“Shailyn Sharofe, I like you. Accept my confession.”

At the words that didn’t stray from my expectations, I clenched my fist tightly.

I shook off Carl’s hand and stepped back.

“……I hate it.”

I shook my head desperately. Tears naturally welled up in my eyes.

“I hate it, Carl.”

Obviously he would be the male lead of the hidden route, and the moment I accepted his feelings, the hidden ending would open.

Then, I would escape alone leaving everyone behind in a dangerous situation.

“I can’t go like this now! How could I leave you and my family……”

“You have to go! You have to go now!”

Carl rarely pressed me. His eyes were also moist with tears.

“If you don’t go, I’ll have to risk my life to protect you. Is that okay with you?”

“You……”

At his words that were like a threat, tears fell drop by drop. Even if I said no, that there was no need, Carl would do that anyway.

Seeing me cry, his face contorted in pain.

Even so, he preciously held both of my hands and confessed again.

“I like you. I cherish and love you more than anything in the world.”

I could no longer ignore the desperation contained in that voice.

If I didn’t go, Carl might really die protecting me.

“……Me too.”

I put the sincerity I had long postponed out of fear of leaving his side on the tip of my tongue.

“I love you too.”

To the extent that the words I was spitting out now felt so small.

— Ding!

【Mission Clear!

Kyllen Celsior is indeed the male lead of the hidden route!】

A system window appeared after a long time. It looked blurry and unclear, covered by tears falling drop by drop.

【You have met the conditions for the hidden route at the same time as completing the mission.

From now on, you will enter the hidden ending.】

“Carl……”

I wanted to say something to him one last time, but my throat was choked and no voice came out.

More heartbreakingly than in that dream once, Carl shed tears drop by drop.

I, too, could only watch him who was sad because he could only watch me leave.

Soon my vision was dyed pure white. I tried to capture his face until the end and finally closed my eyes.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing alone in an unfamiliar space.

Countless stairs were floating in the air, and at the end of each was a door.

“Where is this……?”

It was when I was looking around trying to somehow grasp the situation.

“Hello?”

A familiar voice fell from above my head. I turned my head toward where the sound came from and opened my eyes wide.

“……!”

There I was sitting.

A woman with my appearance from my original world before possessing Shailyn was crouched on the stairs waving her hand at me.

To me frozen with my mouth open in bewilderment, I spoke.

“It’s nice to see this face after a long time, right? I thought you’d miss it, so I came looking like this on purpose.”

“……Who are you?”

When I asked full of wariness, the woman with my appearance smiled brightly.

“By your world’s standards, I’m the game system window.”

She lightly got up and added as she came down the stairs.

“In the opposite world, they call me the sun god, Solaris.”

My eyes naturally widened.

I had somewhat expected it from when I asked the system window’s identity.

But that existence was the sun god?

“You are……!”

Countless words competed to come out from my throat and got tangled up.

Seeing me opening and closing my lips with a face full of things to say, Solaris laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

“You have a lot you want to ask me?”

“Of course!”

“Then ask.”

I swallowed dryly and regained my composure.

And I brought up what I had been most curious about first after falling into that world.

“Why did you make me possess Shailyn?”

“Because that world was in crisis of collapsing if things went wrong? I had no choice but to call you whose soul resonance was similar to Shailyn’s.”

Solaris shamelessly winked one eye. Does this person know she’s supposed to be a god?

My fist naturally clenched tight, and she seriously added.

“I needed someone who would bring a different future.”

In the end, she arbitrarily moved my soul that was living well to save her world in crisis.

I let out a low hollow laugh and then narrowed my brow and shot back.

“It’s dangerous because of Rudvalt, right? Then you could just step forward yourself and help people!”

“That’s not as easy as you think. Just as Rudvalt devoured one person’s soul to take over their body, I too would have to go through a similar process to descend to earth.”

Solaris retorted somewhat coldly. I was momentarily choked up, then remembered Raviel’s changed appearance and kept my mouth tightly shut.

Because I wouldn’t want someone else to be sacrificed like that for a god’s descent.

Solaris, who approached with her hands behind her back, smiling, tapped my arm.

“Anyway, you worked hard all this time. Now go back to your body, your world and rest comfortably.”

“……”

Even though the return I had once so desperately wished for had finally approached right before my eyes, my heart was only heavy.

‘Carl…… did he go back to the square?’

I wonder if Dain fought well instead of Carl. I hope grandfather and uncle are safe? Deborah should be uninjured too……

One side of my chest kept feeling uncomfortable with worry for the people I left behind.

Not knowing such inner thoughts of mine despite being a god, Solaris pushed my shoulder and said.

“Come on, see that door? Go up the stairs and exit through that door. Then you’ll return to normal.”

“……Wait! Then what happens to that world? Rudvalt appeared!”

To my earnest question, she smiled brightly and answered.

“That’s none of your business.”

It was perfect line-drawing.

If I went up the stairs like this, opened the door and went out, Solaris’s words would really not be wrong.

Since it would no longer be my business to worry about as someone who was neither Shailyn nor a person of that world.

“Ha…… don’t make me laugh.”

I recalled the people I met as Shailyn one by one and twisted my lips.

“You made me go through all kinds of hardships to make me attached! Now you say it’s none of my business? Are you still a god after doing that?!”

I couldn’t hold back and grabbed Solaris by the collar. Then she looked at me with round eyes.

As if surprised.

From my perspective, it was an absurd reaction. Having lived as Shailyn for almost a year, wouldn’t the people there naturally become precious?

At first they were just game characters, but now they weren’t at all.

“I can’t go like this. Send me back to Shailyn’s body right now. You come with me too!”

Act like a god and solve the misfortune that befell those who believe in you.

When I shook her collar, Solaris frowned and grabbed my wrist.

“Won’t you regret it? It’s the hidden ending you achieved with difficulty. You don’t know when such an opportunity will come again—”

“I’m already regretting it.”

I cut off her words and answered firmly. I felt hot streams flowing down my cheeks.

“I regret opening the hidden ending like Carl said. I don’t want to leave those people’s side.”

Even if the ending I faced by going back was death, I hated surviving alone abandoning Carl and my family.

I was already sick of that kind of life.

Having grown up as an orphan, I had lived without family, friends, or lovers. I didn’t want to spend such meaningless time anymore.

“Because that place has already become my world……”

It was an inevitable change since everything I desired and found valuable was all over there.

I let go of Solaris’s collar and slumped down. Then she knelt down and met my eyes.

“So you’re saying you’ll continue living as Shailyn forever?”

“……I want that, but it won’t work if the real Shailyn refuses.”

No matter how much our memories synchronized and we lived as if we became one, ultimately the owner of this body was a different soul.

When Shailyn returned, I would have to give up my place.

Solaris, who placed her hand on my dejected head, smiled gently.

“What do you think the real Shailyn is doing right now?”

“……I, I don’t know. Maybe she’s wandering around as a soul after having her body stolen by me……”

“Fool, did you already forget what I said? You and Shailyn can be said to be each other from different worlds. That’s why I put your soul into Shailyn’s body. Then what do you think I did with Shailyn’s soul?”

She playfully drew out her words. After thinking carefully, I cautiously opened my mouth.

“Did you put her in my body……?”