I Favor the Villainess

This is a story from the point of view of Zero Ohashi.

I'm going to go away soon.

I'm not sure what to make of this.

This is the first time I've ever seen such a thing.

"We will meet again, Claire.

Yes, I'll be waiting for you in ...... heaven.

After saying that, Claire took her last breath.

It was just me and her in the room.

We had a relationship that didn't even allow for marriage, but we were fine with it.

Our life in the magical civilization had been fulfilling.

I escaped with my girlfriend, who was supposed to die in the revolution, and we fell in love and lived our lives together.

We were separated from our families, but we were blessed with friends, so we were never lonely.

Above all, we were deeply in love.

I can say that it was a happy life, and I have no complaints about it.

Claire's soul has been quantized again and recorded in time.

She will lose her memory, but when scientific civilization begins again, she will live again as Claire-François.

"Time.

What is it?

The housekeeper, whom Claire had hired to spend as much time as possible with her after she fell ill, answered in a flat voice.

Time is the coordinator of history, and he shows up everywhere.

'I'll end my life in this lap here too.

'Are you sure, sir?　According to my calculations, I should be able to live for a few more years.

It's okay. Life without Claire is meaningless.

Yes, sir. I'll start the quantization.

I got into the same futon as Claire, who had fallen asleep, and closed my eyes as I held her body in my arms.

Her body was still warm.

It was fun, Claire.

I'll see you on the next lap.

I'll see you next time.

"Welcome back, Zero.

I'm home, Time.

Once I returned to the administrator's office, I set about my work as an administrator again.

I had witnessed the end of magical civilization, the transition of humanity into a dormant state, and awaited the beginning of scientific civilization.

Time, I hereby declare an intervention in history on administrator's authority.

Warning. Depending on the extent of your intervention, history may be severely distorted.

I'll take care of that.

I have begun to adjust the new history.

What kind of intervention will you perform, Zero?

'It will change Claire's and my lives. Specifically, the time of our births and the cause of our deaths.

I changed the time of Claire's and my birth from the late 21st century to the early 21st century.

The cause of Claire's death was still a mystery, but Time had also repeatedly improved itself during the loop, improving its performance.

Time had discovered that the pathogen that caused Claire's death did not exist in the first half of the twenty-first century.

If you make that change, they won't meet until the mid-thirties or later.

I don't mind that much. I'll live as long as I can after we meet.

I went into another cold sleep, dreaming of a new life with Claire in a scientific civilization.

The next time I woke up was several thousand years later.

"Time ......, what is the history of Earth now?

It's almost 1990. According to the Japanese calendar, this is when the Showa period ended and the Heisei period began.

So it's about time.

It seems so. Are you sure you want to be reincarnated from your childhood this time?

At the time of magical civilization, it was when I first met Claire at the academy.

Yes. I want to experience Japan in the first half of the twenty-first century.

I'd like to experience Japan in the early 21st century. Good luck.

I'm not going to fight!

Time saw me off, and I was reborn in Japan.

I was reincarnated in an ordinary family.

In my previous life, I had only seen it in documents, and it was a family in the Heisei era.

It was a time of transition from the old-fashioned Showa era to the new era where the values of my time had taken root.

My parents worked together, which was still relatively rare in this era, and I had a younger brother.

My younger brother was new to me, and I took care of him in a very supportive way.

Since my parents were busy with work, I was left to do most of the housework.

Thanks to this, I became a better cook than in my previous life.

I did not adjust well to school life.

At that time, bullying was not yet considered a crime, and I was often isolated from the group.

Fortunately, I was not a target of bullying because I was good at my studies and could play some sports, but I was ostracized by the group.

I had to wait until I entered college to make my first friends.

But I was okay with that.

I had people to meet eventually.

After graduating from university, I joined a trading company.

I was fed up with the prehistoric work style - the so-called "corporate animal" - but I persevered, thinking it was for the sake of meeting Claire.

A few years later, Claire and I met again at a business meeting.

Nice to meet you. I'm Claire-François. It's nice to meet you.

She spoke perfect Japanese and was a successful career woman.

Of course, Claire didn't have a vertical roll at this time, she was the long straight blonde I knew so well.

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

We started out as business associates, but soon hit it off and within a year we were dating.

At first Claire was reluctant to be homosexual, but I guess she had bisexual qualities.

She quickly adapted to my relationship.

"I love you, Claire.

"Yes, I love you too, Zero.

Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of my previous life, I actively whispered my love to Claire.

I'm sure you'll agree with me.

Despite the occasional quarrel, our relationship was going well.

Although we met a little later in life, she did not succumb to a mysterious illness and lived to the fullest.

I was ...... happy. ......

"Yes.

"Thank you, Zero ......, my Zero ......, goodbye.

"It's just a short goodbye. We'll meet again.

I took care of her.

Her end was very peaceful.

When Claire passed away, I was reincarnated again.

I was reborn again.

I did this over and over again.

As I had originally intended, I succeeded in making love with Claire for eternity.

No matter how many times you repeat it, it will never be exactly the same.

In both the scientific and magical worlds, our love story took a slightly different turn each time.

Nevertheless, the only thing that remained the same was that the two of us would be together and stay together until the end.

I enjoyed the fresh feeling of being in love with Claire, which was different each time.

Everything was going well, I thought.

Humanity can continue its history forever, and I can fall in love with Claire forever.

I had done my job perfectly, I thought.

I thought I had done my job perfectly, but it was only after a while that the gears started to go haywire.

It's ...... frustrating.

What's frustrating?

It happened in the dozenth lap of scientific civilization.

Claire and I kissed for the first time in our lives.

I'm sure you'll agree with me.

You're so used to it. Haven't you made a lot of women cry in your life?

Claire may have been joking, but I was shocked as if I had been hit on the head.

In this lap, this was supposed to be my first kiss as well.

However, after many lifetimes, I had somehow become accustomed to kissing.

I rushed to cover it up, but Claire saw me as an experienced woman.

I didn't have any more problems that time around, but I was slowly starting to feel uncomfortable.

At first I was able to see Claire as a woman who was new to love, but gradually I began to see her as childish.

It wasn't that Claire was childish, in fact.

It's that I'm too old for her.

My relationship with Claire became more and more awkward as the years went by.

I became aware that the feelings I had for her were slowly losing their freshness.

No matter how exciting the words, how sweet the kisses, or how lascivious the sex, it would eventually lose its freshness.

And then, for the hundredth or so time, the loop.

"Zero, I'm afraid I'm boring you. It's no use for you to force yourself into a relationship. Let's break up.

Finally, I couldn't be with Claire anymore.

I was shocked by this fact, but I had no choice but to accept the breakup.

My love for her was slowly wearing out.

I had gone through too many loops.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped living with Claire, both as Ohashi Zero and Rei-Taylor, and began to distance myself from her.

But that's okay for now.

Because I still love Claire.

Even if I hate her, it's still better than the worst.

But what if I don't feel anything for her anymore: ......?

To me, that was the most horrible thing to imagine.

"Why don't you delete some of your memories of Claire, Zero?

As if he hadn't seen it coming, Time made such a suggestion.

When I thought about it, it must have been Time's good intentions, but at that time, his voice sounded like noise to me, so I didn't listen to it.

I began to think about ending the loop itself.

It was not an easy decision.

After all, this was about the entire human race.

As Claire had said, ending the lives of hundreds of millions of people is no small feat.

Now I realized that Claire's fears had been correct.

But I still love her.

A world where she is nothing means nothing to me.

If it's the world or Claire, I'll take Claire.

I've decided to end the loop.

In ending the loop, I had one problem.

I could never end the existence of Claire with my own hands.

I wanted to end the world, but I didn't want to end Claire.

It was a huge self-contradiction.

Then I had an idea.

"If I can't end it myself, then let someone else end it.

I created a demon king in the magical civilization and decided to reign as the king of the demon race.

Originally, demons and demonkind were designed as a stage set to produce magical civilization.

At the same time, they are a device for reproducing the fossil fuels that support the middle stage of scientific civilization.

I decided to make use of it.

I gave the demons the power to nullify the quantization of the soul.

I was determined to end the history of mankind when the magical civilization was established and the demon race killed Claire, who was soon to be born.

Strangely enough, in the magical civilization where I was reincarnated as the Demon King, there was a "Rei" who was not me.

Moreover, she acted as if she was me.

I did my best not to interfere with the history and just continued to observe, just in case the demon tribe would make sure to kill Claire.

I couldn't do it anymore. "Rei" was in fresh love with Claire.

At some point, I began to feel a strong desire to kill her.

However, what I have to do is still the same.

I have to kill Claire and end the history of humanity.

I know that this choice is a self-serving one.

After all, I'm ending human history.

It would be a more sinful act than any crime that has ever been committed in the past.

Still, I couldn't stand still any longer.

My feelings for Claire were fading even now.

I needed to end it all before it faded into nothingness.

I am the Demon King.

The true antagonist of humanity.