"I read another trash novel."
That was my impression after finishing the final chapter.
Utterly ordinary sentences, utterly ordinary settings, utterly ordinary narrative.
Nothing but clichés, clichés everywhere.
A beautiful female lead from a prestigious Count family.
Her childhood friend and fiancé, the male lead—an illegitimate child from a neighboring family.
All those words whispered in each other's ears, promising a future together.
Various conspiracies lurking behind their love.
True affection sprouting resiliently against the trials that came their way.
Still, it was fun while I was reading it.
Even though they were cookie-cutter characters I'd seen somewhere before, I grew somewhat attached to them.
The romance depicted was sweet and refreshing too.
The problem was the ending.
The male lead, who had been striving at the Academy dreaming of becoming a knight, met his end in a war that decided the continent's fate, becoming nothing but bones trampled in the aftermath of battle.
The female lead, left alone in the defeated nation, died from illness without even confirming whether her lover had survived.
And then the author's note that drove the final nail in.
【 Thank you for reading this far
I'll see you next week with the epilogue 】
Epilogue? You've got to be kidding me.
I was about to leave a comment saying I wouldn't be reading it and the author could go to hell, but thinking that was too harsh, I quietly hit the back button.
I don't mind depressing and gloomy content.
I don't even mind a shit ending.
There's even a saying that the mark of a masterpiece is crashing and burning in the final chapter.
But to have a title like "Endless Waiting" and then literally just wait endlessly with no resolution—isn't that too pathetic an imagination?
If it was going to be like this, why drag it out for over 100 chapters, draining readers' energy?
It would've been more entertaining if, while they were happily embracing each other in bliss, a ninja from the East suddenly appeared and killed them all.
A terrible ending.
A bland ending.
An ending that was neither here nor there.
A predictable ending.
And yet a garbage ending that suddenly accelerated at full speed out of nowhere, ruining the mood.
Many descriptors came to mind, but spending more emotion on it felt like a waste of time.
I turned off my phone, lay down on my bed, closed my eyes, and thought:
"I could write better than this."
.
.
.
And when I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of a forest surrounded by greenery.
All sorts of nameless weeds and wildflowers tickled my feet, grown under sunlight as transparent as glass.
I heard the sound of a stream I'd definitely never heard in my life.
Above my head, birds and leaves chirped together in harmony.
I woke up as if in a dream, in the middle of a pastoral scene I'd never seen before.
Beside me was a small girl with platinum blonde hair shining like pale wheat and skin as pale and white as snow, holding my hand tightly as if it were something precious.
Staring at me intently with ruby-like sparkling red eyes.
"Ain? What's wrong? You're not sick, are you?"
A voice as refreshing as her hair color reached my ears.
"...Ain?"
"Yes. Ain Magnolia. That's your name. Dummy.
Why are you making such a stupid face?"
I slowly looked over the appearance of the girl who was suddenly calling me that.
Suspicion turned into certainty.
"Giselle...?"
"That joke's not funny. Just take the lead already. The birds are all going to fly away."
The moment I uttered the name I'd been suspecting, memories I'd never experienced filled my head.
I was now with my one and only childhood friend, "Giselle Evergreen," with whom I would someday fall in love and become engaged.
We were heading to a forest said to be a habitat for rare birds.
【 Reach a Happy Ending 】
And a semi-transparent notification window that looked very familiar flickered before my eyes.
"Is this telling me to jump in myself if I'm so frustrated?"
Perhaps because I'd badmouthed someone's precious work,
I had become "Ain Magnolia," the male lead of the novel I'd been reading.
"It's a transmigration story."
Perhaps because I'd lived immersed in genre fiction, I adapted to the environment fairly quickly.
Maybe it was thanks to having Ain Magnolia's entire life up to that point injected into my head all at once.
"I love you, Giselle. I cherish you more than my own heart."
In the past, I immersed myself in the role of "Ain" from the original work enough to forget my real-world self.
"Ain. If I lose you, my soul will surely shatter."
The love confessions that made me cringe while reading flowed from my lips as if they were sincere, and Giselle, my lover, gave me the same responses I'd seen in the novel.
Even knowing the future developments, my immersion wasn't hindered.
Rather, my heart leapt with joy at this promised love that wouldn't fail.
Ain was an illegitimate child.
Not only was he in an oppressed position, but the number of people in the story who held goodwill toward him could be counted on one hand.
"I'm sorry, Ain.... Big Sis should have paid more attention.... Father and Mother...."
"Who would treat someone like you as an older brother?
You crawled out from between some nameless whore's legs.
How dare you try to speak to me without knowing your place?"
The obstacles that would become stumbling blocks for the lovers, making their love burn even hotter.
Typical lines of contempt you could find in any book of a similar genre if you just opened one.
However, the fact that I had to experience it not from a third-person perspective but with my own eyes and ears
made it impossible to objectify the pain and watch with arms folded.
"I'm sorry, Young Master. The Madam.... The Madam ordered me to...."
The dog I'd been raising was strangled to death by a servant's hands.
"Tch. Why would the path of some cheap whore matter.... Just stay locked up quietly."
I was locked in the annex and couldn't even attend my mother's funeral.
"Are you okay, Ain? You look so depressed."
"Don't worry, Giselle. As long as I have you, I can overcome anything."
Still, Giselle was always by my side.
I might not have been able to endure if I'd had to go through it alone.
Giselle always added love and subtracted worries from my life.
Perhaps because the place I was trapped in was a romance fantasy world.
Giselle's bottomless love became a panacea for Ain's suffering.
Laughter isn't the only thing invented by the animal that suffers most in the world.
However, an important problem still remained.
No matter how much I pondered day and night, I couldn't think of any way to prevent the predicted war, even though I'd managed to get inside the novel.
"War...? In these peaceful times, what.... Are you spouting nonsense again after reading some trashy pulp fiction?"
"Hahaha! Your son is quite bold. The peace of the Pater Empire is unquestionably solid."
"Ain, if you say things like that carelessly, you might be charged with disturbing public morals.... Big Sis is worried...."
It wasn't just because they were a child's words.
The Empire, upon discovering Magic Circuits, systematically conducted academic research to explain them and succeeded in standardization at an astonishing speed.
The brilliant technological achievements they developed further solidified the Empire's position on the continent.
Every other major power only wanted friendly relations with the Pater Empire where I lived.
The idea that such an Empire would be invaded by foreign forces overnight was obviously going to be treated as the ravings of a madman, whether spoken by the illegitimate child of a Count family who knew nothing of the world or anyone else.
Realizing I couldn't prevent the war, I pondered every possible means I could take as an individual.
I searched for ways to refuse conscription.
I even considered leaving the Empire—and further, the continent that would suffer from war—to settle elsewhere, but.
For a kid with absolutely no personal capital, it was absolutely impossible to elope with my lover to a foreign land without the benefits of family and environment.
I couldn't identify the cause of the war that would suddenly break out either.
Because it wasn't described anywhere in the original work I'd read.
It was a war that just happened overnight without any foreshadowing.
I couldn't avoid conscription either.
There was no way my parents, who were already eagerly waiting for me to die in some inexplicable unfortunate accident, would allow me to refuse the draft.
There was only one thing I knew for certain about the war.
Only when it would happen. Only about the timing.
Then I had to build up my strength.
Regardless of the war's outcome, I could only hope to preserve my own life and return safely to Giselle's side.
However, Ain Magnolia's misfortune didn't end there.
He was terribly untalented in every field.
Even in swordsmanship, which was essential to cultivate for dreaming of becoming a knight.
Magic Studies, a mandatory subject for noble families across the continent, was impossible for me to learn from the start.
Ain's body had no functioning Mana Circuits, which everyone from the continent possessed.
"This is the first time I've seen a case like this. Not a single circuit is activated. You won't be able to light even a small flame on your own.
You want to learn even beginner magic? You're basically a teacup with holes in it to begin with."
I got the same answer from other teachers I could visit thanks to my sister who at least took my side.
"If you want to light a cigarette in the future, carry matches, and if you want cool water, just go into a nearby restaurant. You could also employ a servant who can use magic."
I chose the sword, which was closest at hand. I was equally untalented, but.
At least if I learned enough to stab, slash, and block, I could function as a soldier.
"Ain, don't push yourself too hard. Whatever kind of person you are, whatever you look like. Don't forget that our love will never change."
I clung to a thread of possibility.
"I want to protect you. My sword can only be wielded for you alone, Giselle."
Except when I was with Giselle, I practiced swordsmanship all day.
I hired instructors for training and filled in the gaps through self-study with manuals.
Even so, my sword reaching the heavens was something that would never happen even if the world split in two.
It's ambiguous to say my efforts bore fruit.
With that much time invested, I would have been better than a beginner at learning anything.
Even during all those moments, I never once neglected my love with Giselle.
I experienced every romance and event depicted in the original work without exception.
Under the withered old tree by the Messiah River, I lay with my head on Giselle's lap and whispered words of love.
"I want our children to see this scenery too, Ain."
On the balcony of the ballroom we'd snuck away to alone, I clearly watched Giselle shoot orange flames she'd created with magic into the star-filled night sky.
"Pretty, isn't it? It's fire that resembles you, Ain. Gallant and brave."
Walking hand in hand at the Academy, we received envious looks from everyone.
"An insult to Ain is an insult to me. Take back what you just said. Right now."
To the frail Ain in the original work, Giselle became a support beam and a solid fence.
She became a companion to spend a lifetime with.
Ain—no, I—
couldn't help but fall in love with Giselle.
I wanted to repay her expectations and trust.
"I'll definitely return to your side, Giselle. Our souls are bound as one."
"Yes, Ain. I'll always be here longing for you and waiting. Please come back to me without fail."
That's why, as I departed for the battlefield reciting the original's lines promising reunion and slipping a ring onto her ring finger, my feelings
were, if anything, deeper and more painful than the real Ain's—certainly no less, I'm confident of that.
"You're dogs. From this moment, you function only as the Empire's faithful dogs.
Crawl if told to crawl, run if told to run. Inferior things who can't even handle magic have no value whatsoever."
I could endure even the officer's cold contempt by thinking of Giselle.
"Aaaaaagh! Haaaaaaagh!"
I could endure the screams of allies hit by Combustion Magic and the disgusting stench when flesh burned.
"Our Father in heaven.... Our Father in heaven.... Our Father in heaven...."
Even the sight of an enemy soldier I'd beheaded continuing to recite prayers through blood-caked teeth after his head hit the ground, wishing for salvation that would never come.
I could endure it all by thinking of Giselle, who was surely waiting for me.
"It's an absolutely hopeless procedure."
"Your body won't be able to withstand it."
"You'll just meet a meaningless dog's death in terrible agony."
That's why I voluntarily climbed onto the operating table for the body modification using Mana that mages and scholars working in secret behind the Empire had developed together to reach the victory that had seemed invisible.
I realized right after the war began.
On a fantasy world battlefield where all kinds of magic flew overhead, with my current body that could barely handle infantry, it was obvious I'd die soon.
"If I can just increase my chances of survival even a little"
I had no intention whatsoever of becoming a hero from an epic.
Body Enhancement Technique that forcibly injected Mana into every blood vessel in my body.
Every time the Mana that wasn't mine pulsed through my veins, it was as painful as if my bones and flesh were melting, and the molars I'd been clenching ground down.
The corpses sprawled like rags under the operating table.
Berg. Milter. Rex. Brion.
I still remember the names of those who'd shared meals with me just the day before, building camaraderie.
I alone survived the surgery that everyone had been pessimistic about.
Thanks to that, I gained enough strength to crush a human skull with my bare hands like splitting an apple.
Even so, I couldn't escape being treated as a worthless meat shield who couldn't even cast beginner magic.
At least I became able to barely dodge enemy soldiers' magic trajectories on the battlefield, barely parry successive sword strikes, and counterattack.
It remained unchanged that I was merely clinging to a lifeline that could snap at any moment, but I'd at least reached the starting line against magic users.
That alone was enough.
My goal wasn't to win the war, but to escape the utterly bleak ending in the novel and return to Giselle.
The bombardment from the Mana Artillery developed by the enemy nation could easily create a perfect circle 80cm in diameter anywhere within a 300m radius.
Was it also part of the misfortune Ain had to willingly endure that part of my body happened to be inside that circle?
-BOOM!
Only gray smoke could be seen along with the roar.
Shortly after, a shadow so dark I couldn't see an inch ahead replaced half the smoke.
The source of the shadow was my lost right eye.
I directed that distorted vision downward.
My left arm, facing a different direction from my eye, had disappeared beyond recognition below the elbow.
I have almost no memory of what came after.
The only thing clear is that when I came to, I was gasping for breath lying on a worn cot in a medical tent.
The missing arm and eye occasionally hurt as if they still existed there,
and the military doctor diagnosed it as Phantom Limb Pain, a side effect of the procedure.
Still, my heart was soon dyed with joy at the news I heard.
"The Empire has won!
Long live His Majesty the Emperor!
May his reign be with us forever!"
The victory announcement ringing in my ears.
We won the war.
The reason the Empire could achieve victory unlike in the original didn't matter to me.
Only the fact that the war had finally ended mattered.
Only the result that I could return to Giselle mattered.
You can't imagine how much my heart raced with anticipation inside the carriage returning home.
I would hold Giselle, be held in her arms, and tell her I endured all that time only for her.
Every place we'd spent time together disappeared behind the window.
I got off the carriage, ran up the hill toward the manor I'd longed for even in dreams.
Giselle was standing at the top of the stairs leading to the garden.
It felt like tears of joy would burst from my throat.
If I just climbed those stairs, I could embrace my lover.
-Clang
Something fell from the top of the stairs.
Something that sparkled silver, catching the light from the lantern I was holding.
An engagement ring engraved with Giselle's and my initials.
I raised my gaze to look at Giselle again.
In those pitiful eyes filled with sadness, or perhaps pity,
the love I'd been longing for had vanished without a trace.
"I'm sorry, Ain.... I.... I don't have enough power in the family.... Big Sis is sorry...."
My family members left me one by one, as if keeping to an order.
"...Disappear. You know well there's nothing I can do for you, Oppa.... No, you."
Even the attention that had been insufficient from the start, that had been mere sympathy, disappeared.
At the military tribunal held after the war, I was put on trial under an unheard-of charge, accused of using Forbidden Magic for the body enhancement I'd received.
"The family's disgrace has now become a stain on the war."
Though the trial concluded with no charges, the family gleefully placed a yoke on me and declared disownment.
"The Magnolia family will take back everything it gave you."
I was robbed of things I didn't even remember receiving.
"...If the person in question wishes it, readmission is always welcome."
At the Academy I'd returned to clutching at straws, I was treated as less than a pebble.
"Look over there. It's the torn illegitimate child. Now with that hand, he can't even hide behind Giselle's skirt, can he? Cripple."
Pebbles are ignored, but deformities are mocked.
Every time I walked through places filled with memories of Giselle, my heart was torn to shreds like the nickname carved into me.
I took up alcohol and cigarettes, which I hadn't touched because I didn't want Giselle to smell them.
They couldn't eliminate the pain that suddenly came from inside and outside, but they let me sink into a haze.
The swordsmanship I'd painstakingly honed became utterly useless after losing my arm.
I frequently lost track of the sword's trajectory because my depth perception was off.
I couldn't display even half my skill because my muscles had melted away, soaked in alcohol.
"Did you hear? Giselle's getting engaged to the Grand Duke of the North. What? Ain? Is that bastard still alive?"
Rumors reached me about Giselle's engagement to a character who'd been merely a supporting role in the original.
I walked a long way, borrowing the courage from alcohol.
The place I arrived at was the center of those stairs where Giselle had abandoned me.
A downpour was falling under the dark clouds filling the night sky.
A very fierce downpour, cold enough to freeze to the bone.
Giselle's silhouette, all too familiar to me, was barely visible through the harsh rain.
"Giselle!!"
I ran to Giselle's feet, crying out and prostrating myself.
I knelt in a puddle of rainwater and looked up at Giselle, begging.
"Please.... Giselle.... Any words are fine...."
There was no answer.
With the butler's help, Giselle disappeared into the manor under an umbrella.
She left no words for me, abandoned in the middle of the rainy season.
After that, even what little restraint remained disappeared.
I reached not only for alcohol but drugs as well.
Memories and sensations grew fainter as the number of bottles piled up in my room increased.
Only the dust floating in the small house the family had given me out of charity was clear to me.
After spending several months like that, one day.
I was wiping the table, messy with spilled alcohol, with a dry rag.
The edge of a knife engraved with the magnolia, the family crest, placed on the table was glowing blue in the moonlight.
I placed it over my chest and impulsively stabbed it in.
My shirt was stained with blood as dark red as pomegranate.
Even though my muscles had melted away soaked in alcohol, the dull blade of the steak knife was insufficient to pierce through.
So after stabbing myself over a hundred times,
Ain Magnolia's miserable life came to a lonely end with no one watching.
【 Bad Ending: A Horribly Bland Ending 】
.
.
.
【 Reach a Happy Ending 】
What I felt when I reunited with the notification window that appeared before my eyes was none other than elation.
"So this was a regression story. A second chance existed.
No wonder I had such bad luck. Really. I didn't use the genre cleverly enough."
The empty sleeve dangling hollowly.
Vision that wouldn't focus.
And the lingering aftertaste of alcohol clinging thickly in my mouth—until I realized all this.
I looked around.
It was an unforgettable scene.
I was standing blankly in the middle of the tree-lined street leading to the manor, on that very day I'd gone looking for Giselle drunk.
Dark clouds heavy with rain hung low in the sky, and thick humidity clung to my clothes.
I turned my steps toward home.
The slowly falling rain gradually grew fiercer.
Even when it finally became the same downpour as in my memory, I didn't avoid the rain and kept walking.
I stepped through muddy puddles full of sewage without care.
The house was empty. The old plank door opened with a familiar noise.
The mountain of cigarette butts and bottles of all kinds had disappeared.
Still, the fact that it was a desolate house resembling a ghost, furnished with only the bare minimum, remained completely unchanged.
-Thud
I lay on the bed covered with damp sheets and stared quietly at the window.
The mattress creaked from under me like my body, its springs worn out.
I opened the cigarette pack in my inner pocket and took one out.
I put the cigarette in my mouth and, with gestures now all too familiar, struck a match against the wall to light it.
I must have smoked over a thousand packs in a year.
Perhaps because my body had regressed to this half-baked point in time, the smoke going down my throat made me nauseous.
How nice it would have been if they'd sent me back to my childhood.
Still, my mind became rather clear.
I slowly exhaled cigarette smoke like dark clouds while looking at the cracked ceiling.
【 Bad Ending: A Horribly Bland Ending 】
I remember the phrase displayed before my eyes before I stopped breathing.
"A terrible ending.
A bland ending."
Those were the expressions I'd thought of when evaluating the original's ending.
Now I understand. What I was given was never a second chance.
It's mockery. Mockery.
What the notification window, what the original author wanted to tell me wasn't
"Jump in yourself if you're so frustrated" but "LOL you think you'd do better?"
"Fucking narrow-minded bitch.
No wonder she writes garbage like this."
Curses I hadn't even thought of when trying to survive as Ain flowed out naturally.
In this shitty worldview that injected nothing but oppression like misery porn without a single drop of catharsis, all the immersion I'd carefully built up over ten-plus years was smashed to pieces.
A small heat haze faintly rising from the dust.
The hazy air and the sharp smell of wooden walls.
【 Reach a Happy Ending 】
And as if even this bleak interior was a luxury when captured by my eyes and ears,
this fucking notification window obstructing my vision.
"Fuck it all."
-Sizzle
I ground the cigarette out on the blanket. The acrid scent of burning linen tickled my nose.
I flicked the extinguished butt toward the notification window with my hand and resolved:
"I'm just going to live however I want now...."
I quit living as Ain Magnolia, my role in the novel.