Chapter 22 - A Status Window Opened on the First Day of School (6)

Maximilien had been a Possessor. Apparently, there were even more of them.

Never mind that he had never heard any of this before. What had become of them?

The hero had disappeared. He had secluded himself somewhere deep in the mountains of Thilles, abandoning his wife and daughter.

No one could understand it. But Ivan thought he might. That was, that was...

'Did he... go back...?'

Ivan lowered his head, his face pale. Had he been able to return? Had killing the Demon King been the condition? Then what about him... What was his condition...?

SMACK!

His vision flashed white, and his head snapped to the side. The pain came afterward. Feeling his cheek sting, Ivan turned his gaze.

Enrique was watching him with sorrowful eyes.

"Get a grip. I'm not finished yet."

"... Enrique."

"Yes. You recognize me. Good."

Enrique sank back into the sofa and sighed. The boy needed sleep. No, he needed rest. Only now did she understand why.

This wasn't a matter of mental illness acquired in the war. He was caught in a disconnect. He recognized this place as reality while simultaneously wishing it weren't real.

So he couldn't have rested. All that long, lonely time. He must have chewed over his solitude every night and agonized over the strangeness of it all every day.

Possessors. Wanderers "pulled in" from other worlds. Enrique pitied their kind. This taciturn, twisted madman most of all.

She looked her disciple straight in the eye and began to speak slowly.

"They say they all arrived carrying stories of their own. Very few historical records remain, but that was true in most cases. For some, it was a tale; for others, a legend or a myth. For others still, a novel. Sometimes it was a play, and some described other things entirely."

"... They were all different...?"

"Yes. In other words, each had a story of their own."

There was no common thread to the stories that had drawn them here.

But all of them reportedly felt they had fallen into a story they admired.

There was no way to determine what triggered this, or how it happened.

"What ending... did they meet? The Possessors...?"

This was Ivan's most important question. What ending awaited him?

"Some disappeared again. Some died. Others stayed."

"And the hero? Maximilien?"

"He went into seclusion, as you know. Well, I don't know whether he's gone back since then or whether there was some other reason. It's not as though we can go ask him. We have no way to meet him."

Ivan bowed his head, reeling.

Different stories for everyone, different endings for everyone... What was his ending? To be preserved in this world forever? Was there no way back? He wanted to believe death wasn't the only ending...

BANG!

Enrique struck the desk hard. When Ivan lifted his head, she was looking at him with sorrowful eyes.

"Then what are we to you?"

"... What?"

"Just peripheral figures in a novel from your world? Nothing more than 'characters' to be consumed as lines of text, as you put it?"

"That's..."

"No. We can't be. Isn't that obvious?"

If there were ten thousand protagonists in a world where ten thousand stories mingled,

must each protagonist regard the others as supporting characters?

No. That wasn't right. They were all simply the protagonists of their own stories. In that case...

"Then are your world and this one fundamentally different? Is that place reality, while this is merely a fragment of a story? No. I'm alive. I breathe. I dislike sunlight, hate blessings, drink blood, and enjoy tea. I live, just as you do."

"Enrique..."

"You might be nothing more than someone else's supporting character? Don't be ridiculous! You're the lead in your own life, and I, too, am the entirety of mine!"

Her eyes blazed as though they would devour him.

Ivan quietly looked at her face.

"You hope you're not a supporting character? Then what do you think of us? What did you think of me? Ivan. Little Ivan. Have you lived thinking the former king you respect was merely a supporting character in a story? Were you secretly laughing at us even as you said, 'Do not mourn those who went before us'?"

"No, I never..."

"Then live. Live your story, and bring your story to its end. What ending that story reaches isn't for fate or the world to decide. You must decide that yourself."

At the end of each person's story lay their own ending.

The path that led to it wasn't necessarily dictated by a predetermined fate.

Even if the Hero's Party's journey had become legend, its members weren't heroes in a legend. They were merely individuals, still living and breathing.

Enrique clasped Ivan's hand tightly and met his eyes with an unwavering gaze.

"Do you want to go back? To your homeland?"

"... Yes."

"Then don't wait for fate to end your story, my disciple. Turn your pages with your own hands. To the last page. To the ending."

"Will there be anything I can decide at the end of it?"

"The choice to turn the page is yours alone. Just like everyone else. Everyone in this world and yours."

The hero, Maximilien, had always smiled. Always smiling, he had taken one more step forward.

Recalling those days when hope had been so desperately scarce, Enrique reflected in silence.

He had missed his homeland. He had missed the lover and parents who would be there. Every time she heard about his comfortable life and mysterious civilization, Enrique had pitied him.

A wretched castaway. A wanderer between dimensions. An outsider.

But the hero had smiled. Being ordinary meant the same thing in his world as it did in this one, he said.

So he wasn't a castaway or an outsider, but an ordinary person.

Bearing countless burdens on his shoulders, he took another step forward. Another step to accomplish what he believed should be a matter of course.

Step by step toward the darkest hell on a continent that had lost all hope.

One more step, willingly becoming a beacon for those who lacked the courage to go first.

His bravery lay in what he believed to be ordinary and self-evident. That was why he had become the hero. Regardless of any advantage, talent, or aptitude, he had carried on endlessly doing what he believed was ordinary.

To those who called it extraordinary, he had smiled and said he was merely doing, in their stead, what any of them could do.

"If only I'd met you a little sooner... If only I'd listened to your story more seriously, it wouldn't have come to this... I'm sorry, my disciple."

"Enrique..."

"I'll stand watch. Get some sleep."

"Stand watch?"

"I can tell from the state you're in. You couldn't feel safe anywhere, so you couldn't sleep properly. For at least four years. Perhaps longer—as long as you've lived."

There was no sleeping area anywhere in this room.

He must have done nothing but doze at that desk, or lying on that sofa.

What if this world's protagonist suddenly disposed of a supporting character one day? What if the story ended while he was in no position to do anything? He had fretted over such paltry worries.

He had treated others as supporting characters, yet stubbornly insisted that he himself must not be one. All while believing he could never be the protagonist.

"If you need me to, I'll stand watch every night."

Ivan didn't refuse. He was too exhausted.

Kim Seonwoo quietly closed his eyes.

He had misjudged things. This world wasn't a strategy simulation or a classic heroic RPG. Those might have been someone else's stories, but they weren't his.

He wasn't a soldier in a strategy simulation, or the Hero's Party's scout. The first chapter of Ivan Petrovich's—Kim Seonwoo's—story hadn't even opened.

Thirty years had passed in the prologue.

Now the introduction to his story was over. This story wasn't called a "genre." It was called "life."

Perhaps it was an academy story after all. Ivan gave a faint chuckle as he reflected on his circumstances.

That thought no longer angered him.

He was too exhausted, too tired to be angry.

And the hand patting his shoulder was warm.

He felt safe.

* * *

He was sixteen. It happened one day, two years into his life on the battlefield.

Kim Seonwoo gritted his teeth and rolled across the ground. His issued sword had broken. He was out of ammunition, and the demons had finally broken through the defensive line.

When his sword broke, he scoured the ground for a spear. When the shaft broke, he struck down with a shield. He seized an axe, swung a greatsword, and held on.

Even he had never imagined he could fight like this. He was far better at physical exertion than he had expected, and he didn't tire easily.

Of course, at the moment, the violent rush of adrenaline seemed to be keeping him from feeling his exhaustion.

Given his athletic ability, he should already have collapsed. Yet Ivan rolled across the ground and picked up a sword. He took up a spear. He swung an axe and shoved with a shield.

How much time passed like that?

His body still moved. His vision was still clear. The only sounds he could hear were his own breathing and his heart pounding as though it might burst at any moment. His nose had long since forgotten every smell but blood.

He survived by blocking, pushing back, and striking whatever came at him.

When silence finally came, Kim Seonwoo realized a vast shadow had fallen over him.

["You fought well."]

A deep voice sounded above his head. Turning his gaze, he saw a military banner. Krasilof's.

An ally. Kim Seonwoo let his shoulders drop and lowered his head.

The man was on horseback, so he was someone important. And since he was beneath the banner, he must be the commander.

["What is your name?"]

["Ivan Petrovich, Commander."]

["Your age?"]

["Sixteen."]

["Your position?"]

["I'm a conscript."]

With the sun at the man's back, his face was impossible to see. The sunlight shone around him like a dazzling halo.

["Look behind you."]

He turned as the commander ordered. He thought he was being told to return to the main camp.

He saw so many corpses that the ground was hidden beneath them. Countless bodies, human and demon alike.

As Kim Seonwoo was about to frown, he heard a coaxing voice.

["Lift your eyes. Look at those still standing."]

Only then did he notice the others. Not bodies, but people.

Survivors. Wounded, barely standing with broken spears for support, trembling yet somehow still alive.

["We were meant to lose this campaign. We needed to commit our strength to another front."]

["... Your Majesty!!"]

An attendant behind the commander cried out at his words. The large man continued, unperturbed.

["But these people survived. Ivan Petrovich. Look at the people you saved. Stand tall. You saved them, the villages behind them, their families somewhere out there, and the people of those villages."]

The commander swung down from his horse and stroked his head. His hand was large.

["So stand tall, 'Little' Ivan."]

["... I'm not little."]

He was taller than the average person of this era. Tall enough that even the officers enforcing discipline at the front took him for an adult.

["When I fought as you did at your age, I earned the name 'Ivan the Great.' Surely you wouldn't dare claim the same name as your king?"]

["Your Majesty...!!"]

The attendant shrieked again. The man with the large hands gave Ivan a pat on the back and remounted.

["Have the boy treated and trained."]

["Do you intend to take him into your service?"]

["You might as well keep a lion in a zoo. Just make a place for him. If he rises high enough to stand on his own, won't we meet again?"]

Five years passed before he met that man again.

Five years later, he would join the Royal Guard.

From then on, he was called "Little" Ivan. It was a name of immense honor.

* * *

Ivan had no nightmares that day.

The former king, whom he hadn't seen in so long, was as splendid as ever. And so Ivan could sleep deeply.

* * *

["???-Rank Quest" Gardener of St. Jansk University -Canceled-] [Miraculous luck stops your dice. You have survived.] [Objective: Defeat Ivan Petrovich, gardener of St. Jansk University -Canceled-] [Optional Objective: Win Ivan Petrovich Over -Canceled-] [Optional Objective: Conceal Information -Canceled-] [Additional Objective: Survival -Canceled-] [Failure Penalty: Death -Canceled-]

"What? Seriously, what the hell is this...! Explain something for once!!"

Yevgeny—Eugene—screamed at the glowing blue display.

Naturally, the goddamn status window offered no answer.