"Mom is always with you and you… you are the best gift the world has ever given me."

Her hand stayed on his cheek for one a second longer, then it slipped away. The warmth faded from her fingers and the world went utterly still again.

Lucas cried until his throat was sore. He didn't remember how long he had stayed there. He only remembered that the rain kept falling and the house was so, so quiet.

Days later, the news came. His father was dead.

He had blown himself up in some kind of suicide bombing and took a rich CEO of a gaming company with him. The reports said he had accused the man of sleeping with Lucas's mother.

Lucas didn't understand.

He wasn't sure he ever would.

He just sat there, staring at the headlines,

the words blurring until they stopped meaning anything at all.

—

After that and the funeral, Lucas's life changed completely.

He stopped going out.

He stopped talking to people.

Everyone whispered about what his father had done.

Everyone thought his mother was the guilty one.

Even his relatives turned away.

Nobody came to her funeral.

Eventually, Lucas just… gave up.

With the little money left from the insurance, he bought a gaming capsule.

For that game.

Ironically, the one made by the very company whose CEO his father had killed.

Inside that virtual world, Lucas rose higher than anyone else.

He became Rank One and even earned money off streaming.

And as if the universe hadn't finished its joke… as if Karma had tallied his father's sins and passed the bill to him, Lucas died after being electrocuted inside the capsule mid–game while doing the one thing that had finally made him feel alive.

But that wasn't the end of Lucas's story because when he opened his eyes again, he found himself in the world of the very same game, the world he had once nearly conquered, the one he knew better than anyone else.

Only this time… he wasn't the Rank One player.

He wasn't a hero or a legend.

He was Lucien.

An extra.

A failed noble, discarded by his family, chosen to be sent as a sacrifice to Noxvalen, simply because he was considered useless and yet, even in that cruel twist of fate, he smiled.

He had been given a second chance and he swore he wouldn't waste it.

He would live a life that would do justice to his mother's final wish and as if the world itself responded to that vow, he awakened a unique Nexus.

From there, Lucien trained relentlessly.

Day after day, failure after failure, until, in just a few months, the boy who once knew nothing reached E-Rank.

He was confident and everything had gone exactly as he remembered until the cave.

It was supposed to be his turning point.

The place where he would secure the item necessary for his future power.

A scroll.

The one that, in the game, granted a contract with a god.

But the moment he acquired the scroll, something felt… off. Still, he pressed on, certain he knew what waited ahead and muttered the cryptic words as shown in the game and spilled his blood on the scroll.

But this wasn't the game because the world was different now and that scroll… wasn't divine, it was cursed.

A vessel for the twisted soul of an ancient evil elf, one that had been waiting for someone foolish enough to break its seal.

The Elf took over his body and started slaughter and yet… he somehow managed to make a deal.

But fate… that cursed thing, had no intention of letting him have even that.

The girl, Seraphina, who had once been nothing but a burden, awakened some power and joined with the boy he was meant to capture for his own freedom. Together, they struck him down.

And just like that, his second life ended, his borrowed hope shattered and the story rewrote itself without mercy.

As his soul floated in the limbo to the underworld, he asked himself the same question he had once asked at the funeral of his mother.

"Why is life always so cruel?"

And just like that, his soul faded, being pulled into one of the five underworlds of this world.

—

[Rael's POV]

"What the hell was that fucking sob story?"

My voice cut through the endless void, echoing in the same limbo where that little tragedy show had just played out.

"And what in the fucking hell am I doing here?"

The words bounced off the nothingness around me.

One second, I had been standing in a cave with a dead guy and a deranged princess… and the next, I was here, floating in the emotional memory of the same bastard I had just killed.

I had no idea what I was doing in this place.

But at least the little show confirmed one thing.

That bastard, Lucien? Lucas? Whatever the hell his name was was definitely a transmigrator.

There was no more doubt.

Afterall, I have seen his memories now.

But something else… was even weirder.

Something that caught my attention more than that little sob story ever could.

The father.

The guy who killed his wife and shattered his only son's mind.

There was something off about him.

Something that didn't fit and then it hit me.

I had seen that face before, not in this world but the one before it.

Because that man… that father… was the same bastard who had bombed me in my previous life.

A dozen questions flared in my mind.

But before I could think any further,

[SKILL: ??????'s Effect Ending]

[Returning to Reality…]

The void around me started trembling and in the next instant, everything went dark.

And only now did I understand one thing.

"Fate," I muttered in disbelief. "This fucking bitch is definitely a sadist… way more deranged than I ever expected."

The words left my lips and then my body began to fall.

The world around me blurred but somehow… my mind felt clearer than ever.

For the first time in what felt like forever,

I could see… the strings, the choices and the sick little joke that fate called destiny.

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