Ch.648Chapter 24. Real Estate Never Die (26)

Although I’m active as a Goblin.

I am fundamentally a ‘possessed person.’

I was unwillingly possessed, and I’ve been struggling to survive in this world that’s destined for destruction.

No matter how much this world is set in modern times, it’s not exactly a good environment to live in.

You never know when and where a demon might pop up and bring chaos to the world.

You never know when and where humans worse than demons might act like they’re “going to hell.”

Now I’ve built up a lot through my efforts as Goblin, as Do Ji-hwan, as Scholar Mask, in various ways, but if I had been just an ordinary man A without any special abilities, I would have wanted to return to my original world immediately.

That feeling still remains.

After all, I’m not a being from this fictional world, but someone who came from elsewhere.

I want it.

I want to be able to return to my original world.

And while returning to my original world, I’ve resolved to take back all the “completed stories” that emerged after the great cataclysm in this world.

Although I appear to have put down roots in this world, I’ve been thinking on my own about finding a way back to my original world without getting caught by others.

Consulting with only one person about it.

“How is it?”

“W-wait a minute. W-wait…!”

The demon of temptation began to suffer, clutching his head.

“T-this can’t be…! D-don’t say such crazy things!”

“Saying that to me doesn’t mean anything, you know? Didn’t you say you’d grant my wish?”

I urged him.

“I want you to send me back to my original world. You’re a character in a novel, I’m a being from reality, and some author forcibly possessed me into this world.”

“Shut up!!”

The demon began to scream.

“Don’t talk nonsense! There’s no way I’m a character in a novel! Y-you’re trying to deceive me, right?! This kind of hyper-dimensional ability…!”

“It’s not an ability.”

It’s just coming out.

“Telling a fictional character that this world is actually a novel. A cliché that should never exist in possession stories.”

“Ugh…!”

The demon twists his body and slams against the wall.

The wall of my apartment, which I haven’t seen in a long time, becomes covered in blood from the demon’s thrashing, but I can only manage a bitter smile.

“I won’t ask you to pay for the wallpaper and papering costs, so why don’t you send me back to my original world soon? I don’t want any special abilities. You don’t even have to let me keep my memories. Just make me think I had a dream, a bad dream.”

As if.

“Yes, like waking up after walking in the middle of a path of light.”

“Aaaaargh!!”

The demon rushes outside.

He opens the door lock and runs out the front door, throwing himself through the apartment corridor window rather than taking the elevator in front.

“…….”

There are no people there either.

This isn’t my original world, but my home area as it exists in my ‘memory.’

Crash!

The demon falls onto a blurry car.

The reason the car’s form is quite realistic is probably because I remember when a tree fell during a typhoon and happened to destroy a Mercedes.

“Is this your first time seeing a German luxury car instead of a Haeguneul Maker car?”

As soon as I closed my eyes and opened them again, I was standing in the parking lot next to the demon who had fallen on the Mercedes.

“This is my world. My original world. From the smartphone I used to look at while commuting, in the world of text from a nationalist light novel written by some author, and a second-part character who was hiding behind the scenes. That’s you.”

“Shut up!”

The demon lunged at me from the collapsed Mercedes and grabbed my neck, but his strength was far too weak.

“What’s wrong? You said you’d grant my wish, right? You should admit it. That you’re a character in a novel, and I’m a being from reality.”

“Huff, huff, huff…!”

“Or are you denying it? That you’re a demon who grants wishes? That you’re not a wish-granting demon, but just a character created by someone’s imagination?”

“No, I’m notㅡㅡㅡㅡ!!”

He vehemently denies it while clutching his head.

The demon staggers along the walking path I used to see on weekdays, and sometimes even weekends, while commuting, and I leisurely follow behind him, adjusting my clothes.

Whoosh.

The location changed.

The surroundings changed instantly, and I arrived at that place in my memory.

“Wh-where is this…?!”

“Welcome. This is Seomyeon, Busan.”

A high floor of a hotel with a clear view of Busan.

It’s not a scene I’ve seen directly, but one I’ve seen through YouTube, yet it still remains in my memory.

Whenever I see the Busan developed by Seong Ji-eun, this view of Busan comes to mind.

“Th-this can’t be…. This wretched city…?”

“Hey now.”

No matter how different Neo Busan, redeveloped by special abilities, is from the real Busan.

“How dare a demon insult Busan. If we’re talking like that, compared to Seoul in reality, Seoul in this world is just a refugee camp, you know?”

“Aaaaargh!! Stop!! Don’t, don’t say that to me anymore!!”

“What can you do about it? There’s a demon here who said he’d grant my wish but won’t, so I have to keep pressing.”

I nudged Yoo Yeol-chung, who was rolling around in the hotel room, with my foot.

“Look at this. I’ve never been in such a luxurious suite room in reality, so the only materials in my memory are from experiences in the novel world.”

The sofa I’m sitting on, the refreshments on the tea table.

“I’m sick of seeing this Haeguneul mark everywhere I go, so won’t you send me back to my original world soon?”

“Aaaah…!”

All of them, things from this world.

“You can’t grant my wish? Why? Is it because you can’t find a way to send me from the novel to reality, or do you think I’m a mentally ill person who’s possessed in a novel? You can’t grant such a person’s wish? That’s not a wish-granting demon, is it?”

It’s a kind of advance payment.

If he admits the former, he acknowledges that he himself is a being in a novel.

If he admits the latter, he denies his own existence.

Either way, his mental state will crack.

The one attack I can make as someone who was essentially a reader, as someone who knows the clichés of possession stories well.

“Hey. There are people watching you right now. There are people waiting for Do Ji-hwan to be removed from this world, you know?”

I don’t know if they’re readers, viewers, or audience members.

I don’t know if the story of this world is being shown by someone.

“What are you doing? The readers are waiting.”

But the moment Yoo Yeol-chung ‘recognizes’ and ‘observes’ that this world is a novel.

“Are you planning to keep the readers waiting? I don’t think readers want to see a novel character continuing to have delusions and denying himself.”

“Shut upㅡㅡㅡ!! I, I am not someone who is watched and enjoyed by others!”

The moment this demon recognizes it as even slightly ‘true’.

“I am a demon of Pandemonium…! Not a character in a novel…!”

“Then why can’t you grant my wish?”

The outcome has already been decided.

“Or have you just realized? What I’m willing to give up to get rid of you.”

“!!”

The demon quickly crawled over and grabbed my ankle.

“S-stop…! You want to go back to your original world, right?! I’ll, I’ll try to find a way somehow…! If that author is in this world, I’ll search through all of humanity to find him for you! Definitely…!”

“Ah, I see.”

I closed my eyes for a moment.

“If I could find the author who possessed me into this world, I’d definitely want to crack his skull.”

And.

[At least, I want to thank him for possessing me as a special ability user and Goblin.]

I stretched out my hand.

My hand was already holding the Goblin’s club, and the demon began to shake his head violently.

“S-stop…! You’re a human from reality! If, if you give that up, you’ll become a character in a novel!”

[That’s none of your business.]

“You wanted to escape this world! With all those stories! You said you wanted to deliver the completed stories you’ve seen to other readers like you!!”

[I did once.]

When I was possessed.

[For a brief moment, I had a happy dream.]

The location changed again.

I returned to my room where I was looking at an e-book reader before the demon first observed me.

[I saw a different work than the one I was reading. It had been well over a year since I was possessed, and exactly one volume had been published.]

“Th-that…!”

[Just seeing that one volume, I’m satisfied. At least the protagonist and heroine met and kissed.]

Perhaps that wasn’t really the content.

Maybe it was just my wishful thinking, my imagination of the sequel to a novel I never saw completed, shown through the tablet.

[As much as I’d like to return to reality right now.]

There is clearly one way to do that.

[That dream cannot come true, which is why it’s a ‘dream.’]

The demon couldn’t grant my wish from the beginning.

Regardless of the demon’s will, beyond the range of what the demon could grant.

[I’m sorry. It turns out I’ve deceived you.]

Because it was a wish that couldn’t coexist, that couldn’t be fulfilled from the start.

[My wish is.]

“N-no…! Don’t give up…! If you try hard enough, you can find a way somehow! Believe in human potential!!”

[To escape this fictional world with the person I love and return to reality.]

And that wish cannot be fulfilled.

[Sorry. The person I love happens to be like a ‘wedge’ of this world.]

Taking the person I love means taking this entire world.

[So, in exchange for giving up that wish, I’ll kill you.]

“S-stop itㅡㅡㅡ!!”

[A hyper-dimensional being is throwing away his status to eliminate one demon in exchange, won’t this world grant at least that much of a ‘wish’?]

“N-no waaayㅡㅡㅡㅡ!!”

Instead of escaping from this fictional world with the person I love.

[I am.]

I will live in this fictional world, living as a being for the Syndicate—for this world.

[The Goblin of the Syndicate.]

Bang.

The moment I swung the Goblin’s club.

Crack.

The wish-granting demon’s entire body burned red, and the reality made up of my memories shattered into pieces.