The Great Hero I [NOEL]

Natsume Maruyama is shocked to hear familiar terms that he hadn’t heard for decades.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, he turned to the two attendants standing by the door. He instructs them to leave the room. He said he wanted to have a conversation with Noel and Leon. They agree and exit the room.

Now, only three people remained in the room.

The moment they were alone, Natsume exhaled shakily. His composure wavered. His fingers trembled as he removed his glasses, rubbing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. A single tear slipped past his tired eyes before he could stop it.

Leon is a bit confused by the whole situation but remains calm.

Natsume let out a broken laugh, one filled with disbelief and bittersweet relief. He looked at Noel.

"So… you are really from the other world?”

Noel stood firm, nodding.

Natsume let out another small, bitter chuckle as he shook his head. “Why now? Why after all these decades? Why, after so long, has something from that world found its way to me again?”

No one answered.

For a moment, Natsume did not move. He simply closed his eyes, allowing himself to drown in the emotions he had buried for decades.

After a while he composes himself.

“Young lady…” He turned his weary gaze back to Noel. “Please… tell me. What is happening over there? What became of that world? What happened after I left?”

Noel took a deep breath,

"Great Hero, it's… complicated."

Natsume let out a dry chuckle. “I figured as much.”

Noel continued, carefully choosing her words. “Many decades have passed since the end of the Second Demonic War. You along with your presence there was our past. Time seems to have moved differently when you were transported back to this world.”

Natsume furrowed his brows, but he did not interrupt.

“Lizbeth XX XXXXXXX is an ancestor of our kingdom. Currently, her descendants hold high positions within the ruling family.”

A small, almost ghostly smile formed on Natsume’s lips, though his eyes remained clouded with an unreadable emotion. “I see… so Lizbeth moved on.”

“I never got the chance to say sorry,” he whispered.

A genuine smile spread across his face.

“I’m glad,” he murmured. “I’m truly glad she moved on.”

Noel nodded, her voice steady. “The kingdom flourishes under her lineage. It is prosperous and strong, thriving in peace.”

Natsume let out a slow breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Then, he spoke as though he had accepted something within himself.

"Let me tell you my side of the story first. Then, we’ll move on to yours."

Noel and Leon remained silent, listening intently.

“It happened forty years ago. I was twenty at the time. Just an ordinary young man, living an ordinary life, and then…one day out of nowhere, I was there. In your world.”

“At first, I was flustered. No…terrified.” He let out a breath. “I had read stories, fictional tales about people being transported to other worlds. But they were just fiction. Until it happened to me.”

“The first thing I worried about was survival. Where would I go? How would I eat? And the language…how would I communicate?”

“But the strangest thing was… the language barrier didn’t exist. Or rather, it did, but it was confusing. I should not have understood it, yet I did. Words that were foreign to me somehow made perfect sense. It was as if I had been speaking that language my whole life.”

He sighed, “It was only my appearance that set me apart. I looked different, an outsider. People noticed. But back then, they had bigger things to worry about than a lost foreigner.”

His gaze darkened slightly.

“The world was not at peace. A war was raging, a war between humans and the Demonkins. And not just any war. The Second Demonic War.”

“For months, I wondered. Alone. Lost. Trying to understand that world and my place in it.” His voice softened. “I tried to adapt. And little by little… I did.”

“I had something, something that set me apart. Abilities that were… unnatural. I didn’t understand them at first. They were nothing like the common magic of that world, and yet… they worked. I survived because of them.”

His voice grew quieter as if recalling a memory too precious to speak of carelessly.

“And then… I met Lizbeth. She was… remarkable. Passionate. Determined. A woman who refused to be bound by fate. She had dreams, ones that stretched far beyond the war, beyond the destruction. She wanted a future. A true future.”

“She changed me. Her fire, her will… it was contagious. It made me want to fight, to do something meaningful. We traveled together, side by side, facing battles that should have been impossible to win. But we did.”

He exhaled, “I learned, much later, who she really was. That she was of royal blood, but that never changed anything between us.”

“Five years passed.”

His voice turned softer, more distant.

“We fought together, struggled together, built something together. And… we fell in love.”

“With her, I began to forget my old life. That world, your world became my home.”

He ran a hand through his graying hair. “I even wrote books, stories about this world, calling them tales of an ‘ancient civilization.’ Just nonsense, really. But Lizbeth… she loved them. She listened with that sparkle in her eyes, always eager for more.”

He smiled faintly,

“I was happy.”

A long silence.

Then, his expression darkened.

“But happiness doesn’t last forever.”

“I was taken away. Just like that.”

“No warning. No farewell. One moment, I was there. And the next…” His voice faltered. “I was back here.”

“My life, the one I built…was gone in an instant.”

“I tried to move on. I tried. But it wasn’t easy.”

His voice grew hoarse.

“I never truly settled down. I worked. Became a novelist. A game developer.”

He exhaled sharply. “I wanted to recreate that world. To bring it back, even if only in fiction.”

A bitter smile.

“But the essence of life was missing. No matter how much I wrote, no matter how much I built… it wasn’t real.”

A pause.

“The only joy I found… was in my fans. Their excitement, their admiration. The way they immersed themselves in the world I had created.”

He looked down at his hands.

“But deep down, I always carried regret.”

“I wanted to say sorry. To Lizbeth. I wanted to tell her to move on.”

A faint, almost ghostly smile.

“But now I know. She did move on. She had descendants. A family. A future.”

A long, weary sigh escaped him.

“And that… that is enough for me.”

The story of Natsume Maruyama concludes.

His eyes flickered toward Noel.

“You… have played my games?” he murmured.

Noel nodded, “Yes. At first, it was nothing more than a simple curiosity. But something felt… familiar. The way the world was designed, the way events unfolded in your stories, it mirrored my own world in a way that no mere coincidence could explain.”

She continued, “So, I began to research. I found a book ‘The Book of the Ancient Civilization’ which you wrote, depicting this world as though it were a myth from another time.” She paused as if measuring her words carefully. “And then… I found another book.”

“A book about Lizbeth and Natsume.”

Natsume exhaled, long and heavy. “I see…”

“Enough about me, then. Let’s talk about you.”

“I didn’t know much about nobles even when I was in that world, so I can’t say I recognize your family.”

He turned his gaze toward Leon, “But something about you feels… unusual.”

Leon blinked in surprise. “Me?”

Natsume, “Is he also from the other world?” he asked, looking back at Noel.

Noel, “No. He is from this world. But… somehow, he seems to know about mine as well.”

“Hoh?”

Noel exhaled, “It has been over five months since I first began traversing this world. But my case is… different from yours.”

Natsume leaned forward slightly, attentive.

“I am a dream walker. When I come here, I do so in my sleep. Right now, my body probably remains in my own world, sleeping, while my consciousness exists here.”

Natsume’s brows furrowed, interest flickering in his gaze. “Fascinating…”

Noel, “At first, I thought the same things you did, survival, adaptation, the possibility that I had no way back. But I had something you didn’t.”

She turned to Leon,

“I had him.”

Leon’s expression shifted, the slightest trace of pink dusting his cheeks as he glanced away.

Noel smiled softly. “From the very beginning, Leon already knew me. Even before I had spoken a word, before I had learned anything about this world, he knew who I was. And to this day, he has never once told me why.”

Natsume’s sharp gaze flickered toward Leon,

“And what about you?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.

Leon opened his mouth, only to close it again, grasping for an answer he himself didn’t fully understand.

Noel, as if sensing his hesitation pressed on. “He’s always there to welcome me. Always there to support me. To guide me, to…” She caught herself, lowering her gaze. “It’s too natural to be an act. It’s as if… he has known me for a long time.”

Noel took a deep breath. “But that isn’t all.”

Natsume raised a brow.

“There is… something else.”

A pause.

She hesitated, “A red-eyed shadow.”

Noel exhaled, “Every night when my time here is up, it appears. A mysterious entity, with piercing red eyes. It doesn’t speak. It doesn’t hesitate. It simply… comes for me.”

“It’s like an alarm clock,” she murmured. “It doesn’t matter where I am. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing. When it comes, I know, I know that my time here is over. Every night, it kills me.”

Natsume inhaled, his expression shifting between horror and intrigue.

“And every morning… I wake up in my own world. The cycle repeats.”

Natsume, “What a horrible thing…”

Noel nodded. “I know how it sounds. It is painful. And terrifying. But…” Her gaze softened. “Even still… I have been mesmerized by this world. By the people I’ve met.”

She glanced at Leon, a warmth in her eyes.

“And just like you, I have found someone.”

Without hesitation, she reached for Leon’s hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

Leon’s breath hitched but he did not pull away. Instead, he squeezed her hand gently.

“Boy,” Natsume said. “I ask again, What about you?”

Leon blinked. “Me?”

“Yes.” Natsume’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know her? Have you traveled to her world?”

Leon opened his mouth to answer naturally, but then…

A glitch.

A sudden, unnatural distortion in the air.

Bzzt…