❖━━━━━━[ROLLING...]━━━━━━❖
[RESULT DAILY ROLL: ➋ [2] - MISFORTUNE]
❖━━━━━━━[ROLLED]━━━━━━━❖
"A two? Are you f—king kidding me?"
Mark glared at the floating transparent screen. After the high of seeing two million dollars in his account, the sight of that pathetic number 2 felt like a slap in the face with a wet fish.
It wasn't a total 'Calamity' like yesterday, but 'Misfortune' sounded like the kind of day where you'd trip over a pebble and somehow break both your ankles.
"Okay, okay. Don't panic," he muttered, rubbing his smooth, exfoliated jaw.
"Two is better than one. At least I probably won't face-plant into a gun barrel this time."
But he had questions. Big ones. The money was real, the death was real, and the 36Ds were definitely real. He needed to find the man behind this—the Author.
Mark threw on his old, beat-up hoodie and jeans. He looked like a billionaire's head on a beggar's body. The haircut was still sharp, the skin still glowing, but the clothes screamed 'unemployed and desperate.'
He sprinted toward the Grand Celestia Hotel. He didn't wait for the bus; he took a taxi and paid with a crisp hundred-dollar bill, telling the driver to "keep the change" just to feel something.
But when he burst into the lobby, the air felt... cold.
Different.
"Where is he?" Mark panted, rushing to the private suite area where the raffle event had been held.
He stopped dead. The suite was open, but it was hollow.
No leather-bound books. No gold lettering. The shelves were bone-dry, coated in a thin layer of dust that looked decades old. The massive "MARÍA" banner he'd seen yesterday? It was just a blank, white sheet of plastic. No art. No name. Nothing.
"Excuse me!" Mark grabbed a passing janitor. "The event? The author? The guy with the creepy smile and the leather book?"
The janitor blinked, looking at Mark like he'd just asked for directions to Narnia. "Event? Son, this room's been booked for a wedding that got canceled last week. It's been empty since."
"No, I was here! Yesterday! I shook his hand!"
The janitor just shook his head and walked away, muttering about "crackheads with expensive haircuts."
Mark's heart sank. He whipped out his phone, his fingers trembling as he opened the WBnovel app.
Glitch.
The screen flickered, a mess of digital vomit. Then, the app icon simply... vanished. He checked his downloads.
The PDF of María? Gone. He searched the web. No results found for 'CHANCES; María The Novel'.
"What the f—k is happening?" Mark whispered. "Did I get sucked in so deep the surface world disappeared? Or is this world just... deleting the evidence?"
It was like the novel didn't exist because it wasn't a story anymore. It was his reality.
Or worse—the reality was merging with the fiction, and he was the only one with the script. A script that was currently being erased from his memory.
"Fine. If I can't find the Author, I'll play the game my way," Mark growled.
He hit a middle-class mall—nothing too flashy this time. He bought a simple, well-fitted black t-shirt and dark chinos. He didn't want to look like a target, but he didn't want to look like a waiter either.
He also grabbed a top-of-the-line smartphone, transferring his millions to a new, encrypted digital wallet. Since he noticed that even though his expensive clothes and car were gone, the glow-up was still there.
His skin was clear, his hair was perfectly styled, and his muscles... he looked at his arms. They were slightly more defined.
He realized that the loop was a goldmine. If he couldn't win her heart today, he'd use every 24 hours to turn himself into a goddamn masterpiece.
Mark spent the rest half of the day like a man on a mission. He didn't just buy clothes; he focused on himself.
Since he had millions, he hired a private chef for a four-hour intensive "healthy bulk" meal prep in his temporary high-end apartment. He ate perfectly—seared salmon, complex carbs, greens—fueling the body that had been starved for years. He hit a private gym, pushing his 6'2" frame to the limit.
"If I'm going to die over and over, I might as well have abs that can stop a bullet," he grunted during his last set of rows.
By 2:00 PM, he looked dangerous. Not the 'starving model' look from before, but a lean, powerful build that filled out a simple black t-shirt in all the right places. His chest was broad, his waist tapered, and his movements had a new, grounded confidence.
After that, he spent the rest of the afternoon in a cheap diner, nursing a cold coffee and trying to remember every detail of Chapter 15.
"The hit happens at 11:59 PM," he scribbled on a napkin. "Four shooters from the front. Two from the service entrance. María is sitting at the center booth."
He looked at the napkin. I'm a prophet now. I can save her. I can be the hero.
⚀ ⚁ ⚂
9:30 PM.
Mark entered the Bar Celestia. He felt the weight of his new phone in his pocket and the 'Misfortune' of the number 2 weighing on his soul. The jazz music was playing the same smooth, mournful tune. The scent of bourbon was identical.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK
Then, he saw her.
María. She was wearing that red dress again. It looked like a second skin, dangerously tight, glowing under the dim amber lights. She looked like a queen waiting for a war.
Mark didn't wait. He didn't order a drink. He didn't try to be smooth.
He marched straight to her table. His heart was a drum, thump-thump, thump-thump. He saw her hand drift toward her thigh, toward the silver pistol hidden beneath that silk.
"María!" Mark blurted out, loud enough to make the nearby couple jump.
He didn't stop. He threw himself onto his knees right in front of her booth. "Listen to me! You have to leave! Right now!"
"María! You don't know me, but you need to listen!" Mark hissed, trying to keep his voice low. "In exactly eight minutes, this place is going to turn into a graveyard. Six men. Front and back. You're the target. Get out. NOW!"
María's reaction wasn't fear. It wasn't curiosity.
She looked at Mark—really looked at him. Her eyes traveled up his lean, muscular frame, lingering for a second on the way his shirt strained against his shoulders.
For a moment, Mark thought he saw a flicker of interest.
Then, her gaze turned into ice.
"How do you know my name, estúpido?" she asked, her voice a low, dangerous purr.
"I... I just know! I'm a... I have visions!" Mark blurted out. Bad move.
María's eyes narrowed. In her world, a handsome stranger knowing her name and her location wasn't a miracle. It was a threat. It meant he was a high-level stalker or a spy from a rival family who was trying to play "hero" to get close to her.
"Visions? " she hissed, her voice like a whip. "You are nothing but a pathetic acosador—a stalker. How do you know my name? Who paid you to follow me?"
"No! No one! I read it in a—"
Mark never finished the sentence.
WHAM.
Because of that damned Number 2, Mark's 'Misfortune' kicked in. As he tried to stand up to grab her hand, his foot caught on the edge of the carpet. He lunged forward awkwardly—looking less like a savior and more like a pervert trying to dive into her lap again.
María didn't hesitate. She didn't use her gun. She used her legs.
THWACK.
A black-heeled high kick swung in a perfect, lethal arc. It caught Mark right under the chin.
CRACK.
Mark's teeth slammed together so hard he saw stars.
His head snapped back, his vision turning into a kaleidoscope of pain and red silk. As he spiraled toward the floor, he caught a fleeting, blurry glimpse—thanks to the angle of his fall—of a flash of red lace.
Red lace underwear. Matching the dress. God, she's organized, Mark thought dimly before his head bounced off the marble floor.
THUD.
Mark was out cold.
BOOM!
The doors exploded. Just like he predicted.
The bar turned into a slaughterhouse. Screams, breaking glass, and the rhythmic POP-POP-POP of suppressed pistols filled the air.
Mark lay on the floor, a dead weight. The panicked crowd didn't see him. They just saw an exit.
STOMP. CRUNCH. CRACK.
"AGH—!" Mark's eyes flickered open for a second as a 200-pound man wearing heavy boots stepped squarely on his ribs.
Then another. And another.
He was a human rug. He could hear the wet sound of his own lungs collapsing. He looked toward the booth through the forest of running legs.
He saw María—she was a whirlwind of violence, firing two-handed, her face a mask of cold fury.
She looked magnificent.
She really does have a hell of a kick, Mark thought, a bubble of blood popping on his lips.
A stray bullet hit a chandelier above him. A massive shard of crystal dropped like a guillotine, plunging straight into Mark's throat.
SHLICK.
Mark didn't even have time to scream. The world went black. Again.
⚀ ⚁ ⚂
DRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Mark sat up so fast he nearly flipped off the bed. He was hyperventilating, his hands clutching his neck, feeling for the crystal shard.
"F—k! F—k! F—k!" he yelled, his voice echoing in the tiny room.
He checked his body. No bruises from the stampede. No broken jaw from the kick. But the memory was there.
The phantom pain of a dozen boots crushing his chest.
Sighed he checking his body again. His body... it was still there. The muscle he'd built in the gym, the results of the healthy meal prep—they hadn't reset. He looked lean, powerful, and fit.
"Okay... so physical training stays," Mark whispered, a manic grin spreading across his face. "If I keep this up for a hundred loops, I'll be a f—king super soldier yet I don't know if I could be mentally sane if getting death like that hundreds of times..."
He grabbed his phone. 4:00 AM.
The semi transparent window appeared back in front of him.
[KRRRRTTTKKKK.]
[WAITING...]
[HELLO HOST]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[DEATH ANALYSIS: 'STAMPEDED BY COWARDS'.]
[STATUS: AT LEAST YOU SAW THE LACE. YOU ABSOLUTE CREEP.]
[COMPENSATION: $250,000 HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR VAULT.]
[TOTAL BALANCE: $2,250,000]
Mark stared at the screen. Two hundreds and fifty thousand dollars. That's not much than calamity yet, he still becoming the richest corpse in history.
He walked to the mirror. His jaw felt fine, but he could still taste the faint metallic tang of blood. He looked at the floor. The new phone he bought? Gone. The black t-shirt? Gone. He was back in the itchy hoodie. So, if it's his true old things, it won't gone.
"She's gonna kill me every time, isn't she?" Mark whispered, a half-crazy laugh escaping his lips. "She thinks I'm a freak. A stalker. A dead man walking."
He closed his eyes, the image of that red lace burned into his mind. "Thirty-six D. Red lace. And a kick that can kill a horse," Mark breathed, a small shiver running down his spine. "She's terrifying. I love her."
He looked at the transparent window. The dice were already shaking for the third loop.
"Okay, System. No more prophets. No more flowers. If I'm going to survive today... I need to be someone she can't afford to kick. Someone who doesn't trip over their own feet"
He tapped the screen.
"Give me a nine. Please, just give me a f—king nine."
❖━━━━━━[ROLLING...]━━━━━━❖
⚃ ⚄ ⚅
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