Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Game

On the silent and deep Ice Plain, a young girl’s ice-blue hair draped over her shoulders.

She exhaled a faint, turbid breath of white mist, one of the few sources of warmth in this frozen wasteland.

Despite that small warmth, the sheer cold of the surrounding Ice Plain made it feel as if the very flow of time was slowing down.

It was currently the peak of summer, yet the environment felt like the dead of winter.

All of this existed simply because of the being standing before her—the one celebrated and feared as a witch.

“Such a quiet world…”

The witch stood atop the hardened Mysterious Ice, murmuring a song of world-ending destruction.

Everywhere she walked, the land fell into a void of pure white.

Finally, she stopped her pace and looked at the figure standing in front of her.

“You came. I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

The girl, enveloped in freezing ice, looked at the person before her.

Her unchanging expression finally shifted, revealing a glimpse of the emotions a girl her age should have.

It seemed to be a rare moment of tenderness and affection, but the figure across from her had no intention of stepping forward.

Instead, the person stood still, staring silently at the girl known as the Ice Frost Witch.

“Don’t go any further. Come back with me. It’s not too late for everything to be fixed…”

A gentle smile had begun to form on the Ice Frost Witch’s lips as she looked at the woman, but upon hearing those words, her smile froze.

As if she had heard something shocking, she withdrew her smile and let out a long, slow sigh.

A trace of loneliness flickered within those cold, indifferent eyes.

“I see. You’ve come to stop me too. To stop me from burying this pathetic world…”

“I only ever believed in you. Why… why must you be the one to stop me?”

The Ice Frost Witch’s voice trembled slightly, carrying a hint of a sob.

The figure standing in the distance seemed moved by the sight, but the words of comfort remained unspoken.

The sadness in the Ice Frost Witch began to warp into a sliver of madness and frigidity.

The last tether of her attachment was cleanly severed.

“Heh… as I thought, this world is beyond saving. There is no one left to care for…”

“You are just like the others. You’re lying to me too…”

The girl’s icy gaze seemed devoid of emotion, yet her words carried a slight tremor, as if she were enduring immense pain.

Though her face showed no outward expression of grief, crystalline tears fell one by one like frozen gems.

She seemed to be questioning the person in front of her, asking why they had done this.

[Choice One: I have never betrayed you! Do you not even trust me?]

[Choice Two: You are a witch. Is that reason enough?]

[Choice Three: (Remain silent)]

At that moment, the girl sitting in front of her computer felt her head begin to ache as she stared at the three choices.

Although there were only three, each one led to an entirely different path.

After hesitating for a moment, she finally clicked the third option.

Unsurprisingly, it immediately triggered an ending.

[Bad Ending: Your silence pierced the heart of the questioning witch. However, she still loves you deeply. You may continue to love her within the ice that will never melt—but it ends there.]

Seeing the ending pop up on her screen, the girl quickly reloaded her save file.

Returning to the moment before the decision, she chose the first option this time.

But even though she didn’t trigger an ending immediately, Zhou Qingqing’s headache grew as she watched her Moral Value drop.

‘Ah, this is so annoying! Who developed such a twisted game?!’

If the protagonist’s Moral Value dropped too low, it would trigger a Depravity Ending.

However, one couldn’t lie without lowering their Moral Value.

The game’s control over fine details was practically neurotic.

Disqualified Witch had been out for a long time, but its player base wasn’t very large.

Zhou Qingqing, however, was already a veteran player of the title.

She had originally thought it was just a standard story-driven dating sim, but the more she played, the more she realized something was off.

Sometimes, a single line of dialogue could affect the plot several chapters later.

Complex side quests and main storylines were intricately intertwined, and clues were even hidden within the background lore.

The initial download was nearly 100 GB, and she had spent almost a full minute scrolling through the list of locked CGs without reaching the end.

It didn’t even feel like a game anymore.

It felt more like a fully fleshed-out, alternate fantasy world.

‘Sigh, my Moral Value is too low. I’m about to fall and become a witch myself…’

She clicked her mouse again, making another choice.

Looking at the romantic path that even reloading saves couldn’t seem to rescue, Zhou Qingqing felt a wave of boredom.

“The game is so hard. The developers really didn’t consider the players’ feelings. A game like this should just sit in a folder and gather dust…”

Zhou Qingqing had invested a massive amount of time into this game.

Consequently, when the frustration of a failed walkthrough hit her, all she felt was irritation and gloom.

She was about to shut down her computer to calm her head and perhaps start from scratch, when suddenly, the dead-end plot began to change.

In the scene that was supposed to be a confrontation between two women, a third party appeared.

The girl wore a hood that obscured her face, but the game provided a prompt.

[The Unknown Witch has joined the story]

‘Huh? Why is there another character? The Unknown Witch… is she a character from a different main quest?’

‘Is there a crossover in the plot?’

Zhou Qingqing thought the character was just making a brief appearance to add flavor or act as a background foreshadowing.

However, to her surprise, the girl standing on the distant ice slowly spoke.

“No one is worth trusting. You should have understood that the moment you became a witch…”

“Leading the world to its destruction… that is the only final choice.”

Zhou Qingqing watched as the silver-haired girl brainwashed her target.

The target’s suspicion meter began to skyrocket.

‘What the hell? I worked so hard to build up that favorability! How can you just come in and ruin it?!’

Seeing the favorability points about to hit zero, Zhou Qingqing quickly clicked the speech button.

To deal with sudden plot developments like this, the game had an interruption feature.

[Choice One: Don’t believe her! She’s a witch! She can’t be trusted!]

[Choice Two: I’m begging you! Don’t leave me! I only have you too!]

[Choice Three: (Remain silent)]

Zhou Qingqing looked at the three options on her screen and habitually saved her game.

However, this time, she tried all three options, and every single one triggered a Bad Ending.

[Bad Ending: Due to your low Moral Value, your lie was too thin. She no longer believes your words.]

[Bad Ending: Your attempt to stop her was seen as a threat by the other witch. You were killed on the spot.]

[Bad Ending: Your silence broke the Ice Frost Witch’s heart. She decided to turn you into an eternal statue to keep by her side.]

The three Bad Endings seemed to confirm that this save file was a total failure.

While Zhou Qingqing felt irritated, she also felt a sense of hollow exhaustion.

“Ah!!! You damn interloper!! Trash game, I’m done…”

Zhou Qingqing had been completely broken by the game’s difficulty.

Even without that interloper, based on her current favorability and suspicion levels, a failed walkthrough was likely only a matter of time.

She leaned back in her chair, assuming the save was over.

But just then, another choice appeared over the “Game Over” screen.

The familiar selection box hovered above the ending text.

The content of the choice was absurd, like a joke or a confusing riddle.

[O kind and beautiful girl, are you willing to save these lost witches?]

[A: I am willing] / [B: I choose Option A]

“What kind of choices are these? Don’t they mean the exact same thing?!”

Zhou Qingqing was dazed as she stared at the sudden prompt.

The game had already declared an ending, yet a choice had appeared anyway.

“What’s going on? Is this some hidden plot?”

She couldn’t imagine how this sentence connected to any of the witches’ stories.

The Ice Frost Witch path she had just been playing certainly didn’t have a segment like this.

“Is it a hidden scene? But these two choices…”

Zhou Qingqing’s eye twitched.

These two options didn’t give her the ability to refuse at all.

She couldn’t understand what the developer intended by setting up the story this way.

“Is this another trap…?”

Thinking it might be a prank, she tried to exit the game, but she couldn’t find a close button.

‘I can’t even force it to close in the background? Is the screen frozen…?’

She thought her old computer was lagging.

She clicked around randomly but couldn’t find a refresh button, and she couldn’t even alt-tab out.

It was as if the computer was stuck on this specific interface.

“Great. Did it really freeze?”

Assuming it was a hardware issue, she sat in her chair and waited.

After a long time, the screen remained unchanged.

Zhou Qingqing stared at the two choices.

For some reason, she felt a sudden impulse to click.

She had thought the computer was frozen, but when she moved her hand, she found that the cursor moved perfectly fine.

‘It’s not frozen? Why does the mouse still work…?’

A flash of confusion crossed her eyes.

Her hand subconsciously moved the cursor toward Option A, as if merely testing the mouse.

With a crisp click of the mouse, Zhou Qingqing’s computer instantly returned to its previous state.

“Eh? It’s not stuck anymore?”

She stared at the restored screen.

It felt as if the moment she clicked the option, the computer had returned to normal.

“Sigh, how strange. Was it really because of that choice…?”

Though she was confused, the small episode felt insignificant.

In an instant, she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Just as she was about to look up a walkthrough online, a rhythmic knocking sound came from her door.

“Hm? Who’s coming to see me at this hour…?”

Hearing the knock, a puzzled Zhou Qingqing walked toward the door.

Before she could ask who it was, a woman’s voice drifted from the other side.

“Hello, delivery…”

Zhou Qingqing paused.

She had been buried in the game for the past few days and hadn’t ordered anything.

But then she thought it might be something sent from her hometown.

She turned the lock and opened the door.

Standing before her was a white-haired girl wearing a familiar courier uniform.

The girl wore a black mask that covered most of her face, but her eyes were strikingly beautiful, causing Zhou Qingqing to daze for a moment.

“Hello, delivery. Please sign for this quickly; I have many more packages to deliver…”

“Ah, oh, okay…”

Zhou Qingqing took the box pushed toward her.

She intended to sign for it, but when she looked up, the girl had already run off.

“Hey, wait! Don’t you need to take a photo of the delivery?!”

“No need! I already took it!”