30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue

31 – 8. Starry Night (5)

“Shall we introduce ourselves? I’m Evgeny. Evgeny Nobikov Karamzin. I’ve taken over the body of Kim Yujin, the son of Marquis Karamzin!”

Yujin wrote his name in Korean on the whiteboard in the club room and said.

The frightened Knight Department girl, the elf with an inscrutable expression, and the murderous-Santa Claus gentleman were all present.

“The last novel I read was [Rogue Sword Genius of the Northern Grand Martial Arts]. Now, I’m enrolled in the Theology Department and walking the path of a priest! Oh, and I can see the status window. Anyone else see it?”

He raised his hand and threw a light comment for empathy, but everyone just exchanged glances.

No one?

Is the status window something really special…? Yujin lowered his hand, feeling uneasy.

“Um. Hmm… Anyone else curious about something?”

“Ending.”

“…What?”

“Could you explain the ending, setting, and storyline of the novel you’ve read?”

Eugene fell into thought for a moment. Where should she start explaining this?

Typically, a long-running novel encounters one of three conclusions.

One, a normal conclusion.

Two, a hiatus.

And finally, serialization until the end.

The novel Eugene had read was a serialized one that had been stretched beyond a thousand chapters. It was the type that you could casually read during your commute, smoothly progressing without any tedious or dense parts, and lacking any substantial content.

So, there was no such thing as an ending. Just going to the academy to collect hidden relics, starting a fight with a villainous wizard family, and suddenly a world war erupting…

It was a novel where the phrase “It turns out he was the villain” was repeated every 100 chapters, extending its lifespan.

Probably a novel where the author couldn’t even imagine a proper ending anymore.

“Hmm…”

Ivan thought as he listened to Eugene’s words. Definitely an unfamiliar content, and an unfamiliar novel.

Originally, Ivan, or rather Kim Sunwoo, was ‘sincere’ about novels.

In other words, he had strict criteria for choosing novels. He had the pride not to read long-running serialized novels with flashy additions of BL or Norman’s serialized pension novels that adorned the main portal’s first page.

“Next.”

As Ivan turned his head, Oswald hesitated and stood up.

“I’m Oswald Eastvelpen, the son of Eastvelpen’s author. My father is a current member of the Secret Council, and he’s an elf under Calion. As you can see. And my Korean name is Park Jaeyoung. The novel I was reading was, um… um.”

Oswald closed his eyes tightly and struggled to speak.

“A genius wizard pursued by the villainess… yeah.”

“Oh, romance!”

“Shut… your mouth.”

Oswald bit his lower lip at Eugene’s interjection.

“I haven’t even read up to episode 30! The content is mediocre, and it’s just about finished, so after that, it’s just force-fed sweet potatoes!”

“Oh, an expert.”

“Shut… up! Close… your mouth!”

“How old are you? I’m thirty-one in Korea, in my fourth year of possession!”

“In Korea, it’s twenty-seven, and it’s the fourth year of possession.”

“You can exclude that! I can’t handle this guy as my younger brother! Can I call you hyung?”

“Wow, Mr. Ivan over there? I can’t work with this guy.”

This side doesn’t know the ending and doesn’t know the content.

Ivan nodded his head, ignoring the two people who were making a fuss.

“Next.”

“Eek!!”

Glass, who had been cowering since earlier, struggled to get up.

“I am Yuri… Frank. In Korea, I was… Lee Yuri. I was an illustrator.”

“Wow! A societal person!”

“Uh, well… I was twenty-nine years old… and it’s my fourth year being a transmigrator… I don’t have parents.”

“Wow! Immune to being teased!”

“Is that guy really insane?”

Yujin’s tension rose considerably due to the influx of ‘contemporaries’ transmigrating and sharing hometown information in this cursed alternate world. It seemed as if she was excited about the increasing number of people.

On the other hand, Yuri was still cowering.

“When I said my parents aren’t here, I meant this body has no parents… I’m called Yuri Frank….”

“Original work?”

“Yikes!”

Yuri flinched at Ivan’s words, avoiding eye contact.

There was a momentary silence as everyone focused on her words.

“What’s this, a riddle? Let me guess! Let’s see… Academy theme, homeless, then this would be ts…! That’s the flow! M, maybe in Korea, it was a man…!”

“No!!”

“Or suddenly here it becomes an office romance… Ah, it could unexpectedly be a classic fantasy…!”

“W, well, that’s because…”

“Shut it, Yujin. Now, Miss Yuri Frank. I’ll cast a calming spell on you.”

Oswald raised his hand with a warm smile. He was a practitioner of the Mind Sorcery, specializing in mental spells.

In other words, it meant he could use buff skills like [Valor Bestowal] or [Wisdom Guidance].

As the violet magical energy began to surge, Yuri panicked and leaped backward as if in convulsions.

“H-Hypnosis!! I hate it!!”

“…What?!”

“What are you trying to do by casting that?! You know everything, right? You bunch of rapists!!”

“I can’t follow the flow of conversation. Ivan, what’s going on here?”

Ivan pondered for a moment.

Hesitating to reveal the original work and filled with fear despite his ordinary appearance, even the handsome nobleman Eugene and the kind-hearted Oswald, who always wore a gentle smile, were not exempt.

Ivan, shocked by the sudden emergence of a certain ‘ideology,’ widened his eyes in disbelief.

‘A feminist…?!’

Struggling to recall a word from Earth 30 years ago, Ivan, still in shock, listened as Yuri closed her eyes and fumbled for words.

“I…I was dragged into this illustration work halfway through! Th-the original is capa… capa…”

“Ahahahaha! Correct! A work of insult!”

“Uwaaa!!”

Yuri covered her face and hesitated, feeling homesick, disliked by everyone, and frightened.

She had never even considered attending an academy with a powerful gardener like Kwon Tae-yang, a mesmerizing spell-eyed cat, and a gardener so strong that it raised suspicion.

As Yuri sniffled, Ivan suddenly muttered.

“Everyone’s in their fourth year.”

“Ah, if I may refer to this gentleman, he’s an impressive 30-year veteran.”

“How old is that person this year…?”

“He’s thirty-four in physical age!”

“Oh… I see.”

Oswald sighed heavily, looking at Ivan’s beard. How difficult must it have been? Oswald thought he should understand even when Ivan occasionally did crazy things like a madman.

“Come to think of it, we all fell around the same time! What happened four years ago? Um…”

“The Demon King died.”

Ivan scanned them with a serious look.

“The hero killed the Demon King four years ago. And both of them were possessed individuals.”

“Uh…”

“There are no ‘stories’ in this world.”

Because this is reality.

Ivan barely affirmed this sentence and continued.

“But there are individual ‘stories.’ Like each person’s story… like all of you have seen the ‘original.’ Maximilian, who surpassed the traditional hero genre, became a ‘hero.’ The Demon King was the same, I suppose.”

“Oh, then…”

“The rogue master swordsman of the Northern Defense. The genius magician pursued by the villainess.”

Ivan gestured to Eugene and immediately turned his fingertip to Oswald.

“The villainess’s beloved genius magician.”

“Sigh…”

Oswald lowered his head with a troubled expression.

“…And. An unnamed curse.”

“Ughhh…!!”

Yuri began to sob.

“All of you started your stories in a setting similar to the original. A nobleman’s rogue, a noblewoman infatuated with a sorcerer, and an unnamed curse…”

“Enough with the emphasis…!”

“Yeah. But the rest of the story is different.”

Ivan’s eyes deepened.

“A woman who knew about the previous reincarnators once told me something.”

“Live your story and conclude it. The fate or the world doesn’t determine what ending your story will have. It’s something you have to decide.”

“At the end of each person’s story, there is their own conclusion, and the direction leading from that conclusion is not necessarily dictated by a predetermined fate.”

“Fate doesn’t exist. Whether on Earth or here, life is not confined within the predetermined rails of a fixed story.”

“Don’t wait for fate to finish your story. Disciple, turn the pages of your own book with your own hands. Until the end.”

Ivan nodded, recalling Enrique’s words.

“After spending 30 years in this world, meeting the hero party, and formulating a hypothesis after seeing all of you again.”

Ivan walked towards the whiteboard.

“While fate doesn’t determine a person’s future, it does intervene in a person’s past, in their ‘beginning,’ at least.”

Let’s assume that the world, desiring a role for the Demon Lord and the hero, combined them through reincarnation.

And here, there are three other reincarnators who appeared just after the Demon Lord’s death.

Although they reincarnated through completely different stories, surprisingly, they all share a ‘starting point’ similar to the original.

And all of them have gathered here, at the Yansk University. Is it an incredible coincidence? No, this is some kind of ‘design.’ It must be.

In other words, there might be a tendency in the stories that the world desires.

“What a cliche.”

“As expected! hahahaha!”

“And we have the ability to perceive the ‘authorized’ flow in real-time.”

Ivan gestured to Eugene.

“That guy has a ‘status window.’ It presents the direction of the story in the form of quests. It dynamically changes based on the current situation.”

“Wow…”

“Then, from now on…”

Ivan began writing large letters on the whiteboard.

– What stories do we all need?

– What is the ending we all strive for?

– What should we do in this world?

“We gather to understand this. We grasp each of our stories, analyze the flow of the world, and move forward for our ‘ending.'”

“Ooooh!”

“Ah, wait.”

When Eugene made a sound of awe, Oswald raised his hand.

“I didn’t hear what Mr. Ivan’s story was.”

“Oh, right! I don’t know either. What was your story, sir?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

Ivan scanned them all with a serious gaze and calmly spoke.

“I left malicious comments on a work with over thirty chapters to possess it.”

“Oh… Oh, wow.”

“Oh no….”

Fanatic.

Under Ivan’s name, three red underlines were drawn in the minds of the three.

*

That night, they all stood on the tallest tower of the Janusk University, looking up at the sky.

“Then, Korean Patriots, let’s go!”

“Since it’s a Returning Home Party.”

“I wish we hadn’t named it.”

Ivan was secretly considering naming it the “Volunteer Club.”

*