As the number of targets available for replay decreased, the white tiger removed the hand that was covering my eyes.

The first to open their eyes among the three was Cheon Dong-ha.

He collapsed with only a slight difference in strength from Ma Jin-seung, but death came first for Cheon Dong-ha.

This was because, to ensure there were no lucky survivors, several confirmation kills were carried out.

Only after determining that Cheon Dong-ha was completely dead did Ma Jin-seung confirm the kill.

‘No matter how many times I replay it, the order of death doesn’t change. Cheon Dong-ha was always the one to open his eyes first.’

When multiple playable characters need to be controlled at the same time, characters not being controlled are moved by AI.

Since the AI reflects the character's base stats, if Ma Jin-seung, who was lacking in various ways compared to Cheon Dong-ha, was left to the AI, he would soon suffer serious injuries.

Once Ma Jin-seung became unable to use his abilities, the buffs from Cheon Dong-ha and the support were lost, and Cheon Dong-ha would also be greatly shaken and quickly fall.

To keep them alive a little longer, it was necessary to alternate between controlling both, but the gameplay had to focus around Ma Jin-seung.

Still, the deaths of both, and the order of them, could not be changed.

"Ah..."

Cheon Dong-ha, who had just opened his eyes, felt around his eyes.

Before using the replay, he had taken off his glasses, so his sharp eyes, which gave off an intelligent impression, were now clearly visible.

His gaze, clouded with pain and sadness, quickly regained focus as he used his abilities to surround his eyes, trying to assess the situation.

"Cheon Dong-ha."

Teacher Ham Geun-hyung called Cheon Dong-ha's name with more affection than usual and offered him his glasses.

Cheon Dong-ha looked up at Teacher Ham Geun-hyung, unable to think of taking the glasses.

Soon, Cheon Dong-ha responded brightly.

"Teacher!"

Looking at Teacher Ham Geun-hyung, Cheon Dong-ha couldn't hide his relief and joy.

It seemed like it had been a long time since Cheon Dong-ha showed emotions like that, especially after the Eun-ho incident.

In a hurried voice, Cheon Dong-ha tried to explain the situation.

"Teacher, Jin-seung and Jun-yeol..."

"Dong-ha, you’re awake?"

But just then, Yong Je-geon poked his grinning face into the conversation, interrupting the touching reunion between teacher and student.

Cheon Dong-ha quickly turned his head with a sound like "whoosh!" and saw Yong Je-geon, looking as though he had seen a ghost.

To Cheon Dong-ha, who still had the aftereffects of the replay, Yong Je-geon might as well have been a ghost.

After Yong Je-geon, Cheon Dong-ha’s eyes widened for a moment with shock, then gradually settled.

Having been briefed on the replay information beforehand, Cheon Dong-ha had likely only just now recalled everything.

It seemed as though Cheon Dong-ha was only now realizing that what he had experienced was a replay, and he calmed down.

However, the peace he had regained didn’t last long.

"Dong-ha! You’re safe!"

"Jin-seung..."

Ma Jin-seung, who had been blinking his eyes while lying down, was the first to speak to Cheon Dong-ha.

Perhaps feeling the aftereffects of the replay more intensely than Cheon Dong-ha, Ma Jin-seung seemed to think that he had miraculously survived the school trip incident.

Even when he saw Yong Je-geon, he muttered, "Did Yong Teacher survive? I must have been mistaken!" unable to snap back to reality.

"Yong Teacher is here, and we're okay, so Jun-yeol must be safe too, right? What a relief!"

I didn’t know where to start explaining.

Cheon Dong-ha looked at Ma Jin-seung with a guilty expression.

I would probably have a similar expression to Cheon Dong-ha's right now.

Even though it would be understandable to feel discomfort at seeing their underwhelming reactions, Ma Jin-seung seemed to have abandoned any further thoughts and just felt relief that his friends were safe.

"Hey, this is Eun-hwi-gwan. Let’s get out of here! It’s dangerous!"

Ma Jin-seung, who had been looking around, suddenly spoke, surprised.

To Ma Jin-seung, it probably felt like the president, who had just been observing while the school fell apart, was in cahoots with everyone else.

Even seeing Ma Jin-seung overreacting like they were in an evil lair, Hwang Ji-ho didn’t react much. He simply accepted the situation calmly, as expected.

"Wait, it’s Uishin! Uishin is... then this..."

Ma Jin-seung finally snapped out of it when he made eye contact with me.

Since I was still watching the replay of Yeom Jun-yeol, I couldn’t properly respond.

At that moment, Yeom Jun-yeol’s end was approaching, and heat began to rise.

It was evidence that Yeom Jun-yeol’s ability was shaking violently.

Ma Jin-seung whipped his head around, trying to find Yeom Jun-yeol.

The large Yeom Bang-yeol and Cheong-ryong were close by, lying next to Yeom Jun-yeol, so they weren’t easy to spot.

However, soon a fierce heat, as though summoning a red dragon, surged up, and Ma Jin-seung was able to locate the position.

"Jun-yeol waking up already means we’ve achieved nothing."

Cheon Dong-ha, hidden from sight by Cheong-ryong and Yeom Bang-yeol, said while staring at Yeom Jun-yeol.

There was no enthusiasm in Cheon Dong-ha’s voice.

It was a tense situation.

Yeom Jun-yeol was bracing for an immediate attack, but the arrow didn’t come.

‘Why aren’t they shooting right away? Even if it’s not a sacred arrow of Hallasan, it should still be effective.’

This place, which had a legend about a dragon being shot by an arrow and falling, had great significance, so the power of dragon-slaying would be stronger here.

Although it wasn’t a sacred arrow and wouldn’t turn someone into stone, it was certainly far stronger than a normal arrow when it came to slaying dragons.

It would have been the perfect time to kill Yeom Jun-yeol, so I couldn’t understand why they were hesitating.

"You didn’t go berserk."

A figure wearing a hood spoke.

If Cheon Dong-ha had been there, he would have understood their intentions and tricks immediately, but Yeom Jun-yeol couldn’t figure out what the words meant.

They had expected from the beginning that Cheon Dong-ha and Yeom Jun-yeol would act together.

They had also guessed that Cheon Dong-ha would find the distorted escape route leading from the 99th hole to Yongduam and risk his life to send Yeom Jun-yeol out.

According to their calculations, Yeom Jun-yeol should have been exhausted from using his abilities to calm the volcano and would have been attacked by an assassin, left in tatters, and mentally cornered by the horrific death of his friend right before his eyes.

However, the appearance of the variable Ma Jin-seung threw their plans off.

‘I don’t know what it is, but it seems not everything is going as they intended. If that’s the case, they might still be alive!’

Unlike what they had intended, Yeom Jun-yeol wasn’t harmed at all, and he even held onto a faint hope for the survival of the two.

The buff from Ma Jin-seung’s call protected Yeom Jun-yeol from the heavy rain, and it also shielded the two from death.

However, it was impossible for Ma Jin-seung alone to turn the tide of evil.

"‘He’ expected this variable."

Yeom Jun-yeol didn’t have a clue about what was going on, but the figure wearing the hood was waiting for something.

However, his back was to the sea, and he had no remaining energy to summon the red dragon.

The device was still malfunctioning, and emergency items to summon the bodyguards had been used up, but no one responded.

‘And unlike when I escaped from the assassin, my body feels heavy. Until a moment ago, my mind was fresh and my body light.’

If this were a game, what was happening right now would be a forced event.

The scene where Jo Yi-shin could control Yeom Jun-yeol as a playable character was when he hid his body along the wall of grass and escaped from the assassin.

The assassin’s goal was to injure Yeom Jun-yeol without killing him, and Jo Yi-shin’s goal was to help Yeom Jun-yeol escape without injury.

To successfully complete that objective, Jo Yi-shin had to replay countless times, and finally, after ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) achieving the goal, the ending was predetermined.

Boom!

When the standoff stretched on for a long time, something was thrown in front of Yeom Jun-yeol.

When Yeom Jun-yeol recognized what it was, he was taken aback.

It was Cheon Dong-ha and Ma Jin-seung.

The two were dead.

Cheon Dong-ha’s condition was especially severe.

Due to the blood flowing from his eyes, the earring-type device was soaked, and the hooded figure roughly removed the device and crushed it underfoot.

With a sound of ‘thud!’ as the device shattered, Yeom Jun-yeol felt as though his heart was breaking as well.

‘Dong-ha and Jin-seung... died because of me. Because of me.’

The emotions of guilt, despair, and sorrow were something Yeom Jun-yeol had felt countless times while attending Eun-gwang High.

But the intensity of what he felt now was unlike anything he had ever experienced, dark, deep, and horrific.

The ability that he thought was nearly exhausted began to fill up from somewhere. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The dark emotions Yeom Jun-yeol was feeling began to fuel his life force and turned into power.

Instinctively recognizing the signs of going berserk, he suppressed it, and Yeom Jun-yeol struggled to call out the names of the two.

"Dong-ha, Jin..."

Thunk.

Before he could finish calling Ma Jin-seung’s name, something stabbed Yeom Jun-yeol’s neck.

He felt the sensation of something stabbing his neck, but all he could see in his eyes were the two people who had lost their lives because of him, so he didn’t even notice what it was.

However, he soon felt the effect of whatever it was throughout his body.

Heat spread from his neck, and his ability began to rage.

Whirr!

Yeom Jun-yeol’s body ignited.

Heat rose from his body, and the uncontrolled ability leaked out, burning in the air, as the dragon’s blood surged and began to change his body.

Soon, his hair and eyes turned red, as if engulfed in flames, and his body was covered in scales.

For Yeom Jun-yeol, who was crushed by sadness and pain, this was a power too much to bear, but he didn’t easily surrender to the berserk state.

‘Shining things...!’

The moment Yeom Jun-yeol recognized the berserk state, he remembered the advice his friend had given him.

Yeom Jun-yeol had many shining things.

Family, friends, teachers, seniors, juniors.

Even though many had left him first, the time and memories he spent with them still shone brightly in his heart.

"You're holding on well."

Thunk.

Something stabbed his neck once more.

His body’s senses were going crazy, but after the second time, he knew better what was happening.

Something was being injected into his body through the veins in his neck.

Whatever it was, it was inducing Yeom Jun-yeol to go berserk.

It was then that Yeom Jun-yeol recalled the Player Special Law, but everything was too late, and even if he had realized it earlier, there was nothing he could have done.

As the third dose of the drug was injected, Yeom Jun-yeol couldn’t withstand it any longer.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Crash!

Yeom Jun-yeol no longer resembled a human but was close to a dragon.

The surge of power was inducing the transformation into the Hong-ryong.

And just then, reporters covering the eruption of the volcano rushed towards Yongduam.

They were already using high-end equipment and were broadcasting Yeom Jun-yeol’s berserk state as an article across the web.

"Now it’s done. We’ll kill the berserk player, the descendant of the dragon."

Squeak!

At the signal of the hooded figure, archers who had been waiting simultaneously shot their arrows.

It wasn’t until Yeom Jun-yeol’s body was pierced by the numerous arrows that he realized that these arrows belonged to the government’s players.

However, Yeom Jun-yeol could not dwell on this thought.

‘I have to live. I promised I would come back healthy...! Dong-ha and Jin-seung sent me to survive!’

The images of his family sending him off flashed through his mind, and the last time he saw Cheon Dong-ha and Ma Jin-seung appeared in his mind.

As that thought continued and his body was pierced by arrows, the red ability and flames subsided as he lost his blood and strength.

Miraculously, Yeom Jun-yeol was overcoming the berserk state.

"Fire. He’s still alive."

However, at the signal from the hooded figure, more arrows rained down.

By the time Yeom Jun-yeol could no longer stand, the berserk state had already subsided, but the rain of arrows didn’t stop.

To survive, to protect his body, the ability leaking out was covered by Yeom Jun-yeol’s body, but it was treated as a remnant of the berserk state and attacked even more fiercely.

In the fading consciousness, Yeom Jun-yeol thought of the last shining thing he saw.

Among the many shining things, there was also the star he had seen once at Eun-gwang High.