If you don’t love me, I will die.

“Creator…?”

As Ania murmured, Ha Soo-Jeong nodded slightly.

He rose from his seat and reached out towards the document window in the air.

As he did, the novels he had written piled up and gathered at his fingertips.

“You are the characters from my novels.”
“Novels? You mean books?”
“Yeah. Books I’ve written.”

The document windows gathered at Ha Soo-Jeong’s fingertips and formed into a book.

[If You Don’t Love Me, I Will Die]

“It’s a romance fantasy novel.”

On the cover of the book, Ania and I were depicted.
We stood as if looking at each other, yet not looking at each other.

But something was strange.

He said I was a character in the novel, but strictly speaking, I wasn’t a character in the story.

Edward and Ania.
They were definitely characters in the novel.

But I am not Edward.

My body belongs to Edward, but… I am not Edward.

“Wait.”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Ha Soo-Jeong chuckled as I paused.

But before I could ask, he spoke.

“No… you still seem skeptical, so should I speak first? What you want to ask is,

Ha Soo-Jeong’s eyes twinkled.

“’I’m not a character in the novel,’ right?”
“How did you know?”
“Of course I know. I created you. I know everything about you. What you’re thinking and what you want to say.”

I felt an uncomfortable sensation as if my insides were being read.
Before I could react, Ha Soo-Jeong continued.

“I’ll answer your questions.”

As he flicked the book, a document window popped out and floated in the air.

It was written like this:
Name: Edward Radner.
– Eldest son of the Radner family. Just and sincere personality. Skilled in swordsmanship and magic. Became possessed by the book “If You Don’t Love Me, I’ll Die” under certain circumstances.

Ha Soo-Jeong quickly scanned the document window.

Then, Ania grabbed my arm abruptly.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Possessed…?”
“…I’ll explain later.”

I didn’t know what to tell Ania.

The fact that the Edward she loved wasn’t me.

I had resolved to reveal it someday, but fear gripped me.

If Ania were to learn that fact, would she still love me?

She loved Edward, not me.

“Are you afraid? That Ania won’t love you anymore?”
“What…?”
“If she finds out you’re not from this world, you think Ania Bronte won’t love you anymore.”

He’s completely reading my mind.

No, there’s no point in even trying to hide it.
That guy knows everything about this world.

“Yeah.”

So, I had no choice but to answer obediently.

“I’m not the ‘Edward’ Ania Bronte loved. That man is someone different from me.”
“…?”

Ania looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“Ania.”

But I had to say it.

The man you loved isn’t me.

“I’m… not Edward. I was possessed into this world from another world. To be precise, I possessed Edward from when he was twenty-two…”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I figured.”

Ha Soo-Jeong responded to Ania’s question first.

“Ania, you couldn’t possibly know you exist in a different dimension from Edward.”
“So, in the end… No, I don’t understand…”

Frowning, Ania shook her head.

I felt a sudden surge of fear.

An assumption I had been entertaining since I came to this world.

“If I were to see the end of this world, would I return to the original world?”

As I attempted to ask, Ha Soo-Jeong answered immediately.

“The original world… Do you want to go back?”
“No.”

I replied promptly.

As much as I had longed to return to that world, I no longer wanted to.
Because Ania Bronte isn’t in my original world.
Because the woman I’ll love forever isn’t there.

“Haha… I thought so.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re that kind of person; I made it so.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I’m not a character you created. I’m not Edward.”
“Hmm… are you sure about that?”

Ha Soo-Jeong tapped on his laptop.

“Alright then, tell me. If you’re not Edward, then who are you?”
“I am…”

For a moment, my mind went blank.

Who am I?
If I’m not Edward, then who am I?

Ha Soo-Jeong chuckled softly and said, “Come on. Tell me, Edward. Who are you? If you’re not Edward, what’s your name? Where did you live, who were your family? Your friends?”

“…Nothing.”

Nothing came to mind.

Ha Soo-Jeong slowly shook his head as he observed my state.

“You won’t remember.”
“Why not?”
“Why? Well…because there is nothing to remember. I never set it up.”
“What…?”
“I didn’t set up your past. There’s no need for details that don’t appear in the story. Your past is not mentioned in the book, so it wasn’t necessary to establish it. Where you were born, who your parents are, what your name is, who your friends are, and how you lived.”

I shook my head.

It couldn’t be true.

“This doesn’t make sense.”
“It does, Edward.”

Ha Soo-Jeong got up from his seat and approached me.

He slowly took my hand and helped me up.

“You’re not anyone else. You’re just… Edward Radner. You always have been.”
“…”

It was shocking. The feeling of everything I had lived up to now being invalidated.

“Edward.”

At that moment, Ha Soo-Jeong lightly hugged me and patted my back.

His touch was unusually warm.

“You’ve worked hard until now. I didn’t want to ruin your life like this.”

But the strange feeling lasted briefly, and my heart felt at ease.

Incredibly so.

I realized the identity of that feeling.

Relief.

The thought that I had been the Edward Radner whom Ania loved from the beginning brought a sigh of relief so profound.

“Take this.”

Ha Soo-Jeong took a notebook from his inner pocket and placed it in my hand.

“What’s this?”
“Your memories. Open it.”

Reluctantly, I unfolded the notebook, and countless memories flooded back in an instant.

Childhood promises.
Nineteen lives lived as Edward.

All of it.

It was only then that I realized.

I am Edward Radner.
I had always been Edward.

No one else.

“Shall we try telling the story again?”

Ha Soo-Jeong sat back with a more relieved expression.

***

Ha Soo-Jeong slowly moved his hand to operate the laptop.

Then, numerous document windows appeared again.

“First, let’s start with this one.”

The compressed document window he created turned into a shining sphere.

“This is the first story I ever wrote.”

As I gazed at the shining sphere, memories strangely flowed into me.

It was a story I knew well.

The villainess, Ania, and Edward fell in love with her and met his demise.

“Why such a story…”
“I didn’t want to write it like this either.”

The corner of Ha Soo-Jeong’s eyes flickered downward.

“Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we only wrote happy stories?”
“Was there a reason you didn’t do that?”
“If we only write happy stories, causality collapses.”

The shining sphere quickly transformed into a complex mechanism with countless gears interlocked.

“If this story were to unfold as it is…”

The gears moved rapidly, then began to collapse.

“It collapses like this.”
“Why?”
“Because you two didn’t go through the fate where you could love each other properly. As causality and coherence collapse.”
“Causality and coherence…”
“Every story has causality. If you drop a ball from a high place, it falls to the ground, not into the sky.”

I nodded.

“It’s the same with stories. Suppose you try to end a story happily when the situation isn’t suitable for happiness. In that case, the ball will shoot into the sky. And this happens.”

Ha Soo-Jeong pointed to the broken gears.

“So, I wrote the story again. This time, I included a setting where Ania stole the necklace of destiny from the palace. And Ania went back to the beginning of time. But…”
“Even then, the causality didn’t match.”
“Yeah. By forcing causality to match, it took away one of your lives.”

He raised numerous document windows with a melancholic smile and handed us the memories.

In those countless memories, Ania and I faced death numerous times.

They were scenes I had witnessed in my consciousness.

“Ten times in total. After ten attempts, I realized. I can’t write stories full of happiness. For you two to be happy, inevitably, pain must be inflicted.”

Ha Soo-Jeong unfolded the eleventh document. It turned into a shining sphere, then into gears.

But despite the gears moving diligently, they eventually collapsed.

Fortunately, the form remained, but it was still broken.

“I wanted to make the end of this world into perfect happiness. But the more I tried to do that, the more problems emerged from elsewhere.”
“So, for us…”
“Yeah. In the end, I had to make you two misunderstand each other and hate each other to reach a perfect conclusion.”

He laughed.

But within his laughter, there was a faint sadness.