ALL NOVEL Chapter 258
Another day, another apocalypse—just your average Tuesday.
“Ugh.”
Lars Gothberg sighed deeply.
This was probably the hundredth time he had witnessed a bad ending.
Sure, it was the first time seeing the dragon army torching the Central Square, but the outcome was always the same: the end of the world.
Even with attempts at CPR, reviving the warrior failed. Lars wandered desolately through the chaos of the Central Square.
Along the castle walls, he spotted a silver-haired woman waving at him.
The tyrant Acella von Württemberg. The infamous wicked woman who brought this disaster.
Her mocking gaze inviting him was quite unappealing. If he was going to die anyway, it’d be much easier to get drunk by stealing the wine she was drinking.
Just as Lars was about to walk toward the Empress, his eyes suddenly caught sight of a scene across the square.
Knights engaged in a desperate, hopeless battle. Men suffering under Acella’s orders, fighting until their last breath.
Among them was a giant swinging a massive axe like a brute.
Her hair, blue and wild, fell messily below her waist. The armor exposing her wildness lay in tatters, no longer serving any defensive purpose.
Dark magic oozed from her body, a curse from the Great Demon that left one dizzy even with the slightest touch. Proof that she was a minion of the Great Demon.
With a resilient spirit, she fought desperately to prevent the continent’s doom.
The chieftain of the northern Thunder Tribe.
The wild warrior, the devourer—Gishta.
Lars knew her well. The reason she was fighting here alone was that he had persuaded her to join his side in the first place.
“It’s a world destined for destruction anyway.”
He felt bad for her. Deceiving her into fighting by promising to cure the curse of the Great Demon, which couldn’t be healed.
How naive.
Only increasing their miserable hours.
If he couldn’t recruit Gishta, his own life was at stake, so Lars had no choice. But that didn’t justify his actions afterward.
To him, Gishta was a beloved ally. If she showed up with the Thunder Tribe instead of the rock clan, that significantly eased the difficulty of the onslaught.
“Until the end, I have to take responsibility.”
Ignoring the call of Empress Acella, Lars resolved to fight alongside Gishta until the last.
A black dragon’s breath crashed down from the sky, shattering the ground. It was reminiscent of a modern battlefield under bombardment. He charged through the battlefield, ears ringing.
Finally reaching Gishta, Lars tapped her shoulder.
“Ararat—!! Oh, is that you, Healer!”
“Your injuries are severe. Wait a moment.”
Lars wrapped himself in divine power. The random-healing spell couldn’t heal her wounds immediately.
“Tch, I don’t need healing from weak humans. I am the proud daughter of my mother!”
“Yet, 90% of you is still human. You can’t move like this.”
“Acting like you care when you were just deceiving me!”
“…Did you know?”
Gishta suddenly burst into laughter.
“I’m going to die anyway. I should at least hit back at the bastards who took my mother! I used you too, Healer.”
“That’s a shock. I thought we were friends.”
“Should’ve just given me a present! You ungrateful swine.”
Bang, Gishta slapped Lars on the back, full of vigor.
“That was rude. I’ll bring plenty next time if there’s a next chance.”
“Ha ha ha! Looking forward to it, in Valhalla!”
Boom! Gishta slammed the ground powerfully.
As the thunder crashed down, Lars’s memories thereafter became unclear.
Lars was granted a special ability to return to ten years ago for having witnessed all endings.
As he awoke in the marquis household, he immediately felt the boiling blood of a second chance.
He quickly assessed what to do next.
‘Acella von Württemberg. I must stay as far away from that woman as possible.’
Things didn’t exactly go as planned.
“You, come to my room later.”
Showing Acella some medical knowledge had been a bad choice. Out of the blue, she started dropping hints about wanting him to be her attending physician.
“Good luck on your attending physician exam.”
‘Hmm, this isn’t good.’
Lars fell into thought. Given the odds in the ending list, becoming her physician would likely erase many bad endings with Acella by his side.
‘But on the other hand…’
All the bad endings caused by Acella stemmed from her becoming an Empress.
Many of them could not be executed without her holding power.
‘If Acella isn’t Empress, those endings should naturally disappear, right?’
Right now, the image of Acella’s face from the last round was less vivid than the memories of fighting alongside Gishta.
Perhaps that’s why, despite his uncertainty, Lars felt a strange urge to gamble rather than take the “safe” route.
‘I need to steadily work on weakening the Demon King’s army from now. I have a lot of artifacts to gather. If I become a physician, I’ll be trapped in the Imperial Family. I need to expand my range of activity.’
He concluded that he should choose Adventurer as his profession instead of Attending Physician.
“…There are so many fierce competitors. I wonder if I can pass without even attending the training facility classes.”
In the end, that’s how Lars responded to Acella. She made a displeased face and dismissed him.
Later that evening, when Camilla mentioned the Holy Grail during dinner, Lars decisively decided he needed to obtain it.
‘This is a crucial opportunity. I need to cut ties between our family and the Imperial Family.’
If things went awry, his father would be implicated in the Emperor’s assassination and the family would face extermination.
Had he become an attending physician, he might’ve been able to prevent the incident first-hand within the Imperial Family, but Lars intentionally chose to cut off the problem at the root.
‘The issue is that Camilla will likely try to hold onto us as long as Neria has any chance of being a Saintess.’
Camilla was quite the calculating woman. She was one of the three Empresses who had barely survived in the Imperial Family.
If she realized that the risks outweighed the benefits, she would likely let go when far away in the North.
Suddenly, Lars hatched a plan to simultaneously deal with Acella. It was something only a reckless version of himself from ten years ago could attempt.
“This… I need to drink this, right…?”
Neria, terrified, stood before the Holy Grail.
The moment she gulped, Lars rushed forward.
“Wait, what’s that!? No!”
Before Camilla could react in shock, Lars quickly drank the Holy Grail. Throwing the empty vessel aside, he bellowed like a drunken madman.
“Hey, you’re giving a precious artifact to the second daughter while ignoring me, the firstborn? Where’s your manners when talking to an engaged man!”
K crash, Lars kicked over a bunch of holy water vials. Camilla gaped in astonishment at his insane behavior.
“Y-you crazy idiot…!”
“Crazy idiot? Ha ha! Now you’re openly disrespecting me. Let me make one thing clear—you Gothbergs do not deal with those who look down on us! Get lost!”
“Are you out of your mind, Lars Gothberg? I am the third Empress of the Imperial Family. No achievement in your life can even reach me!”
“The Gothbergs may serve our great Majesty, but we will not bend to the dishonorable thugs trampling on our family’s honor. Got it? If you’ve got a problem, come at me with force!”
Lars shouted, brandishing the Imperial flag hanging on the wall like a spear.
This was all intended. Camilla had been politically isolated in the Imperial Family and he now used that against her.
By displaying animosity strictly toward Camilla of the Moonlight Palace rather than the Imperial Family, he laid the groundwork with justification. The proof was that he now held the Emperor’s flag.
He made it clear that this was to protect his family’s honor, questioning Camilla’s lack of etiquette.
In fact, if a fight broke out, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Right behind Lars was Tanya, ready to back him up.
Having been summoned earlier and feeling uneasy, Tanya was astonished by Lars’s transformation.
“This reckless idiot is ruining everything…!”
For Camilla, the risks had just skyrocketed.
The alliance between the Moonlight Palace and the Gothberg family had been contingent on the engagement between Acella and Lars.
Camilla realized. Lars was far more unpredictable and uncontrollable than she had anticipated. The Holy Grail was something she had invested heavily in, paying a significant cost to acquire a weapon in the form of a Saintess.
If she took that man with her, there would be nothing but extensive, meaningless losses ahead.
“Baldur, it seems our fates end here.”
Camilla shook her head, taking off her gloves and placing them on the table.
“What do you mean…”
“It’s a broken engagement. Let’s terminate the contract between the Moonlight Palace and the Gothberg family right here.”
Everything was going according to Lars’s plan. As he silently cheered inside, one person protested.
“Wait, what about my Attending Physician?”
It was Acella. She looked flustered, clearly shocked that things had unfolded this way.
“Let’s pick an attending physician from the Inner Palace. You saw it too, Acella. I can’t take such a low-grade man with me.”
“Low-grade? Your Majesty, do you have any idea what that man has done?”
The only one who figured out Lars’s political skills was Acella. But Camilla, oblivious to this, gave her a strange look and walked away.
Left alone, Acella glared at Lars with resentment.
[No. 056: Wicked Woman’s Hatred 21% → 68%]
With the increase in bad ending probability, Lars approached Acella, wanting to ease her mood slightly, and politely bowed his head.
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. Please understand with an open heart.”
“You knew this would happen, didn’t you.”
“Yes.”
“You really didn’t want to marry me, did you?”
“Your Highness, you dislike me anyway, correct?”
“…That’s…”
Acella gritted her teeth and abruptly turned her back on Lars.
Soon, Lars’s father Baldur and sister Neria quickly understood his intentions and expressed their gratitude.
Baldur finally recognized his mistake of being fooled by Camilla to contract with the Moonlight Palace and decided to refocus on training Healers.
Meanwhile, since Lars had fainted after opening his talent, he couldn’t engage in any further discussions.
“Alchemy and medicine—I’ll be able to do a lot.”
Awakening, Lars immediately sought Tanya for training.
Using alchemy to enhance his physical body, he trained diligently without skipping a single day. About a year later, he developed a considerably sturdy body.
“Well, I’m off.”
“My son, must you really leave?”
“Yes, there’s something important I need to accomplish.”
“Brother, take care of yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I will fulfill my duty to guard.”
As the marquis family sent him off, Lars set out southwest with Tanya.
Dressed in leather armor and sporting a backpack, he looked every bit the part of an adventurer.