Chapter 424

“Ugh. Damn, I’m done!”
I stretched out and put the fountain pen down.
I held it so long that I couldn’t feel the end of the stop. On my desk was a stack of manuscript paper filled with letters.
“Writing is no ordinary job–although it is rewarding.”
I couldn’t help but smile with pride. I still had a lot more to write, but this was a good start. It’s hard enough to write down experiences, but fantasy, where you have to rely entirely on your imagination, is something I’d never be able to do.
Erzebet’s voice echoed from beyond the doorway, angry and alarmed.
“Vern, you’re done already?! Can I come in?”
“It can’t be done, I’m coming out, stay there.”
I left the room with a stack of manuscripts.
Erzebet, the editor, was looking up at me with wide eyes. She’d gotten up from her seat with a jerk, and the chair I’d brought her to rest in was sprawled out. Her elegant face, like a cat owned by an aristocrat, showed a hint of fatigue.
“Isn’t it a pain in the ass to come here every time? Maybe I’ll mail it next time.”
“Not at all, it’s Ronan’s request, not anyone else’s, and of course I’m going to help, you said I’d be the right person for the job.”
“Ouch. I don’t know many kids who break like you.”
“What about Mage Asel or Marja?”
“Asel sees through me. He’s the kind of guy who, at the end, if the main character shits his pants and commits suicide, he’ll still say, ‘Hey, I think it’s okay Ronan—! ‘ Marja would be overly commercial—you’re the best, Erzebet.”
No matter what I thought, Erzebet was the perfect person to be my editor. She was smart, articulate, and her catlike, tail-raised eyes were as good at catching typos as she was at making them.
She smiles wryly at being called the best.
“Uh huh, I’m kind of competent. Anyway, really, no pressure. You can have tea with Adeshan, the manuscript waitress, and hang out with my Erin.”
“I think that’s what the modifier is supposed to do.”
“Well, that can’t be right, what do you think I am?”
Erzebet’s cheeks flushed. In many ways, she was an easy girl.
“Eight, give me the manuscript!”
“Take it. There’s still one last episode left, and I think it’s going to be the final one.”
“Aha, that’s kind of weird, but that’s only 6% of the time, so that’s pretty fast. Can I take a look?”
The way his eyes twinkle like stars, I can tell he’s been wondering about this for a while.
I mean, I’d be intrigued if a knifeman who’s done nothing but slash and burn all his life suddenly decided to write a book. Especially if he’s been writing steadily and not just slashing at the beginning.
“By all means. But as you know, no talking to the outside world, especially not to my honey.”
“What do you think you’re doing with the Dawn Demon Pagoda? Of course, it’s sad that you’re keeping secrets from Adeshan—don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Not Erin or Zion. Not even Leland, of course.”
“Oh well. Of course, I’ll try to focus now.”
Erzebet’s face turned serious. She snapped into a state of concentration and quickly read through my manuscript. No wonder Asel was so out of the norm, she was clearly a genius.
She flipped to the last chapter in a flash and nodded.
“Whoa. I’m done.”
“What do you think?”
“I like it again, and I don’t see anything that needs fixing. Ronan’s writing isn’t flashy or fancy, but it’s strangely immersive.”
“That’s good.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The fullness of his smile told me that the week had been a success.
I’ve noticed lately that being praised for your work feels better, on average, than being praised for killing someone as a knifeman.
“This may sound a little over the top, but it’s like you’re writing about something that happened to you. I had no idea Ronan had such a talent.”
“You’re a Dawn Demon Master, you’ve got a good eye, and it’s all true.”
“Oh, don’t tease me. Is there such a thing as parallel worlds?”
Erzebet was mortified. I tried to laugh out loud, but the corners of my mouth wouldn’t budge.
The future was coming at a terrifying rate, and scholars had yet to discover anything about parallel worlds. She reread the manuscript quickly and hesitated.
“Well, by the way, Mr. Ronan—.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, you know that Archbishop Alicia from last week’s manuscript—at the beginning, the part with the harem.”
Erzebet’s face flushed as she spoke. If it was her first encounter with Alyssia, she remembered it clearly. It had been a flesh-colored feast as close to heaven as he could get.
I snapped my fingers at Erzebet, who whimpered.
“Ah. You want me to be more descriptive, I’ll give you that much. It’s a scene with a lot of naked beauties, and I thought you’d like it. I still don’t know if I should call those rags clothes-”
“Kyaaagh! That’s not what I meant! I’m just wondering what happened to the concubines who used to be called baby birds! They’re innocent, common people, and I feel sorry for them if they were just thrown away!”
“Don’t worry, Ms. Nabiroze sent it back to me. Huh? Didn’t I use it?”
“I didn’t, so I thought it burned to the ground along with the castle. Whoa—good to hear you’re alive.”
Erzebeth patted her chest. It was funny how completely immersed she was in a subject she didn’t even believe had actually happened.
I walked out onto the terrace with her to get some air. It was a three-story villa with a great view. The wide Western Boulevard and the Imperial Palace. In the distance, I could see the Innovation District with its colorful neon lights.
“It’s loud, too. It’s like a star on the ground.”
“I don’t like neon, but I don’t mind buildings, and I think the western part of the island will be a forest of skyscrapers in 20 years, and the Dawn Tower already has a skyscraper on order.”
“Look at that Didikan guy, he’s made it big. The furry guy who used to hammer and shit in the basement is the president of a major corporation—.”
I muttered as I braced myself against the railing.
Although the existence of parallel worlds has never been proven, the passage of time has changed many things. After a string of groundbreaking inventions, Didikan raked in the money and founded the Didikan & Alibrihe Company with Alibrihe, a former top executive at Nebula Clasier, as his technical advisor.
“It’s a sense of urgency, and the Sioux certainly seem to have a knack for making money. Professor Baren has just updated his ranking for tax payments.”
“Varen and Marja should be out of the question, honestly. With over a dozen affiliates between them—they’re suspiciously wealthy.”
“I think it’s a good thing such good people are rich, because I don’t think there’s a better place to live in the world right now than the empire, with all the schools and hospitals and scholarship foundations and—.”
“Agreed. The general hospital my daughter-in-law is in now was also built by Varen. Any news on that?”
“Not yet, but don’t worry, they said they’ll call you as soon as labor starts.”
“Good, then. Lance, I don’t know if you’ll have any hair left on your head.”
He chuckled as he recalled the birth of his oldest son.
I don’t know, but the pain of childbirth must have been unimaginable. It made even my wife, an iron-blooded warlord, wail like a child, so that’s saying something. She yanked at my hair like a vicious weed while saying sorry over and over again.
To this day, I can still feel the roots of my hair at the crown of my head.
“I hope you have a healthy child.
The night air was cool. I looked up and saw the sky was dotted with star clusters that were a little less colorful than I remembered from my childhood. Light pollution was to blame.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad, but I was okay with it because I knew the stars weren’t completely gone. I’m sure people in my hometown of Nimburton are still looking up at the same starry sky they always have.
“A sea of stars—.”
Maybe one day we can go to other stars like the ancient Dynharians.
He opened his lapels and spoke.
“It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
“I’ll be right back, and good luck with your writing this week.”
“Come on. You should.”
I high-fived Erzebet and went back to my room. I noticed the empty desk.
All the hard work of the manuscript was gone, and all that was left was a pile of cow dung, white as the abyss, with nothing written on it.
“There you are. Ronan.”
Lin, a human polymorph, sat on the bed, reading a book. It was probably pornographic. When she made eye contact with me, she flipped open the book and thrust it at me.
“Ronan. Can’t you write something like this?”
“Why did the Duchess give Peter a cake, a masterpiece no pervert hasn’t read.”
“Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.”
“Do you want to use it? It’s getting crazy these days–if you don’t get in right away, I’m going to stick it on the bulletin board in the Pileon with that firebrand book.”
“Chet.”
Rin’s body glowed. Transforming back into a sword, she lay down on the futon.
I freshened up with a dry wash and sat down at my desk.
“—You’re almost there.”
As the end approaches, my senses are overwhelmed. I started out writing a lighthearted story for my grandchildren, but it turned out to be too serious.
I felt a sense of responsibility to finish the story I started.
Of course, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
The really bad thing was that the stories I was writing were all true, that Akasha was going to show up one day and wreak havoc on the world, and that I still hadn’t found a clue about him or the parallel world.
After all, I was a writer now, so I had to do what a writer does.
I said to myself, clutching the fountain pen lying on the ground.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
.
.
.
If you’ve made it this far, we’d like to thank you.
We’ve come to the end of the story.
Akasha is dying, and my childhood self is slowly approaching her mental limit.
On the one hand, you’re excited to be back in the world again soon.
An adventure that felt so real, yet so far away, so daydreamy.
Honestly, it still feels like a dream sometimes.
“Not a dream, of course.
But what you see here is definitely what happened.
The Akasha, the adventures in parallel worlds, the encounters with the other me, the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a short story for a lowly magazine–all of it.
I’m proud to say that I don’t lie about what has happened in the past or what will happen in the future.
But just because I’m serious doesn’t mean you have to be. All you have to do is enjoy the adventures of little Ronan for what they are. Life is too short to spend it fearing a catastrophe that has not yet come.
That was a long introduction.
You’ll have to see for yourself what happens in the final chapter.
The hills of Nimburton at sunset.
Beneath the giant oak tree that always took a nap.
“Ah, damn… My head.”
After chasing Akasha through the rift, I finally opened my eyes.