“……Testing?”

Cadel repeated Kunra’s words with a dumbfounded look on his face. Wasn’t the destruction and rebirth of the worldline to see the Demon War won? If the purpose of tampering with the worldline was not to win the Demon War, then what on earth did the system want?

The crux of Kunra’s argument was what the system meant by the ‘criteria’ for repeating the destruction and rebirth of worlds. And it was, perhaps, this.

“Halfling, maybe you know. No. You are the only one who knows.”

The one who had been reading the world’s flows the longest, from a place most unrelated to this world, and who had been enjoying it for the longest time, was the transmigrator, and the only transmigrator on the current worldline was himself. Therefore, he was the only one who could understand the system’s purpose.

He sank to the floor and rubbed his chin with a grave expression.

‘So, that’s why I’ve been feeling so uneasy ever since I heard Kunra’s story.’

The repetition of the worldline. At first, he thought its purpose was solely to end the Demon War. But what happened after the war ended? Would the system that fulfilled its purpose leave the worldline entirely? If it disappeared as soon as its purpose was fulfilled, how could it bind his soul to this place and live the ‘life of Cadel Lytos’?

……If the system remained in this worldline and exerted its power even after achieving its purpose.

‘The system’s presence will surely affect this world again.’

He couldn’t imagine that it would be a good impact. If Kunra was right, the system had been ‘testing’ something even before the war, picking and choosing worldlines. And that test was a simple battle.

The system didn’t care about the world. That was the biggest comparison to Kunra. Kunra looked the other way when humans and demons fought, but he protected all that was innocent. He might not embrace everything that belonged to the world, but he cared about the world itself.

‘Kunra’s analogy is true. The system is treating many of these worldlines as mere experiments.

Now he couldn’t consider this world ‘fake’. It was another reality, different from his own, but just as real.

‘But to understand the system, I need to think like it.’

Think of the world as a game. Everything that had happened to him was a pre-planned story, and all the characters were just puppets. There were only major characters in the world, and extras that could be discarded at any time. And what he had to find out by watching them fight and die.

Think of all the possibilities, and bring them out to even the worst he could imagine. There was no need for the rational judgment of ‘no way’, ‘that’s impossible’, or ‘that can’t happen’. They were just obstacles that limit the possibilities.

As Cadel summoned up all the strength he could muster, he racked his brain. A single thought flashed through his mind.

“Balance patch…….”

“You thought of something?”

Kunra’s eyebrows rose at the sudden reaction. Cadel narrowed his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fists, then jumped to his feet and began pacing around.

“Hero of Knights. That game, before I got here, they said they were going to patch in a new ‘Hell Mode’, and I laughed it off because it was such a random memory, but now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure they were looking for testers for the Hell Mode difficulty adjustment.”

“Hell mode……? What’s that?”

“And Kunra, your new memory, it’s probably from the closed beta, because they were looking for testers to try the game before it was released, and I didn’t get to play it, but they said the game was different in the closed beta. They said the combat was simpler. Maybe the protagonist was different too.”

“Clo, closed……? Say it so I can understand.”

“……Yes. That’s right! I read an interview with the first person to beat the stage during the closed beta test, and he was a hospitalized patient. Why had I forgotten about it? Before he beat it, there were no reviews of the game, but after he beat it, there were tons of reviews. Regardless of whether he failed or succeeded. I thought it was interesting even then…….”

Cadel seemed to be collecting his thoughts by spitting out the words to himself rather than explaining them to Kunra, which caused Kunra to blink puzzledly, like an old man unable to understand a slang term.

“Maybe the ‘tests’ you’re talking about are related to the game’s patches, or ‘updates’ as they’re called, and the system recruits testers for every update, and they send the transmigrators to…….”

Maybe it was too much to speculate, because it didn’t make sense to force a sane person into the game to experience it in the first place, how could it be possible?

But he was about to rely on his past memories to uncover the system’s identity in a more realistic way.

“……Halfling?”

“Uh…….”

A sudden burst of nosebleeds dripped onto the floor. Before he could cover his nose or bend his head to look up.

“This…….”

His vision turned bright red. The red flickering vision made him feel like he’d stepped into a giant warning window. No system windows popped up, no sound of anything, but Cadel instinctively knew.

‘I’m approaching a truth I’m not supposed to know, and it’s trying to stop me from thinking any further.’

If he tried to find out anything more, the system would go to extreme lengths. Even at the warning level, his body was breaking down rapidly. The nosebleeds showed no sign of stopping, followed by extreme dizziness. There was no way he could think straight in this state.

Kunra reached out to energize him at the sudden change, but Cadel stopped him.

“Wa, wait.”

“Wait what? Do you know the state you’re in…….”

“Wait.”

If Kunra’s power, which the system was wary of, were to be combined with his. He didn’t know what the system would do.

Things he hadn’t remembered until now. Balance patch, Hell Mode, beta testing, the patient, the first clear. Why his original memories, which he’d completely forgotten since being transmigrated, were starting to return. It must have been due to the ‘soul separation operation’ with Kunra.

Between the souls of Cadel Lytos and Shin Yeohwan. As the two fused souls slowly drifted apart, the restraints imposed by the system weakened, and through the gap, old memories began to surface. There were many reasons why the system erased his memories, but one of them was to prevent him from reaching the truth.

‘What is the criteria by which the system notices a change in the transmigartor and takes action: words, thoughts, or actions?’

He summarizes what he’d learned so far by spitting out his own words. The system might detect it and send out a warning. In the worst case, it could even read his thoughts.

‘I don’t know which of these is true, so it’s better to stop thinking, talking. It’s better to stop everything.’

Before the system could affect his memories, he had to heed the warning and stop thinking, so Cadel persevered through the excruciating pain. Kunra, seemingly accepting Cadel’s warning to wait, supported him as he staggered and propped up his bleeding nose.

Roughly 20 minutes passed. The redness in his vision had stopped, the dizziness and nosebleeds had stopped. Cadel leaned his exhausted body fully against Kunra and took a shaky breath.

“……You look fine now. What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

Kunra brushed away the hand that had been cradling his nose, and a light flame flared up, wiping his blood-stained palm clean. Gently brushing Cadel’s head against his chest, Kunra lifted the tip of Cadel’s chin, forcing Cadel to look up at him. Cadel’s half-open eyes blinked dazedly, then glazed over.

“I guess I found out too much at once. The system alerted me in a way it never has before. I think we’d better talk about that…… later.”

“……I see.”

Kunra didn’t push or prod the exhausted Cadel, for he, too, was experiencing a flurry of memories, but he figured it was probably nothing compared to the little human’s confusion.

“I’ll leave you to it, and when you’re feeling clearer, summon me by the pendant.”

With that, Kunra lightly picked Cadel up in his arms. Normally, Cadel would have pushed him away, asking what the hell he was doing, but his sagging body couldn’t shake the comfort of Kunra’s embrace.

Kunra picked up the calmed Cadel and headed toward the house where the Knight Order had gathered.

There was some commotion at his sudden appearance with Cadel in his arms, but not enough to rouse Cadel, who was now fast asleep. They carried him to the largest room and laid him down to sleep, worrying about their commander’s fatigue, an excuse Kunra had made up.

And the next morning.

“Let’s get to the castle. Mr. Mamil is awake!”

Cadel was ready to leave the village as soon as he received the letter that had flown in at dawn. With his hair wildly tousled and his arms full of crudely packed luggage, he looked like a child excited for a picnic.

“You fainted yesterday, but after a good night’s sleep, you’ve regained your strength, haven’t you?”

Looking at Cadel’s appearance, Lumen spat out a wry smile. Cadel didn’t even bother to look at the food Lumen had prepared, thinking that he might be hungry since he had skipped dinner. But seeing him so eager to see how his master was doing, Lumen realized it was a good thing. He wanted to give Cadel what he wanted.

“I took care of the Stone of Peace, Commander.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Here’s an apple. Eat it if you’re hungry.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Darling, I’m still sleepy.”

“Come here. Get in my pocket and sleep.”

Cadel prepared to move quickly, dealing with the approaching members one by one. The events of the evening still filled his mind, but as soon as he heard that Mamil had awakened, the harsh truths seemed like an illusion.

What he wanted to protect was clear: It was no longer a return to the real world that he wanted. It was the future of his loved ones in this world. With all his attention focused on them, the purpose of the system was somehow relegated to the back burner.

“Let’s go!”

Cadel, whose clothes had been tidied up by Garuel’s touch, quickly created a traveling magic circle.