190  A will to live….

BOOOOM!!!

A deafening explosion echoed from the distance, shaking the very earth beneath our feet.

The shockwave rippled through the air, and for a brief moment, everything around me trembled.

The veil of darkness that had once smothered the district square began to fracture and collapse, like the fragile glass of a shattered mirror.

‘So… the battle is over now, huh.’ The thought echoed in my mind as I glanced upwards.

The heavy dampness in the air lifted, and with it, the faint light of dawn began to seep back into the world.

 A soft golden hue touched the clouds as the first rays of the sun pierced through the cracks in the broken darkness, signaling the end of the night’s turmoil.

“It’s dawn already… but weren’t we just fighting for a few minutes at best?” Lucas mumbled from beside me, his voice laced with confusion.

He stared at the emerging daylight, brow furrowed as if trying to make sense of the distorted reality around us.

It was a fair question.

Everything had felt like it had happened in the span of mere minutes.

The frantic battles, the desperate clashes—time had seemed to blur, a fleeting, intangible thing as we fought.

 In the game, time always felt skewed, with scenes shifting from one moment to the next.

But experiencing it firsthand? It was disorienting, bizarre even.

How had time slipped through our fingers so easily?

Thanks to Lucas and the other students who had valiantly fought back against the creatures of darkness, the situation had been kept from spiraling into complete catastrophe.

But even so, we weren’t left unscathed.

I surveyed the aftermath around us.

The district was a wreck.

Buildings stood half-destroyed, their once-proud structures now reduced to crumbling shells.

The roads were scarred with deep craters, remnants of the violent clash.

Smoke billowed from the shattered windows, and debris littered the streets like broken memories of what had once been a bustling square.

The eerie quiet that now hung over the place felt unnatural—like the calm after a storm, but with no certainty of peace.

People were still trapped in some of the buildings, their faint cries for help echoing in the distance.

I could see the injured being carried away by other students, their expressions grim and faces pale.

And worse, the number of people affected by the creatures wasn’t low—not by a long shot.

The twisted monsters of darkness hadn’t just inflicted physical wounds; their attacks carried a deeper, more insidious effect.

Wounds sustained by those creatures weren’t just flesh-deep.

They left lingering scars on the mind, warping thoughts and emotions.

I could already see it in the faces of the survivors.

 Many would be haunted by the nightmares brought forth by the darkness, their minds plagued by fear and despair.

The long road to recovery—if recovery was even possible—would be steep and filled with challenges.

Most of the survivors would likely spend months, if not years, in rehabilitation.

As soon as the creatures of darkness faded into the eerie shadows, their grotesque forms dissipating one by one, something far more unexpected occurred—bodies began to rise up in return.

 People who had been thought lost or devoured by the monsters now lay scattered across the ground, unconscious but very much alive.

“T-this is…” Lucas mumbled, his voice shaking in disbelief as he took in the sight before him.

The bodies of the victims, limp and motionless, were everywhere, yet they showed no signs of the brutal deaths he had feared. Instead, they seemed untouched, merely asleep.

I had anticipated this, having already known how things would play out.

It was just like in the game—the creatures of darkness didn’t actually kill their victims. Instead, they swallowed them whole, relocating them somewhere within the abyss.

The same method Dorothy had used to imprison me, Theo, and Susan deep within a secluded space.

But to someone like Lucas, who wasn’t aware of this, the sight must have been deeply confusing.

“Lucas! The people, they’re—” Janica’s panicked voice cut through the air as she rushed toward us, a group of other students following closely behind her. But as soon as she spotted me, her words faltered.

“Y-You were here, Riley?” Her eyes widened in surprise, her voice uncertain as she spoke.

“Yes.” I replied evenly, though her reaction was unmistakable.

There was a strange tension in her stance, as if my presence made her uneasy.

She was even avoiding eye contact.

Why? I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her mind.

But now wasn’t the time to focus on her discomfort.

Shifting my attention back to the unconscious bodies, I noticed the same expression of shock on the faces of the students gathered behind Janica.

They were staring at the unharmed people, their eyes wide with disbelief.

The shock of seeing those they thought lost suddenly reappearing was hard for anyone to process.

“We should start gathering the unconscious people off the road.

There’s still some who need help, so let’s get moving,” Lucas said, cutting through the tension with practicality.

His suggestion snapped everyone back to reality, grounding them with a clear sense of purpose.

Janica nodded, still somewhat shaken, but quickly moved to follow Lucas’ lead.

 The other students began to do the same, rushing forward to assist in clearing the bodies from the streets.

They were still reeling from the strange phenomenon, but there was no time to dwell on confusion. The people lying on the ground needed help, and we were the only ones who could provide it.

Although everyone was visibly exhausted, Lucas’ natural charisma seemed to reignite a spark of energy in the group, even if only a little.

 His enthusiasm pushed them to continue gathering the unconscious people from the streets, knowing that it would save the dispatched officers and even the principal valuable time once they arrived to sort things out.

The barrier that had trapped them in darkness was slowly breaking apart, allowing for the possibility of outside help entering the area soon.

Relief was beginning to settle over the students as they worked to get things under control, their earlier confusion now shifting into a focused effort.

As the situation around me started to stabilize, my thoughts drifted inward, and only then did I fully realize just how tiresome the night had been.

 It felt as if my energy had been wasted on something far more exhausting than I had anticipated.

‘I can’t feel Dorothy’s mana anymore,’ I thought, a strange hollowness accompanying that realization.

The oppressive weight of her magic, the lingering drain from the chains she had used on me, it was all gone.

[Act 2, Chapter 5—Heroine]

The president’s somewhat meaningless arc—was officially over.

“Riley, where are you going?”

Lucas’ voice pulled me out of my thoughts as I backed away from the group. His eyes followed me, full of confusion.

This guy had an uncanny ability to notice the most obscure things about me, yet he was completely oblivious to the things that mattered to those closest to him.

If only Lucas was this perceptive when it came to girls.

Maybe Janica wouldn’t be having such a hard time with him, I mused, my gaze shifting briefly to where she stood, still looking somewhat unsettled.

In the natural course of things, the basking light of dawn should have been Lucas’ moment alone, standing victorious over Dorothy as the story’s protagonist.

But here he was but a mere side character, tangled up in the scenario, despite having no real reason to be involved.

The situation had veered off the scripted path in ways I couldn’t fully comprehend, yet he somehow found himself dragged into it.

Was this fate? Was this how the threads of destiny—meant for Lucas—were being forcefully tangled with the scenarios of others, pulling him along paths that were originally for him to walk?

Whatever the case, everything that was supposed to unfold next could be left to Lucas.

If he couldn’t fulfill his role as the protagonist in this twisted scenario, he might as well help him from the sidelines huh….

His fate truly was one of being involved with everything.

Lucas had his part to play, and I could ensure he succeeded without stealing the spotlight entirely.

My involvement had already changed too much.

“You guys go ahead. I have somewhere I need to be.”

Lucas’ confusion deepened as he heard my words, his eyebrows furrowing.

But I didn’t give him a chance to ask any questions or protest.

 I turned on my heel, mana flowing through my feet as I propelled myself into motion, dashing toward the rooftops in a blur of speed.

With a practiced ease, I leapt from roof to roof, soaring above the streets, leaving Lucas and the others behind.

It was time to follow through on the promises I’d made.

The system had already interfered enough, preventing me from doing what needed to be done.

Although the final chapter of this act had seemingly ended with the disappearance of Dorothy’s mana, it didn’t mean her fate was sealed—at least, not yet. Her end wasn’t entirely certain at this moment.

In the game, Dorothy was infamous for her repeated ends of doom, each one a consequence of her own actions.

No matter which heroine you partnered up with, her downfall played out in tragic repetition.

But there were three distinct endings for Dorothy that stood apart from the loop of doom.

Each was tied to the paths taken by the player, and now, I found myself navigating one of them in real life.

The first, the end where she disappeared, was already in motion.

This was the result of barely surviving a fight against the main heroines—an ending where Dorothy simply faded away, her presence vanishing into the ether.

It was what had just unfolded here.

Or at least somewhat with Rose’s presence that is, but without the other main heroines at play chances of it being the ending she got was lowered.

The second was her death, a final and brutal end that usually occurred when Lucas, the protagonist, intervened directly and dealt the finishing blow.

But that wasn’t applicable now, as Lucas hadn’t been directly involved in her downfall this time.

Which left only one option: the original ending she was subjected to in the game—the ‘End of Doom.’

This was the normal end for Dorothy, a conclusion where she didn’t simply disappear but was dragged into the abyss of her own making, swallowed by the darkness she herself had unleashed.

This ending was less dramatic but no less final.

‘If things were progressing the way they should, Dorothy should be in that place right now….’

The location was the clock tower at the very center of the square.

A once-proud structure now scarred by the aftermath of battle, with chunks of its stone blasted off and flames still flickering amidst the debris.

I walked through an open hole where the door had once been, now reduced to useless rubble.

Cracks spidered across the walls, and even the mana shields meant to protect the tower had shattered.

Without proper repairs, the whole structure would collapse in weeks, its foundation too damaged to support its weight.

As I made my way inside, burn marks from intense magical rays were visible on every surface.

The roof above had been blown apart, allowing the gentle hues of the early morning sun to spill through, casting light on the broken interior.

This place had been the stage for the final act of the scenario—well, at least for the battle that had taken place above.

I stepped over debris, ignoring the winding staircase that led upward. Instead, I moved toward a dark corner of the large hall.

Despite the morning sun pouring in, there was one spot where the light refused to reach.

 A place where the shadows clung stubbornly, as if denying the dawn’s presence.

Normally, according to the script, she would have been above, crying softly as she smiled in peace, slowly fading away into nothingness.

But as I knelt down in the darkness, my gaze met hers—Dorothy’s, the woman who had caused so much yet suffered more than anyone knew.

“Riley…” she whispered, her voice soft and trembling, surprised to see me here.

Her body was badly burned, charred by the fierce battle, and already beginning to decay, as if the darkness itself was slowly consuming her.

Yet despite her wounds, despite the pain, she smiled at me gently, the same calm and enigmatic smile she always wore.

“How did you find me, junior?” she asked, her voice as warm as ever, even in the face of her own impending demise.

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