World Line

I only lost consciousness from Ilya’s punch, and didn’t have any serious injuries, but because Roel-nim sat on the bed, I decided to stay seated a little longer.

Roel-nim gave a soft smile and stared at me for a moment. I felt my face burning for no reason at the emotion filling his gaze. As if choked with emotion, Roel-nim broke the silence with a slightly subdued voice.

,It’s really… been a long time.”

From Roel-nim’s perspective, I had suddenly disappeared and reappeared after five years. He must have missed me and had many questions. If it were the Roel-nim I knew, I thought he wouldn’t have hesitated to search the continent to find me after my sudden disappearance.

,Yeah, a lot must have… happened.”

I tried to make a perfunctory remark but unconsciously noticed my missing left arm and changed my words. Amused by this, Roel-nim chuckled and took my hand.

Roel-nim’s eyes seemed to tremble slightly as he looked at me. Roel-nim, who had been gently biting his lip, wore an expression as if he was about to cry at any moment. At first, I thought the emotion in his gaze was the longing of reuniting with his younger brother.

But only after continuing to meet his gaze could I fully interpret that emotion. An almost unbearably heavy sense of guilt. A sticky kind of guilt that couldn’t be shaken off without the forgiveness of the person involved.

Feeling uneasy and uncomfortable for no reason, I pretended not to notice and subtly averted my gaze. Glancing at Laelran-ssi, who was sitting next to me, he was watching our conversation without hiding his expression of interest. Usually, it would be polite to quietly leave the room for brothers who have reunited after a long time. Laelran-ssi and Konrad-ssi seemed to have no intention of leaving me and Roel-nim alone in the room.

,There were so many things I wanted to say to you… We weren’t really the type to talk much before. I regret it now, I wish I had been closer to you… I should have taken better care of you….”

Seeing Roel-nim muttering something between a lament and a soliloquy, I threw out a joke for no reason, fearing the atmosphere would become heavy.

,If I were your older sister instead of your older brother, we might have gotten along better.”

Roel-nim gave a bitter smile at my playful tone. He seemed to have noticed that I was trying to avoid a serious conversation. After pondering for a moment what to say, Roel-nim asked with a voice full of concern.

,…Are you okay? Your head still seems injured.”

He got me there. I answered with a smile.

,Surprisingly, both are fine.”

When I raised both arms to show off my arm muscles, Roel-nim looked relieved. Even though five years had passed, I still seemed to be seen as a younger brother to be taken care of in Roel-nim’s eyes. Since I had never been someone’s older brother, I couldn’t understand the feeling of worrying about a scruffy guy.

As silence fell in the room for a moment, it felt like a promise had been made. Even Roel-nim, who liked talking to others, was carefully considering what to say to me. Seeing Roel-nim repeatedly opening and closing his mouth, looking troubled, I rubbed my forehead and suddenly muttered a thought that came to mind.

,What about Luna?”

If things had gone according to the original flow while I was gone, Luna’s family would not have avoided tragedy. Afraid that something might have happened to Luna, I looked at Roel-nim as if urging him to answer.

But strangely, Roel-nim tilted his head as if he didn’t understand my question.

,…Luna, you say?”

This time, I was puzzled. Five years was a long time, but it shouldn’t have been enough time to completely forget his younger brother’s girlfriend, whom he had talked to several times. And she wasn’t someone with an easily forgettable appearance.

,I’m talking about my girlfriend. Luna Grace, a first-year in the Department of Magic Engineering.”

When I spoke as if dumbfounded, Roel-nim chuckled as if he had heard a joke.

,You, who only knows Ellie, has a girlfriend? Don’t tell me you were secretly dating without me knowing?”

,What are you….”

A strange sensation flashed through my mind. A chill ran down my spine in an instant. I realized the sense of incongruity belatedly. Yes, from the beginning, the conversation had felt a bit strangely off. It wasn’t simply because five years had passed.

Laelran-ssi treating me like a stranger and Roel-nim not knowing about Luna’s existence… and Konrad-ssi saying that someone who had died had come back to life perfectly fine. All of those things were clues to revealing the identity of the incongruity.

Could this place be… No, let’s not jump to conclusions. To confirm, I suppressed the anxiety and excitement that were heating up my heart and said.

,What was the result of the second-year Triathalon that you participated in, hyung-nim…?”

Roel-nim’s face stiffened at my sudden question. After letting out a long sigh, Roel-nim ran a hand over his face and exchanged glances with Laelran-ssi for a moment. Looking at me again with a complicated expression, Roel-nim gave a bitter smile and said.

,Of course, I won. But looking back now, I think everything went wrong from then on.”

At Roel-nim’s words, I unconsciously gripped the blanket.

,You won…?”

,…Yeah. We struggled because other academies formed an alliance, but we eventually made a comeback.”

My heart is beating like crazy. In the Triathalon I experienced, all participating academies ‘co-won’ due to my intervention. But Roel-nim in front of me says that he made a come-from-behind victory in the Triathalon. The flow is different. There is only one thing that can explain it. It is the moment when unbelievable suspicion turns into certainty.

Laelran-ssi, who had been watching silently from the side, opened his mouth, interpreting my stiffened expression as disbelief in Roel-nim’s words.

,The winner of the Triathalon has not changed until the Emperor reorganized it. Transcendence did win the 31st Triathalon held in Imperial Year 622.”

For some reason, I feel nauseous with overflowing emotions. Roel-nim, who quickly noticed that my expression had become serious, asked with a worried look.

,Ross, are you okay?”

I looked at Roel-nim’s hand, which was holding mine as if not to let me go. It was a hand full of scars and calluses. I raised my gaze and met Roel-nim’s eyes. Now I could understand. What the guilt in those eyes meant. My mind is racing. Clues are combined, showing a single picture. Without realizing it, I muttered the thoughts in my head as if blurting them out.

,…You killed me.”

Roel-nim’s body flinched greatly at those words. Roel-nim’s hand holding mine trembled slightly. Tears welled up in his blue eyes looking at me.

A single tear that had been welling up flowed down his cheek. Roel-nim, who forced himself to hold back the flowing tears, uttered fragmented words with difficulty.

,…Yes, I… you, who was my younger brother… with my own hands….”

Roel-nim couldn’t bring himself to say that he had killed me, and trembled as he shed tears. Seeing that, I sighed. Now I could understand what Laelran-ssi meant by July.

,So that’s why Laelran-ssi asked if it was July. Because he thought I, who had been killed by hyung-nim, had come back to life.”

This world is a place where all the efforts and relationships I had made do not exist. The reason is simple. This was the world that had reached the ending according to the original flow of the novel.

In the novel, Ross, who sold his soul to the Demon King with a corrupt artifact, is killed by Roel-nim in July, just before the summer vacation begins. Laelran-ssi guessed that the Demon King had died and the shackles of the soul had been released, causing him to be resurrected, so he naturally thought that my memories would be stuck in July, when I had been killed by Roel-nim.

Laelran-ssi’s words that he had never talked to Navier-ssi were also natural. Ross, who I possessed, was a complete loner without a single friend, so even though they were in the same combat department, he had never even talked to Navier-ssi.

The excitement of coming to another world line with a new magic that suddenly appeared in the Pathuga’s magic book was fleeting, and I suddenly came to my senses at a contradiction that flashed through my mind.

,But if this place had gone according to the original flow….”

Without realizing it, I shifted my gaze to Roel-nim’s missing left arm.

,…He wouldn’t have lost his arm…?”

Roel-nim, whose harem of heroes can only win, ends with a happy ending by killing the Demon King, the ultimate enemy. There was no reason to add the setting that he lost his arm to the protagonist, who no longer needed trials. The end of the novel should have a happy reward waiting, unlike the miserable reality.

But Roel-nim lost his arm. Ilya-ssi lost one eye, and Laelran-ssi calls Roel-nim his lord. The swirling sky and the world’s adjuster being with Roel-nim were also strange. Clearly, something had deviated from the original flow, some kind of variable had occurred.

,Hyung-nim, what the hell happened…? Did you… kill the Demon King?”

At my question, Roel-nim barely stopped crying. After taking a moment to catch his breath, Roel-nim raised his hand to wipe away his tears and answered.

,Yes, the Demon King is dead. Ellie-ssi restored the collapsed eastern border with magic….”

I could tell that there was something more to it from Roel-nim’s trailing off. Ellie-ssi might be the problem. Looking at him as if urging him to explain, Roel-nim let out a deep sigh.

,But the world is about to be destroyed.”

,What…?”

The death of the Demon King is the salvation of the world. That was the cliché of hero stories. But even though they defeated the ultimate enemy, the Demon King, the world is going to be destroyed…?

,Why is the world going to be destroyed when the Demon King is dead?”

At my question, Roel-nim bit his lip so hard that it bled. Roel-nim, who contorted his face in pain not from his lips, but from his heart, finally opened his mouth with a miserable expression.

,The leader of the Chaos Church, who died with Bella, has… been resurrected.”