Jeong So-ra thought to herself.

Looking back, her life was filled with misfortune.

The relentless poverty, her mother’s sudden abandonment, and her brother Jeong Ji-hwan, who went to prison for murder while trying to protect her from their father’s repeated violence…

She no longer felt anger at the absurd fact that this repetitive, unfortunate life was her own.

She had lived with the vague belief that just as there are ups and downs in life, happiness must follow misfortune.

But what happened? After misfortune came even greater misfortune, and after that, unbearable misfortune. Her life was nothing but a downhill slope. At some point, happiness had settled so far away that it was no longer within her sight.

She just felt sad and absurd.

Was there really a reason to live such an unfortunate life? Should she continue living even as everything falls apart? Am I even allowed to live?

The answer to that question came from her brother, Jeong Ji-hwan.

Even after his release, her brother silently endured the stigma of being an ex-convict who killed his father. No matter how much people around him cursed or pointed fingers, he paid no attention. Moreover, he never denied or made excuses for what he had done.

Once, she had asked him:

“How do you endure the gossip? Doesn’t it make you angry when you hear such things?” Her brother replied:

“Of course, it makes me angry. I’m human too. But those people are just talking without knowing anything about our situation. It’s easier to talk about what you don’t know than what you do. That’s why they can speak so carelessly. There’s no need to be swayed by their words or pay attention to them. We just have to live our lives our way.”

“Ah…”

Hearing her brother’s answer, she felt comforted.

It was as if he was saying that it’s okay to live such an unfortunate life. That even if life is a downhill slope, I still have the right to move forward.

And that answer unexpectedly became the trigger for So-ra to start writing a novel.

Writing was one of the few things she could do better than others.

The novel she used to scribble in the school study room when she didn’t want to go home or when something painful happened… She decided to rewrite that novel, which her brother had once read and encouraged her to continue.

For a while, she immersed herself in the world of the novel.

It took a long time to create a vast worldview and numerous characters.

Among them, the antagonist Tristan was modeled after her brother.

Tristan, the pig count born into the notorious Ruelberta family, is a character hated by everyone for his outwardly eccentric and arrogant personality and the family’s long history of evil deeds.

But behind that, there was a cursed fate of being a descendant of demons and having no choice but to kill his father with his own hands. Just like her brother.

Ultimately, she intended to portray Tristan as a character fighting against that fate and the hidden true protagonist of the work. But she couldn’t complete that backstory.

A major traffic accident occurred on the first trip she took with her brother.

She didn’t know how much time had passed or when she opened her eyes after the accident.

“Is anyone… there?”

But the place she opened her eyes to wasn’t a hospital but the shabby single room she used to live in.

The place she hadn’t been to since her brother killed their father was like a trauma for So-ra.

“No… No! Let me out!”

It felt like the nightmare from that time was coming back to life, but the door was locked, and something blocked the window, so she couldn’t escape.

This wasn’t reality.

It was probably the afterlife… and not heaven but hell.

In that single room-like place, So-ra’s heart slowly wore away.

It hurts.

I want to run away.

I want to escape.

As she trembled, hugging her knees, So-ra suddenly noticed two snow globes decorating the bookshelf.

Right. Maybe looking at something like that would help.

So-ra picked up the snow globe on the left.

When she shook it, snow fell inside the glass sphere. But then something unbelievable happened.

“Huh?”

Surprisingly, people were living inside the snow globe. A familiar fantasy world with magic, nobles, and monsters.

When she brought the snow globe close to her eyes, she could see the places she wanted to see as if she had clairvoyance. It was as if she had become a god, able to peer into that world.

Amazed, So-ra looked into it for a while and soon realized where it was.

“Oh my god… This is my novel, isn’t it?”

It was a world that seemed to have been directly copied from the novel So-ra had been writing. The characters she created were moving and alive in that world.

It was so fascinating and surprising that she kept looking into the world inside the snow globe. Then, curious about the other snow globe, she shook the one on the right.

In the snowy landscape, a man’s face appeared.

“Brother?!”

Her brother was there. And in front of him, lying on a hospital bed with various machines attached to her head, was a woman.

“That… Could that be me?”

Her brother looked like he was about to cry as he stood in front of her, who was lying there dependent on an oxygen respirator. A middle-aged man standing behind him spoke.

“Your sister will be staying here from now on.”

“…Yes.”

“Are you prepared for this?”

The man held out a contract.

“If you sign this contract, your sister will formally belong to our company. You might not like it. But in the long run, it’s all for your sister’s sake.”

Her brother hesitated, then looked at So-ra’s face lying there. Reluctantly, he signed the contract the man held out.

“Haha. Good. You made the right decision.”

“Director Park.”

“Yes?”

“I trusted you and signed this contract. If anything happens to my sister… Then I really…”

Her brother spoke to the man in a threatening voice.

“You’ll die by my hand.”

So-ra soon realized what was happening.

*

“Alright… I roughly understand the situation.”

I nodded while looking at the snow globes.

From what I gathered, So-ra could see what was happening to her in reality through these snow globes.

And through that, she could vaguely guess what kind of place this space she and I were in was.

At first, I thought this place was a virtual world created by a computer connected to her brain or a world created by her imagination. But neither hypothesis could explain why we could see the outside world.

In other words, this place is both a world created by So-ra’s imagination and connected to reality.

At least it’s a relief.

It means this place isn’t completely disconnected from reality.

And on the other hand, it made me think that Stella Corp might still have some dark secrets I don’t know about.

‘Could it be that they weren’t just making a simple virtual reality game machine?’

Just like the reason for regression, I still couldn’t figure out exactly what this place was. Perhaps only Director Park, who created the ‘Milky Way’ machine connected to So-ra’s brain, knows the whole truth.

Anyway…

“Hey. Keep your hands up properly.”

“Tch. Does it make sense to tell a grown adult to keep their hands up?”

Grumbling, So-ra knelt on my bed with both hands raised. She looked exactly like a elementary school kid being punished.

“Ah, brother. My arms hurt. Really.”

“Stop whining. You need to be punished.”

“Being mean to a sick patient? That’s too much.”

“Don’t play the victim card only when it suits you. Apologize to the coffee you spilled.”

“Sorry…”

“Apologize twice.”

“Sorry… Coffee. I’m sorry… Mr. Coffee. Okay?”

“Besides coffee, isn’t there someone else you should apologize to?”

“Huh? Sorry, brother?”

“No. You should apologize to Assistant Manager Park Se-hee too.”

“……”

At that moment, So-ra’s expression turned cold.

“Hey? Who said you could lower your hands?”

“Forget it, brother. Be honest. What’s your relationship with that woman?”

“Huh? What relationship? She’s my boss.”

“Really? Really just your boss?”

“Yeah. You saw it too, right?”

“Then if that woman and I fell into the water, who would you save first?”

“…? Of course, I’d save the assistant manager first.”

“Brother?! Are you saying you’d let your only sister die?!”

“Why would you die? You’re a great swimmer.”

“No, I’m not? I’m terrible at swimming.”

“What are you talking about? You said if you hadn’t written, you would’ve become a swimmer.”

“Who said that?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You, you.”

“When did I say that?”

“Are you going to keep dragging this out?”

“I can’t remember, so I can’t answer. There’s something going on with that woman, isn’t there? Right?”

“No… What does that have to do with you…”

Feeling absurd, I shook my head and looked into the snow globe So-ra lent me. When I shook it, which was supposed to show reality, a snowstorm suddenly blew up, making it impossible to see inside.

“What’s this? Why is it like this?”

“Ah? Ahh. It’s been like that for a while now. The other snow globes are fine, but that one’s been acting up. Thanks to that, I was able to talk to you, brother. When the snowstorm covers the reality snow globe, this world’s snow globe becomes clearer.”

“So when one side becomes unclear, the other side becomes clearer?”

Hearing that, something clicked in my mind.

“Could it be because of the Dummy World?”

“Huh?”

“Because I created so many Dummy Worlds as Tristan, the path to reality might have been blocked.”

Dummy World is literally a world made of dummy data. To put it simply, it’s like save data in a game. Since the Milky Way’s capacity is limited, if not regularly deleted, they can collide and cause errors.

That error might be what’s happening now. The bear dolls piled up outside the window to the point of blocking the view might be exactly that.

“Ah, of course, that’s assuming the two worlds are connected…”

“Hmm… That seems about right. I’m not as knowledgeable about such concepts as you, brother, but it’s true that the more you repeated the cycles, the less I could see the outside world.”

“Then my guess is almost correct. Ah? By the way, how many cycles have I gone through?”

“Um… Let’s see… 526 cycles?”

“…Crazy. Did I really die that many times?”

“Yeah.”

Right. By that point, the Dummy World is almost at full capacity.

“So to find a way back to reality, we first need to get rid of the 526 Dummy Worlds piled up here…”

“But brother. How do we delete dummy data?”

“Huh? Uh… Well, originally, you’d log out, go to the computer, and delete Tristan’s data…”

“But we can’t use the computer now…”

“Right… Sigh…”

Just when I thought I found a solution…

Isn’t there another way? A way to delete Tristan’s data from here…

Then, something suddenly came to mind.

“Ah, Peter! There’s Peter!”

“Huh? Peter?”

I explained to So-ra, who tilted her head in confusion.

“Only the ‘protagonist’ set in the program can clear this game. So the original protagonist, Peter, is also set as a protagonist. But once the service starts, players eventually have to take on the protagonist role, right?”

“That’s… right?”

“Because of that, the original protagonist, Peter, doesn’t appear in the game and only exists as test dummy data.”

Like the Dummy World, dummy data is also unnecessary data existing in the game. Among them, Peter remains as dummy data and is used as a test character until the service starts.

“But what does that have to do with the Dummy World?”

“If you play as Peter, you don’t have to delete the Dummy World.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I just told you. Only those set as ‘protagonists’ can clear this game. So if you play as Peter, who is set as a protagonist, the Dummy World won’t be created. Because the world where the protagonist plays to the end is considered ‘complete.'”

“Ah, so…!? If you ‘complete’ it, the Dummy World disappears, right? Correct?”

“Right. The Dummy World is, in the system, a world that couldn’t be ‘completed.’ If it’s judged as complete, it will disappear.”

Finally finding a solution, So-ra jumped up in joy.

“Great! Then from now on, you can become Peter and delete the 526 Dummy Worlds, right?”

“That’s easier said than done…”

“It’s okay. You can do it, brother. You can regress here, right?”

“Well… This world is definitely strange. Even after repeated regressions, the Dummy Worlds remain, which shouldn’t happen…”

“Right. So think of regression as an opportunity…”

So-ra, who was about to say something, closed her mouth.

She remembered how worn out I had become while regressing as Tristan.

“Ah, sorry… Brother. I was a bit harsh.”

“No… Don’t worry about it. But So-ra. There’s a big flaw in our plan.”

“A flaw?”

“The more I regress, the more I forget. I don’t know if it’s the effect of repeated logins or what… But if I delete the Dummy Worlds one by one as Peter, I might even forget why I became Peter in the first place.”

“Ah…!”

“And you said it, right? The more the Dummy Worlds are deleted, the clearer the view to reality becomes, but conversely, the view of this world darkens. It might become harder to talk to me to restore my memories later.”

“That’s true… I couldn’t talk to you when you first became Tristan.”

“Yeah. But that can be solved somehow. You just need to save your strength and restore my memories at the end… The real problem is Tristan. I have to become Peter and delete Tristan’s data.”

“Delete… You don’t mean…”

So-ra’s eyes shook as she realized what deleting Tristan’s data meant.

“You don’t mean you have to become Peter and kill all the Tristans in the Dummy Worlds, do you?”

“…After 526 regressions, ‘I’ eventually became a complete villain Tristan and went berserk. So there’s no other way.”

If I enter the Dummy World again as Peter, a clash with Tristan, who was once ‘me,’ is inevitable.

And the outcome is the same.

“From now on, I have to go kill ‘myself.'”

Towards the 526 bad endings Tristan experienced.