The musty smell of dust stabbed at my nose, and a hard, shoddy mattress pressed against my spine. It was the perfect starting point where Iliana Revni had first opened her eyes—the solitary cell of the imperial palace, its door firmly shut.
The heat of the explosion that had blown my body to pieces just moments ago licked over my skin like phantom pain. But this time, I did not collapse to the floor gasping or despair like a beast. My tear ducts had already dried up completely; not a single tear came out.
Instead, what leaked from between my lips was a laugh like a grotesque metallic screech.
“Heh…… hehehe…….”
I sat on the bed and clasped my face in both hands. Between my fingers, my flashing red eyes held nothing but terrible madness. With that death just now, I understood it perfectly. The shitty mechanism of this damned system.
‘Emotion.’
The system had never so much as shown its nose when I maintained my reason and struggled meticulously to survive, yet only when I lost my mind and was swept up in destructive impulses did it stick out its oh-so-great snout. Then the answer was simple. My eyes flew wide open, and I began scraping together the deepest, blackest abyss within me.
Cassian Esterban.
That arrogant, disgusting emperor bastard who had threatened me, tortured the people precious to me, and torn them to shreds. I wanted to bite into his throat with my teeth right now and sever the tough artery. A blatant murderous intent toward that bastard, for whom gouging out his eyes and pouring molten iron into his stomach still wouldn’t be enough.
And the author who had designed this entire horrifying hell and was making a mockery of me from beyond the pages.
‘You son of a bitch. I’ll kill you. I’m going to rip every last one of you apart.’
My heart began pumping like a mad engine. Rage boiled up until it felt as though every blood vessel in my body would burst. It was not merely anger. It was pure and extreme murderous intent, willing to turn the world to ash and even burn myself along with it. Using that raw emotion as a medium, I drove my mind to its limit.
Then the familiar sound of ruptured space, as if the axis of the world had grotesquely slipped out of place, struck my eardrums.
The stream of dust drifting in through the window crack stopped. Even the deafening pounding of my heart seemed to be cut off as if paused. The colors around me were sucked away in an instant, and a dull, dead-gray world unfolded.
“Ha, hahahahaha!”
In the middle of the solitary cell frozen in gray, I clutched my stomach and laughed like a madwoman. Ecstasy shot up my spine in a thrill. It worked. It really worked. I had seized this shitty system by the collar with my own hands.
“Good. This feels fucking great.”
As I pointed into empty air and giggled, the familiar book appeared before my eyes with a flutter of pages. Along with a dazzling effect, a slot machine was projected into the air like a film projector. Three shadows began spinning at fierce speed.
Drrrrrrrk! The shadows stopped.
With bloodshot eyes, I checked the result. What would come out? A destructive Gift that would resolve this horrible murderous intent of mine in one stroke? Or a cheat key capable of overturning the world? But the words floating in the air were brutally mocking my expectations.
[Too bad, it’s a dud!]
I stared blankly at that word floating in the air. Dud. Another dud. It was as if I could hear that author bastard laughing from somewhere safe, out of reach of my teeth.
“……A dud?”
I stretched the corners of my mouth wide. Despair? Rage? There was none of that. In any case, this world was already nothing more than a game board that had lost all meaning to me.
“Yeah? So what if it’s a dud?”
I raised my middle finger at the book.
“Then I just have to die again.”
Dud or not, my last death had already proven that the Bomb Witch’s power I had used before could activate “just once.” If the system wanted to play with me, then I would gladly use this shitty life as a coin and flip this insane board over. There was no need to wait until Cassian entered this room. From atop the bed, I shouted in a voice filled with rapture.
“BOOM.”
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!!!!
The gray world shattered, and at the same time, a horrific explosion erupted inside the cramped solitary cell. Bricks on all sides were blown into powder, and crimson flames turned my skin and bones to ash before anything else. It was a perfect suicide, without even time to feel pain.
I gladly dove into the abyss of my third death. And along with the familiar rewind, a report surfaced again in midair.
#
[#3. Final Report]
▶ Achievement Unlocked: Fastest Death
[Ten seconds is insane]
▶ Number Killed: 1
[You blew yourself up the moment it started and that’s it?]
▶ Witches Encountered: 0
[Died before even opening the door.]
[Overall Review]
A 10-second self-destruct right after regression! Rerolling because the gacha failed!
[ Ratings ]
★☆☆☆☆ │ Wow, suicide right after the start? Did you give up on the plot?
★☆☆☆☆ │ Looks like she ate a hundred sweet potatoes and her brain melted;;
★★☆☆☆ │ No, where did the Scarlet x Iliana yuri go!!
★☆☆☆☆ │ Look at her rage-quitting for real just because she pulled a dud lol legendary.
★★☆☆☆ │ She cleared it in 10 seconds? Was this genre a time attack?
#
My vision distorted, and a grotesque rewind began. The pieces of flesh and bone powder scattered across the floor clung back onto my skeleton as if drawn by a magnet, and the flames that had blown away the room were sucked backward and vanished.
My entire field of vision flickered white. And when I opened my eyes again, as expected, I was sitting on the bed in that musty, hard solitary cell. I swept back my disheveled silver hair and grinned.
“Again.”
There was no need to catch my breath. I closed my eyes and once more drew up the blood-red murderous intent toward Cassian and the extreme hatred toward the author. The very point where my heart pounded like mad and rage boiled as though every blood vessel in my body would burst.
Giiiiing. Again, the world was dyed gray and stopped. The book appeared in midair, and the 777 slot machine began spinning wildly.
Drrrrrrrk!
[Too bad, it’s a dud!]
“Fuck. Another dud?”
Without hesitation, I snapped my fingers.
“BOOM.”
Kwaaaaaang! Once again, the solitary cell was blown away, and my body was smashed to pieces.
#
[#4. Final Report]
[Overall Review]
7-second self-destruct. This reroll speed is insane;;
#
My vision flipped, and I opened my eyes again. On the bed.
Without giving even a moment to breathe, murderous intent. Gray world. Slot machine.
[It’s a dud!]
“BOOM.”
Kwaaaaaang!
#
[#5. Final Report]
[Overall Review]
5 seconds. Stop dying already, you crazy bitch.
#
I opened my eyes. Murderous intent. Slot machine.
[It’s a dud!]
“BOOM.”
Kwaaaaaang!
#
[#12. Final Report]
[Overall Review]
Even the readers are getting exhausted and dropping this……
#
[#14. Final Report]
#
[#18. Final Report]
#
[#21. Final Report]
#
[#27. Final Report]
[Overall Review]
How long are you going to keep doing this;; Please stop!
#
Death by explosion. Regression. Murderous intent. Dopamine. Self-destruct.
Pain? Fear? Things like that had completely evaporated from my nerves after the tenth-something death. The acrid smell of my flesh burning somehow began to feel like sweet perfume, and the horrifying boom of my bones shattering tickled my ears like cheerful background music in a casino.
I was not a human who feared death. I was a perfect gambling addict and monster, stuffing my own life into the slot instead of coins, my brain steeped in the rapture of a jackpot.
If this shitty system wanted the dopamine gushing out of my despair and madness, then I would gladly scrape out my brain matter and pour it in without limit. That disgusting stimulation you bastards want—I’ll throw my life in as chips until this insane world explodes and even the gray world collapses.
“I’m spinning until it comes out. I’ll keep spinning until it drops, you sons of bitches.”
Once again, murderous intent boiled up, and the gray world unfolded. As I looked up at the slot machine spinning madly in midair, a grotesquely split, metallic laugh hung on my lips. Eyes drenched in blood and bone dust, having reduced even death to a mere gacha coin. They were no longer human.
It was pure, chilling, perfect madness.
“BOOM.”
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!!!!
#
[#29. Final Report]
#
[#35. Final Report]
#
Thirty-five explosive deaths and thirty-five regressions. My mind had already left the orbit of humanity entirely, no different from a vengeful ghost drifting through the empty air of the gray world. I opened my eyes on the bed for the thirty-sixth time. There was no need to catch my breath, nor any reason to hesitate. Without hesitation, I once more drew up the rotten, festering murderous intent pooled at the very bottom of me.
Cassian. The author. This shitty world.
Giiiiing. With familiar ease, the axis of the world twisted and was dyed a murky gray. Above the book floating in midair, the 777 slot machine began spinning wildly yet again.
Drrrrrrrk! By now, I was prepared to greet the text [Dud] even with my eyes closed. I pressed the thumb and middle finger of my right hand together, measuring the timing to snap my fingers and blow my body to pieces for the thirty-sixth time.
Click. Click. Click!
The three shadows that had always misaligned and mocked me miraculously lined up in a perfect row.
7. 7. 7.
In that instant, the mechanical noise of the slot machine echoing through the gray world abruptly stopped. Then a dazzling golden light I had never seen before began pouring out from the pages like a waterfall.
Pop!
A light, foreign bursting sound, like fireworks going off, tore through the silence of the solitary cell. Glittering powder of light scattered like snowflakes, and from within the radiant golden cluster, a small silhouette popped out.
“……Huh?”
My eyes, which had been flashing with murderous intent and madness, widened like crazy. What gently landed atop the book floating in the air was a small girl wearing a sacred white cleric’s robe so oversized that it dragged along the floor.
Like the Bomb Witch from last time, she had an adorable, tiny body that looked as if she would fit snugly in one arm. But unlike that violent witch who seemed ready to blow away the whole world at any moment, a warm and holy aura rose around the girl like a shimmer of heat.
[Wow. Congratulations! It’s an SSR-grade Gift, the “Divine Witch.”]
I stared blankly up at the small girl floating in midair. The strength in my pressed-together fingers slowly loosened.
Thirty-six self-destructs. Thirty-six murderous intents. The end of an infinite reroll, spun madly by grinding in my flesh and bones, and even the last remnants of my reason as a human being.
“Ha…… heh, hehehe.”
From between my cracked lips, along with a rough breath, a laugh filled with rapture burst out.
At last. Finally. In the end, I had shaken this fucking system and ripped the jackpot out of it with my own hands.