The True Ending

9 | To Be Wed [9]

In the solitude of her room, Seraina couldn't muster the energy to act politely with Callen. The exhaustion that came with sitting in a room with his parents and himself weighed on her shoulders, eclipsing any desire to interact further with any of them. And as the weariness settled in, she found solace in her room, and the bed calling out for her.

Callen finished his gentleman act when they arrived at the bedroom door and sent a glare Seraina's way before sauntering off toward his room. Seraina waited until she was inside to release the sigh she had been holding since the start of the evening. In the System Space Hosts were always coming and going, so there was little to no social interaction: meaning this was all new to Seraina.

In the System Space, Hosts only had the assigned system for company, and only then it only spoke when instructions needed to be relayed, or questions were being answered. So Seraina struggled to interact with people of different worlds for long periods.

She sat on the end of the bed and looked out the window at the skies beyond. The sun was shining, with no clouds in sight: in contrast to the tumultuous emotions building up in her chest, with no way to know when they would calm down.

While observing the clouds drifting across the sky, memories of Callen in her first life came flooding back, highlighting the stark contrast to the person he had become in this world.

Before his illness had grown worse and taken a toll on his body, Callen was thoughtful, kind, and always considered others. But as his illness worsened, he was constantly exhausted, understandably irritable, and always tried to put on a brave face. His mood only escalated when he saw how carefree she and Asher were, and how close they had grown when he was absent. It was clear to everybody that the two were fond of each other.

That was when he started cursing his ill health and hoped that it would get better so he could be the one at Seraina's side. However, in his late teens, his illness took a turn for the worse, and in his late teens, he passed away in his sleep. The thought of becoming healthy and being with Seraina gave him hope for the future, but alas, it wasn't to be.

Until Seraina became a Host, her thoughts often drifted to Callen and the alternate life they could have had together.

The bond between Seraina and Asher had deepened, becoming more significant than ever before. But moments before they made their relationship official, Seraina was sucked into a swirling vortex, disorienting her and depositing her in the enigmatic System Space, leaving her disoriented and unsure of what was happening. Once more, Asher had been left behind, and Seraina felt a pang of helplessness, knowing there was no way for her to return to him.

Through her unwavering determination to find answers, Seraina unearthed the crucial piece of information that would lead to her escape: by collecting points from the novel's triumphant conclusions, she could find a way back to reality. That was why she worked so hard to remain calm when facing the characters and tried to not change too much about the established plotlines.

The first world had ended without a hitch, but as soon as the second world started, something had started to go awry. Characters began to deviate from the plot, and say lines that weren't from the novel. Seraina had memorised the script and knew it from word to word: so it was confusing when the characters did/said something that they weren't supposed to.

One day, the normally reserved System panicked and informed Seraina about the sudden appearance of the Plotters. Nothing like these people had shown themselves before, and their arrival had coincided with the day Seraina had entered the second world.

It seemed as though they had eagerly anticipated her arrival, ready to wreak havoc upon entering the world.

Wherever they went, the plot would go haywire and the characters would break away and act on their own. That was when the new quest of stopping the Plotters had been added to Seraina's original task. And when things had become harder for the girl who just wanted to go home.