Chapter 4

A soundless roar went off inside my skull.

My hand loosened without my telling it to, and the phone cracked against the floor.

Nadia heard the noise and came out of her room.

"What's wrong?"

At the same moment, Aaron came in from outside.

"That rain is really coming down. Good thing tomorrow's supposed to be clear, so it won't ruin the wedding."

I rushed at him.

"Aaron, didn't you say you'd arrange for my parents to get here? Why did something happen to them?"

"What..."

My voice shook so hard it was barely intelligible.

"My parents are dead! The officer said they took an unlicensed cab and died in the crash!"

Aaron went white in an instant, and for those few silent seconds I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"I'm sorry. Because of the storm, the flights, the trains, and the buses were all shut down. You wanted your mom and dad to come, so I had someone drive them in along the back roads."

"I never thought there'd be an accident. I never thought anything would happen to them."

I shoved him aside and headed for the door.

He caught me by the arm.

"It's pouring like this. Where do you think you're going?"

I wrenched my arm free.

"Home. To the funeral home, to claim my parents' bodies!"

"Everything's shut down right now. You can't get back no matter how frantic you are. Wait until the wedding's over tomorrow and I'll go with you—"

"The wedding?"

A laugh broke out of me.

"Aaron, you really are cruel enough."

I ran out of the house with nowhere to go, and ended up standing in the bus shelter to get out of the rain.

The panel appeared in front of me again.

【System warning: If the conquest task fails, the player will remain in this world forever.】

The next second, calls from Nadia and Aaron popped up on my phone.

I didn't answer.

They sent me a string of texts after that.

Telling me to go ahead with the wedding tomorrow.

I looked at the panel still hanging in front of me and asked it.

"System, if they succeed at the conquest and leave, what happens to me?"

After a burst of static, words surfaced before my eyes.

【Once the player returns to the original world, this world will be formatted to receive a new player.】

"Then can my parents come back to life?"

【After the format, every person's life starts over.】

I gritted my teeth and asked the last question.

"So my world has been looping this whole time, hasn't it?"

【If the player chooses to stay, the heroine gets to live out her own life.】

I wiped the tears away, and my gaze turned firm.

The moment Aaron and Nadia saw me come back, they crowded in.

"Ginny, you still have us. We'll always be here for you."

"What your mom and dad wanted most, at the end, was surely to see you and Aaron married."

I looked at the two of them for a long moment.

"Fine. The wedding goes ahead tomorrow."

You could see the relief wash over them.

The next day, I walked up onto the stage in my wedding dress.

There was no joy in me at all, only the rush of something about to be over.

As the maid of honor, Nadia couldn't contain her excitement.

The instant Aaron and I exchanged rings.

And said "I do" together.

The system's voice rang out from the sky.

【Congratulations, host Aaron Chandler. Conquest successful. Returning to the original world.】

【Congratulations, host Nadia Cobb. Conquest successful. Returning to the original world.】

A flash of white light.

The scene before my eyes reeled back through time to three years ago.

Elsewhere.

In the three months after returning to the original world.

Virginia's smiling face kept surfacing in Aaron's mind.

He kept wondering whether that girl who depended on him would cry her eyes out every day now that she'd lost him.

He started to waver.

Whether he should have chosen to stay and be with Virginia after all.

He tried calling out to the system.

"System, I want to know if Virginia is all right now."

【Rest assured, host. The heroine's world has already been formatted. The new player's conquest progress reads eighty percent.】

【The heroine's memories of you have been erased. She doesn't remember you at all now.】

Aaron's breath caught.

"What are you saying!"