Japan. Tokyo. Subway station D. The morning.
"A train will arrive at station D. in a one minute. A train will arrive at station D. in a one minute," read the running line on the screen.
"Dear passengers! Please don't get close to the platform, it is dangerous!" A man in a dark blue uniform with a cap on his head walked around the station, looking at the sleepy Japanese who were standing at the red line on the floor.
A loud ringing horn echoed, signaling the arrival of a train. The morning of the usual day began. It came at the station and the doors opened.
"Please, let's go one by one, don't push each other," the man held out his left arm up and invited the people to come inside.
After all the passengers had entered, the doors closed and train left for the next subway station.
"Another one left. Good luck," said the man with a smile, looking the departing train.
He waved his hand and turned around to the people approaching station D. This man really loves his job.
***
The train quickly and evenly raced through the tunnel. A sleepy and serene atmosphere was in the subway car.
Among people, a young man stood out sharply, whose mood was unusually angry and aggressive until morning. He looked to be about thirty years old. This man's name was rather commonplace for a Japanese - Yamada Satoru. Black hair, disheveled in different directions, large dark circles under brown eyes and a heavily rumpled shirt and trousers betray his broken state.
Yamada looked at his smartphone with annoyance. With quick movements of the fingers of his right hand, he wrote a comment in the Readme app.
"Author, you are &@&₽&@&! I didn't sleep all night for THIS ENDING?! The protagonist killed the main villain and... Died?! For what?! He was supposed to live happily ever after, you are &@&₽&@&!!!"
With a furious tap on "send," Yamada pressed the blocking button and sighed heavily.
"Damn… How annoying…" he said with an evil voice.
The events of yesterday flashed through his head.
"Dear readers! I hasten to inform you that the last chapter of the novel "I will save the world before I die" will be released tonight. Thank you for all the time that…" Satoru received a notification on his phone.
"What the... " the young man stopped chewing onigiri with tuna and got up from the pillow, "Yes, this ... It can't be!!!"
He began to walk back and forth in his small one-room apartment. The flat had a bed and a small desk for his laptop. Biting thumb finger, he spent several minutes looking for information on various sites. But nowhere was it said about the end of the novel.
"This is definitely the author's official page," Satoru said as he tapped the screen of his smartphone. "Ha... I find it hard to believe that the last chapter will be published today."
All evening he waited for a notification from the Readme application to arrive on his phone, but this did not happen.
"It is already three in the morning…" Yamada thought involuntarily, glancing at the bottom corner of the laptop screen, "But never mind, Satoru! You can do it! " he encouraged himself.
He was driven by stubbornness and a strong desire to find out what will happen at the end of the novel. After brushing his teeth, he plopped down on the soft cushion in front of the laptop desk. Then the man found the Readme website in a search engine. Likewise with the app, no new updates.
Time passed, and he had already drunk the third cup of strong coffee. But the drink did not help Satoru cheer up, his eyes constantly closed and he really felt like sleeping. Every ten minutes, he poked at a page reload on the ReadMe.
There is… no… episode… Fury, fueled by fatigue, got the better of him.
"When is this damn chapter coming out?" Yamada said in an angry voice that almost turned into a scream.
Realizing that anger would not help in any way and he would only waste his strength, he wearily lowered his head to the laptop keyboard.
"Idiot, I am already talking to myself..." he whispered.
And then, breaking the silence of the room, there was a sound of notification. Satoru instantly raised his head and opened the table of contents tab. And there he saw an inscription in capital letters marked with a new sign: the final chapter.
"Finally!" Yamada said enthusiastically with a wide smile.
He clicked on the link several times, after which the page loaded for several seconds and the coveted text appeared in front of him. His eyes darted across the screen. While reading, the youth's smile began to slowly fade. He furrowed his brows and nibbled on his thumb. At the end of the page, in large letters, it was written: The End!
"The end?.. " he blurted out, "Seriously?! The End?!"
For this reason, Yamada Satoru couldn't sleep. And now, sitting in the subway in the morning, he had to face the consequences. Leaning his head back in his chair, he thought.
"In the comments people wrote that the sales of the novel sagged a lot and the author was told to finish quickly. I thought it was written by haters ... But no… I can't believe I wasted three years of my life…"
Blinking slowly several times, his mind drifted off to sleep. It was as fleeting as a feather.
"The train is arriving at station S." came a mechanical voice throughout the subway car.
When information began to reach his brain, Satoru instantly woke up and jumped from his seat.
"Just don't tell me... I passed!!! Heck!!! I am so late!!!" Panic appeared on his face.
The young man jumped up and, pushing the people in front of him, ran to the door. When the train stopped and the doors opened, Yamada ran out and looked at the station signs.
"Station Y, station Y…" He noticed that the sign with the station he needed told him to go to the right corridor.
He got up and ran in that direction. And then he saw a long staircase leading up and an escalator next to it. But due to the fact that no one wanted to go up on their own, a large crowd lined up at the escalator.
"Time is running out, I will have to climb the stairs," a thought flashed through his head.
Using all his strength, Satoru rushed up the stairs. His breath hitched quickly and a bead of sweat rolled off his forehead. He did not think that each step would be given so difficult.
"So… hard…" The young man thought to himself, and noticing the treasured end of the stairs, he cheered up, "Come on, Satoru, you can do it!".
But, at the last step, for a moment, everything began to blur before my eyes. A feeling of lightness came to his mind, as if his body had become weightless. Everything happened so slowly and unrealistically, as if it was not with him.
Somewhere far away, as if the speakers were turned to the minimum volume, frightened cries of people were heard. And a moment later, Yamada felt that he was lying on something.
"Didn't I just stand there?.." Satoru belatedly thought to himself. " Why do I feel so cold... " He felt an incredible coldness.
His entire body was like a huge block of ice that could not be moved. Every second his breathing became slower.
Gradually, all extraneous sounds began to subside. A final thought flashed through his head. "Stupid... end.."
And then ... It became too quiet. As if the sound on the phone or laptop immediately turned off. And in the midst of this silence there was a quiet sound of a heartbeat.
Tudum. Tududum.
With every second, the sound of a heartbeat grew and became louder and louder.
Tududum. TODUDUM.
Heartbeat sound filled all the space around. It couldn't be turned off. And there was nowhere to hide from it.
But... The beating of his heart became unimportant when suddenly a hellish heat began to spread through every cell of his body. Its temperature could be compared to the lava of a volcano. The heat brought unbearable pain, it was impossible to endure it, there was no way to escape from it.
"I can't take it!.. It's too hot!.." Satoru's ethereal body moans painfully into the void.
The young man could not understand if he was screaming, because he did not even hear himself.
And then ... As if at the snap of a finger, everything stopped at once.
Feeling great relief, he opened his blood-red eyes. Slowly coming to his senses, Satoru found himself pulling his fingers hard through his hair. Letting his hands down, it began to dawn on him that he was not at the subway station, but in a dark and damp room. The smell of damp immediately rushed into his nose.
"It looks like a basement…" Yamada thought to himself as he continued to look around.
He noticed an unusual flame of green candles that stood on a small round table. Nearby lay a folio of a rather massive, at first glance, black book. Above the table stood a man whose face was hidden by a robe. His wrinkled hands trembled as he noticed Satoru staring at him.
"After so many attempts… Victims… We finally succeeded!!!" emotionally shouted this man, waving his hands up.
Then he knelt down on the floor and said, "My lord Leviathan! All of us, miserable mortals, welcome you to our wretched and insignificant world!!!" He bowed respectfully.
Then there were many rustling sounds. Just now, Satoru noticed that the people in robes were surrounding him and this strange man. "Give us your order!!! " there were many voices around.
They all followed the man and bowed. They were men and women of all ages. There were about a hundred or more of them. Because of the darkness, there was little to see.
"Was I captured by the Satanists?.." - the first thing that came to Yamada's mind - "Judging by their clothes, this is..."
Although Satoru was very nervous on the inside, on the outside, his face changed and looked furious. He caused fear in people, because they do not know what the Lord can do at any moment.
Out of the corner of his eye, Satoru noticed a white outline on the floor.
"What is this…?" Yamada frowned when he saw the circle drawn in chalk.
Looking closer, he realized that he was standing in the center of the pentagram. Many elaborate signs and words in a language unknown to him were everywhere. It was a demon summoning circle for some ritual in a fantasy world, but there was something special about it.
"Somewhere, I have seen it before… But where…" Yamada thought to himself.
At this time, that strange man, without waiting for an answer from Satoru, continued to speak:
"My lord!!! Following your indisputable orders, we will sweep insignificant magicians from the face of the Earth! Capturing"
But Yamada didn't care what the man said. He was completely absorbed in the pentagram he saw.
"I have seen that…." Satoru continued to think, but his thoughts were interrupted again.
"...three kingdoms... The King of the Possessed, Lucifer, will lead us into a new era! So order us, Lord Levi!.."
Satoru's face contorted in rage and his patience ran out. Unexpectedly for himself, he quickly moved to the talking man and grabbed him by the throat, lifted him up. The hood fell off the man and the surprised face of an older man with gray hair was revealed to Satoru.
"You talk too much…" Satoru hissed, pressing his fingers harder into the man's fragile neck.
The people around Satoru and the men were bustling around, creating a rumble. Many of them were shocked. Everyone felt genuine fear. But no one had a desire to approach them, because no one wanted to become the next victim.
"Gha…" the man wheezed, letting out saliva from his mouth.
His face began to rapidly turn pale. The torment reflected on the elderly face of the man brought incredible joy to Satoru. A strange desire began to rise in him. Yamada wanted to pierce the man's thin neck with his fingers and feel the warm blood.
"Kill him… Kill him… Kill him…" A voice whispered in Satoru's head, terrifyingly mesmerizing.
It was impossible for him to resist.
Sensing death approaching, the elderly man raised his shaking hand up.
"Please… please… have mercy…" the man gasped hoarsely before losing consciousness.
His words had a sobering effect on Satoru. The bewitching voice disappeared from consciousness. Panic and confusion filled his mind.
"What am I doing?!" Realizing what he had done, Satoru opened his hand and the body of an unconscious man flew down.
"Where do such strange thoughts come from?! It was like someone was controlling my feelings…" He looked at his large trembling hand, which almost killed a man. Noticing the black tattoo on the back of his hand, he brought it closer to him and widened his eyes in surprise.
"Th-the same sign was!.." Satoru suddenly remembered.
A paper version of the first volume of the novel appeared in his head, entitled: "I will save the world before I die." In the middle of the book was an illustration of a sign with three arrows and an eight below them. Under this illustration were the lines: "and it was an inverted pentagram with a goat's head inscribed in it. In the ring around, opposite each ray of the star, the name "Leviathan" was inscribed.
The young man, with an expression as if he had just won a big prize, looked at the newly acquired badge on his left hand.
"Hehe," the young man began to laugh continuously. "Finally, I got an incredible power!!!
His scream deafened all the people around. The mysterious old man whose face was hidden by a robe was smiling broadly. After all, thanks to him they received one of the Lords.
The most envious person in the world finally got what he always wanted. This was the end for the man under the name... "
"Mercury Davis…" Satoru whispered.
" I... I ended up in the body of a secondary mob, who should die in the second part of the novel!!!" Yamada thought to himself.