Luminous Academy. LA.
It wasn't just a school; it was a sovereign city floating on the edge of the royal capital. The architecture was a dizzying blend of Gothic cathedrals and futuristic magi-tech. Towers of white marble spiraled into the sky, tipped with glowing mana crystals that hummed like a chorus of trapped angels. The courtyards were paved with gold-veined quartz, and the air itself felt heavy, saturated with the sheer density of aristocratic magic.
This was the crucible where the future leaders, heroes, and villains of the World of Arcana were forged.
It was also the stage where my execution was scheduled to begin.
I adjusted the collar of my black and gold uniform, ensuring the fabric completely covered the pulsing, cursed veins on my neck. The pain was a low simmer today, manageable as long as I didn't let anyone touch me. The irony wasn't lost on me: I was surrounded by thousands of students, yet physical isolation was the only thing keeping my magic from violently exploding.
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My crimson eyes scanned the bustling grand hallway. First-year commoners gawked at the chandeliers; second-year nobles sneered at the commoners. It was the typical chaotic opening scene of any academy game.
But I wasn't looking at them. I was hunting.
And then, I saw her.
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*Aphrodia Von Ethereum.*
She's walking down the eastern corridor, surrounded by an invisible, repelling aura of absolute superiority.
In the game, her 2D character sprite was top-tier. But seeing her in reality? It was like looking at a masterpiece that made you forget how to breathe. Her long, pure white hair cascaded down her back like a frozen waterfall in a winter blizzard. Her eyes—bright, piercing blue—shone like a pair of flawless diamonds dredged from the deepest ocean. She wore the standard female uniform, but she had customized it with dark, gothic lace and black gloves that made her pale skin look almost translucent.
*This is my fiancée?*
The thought hit me like a physical blow. The original Kevius had good taste, I'll give him that. How could he *not* fall in love with her? Even my heart—Khon's heart, thirty-five years of untouched, lonely existence—started racing like a revved-up sports car engine just from looking at her profile.
*Ding!*
A soft, synthetic chime echoed inside my skull.
Before my eyes, a translucent blue screen suddenly materialized, hovering in the air.
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**[System Notification: Target 'Aphrodia Von Ethereum' locked.]**
**[You can now check the target's Affection Level. Increasing Affection will unlock more detailed information and secret routes.]**
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I stopped walking. I blinked. I waved a hand through the blue text. My fingers passed right through it.
*A System? Like in the game?*
I ain't the Main Character. I ain't the Hero. I am the Villain. The antagonist shouldn't have access to the affection meters!
"Hey, System," I muttered under my breath, looking around to make sure no one was watching the crazy noble talking to the air. "Can you tell me why I have access to this? Am I playing the game, or living it?"
Silence.
The blue screen just floated there, indifferent. *Mysterious.* I would have to investigate this anomaly later. For now, this was a massive tactical advantage. If I could see her affection, I could manipulate the flags to keep her safe and, more importantly, keep me alive.
"Alright. Show me," I commanded mentally.
The screen shifted, displaying a bar graph beneath a small portrait of Aphrodia.
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**[Aphrodia Von Ethereum]**
**[Status: Fiancée]**
**[Affection Level: 15%]**
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"What the fuck?" I nearly choked on my own spit.
*Fifteen percent?!*
That wasn't just average; that was practically 'acquaintance' territory. We were engaged! How could my own fiancée only have a 15% affection rating for me?
I let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Right. I remembered the lore. This was Aphrodia we were talking about. She was elegant, overwhelmingly beautiful, and inherently suspicious. Since birth, she had been surrounded by men who looked at her with thinly veiled lust, men who only wanted to possess her for her beauty, her Noble House status, and her lethal Mercury Magic. She viewed the entire male gender as annoying, greedy creatures.
I couldn't exactly blame her. I wouldn't deny that I was suddenly very interested in her beauty, too. But my motivations were slightly different. I needed her alive to prevent the world from ending, and I needed her cooperation to ensure my future retirement plan in the countryside.
In the original plotline, a kidnapping incident occurs during the first week of the Academy. Aphrodia is targeted by a noble faction. If I didn't warn her and protect her, that event would trigger the chain reaction leading to her murder and Kevius's subsequent descent into madness.
I picked up my pace, power-walking through the crowd to catch up to her before she entered her classroom.
"Aphro—" I started, reaching out a hand.
Suddenly, a hand clamped onto my wrist. The grip was shockingly strong.
Before I could react, I was yanked backward. The world spun in a blur of motion, and I was thrown forcefully through a heavy oak door.
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*Slam.*
The door clicked shut, locking from the inside.
I stumbled, catching myself against a desk in what looked like an empty faculty office. I immediately dropped into a defensive stance, the volatile magic in my veins flaring up, ready to be unleashed.
I looked up at my attacker.
"What the...?"
Standing by the door, breathing heavily, was a girl with long, bright pink hair that cascaded like spun silk. Her eyes, a striking, luminescent red, were locked onto me with an intensity that made the hair on my arms stand up.
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*Chronos Von Bitcrypto.*
The Student Council President. A second-year. One of the main Heroines of the game, and widely regarded by the fanbase as the most difficult capture target due to her unpredictable nature.
Why is she here? And more importantly, why had she practically abducted me?
I took a breath, forcing my heart rate down. *Stay in character. Be Kevius.*
I straightened my posture, smoothed my lapels, and looked down my nose at her with an expression of cold, aristocratic disdain.
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"What do you want, Student Council President?" I asked, my voice dripping with ice. "What is so incredibly important that you felt the need to un-mannerly drag me into an empty room like a common thug?"
Chronos didn't say a word.
She took a step toward me. Then another.
Before I could step back, she closed the distance and threw her arms around my neck.
*What the fuck?*
She hugged me. The strict, prideful, famously cruel Student Council President was clinging to me like a koala.
Is this a trap? One of her famous tricks? She was known for psychologically breaking her opponents, but physical affection was completely out of character for the game's timeline. My mind raced, trying to find a parallel event in the hundreds of hours I had played. There was nothing.
"H-hey!" I stammered, my villainous persona cracking for a second. "What is the meaning of this? Why are you hugging me?"
I put my hands on her shoulders, pushing gently but firmly. My curse pulsed angrily at the physical contact, sending waves of heat through my body.
She didn't let go. She buried her face in my chest, and I felt a dampness seeping through my shirt.
She's crying.
She looked up at me. Her bright red eyes were swimming with tears. Before I could ask what was wrong, her hands shot up, grabbing the lapels of my coat.
She pulled my face down and crashed her lips against mine.
For a full five minutes, my brain simply ceased to function. It was a frantic, desperate, oxygen-stealing kiss. She tasted like strawberries and something metallic—like the air right before a lightning strike.
When she finally pulled back, gasping for air, she rested her forehead against my chin.
"I missed you so much," she whispered, her voice trembling.
*Helloooo? Earth to Khon! What is happening?!*
I frantically searched through the original Kevius's memories. Did he do something? Were they secretly dating before the Academy? No. The memories were clear. They had met maybe twice at formal banquets, and they had barely spoken.
I gripped her shoulders and shoved her back, creating a few feet of distance between us. My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath.
"Hey! What the hell?!" I snapped, genuine confusion mixing with the anger of the villain act. "Why are you kissing me like that? What do you mean 'I missed you'? Answer me!"
Chronos looked at me, a soft, heartbreaking smile playing on her lips despite the tears.
"Honey..." she breathed, taking a step toward me again. "Do you know how much I have been missing you? How much I have been dying to meet you again? How much I have been wanting to feel your warmth again?"
She reached out, gently touching the side of my face.
"Honey... let's get married again. Right here. Right now."
My jaw practically unhinged.
"Wait, wait, wait!" I batted her hand away, taking another step back until I hit the desk behind me. "What are you talking about?! Married again? We just met for the first time, you know! I think you are mistaken. You have the wrong person, President!"
"No... not wrong," she said, her voice dropping to a low, obsessive purr. "It's you, Kev. My husband. The love of my life. The one I would sacrifice my life for, again and again. The father of our child. The only man in this world that I can love."
*Child?!*
*FATHER OF OUR CHILD?!*
My internal monologue was screaming. *I am a thirty-five-year-old virgin! I have never held a woman's hand outside of a cosplay photoshoot, let alone fathered a child!*
"What child?!" I blurted out, my voice cracking slightly. "Are you drunk, President? Did you eat some weird alchemy ingredient?"
"Nos," she corrected softly, her red eyes burning with a terrifying mix of affection and madness. "It's Nos. You always call me Nos."
I rubbed my temples, feeling a massive headache coming on. The mana in my body was boiling, reacting to the stress.
"Look," I said, trying to regain control of the situation. "I don't know what game you are trying to play, but I don't have time for this. If you will excuse me, I have a class to attend. And a fiancée to check on."
I turned to walk toward the door.
In a blur of motion faster than the eye could track, Chronos was in front of me. She grabbed my arm, her grip like a steel vise, spun me around, and shoved me backward.
I hit the desk hard, sliding onto it. Before I could sit up, she straddled my legs, pinning me down with a strength that belied her slender frame.
"What are you doing, President?!" I shouted, genuinely shocked. This girl was insanely strong.
"I... I regressed back from the future, Kev," she said, her voice turning deadly serious. "And this time, I won't let you die. I will never let you die again. No. Not again. Even if I have to tie you down and keep you locked in a room forever, I will do it."
*Regressed?*
The word echoed in my mind.
"What? Regressed back?" I asked, my eyes wide. "You mean... you time-traveled from the future?"
"Yes," she nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek and landing on my shirt. "Something like that. But I died... and you died. I woke up and realized that I had returned to my past life. In this life, I won't let you die again, Kev."
My mind raced at supercomputer speeds. I dug through the encyclopedic knowledge of the game's lore I had memorized.
*LADS... Multiple routes... Hidden endings...*
*Wait.*
There was a hidden DLC route. An incredibly dark, incredibly difficult route known as the "Tyrant's Fall." In that route, if the player made a very specific, bizarre set of choices, Chronos abandons the Heroes and aligns herself with Kevius. They marry, consolidate power, and attempt to slaughter every other main character to secure their rule.
It ends in a bloodbath. Kevius is assassinated before their child is born, and Chronos dies defending his body while pregnant.
*Holy shit.* She had returned from *that* route.
"I see," I said slowly, testing the waters. "So... in your past life, we married. We had a daughter, right? And I was killed before she was born, and you died while carrying her. Isn't that right?"
Chronos gasped, her red eyes widening in shock. Her grip on my shoulders loosened for a second.
"Wait... how... how do you know that?" she stammered. Her expression morphed rapidly from shock to a terrifying, desperate hope. "Did... did you regress back too, Kev?!"
Her hands clamped back down on my shoulders, her nails biting into my jacket.
"Then why?!" she yelled, her voice breaking. "Why didn't you try to find me sooner?! Why are you treating me so cold like this?! WHY?! WHYYYY?!"
She looked angry, broken, and dangerously unstable. She was a yandere holding a ticking time bomb.
I had to make a choice. Right here, right now.
If I told her the truth—that I was a reincarnated cosplayer who just happened to know the game's plot—she would likely snap. She was a regressor obsessed with her dead husband; finding an imposter in his body would probably result in her turning me into red mist.
But... having her on my side?
It was like pulling a legendary SSR rank unit on the first gacha roll.
Having Chronos Von Bitcrypto as an ally instantly increased my survival rate by at least thirty percent.
Why? Because her Unique Magic was **Time Magic**.
It was the rarest, most overpowered element in the world. But nobody knew she had it. She publicly claimed her Unique Magic was a rare, high-tier Healing Magic. She demonstrated it by showing that her left hand could instantly heal any wound, while her right hand could rot and decay anything it touched.
In reality, it was just temporal manipulation. She wasn't 'healing' a wound; she was reversing the localized time of the flesh to a state before the injury occurred. She wasn't 'rotting' things; she was rapidly accelerating their timeline until they aged into dust.
She hid her true nature because Time Magic was terrifying. If the Royal Family knew, she would be branded a threat and eliminated.
I knew her secret. I knew her limits. I knew that right now, her body wasn't strong enough to handle her full power.
I needed her.
"Calm... calm down, Nos," I said, forcing my voice to soften, dropping the Kevius-arrogance and adopting a tone of gentle regret. I reached up and placed my hands over hers.
"It's just... I couldn't rush things, you know?" I lied smoothly, drawing on my years of roleplay acting. "If I just appeared out of nowhere and told you that we were married in a past life, you would think I was crazy. You might have avoided me. And I couldn't bear the thought of that happening."
I looked deeply into her red eyes, trying to project a soul-deep sorrow I definitely didn't feel.
"Now that I can assure myself that you remember too... I can finally tell you the truth. I'm sorry, Nos. I'm so sorry."
Chronos froze. The anger melted out of her features, replaced by an overwhelming relief that physically deflated her.
"A-ah... right," she stuttered, her voice small. "Of... of course. You did that because you love me, right, Kev? You were worried about me."
She stopped grabbing my shoulders and collapsed forward, burying her face in my neck, hugging me tightly.
"It's ok... I understand. I'm sorry for behaving like this, honey... I'm so sorry."
I slowly wrapped my arms around her waist, patting her back awkwardly.
"It's ok, Nos," I murmured, feeling incredibly guilty for manipulating a traumatized time-traveler, but prioritizing my own neck. "I'm glad you still love me and tried to find me. I really missed you. I missed you so much."
She pulled back slightly, her eyes shining, and then she kissed me again. This time it was passionate, rough, and desperate, like the world outside the door had completely ceased to exist.
*Gotcha.*
I kissed her back, my mind calculating the new variables.
*Dear Mom and Dad,* I thought to myself, staring at the ceiling as the Student Council President ravaged my lips. *Today, I got a girlfriend for the first time in two lifetimes. And she just happens to be the most powerful, time-manipulating yandere in the world.*
My survival plan had just gained a massive, chaotic asset. But dealing with a fiancée who have no feeling for me and a girlfriend who would lock me in a basement to protect me?
The Walking Death Flag's life is going to be exhausting.