Chapter 93: The World Is a Play, but It Feels Like I’ve Written Myself Into the Story

Chapter 93: The World Is a Play, but It Feels Like I’ve Written Myself Into the Story

Thud!

Inside the corridor where warning lights flashed incessantly in crimson.

After Tendou killed the last Association Starbearer who had invaded this place, he shoved the corpse aside. It crashed heavily onto the cold floor, letting out a dull sound.

The once-noisy corridor finally fell completely silent.

Only, unlike the initial emptiness and cleanliness, now the passageway was littered with the bodies of Association Starbearers, strewn haphazardly across the floor.

The air was filled with a distinctive stench—a nauseating mix of blood and coolant.

Bang

Tendou staggered, his body instinctively leaning against the cold metal wall beside him.

His right hand clutched his wounded abdomen, large amounts of blood seeping relentlessly through his fingers.

Yet Tendou paid it little mind.

After resting for a while, he pressed his shoulder against the metal wall and dragged his legs forward—legs that felt as though they were filled with molten lead—silently stepping over bullet-scarred floors and corpses.

With every step he took, a vivid trail of blood was left behind on the ground and walls. As if silently testifying to just how terrible his physical condition had become.

When he reached the end of the corridor, it was as though all the strength had been drained from his body. He slid down along the wall and collapsed into a seated position on the floor.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

Tendou coughed violently several times, a strand of thick, sticky blood foam seeping from the corner of his mouth.

But as he coughed, he suddenly let out a low laugh—his words brimming with pride and self-satisfaction.

“A High-Level Second-Order, plus more than a dozen First-Order ones… If the Association finds out about this, they’ll probably slap my face onto a wanted poster and plaster it across every corner of the New Federation, right?”

“If that really happens, I’ll probably become a superstar across the entire Federation in no time—haha—”

Before Tendou could finish speaking, his excessive “triumph” tugged at his wounds, triggering another violent bout of coughing.

This time, the blood he spat out even carried fragments of shredded internal organs.

Coupled with his Star-Eclipse Eye, which had already gone completely blind, it was clear just how severe Tendou’s injuries truly were.

After finally steadying his breathing, Tendou raised his hand and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

At the same time, the smile on his face slowly faded, replaced by a confusion he had never felt before.

He muttered to himself, “Strange… everything is clearly unfolding exactly according to the script I wrote, so why… do I suddenly feel a bit of regret?”

“What I’m doing… is it really right?”

To the interdimensional audience, Tendou’s mention of a “script” was assumed to refer to the bleak futures he had foreseen with his Star-Eclipse Eye—and how he had forcibly chosen this so-called “happy ending,” one where only he himself was injured.

But only Tendou knew that the “script” he was referring to went far beyond that.

Because in the version of the script he had designed—this seemingly perfect, happy ending—every single line, every single sentence, was steeped in calculations born of sheer ruthlessness.

For example, in the name of so-called “popularity,” he had forcibly bound Caroline to a chariot racing straight toward tragedy.

If this question had been posed to him in the past, Tendou would never have felt regret, nor would he have thought that what he did was wrong.

Because back when he had first arrived in Stellaris, he had never regarded this place as a real world.

Instead, he saw it as a fake, ridiculous “stage,” overflowing with spotlights and lies.

Thus, whether it was Caroline or anyone else, to him at the time, they were nothing more than disposable extras—background characters who could be discarded at any moment.

Perfect “tools” for gaining precious popularity.

As for what they thought, or how their futures might be altered by his actions—

Tendou neither cared nor concerned himself with it, nor did he feel even the slightest trace of guilt.

Like a cold, detached director, he silently watched the “Children of the Stars” perform along their predetermined tracks, calmly allowing tragedy to unfold while he himself stood outside the spotlight, trampling everyone into the dust with an arrogance he called “equality.”

Tendou believed that this kind of “arrogance” was something he had deliberately put on—an act meant to reinforce his “strong character persona.”

What he failed to realize was that some things simply cannot be faked through acting alone.

He was merely using “performance” as an excuse to conceal his rejection of this unfamiliar world and the deeply buried loneliness within his heart, one so well hidden that even he himself could barely perceive it.

But when, exactly, did this begin to change?

Was it the first time he saw Caroline crestfallen after the doctor destroyed her dolphin plush?

Or the first time he played a prank by stealing the candy Liuli hid under her pillow, only to see her panic and burst into tears?

Or perhaps when Yume-nee quietly gave him special treatment, sneaking him into the cafeteria to steal desserts together?

He couldn’t tell. Tendou himself couldn’t tell anymore.

He only knew that, at some point, without even realizing it,

He had stopped treating Stellaris as a “fake stage,” and stopped treating “people like Caroline” as disposable “tools.”

The noisy scramble for the last piece of dessert in the cafeteria, the laughing insults and playful banter exchanged in the training room—

These moments became the most important memories in Tendou’s heart.

They served as “anchors,” pulling him in bit by bit until he had fully merged into this world without noticing.

And it was after that realization that Tendou finally understood something.

The world might be fake, but those beautiful memories were real.

Because of that, a bold idea slowly took root in Tendou’s mind.

He wanted to change things.

To change the disastrous ending everyone faced in the original story.

He would no longer coldly stand by and allow tragedy to unfold.

Because if events followed the original plot,

Then after the “Battle of Embers”—Yume-nee would exhaust her life force by repeatedly rushing between multiple battlefields, ultimately dying together with the entire base.

Caroline would emerge too early from quantum space, leaving her with the permanent affliction of personality fragmentation—gradually losing her human emotions and becoming nothing more than a cold, unfeeling tool.

Chen Xing would witness Yume-nee’s death with her own eyes, allowing the “beast” within her to overwhelm her “humanity,” turning her into a humanoid weapon that existed only to kill.

Liuli would lose everything she cherished, be plagued by endless nightmares day and night, forced to rely on sleeping pills every evening—never again the innocent and pure girl she once was.

And all of it—every single tragedy—was merely meant to serve the growth of the “protagonist,” Chen Kong.

Because only then would Caroline and the others’ descent into darkness in Season Two feel justified.

Only then would the Children of the Stars appear as antagonists in a way that felt logical and inevitable.

But Tendou didn’t like that outcome.

He hated that kind of ending.

So he chose to change it.

Yet change was never easy, and being a hero was not something anyone could simply decide to be.

To do so, Tendou needed a reason—

A reason convincing enough to persuade even himself to take on the role of a “hero.”

After watching the first season of the original story over and over again, Tendou felt that he had not only found the “perfect” ending—one that could make everyone happy—but also the very reason he needed to convince himself to become that hero.

Nothing more than this:

Audiences hate tragedies.

And if that was the case, then, in order to maximize his own “popularity,” in order to gain more “love” from the audience, Tendou believed he could be the one to play the hero.

As for whether the future could truly be changed as he envisioned, or whether he could really “walk away unscathed” in the end—those thoughts were long since brushed aside by the fully immersed Tendou.

Because, deep down, he understood it as well.

That “walking away unscathed” had always been nothing more than a beautiful fantasy of his own.

He… never truly had absolute confidence.

At the same time, the true reason he wanted to be a “hero” was never about “popularity” in the first place.

He simply couldn’t bear to lose the mischievous grin on Yume-nee’s face when she sneaked him into the back kitchen.

He couldn’t bear to lose the bright, crystal-clear light in Caroline’s eyes when she hugged that little dolphin plush.

He couldn’t bear to lose Liuli’s dazed, silly cuteness when she hugged her pillow, convinced she had hidden her candy perfectly.

He… didn’t truly want to become a “hero.”

He just… didn’t want anyone to destroy the “home” he cherished.

“Cough, cough… Guess being a hero… really isn’t that easy after all.”

“But still…”

Tendou’s voice echoed through the silent corridor, his expression revealing a stubbornness—and a madness—that defied description.

His trembling right hand reached into the inner pocket of his chest rig. From it, he took out a pale-blue, special candy and carefully placed it into his mouth.

As the candy melted on his tongue, he swayed as he struggled to his feet. With every step, fresh beads of blood seeped from his torn combat suit—yet Tendou seemed completely unaware of the pain.

Staring—“looking”—at the control room doors of the Quantum Center, now only an arm’s length away, Tendou slowly pushed them open with his shoulder, speaking to himself as he did.

“The script may be fake, but that perfect, happy future is real.”

“Because I’ve already seen it.”

“Now… let me offer the final firework—the closing act—to this magnificent play.”

With those words, Tendou staggered into the Quantum Center’s control room.

To him, only one last thing remained to be done before reaching the beautiful, perfectly happy future he had planned.

And yet, no one—including Tendou himself—knew that the person who once believed he stood at the edge of the stage, coldly treating the entire world as nothing more than a play, had long since, without realizing it, written himself into the story as well.

And it seemed… he might not be able to walk back out again.

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