[ Do you want to create a new Save Point? ]

Even as the message window incessantly hovered in front of him, Damian refused to give an answer. Instead, he took the chance to check himself out first.

If this had been any other game, Damian’s OCD would have made him save immediately, but Fate’s Guide only had one Save Point Slot…

Since the rules of the game had been followed to a T till now in this world, Damian wasn’t going to gamble with his life, especially if death wasn’t the end.

Considering the possibility where he could get stuck with annoying status effects like ‘Late Poisoning’ or ‘Unknown Infection’ every time he respawned, he would rather use up this life by blindly exploring before meeting his end and taking it back from the start.

‘Safe.’

Thankfully, Damian had managed to avoid any unfortunate situations since he handled the Goblin as fast as he could.

Following that, Damian stared at the entrance that the Goblin came through for a whole minute. It was only then that he put away the knife and answered the repeating question.

‘Save.’

[ Save Point has been created. Main Save Point has been replaced. ]

‘I knew it.’

The reason Damian had waited was very simple, there was no guarantee that the Goblin was the only monster that made its way to this cave.

Although it might appear easier to handle one monster of a time, as someone who spent days repeating a single stage to achieve an ideal clear, Damian preferred to strategize for the whole stage at once.

That way, he could effectively utilize the time and resources he had to deal with all encounters with some leeway left. After all, hidden stages were plenty in Fate’s Guide.

Anyhow, it seemed like this still counted as a tutorial stage with only one battle encounter, so Damian could finally take a breath after creating a better Save Point.

“Haaaa…”

Once the adrenaline stopped pumping, Damian’s shaky stance collapsed as he fell flat on his back.

He had to freeze all of his emotions and deal with this as a game in order to escape that horrifying loop, but it all felt wrong.

‘Is that all it takes to treat death as nothing?’

The emotional shock from his first death was enough to kill Damian a second time. His second death was confusing… Nonetheless, once the count went past 10, it all felt lighter than paper.

Just a minute ago, he was contemplating trading one more life to get a better start. Yet the current Damian was having trouble accepting all of this.

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‘I have played this game for far too long.’

How this came to be wasn’t a hard question to answer. It was precisely because over half of Damian’s adult life was spent playing Fate’s Guide that his mind readily accepted its rules as the new common sense…

At this point, the Plot Armor System’s requirements were becoming clearer and clearer.

{Are you okay?}

Amid his self-discovery, the armored ghost floated next to him with apparent pity in her eyes. Somehow, this told Damian a very important detail.

“Did you see it all happen?”

{...Yes.}

In this realistic patch of Fate’s Guide, it seems like he didn’t just get to converse with the characters he controlled, they also accompanied him in every timeline possible!

{I saw my body fall to death over and over and over. I thought I would be stuck here forever, but…}

Having been ejected out of her body at the most miserable moment of her life, Iris Platina didn’t know what to do aside from breaking into a panic.

To make things worse, her body started moving on its own not too long after. At first, Iris wondered if this was a plot to steal her body… Until she quickly remembered how useless both her and her body were.

Furthermore, as if to add on to her despair, even her possessed body lost movement very soon. It had met a very unfortunate death, spurting enough blood from its neck to cover her entire torso.

‘Rest in peace, me.’

Originally, this should have meant that she had nowhere to return to, destined to wander this labyrinth as a ghost, but just like a broken clockwork, everything went back the way it was…

If only to repeat the same harrowing process again and yet again.

‘Is this my punishment for living this long?’

When she just fell into the damned place, Iris complained how unfair the world was. Hadn’t she suffered enough? However, now that she was being exposed to such unique mental torture, her worldview almost completely broke apart.

Was this her punishment for being born? It must have been. Iris was always told that even the hard bread she received was better fed to a bonfire, yet she held on to her mother’s will and denied all of that.

Now, however, it felt like it was all true.

‘This is the only explanation.’

Otherwise, what other sin could deserve such torture?

Iris was starting to believe that this was the judgment passed upon people who had lived a useless and wasteful life like hers. Being forced to watch their moment of death to the end of all-time.

‘Huh?’

However, beyond Iris’s expectations, her body didn’t repeat the same cycle for long. She wasn’t stuck in an unchangeable loop, her body took different actions every time.

‘How?’

Eventually, the body and the life that Iris had basically gave up on were preserved just like that. At this moment, she could instinctively tell that what was inside her body was far from human, and it had fought her battle for her.

Although it could have been just for the sake of maintaining the body that they had obtained, Iris was grateful merely for being spared from the repeating visual horrors.

{You somehow managed to reverse the situation and survive. I don’t know who you are, but for that, I thank you. I don’t resent you for taking my body either.}

Rather than being sad about her status as a ghost, Iris felt somewhat relieved. Maybe if it was the being that could overcome this situation, they could survive this place and change her status as the disgrace of the Platina family…

“Um, I appreciate the gratitude, but I’m just as confused as you are. Can you perhaps fill in the gaps of how you got separated from your body like this?”

{What did I do before that happened? The details are quite hazy. I… I believe I was desperately asking for help. There was no one around, but I couldn’t think of anything else.}

Iris would have been embarrassed to share her moment of weakness with someone she didn’t know, but all of that didn’t matter now. It wasn’t like a ghost had to care about the opinion of the living!

“Ohh… So it’s just as I expected. A person with a great destiny thrown into a desperate situation. Their call for help announces the descent of Fate’s Guide, leading them toward what they truly deserve… Ah, it should be Plot Armor now, right?”

Recalling the excerpt that was always recounted at the start of every level, Damian naturally mouthed it out word by word, unaware of what he had just done.

{Call for help…}

Iris’s mind suddenly froze as she heard Damian’s chant. Hadn’t she just accepted that she was lesser than trash, something deserving of no help nor pity? How was she supposed to react when being told that her calls had been answered?

Looking back at the string of events, it was really plausible, someone had really come to pull her out of the depth of the abyss!

Just as Iris’ thoughts started to spiral out of control, Damian broke the whirlpool as he directly got to business.

“Yeah, I’m here to help, so why don’t you tell me all about how you fell into this place, Iris? A summary of your life leading to this point would also be appreciated. I’m Damian by the way.”

If this was IRL Fate’s Guide, then wasn’t reading the Character Setting Page the only way to truly start this level?