For most people, living is a journey that takes a bit of effort but can always be walked through.
But for Allen de Laval, living itself is the ultimate mission to challenge the underlying logic of this messed-up world.
He is like a mayfly nailed to the specimen board of fate.
No matter how hard he flaps his wings, he can’t fly out of the glass dome called “born at dawn, dead at dusk.” In the source code of Starlight Love Song, there is no route where Allen can escape the scripted death.
Why?
Why should he be thrown into this Avici Hell, experiencing all sorts of bizarre deaths over and over again, paying for the sins that damn original body committed?
He just wanted to be a quiet salted fish, find a way to make a little money after graduation, revive the nearly bankrupt family, and live a not-so-hated decadent noble life. Was that too much to ask?
The world answered him with bloody deaths, one after another: Yes, it is too much.
When Allen first transmigrated, he still had some naive fantasies.
He had read plenty of villain stories. In those tales, as long as the villain reformed and got along with the original characters, wouldn’t a happy ending come?
But that naive fantasy had long been crushed into dust by reality. Nobody wanted to be friends with Allen, the infamous “villain young master.”
Livia could transform from a border village girl into the goddess of the academy thanks to her cheater star emblem. This was an otome world revolving around a female protagonist, with a protagonist’s halo so bright it blinded everyone.
And Allen de Laval? He was just a minor villain whose “character backstory” wasn’t even worth writing in detail.
The only things he had were the experience carved into his bones from countless cycles of death, the ruthless instincts forced upon him, and… a searing hatred capable of burning down the world.
He hated this world, hated the unfair emblems, hated this tragic fate of repeated deaths.
He was long past being that transmigrator who used to tremble at the thought of killing a chicken.
To survive, he could do anything, even if it meant bearing sin and staining his hands with blood.
Murder the protagonist? He’d done it, only to have his plan exposed and get instantly killed by Livia on the spot.
Join the Crimson Spiral Order? He’d done that too, but those anti-human scumbags disgusted him even more than Livia.
So he slaughtered his way through the order, only to be burned to ashes by the backlash of the false emblem.
He had no moral high ground to condemn Marianne, because in essence, both of their souls were eternally scorched by the flames of revenge. For that, both would become devils.
Allen leaned back against the soft pillow, feeling his weakened body after nearly drowning and a rare moment of peace. His mind, however, was racing.
Livia’s awe-inspiring figure replayed in his mind. He began analyzing his last failure.
Livia’s seemingly perfect swordsmanship… it wasn’t without flaws. It’s just that he had been blinded by the elixir and his rage at the time.
If… if he had been calmer, could he have actually left a scratch on that Female Overlord’s delicate face?
If he perfectly avoided all events, he would still die.
So, if he started a new playthrough ahead of time, what strategy should he adopt to handle the upcoming challenges?
Allen racked his brain for a way to break the deadlock. Just then, his door burst open with a bang!
A slightly chubby middle-aged man in a silk robe rolled in, his face covered in tears and snot, with no noble dignity at all. He rushed to the bedside like a cannonball and grabbed Allen’s hand.
“Oh! Allen! My dear son! The Lord has mercy!” Viscount Bernard de Laval’s voice trembled like leaves in the wind, tears streaming down.
“You’re finally awake! I thought… I thought I would lose you like I lost your mother! If anything happened to you, I… I…”
He choked up, unable to speak, just gripping Allen’s hand tightly, as if letting go would make his son disappear.
Allen’s heart was scalded by his father’s warm hand. The original body’s mother died early. Out of guilt, Bernard had doted on his son endlessly, almost blindly indulging the original’s misdeeds, which led to this bitter result.
But in this world full of malice, Bernard was the only one who loved him.
Father and son had relied on each other through countless cycles.
Ironically, this doting father, in the original story, could not escape being liquidated by the Crown Prince and having his family ruined. He and his father were the epitome of the “doomed men” bond.
Looking at his father, who was crying like a two-hundred-pound child, the cold anxiety in Allen’s heart was diluted by a sour warmth.
He instinctively reached out, gently patted his father’s heaving back, and his voice became unusually gentle: “Alright… Father, I’m fine. Don’t cry. Look, I’m perfectly fine, aren’t I?”
Allen’s soothing had an immediate effect. Bernard’s howling stopped abruptly.
However, Allen had put his effort in the wrong direction.
Bernard suddenly looked up. His tear-streaked face was instantly filled with suspicion. His eyes scanned Allen’s face like searchlights.
In the shadow of the doorway, the silently standing black-haired maid, Marianne, also flickered a deep wariness in her crimson eyes.
The air froze instantly. The atmosphere was awkward enough to carve out a Viscount Laval mansion.
Allen’s heart skipped a beat.
Crap! I messed up!
Would the original body’s demon king ever comfort someone so gently? Would he show a “kind father and filial son” expression to his old man?
That guy would only put on a stinky face and play mute in front of his enthusiastic father, and even hurl abuse! That was purely instinct just now. I forgot that at this point in time, I haven’t yet repaired my relationship with my father!
Drowning once and then undergoing a personality change? That script was too fake!
In his panic, Allen’s mind was struck by lightning!
A memory fragment from before his transmigration that he had overlooked suddenly surfaced—he had been grinding the hidden route of Starlight Love Song at the time, the church route!
The church route was considered the hardest to enter and the most difficult route in the original game.
To enter the church route, you first needed to perfectly clear all endings.
When you entered the game again, the starting time would be moved up to before entering the academy. This timing exactly matched Allen’s current situation!
In the original Starlight Love Song, the church was clearly opposed to nobles misusing emblems, and its stance was naturally at odds with the royalty and nobility who used emblems as the basis of their rule.
The St. Nora Crest Academy was an aristocratic academy established by the royal family to weaken the church’s influence. Entering the academy meant cutting ties with the church.
In past cycles, Allen had always started new playthroughs inside the academy, so he never had a chance to contact the church. But now, he had a brand-new choice.
The key to breaking the deadlock was here!
The church’s stance perfectly matched his identity as an “emblemless commoner”!
As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
If Allen joined the church and gained its protection, the tragedy of being framed to death by the Crown Prince in the last playthrough wouldn’t happen so easily!
More importantly, the original game was tight-lipped about the church’s secrets. Joining the church might even help him figure out the truth behind his cycle of death!
The problem was, Allen wasn’t a believer. How could he get in touch with the church?
Allen came up with an idea almost instantly.
Play the charlatan! Attract the church’s attention!
This trick worked like a charm in this ignorant era!
Facing his father’s suspicious stare that was almost boring into his skin, Allen’s inner drama queen immediately took over.
He grimaced in pain, pressing his forehead, his brows tightly furrowed. A look of confusion and immense fatigue appeared on his face at just the right moment. His voice was weak and perfectly timed, with a hint of airiness:
“Father… I… I feel strange. It’s like… I had a very long dream…” His eyes went vacant, as if staring into the void.
“So much light… golden, warm… and then icy cold. After waking up, a lot of things… I can’t remember. My head hurts…”
He paused, swallowed with difficulty, and put on a childish, dazed look of fear.
“I think… I saw… some indescribable sights? Like a divine kingdom? Or blazing stars? There was a voice… very grand… pious.”
Before he finished, Allen suddenly grabbed Bernard’s hand, his fingertips pale from the pressure. His eyes instantly focused, carrying the awe of someone struck by a “revelation.”
“He said… I should reform! He gave me… a chance to be reborn!”
Perfect! Allen gave himself a mental thumbs up. Top-notch delivery, flawless emotional progression!
How was the effect?
Bernard’s suspicion was instantly replaced by a fanaticism mixed with awe and joy!
He gripped Allen’s hand even harder, trembling all over: “Grace… Grace of God?! Yes! That must be it!”
Bernard’s voice shook, his eyes bursting with a nearly pilgrim-like light.
“My child! The Lord has pitied this sinner’s prayers day and night! He heard! He gave you a chance to be reborn! To free you from the… delusions of the past!”
He looked at Allen as if he were a lost-and-found relic personally blessed by God.
Ha ha ha! How’s that for a bluff? I actually pulled it off!
The old man’s religious devotion and desperation to save his son were the perfect assists!
Allen casually glanced sideways at Marianne.
Hearing “reform,” “cleanse the filth,” “Grace of God,” and especially sensing Viscount Bernard’s fanatical religious fervor, Marianne, who had been merely wary, turned pale in an instant.
Panic and fear surged in her crimson eyes like a tide. Her body even swayed slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Marianne’s reaction made Allen sigh inwardly. His last glimmer of hope was extinguished.
It seems I really can’t save you after all, Marianne.
Once Marianne’s identity as a cultist was exposed to the church, a fate a hundred times more terrifying than death awaited her—
In the deepest dungeon of the Inquisition Tribunal, she would undergo the most horrific torture and “purification.”
Marianne, what will you do next?
Allen instantly thought of the opening event of the church route, and a complex plan gradually took shape in his mind.
“Good! Good! Reform! We’ll start anew! Thank the Lord for His grace!” Bernard was so excited he was incoherent. He suddenly shouted toward the door, “Butler! Jean!”
An old man with graying hair, wearing a crisply starched black wool butler’s uniform, appeared silently like a ghost.
He had a slight stoop, his face was as kind as a grandfather’s, but his eyes were sharp and clear.
The butler, Jean Leclerc, bowed silently: “Sir, your orders?”
His gaze quickly swept over Allen, carrying concern and scrutiny.
“Tonight! Prepare a family feast! The best! Celebrate Allen’s rebirth! Bring up that bottle… that bottle…”
Bernard waved his arms excitedly, as if inviting the king.
The old butler stepped forward, leaned close to Bernard’s ear, and lowered his voice with a hint of undeniable worry:
“Sir, that best southern champagne… is one of the items you pawned to Madame Mornay last month for emergency funds…Moreover,” he paused, his voice even lower, “because of unpaid wages, the chef, Mr. Robert, is still on strike. He says… unless the arrears are settled, he refuses to step into the kitchen.”
A look of embarrassment and pain flashed across Bernard’s face. His high spirits visibly deflated like a punctured balloon.
He subconsciously glanced at his son, who was lying in bed, “bathed in divine grace and awaiting rebirth.”
Feeling his father’s gaze, Allen cleverly lowered his eyelids. His long lashes cast shadows on his pale face, making him look fragile and pitiful.
‘My son… he’s so pitiful…’
Viscount Bernard took a deep breath, as if making a desperate decision. He straightened his back again, with a tragic grandeur that said, “What the hell, let’s eat nothing but the northwest wind tomorrow,” and waved his hand:
“I don’t care! At least… at least tonight! Let my son have a good meal! Do it! Tell Robert, the money… money will be paid! Right now! Immediately! Allen needs to celebrate his new life!”
He almost shouted it, as if volume alone could dispel the clouds of bankruptcy.
Old Butler Jean sighed silently, a hint of helplessness in his eyes, but he still bowed respectfully: “Yes, sir.”
With that, the butler’s gaze swept over the pale-faced Marianne, and he reminded:
“Head maid, come with me. We need hands for the evening banquet.”
Marianne snapped back to reality. Her body stiff as she followed the butler out, her steps unsteady. She kept her head down, not daring to look in the direction of the bed.
Only father and son remained in the room. Embarrassed by his own awkwardness and the grim financial reality, Bernard forced a smile and patted Allen’s shoulder: “Get some rest, my child. We’ll celebrate properly tonight.”
He turned to leave, apparently in a hurry to deal with the mess.
“Father.”
Allen’s voice came from behind, calm but with a resolute power.
Bernard stopped and turned around.
“What is it, my dear son?”
Allen’s gaze was like a torch, his eyes churning with the deep-seated paranoia carved into his bones over multiple playthroughs.
The malice of the world was always lurking. He trusted no one except his father, who shared a similar fate.
Allen looked straight at his father and spoke in a tone nearly as cold as analyzing a script:
“Wait a moment. Before the celebration… there’s something I must confess to you.”
Bernard looked at his son’s unusually serious gaze, which even carried a hint of pity, and felt a strange tightness in his chest. But he still forced a smile: “Oh, my dear son, just say what you want! Your father…”
He was about to make a bold promise, but his confidence deflated halfway when he remembered his empty purse.
Allen interrupted him, one word at a time, crystal clear:
“It’s nothing like that. I just want to tell you that if we don’t do something… tonight, or tomorrow night—soon, anyway—you and I will both die.”