My eyes opened.
I looked around, and that's when I noticed I was at the base.
"…"
So, I didn't just die that time from that heart attack...but I arrived at the hospital and I—
"Liam!" I quickly got out of bed, dodging Anser who was about to enter, and quickly went downstairs. It was there, in the kitchen, where I saw Liam. "Liam!"
I quickly went to her and grabbed her shoulders.
She jumped, but at the same time, there was a hint of relief on her face; I know it was relief, I know what relief looks like!
In the end, if it worried my mother, in the end...
It wasn't necessary to die to find peace.
"I remembered! My memories came back!"
Liam's face seemed confused for a second, but the next second, a smile appeared on her face. "Really?!"
"I remembered, I remembered, Liam! You were right, I put an end to this story before I died, there is an ending, there is an ending!" Unable to contain my excitement at finally finding the ending I had been searching for, I picked her up and walked around with her in my arms.
It was between the turns that I could see Anser's worried face; he was behind me.
Immediately, I put Liam down and turned to look at him.
"Oh, I'm sorry...I got carried away..." Why was I apologizing to him instead of Liam? "But…right now I—"
Anser collapsed; no, I wouldn't say he collapsed, rather, he hugged me so tightly it felt like I was being crushed by a wall.
"…"
It's not that it's the first time he's hugged me, it's just that...
"I'm glad you're well."
Uh?
"I was so scared..."
Anser, scared?
"…" But I suppose he must have been frightened to see me collapse on the floor so suddenly. "I'm fine."
Then I heard Liam clear her throat.
It's true, she's still here!
"Yes, I was saying..." I tried to push Anser away, but he wouldn't let go, so I just turned around with Anser still holding onto me to look at Liam. "I obtained the memories before I died, however, I can't quite remember what ending I gave it exactly."
Liam seemed to think for a moment. "Well, to be honest...when I read the ending of Mr. Detective I was so high that I completely forgot about it..." So, I only had the option of waiting to remember it for myself, slowly... "But."
"But?" Right now, one 'but' was very important.
"You are the author," She said. "Can't you imagine what ending you could have given it at that moment in your life?"
"Interpreting the ending, huh?" Perhaps Liam is right, if I am the author, and if right now, only I know the ending...
Do-Woo was the one who suggested I finish it; the story was at its climax...where Anser would face Randy and the other sect leaders together, a 3 vs 1 considering that Joakim died in early chapters of the original story, but with Karmen remaining as the leader...It would be four and…
"…" Anser, how did you feel? I don't remember. "Anser, if you had to face all the sect leaders, how would you feel?"
I don't need to think too much if I have the protagonist right here next to me.
Anser thought for a moment, and then looked at me. "Frustrated."
Frustrated? "Why?"
"…Something serious must have happened for me to confront my family, and I would feel very frustrated for having done so."
That's true!
If Anser always considered them family...the probability of Anser losing in the end would have been high, but…
'Something serious must have happened for me to confront my family'.
Something serious...maybe it was the real Liam who was his lover?
At the climaxes, at the same time, Liam was supposedly lost, and receiving no response from the sects, that's what led him to that fight.
So, if he had that motivation...maybe in the end Anser managed to defeat them, get Liam back and...live that happy ending he always wanted, that true family he always longed for, right?
"So, what's the ending, Jeon?" Liam asked, and I answered immediately.
"Anser achieves his goal, that of 'having a family' with his beloved."
And upon hearing, above all, the part about 'family', Anser immediately let go of me.
"Eh?" I turned to look at him, and when I saw his face... "You are..." He was smiling. "…Happy?"
I turned to look at Liam to make sure she was watching too, and that's when I saw that she was just as surprised as I was.
It was something very sweet, really, too sweet, considering that in this world families rarely stayed together due to demonic attacks.
Furthermore, Anser always wanted to have a family.
"Who will I marry?"
"Is that what worries you?" Liam said, and well, for her and for me, we knew that he was marrying Liam, but in Anser's case, he doesn't know.
Liam and I looked at each other. Anser seemed overly excited by the answer...but I doubt Liam wants to marry him...
"Jeon will marry you."
And I turned to look at Liam immediately.
How dare she try to compromise me like this?
"What is 'marry'?" That's what he said instead.
"…"
He just mentioned marriage, and now...he doesn't know what it is despite having said it?
Does marriage not exist in this world?
"Eh! Boss, Jeon, what are you doing here? I thought you were still on your date." He said July 14, entering through the back door of the base in the company of Frederick.
"It wasn't a date..." I murmured, although it was obvious it wouldn't do any good.
"Jeon will marry me." But Anser...spoke again.
July 14 and Frederick looked at each other.
"Marry? What's that?" July 14 asked Frederick.
"No idea."
So, marriage doesn't exist in this world.
"…"
So why did Anser mention something like marriage without knowing what it was?
It was just like what he did before.
"…"
Actually, Anser...
"Anser, who are you?"
Anser looked at me, confused, taken by surprise above all.
"Eh?"
But his silly face made me not really take him seriously.
"…Forget it…" I murmured, meanwhile, Mayu was approaching from behind Anser. Sensing his presence, Anser bent down to pick it up and then stroked it in his arms.
Even so, I don't think those weird things Anser says will affect us too much; we know that half the people here were from the same world as Liam and me, so maybe...Anser heard something like that.
Or at least that's what I think.
In any case, if he too were a reincarnation...if his true self has not yet appeared, it is perhaps because it is not entirely so.
"Whatever happens, if you both continue to be romantic, we're leaving…" Frederick said, pulling July 14 by the arm.
"Liam, stamina potions! Frederick is overworking me! Even my fire is starting to go out from exhaustion!" July 14 said, while he could be seen struggling to stay on his feet.
Immediately, Liam threw a bottle at her, which July 14 caught nimbly.
"You saved me!" He said July 14, and then disappeared.
"Everyone is really putting in a lot of effort…" Liam commented, with a sigh. "All I do is make potions, however I've even seen Gene practicing new spells…It's truly amazing to be strong."
"You're strong too, Liam, in your own way, but you are." I told her.
Liam just smiled. "I know," Then she crossed her arms. "You've all told me that, so now I'm not so insecure about it anymore."
I smiled.
At least, Liam stopped being like the Liam from the novel, and now, she is...the real person inside Liam Yoon Hee's body.
"It's true!" Suddenly, she grabbed a potion, along with a piece of bread. "I just finished the potion to make things bigger that you asked me for, Anser."
A small drop of the potion fell on the piece of bread, and immediately, it grew at least to the size of my arm.
"Woah!" It was incredible how talented Liam was at making those kinds of potions. "And what will you use that potion for, Anser?"
Anser looked at me, and then gave a soft sigh. "In case we're attacked directly, I'll use it on Mayu, so Gene and Liam can escape on him."
"Wow, that's very kind of you, Anser!" I said, patting him on the shoulder.
"But it still has one small flaw…" She said, and then took out another potion, putting a drop on the giant loaf of bread and then; it exploded. "I still can't make a potion to return the size to normal…"
Anser and I looked at each other, and then he spoke. "K-Keep working on that..." It was the first time he had ever looked nervous.
And well...at least...Liam made an explosive potion.
"Mayu may be a demon, but I'm sure it wouldn't survive an explosion..." I told Liam.
"Speaking of demons..." Liam said suddenly. "Renato and Joakim came a few hours ago while you were unconscious and while Anser was out shopping."
Renato and Joakim?
"Where did they go? Didn't they say anything to you?" I asked her.
"They said they would be in Joakim's office."
Joakim's office...
"Anser…"
"Let's go."
We need to finalize plans with them, as well as gather the information we obtained together.
***
"We found this type of cathedral and something resembling a giant clock buried near the gate at the entrance to the third world." Renato gave me some photographs.
I analyzed them; indeed, it was what I believed.
"London."
"Huh?" Joakim snorted, sitting in his office. "What are you talking about?"
I don't know much about foreign countries, but I can recognize Big Ben; anyway, it's the only place you'd find a structure like that, right?
But besides that, that meant one thing…
This world is my world.
This world...
"Impossible..."
"Jeon?"
Actually, this world isn't the one from my novel; instead...this has always been my world!
What happened then? Did that god I wrote about come and break the whole earth to remake it?
I didn't transmigrate...Eiram was right...I reincarnated.
And not just me, everyone else too. We all reincarnate once the world is formed again.
So...I will never leave this world to reincarnate in my world…because this world is my world.
So, this feeling of always being watched...that someone is reading my thoughts as if it were a book...wasn't it really because that world was from a novel? No, rather...why do I keep feeling like someone is reading all this? Even though this world is supposed to be my world...
What's going on?
No, rather...that means...that there's a copy of my book buried somewhere in this world! That's it!
My interpretation of the ending might be different!
"And that's not all," Suddenly, I heard Joakim's voice, and when I saw him, he handed me a book; it was dirty, but I could see some letters. "There is also this."
Did I know that book? Yes.
"…"
It was the fourth volume of Mr. Detective, where Joakim was explained in more detail, and how...he died.
The summary was in Korean, and part of it was in English, so I can assume that when they found it, Renato translated it...
Look at Joakim, and he had...
A furious face.
"Huh?" Anser looked confused.
"YOU SHITTY BRAT!" Joakim kicked his desk, Anser jumped out of his chair, about to grab me but some feathers caused him to crash into a wall of the room. The desk knocked me to the floor, making me drop both the photos and the book they gave me.
I looked around, searching for Renato, but he…
"I'm sorry, Jeon..." Renato lifted Anser with one arm; Anser was paralyzed, surrounded by Renato's feathers. "But both Joakim and I believe it's important that you tell us about our destiny, at least Joakim's destiny…"
"Anser!" I screamed, but there was no way he could move. "H-How?"
How is Renato even supposed to leave Anser that quiet?
"You remember WalpurgisNight, right? I took the remains of the mage girl's neutralization power, and imitating her magic wasn't so difficult..." He said it, in a sorrowful way, even though right now he was our enemy…
Joakim kicked the table, and then stepped on my neck, keeping me on the floor. "Am I going to die? Why haven't I died yet? What are you planning?! Why didn't you tell me before?!" And then he drew his sword, and buried it beside my head, and leaned forward. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if you're planning the same thing with Anser or the others."
Well, at first...when I saw that Joakim wasn't attracting any trouble, I had momentarily forgotten that he died in the story…
"You were the only one who died in the original story...and I momentarily forgot that when I saw you were...okay..."
"That's not the problem at all," Then, he removed his leg from my neck. "One of us was going to die, and perhaps with that precaution..." His tone turned serious. "We could have taken care of ourselves as cult leaders, and prevented the deaths of Sherly and Layla."
Then, he walked away from me and went towards Renato.
"Oh? Joakim?"
"That guy isn't to blame for his boyfriend being an idiot…" He said, snatching Anser from Renato, and then, throwing him to me, the feathers falling off him.
"Ah! We're so sorry!" Renato said, pacing back and forth.
"I'm not sorry." He said, then leaned back against the door frame. "We will help you as the main attackers."
I blinked a few times, then…
"My people will take care of the evacuations, we will start tomorrow, and at the same time, what remains of my people will take care of attacking the Rosicrucians…" Joakim explained.
"Half of my people will be in charge of protecting civilians, and the others will help Joakim." Renato assured.
In fact...that's what Anser and I were talking about earlier!
"Well...Anser and I had said that he would deliver the final blow to seal Randy's power...but we wanted you to distract him while the full moon rose."
Renato blinked, then nodded. "I can do it…but, if Randy's power cannot be sealed...what will we do?"
Well, that's clear, we'll kill Randy.
"We—"
"Do you think Anser would be willing to kill his own father?" Joakim interrupted me.
"Father…"
「…Something serious must have happened for me to confront my family, and I would feel very frustrated for having done so.」
If he found out at the last minute that he had to kill him...would he really do it? He only said he would feel frustrated...
"…"
But not that he would do it.
"In any case...I'll try to seal Randy's power first, and we'll use Anser as a last resort; after all, I doubt Randy wants to fight Anser." Renato suggested.
"The feathered fellow is right," Joakim confirmed. "Randy may be a bastard, but I doubt he'd try to kill his son."
Anyone with common sense would doubt it, but...does Randy still have common sense?
Looking at Anser unconscious...in my lap...makes me think that if I were his father, I would take care of him.
Even if they weren't related by blood...he still raised him, so how little would he really care about his son?
"So, in case I can't seal Randy's power...and it becomes necessary to kill him, I will kill him." Renato assumed responsibility. "But if I fail, Anser will have to do it, or in any case...you will, Jeon."
"I consider myself too weak to do it..."
"And just for that reason you'll make Anser traumatized by killing his own father?" Joakim repressed. "Why can't you get stronger? What have you been doing besides 'researching' even when we're helping you do it?"
"I…" He make me feel worse…
"Joakim. Leave him alone." Renato stood behind Joakim, touching his shoulder. "Once on the battlefield...only the one who is mentally stable will be able to deliver the final blow."
I sighed, and then I saw Anser slowly get up.
"It's a relief that you're okay..." I didn't imagine that the neutralization of that mage would be so powerful when Renato used it.
As soon as Anser opened his eyes, he gave Renato a hateful look, and then, he hugged me. "…Don't go near that guy."
"C-Ciro…I'm so sorry..." Renato murmured.