Chapter 1

Seven years after waking inside a novel, I had confessed to Claire Monroe ninety-nine times and been rejected every time.

The moment I told the System I was giving up on my mission, Claire suddenly confessed to me instead.

I was about to say yes when I started hearing my family's thoughts.

[In our last life, this monster nearly got Ryan killed. Thank God we were all reborn. Once they're married, I'll cut off his arms and legs!]

[Why wasn't he the one who died instead of my Ryan?]

[If it weren't for Ryan, I would rather die than marry this bastard.]

A flood of vicious thoughts crashed over me, and the world started to spin.

The redemption I'd been so sure of was nothing but a joke.

Chapter 1

"Aiden, are you so happy you've gone stupid? Say yes already!"

"From now on, your birthday can be your anniversary too!"

Mom and Dad stared at me with warm smiles.

But I didn't miss the hatred underneath them.

I took an instinctive step back.

"I... I need some time to think."

Claire Monroe gave me a puzzled look. Her voice was soft.

"Haven't you always wanted to be with me?"

The condition for remaining in this world was completing my mission with Claire.

That was why I had confessed to her ninety-nine times.

She had rejected me every single time.

Now that she was finally confessing to me, turning her down made no sense at all. It was completely out of character for the role I was supposed to be playing.

For a moment, I had no answer.

I glanced toward my parents.

Ryan had just returned from his evening classes at the community college. The second he walked in, Mom and Dad rushed over and fussed over him as if he might collapse at any moment.

Even Claire drifted toward him without realizing it.

[Ryan has always hated that his health kept him from having a normal education. Good thing we hired those thugs to stop Aiden from making it to his graduate admissions exam. Otherwise, who knows how badly he would've rubbed it in Ryan's face.]

Dad sighed and tried to persuade Ryan to hire a private tutor instead.

[Ryan keeps envying Aiden for being healthy. We can't keep lying to Ryan that Aiden is the one with kidney disease forever. Too bad their blood types don't match.]

Mom looked at Ryan with tears in her eyes.

My mind went blank.

My blood ran cold.

Then Claire suddenly glanced at me with open coldness, snapping me back to reality.

A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I clutched my head as memories I had buried for seven years came rushing back.

When I first entered this novel, I had just finished my own graduate admissions exam.

In the blink of an eye, I was in an unfamiliar world. Without thinking, I started toward the graduate exam hall in front of me.

Before I got there, a gang of drunk thugs dragged me into an alley.

They smashed my hands with clubs until the bones in my fingers snapped, and my own blood splattered across my face. The pain nearly knocked me out, but they kept jabbing me with a stun baton, over and over.

In just a few minutes, I lost control of my bladder four or five times. I lay there in the filth.

Then sirens wailed at the mouth of the alley. Mom and Dad, impeccably dressed, pulled me into their arms, their faces full of heartbreak.

Only then did I feel alive again.

"Aiden, we're sorry. We came too late."

When I woke up in the hospital, the System told me I had transmigrated into a novel as one of its villains.

It also told me my parents had already dealt with the men who attacked me.

They stayed beside my hospital bed for three straight days before finally leaving.

In my original world, I had grown up an orphan.

No one had ever protected me like that.

So I convinced myself that these people had given me the family love I had missed my entire life.

When the System asked whether I wanted to accept a mission to save Claire Monroe, I agreed without hesitation.

From that day on, I tried to please everyone around me.

I wanted to avoid the villain's original ending—turning against his family and eventually dying in a police shooting.

Not long after the attack, Mom and Dad told me the beating had damaged my kidneys.

They doted on me.

Even Ryan stayed beside me day after day.

I sank into the warmth of that false family until I stopped questioning it.

That was why, even after they started keeping me inside the house, I accepted it without resistance.

I thought I was making amends for the original Aidan Pettigrew's sins.

I thought I was saving this family from the person he had once become.

But this was the truth.

For seven years, I had been a puppet in their hands.

What gave them the right to use their memories of a previous life to force me into the same ending?

Anger rose inside me, only to die beneath the coldness in their eyes.

Claire's voice turned almost sugary.

"Aiden, have you decided?"

[Forget it. Once we're together, we'll have his kidney removed and give it to Ryan.]

[Ryan doesn't have much time left.]

I looked up sharply at Claire's beautiful face.

Her lips moved gently, shaping a lie that would kill me.

A crushing helplessness washed over me.

I laughed at myself.

"Okay. Let's be together."

[I knew this lovesick doormat would say yes. His next line is definitely going to be—]

"Claire, I love you more than anyone."

So what if I knew the truth now?

They had already written my ending for me.

And apparently, this was my fate.

Chapter 2

Everyone seemed satisfied with my answer.

My birthday celebration ended almost immediately. Mom and Dad hurried Claire into taking me upstairs to rest.

Only after hearing their thoughts did I finally understand what they had been doing to me all these years.

They had been giving me injections that slowly weakened my legs.

They wanted me dependent on them.

They wanted me too weak to leave.

And when the time came, they wanted me compliant enough to hand over a kidney to Ryan.

I used the excuse of taking a shower and locked myself in the bathroom.

Then I pulled up the story file the System had originally sent me.

In the novel, Ryan was the one with severe kidney disease.

The original Aidan Pettigrew discovered the truth by accident after being confined at home. He found Ryan's medical records and realized why the family had brought him back.

From that point on, he became exactly the monster they remembered.

He tried again and again to ruin Ryan.

After one final kidnapping attempt, Dad had him sent to prison.

The family called him an ungrateful wretch they could never win over.

In the story, Aidan had screamed at them, "Dad, if none of you ever loved me, why did you bring me home in the first place?"

For the first time, Mom had looked almost guilty.

"Aidan, you were our last hope. I only wanted Ryan to have one healthy kidney. If you need someone to hate, hate us."

At the end of the novel, Aidan smiled bleakly one last time. Then he died in a police shooting.

Both of his kidneys were used to save Ryan.

It suddenly hit me that both of my lives had ended exactly the same way.

These two kidneys of mine sure were popular.

A violent knock sounded against the bathroom door.

"Aiden? Are you okay?" Claire asked anxiously.

I knew she was afraid I might be contacting someone outside the house.

I wiped the cold water off my face and opened the door.

Claire scanned the bathroom.

Only after she found nothing suspicious did her shoulders relax.

She helped me onto the bed and dried my wet hair.

For a brief moment, the quiet intimacy almost made me forget everything I had heard.

Then she spoke.

"Aiden, the doctor says the fluid around your kidney is getting worse. They recommend removing it..."

I looked straight at her.

Under my stare, Claire looked a little guilty. She turned her head away.

"They only need to remove one."

I shook my head.

"I don't feel sick. I'm not agreeing to surgery."

Her face tightened.

"The doctor already made the recommendation. At this point, whether you want the surgery isn't entirely up to you."

She sounded increasingly impatient.

"Aiden, why do you have to fight us on everything? You're already this sick. Are you really going to keep dragging everyone down?"

[Damn it. Doesn't he understand that his only real value is that kidney?]

[If he pushes me too far, I'll have him strapped down and wheeled into surgery. And if something happens to him on the table... well, accidents happen.]

I looked at the elegant, gentle woman in front of me and felt something inside me collapse.

I had been the one who stayed beside Claire after Ryan broke up with her.

I was the one who told her that her entire life didn't have to revolve around Ryan.

I told her she could become her own sun.

And somehow, even after becoming that sun, she had still chosen to orbit him.

To Claire, I had never been a person.

I was a container carrying the kidney Ryan needed.

Mom and Dad, who had apparently been listening outside the door, walked in.

They made the decision for me.

"Enough. Claire is right. You're having the surgery the day after tomorrow.

"This family can only handle one invalid, and that's you. We can't afford a second.

"Once the kidney's out, you'll stay home and behave yourself."

Mom looked at me with gentle affection.

It would have been comforting if that affection had belonged to me.

[Once Ryan gets Aiden's kidney, he'll finally recover. He'll finally get to chase his dreams.]

I lowered my head and hid my expression, my fists clenched tight.

So Ryan deserved his dreams.

And the price was breaking both of my wings.

Everyone in this family was waiting for my kidney.

I closed my eyes.

Then I nodded.

"Fine. I'll do it."

If the only choices were staying here to be humiliated and controlled or ending this nightmare myself, I would choose myself for once.

I should have had the chance to shine too.

Chapter 3

The entire family left to discuss the transplant.

For the first time in days, I was alone in the house.

The System had listened silently to everything.

Then it finally spoke.

[Your redemption mission no longer has any meaningful path to completion.]

"Then why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning?" I demanded. "Why did you let me live inside this lie for seven years?"

The System froze for a second before answering.

[I'm sorry. This was my error.]

[When you first arrived, I failed to detect that the other characters had retained memories from a previous timeline. I classified what happened to you as an isolated incident.]

"So you were the one who let me hear their thoughts?"

[Yes.]

The System's answer came without hesitation.

[The Redemption System selected you because it detected your sympathy for Claire Monroe. Your assignment was to save her from her original ending while also changing Aidan Pettigrew's fate.]

[However, due to an administrative failure, rebirth elements entered this world and several NPCs awakened with memories from the previous timeline. That caused the mission structure to collapse.]

The System had actually offered to remove me from the mission several times over the years.

I had always refused.

It had not been allowed to directly tell me that the NPCs were aware of the previous timeline, so in the end it found another way.

It let me hear their thoughts.

[Host, if you're willing to exit the mission on the day of the surgery, we can arrange a false death and remove you from this world.]

I had already given up on the people I once called family.

I didn't want to stay here one second longer.

"No false death."

"Let me die on the operating table and send me home."

The System agreed.

As compensation, it activated something called the [Posthumous Regret Package].

According to the System, after I died, everyone who had hurt me would finally understand what they had done.

Claire would regret ignoring my love.

She would spend the rest of her life unable to love anyone else.

[Technically, that still counts as winning Claire over.]

I laughed.

The entire mission had become a joke.

I had felt sorry for Claire.

I had wanted to save her.

She had once been brilliant and full of promise, and I hated watching someone like that destroy herself over love.

Now?

She deserved to rot in the mud, with no one to pull her out.

I spent my final days alone in my room.

Claire stopped giving me the injections that weakened my body, so for once I had enough strength to climb onto the window seat and look outside.

When she entered, half my body was leaning past the open window.

Her thoughts struck me immediately.

[Why is he leaning that far out? Is he going to jump?]

[Ryan is so happy that the transplant is finally happening. I can't let Aiden ruin this. I need to keep him calm.]

Claire approached slowly and wrapped her arms around my waist from behind.

Then she went still.

I heard the thought she never said aloud.

Why was I so thin?

She had spent years giving me too much medication to eat properly.

How could I have been anything else?

I swallowed my disgust and pushed her away.

"Claire, I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to watch me every second."

Her expression darkened.

Claire had always been suspicious.

I knew my words had only made her more alert.

Still, she said nothing.

Instead, she made me a glass of milk.

I could see powdered medicine floating on the surface.

I drank it anyway.

As I lifted the glass, my sleeve slipped back.

Claire stared at the veins standing out beneath my pale skin.

For once, her thoughts went quiet.

I'd just swallowed sleeping pills, and my head grew heavy.

Her figure blurred in front of me.

Maybe I was already half asleep.

Because I could have sworn there was something like pain in her eyes.

When Claire finally spoke, her voice was unusually gentle.

"Aiden... after the surgery, let's get married."