After the sudden changes in Chae Nayun with the help of Kim Hajin and his bet, our beloved group of cadets got teleported to a weird place and try to find the reason behind this ''kidnapping''.
''Who did this and are they such a coward that they can't even show themselves!?''
''We should first calm down and analyze the situation we're in right now''
"I agree, we should first find out where we are"
They looked around the room and found themselves in a sort of cinema. It was dark and there was a big screen on the wall. There were seats too with the names of everyone. After looking around for a bit, they decided to seat and wait for a moment. Then, they heard a loud voice:
°I'm sorry to bring you here guys but you're here to react to a certain someone that changed a lot of things in your world.°
"Why should we react to someone? And beside all that, you don't have the right to kidnap us like that without a proper reason. "
°You're not only reacting to someone, you'll also learn about future events and enemies. I think it's a great thing in return for reacting to this someone. So are you all okay with that?°
The cadets looked at each other and finally agreed to give it a chance since they didn't have a choice in the first place.
°Let's begin! Don't forget that you're reacting first to the entrance at Cube.°
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===
[Kim Suho]
17 – 27 years old in the story
A righteous, honest man and a hard-worker. Though he comes from a common background, he is of extraordinary character and talent. As a genius who made his name known in the military academy, he possesses a sense of justice and other upright characteristics befitting a hero. He carries a special secret that he hasn't revealed to anyone.
Kim Suho was surprised that his name and description appeared on the screen. tThey agreed that this description was accurate to the boy but wasn't it a little bit too accurate? They began to think that the person they were reacting to was Suho from the informations displayed on the screen.
[Shin Jonghak]
17 – 27 years old in the story
The fourth generation descendant of the Jinsung Corp, one of the greatest chaebol in Korea, which contends for the number one spot. As a child of a chaebol family, he is a narcissist and an elitist. Because of his personality and the sense of inferiority he feels against Kim Suho, he later becomes a villain.
'I have to be the best. I cannot tolerate anyone being above me.' With such obstinacy, he confronts Kim Suho.
===
"What is this dude blabbering about? And what's the matter with this villain thingy?" Shin Jonghak was really pissed by this whole situation without adding all the personnal information this voice knew. They now were confused about wheter they were reacting to Jonghak or Suho.
"I'm more concerned about the fact they know THAT much about us while we don't know them."
"Maybe we're THAT popular, it's the most logical solution I can think about." Chae Nayun would be correct if it was for their timeline but they were reacting to the beginning of everything.
The above two were the two main characters of [my] novel. (They can not see the things between these brackets, and I'm sorry to use the idea of the fanfiction's author for MY fanfiction.(╥︣﹏᷅╥᷅) )
'What does he mean by main characters?' was the question in everyone's mind right now. They were talking about reality, so why was this person referring to people as characters of a novel?
Though the novel had many more characters, write them all down was impossible. Within [my] novel were billions of characters. Unless the characters have 'important roles' like the heroine or the helper, giving a character a name wasn't necessary.
... Why was I saying all this?
"You're not the only one who's wondering that." said Yoo Yeonha, it's been a considerable amount of time since they were here but still no useful information.
—Hero Association's Agent Military Academy Seoul Branch Graduation, Class of 2024, Rank 1 Cadet, Kim Suho.
It was because the story in [my] novel was happening in front of my eyes.
Called up to the stage, Kim Suho walked up with a stiffened face as though he was nervous.
We were in a huge auditorium suggestive of a temple. In it were 3000 cadets and thousands of spectators. Their gazes all turned to one person, Kim Suho.
"He's Kim Suho? Wow."
"He's so handsome~"
Several women watched with admiration and adoration.
Suho was embarrassed, he was too nervous at this moment to know what people were whispering about when it was happenning and while Shin Jonghak turned his face seeming to not understand these womans, the girls agreed with what they were reading.
"...This is why people say Gift is all that matters. Who cares if you try hard? People like him end up taking first place anyways."
"That guy completely lucked out with his Gift."
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And naturally, he received the jealousy and envy of young teenagers.
"People shouldn't be jealous but instead try hard that's not a good mentality to keep." said Chae Nayun visibly irrated by all these people's comments.
"His grades are said to be the greatest in the past 10 years."
"Yeah, I've heard of him. His Gift was announced too, right? What was it again... Sword Saint?"
Guild associates, who came to watch the best cadet in recent history, flashed their eyes.
They were looking down from the highest seats of the auditorium. However, I could hear their voices. They had to be at least a kilometer away, but as long as I looked their way, I could hear their words clearly.
Not only their words, but I could also see their faces, almost as though I was right in front of them.
"Is it a talent or his gift?" asked Suho. No response.
Perhaps, this was my 'Gift.'
"Yes, in regards to swords, he is said to receive the world's protection."
"Hm... That's a pretty vague description, but I guess the information from the academy is all like that."
"We called dibs on that kid so don't touch him."
I recognized one of the whispering faces.
"Something is certain, this person knows a lot about us and even more than us." Rachel said, impressed by this |person's| informations. They seemed like someone who knows a lot and played a big role in their life so why didn't they have any idea about their identity?
Yun Seung-Ah. An important assistant of the main character and one of the heroines who almost became the main character's lover. Just when the two of them were hitting it off – in reality, when the main character was hitting off with many of the heroines – I suspended my novel. Thus, the two never became lovers.
"Huh?" Suho was surprised. He didn't know that he'ld have a lover and even less Yun Seung-Ah.
"Dibs? What dibs. When it comes to cadets, there is no such thing."
At another guild associate's callous words, Yun Seung-Ah smiled sweetly and rebutted.
"Is that why 'Essence of the Strait' can't escape second place?"
I knew Yun Seung-Ah's face. Surprisingly, she looked like my first love from college. That was probably because I thought of her when I was describing Yun Seung-Ah's character. Though, she was my crush to be exact.
"...Can I take that as a challenge?"
"I'm kidding, of course. Plus, we still have three years to go before we can scout any of them."
"It's two years."
"...You know contacting them before they graduate is illegal, right?"
"That's only if you're found out."
Yun Seung-Ah and the man glared at each other. With their staring contest as the starting point, the VIP seats' atmosphere began to heat up.
And thus, the fight for Kim Suho had already begun.
"Why are associations so eager to find new heroes? Even it being illegal, they still try to cantact Cube cadets before they even graduate!" Everyone nodded at this statement, they were already struggling with their trainings and all but the associations only added pressure to them.
—Class of 2024, Rank 2 Cadet, Shin Jonghak.
Meanwhile, the other main character stood up.
He was the descendant of the Jinsung clan. His appearance rivaled Kim Suho as well.
The audience stirred just like when Kim Suho walked up. But unlike with Kim Suho, envy and jealousy didn't exist. There was only admiration and adoration. With Kim Suho, they thought, 'Why is he better than me?' but with Shin Jonghak, it was, 'He was better than me from birth.'
As if to show off his noble blood, Shin Jonghak walked up to the stage completely composed.
Kim Suho and Shin Jonghak.
Standing side by side, the two glared at each other.
Electricity seemed to crackle from their eyes.
Without a shadow of the doubt, these two were characters from my novel.
Then where was I?
"Maybe we'll get to know who he is now?"
"That'ld be great" Yoo Yeohna had already taken out her notebook and pen out at the sight of probable important information.
I wasn't on the stage but in the farthest back seat of the auditorium. I wasn't 'one out of three thousand', but a member of the 'three thousand.' No guild associate looked my way.
"Chundong, what rank are you? I'm rank 2900."
"What?" It was a general shock, no one knew who this boy was and didn't hear of his name at all!
"He must be in another class since we didn't heard about him?" It was more of a question than an affirmation coming from Suho.
"It's not like we know all our classmates, he might be in the same class as us" Rachel was right and they knew it, but they were still intrigued by the fact this person knew so much about their universe. They didn't interact with him or maybe, he just used all he knew for his own.
Next, to me, a boy resembling a piglet asked. On his nametag were the characters 'Kim Ho Sup'. This meant that he had an eventual role. Though he couldn't be a Hero because of his nonexistent physical abilities, his Gift was outstanding for information gathering.
"Chundong-chan★?"
"... I don't know."
"Ah so he doesn't know his own classment?"
I didn't know who I was. I didn't even know why my name was Chundong.
"Wait. He was talking about a novel not long ago." started Yeonha " Does that mean he was reading a novel about us and transmigrated in the body of a 'character'?" (it reminds me of lout of the count's family, a masterpiece *chef kiss*)
Everyone looked a little bit surprised but they were litteraly transported in this mysterious place so it didn't seem impossible. It would also explain how this person was aware of so many things themselves ignored.
If something like this had to happen, shouldn't I be one of the two on stage?
"Why was he expecting that? That's ridiculous!" exclaimed Shin Jonghak in a mocking tone.
"Come on. If you were transported in the novel you've read, you'ld expect to be one of the main characters." What Yoo Yeonha said was true but that didn't seem the case for this guy. It was surely bad luck...
"Hey, c'mon, if you don't know that..."
"I don't know."
Once again, I didn't know. This world was the novel I wrote, but I was in the body of a character I had never written before.
"So he isn't just a reader?" Chae Nayun couldn't believe her eyes. The 'author' of this world was inside his own novel and he didn't interact with his own characters!
"Apparently he's the author?"
Other than being a cadet in the Agent Military Academy, I was the most ordinary and the most connectionless character, the type whose name wouldn't exist anywhere in the novel. In other words... I was an extra.[1]
...No, I was a speck of dust.
"Ha! At least he knows his place."
"Hey what's the number one doing next to 'extra'?" asked Chae Nayun.
°Oh you dont't need to worry about that, it's just: °
1. In English, an extra is usually referred to as "background actor/performer/cast/etc", but I will be sticking with 'extra'.
"Ah-"°Are you going to take a break before we continue?°
"I don't think we need it right now." responded Rachel
"We should just continue to find more about this chundong guy!"
°As you wish~°
One day, I received an email. The sender asked if he could remake my novel.
At the time, I was dumbfounded. I might have been on a short hiatus, but to ask to remake a novel that was in paid serialization...
"Why? Is it illegal?" asked Chae Nayun not understanding the words of the person.
°You could say that°
I, of course, refused. In fact, I didn't reply.
It was partly because doing something like that without permission would go against copyright laws, but it was also because I was ashamed of the 'hiatus' status I was in.
"Do we have to assume he's ashamed of us?"
"Maybe?"
"We shouldn't assume things, let's just continue reading to see what he thinks about us.
It wasn't a sensation, but it was a fairly popular novel and the greatest hit in my five years of writing.
But at the time I received the email, I had been on hiatus for three months.
"And the reason? Don't just say what comes to your mind and leave us with questions!"
The reason was simple. The words didn't come to me.
At first, I poured my passion into writing. My personal note on the world's setting neared 50,000 characters[1], and I poured my heart out in writing each chapter.
But after a year of writing, I fell into an awful slump.
"That kind of explains the situation of his novel being in hiatus"
"But who's the person who wrote the email to him?" Noone knew the answer as well as the chundong guy from what they've read.
Even so, the novel continued for six months, reaching the mid-late stage of the story. But because I forcefully pushed myself to write, the story was full of plot holes, and the personalities of the characters had collapsed. Unsurprisingly, the number of readers dropped by the day. I was too scared to even read the comments.
In the end, I chose to go on hiatus.
But no matter how long I rested, I couldn't continue with the story, not even a single sentence came out.
When I was wallowing in misery from realizing my lacking writing skills...
I received another email asking to remake my novel.
[[email protected]]
[Please. This is for personal satisfaction. I will not reveal the remake version of the novel anywhere. It will only stay between me and you. Who knows? Maybe you'll be inspired by the remake and come up with a way to continue the story...]
"Haa... This person chose the right words" Kim Suho and the others knew how easily convinced a person can be when they're mentally unstable, you only had to choose the right words and this person will be listening to you without asking or doubting you. (kind of like when a human is controlled by a djin?)
"From what we're readingg, he accepted the offer and found himself here with us" That was the most rational answer to the question |How did this guy end up in his own novel?| they could find from this situation.
"Does that mean the one sending the email has this kind of power?" the question was still suspended in their minds.
It was a fairly long email consisting of six sentences, but what it was asking for was simple.
He wanted to remake my novel for self-satisfaction.
How much did he like my novel to send an email like this? Since I wasn't particularly proud of my work, I agreed, feeling thankful and ashamed.
... In that case, was that the cause of this situation?
"This guy is very quickwitted" they wondered how they could have missed him.
The chance of winning the lottery was said to be 1 in 8,145,060. Then what was happening to me at this moment had to be a 1 in 7 billion chance.
"How bad is his luck to end like that?" asked Shin Jonghak.
"Or it's karma" replied Yoo Yeonha. They can't imagine how unlucky a person can be to end up in a situation like that.
I was standing in an ordinary family home.
But the world I was in wasn't my world, and I wasn't 'me.' Though one might think I was being philosophical, I really wasn't. It was just the best way to describe the situation I was in.
I had become an extra in my novel.
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An extra I had no memory writing about.
Kim Chundong.
"Can he stop stating facts? We need informations here!" (Isn't it obvious who's complaining here?)
Chundong lived in an ordinary apartment room, but he didn't have parents. As for why, I, of course, didn't know.
At 9 years old, Chundong was admitted to 'Agent Military Academy,' a place to nurture elites to fight monsters and Djinns.
What ability did Chundong possess to pass its entrance exam?
I didn't know.
I didn't know anything about him. I didn't even know his face. I wasn't kidding. I really didn't.
When I look in the mirror...
(?)
"WAIT!- He isn't aware of his skills?!" exclaimed Chae Nayun.
"How did he manage to stay at cube then? That's not normal."
"Hey what does he mean by this question mark (?)"
"Let's wait and see"
That's what I saw. An oval with a question mark.
This crazy body possession(?) or transmigration(?) was completely unreasonable. I had gone to bed just like any other day, but when I woke up, i found myself on the last day of the semester at Agent Military Academy.
"Then how did we miss someone with this appearence?" asked Rachel.
"It's too weird for you to tell me I missed him when he looks like that"
"He's such an extra that he doesn't have a face!" mocked Shin Jonghak.
At first, I had two suspicions.
First was that I was being pranked.
But that idea was shot down in just five seconds. I couldn't even be bothered to explain why.
Second was that I was dreaming.
But I naturally came to dismiss the idea. As everyone knew, the thought of being in a dream never occurred to dreaming people, and more importantly, no dream continued for two weeks with such a clear sense of reality.
"Seems to be a fair reasoning"
"He's quick at making decision and analysing, maybe he came to the conclusion he doesn't have to interfere with the main characters for his safety?" started to think Suho and the others before returning to the screen.
As a result, I spent the past two weeks pondering whether the 'world inside the novel' should be treated as the 'reality I was in.'
Ding Dong—
Tatatatatata~
Just like I've been doing in the last two weeks, I was lying in bed and staring blankly at the ceiling when my smartphone alarm began to ring. Glancing over, I saw that it was 'time to go to school.'
"Why the hell do I need to go to school."
"Why? Did he already graduate in his world?"
"HAHA Just imagine having to re-attend school all over again because of this!" Chae Nayun couldn't help but laugh. After she calmed down, she turned her gaze to the screen again.
°Just wanted to tell you that every information judged useless will be removed from reacting°
This sudden announcement didn't change the group's mood so they just continued to react but expecting more informations this time._
After cleaning myself up a bit, I changed into Cube's uniform, which I got at the entrance ceremony. Other than that, I had no other baggage.
People who saw me in this uniform would undoubtedly send looks of envy, But I didn't know what I was doing.
My face was a freaking question mark, how was I supposed to figure anything out?
"He's not wrong here, it must be annoying to not know who you are and a ..... question mark for face at that?" yeah that was definitly not a situation they would like to be in.
urning the doorknob, I glanced back.
My home for the past two weeks. The apartment room I barely found thanks to the address written in my cadet card. It seemed I got attached to it in this short period of time. I felt like I would miss it.
Cube floated in the middle of the East Sea. Once I left, I probably wouldn't come back.
"Ehew."
Putting behind the big apartment room I was happy to have, I stepped into the dark and unfamiliar world.
"We just found how this person looked and how he- no sort of how he ended here" Rachel seemed to be disappointed by all the descriptions and analizes made but she was still optimistic for the future projection.
Notes: