“Poor thing.”

That was my first thought after finishing the chapter.

It couldn’t be helped.
A genius destined to make his name known across the world—reduced to a complete wreck by his elder brother’s jealousy, only to be killed by him in the end.

Thankfully, it was just the story of a passing supporting character. Otherwise, I might have slammed the book shut in sheer frustration.

‘At least the truth came out in the end—that his brother ruined his life.’

Even after death, that character was burdened with every possible disgrace, cursed by the entire nation.
Not even his own family shed a single tear at his passing—that said everything.

Still, the villain ultimately lost both his honor and his wealth before dying at the hands of the protagonist, so I supposed the ending was decent enough.

‘No, but even so… this crossed a line.’

Out of all the people in the world, he had to kill his own brother? Just for the sake of his own rise?

‘Forget it. It’s not like any of this actually happened.’

I tried to cut off the thought, but found myself clicking my tongue again.

Maybe it was because I’d gotten too emotionally invested, but a wave of fatigue suddenly washed over me. The greater the suffering, the more satisfying the revenge had been—but exhaustion still followed.

I closed the book and turned on my phone to set an alarm.

‘I’ll just sleep for ten minutes.’

Once I woke up, I’d be free of these overwhelming emotions.
Better to read the next chapter with a clearer mind.

With that thought, I flopped onto the bed.

‘Ah… damn it.’

By the time I woke up, the world was already steeped in darkness.

Ten minutes? This felt more like ten hours.
There was no way it could be this dark if I’d only taken a short nap in the middle of the day. My body felt heavy, too—like I’d overslept.

‘…Wait…’

Why couldn’t I see anything?

My eyes were definitely open, yet everything around me was pitch-black—so dark I couldn’t distinguish a single thing.

Panicked, I groped around. Aside from the rough texture of stone beneath my hands, there was nothing.

‘Stone?’

I had fallen asleep in my bed—so why was I on a stone floor?

For a brief moment, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind—had my bed somehow turned into stone overnight?—but the absurdity quickly gave way to a chilling realization, and my expression stiffened.

I opened my mouth to shout, but no sound came out. Only a faint, breathy wheeze escaped me. Forcing my throat, I tried again.

“Ah… ah.”

Thankfully, it was at least audible.

I couldn’t scream, but if someone came close, I could ask for help.

‘Let’s… try moving first.’

Slowly, I pushed myself upright.

Even without being able to see, I could tell something was wrong with my balance. More carefully than before, I planted my hands on the ground and tried to put strength into my legs.

Clank—

“…?”

The sound of metal striking metal.

In an already terrifying situation, why would moving my leg produce that kind of noise?

I moved it again, just to be sure—and realized something was fastened around my ankle.

‘…You’ve got to be kidding me.’

No matter how I looked at it, this was the worst-case scenario.

The moment I grasped the situation, the fear I’d been desperately suppressing to think clearly surged all at once. Before my breathing could spiral out of control, I pinched my nose and forced myself to steady it.

“Haah…”

Calm down.

For now, there was no one else here.
Even if I was restrained, I still had time to assess my condition.

I reached down and felt along my leg. My fingers brushed against something metallic.

At least it didn’t seem like it had been forced on brutally—there were no wounds nearby. There was enough slack for blood to circulate.

If I could just break this… I’d still be able to run.

‘No phone, of course.’

Whoever had put me in this situation wasn’t kind enough to leave that behind.

I hadn’t expected it, so there was no disappointment. Keeping myself as calm as possible, I continued to feel around.

Then—

I heard voices in the distance.

My heart began to race. Before I could even prepare myself, a line of light appeared in the pitch-black space, quickly widening into a plane.

After being in darkness for so long, the sudden light made my eyes sting.

“Have you been well?”

A gentle voice wrapped around my ears.

Someone stepped inside, silhouetted against the brilliant white light behind him.

I hurriedly opened my mouth.

“B-Brother… Brother.”

‘…What?’

Did I have anyone I would call brother?

No—more importantly, I hadn’t meant to say that. I’d been trying to ask where this place was, not utter something so incomprehensible.

Yet, as if mocking my confusion, my voice continued, trembling with fear.

“I-I’m sorry… I—I was wrong. I won’t ever—”

“What? No. What are you saying, Luca?”

“I won’t do it again, Brother. I was wrong. From now on, I’ll take proper care of things. I swear. Please… spare me…”

“Luca.”

At his sharp call, the frantic muttering spilling from my lips came to an abrupt stop. He frowned deeply, glaring at me.

Whether he was a stranger or not didn’t matter—this was a relief.

The more I spoke, the more an inexplicable fear filled my mind, and every attempt to understand the situation failed because of it.

Only now, as my thoughts began to clear, did I replay his words.

‘Just now… he called me Luca.’

I wasn’t, of course.

Coincidentally, there had been a character named Luca in the book I’d read before falling asleep… but it probably wasn’t related.

Either he’d mistaken me for someone else, or this was a kidnapping where I was using a name I didn’t even know about—or both.

In any case, since there had to be a reason I’d been kept tied up all night, they probably wouldn’t kill me immediately. I still had time to figure things out.

Feigning fear, I darted my eyes around.

‘Nothing particularly dangerous…’

The room was shockingly empty, save for two people standing near the door. There was no physical way to overpower them and escape.

Somehow, I had to figure out what was going on—and convince them that I wasn’t this “Luca.”

When I remained silent, the so-called “brother,” who had been putting on a stern expression, softened his face and spoke.

“You must have waited a long time. I was just on my way back after checking on your condition.”

“…My condition?”

“Yes. You were right. It wasn’t that you failed to take your medicine.”

Medicine?

The topic came out of nowhere.

The unfamiliar subject, combined with the way he spoke as if he had known me for a long time, grated on my nerves.

‘…But…’

Even as I found it abrupt, a sense of unease crept in. Unlike before, when nothing made sense at all, a rough outline of the situation was beginning to take shape.

Even as I dismissed it as absurd, a sense of foreboding crept in.

Unlike before, when nothing made sense at all, a vague outline was beginning to take shape.

I didn’t need to pry any further. The man looked at me with pity and continued on his own.

“Your illness has worsened. The amount you’ve been taking until now won’t be enough anymore, they said. I should have realized sooner—this is all my fault. I’m sorry for misunderstanding you.”

“…Illness?”

“What? Good heavens… you must have been in a lot of pain. What in the world have they all been doing, letting it get this bad?”

At the sharp question, the people standing by the door scrambled to offer excuses.

While he berated them and demanded answers, I forced my mind to work.

‘Your illness.’ Medicine. Brother. And Luca.

My heart began to pound faster.

At this point, it was impossible not to think of the character from the book I had just read.

That Luca also had an elder brother—and suffered from an incurable illness of unknown origin, taking medicine for it.

The absurd coincidence made my brow crease.

Perhaps he mistook my reaction for shock at my worsening condition, because he spoke in a soothing tone.

“We’ve increased the dosage, so you’ll be fine now. More than that… it pains me to think how frightened you must have been, kept here for an entire week. Try to understand. If you were to lose control because of your illness and cause another incident like before… everything I’ve done was for your sake.”

At his gesture, one of the men by the door handed him a black wooden box.

With the light spilling in from behind, I could clearly see its contents. Inside were dozens of crystal vials, each no bigger than a finger joint, filled with a pitch-black liquid that sloshed faintly with the slightest movement.

It was something I had never seen before.

And yet, something I knew all too well.

If the drug the “brother” had used in the book to ruin his younger sibling’s life existed in reality, it would look exactly like this.

“…This is…”

“Yes. It looks exactly the same as what you’ve been taking, doesn’t it? We only increased the concentration and the amount, so it shouldn’t feel unfamiliar.”

He plucked out one of the crystal vials and held it up in front of my face.

“At least you’ll still be able to return to the academy on time. I was worried you might never make it back.”

“……”

“Come to think of it… I heard you already took two bottles yesterday. I’m a bit late, aren’t I? We won’t know if this batch was made properly until you drink it. But it can’t be helped.”

He went on and on, rambling to himself.

I had no room to listen.

Luca wasn’t sick.

That so-called “loss of control” his brother mentioned had never existed in the first place.

There was no need for medicine. No reason for him to be locked away in a place like this.

A man healthier than anyone, born with talent beyond compare—reduced to this state, all because of his brother.

In a world governed by magic, birth order meant nothing.

Titles and the position of head of the house were determined solely by magical strength.

The elder brother, born with remarkable talent, would have ascended to the position effortlessly.

‘If Luca had never been born, that is.’

Unlike his brother, whose magic manifested at six, Luca had already surpassed him at the mere age of three.

No one doubted that Luca would become the greatest mage in the family’s history.

And so, faced with the certainty that he would never become head of the house, the brother made his decision—to suppress Luca’s magic.

That “medicine” he had been prattling about all this time wasn’t a cure.

It was poison—meant to destroy magic.

Having been forced to drink that poison for half his life, Luca lost the ability to use magic, just as his brother intended, and slowly began to wither toward death.

My gaze fell on the clear vial in his hand.

He had said earlier that my “illness” had worsened.

By his logic, that meant Luca’s magic had grown too strong to be suppressed by the poison.

‘So when it stopped working, he assumed Luca had stopped taking it.’

Combined with the nonsense that had come spilling from my own mouth earlier, the situation became clear.

What kind of person locks his own brother in a lightless place just because he suspects him of skipping his “medicine”?

And then has the audacity to call it all for his sake?

The shamelessness was staggering.

‘Still… if it’s only at this point, it’s almost merciful.’

After Luca graduates from the academy and reaches adulthood, forced to live shut away in a cramped room, his brother eventually kills him with his own hands.

Poisoning him slowly over the years hadn’t been enough.

And now—I was being called by the name of someone who dies at twenty, standing in that very situation.

‘This is insane.’

Only then did I look down at my own body.

Unlike before, when I had been shrouded in darkness, everything was now visible.

Clothes from an unfamiliar era. Unkempt hair hanging over my vision. A body reduced to skin and bone. And a sickly bluish tint to the skin.

This wasn’t my body.

No matter how many times I died and woke again, it would never be mine.

It made more sense to believe that I had become that extra—the one who lived on the poison his brother created, only to die at twenty.

Considering the apology that had spilled from my mouth without my will, and the fear I felt toward this unfamiliar “brother,” the conclusion was even harder to deny.

Had my consciousness been transplanted into the body of a minor character from that insane novel?

There was no other explanation.

Whether it made sense or not didn’t matter—everything I felt was real.

It wasn’t my perception that had gone mad. It was the situation itself.

And oddly enough, realizing that brought a strange sense of relief.

“I’ve talked too long.”

As if noticing I hadn’t been listening, he tapped the vial with his finger to draw my attention.

The black liquid, tinged faintly with blue, swayed before my eyes.

With a gentle smile, he spoke softly.

“Drink it now, Luca.”

“…!”

The servants’ eyes widened.

So did mine.

I had already been given twice the usual dose.

And now he was telling me to drink an even stronger version?

‘…Theoretically, I could die.’

The servants seemed to think the same. One of them hurriedly spoke up.

“Y-Young master…!”

“Do you have something to say?”

Though his tone remained soft, the meaning was unmistakable.

The servants exchanged glances, then lowered their heads in apology before leaving the room.

In the end, only the two of us remained in the vast underground chamber.

He studied my face, then smiled again, gentle as ever.

“You won’t die. Trust me. You know this is all for your sake.”

What a joke.

There was no way he didn’t know how dangerous that substance was.

You couldn’t say something like that unless you valued your brother’s life less than that of a fly.

‘…You lunatic.’

My nails dug into my palms.

The pounding of my pulse echoed louder and louder in my ears.

The fear I had barely been holding back crashed over me like a broken dam.

Just as my breathing began to falter—

A brilliant white light appeared before my eyes.

Ding—!

〈 Chapter 0. Every Beginning Is Difficult 〉
Objective: Make the optimal choice. (0/1)

• Route 1 — 〈 Chapter 1. Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (1) 〉

• Route 2 — 〈 Death 〉