People always imagine that writers are tortured geniuses, hunched over their keyboards in some apartment, chugging instant coffee and whispering poetic thoughts about the meaning of life—
Okay, fine, that's actually pretty accurate.
Except take out the "genius" part and crank up the "tortured" part, then replace the poetic thoughts with a half-eaten microwave burrito and a tab I've had open for three days that just says, "how to name a sword that doesn't sound like a 13-year-old's Xbox gamertag."
That's me. Or, well... that was me.
Name's Sota Fujimura. Twenty-eight. Freelance copywriter by day, fantasy webnovelist by night, and proud simpleton of one completed webnovel with a small but loyal cult following, and a protagonist so painfully overpowered, I had to invent new systems just to keep him entertained.
My magnum opus? "Epitaph of the Voidflame: Chronicles of Lucien Aetherion Valeforge, Scion of the Ninefold Sovereignty."
Okay... I know it's a mouthful. I was twenty-three and stupid when I named it. By the time I realized how ridiculous it sounded, I already had 800 followers demanding more "epic magic battle scenes" and "Lucien-sama moments." I was freaking trapped!
Still, I loved it. And tonight... I was finally finishing it.
After five years of blood, sweat, emotional breakdowns from working 9 to 5s, and writing entire arcs in feverish 3AM sessions fueled by unhealthy store coffee and existential dread, I had done it.
The final chapter.
The end.
Closure!
I leaned back in my chair and let out a breath that had been trapped in my chest since Chapter 342.
I had finally done something.
Finished something.
That's rare these days, ya know? Especially for someone with severe ADHD and no medicine.
"Take that, Lucien," I whispered, raising my cold mug in a lazy salute. "You melodramatic bastard."
Lucien Aetherion Valeforge; My pride and my shame. An androgynous elf boy with white hair, green eyes, a tragic past, and the magical output of a tactical freaking nuke!
He was a hero of destiny, prophesied to defeat the Demon King with nothing but his willpower and Magic System, known as the Ashbringer of the Ninth Flame.
I created him in college as a wish-fulfillment gag. He wasn't supposed to last more than five chapters to be honest, but people liked him... way too much, and slowly, he became real to them, and to me.
Maybe too real...
Closing my laptop, I stared at the wall across from my desk. There were no posters, or bookshelves, just a water stain shaped vaguely like a rabbit and a couple of sticky notes that had long given up, barely clinging to the wall.
I should've felt proud, but instead, I felt... hollow.
You'd think finishing a story like that would make you feel fulfilled, maybe even triumphant I guess? But instead, I just felt empty; like the sky.
I didn't even cry, I just sat there, wondering, what now?
I didn't have a day job lined up. I'd turned down two freelance gigs last week just to get this ending finished. I had $18.20 in my bank account, one instant curry left in the cabinet, and no idea what I was supposed to do with myself now that I wasn't Lucien's "God" anymore.
I'd spent so long writing his world that I barely lived in my own.
I guess that's the problem when your fantasy starts to feel more like home than reality...
Dragging myself out of the chair, I walked into the kitchen with a deep sigh, grabbing my curry from the cabinet to shove into the microwave.
"I guess that's that..." Reaching into the fridge, I took out a beer(that expired two months ago), cracking it open.
I took a sip, tasting how awful it was, but it was better than plain old water.
"Now that it's over... what should I do now?"
And then... I felt it—
I was halfway through my expired beer and staring blankly at the microwave when it hit me.
It was a sharp pressure, like someone drove a fist straight into the center of my chest.
It hurts!
My ribs locked up, and I dropped the can, watching it hit the floor with a hollow clunk, foaming out across the tile like it didn't want to be part of this.
My knees buckled and I grabbed at the wall, sliding down to the floor.
No.
No no no no no—
I knew what this was. I'd read enough articles and seen enough health warnings that I scrolled past like they didn't apply to me.
But little did I know, they did.
"Shit..." I whispered, clutching my chest. "I'm having a heart attack."
The words felt weird in my mouth, like they belonged to someone older. My vision blurred and my heartbeat accelerated even faster, as if it was going to give out.
It was a heart attack brought on by stress, exhaustion, poor health, and years of neglecting myself while obsessively writing my novel...
I tried to move and crawl out of the kitchen to my phone, but my arms felt like jelly.
Goddamnit, this can't be happening to me!
My body had gone heavy, and my head banged against the wall, feeling a cold sweat drip down my forehead.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not now.
I just finished the story.
I finished the goddamn story!!
After everything! Five years of isolation, burnouts, grinding through plot holes and rewrites, and my readers who only commented to ask when the next chapter dropped, I finally reached the end.
I did it. I gave Lucien his ending and gave the world a conclusion.
And now I'm going to die alone in a shitty apartment before anyone even reads it? I didn't even publish the chapter yet!
What a joke.
"I can't... die now..."
I wasn't even thirty. I hadn't cleaned my room. I hadn't said goodbye. Hell, I hadn't even hit save on the backup file!
My body collapsed fully as my arms went limp, and my breath, shallow.
The room tilted sideways, and my heartbeat slowed... once... twice... and in that very moment, right at the edge of my death, I heard something.
Not from the world outside... but from the world I wrote.
A whisper? Maybe a hum?
Something tugged at my soul, like a hand reaching out through the cracks in reality.
Lucien's world.
The world I created! Maybe I'm daydreaming?
I suddenly wasn't afraid anymore... just bitter, and tired.
Letting out a shaky laugh, my last breath was shallow and broken.
"Seriously... this is how I go?"
I closed my eyes, feeling my chest rise one last time.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes, but mine didn't.
There was no grand montage, no tearful goodbye, and no white light at the end of the tunnel!
Just silence before detachment.
It was like a thread snapped deep inside my chest, though I didn't feel pain anymore. I couldn't feel anything, matter of fact.
I noticed that I was floating above the ground.
"What... the..."
My body, the one I'd known for twenty-eight years, was gone, and completely left behind.
It was a husk slumped against a grimy wall in a crumbling apartment.
I was completely weightless as I could feel my soul suddenly fly upwards through my ceiling, drifting through a colorless void.
I should've been afraid, but instead, I felt... emotionless.
I was carried like a magnet.
There was no Divine being, or smug truck-kun congratulating me on my isekai upgrade.
Just a void.
But then, I heard a voice from far away in this empty abyss. It sounded familiar, echoing loudly until I realized that they were my words?
What the hell?!
Lines of narration.
Magic incantations.
Dialogue from characters I had written years ago at 3AM with greasy fingers and a half-dead heart.
[Lucien Aetherion Valeforge...]
[Scion of the Ninth Flame...]
[Awaken!]
All of a sudden, the void shattered from my words, and multiple colors exploded around me.
Violet, gold, crimson, and a vortex of magical energy whirled through the nothingness as my story unraveled.
And I was falling.
Through memories.
Through moments—
Through my own freaking lore?!
Mountains I had named in filler arcs. Kingdoms I barely fleshed out. A continent held together by half-written political alliances and one overdesigned magic system.
I fell through it all like a meteor, burning across the skies of my own creation.
Then—
Impact.
It wasn't physical, or spiritual, but like a key sliding into a lock.
I was no longer floating.
I slowly opened my eyes, and I could see a ceiling above me.
Wait a minute...
Hold up!!
This was... Lucien's room!!
I knew this place. I designed this place!
I bolted upright, feeling my heart hammering...
Eh? This wasn't my heartbeat.
It was stronger, like thunder rumbling through steel.
I gasped and looked down.
My hands were slender, long-fingered, and graceful. Not calloused, or cracked.
My chest rose and fell beneath a silken tunic stitched with gold thread. I felt strength in my limbs, and restrained power coursing through my body.
There's no way this was happening, right? It's all an illusion... maybe this is the afterlife? Maybe this is heaven? No... there's just no way!
"W-What the hell is going on?!"