Chapter 163

In a dazed shock, I barely understood the woman’s words.

So right now, she was saying she would euthanize me.

For no other reason than that she liked me?

To think the output value of goodwill being entered was murderous intent.

It was a thought circuit my head could not understand.

All of a sudden, I had become an abandoned animal waiting for euthanasia.

And I even had to wait for that disposition without any promise of when.

……What is this, really?

I found my situation quite bewildering.

It was not as if I was dying immediately, nor was I trapped or tied up somewhere.

Moreover, in my arms was the pistol Cha Si-eon had given me earlier.

“It is better not to do anything useless.”

The woman spoke as if she had read my thoughts.

“You cannot run from me, and you cannot harm me.”

“……What does that mean?”

“I am not simply saying that. Because causality in this place does not come slowly like in the world where you lived.”

The woman’s voice was as gentle as ever.

As if my resistance or attempts to flee posed no threat to her whatsoever.

And that composure was not carelessness or arrogance.

“The reason you can attack my younger sibling is because my younger sibling killed you first. That is why that child fell into being an existence that can be killed by you, but I am not. I am still flawless, and you cannot harm me.”

Because it killed, it can be killed.

Is this the law that governs them?

“……Then is it not better to remain flawless? If you kill me, you will also become someone who can be killed.”

“No. Killing you is neither a flaw nor a sin. I am merely taking back the life I gave you.”

“…….”

“Besides, we made a promise too, did we not? If I saved your friends, you would remain here and become mine.”

That was true.

The woman had given me a choice, and I had chosen.

Since it was a promise I had made myself, following it was right.

Even if there were room to shake it off and run.

Moreover, it did not seem as if there was any room right now.

“My ownership of you is clear. Therefore, killing you is my rightful right and legal. This bond that is holding you here and infringing on my rights is illegal instead.”

The woman’s declaration was monotonous.

As if she was merely listing facts, so there was no need to emphasize them.

I lost my words and stared at the woman, and the woman smiled innocently at me.

Even with the face of the author I knew well.

Just when I wondered what kind of nightmare this was.

The white surge beyond the woman’s shoulder began flashing madly.

Like camera flashes bursting toward a red carpet.

At that noisy light, the woman muttered,

“How loud.”

Loud?

Right, she had said those flashes were a “state of making noise.”

“……Are they speaking right now?”

I asked, recalling what I had heard earlier.

At that, the woman readily nodded.

“Yes. The reaction is bad again.”

“What reaction?”

“They are protesting what I just said. Everyone is making a fuss, telling me to save you.”

In short, was this internal division?

I looked back and forth between the woman and the white space beyond her, then spoke indirectly.

“You keep saying ‘we,’ but do those lights also have egos?”

The woman did not answer and looked at me with smiling eyes.

So I hid my tension and asked again.

“What exactly are those lights?”

“Just bored souls.”

At the woman’s joke-like words, the light flashed even more noisily.

At that, the woman murmured indifferently,

“It is useless, so go inside and sleep. The interesting part is over now.”

“…….”

This woman, who was supposedly 「Big Cat」’s older sister, seemed to have a generous personality unlike that monster.

It also seemed she had her own principles or rules.

It certainly did not seem as if she was filled with unconditional malice.

Moreover, what she had said earlier while reciting my will.

-This is something……? To mention it like this and then die, how wicked…….

To read someone else’s will and first infer the reactions of others.

That was not a common way of thinking.

It was a remark more likely to come from someone whose job was to observe the public’s reaction.

Then is there still room?

If this woman and the lights had a relationship of exchanging complaints.

If they had a relationship like an author and readers, one side showing something and the other making demands.

Moreover, if those “bored souls” were hanging their lives on something interesting.

“No. The truly interesting part is starting now.”

I smoothly cut into the woman’s words.

“Until now, it was the frustrating section where I wandered around, and only now have we finally reached the timing where I am about to achieve something. Would it not be too wasteful to stop here?”

At my words, the lights flashed again.

Hoping that was support for my statement, I continued.

“To finish it this crudely would be discourteous to the peop…….”

A suitable word other than people.

“……to the readers who have been watching until now.”

Sparkle, sparkle.

The blinking lights seemed to be applauding.

As if this was not merely my misunderstanding, the woman covered her ears with her hands.

Then she looked at me with somewhat dumbfounded eyes.

“Everyone seems to agree with me, no?”

Sparkle, sparkle.

And the woman pressed a hand to her forehead.

The woman seemed to suffer from that flashing for a while, then soon let out a deep sigh.

Then she laughed dryly toward me.

“Are you trying to act like an editor even here?”

“It is an occupational disease.”

“Wonderful.”

The woman smiled brightly, so I smiled faintly too.

But my smile was a fake one forced out.

How much did this woman know about me?

Of course, my previous job was not exactly a secret.

But a nonhuman being knowing and mentioning it was another matter.

Moreover, this woman’s appearance.

Right now, she was Author Na Bit.

Earlier, she had been Baek Sa-ra from 「National Theater」 and Lee Sol in a surgical gown.

Was it really a coincidence that she had imitated those appearances?

On top of that, earlier, she had even read my will.

A will that had not yet been revealed anywhere.

Could she be looking inside my head too?

I found this woman’s ability unsettling, but pretending otherwise, I continued.

“It is literally a disease. When I see authors who only set up something huge, then run away without properly resolving it, I cannot sleep. Because I think of the readers whose expectations will turn into disappointment.”

“Mm, but there was no one like that among the authors you handled, was there?”

“Yes. Fortunately, all my authors were diligent.”

The fact that she asks means she cannot directly read my thoughts?

More importantly, why is she asking this?

Moreover, for some reason, the woman seemed relieved by my answer.

……Surely this woman cannot be Author Na Bit herself.

No, that is nonsense.

I believe in Author Na Bit’s unremarkableness.

Author Na Bit is not someone who can look down at me with such composure.

Moreover, I saw her change into other people in real time earlier.

This must simply be something that peeked into my memories and imitated them.

I shook off the pointless suspicion and continued speaking.

“So I do not think I will be able to close my eyes even after death. Not if my story ends as a failed work like this.”

“Failed work is…… perhaps going a bit far, is it not?”

As expected, it seemed this woman belonged to our line after all.

Judging by her reaction to the words “failed work.”

“This much is absolutely a failed work. It built up as much as it liked and did not resolve a single thing. This is worse than not starting at all. It only stole the time of the readers who saw it.”

The expression of the woman who had kept smiling stiffened a little.

By contrast, flashes continued bursting behind her.

Now, let’s think.

A woman who had declared she would euthanize me.

A woman who claimed that was her rightful right.

The claim that because she saved me, she could kill me was total bullshit, but because I had accepted the deal, the woman’s right had substance.

So if she said she would do it, I had no choice but to accept it.

……Then would it not be fine if this woman simply did not do it?

The woman who had decided to euthanize me was not particularly solemn or serious.

It was a bolt from the blue only to me; to the woman, the decision did not seem so significant.

Moreover, the lights flashing and making noise behind the woman’s back.

The tastes of these lights, who said they had watched me because they wanted an interesting story, did not seem so different from humans’.

Could I provoke those lights and overturn the woman’s decision?

If that woman’s will to euthanize me was not all that firm.

With that thought, I spoke to the woman, or more accurately, to the beings she bore on her back.

“No, it is a failed work. Look, until now, I was only dragged here and there as if I was about to do something. Only now have I finally come here on my own two feet, and suddenly this ending? This is not setup, development, turn, and conclusion, but setup, development, and conclusion. It has thrown away the most interesting part, and that is a fatal mistake even an aspiring writer would not make.”

Sparkle, sparkle.

“…….”

“Moreover, if this happens, all the narrative accumulated from the point when you brought me back to life until now will become foam. If you were going to do this, why did you save me in the first place? Especially if you granted me a special ability that can stop cores, you should at least give me one chance to use that ability properly. To set everything up like this and throw it away midway? On top of that, this is not something you wrote alone in your diary. There are this many people watching, and once readers are attached, it is no longer a story that belongs only to the author. You should not only claim rights, but also bear the responsibility that matches them. To run away midway like this because you have lost interest makes you unqualified as an author.”

Sparkle, sparkle.

“…….”

“Moreover, if I die here, the Bureau will return to square one as well. You have already watched that for years, have you not? You do not want to keep watching that pointless floundering, do you? If none of you are on either side and simply want something interesting, then it is right to save me after all. For me to die here is a waste, both subjectively and objectively. Furthermore, if one is an author, I believe one should be able to judge that much on one’s own. Unless one is a complete novice.”

SPARKLESPARKLESPARKLESPARKLE—!

The lights flashed diligently.

And the woman became visibly depressed.

Was it because she had Author Na Bit’s face?

Tearing into her was not very hard.

“Stop. Do not take this chance to curse me out…….”

The woman appealed not to me, but to the flashing lights.

As if her head hurt, the woman shook it.

Then she sighed deeply and muttered,

“Could it be that?”

“……?”

“The bond holding you now.”

The woman carefully examined me as she spoke.

“I wondered what was holding onto something that should naturally fall into my hands…… In a certain sense, this is amazing. An occupational disease that overwhelms causality.”

The woman snickered as if dumbfounded.

What does that mean now?

Is she saying the reason I was not taken earlier was because of my occupational disease?

……No way. I am not that fanatically addicted to work.

“Fine. If the reason you are fixed here is your resistance toward failed works and incompletion, I will resolve it for you.”

The woman spoke as if sighing.

Then she smiled again and asked me,

“Then, would there be plausibility in you getting out of here alive?”