After speaking boldly, Inas fell silent for a moment, lost in thought. He didn’t look hesitant, just thoughtful—choosing his words carefully to give a smoother explanation. Having known Inas for a long time, Nigel could tell the difference and waited patiently for him to continue.
Unlike the time he confessed to being in a time loop, this explanation seemed much more unfamiliar to Inas. Well, of course. He had never even accepted the idea of reliving the same timeline before, so he probably never had the chance to explain things in detail.
After a good while, Inas finally sorted out his thoughts and slowly parted his lips.
“I told you before that this world is inside a game.”
“You did.”
“In this game, you have to keep winning battles to progress through the story.”
Nigel recalled the major battles near the Pagan Mountains in his territory. Even if it wasn’t always on that scale, Kay’s party traveled all over the kingdom, constantly getting swept up in incidents and fights. There had never been a single case where they solved something without combat.
“Sounds brutal.”
“Well, it’s not necessarily that brutal, but…”
To Nigel, it sounded pretty damn harsh. Since he didn’t press the point, Inas continued.
“The game follows a set of rules where you earn rewards and progress all the way to the final moment—the ending. But this game has several branching paths… depending on choices Kay makes or conditions he fulfills, the route can diverge. By the way, the version of Kay’s journey you observed in the last timeline is the default story path. If the route had diverged in the middle, you might have seen a completely different narrative.”
“Hmm…”
“For example, think of the day I first met you. If you hadn’t taken a liking to me and decided not to take me in, then we would’ve failed to meet the base requirement, and the route would’ve diverged. But let’s say you did offer to take me in, and I chose to head to the North instead—that would be a route divergence based on choice.”
Whether it was just a random example or teasing on purpose, Nigel’s face flushed red in an instant. It was true he fell for Inas at first sight, but it was still embarrassing to have the subject himself point that out. Flustered, Nigel tapped his toe against the ground for no reason.
“Don’t use weird examples.”
“But it’s easy to understand, isn’t it?”
“It is, but…”
The problem was how embarrassing it was. Come to think of it, it almost seemed like Inas enjoyed watching Nigel squirm. Nigel rubbed his burning cheek.
“Whatever, just stop talking. So routes mean multiple possibilities and their consequences, right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Got it. Keep going.”
“Right. That’s where my path diverged. Based on either conditions or choices, I had two main routes—one where I stayed by your side and grew into a knight, and another where I headed North to hunt monsters. Of course, there could’ve been countless other routes.”
“Mm.”
“And this is the crucial part.”
Inas’s eyes fixed on the air, scanning from left to right, top to bottom—like he was reading something. He was probably checking an information window. After a long moment of reading, he turned back to Nigel.
“Apologies, I needed to check something… I’m not sure if you can see it, but there’s something called Achievements.”
“Achievements?”
Nigel checked the windows he had access to.
Normally, the interface wasn’t visible. But if he focused, the windows would neatly appear in front of him.
The only ones Nigel could access were the Character Info Window, Party Window, Quest Window, and Inventory. There wasn’t any sign of an “Achievements” category anywhere.
“I don’t have anything like that.”
“I see.”
“What’s the difference?”
“That part, I really don’t know.”
If Inas had no clue, then Nigel had no way of guessing either. He simply nodded, signaling him to go on.
“These Achievements aren’t directly related to story progression—they’re more like a type of record. As I mentioned, the game involves performing countless actions. When certain conditions are met, an achievement gets logged. These records range from trivial things to grand feats. But not just anything gets recorded; only actions that fulfill predefined conditions get counted as achievements.”
“Like what?”
Prompting for a more sensible example, Nigel quickly added a request for something normal. Inas smirked at that and glanced around as if checking his list.
“Things like killing a thousand Pokolings, winning a battle while in critical condition, or defeating eight enemies at once… pretty standard stuff.”
Nothing that sounded particularly important. They didn’t seem like things worth pursuing, but still, they were the kind of goals one could achieve naturally while adventuring.
Nigel was curious about the more extreme achievements, but considering the kind of outrageous things that might come out of Inas’s mouth, he decided not to ask.
“If it doesn’t affect the game, why does it even exist?”
“Because it’s a game, after all. Just mindless fun. Some people get obsessed with collecting, and for them, it’s another form of enjoyment.”
“…I suppose.”
To Nigel, this was reality—but to Inas, it was a game. That fundamental difference kept hitting him over and over. It made sense why Inas could see things Nigel couldn’t. For Inas, this world was fiction, something outside himself.
Putting aside the gloomy thoughts, collecting was a basic human urge. He could at least understand why such a system existed.
What he didn’t get was why Inas was focusing on it so much. Achievements weren’t even important—so why this much detail?
“The reason I killed Kay back then was for an achievement.”
“You mean… to complete that thing?”
“Yes. The initial achievements were all centered around Kay. But once I completed the first 327, more started to appear. That’s when things got strange. It’s like something bugged out—suddenly, actions involving me started getting logged too. Including the ones involving Kay. There were too many for me to finish them all.”
“How many showed up?”
Inas didn’t answer. He just smiled faintly.
“I’ve already completed all the easy ones. And since I’ve done a lot of bizarre things, I’ve filled in quite a few extras… but I haven’t completed them all. Sorry.”
“Sorry” wasn’t the issue here. Nigel grimaced. The explanation was interesting, sure, but the ending was way too vague. Inas himself had said achievements were just records—so how could completing them all suddenly bring everything to an end? It sounded too good to be true.
“You think once you finish all the achievements, the time loop will end?”
“Yes. Once they’re complete, I’m sure the loop will stop.”
“What kind of achievements are left?”
“From number 328 onward, the requirements aren’t listed. I only find out what they are after I fulfill them.”
“So that’s why you…”
You killed people at the inn. You helped Schumacher complete the relic. All those other strange actions were just to fill out the list, weren’t they?
Nigel felt a small sense of relief that Inas wasn’t killing randomly. The fact that he had a reason—even if it was twisted—was at least something.
Still, it didn’t make everything okay.
“Inas. How can you be so sure that completing the achievements will end the loop?”
“Because there’s no other way.”
He’d expected at least a system description or some confirmation. But no—this was pure speculation. For the first time, Nigel felt real doubt in someone he usually trusted.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to just aim for one of the endings?”
“There are only three endings. Happy, normal, and bad. Even if the route diverges in the middle, it always ends with one of those three.”
“…”
Feeling stifled, Nigel swallowed a sigh. Inas’s overly optimistic attitude made him nervous.
“Don’t worry, Nigel. I’ve finished almost all of them. Just a few more, and it’ll be over.”
He sounded confident, but that didn’t mean Nigel trusted it.
He opened his Quest Window and reviewed the quest he’d received earlier—the one that had been weighing on him so much lately…
â–· QUEST (new!)
The All-Inclusive Quest
Eliminate <Inas Idenbach>. No higher rewards possible.
Reward:
The world is restored to a normal flow of time.
Upon <Inas Idenbach>’s elimination, the world will be reset to April 14th one time.
Under the condition that the quest is not revealed to <Inas Idenbach>, a version of him with no memory of prior loops will survive.
Inas Idenbach: a foreign body in this world.
That’s exactly right. The world had reset countless times with Inas at its center. Compared to the flimsy hope of “finishing achievements,” this quest felt far more logical.
But… would it really be okay to trust the quest window and go through with it?
The <Inas Idenbach> mentioned in the quest—the one who must die—was clearly the same Inas standing right in front of him.
Inas claimed he was someone who had fallen into the game world. When Nigel accepted the quest, he hadn’t known that yet. Back then, it had seemed obvious—complete the quest, fix the world.
But now… was the version of Inas the reward promised to “return” really this Inas?
The quest didn’t say. The name <Inas Idenbach> only appeared in the objective. It wasn’t mentioned at all in the reward.
If Inas was truly the root of all this, then maybe—just maybe—the cleanest way to restore everything was to eliminate that root.
A world stuck in endless loops, constantly resetting.
There was no way it would all just fix itself with Inas still here.
