（English）Chapter 1: Fortune Favors the Relentless（English）

The older you get, the better you see this world for what it really is—and the dreams and fantasies you once held get shot down by reality, one by one.

The things we used to worship, obsess over, and long for seem to slip away, but they can never truly be erased. They just burrow deep into our hearts, guarded behind a stubborn wall that won't let reality in. That's our Garden of Illusions—lavish, bizarre, wildly improbable, and yet overflowing with joy and life.

A group of young people were working hard, hauling stuff into a van. They wore ridiculously over-the-top costumes, and every single one of them was beaming, radiating good vibes.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with pop culture could tell these kids were a cosplay group, and anyone who really knew their stuff could even identify which hit novel they were dressed up as characters from.

The girl in the Lilyette outfit had a round little face—none of the queenly aura from the original novel, just plain adorable. She was the liveliest of the bunch; anyone who saw her would go "aww." The girl playing Hazel, the second female lead—an ethereal noble-born beauty in the original—came off instead with a touch of frost, her impossibly beautiful face all but expressionless.

A good-looking guy clapped his hands and shouted cheerfully, "Great show today, everybody! We're heading to the Seaward Grill in a bit—my treat! Nobody's allowed to make excuses and duck out early."

The group hooted and cheered, the atmosphere electric. They swarmed the generous guy like satellites around a planet, hollering flattery left and right, while the foodies among them rattled off dish after dish, absolutely determined to feast till they dropped.

Nathan gave an honest, good-natured grin and muscled the last box of props up into the van. He was just about to climb in and grab a seat when the guy buying dinner spotted him. The corner of his mouth twitched as he pushed through the crowd, came over, and blocked his way, saying in a gentle voice, "Nathan! Thanks for doing all the grunt work for our club. I really should treat you to dinner tonight too, but we've got way too much stuff and way too many people—there's just no room left. Better if you head out on your own, save you from getting squished in with us."

On Nathan's round, chubby face, that honest smile stiffened just a little. He glanced at the girl playing Hazel, still off at a distance from the crowd, totally expressionless. Isolde, the one in the Hazel costume, didn't seem to be paying any attention to this side at all—starry eyes half-shut, leaning against a big tree, apparently taking a rest.

Nathan quickly turned back, the honest grin floating right back onto his face, and chuckled, "I actually need to get home early today. I wasn't going to be able to join you for dinner anyway. I'll head out then."

Nathan waved at everybody—only to realize pretty quick that nobody was even looking at him. He'd wasted the effort entirely, so he sheepishly lowered his hand and, with obvious reluctance, left the group behind.

Once Nathan was far enough away, the group suddenly burst out laughing. Somebody called out loud, "That chubby kid actually has a thing for Isolde! Won't quit chasing her, even latched onto our club to do it. I bet he doesn't even know what characters we're playing today!"

Once one person got started, someone else immediately chimed in, roaring with laughter: "With that sorry mug of his—fat as the legendary Friar Tuck—like Isolde would ever look twice at him! Isolde and our club president are the real couple!"

Isolde, still in her Hazel costume, heard that line and frowned slightly. She said, clearly displeased, "There is absolutely nothing between me and Leopold. Please stop shipping us. I've got things to do too—I need to take off, so I won't be joining you all for dinner."

Isolde didn't explain anything further to the group—just hurried off, without even time to change out of her costume.

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The good-looking guy who was supposed to treat everyone—Leopold, president of the cosplay club—immediately darkened. Without a word, he got straight on the van. The mood turned awkward and heavy for a moment, and pretty soon people were pinning the whole thing on Nathan, muttering curses under their breath—some seriously nasty stuff.

Nathan wiped his hands, chest tight with frustration. He and Isolde went back to middle school—right from the start of that first year, her whole air had pulled him in without him having any say in it. But their personalities were miles apart, and since he'd been born on the chubby side, no amount of effort ever won him a glance from a goddess like Isolde—she was way into cosplay and, frankly, kind of a looks person.

This time, he'd swallowed his pride and tagged along for the fun of it, busting his butt for days, putting in plenty of sweat—and still got frozen out by the people in Isolde's club.

The event was at the convention center, crazy far from Nathan's house. He was plotting out his route—subway first, then which bus transfer—when he patted his pocket, and his whole face fell, crumpling into misery.

"Crap! I left the house without any money. Can't even take the subway!"

Nathan figured he'd suck it up and go back to beg the club for a ride, but right then the van came tearing past right before his eyes. Before he could even get a shout out, all it left him was a plume of dust in its wake, making his face look even more tragically pitiful.

"Guess I'm walking home. It's gotta be a dozen-plus kilometers from here to the house. Who knows if I can even make it back tonight."

Nathan rubbed his hands together—nothing for it—and set off on the long, long trek home.

Four-plus hours later, the sky had gone completely dark, and Nathan was still trudging his way home. Good thing his stamina wasn't half bad—all thanks to his regular training.

Back in seventh grade, when he was chasing Isolde, she'd told him straight up: "I don't like fat guys. Get down to a hundred and thirty pounds and maybe I'll think about it." So he'd thrown himself into working out, kicking off a three-year weight-loss campaign.

Morning and night runs, push-ups and pull-ups between classes—he even took every flight of stairs in bouncing hops. Classmates laughed at him for it, and he never once wavered.

The only problem was, all that exercise plus his growth spurt sent his height rocketing. In eighth grade alone he shot up from five-one to five-nine, and naturally there was no keeping the weight down after that—he was still a rock-solid two hundred and ten pounds. Nathan had noticed that basketball players all looked especially "slim," so in eighth grade he went and naively joined the school basketball team too. Of course... that did jack squat—all it got him was another growth spurt in ninth grade that took him to a full six feet. He did drop over thirty-five pounds, landing around one seventy-five, but that was still a long way from Isolde's number. Even though Nathan had long since sculpted a legit eight-pack under his clothes, with that naturally round, chubby face and big-boned frame, he still looked like one round little fat kid.

Nathan was flat-out exhausted. He looked up at the stars scattered across the whole sky—that brilliant starlight actually picked his mood up quite a bit. He'd loved stargazing ever since he was a little kid; a sky full of stars always made him feel better. It was just that with all the urbanization, you hardly ever got a night sky like this anymore.

He gazed a while longer, then tipped his head slightly down—but the very next second, something suddenly felt off. He snapped his head back up to the night sky: stars everywhere, glittering like festival fireworks, the Milky Way stretching across the heavens, constellations arrayed from horizon to horizon...

But... how could a city sky with air pollution that severe possibly show a starfield this dense?