The World of This Fantasy Novel is in Crisis – Chapter 42

Not long after, the sun had completely set.

The forest, now void of the unconscious noise of day, felt unsettlingly desolate. It felt even more eerie when one remembered that the area just ahead was both a cremation ground and a burial site.

“Watch over us so that we may always walk the righteous path, and if we have done wrong, let us receive the punishment we deserve…”

At some point, Edward began murmuring a prayer beside him.

‘Is he scared?’

Satin didn’t believe in God, but oddly enough, hearing a prayer nearby brought a strange sense of reassurance.

‘It’s kinda funny, isn’t it? I’ve met an angel, and yet I don’t believe in God.’

But since he hadn’t actually met God yet, that made some sense. Satin reasoned it out silently to himself.

A dull stretch of time dragged on. It had been a while since Edward had gone quiet, possibly having run out of prayers he knew by heart. That was when the sound of footsteps reached their ears.

It wasn’t particularly loud—after all, how loud could footsteps be on bare dirt rather than pavement? But because the surroundings were so deathly still, the sound echoed clearly to all three of them.

Rita suddenly began making frantic hand gestures in the dark.

Neither Satin nor Edward moved; they didn’t understand what she was trying to convey. She also mouthed something, but of course, it was impossible to decipher in the dim light.

Meanwhile, the person behind the footsteps entered the clearing.

‘Looks like a man.’

The moonlight shone better in the clearing compared to the forest, but even then, the stranger’s face remained obscured. Still, the silhouette was clear enough.

The man was quite tall and broad-shouldered. Even though he wore a robe similar to Edward’s, his build was unmistakable. Technically, he could have been an exceptionally large woman, but Satin figured it was more likely he was just a well-built man.

Thinking that made him feel a bit resentful.

‘Why though?’

Satin had grown a bit over the past four years. Helping take care of his grandfather and tending the vegetable patch had given him some muscle. And with the hut being a fair distance from the village, his legs had naturally strengthened as well. Compared to his younger self, he thought his body was now fairly decent.

And yet… Edward was tall, and so was this guy. Why were they all so damn big? In the dark, Satin subconsciously ran his hands over his own chest and shoulders.

‘I don’t have a bad body. Definitely not.’

Satin’s self-check didn’t last long. The man revealed the reason for his arrival.

‘Magic.’

Since Rita and Edward couldn’t see magical energy, they showed no reaction. But Satin saw it clearly.

The dim clearing lit up as if someone had spilled glowing ink across it. The light shimmered outward, though it didn’t illuminate the objects around it. Because of that, the man’s face in the center of it remained hidden.

Satin nudged Rita in the side. She turned her face toward him. Since he couldn’t rely on hand gestures or lip-reading, Satin leaned close and whispered into her ear.

“He’s using magic right now.”

“What?”

Rita’s voice came out too loud. But there was no time to scold her—she suddenly bolted into the clearing.

“Rita!”

Edward, startled, rushed after her. Satin followed instinctively behind.

There was no way the man hadn’t noticed their noisy entrance. The magical aura spreading across the clearing came to a complete halt. The man quickly turned and began moving in the opposite direction.

“Stop right there!”

Rita’s voice echoed through the darkness. But if he were the type to stop just because someone yelled, he wouldn’t have started running in the first place. When he didn’t halt, Rita shouted again.

“Volcanic ash! Nine! Oats!”

…What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Satin was the only one confused.

Suddenly, Edward stopped chasing after Rita and blocked Satin’s path instead. Satin flinched at first but soon realized Edward’s intent—Rita had cast a spell.

Light flared up around her, and almost simultaneously, flames erupted.

It wasn’t a large blaze, but its form was sharp like an arrowhead. The fire briefly cast Rita’s face in a wash of orange before hurtling straight toward the man.

The man muttered something under his breath. It wasn’t magic. Probably a curse.

He barely dodged the fiery projectile, then came to a halt and shouted back—

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

The flame, which had missed its target, quickly flickered out—but for a brief moment, it lit up the man’s face clearly.

Satin instinctively clamped a hand over his mouth and screamed internally.

‘It’s Cain. That’s Cain!’

There was no way someone who wasn’t the protagonist could be that handsome. Though he hadn’t caught the color of his eyes, the man’s hair was clearly blond. Cain, the protagonist of Dark Age, was a blond heartthrob. If another man like that existed, it would have to be a mistake by God himself—so that man had to be Cain.

How had it come to this? Satin silently despaired. He was supposed to be in that spot, and Cain was supposed to be here.

‘No, it’s not like this is my fault. Something just… got messed up.’

Even as he tried to justify it, a sticky sense of guilt clung to him. It was like this: someone had rigged the hiring scores so the CEO’s son could get the job—but by accident, you got hired too.

He hadn’t even asked for the rice cake, and yet here it was, stuffed in his mouth without warning.

‘Forget Dark Age. Just focus on figuring out what the hell is going on right now.’

Not that there was anything he could do about it, no matter how things turned out.

Rita stepped forward.

“What kind of magic did you use? A curse? Necromancy?”

She sounded certain that whatever Cain had done, it couldn’t have been anything good. Edward glanced over, trying to give her a subtle cue to back off, but Rita either didn’t catch it—or pretended not to.

“I’d like to hear what exactly you did with the corpses buried down there.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cain’s response was lukewarm, while Rita heated up fast.

“I know this isn’t the first time. You filthy Black Magician!”

“Miss Rita, we don’t know for sure that it was him.”

“What do you mean we don’t know?! He just used magic, didn’t he?”

“Excuse me?”

Edward hadn’t realized that Cain had used magic. He thought Rita was just jumping to conclusions based on a suspicious man.

“I truly don’t know what you’re referring to. Magic?”

Cain feigned ignorance, but Rita wasn’t shaken. She pointed proudly at Satin, who had been standing a few steps behind.

“Deny it all you want, it’s no use. My friend here can see magical energy. He immediately recognized that you were just trying to cast a huge, evil spell right here.”

“What utter nonsense.”

Cain scoffed as he glanced over at Satin. Satin instinctively straightened his back.

Thank god it was too dark for anyone to see his face. If it had been broad daylight, he probably would’ve been standing there with the dumbest expression in the world.

‘Since when are we friends? And what’s this about a huge, evil spell?’

Granted, casting magic atop a cremation ground and burial site was unlikely to be anything wholesome. The spell had been sizable, too. But Satin had never actually said that out loud.

Caught off guard, he stayed silent. Just then, the clouds shifted, and moonlight flooded into the clearing. One by one, the faces of those gathered became visible.

Taking the opportunity, Cain furrowed his brows as he examined Rita and Edward. Then, as his gaze landed on Satin. 

“…Satin?”

‘Wait, why does he recognize me? How the hell did he know right away?’

“You’re alive? You’re actually alive?”

‘Wait, why are you walking over? What kind of relationship do you think we have—’

“You’re alive… How?”

Cain strode forward. Rita and Edward scrambled to block his path, but he brushed them aside like mere obstacles and came right up to Satin.

‘…He’s way too big.’

Satin froze under the weight of that towering presence. Before he could even think about dodging, Cain grabbed him in a crushing hug.

The broad shoulders and rock-hard arms he’d glimpsed earlier now wrapped around his chest and back. Satin gasped, struggling to breathe, mind racing.

‘We’re not supposed to be close!’

What the hell was this situation? Even if the plot had gone off the rails, the protagonist weeping with joy at the sight of the villain made zero sense.

Cain hadn’t started crying yet, but he was definitely getting there.

“I thought you were dead. I thought—so I… I was going to kill them all…!”

Kill who? Don’t tell him he was about to summon the Demon King—something Satin was supposed to do originally.

Satin pushed at Cain. They needed to talk. But the man didn’t budge an inch.

“Sorry, but could we just—talk for a sec?”

Only when Satin managed to choke that out in a breathless voice did Cain finally release him.

Rita swiftly slipped between them and shoved Cain away. Again, he didn’t budge, but her intention was clear.

“What the hell is going on? You know my friend?”

“What about you? Why are you calling Satin your friend?”

“Because we’re friends, duh. What’s your deal?”

“…I’m his friend too. A much older friend than you.”

“Ugh, like that matters. You didn’t even know he was alive. I’m the one who’s actually close to him.”

“Close? Satin and I have been through life-threatening danger together. The kind of danger you can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah, and I’m guessing you haven’t even contacted him since. What kind of friend is that?”

In Dark Age, Cain and Rita were comrades. They even got married at the end.

But here they were, bickering like kids over who was the closer friend to Satin—when neither of them actually was.

In the middle of this ridiculous standoff, one of the main trio, Edward, cautiously asked,

“Um… What exactly is going on here?”

Satin didn’t even have the energy to reply. He just buried his face in both hands.

‘This isn’t Dark Age. This is Dark Crazy…’

Author: Levia