The city echoed with jubilant laughter and exuberance as it embraced the triumphant arrival of the hero and her comrades. After a grueling seven-year struggle, the demon king and his forces were ultimately vanquished.

On the screen, a familiar tableau unfolded—the hero and her companions riding victoriously amidst a cascade of joyous celebration. However, the visual narrative split the computer screen in half, offering a stark contrast between elation and somber grandeur. One side overflowed with jubilation, resonating with the echoes of laughter and cheer. Meanwhile, the other half was shrouded in poignant ambiance, showcasing the lifeless, blood-drenched form of the defeated demon king. His head lay severed from his body, and the ground beneath was soaked in a grim testament to the end of his reign, as lifeless bodies surrounded the fallen tyrant.

I don't like the ending, I muttered, looking at my computer screen. I couldn't help but add a depressing comment. Except for the fact that today was the day the game was closing……. My gaze drifted to the bottom of the computer where the time, 1:45 pm, had been scrawled haphazardly.

I turned to the window  the sky outside was dark with no stars in sight. Immediately, a sense of gloom enveloped my entire body. For seven years, this game had been the only way to deal with sickness.

Kulk! I let out a thick cough, quickly wiping the bloody phlegm away with my sleeve. Should I throw this away again? It won't come off well with water, I thought to myself. Looking at the ashtray, which was piled high with cigarette butts, I couldn't help but let out a hollow sigh. I'm really going to die. Even in this moment, I'm dying dozens of times faster than everyone else, like the end of the last villain in a video game. It's true. It's been a long time since I've played this game, about 7 years. After being given a shocking time limit by my doctor, I holed myself up in the corner like an invalid and immersed myself in the game.

To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish. I've already cleared it multiple times. I had memorized every hidden piece and character lore. It's a fantasy open-world genre that was highly anticipated by many but crashed and burned due to overly high difficulty. But for me, it's a game I wouldn't trade for anything. It was a ray of light for me when I was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I've beaten To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish. a whopping 90 times. I was the perfect dead man walking for this game.

Huh… I wonder if this is a good ending for the demon king……. After enjoying the afterglow of the ending, I grabbed the mouse again and maneuvered the cursor. As the end credits rolled on the monitor, I saw the screen light up again. The time had come. Time to start a new game. Excitedly, I went ahead and started creating my character.

So, which character should I play this time…… Character creation. This is my favorite part of playing To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish., after all.

[Please choose your character]. [What character should I play as today] A list of character names along with 2D images filled the screen.

I stared at the multitude of character options, scrolling down past each. Each character had their unique appearance and poses. Continuing among the hundreds of characters, from the hero to even NPC characters, my eyes stopped at the button.

Written in red, contrasting with the names of the other characters written in gray or gold, the name Isrifa Ors Arnestry was written in red as if blood was used. Below the name was a 2D image of a girl no more than 16 or 17, with hair as dark as the night sky and skin as pale as candle wax. Clad in a black and white dress, her hand clutching a sword gave off an eerie feeling. She had heterochromia eyes  her right eye was pure white, closing to blue like the ocean, in contrast to her left eye, which was an inky black like a bottomless abyss.

I played as almost all the characters in the game, from the hero to every one of his comrades  I even played the role of their side kid. Except for the demon king, the game never gives you the option to play as the demon, as if the fate of the demon king was something set in stone. Strange, the game never gives players the option to play as the demon king before.

Clicking the demon king avatar, the game screen changed. Besides the 2D image of the demon king was a list of skills. One of the biggest differences between To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish. was the way in which the skills and classes each character had their own skills and class, and if you met certain requirements, you could learn skills from different classes. For example, a Necromancer class can learn skills from a Prestige class if you meet the requirements. To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish. has two skill trees: the normal skill and the lord skill. Normal skills are skills that can be acquired by any class, while the lord skills can only be acquired by one character, no matter their class. Lord skills are skills that change the very setting of the game. For instance, if you're playing a game with an action and comedy setting and use one of the demon lord's skills, Apocalypse, the setting of the game will change from action and comedy to Apocalypse.

I thought the game offers many different skills, some good, others trash. The problem is that they take so long to look through every one. After setting the skill choice to random, I moved on to choosing my character's lord skill. The first skill that caught my eyes was the skill the demon usually used: Lord of Blood, and Lord of Demons. Starting at the last skill, Lord of Apocalypse, after creating my character, the game start button popped up at the bottom of the screen.

I hovered my mouse cursor over the Create Character button and pressed it. Poof! For a brief moment, there was the sound of sparks flying, followed by the sensation of electricity. I looked up, feeling my breath catch in my throat as if I were being swallowed up by a vortex. My vision was blacked out, as if I had a blackout film over it, and at the same time, my heart was pounding in my chest.

What the hell is going on? The pain I was experiencing was unfamiliar, like nothing I'd ever felt before. Suddenly, a disturbing thought flashed through my mind. 'Am I going to die now, all of a sudden, in the middle of a game? Death was all too familiar to me, but I didn't want to die like this. At least not when I was ready. I wanted to die the way I wanted to die. But… is this how it's going to end? There are still things I want to do, things I wanted to eat  I still had a lot of games I wanted to play….'

That was the moment I realized. [You have successfully created a character]. Along with that, the intense pain that had been plaguing me a moment ago suddenly subsided. My eyes glazed over as my darkened vision returned to normal. A warm glow settled over my closed eyelids. And then, when I opened my eyes, I couldn't help but panic once again.

Where am I……? Dark curtains surrounded me, and a brown rug lay beneath them. And the fluffy futon. This place was unfamiliar, yet very familiar to me. A game I'd played to death over the past 7 years. I had. I've just woken up inside To Our Love That Will Eventually Perish., inside the mansion of one of the game's biggest villains, the Arnestry family. Blood princess, Isrifa Ors Arnestry.