Chapter 8: Is it wrong to pick up girls in a time loop fanfic?

I stare at the status screen before me.

[You have failed your 9765th run]

I take a deep breath, despite there is no air here. Hell, pretty sure I am just a blob of…. Something, floating around in this Oblivion.

Dafak did you mean this is my 9765Th run?! I don't remember doing this bullshit that many times! I woke up, realized I am in some kind of fanfic, and proceed to find myself to somehow become the richest man on Genkai and turn Orario into a Hero Factory.

That sums up my first run. Pretty sure I didn't do that over 9000 times!

[You have a receive a message from you 9764th iteration]

Oh good. Some explanation.

(((Mike Shinoda, the 9764th Player iteration)))

Hi, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.

I had made the executive decision to delete all my playthrough logs as well as my personal memories.

I'm done.

Listen, Player 9765.

Beating Alduin, Smaug, Great Black, Ender Dragon, whatever it is you call it this time, is quite frankly,

Fucking impossible.

I have tried everything. Trust me. I follow the canon. Break the canon. Helped Bell. Killed Bell. Joined Hestia. Joined Hephy. Killed Ryuu. Redeem Ryuu and joined Astraea. Joined Freya. Joined Loki. Raised Ais to max level. Dated Ais. Killed Ais. Dated everyone. Rejected everyone. Joined Miach. Destroyed Miach. Married Naaza. Divorced Naaza. Married Naaza again. Have a kid with Naaza. Have a Kid with Riviera. Revived Alfia. Takeover Evilus. Destroyed Evilus. Killed Zeus to get Bell early. Leave Bell behind. Raise him. Destroy him. Abandon him Raise him again. Sacrificed Jaune. Sacrificed…

Sorry, I went on a tangent did I?

Everything is so blurry to me now. Without system logs, I wouldn't even know what Number I am. Regardless of that, I had dedicated every single playthroughs for one purpose.

To defeat Alduin.

Player 0001 arrived in Orario on 6th June 0000. And Alduin will arrive to end everything at 6th of June 0006. The Player has a maximum six whole years to prepare to defeat Alduin.

And I have lived thousands of years dedicating my whole being for that purpose.

And now, I am done. I am tired of seeing everyone dying over and over again. Tired of helping them. Tired of betraying them. Tired of killing them. I am very, very tired.

I have repeated this endless Doomsday Prepper game for perhaps 100000 years. Whatever, I don't even want to calculate the exact years. It will just send me to another decades of insanity.

No matter what I do, I had never defeated Alduin. I tried everything. Max Level Bell. Max Level Ais. Convinced all the gods to unleash their Arcanum at once. Those are some of my magnum opus runs.

And it didn't do shit.

I had even killed Ouranus for several dozens times, you know. Releasing all the monsters in the dungeon and send the planet into apocalypse. An insanity gambit for freedom from this hell.

Doesn't matter, Alduin will come and End everything, and I will return back, regardless of my will.

I had gone insane, circle back to sanity, gone insane again and circle back to sanity over and over again. I had done every Route possible.

And this story never ends. It keeps resetting.

I had fallen in love, hated everyone and fallen in love over and over again. It keeps repeating over and over and over and over again.

This 6 years cycle is a hell assigned to me.

Also, this is not the first time I deleted my memory. Well, delete is a bit of a false advertisement. The memories and playthrough logs can be retrieved if you key in the right password. I will warn you to not open it, but eventually, you will grow desperate. You will be tempted to open the Pandora Box. In several dozens playthroughs, you will find the right password.

And you will regret it each time.

I'll try to warn you, but I know you will open the Box eventually. It always happens. I should know. I did it for countless times afterall.

Enjoy the show, Player 9765. It will turn into hell several runs later.

Always.

-Sincerely, Mike Shinoda, Player 9764

.

(((Soren Ravencroft, the 9765th Player iteration)))

Hmmm

What a dick.

Also, what kind of noob are you? You failed to beat the fucking thing 9000 times?

I beat the fucking thing in my first playthrough!

No wonder you went insane! You've been playing the wrong game this whole time!

Don't think I didn't notice what you've been doing over and over again. Everything you do is to defeat Alduin.

Or course it never fucking works!

Alduin is a scripted Bad End! A timegated event. It punish me if I fail to complete the story true objective in 6 years! That's what you failed to figure out!

Don't worry you stupid fuck. I will never open the Pandora Box. You had been working on the wrong assumption this whole time!

Stay fucking dead where you belong, all 9764 versions of me.

Ok now what?

How do I beat The Story in 6 years time?

System. Tell me why Jaune Arc is summoned to Orario.

[Player 9721 used the Summon Alien Hero ticket to summon Jaune Arc of RWBYverse to appear at 17th June 0000, 11:23 AM at the Floor 1 of Orario Dungeon.]

Well, that explains that bit.

Why Jaune Arc? Why not summon Goku?

[Alduin has eaten Goku 56 times. Luffy 23 times. Ichigo 34 times. Superman 1987 times. Saitama 3390 times. Dragonborn 2711 times. Would you like to see further summoned characters?]

No need. This just confirms it to me. Alduin's Attack, Bad Ending 01, is a locked event. It is absolute, and can never be beaten. If I had summoned even hax character like Saitama and it didn't do shit, then trying to defeat Alduin is truly pointless. Alduin says I had defeated him for the first time in thousands trade of clashes. He must have meant me personally. The other character I had summoned must had also killed Alduin.

And it didn't do shit.

Now that I know that Alduin is a scripted bad end, I can ditch my predecessor obsession and work on a new parameter.

What did the Story wants me to do?

And I had a hunch that because of my predecessor obsession for Alduin, he failed to realize a simple thing.

System, tell me. Did any of my predecessor ever reached the bottom of the dungeon?

[Never. Due to the tight timeline to prepare for Alduin's arrival, no Player iterations had ever reached the bottom of the dungeon.]

….

……

…….

……….

Dear lord my previous selves are so fucking stupid.

Well, now that I know, I can use the summon tix to just let Saitama blast through the dungeon and reach bottom in no time.

[that cannot be done. Using Hax-tier characters to speedrun dungeon runs is strictly prohibited. Player is allowed to only summon normal growth characters such as Jaune Arc, Emiya Shirou, Deku, Hyoudou Issei and so on, for purpose as party member in dungeon exploration. Their growth rate will be scaled to the Player for balance.]

Oh fuck me. How the fuck am I supposed To reach bottom in 6 years?! Do you even realize how much resource that would take? I may be able to do it if I have like several decades on my hand, but six years? Are you fucking kidding me?

[The System will give you a hint.]

[For every 10 Floors of the dungeon is broken through by the Player, another year is added to the Player's deadline.]

I halted my thoughts.

A year for each 10 floors?

I recall that Alfia and Zald had supposedly broke through 71 floors. If my wiki reading was right, that is. If my earliest iteration had tried to follow canon, perhaps he had broke through 60 floors on his own, but for some reason had abandoned the idea. And somehow he had forgotten as to why he had 6 years to deadline to begin with.

System. Does Player 0001 broke through 60 floor in his run?

[Yes. The moment The Player had arrived into Orario, Alduin sensed him and awakened to kill him. However, with each 10 floors, the System has authority to force Alduin into sleep for one year. The System currently has the authority to delay Alduin awakening for 6 years.]

Mother fucker. And the bastard thought the floors breakthrough has no merit in his quest to beat Alduin, when its actually his only lifeline. Becoz he knows that Alduin will battle Bell in one year of in story time according to rumors, he had mistakenly thought that Alduin's Attack is a canon event, instead of a Bad End. Alduin awakened in 6 years as well as Alduin attacks Orario in one year after Bell's arrival was a coincidence.

And the bastard never figure it out.

Maybe he did at the beginning, but whatever it is, the constant looping had sent him to madness. He couldn't process simple solutions due to his obsession.

No matter how tempting it is to tap into the near infinite knowledge of all possible routes and results, it doesn't worth it when I will become too crippled in my mental capacity to take advantage of it. Mike Shinoda, my previous version was right in one thing.

Sealing away the memories and playthrough logs into Pandora Box is the correct choice.

System, can I set what skills I will unlock in my next run?

[No. The skills the Player will unlock will depend on the running Playthrough. However, since Player 2107, The Player had almost consistently unlocked Firebending as the first skill. The Player has subsciously realize that the ability to bend away Alduin's flame is one of the most critical skillset to have.]

Welp, I tried. This whole shit would be eaiser if I can just curate the best skill list from the start instead of depending what my Playthrough would generate

System, I am ready to return to Orario.

[Set the date of when the Player will merge with the new iteration.]

Well well well.

I wonder when I should respawn.