But this wasn't the time to sit around despairing.
All I had to do was wrench this horrific ending off its rails.
I put on the warmest smile I could muster and led the children over to a safe corner of the rooftop.
Even under Sea-ah's icy wariness I kept my expression steady — harmless, gentle.
Before long Sea-ah moved to get up and go gather supplies, but I stepped in front of her, urgent.
"Sea-ah, let me go instead. An adult can bring back more than a kid going alone, right?"
Sea-ah looked up at me without answering right away.
"Someone has to stay here and look after your siblings. Right?"
With the little ones brought into it, Sea-ah finally, reluctantly, nodded.
I already knew that code from watching in ghost-form, but I nodded as if I'd just heard it for the first time.
The instant the permission was out of her mouth, I bolted down the stairs.
Sea-ah's place was on the fifteenth floor.
The moment I was inside, I went straight to the kitchen and grabbed the Mana Pistol first thing.
Then I unfolded two large suitcases and swept everything I could into them like a maniac — blankets, emergency rations, every survival item in sight.
And the most important thing.
Maybe camping was the family hobby — one corner of the veranda was stacked high with jerrycans of camping gasoline.
The first time I'd spotted that mountain of fuel cans, I could have cheered inside.
I crammed the portable gas burner and dozens of butane canisters into the suitcase too, without leaving a single one behind.
Even so, this much firepower might not be enough to burn that massive thing.
I started raiding every abandoned apartment I'd noted while in ghost form — every place whose front door had been left open during evacuation.
Apartment by apartment, I combed the utility rooms and verandas, grabbing kerosene for heating, leftover butane — anything flammable I could get my hands on — and stuffed it all into the suitcase.
'I'm sorry for the trespassing. I'll definitely take revenge for you.'
After that quick internal apology, I lugged the suitcases — packed so tight they wouldn't shut — grunting my way back up.
I hid them in a shadowy spot in the nineteenth-floor corridor, the final flood-line where the giant centipede would burst up.
When I came back to the rooftop with things for the children, Sea-ah was calming her terrified siblings.
I hurried over, wrapped the children in thick blankets, and pressed emergency rations into their hands.
"Eat this and just rest a little. I'll be back in a minute."
Once Sea-ah was reassured, I headed for Gold Toad on the far side of the rooftop.
The man made me want to gag, but if I was going to keep Sea-ah safe I needed his son's power, no question.
I recited what the preschool teacher had said in the first cycle, word for word.
"Those kids — I used to teach them. Take a good look and they've got to be some higher-up's children. Whenever rescue or the military finally shows up, a leash on those three could come in real handy, don't you think?"
At my suggestion Gold Toad's greedy, glittering eyes flashed, and he let out a revolting cackle.
"Hmm? Merchandise you can move at a nice price, that it? Fine — we'll keep them alive. Second they get in the way, though, they're monster feed. Handle them yourself."
'Lower than an animal.'
I chewed down the killing intent boiling up in me and forced a smile out on the surface.
But when I came back to the children, Sea-ah's gaze on me had sharpened far more than before.
Maybe watching me murmur with Gold Toad had triggered some déjà vu in her.
"Ngh…."
Right then, Sea-ah suddenly furrowed her brow and clutched her head.
My heart dropped at that reaction.
Wondering, dreading, whether her earlier memories had come back, I checked her with a hard face.
But those unfocused eyes said she hadn't actually pinned down the past — not consciously.
"…what is this? Why is my head all of a sudden…"
Sea-ah pressed her temples and muttered, hazy.
It didn't show much on the outside, but to my eyes she looked far more disoriented than she had in the last cycle.
'I have to end this illusion as fast as I can. Before it's too late.'
I pushed the frantic worry down and clenched my fist.
I was holding my breath, waiting — and at last, the second assault began.
Screams and the reek of blood exploded from every direction.
Thankfully, once again, Gold Toad's son's ability kept us safe.
To shield all three children from the horrific slaughter and the screams, I pulled them tight against me with my whole body, as if to lock them inside my arms.
The little ones buried themselves in my clothes and broke into terrified sobs — but in this hellscape all I could do was grit my teeth and hold on.
I knew, in my head, that everyone being torn apart out there was fake — an illusion, all of it.
But the blood and the screams bursting so vividly in front of me — and, more than anything, the warmth of the children shaking in my arms — felt terrifyingly real.
Eyes squeezed shut, I prayed with everything I had that at least Sea-ah wouldn't have to feel this awful sensation of dying.
Once the assault ended and I was patting the children down, a sharp slap! rang out across the rooftop.
Gold Toad, exactly as in the first cycle, had backhanded his son across the face.
'Even minor characters' actions repeat, right down to the details.'
I watched everything unfolding with careful eyes.
Before long night fell, and with it the bone-deep chill unique to a drowned city.
I hadn't felt it at all while drifting as a ghost, but now that I had a body of my own, breathing and alive, the cold cut all the way through me.
'In the first cycle, Sea-ah and her siblings shivered all night.'
But this time was different.
I bundled the children up tight in the thick blankets and clothes I'd packed in the suitcases.
Then I pulled out the camping gear and set a small fire going.
Ta-da-dak!
Red flames caught and began pushing a small warmth into the frozen corner of the rooftop.
"Whoaa… Teacher, it's warm!"
Se-eun and Se-min stretched their frozen hands toward the fire, laughing brightly.
But Sea-ah couldn't quite drop the wary, confused look she'd fixed on me.
"It's all right, come here and warm up a bit."
I smiled gently and pulled the children in closer to the little firepit.
Just then, chasing the warmth, Gold Toad and a few other survivors began to sidle over.
"Ahem — looking pretty cozy there, aren't we? Nice thing like this, shouldn't we all be sharing?"
Gold Toad showed up with his usual smug, high-handed air and casually elbowed his way in.
I clicked my tongue on the inside, but on the outside I put on the most amiable smile I could manage and answered.
"Of course. Everyone, come on over and warm up."
I gave up my spot without a word — but I made sure to slip the children behind me.
The long, weary night dragged on, and at last dawn began to break.
Nerves stretched thin, I was counting down in my head — to the third assault, and to the arrival of Sea-ah's parents.
—Kyaaaak!!
Soon, along with a spine-crawling shriek, the third assault began.
And, exactly like in the first cycle, without a hair of deviation from memory, Gold Toad snatched Sea-ah and Se-min up and hurled them out of the shield.
I'd been waiting for that exact moment — the instant the children were flung into the air, I launched myself like lightning.
Thud-tumble—!
I caught Se-min screaming as he fell, caught Sea-ah as she wrapped herself around him, and tumbled several times across the rough cement, arms locked around all of them.
"Why the hell did you…?! Are you out of your mind?!"
Gold Toad stammered, thrown by my sudden move — but I couldn't spare the seconds to even look at him.
I hauled myself up, tucked the children under my arms, and ran, desperate, toward the rooftop's iron door.
Exactly ten seconds later.
Kwaaaang—!!
The tightly shut iron door blew off its hinges as if it had exploded, and a huge stream of flame roared through.
"Kids!"
Two figures came through the doorway with a flamethrower thrust in front of them.
Sea-ah's parents.
"Mom…! Dad…!"
The children I'd been holding burst into the sobs they'd been holding back and ran to them.
It was a moving reunion — but my eyes were locked hard on the empty air behind them.
Exactly the same timing as the first cycle.
The shimmering space cracked, and the transparent lizard monster's shape resolved back into view, hideously.
The instant it started to swing its tail at the parents, I whipped the Mana Pistol out of my coat and put its sights squarely between the beast's eyes.
Kwang—!!!!
Along with an ear-splitting crack.
The lizard monster's head, hit dead-on by the mana round, burst apart clean as a watermelon.
"Ma… Mana Pistol?! You — you had that kind of artifact all along?!"
Gold Toad let out a shock-choked scream, but I shut him out entirely.
'I did it.'
I'd taken down the lizard that had killed her parents.
I'd twisted the first cycle's tragic fate off its track with my own hands.
But the relief lasted only a moment — a strange restlessness and doubt tangled through me.
'Now… what happens next?'
That was the very moment.
—Beeeeeeeeeep!!!!
An eardrum-shredding tone crashed over the world.
The same horrific ringing I'd felt when I'd tried to tell Sea-ah the truth.
At the same time, as if by a lie, everything stopped.
The dust floating in the air. The red flames pouring from the flamethrower. The blood-hungry monsters charging in.
As if someone had jammed the pause button on a video, the whole world froze into a grotesque tableau.
'Wh-what — why does everything suddenly…'
Inside the grotesque silence.
The parents' frozen bodies stayed exactly as they'd been — only their heads began, slowly, to twist toward me.
Crack, crunch, kkkkrrrik—!!
A sound no living human could ever make.
The revolting noise of muscle tearing and thick joints being forced apart, splitting through my ears.
Their faces, wrenched a full 180 degrees around to face backward — well past any range a human body allowed — stared at me, dead-on.
Cloudy pupils, unfocused.
"Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?Whydyousavethem?"
The instant that horrific voice — like tens of thousands of people screaming at once — drilled into my brain.
"Ugh…!"
Along with a horrific dizziness, a wave of revolting nausea — as if my organs were being twisted alive — swept over me, whole.
The ominous sensation of the world being forcibly rebuilt.
Kwaaaang—!!
"Kids!!"
When I came back to myself, what hit my ears was the sound of an iron rooftop door blowing off its hinges, and a desperate shout.
Sea-ah's parents, flamethrower in front, were kicking their way through the door again.
'Time… rolled back?'
"Mom! Dad!"
As I watched the children burst into tears and reunite with them, a realization ripped through my head like lightning.
'Don't tell me…… the important events are set from the start? That they can't be changed at all?'
While I stood there frozen, unable to move, the horrific tragedy went ahead and repeated itself.
Her parents pressed the artifacts into the children's hands, and then — bodies run through by the lizard's tail and claws — they were driven into the blue-black depths below. That awful moment.
"Moooom!!! Daaad!!!"
Sea-ah screamed her throat raw, arm stretched out over the railing — but her parents had already vanished beneath the rushing current.
Once again, Sea-ah lost herself and sank down onto the ground.
Pushing down the head and heart threatening to burst inside me, I led the children back inside the shield along the fixed, predetermined path.
But before they could even finish taking their grief in, a revolting intruder cut in on the moment.
"You, you son of a bitch! What the hell was that Mana Pistol just now?! You had an artifact this whole time and you've been holding out on us?!"
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