The crisp sound of birdsong pierced his ears, yanking Allen out of his dazed state.
He opened his eyes, a little confused, and found himself sitting on a wooden bench, wearing… the Saint Nora Academy Uniform?
…Huh? Wait, where was I just now? Who am I?
He looked up, and what entered his eyes was a scene straight out of a galgame’s fantasy campus—
Bright sunlight filtered through the leaves of towering plane trees, casting mottled shadows like scattered gold on the white stone paths of the campus.
In the distance, the Gothic Main Teaching Building soared into the sky, its stained glass windows sparkling with a dreamlike luster under the sun.
The air was filled with the faint fragrance of flowers and the scent of old books, and every so often, the crisp calls of unknown birds could be heard.
Countless handsome men and beautiful women, all in the same uniform as him, laughed and chatted as they passed in front of him, every one of them so good-looking it was almost unreal.
It was as if the entire world had been layered with the filter of youthful romance.
Allen dazed for quite a while before slowly coming back to himself—so I seem to be… a transmigrator? Before transmigrating, I think I was playing an otome game called 《Starlit Romance》?
Eh?! Did I really transmigrate into a game world?!
Suddenly, he remembered that he was now called Allen de Laval… that joke of a minor villain in the original, who clung to the heroine and died in a thousand bizarre ways, the comic relief of the otome game world!
Uh, what?
Transmigrating into an otome game is one thing, but at least give me a background character role! And yet here I am, thrust straight into the script of a destined-to-die villain? How am I supposed to play this?!
“…” Allen looked helplessly at the sky.
Whatever, since I’m here already, let’s see what’s going on first.
He glanced around—he was sitting on this bench as if he were waiting for someone.
Although he couldn’t recall who he was waiting for, he decided to wait and see.
He narrowed his eyes, crossed his legs, and struck a leisurely pose (actually giving up on thinking), preparing to wait seriously.
Not long after, his target appeared.
It was an absolutely stunning girl with platinum-blonde hair and sapphire-blue eyes.
She wore a perfectly fitted uniform, the skirt hem swaying gently with each step, her whole being radiating a pure and dazzling aura—she was the textbook template of an otome heroine.
Of course, she really was the heroine of 《Starlit Romance》.
Livia von Stern. Allen played the game for her looks—no, wait, for the beautiful yuri route.
Allen’s gaze was unconsciously drawn to her, especially lingering on her long legs.
The hem of her skirt, her fair thighs, and those white over-the-knee stockings encasing her calves—the three formed a perfect visual boundary.
Between the skirt and the stockings was that Absolute Territory, about a few centimeters wide, exposed defenselessly in the warm light.
Allen couldn’t help but inwardly praise:
“White Stockings are truly a marvelous civilization… In this era without modern industry and nylon black stockings, they’ve already achieved such exquisite craftsmanship for white stockings… Humanity’s creativity really shouldn’t be underestimated. The first person to define the ‘Absolute Territory’ must have been a genius—their great discovery deserves to be recorded in the annals of human aesthetics!”
“Look… at the sock edge gently digging into the soft skin, and above it, the faint, blood-tinged fairness. It’s covered, yet precisely because it’s covered so just-right, it’s emphasized, worshiped, and given endless imaginative pull. Total exposure would be monotonous, total wrapping would be dull. It’s this delicate balance of ‘half-hidden, half-seen’, this ‘in-between’ state, that is the true core of attraction.”
Allen’s thoughts became increasingly active, even taking on a philosophical tone:
“Come to think of it, maybe the original purpose of clothing was not to cover up or keep warm, but to create the ritual of ‘being undressed’? Because clothes conceal the body, they outline the contours of ‘lack’, so we always have a certain… hmm… yearning to explore what lies underneath, after, or beyond?”
“So that’s it—this is probably what philosophers meant: our desires are never directed at the object itself, but at its ‘lack’.”
After finishing this set of pseudo-psychoanalytical commentary—laced with his own biases—on Livia’s Absolute Territory of white stockings, Allen suddenly changed tack and asked the air:
“You’re using my subconscious’s earliest, deepest impressions of this world to construct this dream, and plan to exploit some ‘yearning’ or ‘lack’ buried deep inside me—what exactly do you intend?”
At some unknown point, a green-haired girl had silently taken the empty seat next to Allen.
She gazed at Livia, who had stopped not far away and was looking around as if searching for someone, then smiled and asked in return, “How did you notice?”
“The Observer, that guy, also likes to find me for a chat in dreams.”
“I see.” The green-haired girl—more accurately, the Star Listener—nodded knowingly. “In dreams, the subconscious naturally forms a protection; it’s indeed safer than reality and better suited for us to have a leisurely chat.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t stand you uninvited, indescribable types!” Allen complained. “Barging into someone else’s dream without permission is a serious violation of privacy rights, you know!”
“Mmm-hmm~” The Star Listener didn’t care in the slightest, instead tossing out a piece of information. “Did you know? This is actually the place where all your memories begin.”
Allen couldn’t help but look at this mysterious fellow.
In fact, his earlier “gentlemanly” speech was a sophisticated psychological suggestion.
As a villain with intellect verging on monstrous, Allen had used the emphasis on “concealment” to awaken dormant memories in his subconscious, and instantly realized he was inside a dream.
For good reason—the impression this “First Loop” opening had left on him was so strong it was almost hallucinatory, as if everything that had come before was but a dream.
Indeed, for Allen de Laval, this first meeting at Saint Nora Academy was the starting point of all memory.
But the Star Listener’s words were clearly hinting at something more.
“What are you implying?” Allen pressed.
“If you trace further back, your memory is a blank.” The Star Listener’s voice held a touch of inquiry. “It’s as if you have no past, appearing in this era out of nowhere—a ‘ghost’. Not just me, but even ‘they’ are very curious—who exactly are you?”
“Do you know about Earth?” Allen suddenly asked.
“…No,” the Star Listener answered honestly.
“That’s the cradle of humanity—and my homeland,” Allen said.
The Star Listener was thoughtful. “I see… I suppose it’s been tens of thousands of years since humanity left its place of origin. That world must have been destroyed long ago?”
“Tens of thousands of years?” Allen was surprised.
“Just my speculation,” the Star Listener explained.
“The humans of today probably aren’t the first ones to set foot on this planet. I used to be a scientist in the Church and a member of the Inner Circle. From the database I’ve accessed, the humans from the First Loop and the current ones, be it genome or otherwise, are essentially two different species. Humanity has been ‘reset’ to its original form through repeated loops.”
“Current humans are perhaps closer to that unseen era from your memories. But even so, they’re still different—we possess ‘Souls’.”
Having dealt with too many zealots lately, Allen had no desire to go deeper into religious-philosophical discussions and couldn’t help but complain:
“What the heck is a Soul, anyway? If it’s really like the Holy Scripture says, and the human soul comes from outside the material world, then what is this ‘outside the material world’ place?”
The Star Listener raised a finger and gently pointed skyward. “Where they reside, I call it the Supreme Heaven.”
Such lofty words left Allen momentarily speechless.
“Did I come from there too?” he asked quietly.
“All of our Souls may have come from there,” the Star Listener replied, her voice tinged with the weight of fate.
Allen frowned. “So we all have to return to that so-called ‘Supreme Heaven’ sooner or later? Humanity’s destruction is actually because our ‘Souls’ yearn to go home? Like how living creatures instinctively seek some primordial state? And the Observer… is some kind of universal will representing the death drive—this urge to return?”
On the Star Listener’s youthful face, just the right amount of adorable confusion appeared. “I have no idea~”
Allen was exasperated by this act of playing dumb and cute.
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