[Hero – hours later]
He sat in the cold of his rented room, unmoving.
The window was cracked open, letting in the low buzz of Carmine's Rest — drunken yells, the creak of wheels, laughter from those who hadn't yet been burned by the world.
He didn't sleep.
Couldn't.
He replayed the alley in his mind, again and again.
Lira.The Flame Maiden.Sitting beside him.
Veyr.
The villain who had shattered the world. Who had crushed him without fury or hatred — just the weight of inevitability. The same man who now sat beside a scared girl with kindness in his voice.
"He knew to find her here. That fast. That early."
It wasn't just a coincidence.
Veyr remembered.
The realization snapped into place like a trap clamping shut.
"He's like me."
Regression.
It wasn't just him who'd come back.
Veyr had, too.
The final boss. The shadow he'd spent his whole journey chasing — he wasn't at the end anymore. He was here. At the start.
Which meant...
"This isn't my second chance alone."
And suddenly the plan wasn't simple anymore.
The path — the one he'd followed like scripture before — was already changed. Corrupted by Veyr's interference.
"But if he's rewriting fate… then so can I."
He pulled the tattered notebook from his bag and began scribbling furiously.
[Objective 1]: Reclaim allies before Veyr can reach them.[Objective 2]: Train before the first bandit event. Find a shortcut.[Objective 3]: Investigate Lira's system marker. Check for divergence.[Objective 4]: Prepare countermeasures. Learn who Veyr targets next.
He circled the last one twice.
"This time," he whispered, "I fight smarter."
"I won't die with a boot on my skull."
[Lira – same night]
She didn't know what to make of him.
Veyr.
He wasn't like the others.
Didn't leer. Didn't pry. Didn't ask her to prove she was worth something.
He just sat.
Let the silence sit with him.
Let her eat.
Let her be.
And somehow, that felt more dangerous than anything else.
Because she didn't want to trust people.
Not anymore.
But he didn't ask for her trust. He didn't push. And that… made her want to stay.
"Why are you really here?" she finally asked, licking crumbs from her fingertips.
He looked up at the ruined statue behind them. Its face had eroded to nothing over the years.
"To stop something terrible from happening," he said.
"To change a fire before it burns the wrong city."
She squinted at him.
"That's cryptic as hell."
"Good. Means I'm not lying."
She wanted to laugh at that, but she didn't. Something in his tone — that frayed thread of sorrow beneath it — kept her still.
"You talk like you've lost a war."
He didn't flinch.
"I have."
"More than one."
The silence thickened.
She shifted, back pressing into the cold stone. For a long moment, she didn't say anything.
Then—
"If I come with you… What happens next?"
He turned his head slowly. His eyes met hers.
They weren't the eyes of a prophet.
Or a warrior.
They were something older. Something cracked.
"You survive."
She chewed on that. Rolled it around.
"Not really the most inspiring pitch."
"It's the only one that's honest."
That night, she didn't follow him.
Not fully.
She lingered in the shadows after he left, watching his silhouette vanish into the city's rotted ribs.
But she didn't walk into the temple ruins like she'd been meant to.
Didn't wait for the boy with bright eyes and big dreams who was supposed to change her life.
He never came.
Because the world had already shifted. Just enough.
And the old future — the one with fire and banners and system-blessed justice — quietly died behind them.