Author's note: I changed my mind about the death part.
I literally just posted the last chapter but we ticked up from 1.0k views to 1.1k views! Thanks everyone! I'm going to introduce a little challenge to encourage more fan participation: the first fan to comment on ALL chapters of the story will get to have a brief cameo in the story! Some brief notes on that contest:
1. Comments must be substantial and related to the plot and associated paragraph. For example, something like "lol" or "bump" or whatever would not be acceptable.
2. Replies to other comments do not count as comments.
3. Once I have verified that you actually have commented on ALL chapters, DM me the name of the character you would like created for you.
Also, in response to DivineChronicler: I love you, man (no homo). I mentioned this on Discord, but I am straight, although the novel might have given that away already LOL.
Some artists wanting to draw Cassandra have asked for her measurements. Here they are: 85-66-89 (all measurements expressed in centimeters). Now get to work!
And in response to comments that some of you wish you had a GF as smart and caring as Julianna—gotta say, me too LOL.
A lot of you have asked if I have written previous works. The answer is yes—but my country is barbaric. Hence, even though I was published in a regional newspaper, no one gave a fuck.
I discovered Webnovel a few years ago, but only as a reader. The first story I really got into was Strongest Warrior. That was also around when I first met Melanie—yes, I'm a Webnovel author who has a GF LOL! Makes me a rarity huh :)
We were both lab techs (not saying where to preserve our privacy and maintain a healthy separation between author and novel). Anyway, we were at lunch and she was sitting nearby. Melanie, BTW, is very beautiful. She is slender, well-developed, with soft, luscious curves and voluminous red hair in a chignon that makes her heart-shaped face stand out even more.
Your faithful, trusty author noticed that she was reading a novel. I gathered up the courage to ask her what it was.
"On Chesil Beach," she said. "By Ian McEwan."
"I'm reading a novel as well," I said. "Have you heard of Strongest Warrior?"
"Oh, no. Is that a reality TV show?"
"No, it's a novel on a site called Webnovel."
"Ah, no, then. I'm afraid I haven't."
"You should check it out sometime." I gave her the link and waited patiently for her response.
The next day, I saw her at lunch eating a salad. I notice women tend to eat salads frequently. I'm not sure if it's to stay thin or what. Needless to say, she doesn't need to watch her weight—in some sense, she could stand to gain a few more pounds to fully round out the gentle curves of her body, which her lab tech garb fails to fully conceal.
"What did you think?" I asked.
"Hm?" she said, in between bites of lettuce. She looked so curiously and beautifully distracted.
"Strongest Warrior!" I reminded her. I was already able to gather that dealing with her would be like pulling a wayward balloon back to Earth.
"Oh… well… I haven't read it yet. Do you want me to?"
"Well, we can take a look right now," I said. "It's on my phone."
I smartly remembered to close all my open tabs before I slid in next to her to show her my screen.
"Just tell me when you want me to scroll. Or you can just take it yourself."
She put her fork down and held my phone. Her slender, delicate fingers began to flick through the text.
After she finished the prologue, which described the protagonist's tragic early life before his transmigration, she appeared to be smiling.
"Is something funny?" I asked.
"Well, it's a bit silly, isn't it?"
"Where? It's about a man who was bullied, cast aside, and abused his entire life."
"Well—consider this scene." She pointed to a paragraph with a single, sculpted, tender digit.
The paragraph read: Max Powers had had enough. Those bullies had called him a h*mo for the last time. On the last day of sixth grade, he used his expert knowledge of electrical engineering to make a hidden matrix of electrical wires embedded in the floor to shock them all, making them p*ss their pants. "Who are the f*ggots now?" Max cried triumphantly.
"Bullying is very harmful to the psyche. It's not exactly humorous to read a harrowing depiction of it," I said.
"I didn't mean to say bullying wasn't serious," she said. "But isn't it a little unrealistic?"
"Bullying happens all the time," I said. I didn't add the phrase, "I should know," but I could have.
"Or, well, how about this scene? This is a little silly, too."
The new paragraph she was indicating read: Max's father, Guiseppe Powers, was r*ping Max's mother yet again. Max entered the house and tried to show off the A he got on his spelling test. Guiseppe threw a bottle at him and pulled out his trusty old teacher—the leather belt. "A man needs to take care of himself!" Guiseppe said as he beat Max. Later that week, Guiseppe fell in the street and was beheaded by a trolleybus. As Guiseppe was trying to keep his head attached, Max was nearby and took a picture. "Call 911!" Guiseppe begged. Max laughed. "A man needs to take care of himself!"
"It's a bit dark to laugh at domestic abuse," I said. I began to suspect that she had an unusually dark sense of humor to find suffering so comic.
A strand of strikingly red hair unfurled and landed on the shelf of her breasts. She curled it back up around a manicured finger and tucked it behind her ear. The pattern and fabric of her clothing was being shifted by those breasts, strained and warped by their size. If they were in a shirt with text on it, the letters would be oddly stretched and potentially illegible. Their distorting force was inexplicably so fascinating to me that I could not continue my ethical concerns with her reading of the story.
"And doesn't the censorship make it a little silly, too?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, here, for instance." She pointed to another paragraph: Max had his share of girlfriends, of course. Generally, he was into Hispanic girls with b*obs on the larger side. He had no complaints from girls when it came to, *wink* *wink* spicy time (AN: if you know what I mean LOL). But sometimes he would think about how his b*tch mother did nothing while she was being r*ped by his piece of sh*t father or how he got called a f*ggot and feel that his soul was a dark void.
"I think that, if you're going to write about something, you should be able to name it," she said.
"Does it matter? You still know what the word is."
"That's my point," she said.
I didn't understand what she meant by that. I assumed she had been offended by the dark subject matter, but in a story rated 18+, you need to be ready for that.
"And the author's notes, are these really necessary?" She pointed at a few where the author had added in his own observations about being unemployed and being single. "Isn't it kind of like the author is saying to you that he's writing this story because he feels powerless and wants retribution? Doesn't it spoil the drama when you feel like you're reading someone else's fantasy?"
Fantasy? She was totally wrong about that. The author had, after all, published a parody chapter where he mocked all of those shallow Webnovels where the main character is super cool and has a harem. In this story, Max Powers was morally gray and sometimes didn't help people at all.
Melanie had an interesting point in a sense, though.
I think it'd be nice if I had Cassandra's power.
Whoops, better post this chapter. Gotta keep my update promise :) I'll have more next time!