Emotional Man
A couple of hours later, Magnus was in the dining room, his face washed clean and he had once again changed into a clean shirt. Pulling back a chair and sitting down on it, Magnus had fully fallen into the embrace of a homey welcome. It was warm and nostalgic, as though everything in the world was alright, and that all of them were going to be okay.
He knew the world definitely wasn't going to be a peaceful place for much longer, but for now, he let himself bask in the innocent atmosphere that the present offered to him. It was like a daydream after a long nightmare, but it was one he most greatly needed.
"You look happy despite being sick, son," Markus Helvig pointed out while picking a slice of meat and placing it on his plate. The man looked at Magnus and observed his pale face with a worried smile.
"I'm just really happy we can dine together tonight, dad," Magnus replied.
His father was a man with a heart of gold. Truly, one of the most kind-hearted men Magnus had ever known. Doctor Smiley was what he was called by some of his regular patients, owing to the eternal smile he always had on his face. Even during the rare moments he was not smiling, the deep wrinkles on the tip of his eyes and his naturally upturned lips would still leave traces of his renown smile. His hair was the same color as Magnus', and his blue eyes spoke of the depth of his gentle soul.
Magnus himself had inherited most of his father's soft facial features, including his downturned eyes. During his journey, Magnus' best friend would sometimes point out that he also had his father's smile, though he did not show it as often as his father.
"Let me check on you later, to make sure it's nothing serious," his father said, already on his doctor-mode.
Magnus gave him a reassuring smile and said, "It's just a normal fever, dad. It's summer now and you know how poorly I fare with heat. I'll just stay in bed for a few days and I'll be alright."
Markus turned to his wife and saw her nodding at him, wordlessly telling him she'd given Magnus some medicine. "Alright then," he finally said, "but make sure to tell me if it gets any worse."
"Will do," replied Magnus, not wanting to make his father worry any further.
'Now that I'm witnessing all of this in third-person, I finally realized how spoiled we were,' Magnus 2.0 remarked.
'And lucky,' Magnus added. He could barely hold back the tears that were threatening to flow down from his eyes. All of this still felt surreal to him, and he could hardly believe he was finally back home, together with his family. Nor did he whole-heartedly believe he deserved to be this happy.
He had done things he was not proud of, after all.
'I feel you, man,' Magnus 2.0 said, feeling the echoes of his original's emotions.
Magnus took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to dry his eyes. He then smiled at his parents, not wanting them to misinterpret his action to that of a sad boy's. Those were happy tears, after all.
'Twenty-five years old and you still easily cry,' said Magnus 2.0, trying to lighten up the mood.
'What can I say? I'm an emotional man,' replied Magnus while chuckling in his mind.
---
Back inside his room, he was once again lying on the bed, furiously trying to suppress the pain that was making a mess of his body. He checked his Status Window, only to find his [Pain Resistance] still stuck on Level 2.
'Whose brilliant idea was it to set the MAX level at 20?' Magnus whined, knowing this applied to all kinds of Resistance passive and to all Protagonists. So he knew it hadn't been Atlantis' doing.
After an hour of breathing practice, his mind slowly drifted away into sleep. For the first time in a long while, the man bitter at his own fate had finally found himself falling asleep in the quiet room of his childhood home.
'…the two Status Windows…'
'…replace the Experience Points…'
'…didn't notice this before…'
Magnus was woken up before dawn by the chatter of his copy as well as the occasional responses from the system. His eyes fluttered open and he was immediately jolted awake by the pain assaulting his body.
"Ah, shit…still hurts like hell," he mumbled, gritting his teeth and groaning in pain.
'Oh, hey, you're up,' greeted Magnus 2.0.
'Thanks to you,' replied Magnus. 'What have you been doing with the system? I didn't even know you could do that while I was asleep.'
'I didn't know that, either. But after finding out that I didn't fall asleep when you did and that I don't need to sleep like, at all, I figured why not learn how the system works while I'm at it.'
Magnus forced his body to sit up, leaning his back against the head of the bed. "So tell me what you found, then."
'Alright. I managed to figure some things out about the system and made some more modifications. Did you know that we had two Status Windows?'
Magnus raised one brow, intrigued. "Go on."
'Right. You have your Protagonist #1's Status Window, yeah? While I myself have got my own Author's Status Window. It pretty much looks the same as yours, apart from a few differences, mainly on the Leveling part. But none of that matters now, as I've combined both our Status Windows, for convenience's sake.'
"Huh, neat," Magnus commented. But before he could ask the system to show his copy's handiwork, Magnus spoke again.
'However, let's leave that for later. I can tell you're still in much pain, and I'd like it so that you can put your whole mind into learning about how the system works without any distraction.'
Magnus furrowed his brows. "What's your point?"
'I've found something else that might help you alleviate the pain while the stats transfer's still going on in the background. Check this out. System, show us the Protagonist #1 screen,' ordered Magnus 2.0 to the system.
A familiar holographic screen immediately flickered to life before Magnus' eyes, showing him his Protagonist screen. The Script window then suddenly got maximized. The Status Window and POV window got pushed back as the Script was shown in full screen. Magnus figured that it was his copy's doing.
'System, take it to the very top, please,' instructed Magnus 2.0.
The Script then could be seen being scrolled up rapidly, and in a blink of an eye, it had arrived at the very beginning.
'I took the liberty of retrieving the old Script that was once used by Atlantis to tell our story. I told the system to paste it onto the current Script, and voila! Now we have a complete record of our journey. Wanna read it together?'
Magnus couldn't believe his eyes. His copy had come up with this genius idea for him to retrace his steps from the very beginning while at the same time peeking inside Atlantis' mind and finding out what he had narrated for him. It was like reading a journal he never knew he'd possessed.
"Great job, me," Magnus praised his copy.
Magnus 2.0 laughed inside his mind and said, 'Take a look at the first sentence.'
ʳ This is the story of a dreamer, one who decided, out of a sprouting curiosity, to follow a yellow light. ʴ
Magnus' jaw dropped. The term 'yellow light' was coined by him after he had become a Protagonist for a few days. Even until now, he hadn't known where he got the idea from. The two words just popped up in his mind out of nowhere.
Now that he looked at the Script, he could see that the first sentence was highlighted in blue, meaning it was a manual narration by Atlantis.
'Does that mean…'
'Yup,' Magnus 2.0 confirmed. 'He gave you the idea for 'yellow light'. Also, he was probably the one responsible for your decision to begin your journey.'
Atlantis had been manipulating his mind from the very beginning. His initial curiosity was probably influenced by him, as well.
Magnus dropped a helpless sigh, unable to get rid of the bitter taste this revelation had given him. He then decided to continue reading the Script. It wasn't as if he could just delete that sentence. He knew the Script wasn't editable.
He then spent hours reading and walking down the memory lane.
ʳ…making sure that the portal to the new Realm wouldn't lead him to an unknown Abyss. His best friend was by his side, observing his shaking hand that was holding the tower shield. The black-haired guy rolled his eyes and teasingly said, "Want me to hold your hand?" to which Magnus responded with a "Fuck off."
The two then stared at the glowing portal for a bit longer before they nodded at each other resolutely, and finally stepped into the portal. What awaited them on the other side was a landscape unlike anything they had ever seen before… ʴ
ʳ…his parched throat and chapped lips desperate for water. It had been days, but they still couldn't see any sign of reinforcement. The two best friends thought they would die either from starvation or dehydration on this barren land, and nobody would ever know or find where their corpses were.
"Do you…" Magnus started, "do you remember the taste of strawberries?"
TJ glanced at him with a weird expression, getting the reference of the quote. Initially he wanted to ignore his best friend, but then thought he might as well go along with it. "No, Magnus. I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of—you know what, just shut up."
Magnus chuckled upon hearing TJ's response, but then even that light chuckle made him cough a few times. "Ah, shit…" ʴ
Without realizing, Magnus found himself immersed in the story of his past journey, devouring paragraph after paragraph. At some point he would be annoyed by the blue sentences that signified Atlantis' direct interventions, and some other time he would smile during moments he had spent with his friends. Sometimes he would also bitterly laugh at his own stupidity or be angered by the characters he'd met that worshipped their Authors, and finally cry when he got to the narration describing his wife's death.
Hours passed like this before a few knocks came from the door of his room. "Sweetie, breakfast is ready," his mother called. "Do you want me to bring it to your room?"
Magnus tore his eyes away from the floating screen, noticing it was already eight in the morning. "No need, mom. I'll be out in a minute," he said before willing the screen to disappear and getting up from the bed.