1. Death Ending Collector (1)
Iris Wellington was known as the esteemed lady from the Wellington household.
She lived her whole life not knowing how it feels to suffer. It’s not an exaggeration when someone says that the estate owned by Marquis Wellington is land flowing with milk and honey.
There was nothing she couldn’t get her hands on. Iris had all the sparkly dresses, lived on dirt where golden grains grow, had glossy hair that glowed like wheat, and purple eyes that resembled her name.
But Iris Wellington, although perfect, had one only flaw, and it’s…
‘I’m fated to live a short life.’
She has been living a life of repeated death and regression.
In her last life, she was hit and killed by a carriage. In the previous life, she was struck by an arrow that came out of nowhere, and in her Nth life, she died from suffocation.
As soon as the number of deaths exceeded ten fingers, an overload of memories overtook her. She can now recall every detail of each of her deaths. After much effort, she had memorized all the ways she had died so far.
And at this moment, she is facing a form of death she never had experienced before.
‘Ah, this time, it’s poison.’
Even though she saw the silver cup she was holding turned black, she deliberately drank it all. It didn’t matter who planned her poisoning. She just laughed out of relief that she is completing one of the many death endings. She thought she had dropped the glass, but her body seemed to have fallen. She could feel the rough carpet as her cheek planted on it.
“M-my lady! Please wake up, my lady!”
Thus, Iris, who just faced her 24th death, went back in time before she died again.
* * *
Iris Wellington was a week away from her 18th birthday. To be exact, it was a week before her 25th 18th birthday.
After every time she died, she would come back to this time. Death was nothing new to her now. As her life drained from her body, her vision darkened as if there was a thick fog, and as if to award her for her efforts in her previous life, she would be revived without having to feel the pain of momentary death.
The reason she is always returning to this point in time was simple. It was because she had saved a file at this point in the game.
–
Before becoming Iris Wellington, I was playing a game on my smartphone as usual. I was having a well-deserved honey-like holiday after weeks of constant overtime work.
The plot of a new game that was recently released was ‘to become the daughter of a marquis and survive the eventual threat of death’. I laughed out loud.
‘I thought I was going to die from overworking, but she has it worse than me.’
My whole body felt heavy due to fatigue. The company would overwork people day and night without paying them properly. New employees, who were just hired for business trips, often ran away within a day, at the shortest, to three months. Others asked me why I was working for such a company, and I could only answer that I had no choice.
‘What’s the point of quitting so quickly? Is there any guarantee that you’ll get another job?’
The ray of light in my strenuous life was the game. How convenient it is that you can choose any ending based on the choices you make. A life where you can restart if you make the wrong decision by going back to a file you saved. I truly envied the game system.
It would be nice to have a save file in my life. Any decision can be made as long as there is a clear guarantee that you can return to before the decision was made.
My friends explained it to me. If things didn’t go as well as I thought after leaving the company, I could just load the saved file immediately. If that is possible, then I would never resign, and I would just live on this small salary again. It would be wonderful to have such an ability.
Having had an immature daydream, I stayed up all night tapping away on the phone screen. Then I fell asleep, and when I suddenly woke up, I was back to the same old daily routine.
“I guess I’ve been really tired lately that I’m having all these dreams.”
I closed my eyes tightly to wake myself up from the dream. After recognizing you are in a dream, if you count to three in your mind, you will wake up as if the dream never happened. I did this whenever I had a nightmare.
All right. Let’s get up. One, two, three.
As per usual, I raised my body mechanically and stretched out. My eyelids were heavy. I thought I would feel better if I washed my face with cold water, so I went straight to the bathroom.
Somehow the room seemed wider than usual. I thought as I trudged along with weak steps. Usually, it didn’t take that many steps to get to and from my small bedroom…
Instead of washing my face, I wiped her eyes with my shirt sleeves. Through my blurred vision, I could see the red wallpaper.
Without the splash of cold water, my mind felt refreshed. The wallpaper covering the entire bedroom was whitish beige. But it was red just now. Then, I realized that this wasn’t my bedroom.
Did I drink? And did my friends drop me off at a motel?
Nothing came up as I tried to conjure up a memory of such event. Also, I haven’t even been able to drink alcohol because I’ve been too tired to in the past few days.
The layout of the room was similar to that of the main character in the game I was playing last night. After thinking for a long time, I realized that, and ran straight to the dressing table to look at myself in the mirror.
Black hair and brown eyes were nowhere to be seen, but Iris Wellington, the heroine of the game, stood there blankly.
Unbelievable. How could this happen? I must’ve gone crazy.
“I can’t believe it…”
As soon as I realized that it was not a dream, I thought of the various utility bills and installments that, sadly, would be left unattended during the time I am stuck here. My expensive smartphone laying in my bedroom, with my monthly rent and 24-month contract, must have been waiting anxiously for me.
I barely got to rent a single room by splitting my monthly salary, and after making a reservation for the new phone model I wanted so much, I had just gotten my hands on it.
I had a lot of debt I could escape from, such as student loans. I was living month by month on the small salary, feeling like I was suffocating everyday due to the amount of money I was losing to debt.
I have to go back as soon as possible. Not only do I not belong here, but also the thought of installment costs and overdue payments piling up while I am away made me dizzy.
I ran out of the marquis house with the wind in my pajamas in a hurry, but I was quickly caught by the servants who followed me. I searched all over the house to find the smartphone I was holding, just in case it was here, but to no avail.
I cried every day from that day onward as I fell into an endless sense of despair. I stopped eating and drinking, did not wash, and was stuck in the bed, unable to move. No matter how much the servants tended to me, I did not feel comfortable in this world.
About a week has passed, and I opened my eyes on a wide bed that I’ve gotten used to. Strangely, however, I felt refreshed.
How so? I haven’t eaten anything or even drank water. I ran out of bed and ran to a full-body mirror in a corner of the room.
“W-what happened?”
The feeble body I had is nowhere to be seen, and I had returned to Iris’ normal, healthy body.
My legs collapsed on their own, and I fell to the ground. Something that couldn’t possibly happen happened. I felt like a new born person.
Iris slammed her head into the mirror. Because my whole body was exhausted.
I blinked helplessly, and black letters on the transparent mirror caught my eye. Iris tilted her upper body as if to cling to the mirror.
[First Death Ending: Starvation]
Starvation? Death ending? I was puzzled by the unfamiliar words that I had never seen in my life, but soon realized the meaning. When I played the game that night, this was the first ending I faced, as I was bad at manipulation.
My eyes widened for a moment. Iris approached the mirror again. More words was written under the phrase I read a while ago.
[29 More Times Until The True Ending]
There were 30 death endings implemented in the game. I’ve seen in the review that if you achieve all death endings, you can then see the true ending.
Iris asked the mirror.
“What happens when I get to the true ending? Would I be able to go back?”
The mirror couldn’t have answered. Just as I was about to give up, black letters began to be engraved on the mirror again. I followed the engraving with my eyes.
[The 30th Sacrifice Will Reveal The Truth]
30th sacrifice.
What the sentence indicated was obvious. It was telling me that I have to die that many times.
“Are you crazy? How can a sober person purposely put themself through that?”
Iris trembled as she hugged herself tightly. Her fingers, gripping firmly, made bruises on her soft forearms.
Do I really have to die? 30 times?
‘You’re kidding, right? This must be a joke.’
Looking back, death is a very scary thing. Last night, I had said this when the main character, Iris, died.
“Ah, I’m dead again.”
In fact, I didn’t feel anything, and I didn’t even feel sorry for her. Iris Wellington was meant to be such a character.
When death was not my predicament, I didn’t care much. It was a person’s psychology which tells the person to tremble as if they were going to die.
But it was different now. I wanted to squirm. I wanted to cry at the top of my lungs. If this continues, I feel like I would succumb to the great ordeal that came to me.
Feeling anxious, Iris ripped off her clothes. The thin chemise ripped easily without needing to exert much strength.
Pieces of fabric, which had been in perfect condition a while ago, were scattered on the floor. The long skirt was torn apart, revealing my slender legs.
Although this was me, I was so angry that my appearance was not who I was. Iris kicked the mirror hard. Unable to overcome the shock, the mirror fell towards me.
Crash.
The sound of shattered glass rang loudly. Iris hurriedly stepped back, holding her breath.
The sweat running down the back of my neck felt cold. Small pieces of glass fell on my bare feet that were exposed with nothing covering them.
A large piece of glass, which had fallen among the scattered shards, was particularly shiny. Iris picked up a piece of cloth scattered on the floor and wrapped it around that piece of glass. This was a gut reaction.
“If I want to go back… I have no other choice.”
This piece of glass was treacherous. Like, why did it break into a shape perfect for a person to use to pierce into their heart…?
I fixed the pointed portion of the glass to face her chest. My whole body trembled.
Am I really going to kill myself? You’re crazy! Someone whispered in my ear. It doesn’t seem like I have gone insane, but I hear hallucinations.
‘But this is the only way.’
I clenched the piece of glass with both hands. My mouth is dry.
I wasn’t sure whether the mirror’s ‘truth’ was the way to go back. At best, I became a character in the game, but I couldn’t save at a checkpoint as I wanted, and there was no other option other than this.
I’m scared and frightened. The fear of death slowly rose from the tip of my toes. I couldn’t breathe and there were thick droplets forming around my eyes.
As I hesitated for a while, I heard a loud noise outside. It seemed that the users who heard the noise had flocked to my room.
Iris’ pupils fluctuated wildly. I have to do it before someone comes.
Their steps got closer and closer.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Someone knocked on the door outside, and at the same time, Iris’ heart was beating rapidly. The world whirled.
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I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I closed my eyes and closed my mouth. Now all I have to do is pull my raised arm toward my chest.
“Miss, is something the matter?”
A maid knocked on the door and asked. Iris used her voice as a trigger and pulled her arm.
Soon after, I fell to my knees. Fortunately, I couldn’t feel the pain at all, but I was strangely sleepy. I eventually collapsed, unable to regain consciousness.