"You know that can kill you, right?"
"So? What about it?"
Raising his eyebrows slightly, Simon looked at me with a questioning face from where he stood across me leaning against the snow-covered tree, whilst bringing the lit cigarette to his lips.
"At least it's better than drugs."
"Sure..." With a trailing voice, I walked over and sat down on the right side of the tree with my arms in the pockets of my coat and the travel bag slung under my right armpit.
"I can't believe that these days, kids younger than me are...ah, whatever. So, why'd you bring me here, I know for a fact that it wasn't just for a smoke or idle chatter."
"Why so impatient? Let me finish this...and, also, how'd you know that I brought you here for a different reason?"
"Intuition, I guess."
-Fuu.
Letting out a cloud of smoke, Simon stared into my eyes with a chilling glint hidden in them and spat out a few words in quick succession.
"The Creator has chosen Destruction."
"Huh...?" Staring blankly back into the dark pupils of his vibrant white eyes, it was now my turn to be confused since I could almost not quite catch the meaning behind those words.
"Nothing, nothing, I just thought you'd be able to understand."
Looking at his pristine face with wide eyes, I tried to work out the total disarray that my head had just become at those seemingly chuuni words.
'What the f*ck?'
I was absolutely bewildered. Those words were words I had written, yes, words that were quite important in the storyline, but not words I thought I'd hear from the protagonist I'd created. For those words were the beginning of the code of the main villain group of the entire story, the ones used by their members to confirm the identity of another member.
The Harbingers.
The main villains of the novel, whose influence is present all throughout and can be linked to almost every major event. The ones whose identities were so well hidden that not even the upper echelon knew the identities of most of the higher-ranked members, let alone lower-ranked ones. The ones who proclaimed themselves to be the messengers of the Creator and the carriers of His will of Destruction, and acted only under the direct orders of the Creator's Apostles.
And now, the protagonist was claiming to be on the side of humanity's greatest enemy. I didn't know whether to laugh or curse at the one who brought me into this version of my world.
Originally, my novel was one I had started writing as a hobby and had put little thought and effort into it. But, once I saw that it began rising in popularity, I completely redid all the initial chapters and had sketched out a complete plan for the future of the novel.
And now it appears I had been brought into the world of the first draft of my novel, in which the main character had been set to be a part of the group aiming to bring an end to the world. Also, it was a world I hadn't brought a conclusion to, and one where my future knowledge was only a waste of memory.
And, although he would later betray them once he realizes the true scale of things, even that was uncertain since my previous sketch had a branch in which he would not. At the moment, however, Simon only thought that he had joined a biker gang that had the ambitions of one day making it big.
'F*ck, this is worse than I expected.'
I knew that there had to be a twist, as there was in every reincarnated-into-a-novel book, but I didn't think the outcome had to be the worst one possible.
According to my initial calculations, the situation would have been salvageable and I could have probably avoided taking some extreme measures for a satisfactory resolution, but now I had to throw all those thoughts down the drain, as the flames of hope dwindled with the addition of this anomaly, though it wasn't really outside the realm of my expectations.
'I guess I have to steel my mind and get this over with. But I have to confirm my conjecture first.'
"Alright, but that doesn't answer why you brought me here."
"Don't worry, I just have a few questions for you."
"Sure."
"What was it that you were doing in cottage 6 in the morning?"
Throwing the cigarette butt onto the floor and scrunching it under his foot, Simon pressed something cold against the back of my head.
'F*ck, so my guess is true.'
"Nothing, really, just wanted to see the progress of the cottage, is all."
Nonchalantly answering him to try and buy me some time, I slipped out my left hand from within my pockets.
"Hmm...well, even if you did find out, there's no need for me to care. Well then, goo..."
"Goodbye."
Peering into his eyes, I finished his words for him as my concealed left arm arced upwards and the index finger pulled lightly on the metallic structure.
A small sound resounded within the vicinity as Simon's head jolted backward.
Standing up, I glanced around to make sure that the area was devoid of other presences, and made my way to Simon's body that had implanted itself humbly into the snow as a mass of dark liquid seeped into the ground. Finding the body to be immobile, I crouched down and grabbed the two cards that were floating atop the corpse and were visible only to me, the one who had killed him.
As soon as my hand touched the two crystalline floating cards, they disintegrated into particles and drifted into my fingertips.
'But, I'm pretty sure that the world was not of the draft novel when I first appeared on this world, unless...'
'Status!'
-----
Name: Keith Savant
[The Magician](Unawakened)
[Death](Unawakened)
[Jugement](Unawakened)
Phase: [Prologue] (Memoir 0/1)
Origin: Root 7
Origin Guide: [None]
Rank: F-
> Force: F-
> Energy: F-
> Psyche: G+
> Spirit: F-
Skills:
[1. Frost]
Inventory:
[None]
-----
"So, it's true..."
Something had happened that had completely changed all my settings to the original, and it had to have occurred within the span of the last 24 hours or so- since even yesterday morning the system status had been the latest version that was based on common terms, and not the eccentric ones I had thought up randomly.
'Although, I do prefer this simpler version more...plus, there is an inventory, which it didn't have before...'
And, I could guess what it was that caused this change.
But, before being completely sure, I had to run some tests to see whether it was what I truly thought it was.
'Frost'
Freezing over the corpse of the supposed-to-be-protagonist, I took out the shard of ice from the bag. Looking at it with a hint of regret whilst pondering whether it would have the same use against the boss or not, I gave up on that possibility as confirming the present world settings was more important because if the world was different from the one I had based plans on, then there would be no point in them at all.
Knowing that its other function had definitely not changed, I pressed it against the palm of my left hand, making a small gash from which blood trickled out and froze as soon as it made contact with the surface of the ice.
A miraculous scene unfolded almost instantaneously, as the ice shard started burning, yes burning, with a magnificent white flame and vaporizing into a mist.
'The Magician'
Willing the card in the realm of my mind, it started inhaling the mist hastily, forming a vortex in one corner of my mind. And once it settled after a few moments, a dull violet flame began flickering above the space the card occupied.
-----
[The Magician](Awakened)
-Innate Ability: Resilience
-Awakened Ability: Reality Manipulation
-----
Staring at the detailed description, I realized that the world truly had been changed and the reason was none other than a side-effect of the Resilience ability, as in my corrected novel the awakened ability of The Magician had definitely not been what it currently was.
Similar to how many aspects of myself were recovering by themselves, the world itself was returning back to its original form due to the fact that it was my creation and by extension, a part of myself- owing to the fact that it was formed based on my imagination and memories.
'Damn...this sucks...'
It truly did. Because now it meant I'd have to deal with the chaotic world that my chuuni depressed adolescent self had made when, at that time, all I had been wishing for was the end of the 'cursed' world.
"I should go back...I guess I'll have to use the awakened ability of The Magician to make others forget that Simon existed in the first place...hmm, though it would be hard since there's a lot of people and also the Harbingers. Well, only a few people in there should know him in the first place, so I guess it's not gonna be very difficult on that end.'