The judge's eyes were unmoved.
"Do you deny the murder of the academy knight?"
Noah hesitated, his mind racing.
"I don't deny it," he said finally, his voice cracking.
"But it was self-defense! I was attacked, cornered, and my magic was being disrupted. I didn't mean to kill him—I aimed to disable—"
"I have heard enough!" the judge's gavel struck again, silencing him.
"You admit to the killing, which only adds to the charges. And the demonic power you wielded that night is irrefutable."
Noah's desperation turned to rage.
"You're not listening!" he shouted, his voice hoarse.
"This whole trial is a farce! You don't care about the truth—you've already decided I'm guilty!"
"Watch your tone," the judge warned, her gaze icy.
"We have multiple testimonies, witnesses who have seen you consorting with members of the cult, students who have reported feeling threatened or coerced by you."
"They're lying!" Noah's voice cracked, his fury barely contained.
'This is all coordinated...too well planned for it to be a coincidence...'
In that moment of despair, something within him flickered—a spark of recognition, a chilling realization that sent shivers down his spine.
He remembered the game.
A specific route, one that players had discussed fervently, surfaced in his mind.
The route that ended poorly, marking a swift decline into chaos.
And then it hit him.
Noah recalled the discussions among players about a character who had been expelled—a nameless student swept into the shadows, coerced into compliance with the cult that operated within the academy's walls.
This student, never truly developed in the narrative, had been the pawn sacrificed to shield the true culprits.
It was as if the world had conspired to trap him in a cycle of despair, one that he had unwittingly become a part of. He was living a nightmare he could not escape.
He was in the body of the very character who had suffered the same fate.
Noah Ashbourne—the third-rate character, the nameless pawn in a narrative that had been all but forgotten.
'That's why I couldn't recognize this character the moment I possessed his body...'
The game had cast him aside, a character doomed to die early and unknowingly shape the world around him into something dark and twisted.
And right now, he was following that very same path.
The expulsion had sealed his fate; it was as if the game had reset itself, pushing him toward that inevitable bad ending once more.
His heart raced with a mixture of dread and anger.
How could the system, the game, allow such a tragic course of events to unfold again?
He felt the weight of the inevitability pressing down on him, a relentless reminder that history was poised to repeat itself.
"This is...[BAD ENDING NO. 1]"
He muttered.
The courtroom, filled with a mixture of spectators and accusers, faded into the background as Noah's mind raced ahead, plotting a course for the future.
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He had to escape this fate, to rewrite the narrative that had already been penned for him.
The stakes were too high, the consequences too dire.
In that moment of clarity amidst the chaos, he realized that the real battle was not just against the accusations laid before him or the expulsion that loomed over his head.
It was a battle against destiny itself, against a world that sought to trap him within a predetermined ending.
A low chuckle echoed from the side of the room, and Noah's eyes snapped to Caleb, who sat with a malicious grin, his fingers tapping against the armrest.
"Oh, but it's true, Ashbourne," Caleb sneered, his voice dripping with false sympathy.
"You were always so sure of yourself, always so untouchable. Look at you now—caught in your own web."
Leo met his eyes, and for a moment, Noah thought he saw a flicker of doubt. But then it was gone, replaced by the same unyielding determination that had condemned him from the start.