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“Self-Cancellation, Stop!”

The secrets of death met in an unimaginable reincarnation.

As someone who dabbles in writing, I was instantly aware of what this meant.

A cyclical ending.

An ending that connects the beginning and the end, repeating the main story infinitely; if executed well, it can be a satisfying ending, but if not, it leads to a frustrating closure—a path laden with difficulty.

…And it’s an ending where the protagonist can never find happiness.

Perhaps because I was inevitably aware of this, I had a moment of struggling as I frantically flailed my arms, attempting to swim up the passage.

Realizing that the problem wasn’t just mine, a white hand reached out from the corner of the passage.

With all colors merging, it drew the eye sharply against the dark surroundings, a hand that seemed extraordinarily alien.

Without hesitation, I grasped the outstretched hand, thinking it was meant to be caught.

Soft.

Is this what it feels like to stretch a plush goddess statue to life-size?

With a strangely familiar touch, my body began to be pulled somewhere.

Though the journey wasn’t smooth.

“Huh? Wha…?”

The blackness filled with countless radiances. And the white hand that was tightly connected to me.

The outlines of these two began to blur and soon they started to intertwine.

The peculiar sensations all over my body. Just like getting sucked into a drain, I felt I was flowing somewhere, yet for some reason, I also felt as though my body was slowly floating in the opposite direction.

Amidst the contradictory sensations, my distorted vision began to slowly settle.

A scene made of black and white, reminiscent of ancient TV broadcasts.

Beyond that appeared a story of mine I did not know.

***

“The gender reversal boom is coming…!”

Bang!

As per my last memory, I died caught up in an unidentified explosion.

However, perhaps because I was viewing it from a third-party perspective, I was able to see beyond that.

First off, the reason for the explosion was simple. While the ability did exist on Earth, its concentration was alarmingly low.

With a gate suddenly opened by an immense divine power, what would happen then?

Since there were no particular barriers set, the difference in pressure caused divine energy to scatter rapidly, resulting in an explosion-like phenomenon.

At this point, my previous life’s body was already shattered to bits.

And I, a hapless returnee from the Pangaea continent, met the same fate.

Having returned to my past life’s body through the avatar of the goddess of love, I couldn’t handle the explosion properly and simply got blown to bits along with it.

To anyone who might come to investigate the racket, I should preemptively offer my deepest condolences. The remains of two blasted corpses were quite a horrific sight.

Anyway, after the deaths of my two selves almost simultaneously.

Something like two pieces of noise jutted out from my broken physical form.

At first, I couldn’t tell what they were, but perhaps due to the black-and-white TV-like filter, the noise started to settle, revealing sharp shapes.

Thus uncovered was my ghostly form, reminiscent of a ghost-type monster. Perhaps it was my soul.

Though each of the souls appeared the same, they bore different colors.

One was a translucent gray, while the other writhed in a deep blackish-red hue.

This was probably the effect of the madness I had accepted to confront the God of Madness.

Identical-looking souls, yet each merely differentiated by color. Those two began to mesh together as if they had always been one, and soon started to get sucked back into the gate that had opened with the explosion.

To be precise, there was no other place to go but that. It was as if I had been expelled from Earth.

Thus, my soul traveled back the way it came and settled right into the dying body of Jonah as expected.

Bearing a soul that was even redder than when I lived on Earth.

Only then did I start to understand the things that had eluded me until now.

Why was I able to kill living beings without hesitation upon being reborn into Pangaea, maintaining my composure even when blades were aimed at me?

Until now, I had thought it was simply the influence of my lineage as the heir of the knight king.

But no. My body may have granted me exceptional talent, but it did not pass on the traits of a psychopath.

This was solely due to the remnants of madness left in my soul.

Well, thanks to that, I was able to adapt quite well to the strange and savage world of Pangaea.

Afterward, I ended up scraping by here and there, and then accidentally stumbled upon the gacha system, pulling pickpocket skills.

Using this, I aimed to earn money discreetly in an inconspicuous manner…

Huh?

That wasn’t it. Reflected on the black-and-white screen, it seemed my guts spilled out as I carelessly stole things, eventually touching the belongings of some high-ranking adventurer, only to be instantly decapitated on the spot.

No… What the heck?

Caught off guard by the unexpected outcome, suddenly noise began to disrupt the entire screen, and then everything started to rewind like a tape being rewound.

Thus, what began again was the moment I opened my eyes in an alleyway of Pangrave.

My subsequent journey followed a similar pattern. Somehow, I managed to survive and accidentally pulled the pickpocket skill…

This time, I did so somewhat carefully while pilfering goods.

As if I were subconsciously remembering my past deaths.

But I became too absorbed in pickpocketing… lost in living on the surface.

Not entering the labyrinth, just stealing to get by, until I aged and entered my prime years.

Regardless of theft, I was attacked by various gangs for pure human trafficking purposes, and resisted but lost my life in the process.

And then it rewound again.

Again, I opened my eyes in the alley, and my actions began anew. However.

In some iterations, I missed meeting Lydia and entered the labyrinth alone, dying, while in others, I sweet-talked Ellie and lived happily until being killed by Cena, who fully awakened as the Church of the Heretic.

Not to mention routes where I became the king of the alley only to be hunted down by Lydia, getting swept away by Eve’s aura, doubting my own setup for no reason, and ultimately failing to prevent Eve’s corruption.

After hearing Benny’s words to escape, I really ran away only to end up killed by the villain of the Mage Tower, who awakened as the ruler of death, losing both Benny and Lydia…

Well, thankfully or unluckily, it wasn’t all bad endings.

There were also routes where I was bashed to death by Ellie or completely left Pangrave to live well in Historia, eventually dying of old age.

I even aligned with the rampaging Artisan Alliance to create universal humanoid battle weapons aiming for world domination, only to be assassinated by a self-proclaimed hero.

There was even a route where I became a minor author writing non-canonical tales of the original world in a gender-reversed universe, but upon being threatened by a stalker reader that they’d kill me if I didn’t release the next volume, I retorted that they might as well go for my neck, only to have a real knife to my throat.

Honestly, there were many routes that appeared rather promising.

However, one thing was certain: regardless of the route taken, I ended up dead without ever reaching the goddess of love.

The best record was one where I somehow cleared up to the ninth floor, but… at that time, I didn’t reveal my identity.

The Pope, who sensed something was off quite early on, set various traps over a long period.

Despite being the strongest in pure power across all iterations, I couldn’t withstand being outmatched by everyone in Pangrave.

Slowly improving compared to before, yet still facing a long road ahead with this endless cycle.

An infinite loop without memories felt no different from waiting indefinitely.

Dozens, perhaps even hundreds of iterations emerged like bubbles only to burst away like bubbles.

No matter how much the goddess of love monopolized all faith as the last remaining god, this level of miracle abuse in reversing time was excessive.

I couldn’t help but wonder how this was possible, but… the answer wasn’t difficult to find.

As the black-and-white perspective narrowed down to a singular point, it soon began to reflect not me, but someone else.

Beyond the twelfth floor of the labyrinth. The very bottom and center—the sanctuary of the goddess, whom the goddess of love held.

The goddess’s sanctuary, as the cycles repeated, was being permanently exhausted.

At first, it was just a few bricks disappearing… yet before long, the roof vanished, the pillars disappeared, and everything faded one by one, leaving only a single chair.

Even that had to be paid with a price for the last rewind to take place… And thus, the memories I knew began.

The grim reaper’s words saying there was no more time left must surely be referring to this.

After long trials and errors, the last version of me could be called a perfect Jonah compared to previous iterations.

I met Ellie, had the right amount of pickpocketing to meet Lydia, quietly made my mark in the labyrinth, prevented Eve’s fall, endured a bit of suspicion and ultimately annihilated the Pope and the one who swallows twilight.

…Then returned to the past thousand years and successfully recreated the trails of the first Jonah.

At the very last moment, I completed the second loop.

In other words, the goddess of love offered a second chance to correct her mistakes.

The scenery, which had previously been displayed in black and white, began to melt away once again. To be precise, it was just the black parts disappearing,

Leaving only a white space.

In the center of it all, there was one who possessed color. The goddess of love knelt on one knee, sitting in a posture of reverent prayer.

Cautiously lifting her head. The goddess I saw as a statue maintained the beauty of the form I beheld a thousand years ago.

However, her complexion appeared oddly haggard, and her trembling lips didn’t seem to fit the image of a goddess at all.

The goddess of love, who I faced directly. For a moment, I spoke while gazing at her, the one who had watched over and helped me until now not just a thousand years ago.

For our first meeting, I simply chose to say this.

“Hello? I’m God.”

“…Huh?”

“You didn’t say it, so I tried to say it for you. The surroundings are nice and white too.”

“???”

The goddess of love tilted her head, clearly unfamiliar with the meaning behind my words.

 

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