The sound of practice swords clashing against reinforced armor echoed across the courtyard of Eunhye Academy, Seoul's most prestigious combat institution.
Even among the gifted, Cha Hae-won stood apart.
Not because he was the strongest—though he was close—but because he never smiled.
He moved like a shadow through sunlight: precise, efficient, unbothered.
Silver hair clung to his forehead with sweat as he parried another strike, pivoted, and disarmed his opponent in one clean motion.
"Again."
His voice carried no irritation, only the cold patience of someone who understood repetition was the only honest god.
His classmates didn't hate him outright. They just didn't understand him.
He was the orphan scholarship kid. The boy who didn't know how to celebrate victories. The one who turned every friendly spar into a battlefield.
Today, however, someone decided to test him.
Park Jin-soo—the son of a noble guild leader and current top scorer—stepped into the center of the yard, eyes gleaming with the kind of pride that demanded an audience.
"Hey, chain boy," he called, voice rising above the chatter. "You keep acting like you're better than us. Care for a real match?"
The crowd hushed.
Hae-won, who had been cleaning his practice blade, didn't look up.
He didn't like that name. Chain boy. He didn't even know where they'd learned it.
He'd never shown them the marks—thin ridges coiling around his wrists like faint scars of shackles—but somehow, they'd sensed something other.
"No interest," Hae-won said flatly.
"What's the matter?" Jin-soo's smile widened. "Afraid of losing without your metal pets to protect you?"
That word—metal pets—echoed too close to home.
Laughter rippled through the ring.
Hae-won finally raised his head, eyes meeting Jin-soo's. The silver in his hair caught the sun like a blade's edge.
"You want a duel?" he said. "Fine."
⸻
The instructors didn't intervene. Dueling was encouraged—controlled violence was, after all, the school's currency.
What they didn't see was that the challenge had nothing to do with training.
It was an execution by reputation.
They squared off on the dueling platform. Energy dampeners glowed along the boundary line.
Jin-soo smirked, his aura flickering with flame—a rare elemental blessing from his father's bloodline.
Hae-won stood barehanded. No weapon. No aura flare. Just that stillness that made people uneasy.
The countdown began.
5.
4.
3.
"Try not to break too quickly, charity case," Jin-soo spat.
2.
3.
Start.
Jin-soo lunged first—fire trailing from his sword, carving heat through the air. The crowd gasped. The heat shimmered like mirage waves.
Hae-won didn't move. He watched. Measured.
At the last possible instant, he sidestepped, palm striking Jin-soo's wrist. The sword clattered against the platform.
Then he drove his knee into Jin-soo's chest, knocking the wind from him.
The match should have ended there.
But Jin-soo refused to yield. He summoned another flame burst, reckless, uncontrolled. The safety dampeners flickered red.
"Stop—!" one of the instructors shouted.
Too late.
The explosion swallowed the arena. Dust. Screams. Fire.
When the smoke cleared, Jin-soo lay motionless—his aura cracked, chest scorched, breathing ragged.
Hae-won stood over him, unburned.
For a second, the crowd couldn't decide who to fear more: the boy with fire in his blood or the one who had walked through it untouched.
"You—"
An instructor grabbed Hae-won by the collar. "Do you realize what you've done?!"
"I didn't strike him after he fell," Hae-won said quietly. "He burned himself."
But logic never mattered when fear took root.
Whispers spread. He's cursed. He's not human. He doesn't feel pain.
They called him a monster after that day.
⸻
That night, Hae-won sat alone on the dorm rooftop, staring at his hands.
The burn marks from Jin-soo's aura had faded already—unnaturally fast.
He flexed his fingers. They trembled.
For the first time, he noticed the faint glimmer beneath the skin—tiny motes of red and white light, swirling like imprisoned stars.
His blood wasn't ordinary.
And deep down, he remembered what the headmaster once said when he'd asked about his parents:
"Some doors are better left closed, Hae-won. Some truths are born to be forgotten."
He had taken that as an answer. Now it felt like a threat.
The memory of Jin-soo gasping for breath replayed behind his eyes.
The guilt didn't sting—it hollowed.
He knew, logically, it wasn't his fault. But logic couldn't silence the image of his classmates' faces: awe curdled into disgust.
He pressed his palm against his chest.
"Even if I die…" he whispered to no one. "You'll be my next victim."
It was not a curse.
It was a promise.
Rain poured like punishment.
The dormitory windows rattled as thunder rolled across the city, dragging light and shadow through the hallways of Eunhye Academy. It was past midnight, and everyone was asleep—or pretending to be.
Everyone except Cha Hae-won.
He sat on his narrow bed, the blanket folded neatly beside him, his uniform shirt still buttoned. The bandages from the duel had already loosened, soaked with water that wasn't rain. His laptop glowed faintly on the desk—its cracked screen reflected his face, distorted by fractures of light.
The cursor blinked on an empty document titled:
Last Draft.
He typed slowly, each keystroke deliberate.
I thought winning would mean something. I thought being strong would make me safe.
But strength is just a mirror. It only shows you how alone you are.
If I die, you'll be my next victim. Because I'll take every piece of this cursed life with me.
He read it twice, erased nothing.
Then he closed the laptop and placed it neatly in his bag.
He wasn't crying. There was no shaking, no last-minute hesitation—only that strange clarity that comes after too much noise. The silence that says: you've already decided.
The storm outside was deafening. It reminded him of applause.
He stood, crossed the room, and opened the window.
The academy courtyard looked almost peaceful under the rain. The flag whipped violently above the gate—its sigil, the golden flame of the Guardian Guild, reflected in a puddle near the stairwell. Somewhere beneath it, Jin-soo lay in the infirmary, breathing through tubes, alive but ruined.
The guilt didn't feel real anymore. It was too large to hold.
He climbed onto the ledge.
Below him, fifty meters of darkness waited.
⸻
A sound stopped him.
Not thunder. Not footsteps.
A voice.
"Hae-won."
He froze.
It wasn't human. It wasn't external.
It was inside his head—calm, old, and far too familiar, like a lullaby half-remembered from childhood.
"You shouldn't end it here."
"Who—" he whispered.
The air rippled, faint and wrong. His reflection in the windowpane shimmered—its silver hair turning darker, the eyes shifting to a shade of dull red. The reflection smiled.
"You were never meant to belong here," it said. "This world doesn't deserve you. But another one will."
Hae-won stumbled back. His heel slipped on the wet stone.
"What are you talking about—?"
The reflection's lips moved in perfect sync with his own.
"A story is starting, Cha Hae-won. And you will write it with your blood."
The glass cracked.
Rain swallowed the world. The window shattered.
And he fell.
⸻
He expected pain. Instead, he landed on stone.
A floor that wasn't his dorm room, wasn't Seoul, wasn't Earth.
The rain was gone.
The world had gone silent again.
Above him, words appeared in glowing white text:
[ Initial Scenario: The First Floor Awaits. ]
[ Objective: Survive until the dawn bell. ]
[ Reward: Access to Regression Authority — pending completion. ]
He blinked, dazed, blood trickling from his temple.
"A… scenario?" he muttered. "Is this… a dream?"
A laugh echoed nearby. Something moved in the dark—too many legs, too many eyes. The shadows trembled as shapes formed from smoke and hunger.
The first monster of the Tower crawled into view, its mouth splitting wider than its face.
"You said I'd write it," Hae-won whispered, backing away. "Then I'll write it right."
The monster lunged.
Instinct, fear, and something ancient surged together.
His chains—unseen until now—burst from the ground, red-black-white, spiraling around him like serpents made of grief and light. They strangled the creature mid-air, tearing it apart in one swift, merciless motion.
The System reacted instantly:
[ Skill Acquired: Chain of Regression. ]
[ Effect: Upon death, user will regress to a prior timeline. Cost: Memory erosion. ]
[ Bonus Trait: Fragment of the Fallen Goddess — inherited. ]
[ Warning: Excessive use will result in mental degradation. ]
The world flickered again.
The corpse dissolved into ash.
Rain began to fall once more—but not from the sky. From him.
It streamed from his eyes, shimmering silver.
"If I can't die," he said softly, "then I'll make sure this world does instead."
The ground beneath him cracked like glass under pressure.
Hae-won blinked—and the dormitory rain became a Tower storm.
Floor 50: The Descent of Memory.
Everything blurred together: the thunder over the academy roof, the static hiss of System text, and the faint laughter of something unseen watching from above.
[ Scenario Modifier Activated: Psychological Trial — "Remembrance of Fall." ]
[ Target: Cha Hae-won. ]
[ Objective: Relive the origin of despair. Survive your own death. ]
He staggered, caught mid-step. His breathing turned uneven.
All around him, the Tower walls melted into lockers and classrooms. The smell of chalk and disinfectant returned—the cruel cleanliness of memory.
The illusion twisted, beautiful and wrong.
The courtyard was exactly as it had been that night—the flag fluttering, rain falling in cold sheets. The headmaster stood there this time, smiling softly, his hands folded behind his back. His eyes glowed faint gold—the same hue as System windows.
"Welcome back, my boy," the headmaster said gently.
"Still trying to climb, are you?"
Hae-won froze. "You're not real."
"Perhaps not. But you made me, didn't you?"
"The narrator you wrote into the margins of your first draft—'the one who decides who deserves salvation.'"
"I simply followed the role you gave me."
The Tower shuddered. The old man's smile didn't falter.
"You thought suicide would end your story," he said softly. "But it only made you readable."
⸻
Hae-won's knees hit the stone. The chains at his wrists sparked red, trying to form a defense—but the illusion was too exact. Each drop of rain was the same as that night; the same sharp smell of ozone; the same silence before he'd stepped out the window.
The headmaster's shadow grew longer, whispering. "Tell me, Cha Hae-won. Do you still want to rewrite?"
[ Regression skill destabilizing. ]
[ Fragmented timelines overlapping. ]
[ System Error: Cognitive Overload — Memory Flood Imminent. ]
He grit his teeth. "No. I'll relive it."
And then the world fractured—fifty regressions at once crashing back into him.
Every time he'd died, every time he'd begged, every time he'd lost—each version of Hae-won screamed, clawing at the inside of his skull.
The Tower wasn't killing him—it was stacking him.
⸻
A voice—soft, mechanical—broke through the flood.
[ Hidden System Function Activated: "Transmission." ]
[ Source: Regression #0 — The Suicide Draft. ]
[ Effect: Condense fragments of power from all timelines into one vessel. Cost: Empathic collapse. ]
Chains split from his arms—dozens, hundreds—thin as threads of thought, each carrying the echo of a different version of himself. They spiraled in the air, weaving into a lattice that trembled like a heart about to burst.
His chest glowed faint silver—the color of remembrance.
"Transmission…" he whispered. "You mean… from me to me?"
The System answered with silence, then flickered:
[ Skill Acquired: Transmission (Regression Link) ]
—Allows inheritance of power and emotion between timelines.
—Warning: Emotional trauma will be shared.
—Passive effect: Prevents complete memory wipe upon death.
The chains retracted slowly, trembling with the weight of every life they now carried. Hae-won's eyes bled light as the echoes of his own voices whispered in unison:
Keep going.
You promised to finish the story.
You owe us an ending.
⸻
The illusion began to break apart. The headmaster's smile twisted, cracking like porcelain.
"Do you really think this makes you free?"
Hae-won rose, unsteady but defiant. "Freedom isn't what I want."
He stepped forward—the rain turned to fire.
His fist struck the image's face, and the entire courtyard collapsed inward, turning into ash and shattered glass.
When his knuckles met stone again, the dormitory was gone. The Tower had returned.
⸻
"Hae-won!"
Voices—real ones this time—echoed from above. The rest of the party descended the spiraling staircase, light spilling from their weapons.
Do-hyun's face was pale with fury. "What the hell happened?!"
Arin landed beside him, breathless, aura bright as dawnlight—her eyes still carrying traces of Heaven's glow. "He triggered a trauma scenario—he's still bleeding—"
Hae-won smiled faintly, his expression distant. "Just… met an old teacher."
Behind him, the cracked stone pulsed once—faint light bleeding through the fractures. The echo of the headmaster's laughter lingered.
[ Scenario Complete: Survived Remembrance of Fall. ]
[ Reward: Hidden Skill Retained — Transmission (Regression Link). ]
[ Penalty: Sanity -12%. Chains Restricted x2. ]
He turned to face them, eyes still faintly luminescent silver.
"Next floor," he said quietly. "Before he comes back."
Do-hyun frowned. "Who—"
But the Tower answered for him.
[ The True Narrator has taken notice. ]
[ Floor 51 will begin immediately. ]
The world trembled. The light around Hae-won dimmed, the whisper of chains coiling like a heartbeat.
And far above, in the invisible realm where the Narrators watched, the headmaster smiled again—this time not as an illusion, but as something real.
"Very good, my boy," he murmured. "Keep climbing. I'll be waiting at the top."