V1C1

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Chapter 1: May, the incident of the martial arts conference’s collapse

Everything around me was dark.

It was as if I had been left alone in a vast universe, where not even the ground existed. It was hard to even tell what was above or what was below.

Before I knew it, the cruel pain of the blade piercing my chest had disappeared, and the endlessly flowing blood had finally stopped.

I was still breathing heavily even though my body was now unscathed, and I instinctively raised both hands and grabbed my chest.

It wasn’t my first time dying, but the end was always painful.

It was the worst.

“Haa, ha.”

It was the moment when the black world was filled only with the sounds of my breathing as I struggled in pain. A translucent window showed up in front of me, emitting a faint light.

It was as if there was a single TV turned on in a dark house after midnight.

[Game Over!]

The game ended when the character died. My 5th attempt had also failed.

[5th round length: 3 months, 9 days, 6 hours, 22 minutes, and 4 seconds]

[Do you want to see the achievements from the 5th round?]

“Hah… n-no….”

[Cancellation complete.]

[Preparing the 6th round.]

I looked at the familiar game message that I had already seen 5 times.

As my breathing and mind calmed down, I slowly lowered my clenched fist.

My surroundings began to gradually brighten like white paint on a black background.

Backgrounds were created and objects were placed one by one, and the two legs that I had used to escape from the man gradually blurred. Instead, a fish tail with scales appeared in its place.

‘Haha.’

Water gradually filled up from the bottom.

The water level went past my neck and up to my eyes.

[Loading the 6th game.]

[Starting the 6th tutorial.]

[Have fun playing!]

Flash! My vision brightened. It was proof that the game had completely restarted.

And for me, who lived in the Imperial Palace, everything in the past became ‘non-existent’.

I went back to the past, not as a human, but as a mermaid, and I was returned to a familiar tutorial location.

Something warm enveloped my whole body. I didn’t turn off the game message window that announced the introduction of the tutorial, but just stared blankly instead.

“Hahaha…”

Suddenly, my irritation rose like a volcano, and the left side of my chest ached again. It was the area that had been pierced by a sword earlier.

Have fun playing? Fun my ass! When the terrible sensation came back to mind, anger rose from within me.

“I’ve had enough!”

The location of the tutorial, the place where I was, was my room in the royal palace under the sea.

The place I was sitting was my bed, where I could pick up the pillow that always remained in the same spot with my eyes closed.

When I picked it up and threw it, the pillow made of coral reefs flew away in the water without much speed.

Nevertheless, my anger did not dissipate, and I swung my feet, that were mermaid fins, at random. The seashell bed shook threateningly. A blanket made of seaweed fell to the ground.

“You said you were sorry but you killed me! You trashy girl-crazy bastard!”

Whenever I made a sound, air bubbles came out of my mouth. The feeling of the bubbles hitting my lips was never a pleasant sensation.

I had been thrashing around crazily like I was on fire for a while when suddenly, ding ding! A translucent screen once again appeared in front of me with a cheerful sound.

I had already experienced a total of five tutorials, so it was a familiar information window.

Instructions on how to play and operate the game.

[Would you like to hear the basics of the ga…]

“Go away! I’m not gonna do it!”

[Cancellation complete.]

I closed the window that had popped up without notice.

Of course, my refusal did not stop the story itself, so I would soon be hearing a knock on the door.

As always, it must be my maid. That was how the tutorial began.

It was a story I was so familiar with that I could recite it even in my sleep.

After a bit, my thumping heart calmed down a little.

Since I had completed the basic explanation that was necessary, I still had some time before the main story began.

I laid down on the bed and looked up without any enthusiasm.

My hair fluttered in the sea, blocking my vision. It was very deep and dark here. However, a mermaid’s night vision was so strong that it was so different from the broad daylight on land.

The 5th round had ended in failure. I had to start all over with the 6th round. I was worried about this round.

This is because if I did things like last time, I’d only experience the same ending.

But what the hell do I do? What should I do differently so I can clear the game?

The game had a structure without an apparent ending.

A single-player dating sim RPG (a role-playing game that simulates a young girl’s journey in love) without an end. That’s where I was.

“Ha…”

I used to live in a country called Korea. Of course, that country did not exist in this world.

One day, when I was on my way home late at night and had stopped at a crosswalk, bam. It was a common occurrence in countries with a higher rate of traffic accidents compared to other countries.

What I can still remember clearly is the sight of countless fluorescent 0s and 1s ceaselessly moving past me into all directions of the darkness.

I felt so nauseous that I wanted to throw up. Did I vomit? My memory had become hazy.

Afterwards, a small and translucent white window would appear and disappear in front of me repeatedly.

I couldn’t recall the contents now, but it was probably the system window.

Due to the circumstances, the words that I glanced at…

[Starting the 1st round.]

[Loading]

They were probably along those lines.

After that, the background changed naturally again, as if the sky were being dyed iridescent. I was under the sea.

There was water everywhere, and I got startled because I thought I’d drown. Of course, I didn’t.

It was because this place was a game, and I was the main character, the Little Mermaid.

But the psychological pressure of being crushed by water must have been quite great. My mind was tainted with fear. In the meantime, the tutorial quest appeared in front of me, and someone suddenly knocked on the door.

In the end, the 1st round came to an end because I was hesitant and couldn’t finish the tutorial.

Game over.

As soon as I failed the quest, my hand got caught in the closet and I was unable to move.

The chandelier then fell over my head. Because it fell slowly in the sea, it did not even make a sound.

In a single moment, I was crushed to death by an object ten times the size of an adult man.

Death came at once, like a snake that swallowed a frog in one bite.

At that time, the pain level was 100%. I had obviously never touched the settings.

In other words, I had to suffer the pain as it was when I died.

With the pain of death weighing down on my entire body as I began the 2nd round, a big change occurred. It was that I could no longer clearly remember my life in Korea.

In a way, it made sense. In the first place, living creatures were not designed to endure death.

Although I could remember some miscellaneous information clearly, I could no longer recall the faces of my family.

Besides that, there were still some recollections of the past, but it was as if I was spying on someone else’s memories through a videotape.

Now, I even wondered if I was the person who lived in Korea.

According to the system, this world is a game.

I am a player with the role of the Little Mermaid, and I have to see the game’s ending in order to return to my original world.

But am I really the me who lived on Earth?

When I thought about it, I didn’t have the motivation to clear the game from the beginning. I wondered if doing this was right or why I was here.

This kind of game could not have existed in the 21st century. The game industry was limited to only being able to handle 3D games. So, was this a dream? The afterlife? A human experiment? Or a different world?

Or was this really a game from the future?

However, the first thing to do was to quickly complete the second prologue.

If I did nothing, I would die again like the first time! My hands trembled when I recalled the memory of my death.

I quickly followed the quest. Having experienced it once, I did not act foolishly the second time.

A beautiful little mermaid who dreams of a world outside the sea

That was my role.

After I safely took part in my 18-year-old birthday party, which was the setting of the prologue, and became an adult, I was eligible to go out to the sea alone. However, a typhoon hit when I came out of the water.

The ship carrying the male protagonist, the human prince, was wrecked by a typhoon, and I steadily followed the quest to save the prince.

The universe of the game followed the fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid’.

As in the contents of the Little Mermaid, she visits the Sea Witch and offers up her voice in exchange for legs. Then she goes up to the beach, runs into the prince, and enters the palace.

The original “Little Mermaid” did not have a happy ending. In order to return to her life as a mermaid, she had to stab the prince with a knife. However, she was unable to, and dissipated into seafoam.

But I was confident in stabbing people over and over again. There were many selfish people like me who would kill a hundred others rather than feel the terrible pain of death again.

Unfortunately, the ending condition used in the game’s quest was to marry the prince.

[Ending Guide]

If you win the prince’s heart and get married, you can clear the game! Afterwards, players can decide whether to stay in this world or return to their original world.

What a hateful condition.

But I had to try and seduce the prince because if I failed, it was obvious that I’d loop infinitely in this place.

No matter how realistic this game was, there was still some consideration for me. I was treated as a saint according to this world’s universe.

In fact, the ‘Little Mermaid’ and the ‘Saintess’ roles were present in the [Occupation] section of my system window, along with skills related to saints.

At the time, I was happy because I thought it would be easier for a saintess to seduce the prince.

But the biggest problem…

It wasn’t the life of the imperial palace, which I was hardly accustomed to, nor the court battles, nor the strife between nobles. Shit!

The obstacle in my life was… the prince was ‘gay’. God damn it!

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