Our entire class gets dragged into The Tyrant's Atonement game. The only way to escape alive is to reach a 100% atonement score.

The system lets us choose our roles.

The class belle, Isolde Adler, picks the tyrant's first love. Her atonement score shoots straight to 99% on the first day.

The class president, Asher Brooks, chooses to be a loyal chancellor. His atonement score jumps to 80%.

Spectators watching the game flood the screen with comments.

"This new batch is smart and way better at picking roles than the last. They might just clear the game in three days."

"Even if just one person hits 100%, the whole class goes free. I'm looking forward to seeing who finishes first."

"My money's on the first love. She's already at 99%."

Just as everyone starts celebrating, the next morning hits us with bad news.

All 20 classmates who picked their roles are dead, and Isolde suffers the cruelest fate of all.

The rest of the class stood frozen with grim expressions. The scene before us was a living hell.

The classmates who'd been standing here yesterday, smiling and reassuring us, now lay scattered on the ground with torn limbs and blood everywhere. Some had even been ripped into pieces.

Isolde Adler, the prettiest girl in class, had her face slashed and her body mutilated until she looked nothing more than a human stump.

Someone finally couldn't handle the sight anymore and stumbled aside to throw up, while another broke into panicked, helpless sobs.

My hands trembled slightly, and my face was deathly pale. I was one of the calmer ones, but there was no denying that I was just a high school student.

It all started yesterday, during our class trip. The bus plunged over a cliff, and we woke up to find ourselves here.

A system appeared before us. It told us we were dead and that clearing this game, The Tyrant's Atonement, was our only way back.

It was a game where we could choose our roles.

There were 36 of us, and as long as one person managed to achieve a 100% atonement score, the system would consider it a success for all of us.

The game was streamed live across various platforms. Each of us was given a special phone by the system so we could communicate, watch the livestream, and read the scrolling comments. But we couldn't send any messages ourselves.

There was also a merit vault where we could exchange merit points for items we wanted. Each of us started with 12 merit points.

Once the system finished explaining the game, several classmates volunteered to select their roles and enter the scenario block, including Isolde and the class president, Asher Brooks.

Isolde spent one merit point to purchase a fragment of the tyrant King Ragnar's memories.

The screen flashed and showed a woman in an Aethelian dress saving a young beggar, the future King Ragnar, from a deadly beating.

The viewers filled in the backstory in the scrolling comments section.

"She's King Ragnar's savior and his first love. If not for her, he would have died from the beating back then."

"When he took the throne, the first thing he did was send his secret guards to search for her, but they never did."

"Rumor had it that he never took a queen because he'd been waiting for her."

Isolde was pleased. Just as she was about to enter the game, I stopped her. For some reason, dread was twisting in my chest.

The system said we were the seventh batch to arrive, which meant the previous six batches had failed.

Judging from the number of our current participants, at least 100 players must have joined the game. How had not even a single one of them succeeded?

I shook my head at Isolde, trying to warn her to wait and see. But she patted my hand and reassuringly said, "Someone has to go first. Even if I fail, we all survive as long as someone in our class makes it.

"Don't worry. I'll definitely bring back good news."

Isolde stepped into the game before I could even continue to dissuade her.

At first, everything went just as the comments had predicted.

The moment King Ragnar saw her, her atonement score jumped to 95%. After a few sweet, affectionate lines between them, it rose to 99%.

Everyone was thrilled. We were one step from victory.

Meanwhile, the others were doing well too.

Asher, who played the chancellor, managed to raise King Ragnar's atonement score to 80% by speaking blunt truths. Another classmate, playing King Ragnar's biological sister, gained 50% just by acting cute.

The others who'd stayed behind and not entered the scenario block began to regret it.

"I would've joined and played if I'd known it was this easy to have King Ragnar atone."

But the unease in my chest only grew. A nagging feeling told me that we'd overlooked some detail.

We waited from day until deep into the night. While Isolde's atonement score stayed stuck at 99%, the others had increased a little.

We guessed that maybe we had to wait for King Ragnar and Isolde to get married to fill the atonement score.

Some of us grew tired and lay down to rest.

I pulled out my phone and texted Isolde, just to check in on her. But she never replied.

The next morning, we saw her body.

The comments kept pouring in.

"LOL. Isolde picked the deadliest role. She might have saved King Ragnar once, but she only took him home to vent her anger on him. King Ragnar had never stopped searching for her because he hated her.

"And the chancellor? King Ragnar has never wanted a blunt minister. The fact that he embarrassed King Ragnar in court meant he was doomed for death.

"As for the princess King Ragnar kept alive… It wasn't because of their biological ties, but because he resented her for being born into comfort and wanted to slowly torture her."

That was when I saw a text Isolde had sent me in the middle of the night.

It was just one word. "Run!"

Before anyone could react, the system's voice rang out again.

A 90-minute countdown timer appeared in front of us, glowing with intensely unsettling stark red digits like a death sentence.

Someone finally snapped and shouted at the system, "What do you want from us? Why did you trap us here?"

The system didn't answer, but the questioning shouts continued, "Why did they die? Why are they dead? You only said we'd die if we fail the game, but you never said King Ragnar would kill us!"

Still, the system said nothing.

"I quit! I'm done! I'm going home!" another yelled.

That was when the system finally responded, "Player 18, do you confirm to exit the game? Your body outside the game world is dead. Exiting before the atonement is completed will result in immediate death."

Some classmates tried to warn him not to act rashly, but he'd reached his limit and roared at the system, "I'm sure!"

The next second, his body split cleanly in half. An eyeball hit the floor and rolled away.

He slowly reached out toward the nearest classmate, but his body was shredded into pieces before he could even make a sound, and chunks of his limbs were flung away.

The classmate standing closest to him was splattered with blood. After standing frozen for several minutes, they seemed to finally process what had happened and screamed.

The comments exploded with wild excitement.

"Beautiful! The blood splatter pattern is chef's kiss. Looks like the system's punishments keep getting better."

"Look! Someone actually wet themselves! This is nothing; the longer they wait to enter the game, the harder their atonement routes get."

"King Ragnar knows the Atoners exist now. I can't wait to see what will happen to the players next."

I frowned. The viewers behind the comments sounded no different from sadistic killers.

When no one else spoke, the system's voice returned.

"Please select the next participant to enter the game before the timer ends. If no one enters, the game will be deemed a failure, and I will punish the remaining players."

We exchanged glances and all saw the fear reflected in each other's eyes.

The system continued, "Current death count totals 21. The remaining 195 merit points will be evenly distributed among 15 survivors."

With that, my phone screen popped up with a notification showing that I'd just received 13 merit points, which brought my total to 25.

"Would you like to spend 75 merit points on redeeming memories of the deceased?"

We looked at each other again. After everyone nodded, each of us contributed five points to redeem the memory fragments.

When the scene flashed, Isolde's memory was the first to appear. It featured King Ragnar strangling her by the throat and carefully studying her face.

"You are not Isabella Thorne, are you?" he asked. "Who are you, or rather, who are all of you? What's your purpose in trying to approach me?"

Isolde must have discovered the truth about King Ragnar's first love by then. She glared back at him and choked out, "I-I'm Isabella Thorne… I'm here because…"

He leaned closer, trying to hear her last words. Isolde seized the chance to bite down hard on his ear and tear off a large piece.

"You have a death wish!"

King Ragnar's expression darkened. He tightened his grip around her neck, loosening only when she was on the brink of death. That cycle repeated several times before he finally tossed her onto the floor.

Barely alive, Isolde grabbed her phone and sent me a message.

Just after she hit send, King Ragnar drew his sword and chopped off all her limbs. Then, he skinned her face and watched her die in agony.

The others' memories were just as brutal. Each one showed a different form of torture.

King Ragnar discovered the existence of the Atoners, but not knowing how many there were, he simply killed anyone he suspected.

Overnight, Aethelburg became a mountain of corpses, yet King Ragnar smiled innocently. Lying among the bodies, he hugged his sword tightly like a child desperate for a sense of security and comfort.

None of us felt even a shred of pity for him. The remaining 15 of us stared back at him with rage or loathing.

In Aethelburg, the people lived in terror and grief.

Beyond Aethelburg, hordes of refugees swarmed the roads and resorted to cannibalism, with corpses littering the land.

All of it was born from King Ragnar's reign. Why did such an incompetent and ruthless man, who slaughtered the innocents, deserve a chance to atone for his crimes?

My eyes burned red as I fixed the system with a deadly glare.

It seemed to notice and asked in a cold, electronic voice. "Player 26, would you like to enter the scenario block?"

Before I could answer, our class representative, Elara Vance, stepped in front of me. She was the only remaining student council member.

After adjusting her glasses, she announced, "I'd like to enter the scenario block."

Shocked, I shook my head at her, but she smiled at me. "As the class rep, it's my responsibility to protect everyone. Besides, I have an idea, though I'm not sure if it'll work."

She began to explain. "The 20 people who last joined the game chose roles tied to power or status, and they all failed. Maybe that's the key we've been missing.

"Important figures draw King Ragnar's attention, but what if I choose to be a maid? The system never said we have a time limit, so we could try the slow, patient approach to reform King Ragnar over time.

"Since he was born into a tragic background and had a miserable childhood, maybe he'd show compassion to maids and commoners."