...
Hajin stared at me for a long moment, his eyes narrowing slightly, reflecting a mixture of caution and distrust. The silence that settled between us seemed heavy, as if every second was filled with a meticulous analysis of my words, my posture, every expression I could show.
Then he sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment, as if organizing his thoughts before finally breaking the silence.
"You don't want the others to get into danger."
His voice sounded low, almost contemplative, as he repeated my words, as if he needed to hear them again to absorb their full meaning.
"Does that mean you believe something big is about to happen? Something that deviates from the script we know?"
I nodded slightly, keeping my posture firm.
"Exactly..."
Hajin tilted his head, frowning in a reflective gesture. He seemed to be trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle that, until then, hadn't made sense. His eyebrows twitched slightly, and his mind was working at full speed, reliving recent events, connecting details that had gone unnoticed.
"But why? There's been nothing out of the ordinary so far..."
His voice slowly died away as his expression changed. A flash of insight shone in his eyes, followed by a sudden wide-eyed stare. It was as if he had finally found the missing piece.
"The first place that was supposed to be Suho's last week..."
He muttered, remembering.
"His relationship with main characters... Chae Nayun using a sword in the museum a few days after we entered the Cube... The dead monsters outside the museum... E..."
Hajin stopped abruptly, and his breath caught for a moment. His eyes fixed on a distant point, recalling a crucial event. Then he whispered, almost to himself:
"That lightning bolt. The lightning that struck the djinn before he could catch Nayun... All that..."
His chest rose and fell in a deep sigh, as if he were absorbing the magnitude of what he had just realized. He looked at me again, his eyes now filled with something different, a mixture of understanding, disbelief and a twinge of tension.
"Correct, it was me..."
My words hung in the air like distant thunder. Hajin blinked, absorbing my confession. All these little detours, seemingly subtle changes, had been caused by me, even if many of them had occurred without my realizing it. And now, it was clear that my actions had triggered something on his side too.
For a moment, he was silent, thoughts swirling in his mind. Then something finally seemed to click.
"Hah! That's it..."
A short, humorless laugh escaped his lips, an empty, almost disbelieving sound. His shoulders shook slightly, as if he were fighting an emotion he didn't want to name.
Maybe anger?
"That's why he sent me that message..."
Hearing him whisper as if he had understood something important, I refrained from speaking and began to think about the meaning of his words.
'Hum! As I imagined, the co-author must have said something to him, something that left him deeply shaken.'
"That? That's the reason you haven't slept and are lying there almost dying?"
Hajin stared at me as if I'd said something absurd.
"That's it? Can you imagine what it's like to be in a world that can kill you at any moment without any means of protection?"
I stopped momentarily after hearing his words.
"Without a means of protection... Don't tell me...."
"Yes... Thanks to you, on Sunday I received a message from the co-author saying that I would be going offline, since changes in the plot had been detected... Thanks to you I have almost no way of protecting myself. "
Now it makes sense.
That's why he's like this.
With the co-author gone, Hajin's ability to grow stronger every time his importance increased in the world also disappeared.
"Heh!... He's really figured it out... What a grouchy guy..."
"Found out what? You didn't do anything crazy, did you?"
He apparently didn't realize that the main reason the co-author went into standby mode was because of Sunday, actually.
He thinks that all the little changes were the cause.
"Haha! I wouldn't call it crazy... But rather nut-cracking..."
"Nutcracker?"
"I found out from my sponsor that the co-author had put Chae Nayun's brother into a coma, so I brought him out of it by eliminating the devil seed..."
The silence that followed was overwhelming. Hajin stared at me with wide eyes, his expression shifting between shock, disbelief and veiled fear. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His breathing was heavy, and I could see the inner conflict in his eyes.
"You..."
His voice faltered, and he swallowed. Finally, he just wiped a hand across his face, exhaling a long sigh.
"If what you're saying is true, this is going to be a real clusterfuck..."
His voice was laden with a new weight, almost as if he felt that his own fate would no longer be the same.
I understood his astonishment.
After all, Kim Hajin was allowed to interfere in the world.
But me?
I was an anomaly. Someone with abilities that should never have existed in this narrative. And by interfering so early, by eliminating a crucial element of a future storyline, I directly challenged the co-author...
"I know... He's going to change almost everything we know about this world... If before he had increased the antagonists' difficulties slightly, now he could even increase them by a margin that makes it impossible for any cadet to survive."
Events already pre-set to happen, they would certainly stick...
But those events would have very different difficulties from the ones I've read about.
"So...!? Why?"
Hajin roared, his voice breaking in despair.
"Simple... I wanted to help my girlfriend, so I did..."
Hajin fell silent again as he understood my words, his face a mask of internal conflict. Then he let out a deep sigh, his shoulders sinking, as if he had accepted something inevitable.
"Now I understand... Why you're always stuck together... You and Nayun are dating, and because of a romance, we're screwed..."
"Hmm! Who says? Do you think I didn't do these things without considering the consequences?"
Yes, I was a bit anxious to know what the co-author was planning to do, even though I have powers capable of bringing even the dead back to life, that doesn't mean I was planning to close my eyes and let the co-author do whatever he wanted...
"See for yourself... And have your answer."
My words stopped,
"..."
I stretched out my hand in the direction the sun had disappeared minutes ago.
Hand of all creation
At the command of my words, a heavenly blue light enveloped my forearm and hand, pulsing like the heart of the universe itself.
I closed my fist, then felt myself grasp something...
I moved my arm upwards, a defiant gesture against fate.
"If he tries anything too drastic. I can just kill him."
Hajin swallowed, his eyes following my movement with terror...
Perhaps because of my words or because of the dark horizon that was beginning to lighten, the night was receding against my will.
"I-so... The S-sun... He's coming back..."
Hajin stammered, his voice broken by astonishment.
For at that moment, under the light of the rising sun, Hajin understood the truth, I was not just a player on the co-author's board responsible for providing him with entertainment.
I was...
A "misfit," uncontrollable.
...
Note: Guys, from today I'm going to start a curiosity board about Anos. This will mainly serve to make those who don't know him more familiar with Theo's abilities...
Curiosity: Anos is a "MISFIT" who exists outside the structure, order and reason of the universe (laws, concepts, principles and logic), making him a being who can ignore any rule that a universe tries to impose against him.