Chapter 239

The Beginning of Everything (9)

※ This is seen from Oohashi Rei’s perspective (the first loop) .

“Rei…… I think it’s time for me to go . ”

Even if we were wrinkled up grandmothers, my love for her remained the same .

I clasped onto Claire’s hand as I tried to say goodbye to her .

“I’ll see you again soon, Claire . ”

“Yes…… I’ll be waiting for you…… in heaven……”

Right after she said that, Claire took her last breath .

We were the only two people in the room .

Our marriage was not recognized, but we were still happy with each other .

Living life in a magical civilization was fulfilling .

We ran away from the revolution, where she was supposed to die a noble death and went on with our lives together as lovers .

We were separated from our families, but because we were blessed with such good friends, we were not lonely .

Above all, we were deeply in love .

All I could say was we lived happy lives together with nothing to complain about .

Claire’s soul was quantized once again and recorded into TAIM .

She would lose her memories, but once the scientific civilization begins again, she would live again as Claire François .

“TAIM . ”

“What is it?”

The housekeeper, whom we hired once Claire fell ill in order to spend more time together, answered in a flat voice .

TAIM showed up in every civilization to act as the coordinator of history .

“I’ll end this lap of my life here too . ”

“Are you sure? According to my calculations, you should still be able to live out a few more years . ”

“It’s fine . Life is meaningless if Claire isn’t here . ”

“Understood . I will begin quantization now . ”

I got under the same covers that were draped over Claire, who had fallen asleep, and closed my eyes as I hugged her body .

Her body was still warm .

“It was fun, Claire . ”

I’ll see you next time .

◆◇◆◇◆

“Welcome back, Rei . ”

“I’m back, TAIM . ”

When I returned to the administrator’s office, I began my work as an administrator once again .

After seeing the end of the magical civilization, I put all of humanity into a dormant state again and waited for the beginning of the scientific civilization .

“TAIM, I’m overriding an event in history with my administrative permissions . ”

“Warning . Depending on the degree of what is being overwritten, serious distortions in history may occur . ”

“I’ll make sure it works out well . ”

I began to adjust the events in history .

“Rei, what are you planning to change?”

“I’m changing the lives for me and Claire . More specifically, when we’re born and our causes of death . ”

I changed the time of our birth from the late 21st century to the early 21st century .

There were still many mysteries surrounding Claire’s cause of death, but TAIM had also managed to improve its own performance with every loop .

TAIM had managed to figure out that the pathogen that caused Claire’s death did not exist in the world during the early 21st century .

“If you make that change, the two of you will only be able to meet during your mid-thirties . ”

“That doesn’t matter . I’ll make sure we’ll live as long as possible after we meet . ”

I fell asleep as I dreamt about living a new life with Claire in the scientific civilization .

The next time I woke up was several thousands of years later .

“TAIM…… How’s the history in this world right now?”

“It’s almost the year 1990 . In regards to the Japanese calendar, it’s the end of the Showa period and the start of the Heisei period . ”

“In that case, it’s almost about time . ”

“That’s right . Would you like to be reincarnated from childhood this time?”

During the magical civilization, the first time I met Claire was during our time in the academy .

“Yeah . I want to experience Japan in the first half of the 21st century, after all . ”

“Understood . Good luck on the battlefield . ”

“Like I said, I’m not going to war or anything . ”

After TAIM saw me off, I was reincarnated in Japan .

I was reincarnated into a normal household .

It was a regular household in the Heisei era, something that I had only ever heard about in my previous life .

It was an era that was in the middle of transitioning from the old-fashioned Showa period into a new era, in which the values that I had experienced in my previous life were now being newly established .

Both of my parents were working, which was something that was relatively rare in this era, and I had a younger brother .

Having a younger brother was new to me, and I devoted myself to taking good care of him .

Because both of my parents were busy with work, I was the one who handled most of the housework .

Thanks to this, my cooking skills became better than in my previous lives .

I couldn’t get used to my school life .

Bullying wasn’t considered a crime in the current era, and I was often isolated from groups .

Fortunately, I wasn’t held back by my studies, and I was decently good at sports, so I wasn’t the main target for bullying, but I was still being ostracized by other groups .

I was only able to make my first friend in university .

But even so, I was fine with it .

I still had someone I was fated to meet, after all .

After graduating from university, I joined a trading company .

I was getting fed up with the old-fashioned work style―― also known as being a so-called “corporate slave”, but I persevered in order to meet Claire .

And then, a few years later, I met Claire at a business meeting .

“Nice to meet you . My name is Claire François . I’m looking forward to working with you . ”

She spoke perfect Japanese and had lived as a hotshot career woman .

Naturally, the Claire of this era didn’t have a drill hairstyle, but instead, she kept her blonde hair in the style that I was most familiar with- long and straight .

It was refreshing to see her not wearing a lab coat .

At first, we were only meeting up for our jobs, but eventually, we hit it off and started dating within a year .

Claire was initially reluctant to engage in a homosexual relationship, but she probably had some bisexual qualities to her .

She was immediately able to adapt to our relationship .

“I love you, Claire . ”

“Yes, I love you too, Rei . ”

In hopes of not repeating the same mistakes I made in my previous life, I proactively whispered my love to Claire .

Claire duly reciprocated those feelings as well .

Despite our occasional fights, our relationship was quite good .

Although we met a little late into our lives, she managed to live a long life without falling into a mysterious illness .

“I…… was really happy……”

“Mhm . ”

“Thank you, Rei…… . My beloved Rei…… Goodbye…”

“We’ll only be apart for a little while . I’ll see you again later . ”

I saw her off .

Her end was very peaceful .

When Claire passed away, I reincarnated once again .

◆◇◆◇◆

I repeated it many times over .

As was originally planned, I succeeded in having an eternal romance with Claire .

No matter how many times I repeated it, things never played out the same way .

In both the scientific and the magical civilizations, our loved always evolved slightly differently in each loop .

But even so, what stayed the same was that we would always start dating and stay together until the very end .

I enjoyed a different and fresh romance every time with Claire .

Everything was going well – that was what I thought .

Humanity could continue its history forever, and I could fall in love with Claire for eternity .

I had done my job perfectly – was what I truly thought .

But after a while, the gears were starting to get jammed .

“…… This is frustrating . ”

“What is?”

It was an event that happened somewhere in the tens of loops of the scientific civilization .

Claire and I were just exchanging our first kiss together in that life .

At that time, Claire uttered a certain line .

“You seem quite experienced at this . How many women’s hearts have you broken so far?”

Claire may have said it as a joke, but I felt like I had been struck in the back of the head by a rock .

That was supposed to be the first kiss I’d ever had in that loop .

However, after living through so many lives, before I even knew it, I had become accustomed to kissing .

I quickly tried to play it off as a misunderstanding, but Claire saw me as an experienced woman .

Although there were no other issues during that time, I had started to feel a little bit uncomfortable .

In the beginning, I was able to see Claire as a woman who was new to love, but gradually, she started to look more and more childish to me .

In reality, Claire was not childish at all .

I was just getting too old .

My relationship with Claire was getting more and more rocky with each loop .

I became more aware that my feelings for her were gradually losing their freshness .

No matter what heart-pounding words were spoken, how sweet a kiss was, or how kinky our sex life was, all of that eventually lost its freshness .

And then, after about a hundred loops in,

“Rei, you seem like you’re getting bored of me . I don’t want to continue a forced relationship with you . Let’s break up . ”

In the end, I was unable to remain with Claire for life .

I was shocked by that reality; however, I had no choice but to accept the breakup .

My love for her was slowly wearing out .

I repeated way too many loops .

Somewhere down the line, both Oohashi Rei and Rei Taylor had stopped living their lives by Claire’s side and had become distant .

But things were still okay for now .

I still loved Claire, after all .

Even if she hated me, it still wasn’t the worst-case scenario .

But what if one day, I just felt absolutely nothing towards her……?

To me, that was the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine .

“Why don’t you just delete some of your memories with Claire?”

Perhaps she could tell what was going on, but TAIM gave me a suggestion .

But by this time, I had already tuned TAIM’s voice out as mere background noise, so her advice never reached my ears .

I had started thinking about ending the looping system entirely .

It wasn’t an easy decision .

After all, it was something that had to do with all of mankind .

As Claire once said, ending the lives of hundreds of millions of people was not a trivial matter .

I only realized now how real Claire’s fears were .

But I still loved Claire .

A world without her was completely meaningless to me .

If I had to choose between the world or Claire, I would always pick Claire .

In the end, I decided to end the loops .

But I had one problem with ending the loops .

I could never bear to erase Claire’s existence with my own two hands .

Even though I wanted the world to end, I didn’t want Claire’s existence to be wiped .

That was a huge self-contradiction .

So instead, I came up with an idea .

“If I can’t get it done myself, then I just need someone else to do it for me . ”

I created the existence of a Demon Queen in the magical civilization and decided to reign as the ruler of the demons .

Originally, monsters and demons were designed as mere stage props for the magical civilization .

At the same time, they were also used as devices to reproduce fossil fuels during the middle of the scientific civilizations .

I decided to take advantage of it .

I gave the demons the power to nullify quantized souls .

Establish the magical civilization and have the demons kill Claire―― and after that, I decided that I would end mankind once and for all .

Oddly enough, in the civilization where I had reincarnated as the Demon Queen, there was another “Rei” that wasn’t me .

Moreover, she behaved just like me .

I did my best to avoid interfering with history and continued to observe the situation while I was still preparing the demon army to kill Claire off .

That “Rei” could feel fresh emotions of love towards Claire – something that I couldn’t do anymore .

Somewhere down the line, I developed a strong murderous intent towards her .

That being said, my objective did not change .

Kill Claire and end mankind―― that was all .

I knew that the decision I came to was selfish .

After all, it would mark the end of mankind .

It was more sinful than any other crime committed in the past .

But still, I couldn’t bring myself to stop anymore .

My feelings for Claire were fading .

I needed to finish things before they were completely gone .

I am the Demon Queen .

A true adversary of mankind .