IWBAACTWITOS Chapter 37

5. And They Lived Happily Ever After

The Prophetess—in the original story, they played the role of a helper. A mysterious character who used prophecy to show the protagonist the path forward.

'They're giving me a prophecy?'

Were they trying to show me the way forward like in the original? If they were going to tell me anyway, I couldn't understand why they made me wander the temple for ten whole days. Did I have to suffer hardships to receive a prophecy?

'Calling it hardship feels a bit off, though.'

Either way, I'd spent those ten days having a reasonably pleasant time. Thanks to that, I'd been able to remember the things Yoon Mir had loved.

After walking down the long, narrow corridor for quite a while, a door appeared. I hesitated for a long time before opening it. The interior didn't look particularly different from the other prayer rooms, but the atmosphere felt strangely different. It was as if time had stopped.

Someone knelt beneath the enormous statue of the god.

Hands folded neatly as if in prayer, white robes covering them from head to toe.

Exactly the image of a prophet I'd imagined.

"Lady Thaleia, would you come this way?"

The voice—impossible to tell if it belonged to a woman or a man—felt like it was resonating inside my head. Roxana's voice also had an androgynous quality, but this was distinctly different. The sensation of belonging nowhere created a strange sense of awe.

I approached them carefully. When I stopped with about a hand's width of distance remaining, the Prophetess spoke to me again.

"Could you possibly take my hand?"

"...Why?"

"Because I cannot move from this position."

I reached out to touch their neatly folded hands, then pulled back at an inexplicable reluctance.

"You could just let go of your hands."

Before long, the Prophetess's body began twitching slightly, and they released their hands and stood up. The strange thing was how they moved their body here and there, examining it as if moving for the first time.

"How curious. Until now, no matter what I tried, I couldn't move."

"What do you mean?"

"While the child receiving baptism purifies themselves with their parents for twenty days, I must pray here."

"So?"

"During that time, I can do nothing except pray. The moment I take the praying position, my body freezes. In the past thousand years, you are the only exception. I must pass twenty nights unable to eat, drink, or even sleep."

The Prophetess's words left me unable to hide my bewilderment. Unable to move at all?

"Then, then just don't pray."

"The moment I enter this place, as if possessed by something, I automatically kneel and fold my hands. And for those twenty days, I continue to see the entire life of the child receiving baptism."

"..."

"The prophecies I give are merely recounting memories I've seen thousands of times. The power the god gave me isn't simple prophecy.

The power to see past and future. But there's a limit to what I can see. From when the first Guardians—including myself—sealed the evil spirit, until the moment Royna and Rayan, who destroyed the evil spirit, get married. To be precise, until the scene of the two of them riding horses together across the plains."

The scene of the two riding horses together across the plains was the ending scene of the original work. How proud I'd been when I wrote "The End" beneath it.

"After that is only darkness."

"..."

"When I first became the Prophetess, I thought that since the evil spirit had disappeared, peace would follow. But after being here for a thousand years, doubt crept in. Is there really something after that darkness? Once I became aware of that, I realized I couldn't remember what I was before becoming the Prophetess."

"Prophetess."

"Prophetess is merely my title, not my name. I am just a prophet, nothing else."

At the words that they had no name, I sank down where I stood. Because the Prophetess was the Prophetess, merely an advisor guiding the protagonists and a prophet protecting this world. The word "prophetess" itself meant prophet.

"To meet Lady Thaleia again, I told my first lie. In truth, there is no prophecy for me to tell you. I cannot show you the path forward either. Rather, I am in a position where I must seek the path from Lady Thaleia."

The Prophetess removed their robe, revealing the face they'd kept hidden. Gray hair and gray eyes, a beautiful but strangely featureless face. The Prophetess's appearance, which I'd never once imagined, was entirely colorless.

"For a thousand years, I have prayed. I believe the answer to those prayers, the person who will fulfill my wish, is Lady Thaleia. Please, I beg you—save this world."

This story had the most tightly closed happy ending of all the stories I'd written.

It wasn't the only story that ended happily, but it was the only one I hadn't written side stories for. I hadn't written them because I felt there was no need.

'No, it would've been the same even if I'd written side stories.'

I couldn't be certain what the darkness after the ending that the Prophetess claimed to have seen meant. I'd just vaguely thought they must have lived well, and though I didn't include the clichéd phrase "and they lived happily ever after," the protagonists were surely happy. That's how I'd thought as I closed the final chapter.

After organizing my thoughts, I met the Prophetess's gaze. They were the one who'd called me here. Through a thousand years of prayer upon prayer. Those prayers had accumulated until I was born here. The reason I was born as a character absent from the original was to write a new ending and connect what came after.

"Do you... know who I am?"

"I do not."

"Then why are you asking me to save this world? Because I'm an existence that wasn't in fate?"

"Because Lady Thaleia has been someone who saved others from the moment of birth."

"What does that mean?"

"Mia Harrison was originally fated to commit suicide."

"...What?"

"Unable to overcome the grief of losing her son, she was fated to end her life before Royna Remetio was born. But because she became your nanny, she's alive to this day. Lady Thaleia saved her."

At the words that Nanny had lost a son, all I could do was blink my eyes stupidly. Nanny was always someone who smiled warmly and brightly.

'No, not always.'

It hadn't always been that way. Very occasionally, her smile had looked sad.

That aside, I couldn't believe she was originally someone who wouldn't have been alive. She was someone who'd spent as much time with me as Roxana and Julian since I was reborn here.

"..."

"She's alright now, so you don't need to worry too much. There's no way she would abandon Lady Thaleia and give up on life."

"Right. Of course."

There's no way Nanny would leave me behind. I muttered the dazed words to myself.

I wished I hadn't pushed away Nanny when she'd made such a fuss before I left for the Holy Land, saying she'd miss me terribly.

"Ha, haha..."

The Prophetess had called me, but it wasn't just one person I needed to save. There was no need to search for who to save. Because I had to save everyone in this world.

When I let out an empty laugh, bewilderment and fear rose in the Prophetess's expression.

"I know it's an unreasonable request. No one knows what needs to be changed or how. And we don't know what results will come. It might be wiser to let things flow according to fate. Even so, I hope Lady Thaleia will change fate."

"What about you?"

"Pardon?"

"Prophetess, no—you... What do I need to do to save you? Is your only wish just to save the world?"

At my question, tears flowed from the eyes of the nameless prophet. In those tears coexisted an indescribable sadness and an even greater joy.

"Don't cry."

I debated whether to reach out, but eventually wiped away their tears. They smiled with their tear-stained face.

"Thank you."

"..."

"Lady Thaleia, you truly are the savior sent by god to grant my wish."

'No.'

I didn't deserve gratitude. I wasn't anything as grand as a savior.

"My wish is to live an ordinary life, even if only for one day."

"..."

"A life where I have a name, can love and hate someone, and have dreams. Living among people like myself, then one day meeting an end—that's my wish."

'I didn't write your ending.'

In the ending where the protagonists became happy, the Prophetess's story was missing. I hadn't wondered about the Prophetess's ending after they suddenly disappeared. Because the setting was just a mysterious figure who only gave prophecies. If they vanished, that was just how it was.

'A helper created solely for the protagonist.'

Because of the setting I'd created, the Prophetess had lived trapped in this temple for a thousand years except when sealing the evil spirit. All they could do was pray.

"Ah..."

Guilt pressed down on my entire body. I cowardly curled up and started crying. The Prophetess waited patiently for a long time until my tears stopped.

Yoon Mir's life had been brilliant. It wasn't filled only with happy things, but there had been family to love and dreams to pursue.

In contrast, the Prophetess's life wasn't like that. It couldn't even be called a life.

Just a tool for the story. But here, the Prophetess was a person.

Forget character, forget cast member—just a person.