Roele pulled his coat tighter, crossed the street carefully, and made it safely to the other side.
A proud smile spread across his face before he realized it. Roele was about to continue walking when he suddenly felt an excruciating pain in his chest.
“Cough!”
Roele dropped to his knees, clutching his chest. His eyes squeezed shut against the pain, but he could clearly feel blood staining his palm and the asphalt beneath him.
Pedestrians began gathering around him in droves, whispering among themselves. Quite a few even pulled out their phones to record what was happening.
Roele kept coughing harder and harder until he nearly collapsed face-first onto the ground.
His body went numb, and Roele felt his eyelids growing heavy. Before he truly descended into darkness, Roele felt sorrow fill his heart.
‘I really wanted to live a long life!’
But Roele felt his consciousness return. He couldn’t see anything, but his ears were clearly still working because he could hear many voices all at once.
Roele felt something pressing against his head.
“Just a little longer, Mrs. Hue! Take a breath!”
Roele felt his head pushing against something.
“Come on, Mrs. Hue! His head’s showing. Just a little longer!”
Roele swore there were enormous hands pulling his head out as if it were a basketball.
The clamoring voices grew louder. Then, all of a sudden, Roele felt his body being pulled out again, now fully cradled in a pair of enormous hands. At last, he could see his surroundings.
“What happened? Why isn’t he crying?”
“Is he all right?”
Suddenly, a crazy thought popped into Roele’s mind.
People were crowding around him like flies, and they were far too big.
‘Are they giant monsters?’
Roele raised his hand to prove himself wrong, but what he saw was a tiny, reddish hand.
He had really become a baby.
“Waaaaah!!!!!”
Roele burst into tears, but the people around him acted as if it were the happiest thing in the world.
“This is your child, Mrs. Hue. He’s a boy.”
Roele felt another hand hold him close. He saw a woman with blood-red hair smiling weakly. She looked incredibly pale, sweat glistening across her face.
The beautiful woman smiled tenderly. “Look, Russell. He’s your little brother. Isn’t he cute?”
Roele looked at someone else. This time, it was a small boy with reddish-brown hair, standing there with wide eyes shining with innocence.
“He looks so much like Mom.”
The woman laughed weakly, her face still pale.
“Does he?”
“Yeah. His red hair is so beautiful.”
The boy stared without blinking at Roele, who remained silent with tears shimmering in his eyes.
Roele was thinking about the miraculous thing that had happened to him.
The beautiful red-haired woman and her son. Somehow, Roele felt as though he knew them incredibly well.
“Mrs. Hue, have you thought of a name for him?”
Roele fell silent.
‘Mrs. Hue?’
“What do you think, Russell? Have you thought of anything, sweetheart?”
‘Russell now?’
Russell shook his head innocently. “Mom should name him. I’ll like whatever you choose.”
Hue smiled gently as she stroked the baby’s cheek in her arms, while Roele continued fitting the puzzle pieces together in his mind.
Roele might have gone insane. Hue and Russell were side characters he had created in “Hero of the Heavenly Emperor.”
Hue leaned closer and gently kissed her son’s cheek. Roele’s soul went pale.
‘You just kissed a twenty-year-old grown man, Mom!’
“I’ve already thought of one.”
Roele’s heart began pounding.
“Yan. His name is Yan Adamine.”
An imaginary bolt of lightning pierced Roele’s heart.
He had truly entered the body of a side character he’d created carelessly.
“Waaaaah!!!!!”
Roele cried because he had entered the body of a side character instead of the protagonist.