The Last Step - Chapter 26: The Queen of Curses

– The planet [Earth] has entered the abnormal state [Apocalypse].

– You have failed in saving the Earth. The Authority, [Vintage Clock (EX)] rewinds the world’s time.

For Yu Jitae, it was a message he had seen many times.

It was tiresome.

It would have been great had he died with everyone else.

But he couldn’t, for his authorities that made him the strongest existence, brought him back in time whenever he did.

And even with his strength, he couldn’t protect the broad earth against the maddened dragons.

– The world’s time will soon begin.

As the clock resumed ticking in the direction it should, his 7th iteration came to a start.

Fortunately, he finally had a gist.

Born into the Thornhill family, Eliana should have been dealing with succession planning and heiress training. But instead, she’s dealing with the crocodile tears of her cousin Alexa.As if stealing her Fiancé wasn’t enough, she’s out to pin everything onto Eliana.Trust issues - Eliana.Popularity issues - Eliana.Landslide - Must be Eliana.In an attempt to end her cousin’s jealousy-ridden machinations, Eliana is forced into a relationship with a childhood disaster, Lucian Alder Sinclair, her most tempting nightmare.Lucian Sinclair has always been synonymous with perfection, at least to most people. But to his family, finding someone who could handle his aloofness has been the top priority.Forced to return to his home country at the behest of his grandfather, Lucian fortunately encounters Eliana who’s in need of a ready-made partner.Constantly up at each other's throats, then into each other’s arms, may the lies they’ve told hold up against discerning family members and unrelenting pursuers.

In a world intertwining magic, knights, and burgeoning technology, young Leonard grapples with memories of a past life in the modern world after waking up reborn in this new, tumultuous reality. Separated from his family amidst a devastating conflict, Leonard's life takes a precarious turn when he is taken under the wing of Alfonso, a reclusive and somewhat deranged wizard. Under Alfonso's tutelage and the rigorous demands of a daily task panel that rewards him for mundane chores with experience points, Leonard finds himself thrust into a harsh survival regime, far removed from his previous life's comforts. His daily life oscillates between mastering arcane spells, learning the delicate art of Earth Ring meditation, and handling the meager sustenance at the prison-like estate where he and Alfonso reside.As Leonard's skills grow, so too does his awareness of the wider conflicts that plague this world, blend of industrial revolution-era technology and dark magical forces. The task panel becomes a strange companion, guiding him through tasks that blend the mundane with the magical, pushing him to grow stronger. Amidst the backdrop of this grim reality. The complex interplay of power, survival, and the echoes of his former life drives Leonard to not only master his new abilities but to unravel the mysteries of this world and perhaps find a way back to his family, despite the cold indifference of his master. Each experience point earned and each new ring formed in his meditation brings him closer to understanding this world's brutal truths and his own place within it.

Akira Tsukihara was a romance author who despised love. Though she wrote best-selling novels filled with idealistic romance, she harbored nothing but contempt for the genre and the readers who adored it. Love, in her eyes, was a lie—an illusion that blinded people from the true forces of the world: power, betrayal, and ambition. One night, in a fit of frustration, she cursed love itself... and woke up trapped inside one of her own stories.Reborn as Aira, a nameless peasant girl in the Kingdom of Seraphis—a world she had meticulously crafted—Akira quickly realizes that reincarnation isn’t the fantasy dream she had written about. She isn’t a noble, a princess, or a heroine blessed with beauty and power. She is a nobody. A commoner, struggling to survive in the harsh realities of the medieval world she had once designed as a mere backdrop for her grand romances.As Aira, she faces starvation, endless labor, and the crushing weight of insignificance. But Akira was never one to accept fate. If she couldn’t escape this world, she would rewrite the story on her own terms. She would carve her name into history—not as the lovestruck heroine of a cliché romance, but as the mastermind who would bend the world to her will.In a land ruled by noble bloodlines and political schemes, where the romance tropes she once loathed play out before her eyes, Aira sets her sights on one goal: destroying the very ideals of love that had imprisoned her in this wretched world.Even if it means becoming the villain of her own story.