Chapter 3

The entire family left to discuss the transplant.

For the first time in days, I was alone in the house.

The System had listened silently to everything.

Then it finally spoke.

[Your redemption mission no longer has any meaningful path to completion.]

"Then why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning?" I demanded. "Why did you let me live inside this lie for seven years?"

The System froze for a second before answering.

[I'm sorry. This was my error.]

[When you first arrived, I failed to detect that the other characters had retained memories from a previous timeline. I classified what happened to you as an isolated incident.]

"So you were the one who let me hear their thoughts?"

[Yes.]

The System's answer came without hesitation.

[The Redemption System selected you because it detected your sympathy for Claire Monroe. Your assignment was to save her from her original ending while also changing Aidan Pettigrew's fate.]

[However, due to an administrative failure, rebirth elements entered this world and several NPCs awakened with memories from the previous timeline. That caused the mission structure to collapse.]

The System had actually offered to remove me from the mission several times over the years.

I had always refused.

It had not been allowed to directly tell me that the NPCs were aware of the previous timeline, so in the end it found another way.

It let me hear their thoughts.

[Host, if you're willing to exit the mission on the day of the surgery, we can arrange a false death and remove you from this world.]

I had already given up on the people I once called family.

I didn't want to stay here one second longer.

"No false death."

"Let me die on the operating table and send me home."

The System agreed.

As compensation, it activated something called the [Posthumous Regret Package].

According to the System, after I died, everyone who had hurt me would finally understand what they had done.

Claire would regret ignoring my love.

She would spend the rest of her life unable to love anyone else.

[Technically, that still counts as winning Claire over.]

I laughed.

The entire mission had become a joke.

I had felt sorry for Claire.

I had wanted to save her.

She had once been brilliant and full of promise, and I hated watching someone like that destroy herself over love.

Now?

She deserved to rot in the mud, with no one to pull her out.

I spent my final days alone in my room.

Claire stopped giving me the injections that weakened my body, so for once I had enough strength to climb onto the window seat and look outside.

When she entered, half my body was leaning past the open window.

Her thoughts struck me immediately.

[Why is he leaning that far out? Is he going to jump?]

[Ryan is so happy that the transplant is finally happening. I can't let Aiden ruin this. I need to keep him calm.]

Claire approached slowly and wrapped her arms around my waist from behind.

Then she went still.

I heard the thought she never said aloud.

Why was I so thin?

She had spent years giving me too much medication to eat properly.

How could I have been anything else?

I swallowed my disgust and pushed her away.

"Claire, I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to watch me every second."

Her expression darkened.

Claire had always been suspicious.

I knew my words had only made her more alert.

Still, she said nothing.

Instead, she made me a glass of milk.

I could see powdered medicine floating on the surface.

I drank it anyway.

As I lifted the glass, my sleeve slipped back.

Claire stared at the veins standing out beneath my pale skin.

For once, her thoughts went quiet.

I'd just swallowed sleeping pills, and my head grew heavy.

Her figure blurred in front of me.

Maybe I was already half asleep.

Because I could have sworn there was something like pain in her eyes.

When Claire finally spoke, her voice was unusually gentle.

"Aiden... after the surgery, let's get married."