PT | Chapter 1.5

“Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be my fiancée you caused trouble with? Why do I have to be summoned to the dean’s office because of you? You should’ve avoided her if you knew what she was up to. Or rejected her properly. Or at least—”

“It’s fun.”

“…”

“Seeing her blush just because I looked her way… it’s entertaining.”

Aubrey’s patience snapped at Lennock’s casual response, cutting off his intended scolding. He tightened his grip on Lennock’s collar.

“You little—!”

Just as he was about to strike, Lennock added calmly, “She prefers me over you.”

“…”

“That’s what she said. That she likes me better than my older brother.”

One corner of Lennock’s lips curled upward.

So the real problem was her. But the fact that Lennock’s nonchalant attitude annoyed him even more made Aubrey sigh deeply. Placing his hands gently on Lennock’s shoulders, Aubrey patted him while speaking in a forced calm.

“This incident will upset Father greatly. You won’t escape punishment, so be prepared. Got it?”

Aubrey pressed down hard on Lennock’s shoulders, smiling brightly.

“You lovable, infuriating little brother of mine.”

“…”

If Lennock dared to act cheeky again, Aubrey wondered how he’d deal with him. Glancing at the window beside Lennock, Aubrey measured the height.

What floor are we on again?

In his countless regressions, Aubrey occasionally found his judgment slipping. Knowing he’d die horribly in flames again anyway, he sometimes felt the urge to go out in a dramatic double-suicide. But what if he failed and only hurt himself?

While entertaining these dangerous thoughts, warm breath brushed against his forehead.

“Anyway, you don’t even like her, do you? That kind of woman.”

“…”

The breath on his forehead and the voice in his ear sent chills down his spine. Startled, Aubrey let go of Lennock’s shoulders and tried to step back, but Lennock grabbed his hand, stopping him.

Staring down at Aubrey with those dazzling eyes often compared to living jewels, Lennock’s gaze didn’t move Aubrey in the slightest—it only irritated him.

“Let go.”

“Sure.”

Almost mockingly, Lennock released Aubrey’s hand and walked past him. Not without purposefully bumping his shoulder on the way out.

Aubrey clenched his fists, suppressing the urge to chase after him and demand answers. Looking at his own hand, he sighed.

His once-calloused hands had become soft and clean in this life. He’d been living halfheartedly this time, trying everything in his past regressions—becoming a soldier, amassing wealth, even conquering Toroso and invading Sellanto alongside his father.

The results?

Disastrous.

If he’d succeeded, he wouldn’t be here again. Clenching his fists tighter, Aubrey whispered to himself.

“…It’s fine. For now.”

Yeah. The monster hasn’t awakened yet.

This time, he wasn’t excessively kind, nor did he try to kill him at every opportunity. He’d treated him like a normal brother—sometimes kind, sometimes combative.

“…Is this working, though?”

Sometimes, he couldn’t help but catch himself plotting ways to kill him.

And then there was that damned Lennock brat, always retorting with, “What does it matter? You’re just an illegitimate child brought from outside too.”

Once again, Aubrey felt the sinking sensation of failure, his face growing a little pale.

***

「In my sixth life, everything seemed to be going well—until I burned to death.

Aubrey had no idea what was happening to him. Bewildered and desperate, he lived his seventh life as if he were possessed. Though his mind often felt detached, living wasn’t all that difficult after experiencing life over and over again.

When the day came that he burned alive once more, Aubrey was at the frontlines.

Ignoring his father’s warnings— “Don’t do anything foolish”—he spouted some flowery nonsense about “fighting for the family and Toroso,” and stormed out. Standing atop a snow-covered hill with thick flakes swirling around him, he scanned the surroundings.

What were those blue flames that consumed him back then?

Would they kill him again this time? Though it was a memory from over twenty years ago, the horrifying pain of his body melting away in an instant was etched into every cell of his being.

Even as his comrades urged him to return to the barracks, saying the snowstorm was too heavy to see even an inch ahead, Aubrey refused to move. He stood stiffly, like a statue atop the hill, staring into the darkness.

He had thought that if nothing was visible, then nothing existed.

It didn’t take long for him to realize how disastrously wrong he was. In the distance, a pillar of fire tore through the sky. The flames erupted from the highest peak of the mountain range, revealing the Ice Castle of Sellanto below.

Sellanto—an ancient land at the heart of the continent where the Great Sin was murdered 400 years ago.

The Ice Castle of Sellanto was said to be a divine structure of immense majesty. Surrounding its walls stood statues of dragons, each frozen in different postures. Yet, as Aubrey watched, one of those unmoving statues began to flap its wings. With a single beat, the dragon’s massive maw opened wide, unleashing an inferno. The flames melted snow-capped peaks in an instant and burned everything in their path.

Even Aubrey.

He didn’t even have time to believe what he was seeing. Holding his breath, he watched as death engulfed him once more. It was his seventh death—and the beginning of his eighth life.

According to legend, the dragons sealed within the four corners of Sellanto’s walls were supposed to have been freed 400 years ago. However, the death of the Great Sin had tightened their bonds instead. The dragons would only awaken when the Great Sin was resurrected.

But that was impossible, wasn’t it? The Great Sin, the dragons, their fiery breaths—it was all just myth. Four hundred years later, such things were no more than outdated tales.

Yet, after witnessing the dragons move and perishing in their flames, Aubrey couldn’t dismiss it as mere legend. In his next regression, he obsessively scoured history books, eventually discovering the truth: what he had seen was an omen of the apocalypse.

The man who sought divine power in a mortal body, committing an unforgivable sin, was known as the Great Sin. After his brutal death, his resurrection brought about the continent’s destruction.

Half the continent’s population must have burned alive in that inferno. The thought sent shivers down Aubrey’s spine. At the same time, the realization of how powerless he was against such a monstrous force left him hopeless. He spent his eighth life as a half-dead shell of a person.

It’s strange how fragile the human body is. Once his mind fell ill, so did his body.

The once-gifted Aubrey, renowned for his beauty, intelligence, and robust health, withered into a frail, temperamental man with a sour disposition. He became someone no one wanted to associate with.

Johan Wiidin, who saw his children as little more than accessories, would never tolerate such a disgrace. Aubrey was expelled from the marquis’s house at fifteen and spent the next four years in a mental institution. There, he developed a severe case of tuberculosis and died a slow, agonizing death.

He had no strength left to start anew.

If he were sent back to seven years old again, he decided he’d simply jump out of the nearest window. Yet, alongside that despair came a nagging curiosity—what kind of being was the resurrected Great Sin?

If he managed to enter the Ice Castle of Sellanto before the flames erupted, perhaps he could discover who was behind the world’s destruction.

Even if he died, he wanted to know the face of the one who had caused him so much suffering.

So Aubrey gritted his teeth and began again.

In his ninth life, he failed to breach the castle walls due to disorganized allies and plummeted to his death in an endless ravine. Determined to rectify his mistake, he returned in his tenth life and finally broke through the walls.

Inside Sellanto Castle, what awaited Aubrey was a mountain of frozen corpses.

Bodies piled high, frozen in time, filled every corner. The sharp sound of the wind echoed through the halls, amplifying the unease crawling over Aubrey’s skin. Struggling to maintain his composure amidst his confused comrades, Aubrey pressed onward.

And then, he saw it.

A towering staircase stood before him, and from its center emerged a figure.

Aubrey likely wore a dumbfounded expression as he stared. Unable to believe his eyes, he shut them tightly before reopening them—but the figure remained unchanged.

It was Lennock.

Clad in simple black trousers and a white shirt, Lennock stood there, seemingly unfazed by the cold, gazing down at Aubrey. Despite having grown up together, there was something unfamiliar about those eyes. Aubrey didn’t know what expression to make. Instead, he yelled:

“Lennock!!”

He meant to ask if Lennock knew where they were, what he was doing there, and demand he come down at once. But before he could speak further, Lennock’s gaze shifted downward. The moment their eyes met, Aubrey felt a chill.

At that time, Aubrey and Lennock hadn’t exactly been on good terms. No, it would be more accurate to say their relationship was outright terrible.

Before he could react, the searing heat from behind made everything clear.

“Arghhhh—!!”

Once again, he burned alive.

The unimaginable pain of his body being consumed by fire repeated itself as Aubrey screamed in madness. Crawling on the ground, his body charred and broken, he turned his head as if drawn by some unseen force.

And there he saw it—Lennock, standing amidst the living dragons.

So it’s you.

The resurrected Great Sin was you all along.

As the last breath left his body, Aubrey hurled every curse he could think of at Lennock, the one who had caused him such suffering. Then, darkness.

And once more, he opened his eyes as a seven-year-old child.」