Chapter 71: [68 – breathe; weighing peace]

"Damien," wondered Alvara softly in the still air, "in the ending you wrote, how many died?"

The fox had been silently watching from the shelves, away from the gathered crowd that surrounded the book as if he was an outsider. Soren was also quiet — this was a novel of betrayal and death. 

A hopeful answer to such a question was impossible.

Rather calmly, he said, "Everyone died." 

One by one, they all fell at the hands of the collapsing world. Those who survived still failed to save the world from crumbling, and soon perished. Those who didn't see the end had lost their lives in numerous tragic ways.

Soren slowly asked, "Did you change the story?"

There were inconsistencies.

Raphael Han should've destroyed the corpse before him, and Deimos shouldn't have died. It wasn't only that, but those were the most obvious.

Damien nodded. "When I wrote an ending, I rewrote the story."

"Why?"

"Because there was an error in the characters."

The novel Damien found treated the characters as simple characters. Fiction, usable and for entertainment. 

Raphael Han, who should've been a caring, empathetic man even during his darkest days, was not one who would mutilate the corpse of somebody he didn't know. 

Deimos, who was somebody who was gentle and purposeful, was not strong enough to ignore the death of his youngest brother, as well as his second youngest.

It didn't matter when they were simply characters in a book. For the sake of the story, of the plot, it didn't matter if there were changes in their personalities. As long as they were entertaining or interesting.

But to Damien, who barely managed to work out the story as he deciphered the language, this was his world. His life, and his existence.

He was real. 

And so, he corrected the story until the characters were no longer just words on a paper, but breathing, living humans. He corrected it as much as he could until the ending was set in stone.

Soren suddenly had an eerie thought.

"You wrote your death."

There was a pause, and the listening ears on top of his head tensed. "Why would I not?"

"How long did you survive?"

"What do you think, master?"

This teenager, young as he may be, wasn't completely illogical. If he decided to write an ending, he would've put aside his personal feelings and written it not as a character in the story, but as an author finding a conclusion.

In order to finish this novel, Damien had to disregard himself.

Actually, Soren was a little curious. Why had Damien read the book to begin with? How had he? 

The fox spoke before he could voice his thoughts, inquisitive green eyes staring calmly with startling perception. "Don't you trust in your intuition, master? I found the book in this very library, in the forest. A language that was completely unknown... it was difficult to decipher it."

"Then, how did you? And why were you in the forest?"

"Didn't I know the way to leave it from the very first time we met? I've frequented the forest on various occasions." explained Damien as if he were speaking about something irrelevant. "The language is different from ours, but I've seen many languages before. Finding similar notes and meanings wasn't impossible."

Deciphering languages.

Soren had known from the beginning that this fox escaped his own tribe for a period of time in order to travel, interested in strange or unique items and curious about everything in the world. 

It made sense for Damien, who possessed a curiosity stronger than anyone in the room, to attempt to decipher a language he'd never seen before. 

"How long did it take?" asked Soren again.

Damien thought quietly. "I don't know. Time in the forest is inconsistent. To me, it was a matter of months. And many more to write the ending. But when I returned, it had only been a week."

"The auction... you knew what book I was buying."

"I did."

"What's the difference between that book and this?" 

There was no hesitation in his answer. "This is the one that belonged to the forest, and yours is the one that belonged to the world."

Alvara frowned. "I'm sort of confused, honestly."

Damien calmly explained, "A person in the novel Raphael is holding appeared in the world. A weapon in that novel appeared in the world. And a book described in the novel containing the story of the world, also appeared in the world."

He turned to Soren. "Here is the completed novel, and the ending of the world. The one you possess exists for the sake of the plot."

A deep voice interrupted from the side through taut lips. "Deimos... died."

Damien was calm. "Yes."

The man trembled and strode forwards before stopping inches away from the teenager. "You wrote his death."

The boy didn't waver. "Are you unsatisfied with the ending?"

"You—"

"And do you think I am not?"

When Damien wrote, there was no time to think about what he personally wanted to add or change. By the end of the day, this was not his story he was ending, this was his life and his fate. As well as the destiny of many others who he crossed paths with.

He had to take on the perspective of an indifferent author — for a teenager who may have been cold, but not heartless — it was difficult to look at his own world as a story.

But for the sake of the ending he did.

What he wrote down, he hardly remembered. Only the tired hands and the blur of ink across his sight as he wrote, and wrote. Edited, and corrected. The scratches he made would fade away into the ink, and only his final words would remain.

In fact, it was painful. Writing about somebody's death, and knowing that those words would someday become a reality.

He was the person who most regretted what was written.

Raphael tapped on Vincent's shoulder and shook his head. Even if they all might've made a different choice, the past could not be changed and the teenager's burdens shouldn't be overlooked.

"Will hitting me make you feel at ease?" asked the fox lowly. "You can try, although I won't take it lying down."

Vincent breathed deeply and spun his head to stare at Soren through steady eyes. "I apologize again."

"Okay." nodded the youngest prince as he lifted his eyes calmly. "I still don't forgive you."

The crown prince nodded slowly and stepped back. 

A light tone, the voice of somebody had been rather quiet during the entire journey, spoke.

"I'm afraid I'm rather conflicted as to how I should feel." said Vendra carefully, a thoughtful haze in her gentle ocean eyes. "It is hard to accept... but many sacrifices have also been made, it seems. The longer I resist this truth, the less time I'll have to understand it."

Celine crossed her arms by her side and glanced at Vendra before nodding. "Geez, this is a lot all of a sudden, y'know? Although I suppose life isn't exactly kind enough to take things slow."

However, her priorities were still the same. "Does the story say anything about Uriel?"

Raphael had been flipping through the pages before he stopped Vincent. He who should've been the most confused, the most emotional about this tale.

Because of Damien, it delved more into all the characters of the story and made them fleshed out and whole. However, the novel was still fundamentally the story in which he failed the save the world, the hero of the tale that failed once again.

His eyes flickered up, gaze undecipherable. "You died trying to save her, and never truly found her in the end."

The sleeping angel died in the destruction of the world peacefully.

Celine's hand shook lightly, and she narrowed her eyes before a hand gently wrapped around her own. She lifted her fiery gaze to stare at soothing calm and relaxed her shoulders slightly.

"...if the world was ending, maybe that was the best choice for her."

Although that didn't mean she stopped seeking a method to wake Uriel up, not when she'd found her sister.

"You read the whole thing." said Soren faintly.

Raphael offered a wry grin. "I just skimmed it."

It was clear that the protagonist's mood was strange as his fingers gripped the pages tightly enough to cause creases in the paper. He skimmed it not because he lacked time to read it properly, but because he couldn't yet.

He had a brief idea of the events in the original, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the details at this time. Raphael was a person who understood himself well — how much he could handle, and how much he couldn’t were clear.

Soren stared at him and asked, "What will you do?"

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"What?" Raphael laughed meaningfully. "What else, but continue to try for a different conclusion?"

"And what if no such thing exists?"

"Then I'll make it exist, little prince. I've never been much of one to completely give up anyway."

In the novel, he'd given up only to later search for a method to save everyone once again. Raphael Han was the sort who couldn't turn a blind eye for long, and perhaps it was that trait which naturally drew people to him.

"I think," said the man slowly as he tapped on the book lightly. "everybody should read or skim through this when they have a moment and understand the original. Can this be taken out of the forest?"

Damien nodded. "I've done so before."

"Then we'll take it back. Meanwhile, is there anything else you need to do, little prince?"

The question was suddenly directed at Soren, and he blinked in surprise before he said, "I need to talk to Deimos regarding my... mother."

"Alright, we'll go back." said Raphael without hesitation. 

Alvara tilted her head, crimson eyes watching. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." said Raphael with a stretched out smile on his face. "From a battle against the Haze King, to the Forest of Good and Evil, to the reveal about the novel. At some point, it's necessary to take a break."

It was one thing after the other, and their minds had grown tired and exhausted. Weary, as they trudged forward for the sake of their goal. But there was only so long a person could keep fighting without rest before they couldn't any longer.

There was another thing they lacked recently.

Time.

Time to accept, and time to understand. 

"We'll wait in the castle." agreed Soren before turning to stare at Celine. She stared back, raising a brow. "Deimos may know more about Uriel. Do you want me to ask?"

Deimos' knowledge of things was a mystery, but it was possible for him to have discovered something during his travels. However, in the case that he knew nothing, they would've exposed Uriel's identity for nothing.

And that was a choice only Celine could make.

"That prince that I saved, huh?"

“Yeah."

"Alright. I'm counting on you then, prince."

Although her voice was calm, her inner turmoils were a mess. She travelled to this point in hopes of finding a clue, and yet there was nothing. She could only hope and hope again, for a sliver of a chance to save her sister.

Suddenly, Soren looked up at Raphael, who looked back with a slight tilt of his head in questioning.

"...you read about your death."

It was a statement. The protagonist widened his eyes slightly, before taking a deep breath and nodding. 

"Yeah, a pretty bloody one at that."

"How did you die?"

Raphael looked at him in disbelief. "Little prince, there is this thing called 'consideration'."

"How?" repeated Soren with some curiosity.

Due to a certain somebody's hogging of the novel, Soren still hadn't read the ending he'd been searching for. Even if it was a tragedy, he was still interested in knowing. The characters he'd met in this world were real and different, so he didn't relate the Raphael in the book to the Raphael he knew.

They were similar, but in the end, they were quite different.

Raphael, "......"

Soren blinked. "If you don't want to say, give me the book. I can read it myself."

"I don't think that's the issue here."

"...?" The prince frowned. "You're not going to die, so it's fine."

It was true that the novel was a reality, but that also made Soren treat it differently. The reality of the novel that only led to bitterness, and this current reality that was unpredictable and full of possibility — the original story no longer mattered.

It was the outcome of this journey they were writing on their own that mattered most. 

And although Soren didn't quite understand his own thoughts, Raphael did. The protagonist sighed helplessly and said, "I died near the very end after a brutal battle. Dripping blood, broken limbs. When the world fell, I witnessed it until I sunk into the abyss and my body dissipated."

He explained it in a simple manner, but a dark sheen coated his eyes as he recalled his past deaths. None had been pretty or easy, all ending in catastrophic pain and destruction. 

It wasn't the pain that drove Raphael mad, it was watching the world end, alone, over and over again.

It was being reminded of another failure, in another world.

Celine let out a 'wow'. "That sounds pretty painful."

Raphael shrugged. "I'm sure it was."

“You’re not scared?”

“You get used to it.”

The saint laughed loudly, lifting her chin. “Well, how’d I die then?”

Raphael paused. “At my hand.”

Before, they’d been enemies and Raphael’s only choice was to kill the saint who wrecked madness on the citizens. Celine also knew that and gave him a look of understanding.

Vincent suddenly came to realize something and glanced at the book. "...Atlas never survived."

Damien followed his gaze. "Yes. Don't you know why he lived this time?"

For Vincent to not dig into the cure that saved Atlas was impossible. As expected the crown prince froze, and turned to Soren once again.

"Thank you, little brother. For saving him, and everything you've done."

The apology was so sincere that Soren's frown deepened. "...it's okay."

Raphael had grown silent as the group continued to talk, mulling over his thoughts as his gaze trailed to the pages in his hand, tracing over a few words carefully.

[For the hero who only knew failure, success was not fated. And as the man closed his eyes to the world, feeling the sinking weight rush past his body and consume him all, 

A tired tear trickled down his face.

And the story he so longed for happiness, came to its final misfortune.]

He closed his eyes softly, resting a hand on the surface. In his hands was an incomparable weight, the history of his life which had been nothing but words on a paper. 

There was a lingering fear in his heart. What if, against all odds, the ending remained the same? Unsalvageable, littered with tearful corpses and painted in the murky red of blood?

And if that was the case, what would he do?

"...Raphael?"

The voice, quiet and questioning with the faintest hint of worry that only Raphael could decipher, promptly replaced the negative thoughts that spun in his mind. 

He smiled. 

"What's up?"

Soren surveyed him and frowned. "You're thinking about the book."

"When did you get so good at reading others, little prince?" mused Raphael light-heartedly.

However, the other continued to frown and didn't follow along with the teasing. Instead, this dazzling prince said in striking confidence, 

"It's trash."

"...what?"

"Whatever you're reading. The only story you need to know," said Soren with an unwavering sky-coloured stare, "is the one you carve out with your own hand."

When Raphael didn't answer, only dumbly looking back, Soren scowled. "Okay?"

The man froze, and lowered his head in a steady, relaxed laugh. "Okay."

He'd forgotten that he wasn't alone anymore.