"Young Master! Young Master! You really must get up now!"
"Uugh... hmm..."
Myunghyun tossed and turned at the sound of someone's voice.
He didn't want to get up, the sensation of the blanket warmly wrapped around him was just too comfortable.
"Haaa... From September, you'll be going to the Academy, so I'm worried how you'll manage if you're always so weak in the mornings."
'... Academy?'
Myunghyun's eyes shot open.
He carefully lifted his upper body and surveyed his surroundings.
He couldn't quite pinpoint the exact era or style, but it was a room filled with furniture designs rarely seen in the modern day at least.
One thing was certain: it looked exceptionally wealthy.
"Oh my, Young Master. I, Bella, feel as if I'm about to shed tears of joy seeing you awake so early."
"... Bella?"
A strange name—at least, one not easily heard in Korea.
Myunghyun looked toward the source of the voice.
"Young Master? Is something the matter?"
"...?"
Standing before his eyes was a maid who looked as if she'd stepped out of a painting.
Her dark brown hair was tied back like a ponytail, her black dress adorned with a white-laced apron.
Bella looked slightly puzzled.
"Is something wrong, Young Master?"
"... Ugh."
Suddenly, Myunghyun let out a strange groan.
In his mind, someone's memories began to mingle with his own.
― Luca Melborne Traverse.
― The second son of the Traverse family, the Fang of the Hernan Empire.
― Blessed with talent, but a foolish one who fell off a cliff chasing other stars.
Among the jumbled memories, flashes of what 'Lee Myunghyun' experienced just before arriving in this world also passed by.
― Hello! I'm the god of the Pandia world!
― You have been chosen! You have gained the opportunity to live a new life in our world!
― Please, finish the story of our world, dear reader.
"Urk! Uuuurk!"
"Y-Young Master? Young Master?!"
His mind was in chaos and a wave of nausea overcame him.
Dim scenes flashed by but were soon washed away in the tide of memory.
"Please get a hold of yourself! Young Master!"
"Don't... touch me..."
"!"
Without thinking, Myunghyun pushed away Bella as she came closer and spat out cold words.
He sounded so harsh, it hardly seemed as if the words had come from his own mouth.
Myunghyun looked anxiously at Bella, but she did not appear particularly shocked and simply responded matter-of-factly.
"Ah... I apologize, Young Master."
"..."
"I'll be leaving, so if you need anything please call for me at any time."
Bella bowed her head politely and slowly retreated backward.
Myunghyun, staring blankly at her, soon found more images coming to his mind.
― Young Master, this is too much! At this rate, your body will...
― Don't touch my body, Bella!
-... I'm sorry, Young Master.
In an empty training ground, a boy who looked like Myunghyun was wielding his sword desperately.
After swinging it for hours, the boy finally collapsed from exhaustion, and Bella had approached him with a worried face.
But the boy pushed her away coldly.
Bella, looking shocked, eventually stepped back, and the boy seemed to want to say something but bit his lips and turned away.
The words he truly wanted to say, however, were...
"... Bella."
"Yes?"
Bella turned her head, looking surprised at Myunghyun—no, 'Luca Traverse'—calling her suddenly.
Luca paused for a moment, then spoke in a flat voice.
"Just bring me a glass of water."
"Ah, yes!"
Bella hurriedly left the room, looking a bit brightened, and Luca let out a shallow sigh and muttered to himself.
"Is that enough for you, Luca Traverse?"
It wasn't really what he wanted to say, but it was all his body could speak out.
'... Luca Traverse or whatever, let's get a hold of the situation first.'
Calming down the errant thoughts of Luca Traverse, Myunghyun decided to get his bearings.
'First, my name was Lee Myunghyun.'
'Lee Myunghyun' and 'Luca Traverse's' memories were still jumbled inside his head, but he was barely able to recall who he really was.
A normal young man in his twenties living in South Korea, hobby: reading web novels.
But that was as far as he could remember—he didn't recall how or when this had come to pass.
'I feel like... like I made a contract or something, but my memory's fuzzy.'
He vaguely recalled talking to someone who had introduced themselves as a god, but the memory was hopelessly blurry.
Still, he could piece together a few things.
'It seems I've reincarnated. But which novel is this one?'
He'd read so many web novels, he had no idea which story he was in.
The name Bella—he'd heard it a lot, but never pictured such a Bella.
The Traverse family didn't ring a bell either.
'At least if I even knew the novel's title... huh?'
Thinking as he groped around the bed, Myunghyun suddenly stopped.
He felt something in his hand—a strangely familiar grip.
Looking down at one corner of the bed, he saw...
His own phone.
"Why is this here...?"
Murmuring to himself, Myunghyun inspected the phone and unlocked it.
The screen changed—the device was completely reset.
All that was left were the memo app, camera, and gallery.
Curiously, the battery was also gone.
It seemed able to run with no battery at all.
"Let's see what's in the notes..."
Instinctively, Luca pressed the memo app, and his eyes widened at the writings inside.
― Do you like your new body, dear reader?
― The memories should be synchronized now, but I've organized some information so you can understand your host's situation. Please refer to it.
― There are three things I ask of you.
― Right now, the protagonist has not yet arrived in this world—this is the very beginning of time. Please make sure the protagonist doesn't make wrong choices.
― Second, please track down the 'characters who disappeared like MacGuffins' you pointed out, and help ensure they can return for major events.
― Lastly... Please enjoy this new life to the fullest.
It was a memo left behind, like a letter.
There were many other memos, but three stood out the most:
[Current Continent Situation Summary]
[Luca Traverse's Life]
[Hint Collection]
'How considerate.'
It was as if he was being spoon-fed the answers.
'But where's the most important thing, the novel's title?'
As he searched through the memos, Myunghyun stopped.
[I Became the Savior of the Academy]
Finally, he found the novel's title.
But Myunghyun—no, now Luca—could only break out in a cold sweat.
The plot and multitude of tags sprang into his head.
'Isekai, misunderstanding, harem, regret, academy. And...'
Luca swallowed hard.
'Time loop.'
This novel was about "a man from Earth who regains his lost youth and enjoys himself, but is devastated as precious people die one by one, so he battles to change the past, fighting again and again to lose no one."
"According to the memo, seems this is the very first time loop..."
In the end, time would pass and the loop would start—the cruel reality was, Luca would be unable to realize the looping.
So anything he did now would eventually be erased—rendered meaningless in the next loop.
'That means I have to choose between two things.'
Either stop the loop,
Or create a perfect world where the loop doesn't matter.
'Let's try to organize my thoughts first.'
Luca decided to reread the memo and clarify the information he knew.
* * *
I Became the Savior of the Academy.
At first it was a story about saving the Academy from disaster.
But then, unexpectedly, one or two heroines sharply died, triggering a surprising and shocking new direction: the protagonist kept looping time to save the dead heroines.
At the time, the story was very fresh.
Initially, the cathartic elements, attractive heroines, and the protagonist's growth combined to make it quite popular, but the heavy nature of the plot gradually lost readers, and correspondingly, the author's desperate plot devices increased.
'In the end, it concluded with the protagonist giving up and committing suicide—a worst-case ending.'
The early parts had felt like a real masterpiece—it was a novel that changed his life.
He'd even left the author a long comment protesting the ridiculous ending that he couldn't let pass...
'Could that be why I ended up here?'
He remembered writing comments like, if the protagonist had done this, things would have turned out differently, or If only they had made that choice, it wouldn't have happened.
But one thing bugged him:
'That was ten years ago—why now...?'
Both the novel's completion and his comment were things from long ago.
He had no idea why this would happen out of the blue, after all these years.
But what was done was done.
And for now, there was something even more important.
'So, who—or what—is Traverse?'
Even after learning which story it was, he had no idea who Luca Traverse was.
'I don't even recall seeing the surname Traverse before.'
None of the main characters had the surname Traverse.
He checked the memos just in case, but it wasn't there, either.
'Maybe it's in the Hint Collection?'
So he checked the hints.
(It's empty)
That was all that was written.
'Looks like hints are unlocked by meeting some condition.'
With his web novel experience, he immediately figured it out.
'Then where else can I find information about myself?'
He skimmed through "Luca Traverse's Life," but there was nothing related to the main protagonist.
As he was getting lost in thought, Bella returned.
"Sorry I'm late, Young Master! It took a little longer to prepare your bath and breakfast!"
"Bath..."
"Here's your water first!"
Saying so, Bella held out a beautiful cup filled with water.
As Luca took it, he happened to glance down into the water.
He could faintly see his reflection.
"... Bella. Where's the mirror?"
"Eh? It's right behind you..."
"Ahem."
At Bella's uncertain answer, Luca cleared his throat and looked at the mirror behind him.
The moment he caught sight of himself, his breath stopped.
― Eyes as blue and clear as a lake, hair a mysterious deep green shining with allurement.
Immediately, a certain description came to mind.
Everything else, too, was perfect—as if the greatest painter on the continent had painted him in detail, brushstroke by brushstroke.
But his eye and hair color were so beautiful, he wondered if the gods themselves had blessed him.
And then, at that moment—
― That hair color, could it be from the Traverse family...?
― Enough. That name has been abandoned.
― Oh... I'm sorry.
A scene from the novel surfaced.
It was brief but unmistakably about the Traverse family.
And then another realization: whenever the protagonist's greatest supporter, the masked swordsman Willow, was described, the same imagery always appeared: "eyes as blue and clear as a lake, hair a mysterious deep green shining with allure."
'Does that mean I'm Willow?'
Realizing a clue about his own identity lightened Luca's mood a little.
'Not bad. If I'm the world's strongest swordsman, I might be able to build a life where I don't even care about the loop!'
But as he thought that, something seemed off.
'Wait. Wasn't it mentioned several times that Willow had a younger sibling? But Luca Traverse doesn't have one in these memories?'
In the synchronized memories of Luca Traverse, there was no younger sibling. Instead, there was an older brother.
That's when yet another memory appeared, as if a scene:
― Waiting is boring, so shall we small-talk? Willow, what's your family name?
-...
― Ha... Not interesting, are you.
― When I failed to protect my family, I abandoned my surname. Even my current name is an alias.
― Ah, back during the Aldnoa...
― All my kin are dead. I had a younger sibling who barely made it, but because of their beauty, they were taken as a slave, became a noble's plaything, was sold to a brothel, and died of illness. Now, all I have left is revenge.
-... Yeah. Let's destroy the root of it all, demons.
― I planned to, even if you hadn't said so.
This was a conversation as the protagonist and the masked swordsman Willow stormed the headquarters of the dark order, "Demons."
From this, Luca finally understood everything.
"So that means..."
"Young Master?"
Luca tightly shut his eyes.
'I was the sibling!'
A side character doomed to a grisly, unspeakable fate.
That was Luca Traverse.
"..."
Everything was confused, but one thing was now absolutely clear.
He had to change the future.
Luca's mind began to spin rapidly.