Inside the chamber was Harold—the attendant Nigel had dismissed.
Originally, Inas had put him to sleep with a special spell. If he’d kept it in place, Harold could’ve been stored in a comatose state until the loop ended. But because Nigel told him not to use his strength, Inas had removed the sustaining magic. Which meant Harold had probably woken up sometime last night, confused and disoriented.
Unlike the calm Inas, Harold looked deathly pale.
The night Harold had been fired and kicked out of the manor, Inas had appeared before him. Seeing Inas Idenbach’s face out of nowhere, Harold had flown into a rage. He blamed Inas for messing everything up—for making Nigel act strange.
From the beginning, it was strange that Nigel had shown up near the servants’ quarters. The Nigel he knew would never do something like that. So the man in front of him had definitely said something to turn Nigel against him. Furious, Harold grabbed Inas by the collar—and the scenery suddenly shifted.
He woke up alone, dumped in this place, after falling asleep in an instant. He had no sense of time and no idea that he’d been out for a long while. All he knew was that some trick had been played on him, and it made him furious.
“You bastard!”
Harold gritted his teeth and hurled a rock. Maybe because he’d heard the rumors about Inas being a prodigy with the sword, he didn’t charge recklessly despite facing a sixteen-year-old—he acted cautiously.
“It’s a good thing you were fired early.”
Inas dodged casually, smiling. Nigel had told him not to kill people inside the manor. But Harold had already been dismissed—now he was an outsider. Killing him wouldn’t violate Nigel’s words.
Inas moved slowly. Nigel telling him to use only “the strength he remembered” was a flimsy restriction. Even if he limited his Stats to that of a sixteen-year-old, he still possessed the combat experience of countless loops. No restriction could nullify that.
Even with weakened strength, he was confident he could fight the entire knight order and not go down easily. Meaning: brutally beating a single attendant was nothing.
“W-what the hell—gah!”
Harold tried to flee, but Inas’s fist slammed into him, sending him sprawling. The blow was strong enough to knock a tooth loose. Even in his dazed state, Harold instinctively tried to crawl away. Inas looked down at him, expression freezing over.
“I was debating whether to kill you or not.”
“What?”
“And I’ve decided killing you is better. No point leaving three uncertainties alive. Honestly, if I could only kill one, I’d prefer to kill Etna.”
His flat, dispassionate tone was chilling. Harold shuddered and glared at him in horror.
“W-what kind of insane shit…? How are you gonna kill someone who’s already dead? What the hell do you want from me?”
“Do you think Nigel really likes Etna that much? Compared to me, he’s nothing special.”
Glarus had revived Etna for one reason: to provoke Nigel. Nigel seemed more worried about Etna’s ridiculous sword, but that didn’t concern Inas at all.
But what did Glarus gain from provoking Nigel that way? Inas pondered.
Etna lived again because of Nigel. There couldn’t be any other reason. So what did Nigel think about Etna’s revival?
He wanted to know. But his thoughts wouldn’t flow smoothly.
Nigel was hard for him to understand. Other people’s minds were easy—just skim their behavior and context. But when he tried to account for every word and action Nigel had ever taken, his mind splintered into dozens of predictions for even simple things. Too many patterns, too many lives—he got lost in his own attempts to understand.
Lately, Nigel was even harder to predict. Sometimes he recalled memories from past loops and behaved in ways Inas couldn’t foresee—unexpected, erratic, and yes, adorable, but troublesome.
Thinking that, Inas swung the axe at Harold’s leg. He didn’t even bring the blade down—just the side of it—and Harold screamed as if his throat were ripping open. Inas shrugged.
“You’ve always been dramatic. I wish Nigel were as simple as you.”
“Y-you… f-freaking lunatic!”
Inas kicked him, sending the man flying into a corner. He walked over and punched him again.
Sometimes killing too violently, seeing too much blood, hearing screams and begging—sometimes that eased his mood. But this time, nothing improved. In fact, the longer he stared at Harold’s face, the heavier his thoughts grew. He paused and grabbed Harold by the collar, lifting him.
“If Nigel had to choose between Etna and me… would he choose Etna again this time?”
“…”
“If you answer, you get to live a little longer. Go on.”
Whispering softly, Inas watched Harold tremble. Finally, with terror contorting his face, Harold forced words out.
“H-he’s… he’s his brother. Of course his brother means more to him than you.”
Even now, he clung to his pride as he answered. Inas tilted his head slightly, unable to parse the meaning.
“I’ve been a brother before, and he didn’t like me much. Sure, I took Nigel’s place in the family—that alone would piss him off. But later he even tried to poison me. Even though we were brothers.”
In the end, I had to lock him up. Muttering to himself, Inas looked insane to anyone unaware of the context. Harold let out a hopeless laugh.
“You really are… completely insane…”
“…”
“Blood is blood. Etna’s his family… You’ll never win against that.”
Inas’s eyes snapped wide. The hand gripping Harold’s collar slid to his throat. His thin arm lifted Harold effortlessly, fingers tightening until veins stood out.
“I don’t like that. I kill for him. And all he does is get angry. Never trusts me. He’s supposed to love me.”
Lips barely moving, Inas muttered rapidly.
In the previous life, Nigel had chosen dead Etna over him. He’d cried and stabbed Inas simply because a corpse’s body disappeared. The pain of the blade piercing flesh meant nothing. The only thing seared into Inas’s memory was Nigel’s expression as he abandoned him.
And this time, Etna was alive and breathing. Obviously Nigel would choose his brother over him again.
He couldn’t breathe. Blood ties meant nothing—not after tens of thousands of loops. And yet he felt furious. Part of him wanted to wipe out the entire Montstein family right now and claim Nigel as his own. He’d done it before; it wasn’t hard. But…
Inas loosened his grip. Harold’s limp body dropped to the floor.
Even if he wanted to throw everything away, he still had work to do. He pulled out several pieces of jewelry from his clothes. Among them were the belongings of the deceased Duchess—the heirlooms Ruder had passed down to Nigel.
Nigel treasured them and had hidden them carefully in a place no one could find. Only someone practically glued to Nigel—like his bodyguard, Inas—would know. Harold, ordinary attendant, would never find such a spot. But that detail didn’t matter.
Inas stuffed the jewelry into Harold’s clothes as if Harold had stolen them. With evidence like that, everyone would suspect him. Just like always. It was routine—Inas’s hands moved quickly. Once the body was thrown into the mountain, monsters would eat it. Eventually, a hunter or mercenary would find the jewelry and sell it at an auction.
He’d done this enough times to find it tedious.
Throwing Harold’s body over his shoulder, Inas headed down a passage toward the monster-filled mountains, sinking back into thought. But the thoughts wouldn’t last long.
A splitting headache.
There had been times when he lost his sanity and rampaged. But even after so much time—more than enough to go insane—he still hadn’t gone completely mad. It almost would’ve been easier if he had. He could’ve taken Nigel without thinking.
“Nigel…”
Nigel was his guiding star. Like the one fixed point in the night sky when every path was lost. Through endless loops, Nigel was the only one constant—his anchor.
Even if Inas had to repeat the same number of loops again, he would never let Nigel go.
What was the best thing to do now? The best answer was to eliminate the threats. But the restrictions were too tight.
“It’s obvious this will all go to hell…”
And yet here he was, bound by Nigel’s wishes. In the beginning, he’d been happy for Nigel’s orders—but they had only made things steadily worse.
“At least Etna or Danil—one of them should’ve died.”
Now Harold was gone. In fact, it might’ve been better to kill Danil and leave Harold alive. He should’ve killed Danil earlier. He’d let the boy live because Nigel seemed to enjoy playing with him—and now things were complicated.
This was all basic prep for a safe loop. Like making sure a child in a raising-simulation game had enough starting health to avoid getting sick, or buying weapons in a town so the protagonist could easily beat the monsters outside.
Removing everything harmful to Nigel.
“But I can’t kill them…”
He had to leave obvious rot festering. It felt like ignoring pus. His skin crawled beneath the surface.
Once, Inas would’ve scratched himself bloody. Scraped with fingers, tore at himself with nails, then with blades.
“Inas, why are you doing this? Stop. Don’t hurt yourself.”
Nigel had cried hard—tears soaking both cheeks—as he tried to stop him. It had taken dozens more loops before Inas finally stopped the habit out of sheer exhaustion.
Everything resolves with time, or collapses in disaster.
Which is why he no longer had specific goals. The thing he once obsessed over, he’d completed nearly four thousand loops ago. Since then, he’d had no true purpose.
This loop, too, would work out somehow. Or maybe… leaving things as they were was a solution of its own. If the loops continued, Nigel would discover the truth eventually. Maybe that was for the best.
“And once that happens… you’ll understand.”
A filthy desire rose within him. From the first loop to this one, Inas’s wish had never changed.
“Nigel.”
He wanted him. Wanted to kiss him. Hold him. And sometimes—wrap his hands around that slender neck and squeeze.
Thirst burned him because he couldn’t. So he quickened his steps. If he moved fast, he could catch a glimpse of Nigel’s face before he fell asleep.
