Seventy Seventh Seven
Chapter 72: Final Loop

Chapter 72: Final Loop

"...Who the fudge are you?"

The man, who looked almost exactly like him, loosened his grip on Seven’s collar but did not let go.

"Ahaha! Son of a fudge!"

Instead, he laughed with his fingers still curled in the fabric.

"You’ve got the same dead-fish eyes, same dumb face, and you still can’t put two and two together? Hah... yeah. You really are dumber than I was."

"..."

Seven did not reply and only stared at the man (older him) with lips flat, clearly a sign of him being unamused.

"Don’t give me that look, fudger."

The man rolled his eyes and gave Seven a rough shake by the collar, as if annoyed by the mere act of being stared at with those eyes.

"I swear, I would’ve stabbed you already if this wasn’t the final loop. You’re lucky I’m feeling a little bit... nostalgic."

"...Final loop?"

His mouth twitched. He looked off to the side, then started whistling: off-key, obnoxiously loud, and so fake it felt like he was mocking the idea of innocence rather than faking it.

He even smirked mid-whistle like a brat caught red-handed and proud of it.

"Hah? Final what? I don’t remember saying anything like that."

"You clearly said—"

Before Seven could finish, the man shoved him hard by the collar and hurled him backward like tossing a bag of trash— a full-on, "get the fudge outta my face" toss.

Splash! Spla—

He went flying backward like a sack of wet clothes, skidding and bouncing across the shallow water.

The man ran a hand through his hair.

"I don’t remember, so it didn’t happen. Okay?"

Seven groaned and pushed himself back to his knees.

Meanwhile, the man now stretched like a stray cat and cracked his back with both hands behind his head before he let out a satisfied sigh.

"Fudge, I forgot how tight this body gets. Watching you fumble around like a headless chicken for loop after loop is murder on the joints, man."

"..."

But after a while of silence, the man’s left eye turned gold.

In that fleeting moment, Seven saw everything: from the ripples of water and up to his body cleanly being cut into half.

Pain.

He felt an indescribable amount of pain, that even the word excruciating cannot describe.

Or at least, it was a vision and second ahead in future.

Because before the vision could manifest, the glow in the man’s left eye faded back to its dull blue and the fractured image disappeared, along with the sensation of falling apart.

"What...?"

Seven muttered.

It reminded him of what happened during the scene with the aberrant. If only his body had enough reserves, that vision the artifact showed to him might have been doable (he did not know the vision actually became reality).

"...Beautiful."

"Ahaha~ Beautiful?! I expected you to be a psycho, but you fudging surpassed my expectations. Just what is your talent?""

"...Talent?"

"Don’t play dumb with me before I bash your skull in, fudger. Or should I say... Yoon Seojin."

Seven momentarily looked at the man and did not answer, fitting the puzzles together.

The man looked like him, slightly older. Uses the same ’fudge’ and also has the same habit to run a hand through his hair.

He knew his Korean name too.

The name no one else here should have known.

The only difference was that the man was easily irritated and it was a complete opposite of his personality. No, it was more like the man kept Seven Hart’s personality as a scoundrel.

Thus.

That only means...

’Is it the future me or the past me?’

That was the obvious question. If this place bent time and mind, then maybe this man was either the future or past version of himself. But another part of him— the part that always looked sideways at the truth— could not ignore the third possibility.

’...Loop.’

Loop implies more than just repetition. It suggests a closed cycle and a sequence of events that inevitably circles back to its beginning. In most novels, loop signifies regression.

But before his thoughts spiraled too far, Seven spoke again.

"Highly unpredictable."

"...The fudge?"

"Yes."

He repeated.

|| Basic Information ||

|| Character: Seven Hart ||

|| Age: 14 ||

|| Talent: Highly Unpredictable ||

"Highly unpredictable. That’s what it says."

The man clicked his tongue.

"It’s not... a joke, right?"

"...No."

"Trait, then?"

He lifted his wrist slowly and showed the four-leaf tattoo etched into his skin at the man— older him.

"Imperial Bower."

"...Exiled?"

"No."

"Father?"

"Alive."

"Academy?"

"Not yet."

With each answer, the older man’s frown deepened, not out of judgment, but recognition. His eyes tracked the divergence, the little differences between them stacking up like bricks in a wall that should not have existed.

This version of Seven... walked a different road.

The pieces were not adding up; or at least, not to his story. He wanted to ask more. I mean, he could have asked hundreds of things— names, dates, changed events, and maybe a little about Eden.

All of it.

But the man stopped himself as he knew that time here in the realm was limited.

Seven Days.

"Your gift is still that shitty ’Protagonist System’, right?"

Seven did not respond, and that silence was enough. The man took it as confirmation and lifted his hand.

Thus.

In response, the water around them spiraled upward like ropes, coiling and tightening around the doppelganger as it reemerged from the dark.

The glitched creature thrashed, but the bindings held and shackles of liquid light cinched tighter with every twitch.

But unlike the darkness, the world was no longer wrapped in pitch-black void as the colossal pair of golden eyes above flooded the space with brilliance.

It also illuminated the massive throne in the distance, where ornaments designed like number seven were designed around it and where smaller thrones, more like chairs, were arranged in ascending rows, forming steps toward the great seat at the top.

Each throne was engraved with the motif of the number seven: seven lines, seven crests, seven edges.

Step.

The man walked toward them without another word. When he reached the seventh throne in the first row, he sat down.

Seven tried to count the rest of the seats above, but a dense, shimmering fog obscured the higher levels. Still, he saw the vague silhouettes of others sitting in those distant chairs.

"Seven Hart."

The man, who was now sitting at the seventh chair, spoke.

"Defeat the other you."

Right after, the ropes made of water that was shackling the doppelganger twitched, and the doppelganger once again slowly lost its aberrant like features and returned to its original form.

It now looked exactly like Seven.

Same face.

Same stance.

Same breath.

Just like back when he first entered here, where as if he was exactly staring directly at the mirror.

’Fudge.’

Seven cursed.

No wonder the quest never marked itself as failed or complete when the man first appeared. He realized it now: this was the trial, or more like the first trial that none other than himself— the older Seven specifically— set up for him.

It was not simply a trial against the doppelganger, but a trial to overcome oneself began the ascension.

Splash! Spla—

The ropes slithered off the doppelganger’s limbs and slinked across the ground toward Seven’s feet. They stopped after circling around him in a wide loop, drawing a rough ring in the water that shimmered faintly with gold.

Two steps wide.

"But the moment you step out of that circle..."

The man added, and his silhouette through the fog suggested that he was resting his cheek on one fist.

"...I’ll kill you myself."

"Fudge. What—"

Before he could finish, the doppelganger opened its mouth.

"𓂀 ✶⟊☍ ⟡⸸⚚⧫⫷Ϟ"

The glyphs echoed.

|| If I kill you... ||

The system flashed the same line across his vision in a blood-red translucent interface as the doppelganger rushed forward.

The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!