The World of this Fantasy Novel is in Crisis

“Satin was always the one who showed the new kids around.”

Tim sounded regretful, but Satin merely smiled silently.

According to Tim, all the rooms in the west corridor on the second floor were used by the elder—by which he meant the teacher. The room they’d seen earlier was used for administrative tasks or counseling the kids. The room across from it was the bedroom, and the two rooms near the stairs were used as a lab and a study, respectively.

“Our teacher is a mage. Mages need labs, apparently. Discovering new magic is like… their life’s ambition.”

“You mean like invention?”

“No, it’s discovery.”

“You can’t invent magic?”

“Nope. You can only discover it.”

“You a mage too?”

“Nah, not quite, but I know at least that much.”

Tim laughed sheepishly. He joked that if he had any aptitude for magic, he might’ve been the teacher’s apprentice. It was a joke, but it rang with more than a hint of sincerity.

Each fantasy novel had its own lore about magic, and it seemed like this world had its own set of rules too.

All magical formulas were said to be preordained, and mages spent their lives seeking out those formulas. Becoming a mage required innate talent, but the ability to see magical energy wasn’t one of those requirements.

‘Then what am I, exactly?’

Judging by how surprised the teacher had been, it must’ve been an ability that wasn’t supposed to exist. Maybe it had been hidden all along, but that didn’t seem to add up.

Apparently, the original Satin had been at this school the longest, tasked with welcoming new arrivals. That would mean he likely had a close relationship with the teacher.

‘Even if they weren’t close, maybe he was someone the teacher relied on—like a class rep or something.’

To lead a group of minors, the best choice is usually a mature minor—someone relatable, but dependable.

‘So how did the ability come about?’

The angel never said anything about giving powers. Was this supposed to be the point in the story where those powers emerged?

“This is our dorm.”

Tim’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Tim strutted proudly into the eastern corridor as he showed the way.

“There are six rooms, two people per room.”

That meant there were twelve kids total. A bit too few for a school, honestly.

“There aren’t any other teachers?”

“Just the one.”

“No other adults either?”

“Mm, there’s a cook in the kitchen. His name’s Rufus, but everyone just calls him Fuzzball. We do our own laundry though.”

Must be a pretty hairy guy.

Kids had a habit of giving people extremely literal nicknames. Satin just nodded.

One supervising teacher and one staff member helping with daily life. If just the two of them had to look after twelve kids all day, that was plenty to handle.

“‘Fuzzball’ was a nickname he came up with.”

Tim pointed to a boy walking out of the room at the end of the hall.

“He never calls anyone by their actual name. He calls me Mouse.”

Tim grumbled, his protruding front teeth backing up the nickname. Satin ignored his complaints and observed the boy standing further away.

He looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. Unlike Tim, whose appearance was fairly plain, this boy looked every bit like a main character from this world—or rather, from this novel.

Even standing in the shadows, he stood out with his pale blond hair, not a faded sky-blue but vivid sapphire-colored eyes, and delicate features still clinging to youth. Give him five years—no, even just a couple—and he’d be breathtakingly handsome.

“What’s his name?”

“Cain. Hasn’t even been here three months yet. So he’s basically the baby of the group.”

Tim giggled as he spoke, but his voice didn’t quite reach Satin’s ears. Only the name echoed in his mind.

“…Cain?”

When he first heard the name Satin, it hadn’t stirred anything in him. But the name Cain suddenly brought a memory to the surface—of a novel.

There was a novel called Dark Age, a fantasy story that had been popular around 2010. A revised edition had started serialization recently.

Since the original came out over a decade ago, it had a bit of an old-school feel by today’s standards, but thanks to the retro boom in genre fiction, it had attracted quite a few readers. His older sister was one of them.

‘It wasn’t really my thing…’

Satin recalled the plot of Dark Age, which he’d read on his sister’s recommendation.

The main character was Cain—a twenty-year-old man with blond hair and blue eyes. He was a squire in a knight order, and the beginning of the story gave a brief overview of his past.

When Cain was sixteen, he’d been captured by a cruel dark mage and was on the verge of becoming a test subject. Just then, the Temple Knights stormed the place, and in the chaos, a fire broke out.

Cain barely escaped with his life amidst the pandemonium. That experience made him admire knights, and he tried to join the Temple Knights himself—but, unfortunately, he had no talent for divine magic, so he ended up joining a different order instead.

The main storyline that followed from that setup was fairly straightforward—classic adventure fantasy. In short:

One day, a wandering mage appears in Cain’s city, claiming, “I’ve found traces of the dark mage,” and seeks help from the Temple Knights. Her name is Rita.

The Temple Knights dismiss her concerns, assuming it’s just remnants from the dark mage they already took down.

Desperate, Rita ends up meeting Cain, who introduces her to his friend Edward, a cleric. The three team up and begin chasing the dark mage’s trail.

‘And the one they end up finding is Satin.’

Satin is the dark mage’s disciple, seeking revenge for his master’s death. He’s been attacking small villages on the outskirts of the city, and eventually, he tries to summon the Demon King. It’s around then that the protagonist and his allies finally track him down.

‘So basically, Satin is the final boss of Part 1.’

Part 1 ends with Cain and his companions defeating Satin. In Part 2, it’s revealed that the Demon King’s summoning was still underway, despite Satin’s death.

‘Of course, they defeat the Demon King too.’

Satin had only read Part 1—he’d read it on his sister’s recommendation, but it hadn’t really been to his taste. He only knew the rest from reading online spoilers.

Rita, it turned out, was a runaway princess. After defeating the Demon King and earning national glory, Cain is offered her hand in marriage by the king—but he declines. At that point, the two are still just friends.

Part 3 centers on the descent of the Demon God, who senses the Demon King’s demise. Through the trials that follow, Cain and Rita’s relationship grows deeper until they finally marry at the end of Part 3.

‘It really is the archetypal adventure fantasy…’

If it were published today, it might’ve been titled something like: “I Defeated the Villain But LOL Turns Out He Was the Weakest of Them All.”

Satin had gone quiet, and Tim waved his hand in front of his face.

“What’s up with you?”

Cain had already passed by them and gone down the stairs without saying a word. He didn’t seem particularly close with Tim either, not even acknowledging his presence.

“It’s nothing. Which room is mine?”

“The last one down.”

Tim pointed to the southern room of the two facing each other. The one Cain had just come out of.

“…I’m rooming with Cain?”

“Yup.”

***

Satin had reached a conclusion.

This world really was the world of Dark Age. He’d followed Tim into the washroom, looked into the mirror—and knew.

Curly, seaweed-like black hair, dark eyes, and a soft-featured face with a somewhat indistinct impression—it was like the exact image of how Satin had been described in Dark Age.

‘A gentle-looking face, but one that always seems to be hiding something underneath.’

With the black hair and dark eyes, he bore a slight resemblance to ㅇㅇ (his real self), but the expression was different. Probably the result of different facial muscles.

He didn’t need to dwell too long on the question of why he’d ended up in Dark Age after asking to be sent into his sister’s novel.

‘My sister wrote Dark Age.’

There was a twelve-year age gap between ㅇㅇ and his sister. They’d grown up with very different cultural influences.

When Dark Age was first serialized, ㅇㅇ had been just a grade schooler, while his sister had already been an adult. It made sense—she was perfectly capable of writing and publishing a fantasy novel back then. A lot of fantasy authors at the time were college students, with even some high schoolers among them.

Most of those writers had since moved on to other careers. His sister was no exception. The reason she’d never mentioned publishing a fantasy novel probably wasn’t because she hadn’t written anything else—it was because she hadn’t written anything since Dark Age. She must’ve started thinking about it again while preparing the revised edition.

‘So that’s why she wanted me to read it.’

When the new edition began its serialization, she’d said it was really good and insisted he give it a shot. After he read Part 1 and said it wasn’t quite his style, she’d looked terribly disappointed.

‘I should’ve told her it was great.’

If he’d known she was the author, he would’ve read the whole thing to the end. But instead, he’d judged what might’ve been a masterpiece based on just the first part.

He could guess now why she always refused to let him read anything she was working on. She must’ve been embarrassed at the thought of him realizing she was the author of the book he’d casually dismissed as boring.

‘But wait, why did she describe Dark Age that way?’

She’d called it a story where someone defies fate and ultimately finds happiness. From what he’d read, that didn’t really seem to be the case.

‘Not the time to be complaining about that, though.’

Even if he kept mulling it over here, it’s not like his sister could hear him.

‘I should’ve just read it when she asked. I should’ve told her it was amazing.’

Caught up in regret, Satin barely paid attention while Tim continued giving him a tour of the school.

Just as Tim was explaining where the laundry room was, he asked with concern:

“Are you still not feeling well?”

Satin had earlier explained to the teacher that he’d hit his head and that’s why he was acting a little off. Since he was still looking dazed, Tim was starting to worry.

‘Come to think of it, I’ve never really spent time with kids this young before.’

As a twenty-year-old, ㅇㅇ rarely had any reason to talk with twelve-year-olds. He always thought of kids and the elderly as people you should protect—but he’d never really had the chance to act on that thought.

Not wanting to worry the kid, Satin gave him a gentle smile.