30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue Chapter 31

Chapter 31: The Night of Counting Stars (5)

“Shall we each do a self-introduction? I’m Yevgeny. Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin. Kim Yu-jin, who took over the body of the Karamzin Duke Family’s son!”

Yujin spoke while writing his own name in Hangul on the club room whiteboard.

Before a terrified Knight Faculty woman, an Elf with a languid expression whose thoughts were unreadable, and the murder-Santa-Claus big brother who still made his knees buckle at the mere sight of him.

“The title of the last novel I read was The Northern Grand Duke Family’s Good-for-Nothing Sword Genius, and right now I’ve enrolled in the Theology Faculty and am walking the path of a priest! Ah, and I can see a status window. Anyone here see a status window?”

He shot a hand up and threw out a line to build some light common ground, but everyone merely eyed one another.

Nobody?

Is a status window something really special……? Yujin lowered his hand awkwardly and continued.

“Mm. Mmm……. Anyone else have questions?”

“The ending.”

“……Yes?”

“Explain the ending, the setting, and the storyline of the novel you read.”

Yujin sank into thought for a moment. Where should he start with this?

Generally a long-running serialized novel meets one of 3 endings.

One, a normal completion.

Two, a mid-run drop.

And lastly, pension-farming.

The novel Yujin had read was one where pension-farming had progressed to the marrow. Of an ultra-long serialization exceeding a thousand chapters, no less.

The kind that’s good for emptying your head lightly on the commute, that flows smoothly without any clogged stretches, and that has no real content besides.

Which is to say, there’s nothing that could be called an ending. He just goes to an academy, collects hidden pieces, starts fighting an evil Mage Family, and then suddenly a world war breaks out……

The kind that extends its lifespan by repeating the sentence and the mastermind turns out to have been ~ at 100-chapter intervals……

The sort of novel where even the author seems no longer able to imagine a completion.

“Mm……”

Ivan listened to Yujin’s words and thought. Certainly unfamiliar content, and an unfamiliar novel.

Because Ivan, that is, Kim Seon-woo, had been “earnest” about novels.

Which is to say, he had strict criteria for selecting novels. He also had the pride not to read BL-flavored no-romance long-serialization pension-farming novels sitting flashily on the main portal’s front page.

“Next.”

When Ivan turned his head, Oswald rose hesitantly.

“Oswald Eastbelphen. Second son of the Eastbelphen Viscount Family. My father is a serving Privy Councillor, an Elf belonging to Kalion. As you can see. And my Korean name was Park Jae-yeong. The novel I was reading was, um……. Mm.”

Oswald squeezed his eyes shut and forced the words out.

“The Genius Mage the Villainess Obsesses Over…… it was.”

“Ohh. Romance!”

“Shut…… hold your tongue.”

At Yujin’s interjection Oswald ground his teeth with a grind.

“I didn’t even read 30 chapters! The content wasn’t good, the ruin phase ends right about there, and after that it just shoveled forced frustration down your throat!”

“Ohh, an expert.”

“Shut u…… Hold! Your! Tongue!”

“How old are you! I’m 31 in Korea, 4 years into possession!”

“……27 in Korea, and 4 years into possession.”

“This one’s a younger brother no matter how you slice it! Want to try calling me big brother, at your ease?”

“Wow, excuse me, Mister Ivan? I can’t work with this bastard.”

So this one knows neither the ending nor the content.

Ivan nodded, ignoring the 2 chattering men.

“Next.”

“Hiik!!”

Yuri, who had been hunched over since earlier, rose from her seat with difficulty.

“I’m Yuri…… Frank. In Korea I was Lee Yu-ri…… and I was an illustrator.”

“Wow! A working adult!”

“Th-that…… my age was 29…… and 4 years into possession…… I have no parents.”

“Whoa! Immune to parent jokes……!”

“Is that bastard actually insane?”

Yujin was in a state of thoroughly elevated tension at the successive emergence of “peer” possessors. He seemed excited by the very fact that the number of people sharing information about home in this damned pre-modern other world was increasing.

Yuri, by contrast, was still hunched over.

“I-I don’t mean that my parents aren’t alive, I meant this body has no parents……. I’m called Yuri Frank……”

“The original?”

“Hik!”

Yuri flinched at Ivan’s words and averted her gaze.

A brief silence flowed while everyone focused on her mouth.

“What is it, a riddle? I’ll guess! Let’s see. Academy story, regret-ruin-obsession, so this is a TS story—! That’s the flow! A-actually you were a man in Korea, or something—!”

“I was not!!”

“Or here it suddenly becomes a streamer story…… ah, unexpectedly it could be orthodox fantasy—!”

“Th-that is, so……”

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

Oswald raised a hand with a warm smile. He was a Mind Sorcery major, that is, of the mental spell school.

Which is to say, he can use buff skills like [Grant Valor] or [Guide Wisdom].

When mysterious purple mana began to ripple, Yuri recoiled in horror and leapt backward as though convulsing.

“H-hypnosis!! Nooooo!!”

“……What?!”

“Wh-what are you going to do after casting it! Y-you all know, don’t you? You all know! You trash!!”

“I can’t follow the flow of this conversation. Mister Ivan, what do we do about this?”

Ivan deliberated a moment.

She hesitates to disclose the original, and is suspiciously frightened even by his own ordinary appearance.

The same holds toward Yujin, an outwardly ordinary handsome noble youth, and toward Oswald, who wears a soft, smiling-eyed, good-natured impression at all times.

“I-I was dragged in…… in the middle of illustration work! Th-th-the original was a deg…… deg……”

“Aha! Correct! A degradation genre!”

“Uwaaaah!!”

Yuri covered her face and sank down. I want to go home, I hate all of you, I’m scared……

She had never once entertained the thought of attending an academy with a Golden Sun, a hypnotizing squinty-eyed character, and a suspiciously strong gardener……

While Yuri was sniffling, Ivan suddenly muttered:

“All 4 years in.”

“Ah, as for this big brother here, he’s a full 30 years in.”

“What is that gentleman’s age this year……?”

“By body age he’s 34!”

“Ohh…… how dreadful.”

Oswald looked at Ivan’s beard and sighed grievously. How hard it must have been……. Deciding he’d have to make allowances even when Ivan committed some lunatic act now and then, Oswald nodded.

“Come to think of it, we all dropped in around the same period! What was there 4 years ago. Mm……”

“The Demon King died.”

Ivan surveyed them with grave eyes.

“It was 4 years ago that the Hero killed the Demon King. And both of them were possessors.”

“Uh……”

“There is no ‘story’ in this world.”

Because this is reality.

Ivan barely managed to affirm that sentence and continued.

“But there are individual ‘stories.’ Each person’s own stories……. Like the ‘original’ each of you came here having seen. Maximilien, who presumably came over from watching an orthodox Hero story, became the ‘Hero.’ The Demon King would have been the same.”

“Uh, then……”

“The Northern Grand Duke Family’s Good-for-Nothing Sword Genius.”

Ivan gestured at Yujin and then turned his fingertip toward Oswald.

“The Genius Mage the Villainess Obsesses Over.”

“Hoo……”

Oswald shook his head with a sour face.

“……And. An unnamed degradation genre……”

“Hwuaaaah……!!”

Yuri began sniffling and crying.

“All of you began your stories in settings similar to the original. A Duke Family’s good-for-nothing, a mage a noble daughter pines for, and an unnamed degradation genre……”

“S-stop emphasizing it……!”

“Yes. But the story remaining after that differs.”

Ivan’s eyes deepened.

“There are words a certain woman who knew the previous-generation possessors gave me.”

Live your story, and finish your story. What ending that story meets is not something decided by fate or by the world. That is a thing you must decide. At the end of each story there is each person’s own ending, and the direction leading to that ending is not necessarily the work of a fixed fate.

“There is no fate. On Earth or here, life is not confined within a story whose rails are laid.”

Don’t wait for fate to end your story, disciple. Turn your own pages with your own hand. To the very end.

Ivan recalled Enrique’s words and nodded.

“Having spent 30 years in this world, met the Hero’s Party, and now seen you, I have a hypothesis.”

Ivan walked to the whiteboard.

“Though fate does not determine a person’s future, I hold that fate at least intervenes in a person’s past, in a person’s ‘beginning.'”

Suppose the world desired a Demon King and a Hero, and therefore possessed them into the roles of Demon King and Hero.

And here, immediately after the Demon King’s death, are 3 other possessors.

Each possessed by way of an entirely different story, yet astonishingly holding a “starting point” similar to their original.

And all of them gathered here, at St. Yansk University. An enormous coincidence? No, this is some kind of “design.” It must be.

Which is to say, there may exist something like a tendency in the story the world desires.

What can be inferred at this present point is……

“It’s an academy story.”

“As expected! Kyah!”

“And we have the ability to grasp the ‘certified’ current in real time.”

Ivan gestured at Yujin.

“That fellow has a ‘status window.’ It presents the story’s direction in the form of quests. The sort that changes fluidly reflecting the present situation.”

“Ohh……”

“So from now on, we will……”

Ivan began writing out large letters on the whiteboard.

[What story it is that all of us require.] [What ending it is that all of us will reach.] [What it is we must do in this world.]

“We band together to grasp this. We grasp each of our own stories, analyze the world’s currents, and advance toward our ‘ending.'”

“Oooooh……!”

“Ah, hold on.”

As Yujin was shouting ooh, Oswald raised a hand.

“We haven’t heard what Mister Ivan’s story is.”

“Ah, that’s right! I don’t know either. What was your story, big brother?”

“……I don’t know.”

“Huh?”