On the fourth day of hospitalization, unlike yesterday, I woke up early today.

Since I woke up early, I was able to have breakfast today.

After eating breakfast, I lay back down on the bed.

Waking up early and just lying there made the day feel incredibly long.

I wished I could sleep, but maybe because I had slept too much yesterday, no matter how hard I tried to force myself to sleep, my mind was so alert that I couldn’t doze off at all.

Even though I was good at wasting time, there is definitely a difference between doing it voluntarily and being forced to just lie still against my will.

Lying there blankly, I felt like at least two hours had passed, so I checked the clock, but it had only been ten minutes.

At moments like this, I really started to wonder if time flowed differently.

What if someone was watching my actions and controlling the flow of time?

For example, at this very moment, somewhere a secret organization could be having a conversation like this:

[Director! We’ve detected boredom in the subject under observation!]

[What? Slow down the flow of time by ten times right now!]

Such terrifying conversations fluttered through my mind because I was so bored.

Thinking about time suddenly reminded me of when I spent my first weekend at the army training camp.

Not long after being assigned to the rookie training camp, we were still all awkward around each other, and the instructor had a strange kind of charisma that made it impossible to relax even on the weekend.

After breakfast, we returned to the barracks and sat silently on our bunks for half a day.

It was the longest moment in my life.

Thinking back, someone could have started a conversation, but since many of the guys I shared a room with were extremely shy, nothing happened.

Anyway, after enduring that seemingly endless time, it was finally lunchtime, and everyone was eating when one of the guys suddenly spoke up as if talking to himself, saying he couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast.

Hearing that, I realized I couldn’t remember either.

And just like that, the previously silent guys became loud, busily chatting about what they had eaten for breakfast.

The time had felt so long that nobody could remember what they had eaten just a few hours earlier.

Once we started talking, we got so noisy that we ended up getting punished, but even that became a topic of conversation for all of us who were so bored.

Memories of the training camp had turned into cherished reminiscences over time.

I wouldn’t want to go back there, but there’s a reason why men who’ve been through the military constantly talk about it.

I checked the clock again after reminiscing, but there was still quite a bit of time left before lunchtime.

If there was someone to talk to, the time would probably fly by.

Without thinking, my hand reached for my phone.

The only number stored in my contacts was Leonore’s.

It felt so empty.

Now that we’d become friends, I thought I should have at least exchanged numbers with Mei.

Anyway, it was school time now, so I couldn’t contact her.

I fiddled with the screen, then put the phone down again.

Of course, I had no numbers of my training buddies I had kept in touch with after being assigned, nor any group chats with friends from school where I could happily ramble on.

There was no one who remembered my past, only those who knew Scarlet Evande.

The bonds I formed here weren’t insignificant, but I missed the people who could relate to the stories I had accumulated over more than 20 years.

There was no one here with whom I could share my memories.

The things that happened in the army, at school, and at work.

All these stories were ones I couldn’t share with the people here, and on top of that, I knew far too many things that I couldn’t speak about.

The unshareable stories made me feel lonely.

…

…Judging by my state, it seemed like today was going to be a tough day.

Even though I wanted to think positively, sometimes, very rarely, days like this come along.

Days when I know thinking about certain things will make me sad, but I just can’t suppress the thoughts that spring up.

Today felt like one of those occasional days.

Various words floated through my mind.

Among them, there was one word that seemed to perfectly fit my current situation.

That word was the title of a book that a classmate had lent me at the training camp.

The Stranger.

It means a person from another place.

Albert Camus is no longer in this world, and…

Though my mother didn’t die today or yesterday,

I was still a stranger.

For a stranger, the unknown world was a lonely place.

To a stranger who feels the world is a lonely place, even a hospital room meant for one felt too vast.

A hospital room without human warmth.

Maybe due to the spring morning chill, the room felt a bit chilly.

I pulled the blanket I had shoved aside up to my waist, but I still felt cold.

I kept pulling the blanket a little more until I finally wrapped it over my head.

The narrow space under the blanket seemed just right for someone alone, and the cold seemed to ease a bit.

It was dark under the blanket, and I didn’t like the darkness,

But I hated the loneliness even more than the darkness,

So I spent the long time until lunchtime curled up under the blanket.

*

In the novels I read, the protagonists knew almost everything, from the settings to detailed information about almost every character and what was going to happen in the future just because they had read the original.

The original novels their friends read must have been ultra-long epics that consumed hundreds of chapters just for the setup and incident explanations.

[The Holy Saber of the Academy] was a novel that wrapped up in less than 200 chapters.

When I read it, I had no complaints about how the story progressed without detailed explanations of the events.

I just figured the author wanted to move the story along quickly instead of explaining everything.

But now, I just felt sad that the author wasn’t a detail-oriented explainer.

As I told Yoon Si-woo yesterday, I wanted to save people, but I felt lost about what to do going forward.

The gym incident was something within my grasp.

But could I influence other events like I did this time?

If I had at least some detailed information, I would have tried to do something; however, all I knew was that terrible events would happen one after another, all thanks to this rotten author.

The veil will suddenly disappear; I don’t know why exactly.

The Witch of Gluttony will be resurrected because the seal is broken; I don’t know why exactly.

Even if I tried to share what I knew, it would surely sound like nonsense to people—like a prophecy of Nostradamus about the Great King of Terror.

I had to prevent the end of the world without any information and without anyone to believe me.

If I could stop it by losing a few limbs, I would gladly do so, but having to fight a natural disaster with just my body must feel like this.

Was school out? Just like yesterday, the class kids came to visit me.

To be honest, they were kids I hadn’t really spoken to at school, but they all seemed angry, sad, and encouraged me like it was personal.

Kids who would probably have died in the gym if this were the original story.

I saved them for the moment, but I had no idea what would happen next.

If things played out like the original, would they even survive…?

So, I had to do something to save them.

What to do wasn’t exactly clear, but at least I knew that lying in the hospital wouldn’t help.

After the kids who came to visit left, for dinner, they served congee again, just like last time.

While eating, I forced myself to gather some strength and asked the nurse who came to collect the dishes.

“When can I be discharged?”

“Oh, the discharge? Hmm… Well, you still need to be examined by your attending physician, but since your prognosis isn’t bad, you could probably get out soon if you want. However, it might be better if you stay a little while longer… you might still feel some discomfort in your everyday life. Was the hospital food so unappetizing that you want to leave quickly?”

The nurse suggested it might be better to stay because of my arm and then half-jokingly asked if the food was that bad, trying to lighten the mood.

I slowly shook my head and replied.

“No, the food is actually really good.”

Being hospitalized would surely be more comfortable for my body, but just being here wouldn’t change my situation.

I’d probably be misunderstood by anyone, but…

“I just don’t want to be still any longer.”

But since I didn’t want to lose someone else, the stranger said that.