Ryu Min sprinted straight toward where the scream had come from.
What awaited him there was a shocking sight.
'M-Min Juri?'
Min Juri was collapsed on the ground, clutching her stomach.
The floor around her was soaked in blood.
Ryu Min hurried over, his face unusually shaken for someone normally so composed.
"M-Min Ju—ri! What happened?!"
"B-Black Scythe… no, Min… help me…"
Ryu Min stiffened.
'She knows who I am?'
How?
When he'd read her inner thoughts, he hadn't sensed the slightest hint of that.
As his pupils trembled, Min Juri continued.
"Min… Ryu Min. You're Ryu Min, right. Aren't you…?"
"How did you figure out who I am…?"
"Of course… I'd know. How could I not. You're… my first love… Even if you try to hide it, it's obvious…"
"So you've known all this time and just pretended you didn't?"
With effort, Min Juri nodded.
"I knew… It was hard pretending I didn't all this time…"
"T-that's not important right now. What happened to your stomach? Who did this to you?"
One look told him the wound was serious.
At this rate, she could die any second.
'Ah, First Aid!'
Like an idiot, he'd been too flustered to think of the skill he should've used right away.
Fwoooosh—
When he finally cast it, the wound began to knit back together and Min Juri's face relaxed a little.
"Thanks, Min."
"Who was it? Who stabbed you?"
"An Sang-cheol… he did this."
"What?"
Flames erupted in Ryu Min's eyes.
His seething rage locked onto An Sang-cheol.
"Where is that son of a bitch?"
"Right here."
At the voice from behind, Ryu Min's head snapped around.
An Sang-cheol was standing there, wearing a lazy grin like some textbook villain.
Beside him, Seo Arin twisted her lips like a wicked woman in a drama.
That alone told him the two of them had conspired to kill Min Juri.
"You fucking bastards."
"Whoa there, such harsh language, Prophet?"
"..."
The contorted anger on Ryu Min's face shifted subtly.
The rage sank; cold clarity took its place.
"So you knew I was the prophet."
"No. We only found out you were the prophet because we tortured that bitch Min Juri over there. Until just a little while ago, we had no idea."
"I-I'm sorry, Min. It hurt so much I… I just blurted it out…"
He had no intention of blaming Min Juri.
Ryu Min's expression turned demonic as he glared at An Sang-cheol.
"Heh… Don't look at me like that. Do you know how shocked I was when I heard the truth? Who would've guessed that weak little prophet was actually Black Scythe? Who could've imagined it, huh? Hehe."
"Spare me the excuses. Talk. Why did you attack Min Juri?"
"Well, you two seemed pretty close, so I thought I'd get some info out of her with a surprise attack. But the harvest was bigger than expected, wasn't it? The prophet turned out to be Black Scythe. Hahaha! President Ma is going to love this!"
Whether An Sang-cheol laughed or not, Ryu Min simply drew Death's Side.
"We'll see if you actually live long enough to report that."
"Whoa there, that's far enough. Don't come any closer. If you do, I'll detonate the bomb we hid in Min Juri's body."
"What?"
Just then, Heo Tae-seok stepped out from behind An Sang-cheol.
"Hehe, this guy was a big help."
Ryu Min instantly grasped the situation.
"You… don't tell me…"
"I'm sorry, Black Scythe-nim."
"You put a Black Seed inside Min Juri, didn't you?"
Heo Tae-seok silently nodded.
That simple gesture hit Ryu Min like a shock.
Sure enough, when a Dark Mage reached level 40, they learned a skill called [Black Seed].
A skill that let them plant a seed in the ground and, when used, randomly summon one of several demonic familiars.
And if someone planted that seed in a person instead of the ground?
The body would explode like a firework and the summoned creature would burst out.
You could call it a creative application of the skill, but you could just as easily call it pure cruelty.
For Ryu Min, it was obviously the latter.
"You sick bastard… When did you hit level 40?"
"You think I've just been wasting time? I've been grinding hard because I wanted to become strong like you, Black Scythe-nim."
"No pain, no gain. Cancel the seed. Now."
"I refuse."
He turned him down without a hint of hesitation, and a vein twitched in Ryu Min's brow.
"Have you lost it? You dare stand against me? Weren't you secretly idolizing me this whole time?"
"Of course, Black Scythe-nim is like a god to me. But that's only if you handle this situation perfectly. If you can't, then there's no reason for me to keep following you, is there?"
"..."
A textbook backstab.
An Sang-cheol, Seo Arin, and even Heo Tae-seok, who had worshipped him like a god—
The blow of being betrayed by people he'd trusted was no small thing.
"What do you want."
"Hehe, that girl must be pretty important to you, huh? Seeing how you don't even dare move."
"Shut up and just say it. And promise. If I give you what you want, you will not kill Min Juri."
"Kahahahaha!"
An Sang-cheol laughed so hard it looked like his mouth might split.
"Sure. Heh."
"You promised."
"Yeah. As long as you give us what we want."
"So, what is it? Info about the next round? Locations of hidden pieces?"
"I don't care about any of that."
"..."
"It just pisses me off that some nobody like you tried to trick us and manipulate President Ma."
Still smirking, An Sang-cheol suddenly dropped the smile and said with a straight face:
"Kill yourself."
"..."
"Kill yourself in front of us. Then we'll let this bitch live."
"Fine. Keep your word."
Without a moment's hesitation, Ryu Min raised his scythe to his own neck.
Slice—
His head dropped off limply and rolled across the floor.
He thought he heard Min Juri scream, but he didn't have time to dwell on it.
'As long as I can save Min Juri… that's all that matters.'
His vision blurred.
The faces laughing at him faded off into the distance.
[There is a hidden sub-quest!]
'A message?'
Crackle— crackle—
Cracks suddenly spread through everything he was seeing.
As if the world he was looking at wasn't the world he thought it was.
'What's happening… ah!'
As the messages appeared in succession, Ryu Min finally snapped back to himself.
└Kill yourself without hesitation
└On success ▶ Reward: ?? ??? ?
[You have completed the sub-quest!]
[The reward will be given to only one person per zone.]
[The reward will be delivered once results are tallied!]
In the next instant, his body returned to normal.
The severed neck was attached again, and the pool of blood on the floor was gone.
An Sang-cheol, Seo Arin, Heo Tae-seok, Min Juri—
Every one of them vanished from in front of his eyes like a mirage.
The scene before him was the same place as at the very beginning.
The grassland.
[Player "Black Scythe" has escaped the illusion.]
[You have completed the Main Quest: "Escape the illusion within 2 hours"!]
[You have completed the Sub-Quest: "Kill yourself without hesitation"!]
"So… it was an illusion."
The moment he saw the messages, he understood.
What he'd just witnessed was an illusion shaped by his inner anxieties.
There was no way a man who'd gone through ninety-nine regressions wouldn't know that.
And yet the system had made it so he couldn't realize it.
'No, not the system. I made it so I couldn't realize it.'
Ryu Min checked the details of the temporary skill, Domination Authority.
[Temporary Skill – Domination Authority]
Uses Remaining: 9
Target: Black Scythe
Domination Authority had been used once.
And the target was Black Scythe—himself.
'So that's how it was.'
All his memories came rushing back, a beat too late.
'I used Domination Authority on myself to stop myself from noticing it was an illusion.'
As soon as Round 7 began, Ryu Min had looked at his reflection in an item and used Domination Authority.
'It doesn't work on higher-level players, but for those at the same level, it still does.'
The command he'd given himself was simple.
—Until you complete the sub-quest, do not entertain the thought that this might be an illusion.
The main quest of Round 7 was to escape from the illusion.
But if you know in advance that it's an illusion, the illusion doesn't take hold.
Which meant the quest couldn't even begin.
'And if you can't even participate, you end up erased.'
How did he know?
Because he'd been erased once already.
He'd tried progressing through Round 7 while aware it was an illusion, received a warning message, and then simply ceased to exist.
'That was pretty bleak. Just like what happened in the Round 20 boss room.'
This was why, when giving his prophecy, he'd never mentioned that it was all an illusion.
If they knew in advance, they'd be wiped out without mercy.
'I tried using ordinary self-hypnosis before the round, but it was useless. As long as you recognize something as an illusion in your heart, it'll pop into your mind sooner or later.'
To eliminate that risk, he'd come up with Domination Authority.
If he used Domination Authority to erase that recognition from his mind altogether, there was no problem.
'That's also when I realized I could use Domination Authority on myself.'
The real issue, though, was the攻略—the way to clear it.
Being able to proceed through the round was one thing; actually finding a way to clear it was another.
'The sub-quest was especially rough.'
Killing yourself without hesitation was no small feat.
All the more so for someone like Ryu Min, who valued survival above everything.
'And since I didn't know it was an illusion, I couldn't just decide, "Okay, time to kill myself now."'
So he'd run Round 7 dozens of times, searching for a method.
Eventually, he'd found the answer.
Simple, and yet not simple at all.
'All I had to do was brainwash myself before coming to the Otherworld: that I must save Min Juri, even if it costs my life. That I love Min Juri.'
Round 7 shows you illusions based on your inner anxieties.
In his case, he had a fear that once his identity was exposed, his trusted allies might betray him.
The system used that fear as a base to craft the illusion, then led him into a situation where he'd be forced to commit suicide, just as the sub-quest demanded.
'So what if I made the system believe I was in love with Min Juri?'
Then the system would spin a story around that.
And guide him to kill himself.
As expected, his guess had been right.
'And thanks to that, I was able to kill myself without hesitation.'
Because he'd repeatedly drilled into himself beforehand that he loved Min Juri, he'd been able to do it.
"Good. Everything went according to plan."
If he hadn't set his mind that way, he definitely would've hesitated when told to kill himself.
'In the past, I failed the sub-quest over and over. I always hesitated for a moment when they told me to die.'
Back then, it hadn't been Min Juri; someone else had been taken hostage.
'My little brother, Ryu Won.'
Once he finished the Round 7 quest and returned, there was a scenario where Ryu Won was kidnapped and threatened by some thug.
When the kidnapper told him to kill himself, he'd hesitated.
'So every time that regression came around, I kept failing the sub-quest.'
Unless he used Domination Authority to make himself forget it was an illusion, there was no real way to deal with it.
'That's why I came up with the idea of mind-conditioning myself beforehand.'
If a situation came up where Ryu Won needed to be saved, he would sacrifice his life without hesitation.
He repeated that vow to himself hundreds of times, then entered Round 7—and that allowed him to kill himself without hesitating.
This time, the person in the hostage role had simply changed to Min Juri.
'Luckily, the brainwashing took, and I cleared the sub-quest.'
Ryu Min was grinning to himself when Seo Arin suddenly appeared.
"Ah, Black Scythe-nim. Did you clear the Round 7 quest?"
"Yeah. You too?"
"Yes… I escaped the illusion as well."
She smiled shyly and kept sneaking looks at him.
She even glanced around, checking to make sure no one else was nearby.
"Looks like… the others haven't escaped their illusions yet."
"Seems that way."
"Um, Black Scythe-nim."
Putting on a suddenly serious air, Seo Arin spoke, cheeks flushed.
"This is going to sound sudden, so you might be surprised, but…"
She faltered, struggling to get the words out, then forced herself to continue.
"The truth is… I really like you, Black Scythe-nim."
"Don't joke around."
"Ha… It's too sudden, I know. It sounds like a joke, right? I get that. But I'm not joking. I mean it."
"..."
"I only got the courage to say this because it's just the two of us."
"..."
Ryu Min's reaction was flat.
If anything, he tightened his grip on his scythe, as though waiting for something.
Whether she sensed the odd atmosphere or not, Seo Arin steeled herself once more.
"Um… Black Scythe-nim. Would you… go out wi—"
Slash!
With a chilling sound, Seo Arin's head flew through the air.
Thud—
Staring with icy eyes at the invisible system behind all this, Ryu Min muttered,
"Cut the cheap tricks already."
As if in answer, Seo Arin's body vanished, and a message popped up.
[You have completed the Main Quest: "Escape from temptation within 2 hours"!]