TBR CH99

The sun and sunlight—oh God, how did we overlook them? Something so obvious!
Its recent condition hasn’t been good. I don’t think the “Child of God” will bring us any better news. We must remain silent about him as well.
The Dawn Project should be carried out as soon as possible.

—Regarding the latest resolution of the Dawn Project, both the high-level consuls and special armed personnel have received this thrilling news.

Life doesn’t change all at once. It corrodes everything slowly, like a dull pain.

Isidor awakened again from a daze that felt like a dream. He stared at the kraft paper bag in his hand for a long time, until the sweet smell turned cold and greasy.

When passing by the bakery, as if driven by some unknown force, he went in and bought a few pastries that Asta loved the most. The paper bag in his hand was heavy. He reached in to grab one but froze in place.

No.
He suddenly had that thought. These were meant for the Star.

Lately, he had found it hard to break these habits. He didn’t even like sweets, yet still tried the peppermint candies and sugary lattes it liked. He knew there was no chance of entering the room, but still couldn’t help walking to the deepest area where it used to be.

Even though he could never send them out, he kept the prepared gifts in his office drawer, as if afraid he wouldn’t have time to grab them next time it came by.

He forced himself to abandon these thoughts—but at most, he could only suppress them so they wouldn’t surface while he was doing other things. There were still many, many problems to solve.

For instance, the person on the other end of the bracelet. He tried not to lose control, and asked calmly:
“Was it you? Did you interfere because you didn’t want it to trust me too much?”

The other party smiled slickly.
“A god should not be influenced by any emotions. We’ll tell it the truth.”

In that moment, Isidor felt an overwhelming sense of absurdity. He closed his eyes.

“It doesn’t trust me now. If that’s the case, our plan will become a complete farce.”

Only then did a slight crack appear on the other party’s calm face—though not very noticeable.

“Mr. Isidor,”
He said,
“You’ve always tried to mislead us with such words. But how could a god not want to escape its cage? We can offer it more choices. And you—I believe you’re the one who most wants everything to go smoothly. So our cooperation remains solid.”

Of course it doesn’t want to enter another cage.
Isidor thought, but did not show it.

No matter what happens—even if the situation now is like this—the decisions that were already made wouldn’t change.
He simply might no longer have the right to stay by its side.
He made a few small adjustments to the original plan. Asta was smart. It would understand the trap he set in advance—so that, no matter what, it would gain its freedom.

He left many messages in the Black Book—all restrained and emotionless explanations of the plan and guides for action. He didn’t let the World Consciousness tell Asta immediately. He only instructed it to wait for the right moment, when it was truly needed.

…It probably didn’t want to see his handwriting anymore.

But Isidor missed it terribly.
He felt like he had been split in two—one half could still handle everything as if nothing had happened, while the other half had already gone mad from longing.
During those times, he would reach for paper and pen—not the pages of the Black Book, just ordinary ones Asta would never see.

Isidor wrote a lot on that paper.

He wrote down every little detail of his daily life, just like he used to, as if Asta were sitting across from him, eyes sparkling with interest. It loved the nuances of human life. But halfway through writing, he realized he had started lying again out of habit. He put down the pen and erased those paragraphs.

Now his life was a mess, making all those pretty words on the paper seem especially ironic.

So, just this once—he would indulge himself.
Isidor resumed writing, tracing the indentations of old words.

He began to share details that truly belonged to him: the sudden moments when longing crushed him, the feeling of slipping the black star back onto the bracelet, the absurd tenderness when chatting with the Black Book and trying to act cautiously around it—
“Like I’m the one being treated as fragile.”

He kept writing and thinking—it would be terrible if it ever saw this.

He had even written a farewell letter.
Out of some inexplicable, heavy emotion, Isidor suddenly thought:
If Asta believed he had left the research facility and gone far away, maybe that would be better for both of them.
But that would also mean cutting off all contact.

“I’m very sorry,” he wrote.
“I’ve been transferred to the other side of the continent. This is an official farewell. I hope everything in your future goes well…”

The human couldn’t keep writing.
He tore up the letter.

He couldn’t do it.

Isidor knew he still had so much to say—like the secret affectionate gestures, the words he had chewed on in his heart countless times.
His love, so full and overflowing, had nowhere to go.
That would only trouble the monster.

He dazedly let go of the pen.
Its sharp tip couldn’t stand on the paper without his fingers to hold it. It toppled over.

He felt like that pen.

There would be no future.

A stolen life was never his to begin with.
Isidor was a nonexistent ghost.

The monster would still shine like a star for others, but no one would know—it had once been his sun.

It would gain freedom. And it would learn that it should never trust a human who looked gentle on the outside—because inside, he was despicable, desperately clinging to what wasn’t his.

Suddenly, he felt a surge of emotion.
Isidor grabbed his pen. He closed his eyes and gently moved the pen tip, slowly tracing the three words: “I love you.”
Then he opened his eyes.

The last line on the paper was blank.

He didn’t even have the courage to write those words—not even in a letter he’d never send—only in the air.

…I love you.

The World Consciousness said it had completed the illusion meant to recreate the prophecy. But there was still some risk in a human entering.

He would become the Isidor inside the illusion, reliving everything leading up to Asta’s destruction of the world. It might break a person’s will, trap them in the illusion.

The green-eyed human reached out to touch the illusion.
Ripples spread out.
He sensed a familiar presence.

Asta had provided the key factor in constructing the illusion.
Isidor didn’t hesitate at all—he stepped in.

He missed it too much. No matter what, he had to see it.

Asta began to dream—dreaming of their seven years together.

The monster felt something was wrong with itself lately. It had been unusually averse to sunlight. Behind the artificially constructed blue sky, it felt like there was always a malicious eye watching it, shimmering with golden light.
So it spent more time submerged in the deep sea.

The problem was—it hadn’t entered a dream-state sleep deep enough to trigger dreams in hundreds of years.
Yet recently, it had done so frequently.

Standing in the third-person perspective within the dream, it slowly pieced together the anomalies Isidor had once shown.

For instance, in the beginning, Isidor didn’t always smile like he did now.
If it had been more observant at the time, maybe it could have noticed the obvious traces of mimicry—like he was learning human emotions from scratch.
When they first met, his mimicry was clumsy.
Sometimes, the shell of his human face would melt like ice, revealing eyes on the verge of breaking.

But back then, they had both been cautiously approaching each other, too careful to notice subtle details.
Even if it had noticed, Asta, who knew little about humans at the time, wouldn’t have understood.

For example, when the monster started communicating with him, he would sometimes go blank at certain questions, then subtly change the subject—perhaps because he himself didn’t yet understand what a “normal human life” looked like.

He wasn’t a gentle person.
If anything, he was cold to the point of being out of place.

Asta had once tried peering beneath the water’s surface to observe the human.
Back then, the expression on his face made it seem like the entire world had nothing to do with him.
But the moment he saw the monster, he seemed pulled back into the world of the living, and only then did he have a trace of vivid expression.

The monster also remembered how, when the human introduced himself, there was an odd pause before saying his name.
Compared to “Kingfisher,” Isidor—a name that sounded more human—was clearly a false name.

Maybe it was made up on the spot for that moment.

These memories were vague, with many missing details.
As they grew closer, Isidor became more and more like the person he was now.

Those early, contradictory syllables faded into the traces of time, unnoticed.

A person’s acting can be honed. Asta thought. That’s probably what happened.

So it had ignored all the abnormalities—closed its eyes and followed this deceitful human.
There were several times it had almost uncovered the truth.
But it chose to ignore the falling curtain—until the naked truth could no longer be denied.

When it woke up from the dream, for a moment, it felt like that green-eyed, gentle, lying human would walk into the room like always, carrying candy and pastries.
It wanted to extend a tentacle and question him—
In that instant, anger and grievance surged to the peak.

Asta regretted how easily and peacefully it had said goodbye.
Because it was far from as calm as it had appeared.

It wanted to look him in the eyes, grab his wrist, and accuse him of being a liar.
It wanted to hear his explanation—and at the same time, it didn’t.
It didn’t want to hear more lies all over again.

Then it looked at the empty coast—and finally remembered.
Everything was already over.

“…I never expected,” the Black Book said, “that the truth would be like this.”

At first, it couldn’t understand why a monster so gentle to everyone would eventually destroy the world.
Later, it couldn’t understand why Isidor, who had always valued the monster above all else, would try to kill it in the end to protect humans.

Both the human and the monster had shattered the World Consciousness’s understanding of reality.
It had imagined countless possibilities—

But never this one.

Isidor gave it a faint smile—dim and weary—as he withdrew from the fateful trajectory glimpsed through the world’s consciousness. He was, in fact, the one who found it hardest to walk away. He took a soft breath, calming himself once more, and then said:

“Now you understand, don’t you? You’ve got the wrong person. To tell the truth, the one who should’ve destroyed the world was me. I truly believed that. Not for one second in the prophecy did I think about stopping it. I was insane enough to want to help it kill. I wanted to stand beside it. To me, everything else just didn’t matter as much.”

And yet, it was Isidor—the one who fought Asta, already lost to madness, with all his might—who, in the end, burned through his life to save humanity, even when all hope had vanished.

In that vague, prophetic scene shown by fate, he had ignored his mangled, bloodied arm and driven his blade deep into the monster’s heart—he had come that close to saving everything.

“At least you did all that,” the Black Book wrote.

“I’m not that hero.”

Isidor reached out and touched the bracelet—two black stars had been reattached to it once more.

“When I found it, it was already too late. Do you understand how I felt then? It had been tortured to such an extent that I almost couldn’t recognize it. I thought, how could humans treat my star like this? If it died, nothing else in the world would matter anymore.”

The prophetic illusion created by the Black Book’s sacrifice was far too real—especially with Asta’s aura added in. Isidor had fully immersed himself in it, delivering a flawless performance.

But that also meant it was incredibly hard for him to detach from it. The world’s consciousness was worried he’d sink into despair and pain. Right now, his relationship with Asta was fractured, and he didn’t even have someone to lean on.

But contrary to its worries, Isidor now seemed steadfast—stubbornly so. That emerald green aura of his had condensed into something like a blade, too sharp and vivid to look at directly.

“I broke in and stood before it,”

he said softly. “It looked at me just like it used to—gentle and sorrowful. And in that moment, I realized it had been waiting for me all along. I wanted it to do whatever it wanted. I didn’t want it to suppress its powers anymore. Even if the world were to be destroyed, I’d stay by its side forever. I cried a lot then.”

The Black Book’s pages trembled faintly, but it didn’t interrupt.

The human spoke with the gentleness and pride of someone talking about a beloved.

“But it said no.”

Isidor repeated those words, hands clasped together. “Asta loved this world too much. It didn’t want the calamity born from it to bring destruction. It asked me to kill it—to stop everything from happening.”

“I’m sorry,”

the Black Book hesitated before offering consolation. “By the time it came to that, it was already too late. Hill knew all of its weaknesses, except the one power it had been suppressing all along. The Dawn Project’s ‘perfect execution’ in the lab pushed things into irreversible chaos.”

“I didn’t want to hurt it. I really, really…”

Isidor paused. “But it smiled at me. When it saw me as the ‘Kingfisher,’ it smiled. In that moment, it made me understand exactly what it wanted.”

The Black Book swallowed the rest of the sentence: “It was already too late.”

Just as the monster had said, Isidor picked up the weapon meant to save it—and instead used it to fight it with everything he had. The brightest blade of humanity drew all eyes to it. In the illusion, he appeared dazzling and sharp.

Isidor was used to holding a gun in one hand. His other hand wielded the signature weapon of the Kingfisher: a rapier like an icicle, slim and long, capable of piercing through even the toughest armor with ease.

He searched for weaknesses on Asta’s scarred and battered body, carving new wounds. At the same time, his own skin was being torn apart by the monster’s uncontrollable power. Blood ran down his fingertips, mixing with the creature’s.

He was utterly focused—completely serious. It was his finest state, and also his worst.

Even if everything could be reversed, he would surely die from the severity of his wounds.

“The star kept looking at me, even through the pain, and it looked so happy. I hadn’t seen it like that in so long.”

That “so long” belonged both to the Isidor in the illusion and the Isidor in reality.

“I didn’t hate anything in that moment,” Isidor said. “Not even the heartache mattered. I wanted to protect its will that much. Do you understand? I held nothing back. Every blow was meant to kill it. At that time, I even thought we could change everything. I thought maybe I’d make it in time to hold it just once before I died. But I was too pathetic. I couldn’t even do that—”

“This isn’t your fault.”

The Black Book looked at the black text it had etched into itself and felt its comfort sounded pale and thin.

Asta had pushed itself to the brink, suppressing its rampaging power, just to hold on until Isidor could arrive. But the lost time was irretrievable. Everything that had happened—at a certain point—had already crossed into the irreversible, like a clock striking midnight.

They were so close. Both the human and the monster had been fighting for the same goal. They almost changed everything. Almost saved everything.

No matter what Isidor said, the world’s consciousness believed—they were heroes.

The illusion and reality blurred. Isidor could see scenes flashing before his eyes every time he closed them. But none of it had happened yet. Everything could still be changed. That was what he kept trying to do.

Right now, he was more determined than ever.

…And more fragile than ever.

The Black Book could tell that Isidor’s state was teetering between collapse and clarity. His mind had reached the edge, and he had only just found something within the illusion to hold on to.

But this wouldn’t work. An illusion couldn’t offer real support in reality.

If only Asta were here.

But they hadn’t heard from each other in a long time. Only Asta could speak to both of them.

It was a mess. The Black Book had no experience mediating conflicts like this.

In the previous two worlds, though its villainous partners somehow always had lovers, it usually just ended up being the third wheel. Now it genuinely wanted to mend the rift between the two—but had no idea where to begin.

What to do?

The world’s consciousness thought hard for a moment, and then decided to develop a new copying function.

—And then it would secretly go find Asta without the human knowing.