continent.

She saved the world with her brilliance, but the world was not magnanimous enough to contain her radiance.

The ending of Retry was.

Defined in one phrase.

Tossagupyeong (兎死狗烹) – Abandoning someone after they’ve served their purpose.

It couldn’t have been more garbage content.