# Maximillian was a transmigrator. And apparently there were more transmigrators.
Setting aside the fact that I'd never heard such a story before, what happened to them?
The Hero disappeared. He secluded himself somewhere deep in the mountains of Tilles. Abandoning his wife and daughter.
It was something no one could understand. But Ivan thought he could understand. That was, that was...
'Did he... go back?'
Ivan lowered his head with a pale face. Was it possible to go back? Was killing the Demon Lord the condition? Then what about me... my condition is...
-Slap—!
His vision suddenly brightened as his head snapped to the side. The pain followed a moment later. Ivan felt his stinging cheek as he turned his gaze.
Enrique was looking at him with sad eyes.
"Snap out of it. The story isn't over yet."
"...Enrique."
"Yes. You recognize me. Good."
Enrique sank deeply into the sofa with a sigh. This guy needs sleep. No, he needs rest. Now I understand why.
It's not a mental illness caused by war. This guy is disconnected. He recognizes this place as reality while simultaneously hoping it isn't.
Therefore, he couldn't have rested. All that time, so lonely. Chewing on the solitude of every night and suffering from the delusions of every day.
Transmigrators. Wanderers "pulled" from another world. Enrique pitied this kind. Especially in the case of this quiet, twisted madman.
She looked straight at her disciple and slowly opened her mouth.
"They say everyone came with their own story. Very few records remain, but that was the case for most. For some it was a story, for others a legend or myth, sometimes a play, and occasionally something else entirely."
"...Each one was different...?"
"Yes. So, each had their own story."
There's no common thread in what stories led them here.
But they all felt they had fallen into a story they had admired.
It's impossible to understand how or why this happened.
"What happened to them... to the transmigrators...?"
This was the most critical question Ivan had been holding. What ending awaited him?
"Some disappeared again, some died, and others remained."
"The Hero, Maximillian?"
"As you know, he went into seclusion. Well, whether he went back home by now or had other reasons, I don't know. It's not like we can go ask him directly, and there's no way to meet him."
Ivan bowed his head with a dizzy feeling.
Different stories for everyone, different endings... what is his ending? To be preserved in this world forever? Is there no way back? He wanted to believe death wasn't the only conclusion...
Tap! Enrique roughly knocked on the desk. When Ivan looked up, she was watching him with sad eyes.
"So how do you see us?"
"...What?"
"Are we just side characters in your world's novel? According to you, are we just 'characters' consumed by lines of text?"
"That's..."
"No. That can't be. That's obvious, isn't it?"
In a world where a thousand stories are mixed together, if there are a thousand protagonists.
Should one protagonist see the others as supporting characters?
No. That's not right. They are all simply protagonists of their own stories. If so.
"Then are your world and this world fundamentally different? Is that place reality and this place merely a fragment of a story? No. I am alive, I breathe, I hate sunlight, I hate blessings, I drink blood, and I enjoy tea. Just like you."
"Enrique..."
"You might be just a side character to someone else? Don't make me laugh! You are the lead in your life, and I am everything in mine!"
Her eyes were burning as if they would devour Ivan.
Ivan quietly looked at her face.
"You don't want to be a side character? Then how do you think of us? How have you been thinking of me? Ivan. Little Ivan. Have you lived thinking the former king you respect is just a side character in a story? Were you secretly mocking while saying 'don't mourn those who have gone before'?"
"No, I never..."
"Then live. Live your story and finish it. What ending that story will have isn't determined by fate or the world. That's something you have to decide."
At the end of each story is each person's conclusion.
The direction leading to that conclusion isn't necessarily determined by a predetermined fate.
Even if the Hero Party's journey remains a legend, the individuals aren't heroes from legends. They're just ordinary people who are still alive and breathing.
Enrique firmly grasped Ivan's hand and looked at him with straightforward eyes.
"Do you want to go back? To your homeland?"
"...Yes."
"Then don't wait for fate to end your story. My disciple. Turn your own pages. Until the end. Until the conclusion."
"At that end, is there anything I can decide?"
"The choice to turn the page is entirely yours. Like everyone else. Like everyone in this world and your world."
The Hero, Maximillian, always smiled. He always smiled as he took one more step forward.
Remembering those times when hope was terribly scarce, Enrique quietly thought.
That guy missed his homeland. He missed his lover and parents back home. Every time she heard about his comfortable life and mysterious civilization, Enrique pitied him.
Poor drifter. Dimensional wanderer. Foreigner.
But the Hero smiled. He said that ordinariness has the same meaning in that world as in this one.
So he wasn't a drifter or foreigner, but an ordinary person.
One more step forward with countless burdens on his shoulders. Another step forward to achieve what he believed was "natural."
One step at a time toward the darkest hell of a continent where hope had disappeared.
One step at a time, willingly becoming a lighthouse for those who lacked the courage to go ahead.
His bravery lay in what he believed was natural and ordinary. That's why he became a Hero. Regardless of any privileges, talents, or qualities. Endlessly continuing what he believed was ordinary.
To those who said it was extraordinary, he smiled. Saying he was just someone doing what anyone could do.
"If I had met you a little earlier... if I had listened to your story a little more seriously, it wouldn't have come to this... I'm sorry, my disciple."
"Enrique..."
"I'll stand watch. Get some sleep."
"Stand watch?"
"Looking at your condition, I understand. You couldn't sleep properly because you couldn't feel safe anywhere. At least four years. If longer, then as long as your life."
There was no bedroom anywhere in this room.
This guy probably just dozed off on that desk or that sofa.
What if the protagonist of this world suddenly decides to eliminate a side character? What if the story ends while I can't do anything? While having such trivial worries.
Clinging to the notion that he shouldn't be a side character while considering others as such. Yet still believing he could never be a protagonist.
"If needed, I'll stand watch every night."
Ivan didn't refuse. He was too exhausted.
Kim Seon-woo quietly closed his eyes.
He had misjudged. This world was neither a strategy simulation nor a royal RPG. It might have been someone's story, but it wasn't his own.
Not a soldier in a strategy simulation. Not a scout in the Hero Party. The story of Ivan Petrovich, Kim Seon-woo, hadn't even opened its first page.
Thirty years had passed since the prologue.
Now the introduction of the story was over. The name of this story wasn't "genre," but "life."
Perhaps it was an academy genre. Ivan smiled wryly as he reflected on his situation.
He was no longer angry at that sentence.
He was too tired and exhausted to be angry.
The hand patting his shoulder was warm.
It was reassuring.
It was when he was 16, after two years of fighting on the battlefield.
Kim Seon-woo gritted his teeth as he rolled on the ground. His issued sword had broken. He had run out of bullets, and the demon race had finally broken through the defense line.
When his sword broke, he dug through the ground for a spear, and when the spear shaft broke, he struck down with his shield. He seized an axe, wielded a greatsword, and held on.
Even he himself had never thought he could fight like this. He was unexpectedly skilled at physical tasks and didn't easily feel fatigue.
Of course, now he seemed to be forgetting his fatigue thanks to the intense adrenaline.
Considering his athletic ability, he should have collapsed from exhaustion by now. But Ivan rolled on the ground and picked up a sword. He held a spear. He swung an axe and pushed with a shield.
How much time had passed like that?
His body still moved. His vision was still clear. The only sounds he could hear were his own breathing and his heart that seemed about to burst, and his nose had long forgotten any smell other than blood.
He just blocked, pushed back, and swung at whatever approached, and survived.
When silence finally came, Kim Seon-woo noticed the massive shadow covering him.
"You fought well."
A deep voice sounded above his head. Turning his gaze, he saw a military flag. The flag of Krasilov.
An ally. Kim Seon-woo lowered his shoulders and bowed his head.
Seeing that the person was on horseback, he must be someone important. Being under the flag, probably a general.
"What is your name?"
"Ivan Petrovich, General."
"Age?"
"Sixteen, sir."
"Position?"
"Conscript, sir."
The man with the sun at his back had an invisible face. His figure with the sunlight as a halo was dazzling.
"Turn around."
Following the general's order, he turned his back. He thought he was being told to return to the main camp.
Countless bodies, so many that the ground couldn't be seen, entered his vision. Innumerable corpses, both of the demon race and humans.
As Kim Seon-woo was about to frown, a voice coaxing him was heard.
"Raise your gaze. Look at those who are standing."
Only then did he notice the others. Not corpses, but people.
Survivors. Those who were injured, barely standing with broken spears, trembling but somehow still alive.
"Originally, this campaign was expected to end in defeat. We needed to deploy forces to other campaigns."
"Your Majesty!!"
At the general's words, an attendant behind him screamed. The large man continued regardless.
"But these people survived. Ivan Petrovich. Look at those you saved. Stand tall. You saved them, you saved the villages behind them, and you saved their families somewhere and the residents of those villages."
The general jumped down from his horse and stroked his head. It was a large hand.
"So stand tall, 'Little' Ivan."
"...I am not little."
He was taller than the average height of this era. He was adult enough for even the military supervisor to consider him an adult.
"When I was your age and fought like you, I earned the name 'Ivan the Great,' so you can't possibly be called by the same name as me, can you?"
"Your Majesty...!!"
The attendant screamed again. The large-handed man patted Ivan's back once and mounted his horse.
"Treat and teach that child."
"Do you wish to take him in?"
"I might as well raise a lion in a zoo. Just create a position for him. If he rises to a position where he can stand alone, won't we meet again?"
He met that man again five years later.
Five years later, he was assigned to the "Royal Guard."
After that, he was called "Little" Ivan. It was a highly honorable title.
Ivan didn't have nightmares that night.
The former king he saw after a long time was still magnificent, so Ivan could fall into a deep sleep.
["???-Level Quest" The Gardener of St. Yansk University -Canceled-]
[A miraculous luck stops your dice. You have survived.]
[Objective: Eliminate Ivan Petrovich, the gardener of St. Yansk University -Canceled-]
[Optional Objective: Persuade Ivan Petrovich -Canceled-]
[Optional Objective: Conceal information -Canceled-]
[Additional Objective: Survival -Canceled-]
[Failure Penalty: Death -Canceled-]
"What the hell. What is this really...! Give me some explanation!!"
Yevgeny, Yu-jin, screamed while glaring at the blue display.
Of course, this damn status window didn't provide any answer.
ep6. The status window opened on the first day of school.