“Yes, being weak is a sin”, as soon as these words resounded in my ears I couldn’t help but feel a chill crawl down my spine.

I was terrified,

Extremely terrified but somehow managing to calm myself I once again look at the looming abyss in front of me only to find out that it was no abyss, rather it was the monster that I had created. It was the protagonist whom I had created.

***

The thing that I had mistaken for an abyss, in reality, was one of the two eyes of the protagonist.

Calming my beating heart I once again tried to look at the owner of the two eyes, it was the same man who had been sitting at the table, flirting with the 4 women from Amifa until just a moment ago whilst he continued to swiftly finish his food with no care about what was happening in the world. Honestly, I was a bit surprised when I got to witness his lack of empathy towards me, after all, I did remember making him to be a compassionate character, at least for the early parts of the novel.

This man, he was the protagonist of this novel, Adam Jenkins.

But right now there was something different about him and I am not talking about his behavior, no, rather it’s his physical appearance, his eyes that should have been blue had now changed to pitch-black, devoid of any and every emotion.

Just looking at him made my skin crawl.

‘This guy is dangerous’, my senses kept screaming and telling me to get away from him as soon as I could but try as I might I wasn’t even able to move a single inch away from him. It was as if my legs had no strength at all.

I was in a pinch, I didn’t know what to do at all!

There was a recurring feeling in my heart that today is going to be my last day in this world. I could literally feel the blood draining from my head as I found myself struggling to look away from Adam whose pitch-black eyes reflected my shivering figure perfectly. I looked exactly like a prey before its predator. My breathing started becoming rugged and heavy as the moments passed, not only that, a feeling of helplessness enveloped my entire being sending shivers down my spine and my entire body got drenched with cold sweat.

I wanted to scream for help but no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to open my mouth and register a scream. This was an experience straight out of a nightmare.

For a moment I thought that I am going to die, just like that, without even saying my last words but just as I was about to lose myself I heard a voice,

“Sir, if you want to do anything with him then please do it outside. Please don’t harm this place as it is my only source of income”, it was the adoptive father of this boy who said these cruel words like they were nothing while bowing his head in front of Adam.

This interruption caused Adam’s focus to shift on Gerund for a second so, taking advantage of the gap I jumped away from him and stood 2-3 meters away from him while gently holding my neck as the feeling of getting choked disappeared out of thin air.
The pressure that he had been exerting had decreased by a lot as well so I wasn’t that afraid now.

But regardless of the reduced pressure, I knew for sure that I will die if I dare to let my guard down for even an instant, no, actually even with my guard on I would probably die without even realizing how; that’s how powerful this man Adam was.

But why is he acting like this? Isn’t he supposed to have a gentle demeanor? Then why? Why has the plotline changed from what it was supposed to be? Did my reincarnation cause something unexpected to happen in this world?

But that doesn’t seem plausible either as I have only been in this world for around 6 months or so. And fearing that I might change the plotline too much I had never even set a foot away from this village. Then, what happened?

My mind was loaded with questions but I knew that it wasn’t time for that right now as I just saw Adam smirking at Gerund and making his way towards him.

Gerund, scared out of his wits tried to move from his position but unfortunately for him, it looked as if he had been immobilized by a spell as he wasn’t even able to move a single inch. His face was drenched with sweat and it looked as if he was almost about to faint.

It was then that my eyes met with his.

Gerund’s brown eyes seemed to be begging me for help, but much to his dismay I just smirked at him and diverted my attention to the main perpetrators of all of this drama, the four women from the Amifa sect!

The four of them, as if they had also been hit by Adam’s aura had their eyes fixed on him.

‘Should I take advantage of this and run?’, I thought but then dropped the idea almost instantaneously as I knew it would be almost impossible for me to run away from people like them who literally have the power to lift 100kgs boulders with their two hands let alone catching a novice like me.

So not caring about anything else I brought my attention back once again to Adam and found him standing just a few inches away from Gerund.

With his hands as pale as a piece of paper he held Gerund’s face in them and looked at him with eyes as dark as an endless abyss then brought his face even closer to Gerund’s and said in an almost inaudible voice, “Do you feel it? The fear in the air”

These words were enough.

Enough to send shivers down my spine.

The moment I heard Adam I couldn’t help but mutter the following words, “Ah~, I am screwed”, as I felt my life passing before me, I knew one thing for sure, today I am going to die.

Even though I didn’t say it out loud, the moment I realized my fate I decided to stop and watch everything to the end, who knows, I might actually survive.

“Aaaaahhhhhh!!!”, Gerund’s scream resounded in the surroundings as his I noticed his pupils shrink with fear.

Gerund’s unconscious body lay lying on the floor with his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his legs gave out.

Holding Gerund’s unconscious body with his two pale hands Adam suddenly turned his head towards me and looked at me with an indifferent expression on his face.

Letting go of Gerund he walked towards me with a complicated expression on his face and asked, “You aren’t afraid of me?”

To which I answered almost instantaneously, “I don’t know, I am not sure, honestly, I feel nothing right now, you get what I mean, right?”, I said as I looked at Adam.

The reason why I said these words was very simple, it was because I had carefully observed Adam from the time he had sat beside those 4.

At the first glance, someone might think that Adam was enjoying his chat with the 4 women from Amifa but if someone were to look closely at him and his eyes they would notice a certain ‘hollowness’ behind Adam’s cheerful features. It was as if he was trying to put up an act.

The moment I saw Adam I realized one very important thing about him, this guy is depressed!

Yes, that’s what I noticed.

That empty expression, those confused eyes that he would try his best to hide, and that emotionless face which he had been hiding behind a smile, all these things were enough proof for me to conclude that this guy was going through a bad phase.

Depression kills people from the inside and as someone who had gone through it in his past life, it was a no-brainer for me to pick out another depressed comrade in a crowd of fools.

Well coming back to the topic,

Looking at me with a somewhat surprised expression Adam slowly shook his head and once again looked at me. His pupils that had turned black once again converted back to their original blue color.

“Who are you?”, he asked me, in response to which I just smiled.

I knew for sure that lying wouldn’t help me here as Adam possessed the power to discern between what’s true and what’s false. In order to make him somewhat special, I gave him this ability when he was just a toddler.

Coming back to the present scenario,

Noticing my smile Adam’s face contorted into a frown and he said, “You are not Aziel, are you?”

Surprised that he knew my name I made sure to hide every trace of surprise from my face and I continued to look at him. I don’t know how he knew my new name without even me introducing myself to him but I knew for sure that staying silent is the only way out for me in this situation.

Perplexed, Adam closed his for a second before opening them once again and said, “Astaroth, tell me about him”.

His voice sounded like a devil’s whisper to me as all of a sudden I found myself breathing heavily. The reason I was in this condition was because of the name he just used, ‘Astaroth’!

***

Astaroth was one of the fallen angels who became a devil as he took part in the ‘War in Heaven’ from Lucifer’s side and rebelled against the God, thereby marking himself as his eternal enemy.

He is said to be one of the most intellectual devils and is also widely considered as the kindest of them all.

Astaroth also possesses vast knowledge about the world as he is known to be someone who loves to talk about creation, heavens, arts, and such with others.

He is also known to provide help and aid to those who are in need of help, given, that they don’t have any ulterior motives.

Astaroth is what someone would call a weirdo amongst the devils as contrary to his other comrades he doesn’t necessarily intend to harm humanity.

Astaroth is also said to have frequently made comments about his fall from the heavens as since his fall he has never shied away from rebutting against it. Since time immemorial he has always called it an act of injustice. On many occasions, he has also reported that in reality he did not fall of his own accord, and believes that his rightful place is in the heavens.

All in all, he could be considered a neutral if not good existence that doesn’t truly wish to harm humanity.

So by using these stories I designed the character of ‘Astaroth’ in my novel.
He was supposed to act in a similar way to that of a ‘system’ as in most of the manhwas and manhuas, and help the protagonist grow stronger with time.

The reasoning for Astaroth doing this was very simple, in my novel he wanted to return back to the heavens so he was given the task of leading the protagonist Adam to victory against the final boss of the novel ‘The King’, an almighty being with the aim of destroying the ‘God’.

God had given him this arduous task and Astaroth, in excitement to get back to his original place, the heavens, easily agreed to this proposal.

So coming back to the topic,

Adam possessed Astaroth, the ultimate cheat of this novel, that throughout the story helped him grow up and become invincible but there was one thing that I found to be extremely confusing. Why was it that Adam was able to use Astaroth right now? I mean Adam was supposed to get him like 3-4 months after this event.

Originally, around 3-4 months ahead of now Adam was supposed to go with his entire class on a trip to Levshala Mountains, a mountainous range of 100 mountains where a secret dungeon will be discovered around 2 months from now.

The purpose behind Adam and his class going there was very simple, to get some real-life experience by hunting the monsters that resided nearby the newly discovered dungeon.

But since Adam was the protagonist he couldn’t help but gather the ill-will of those around him. So as a consequence of that he ended up getting stabbed in the back by the ones he had entrusted himself to, his comrades.

Leaving Adam at death’s door all of his comrades left him all alone and reported to their teacher that Adam had died whilst venturing into the inner sanctums of the dungeon and that they had to leave him all by himself to save their lives.

It was at this time when Adam, having lost all hope, desperately held to his life. He tried to move, to call out to the teachers for help, but in the end, because of being impaled he couldn’t do anything. But just like the usual novel cliché plot, the moment Adam was about to die Astaroth activated on his own and healed Adam back to normal while also giving him the power of the system that provided him with an in-built inventory and also rewards that helped him grow up along the way.

The only downside to it was the ‘contract’ that Adam had to sign with Astaroth.

I decided to add the contract feature to make the ‘system’ seem more natural by representing it as an outcome of a devil contract, not something that came as a privilege to the protagonist out of thin air.

Although the contract wasn’t anything bad as it only entailed things like protection of each other’s interests, mutual cooperation, an agreement of no-harm between the two of them, etc. But still, being bound by a contract isn’t a good thing as it can, at times, lead the said person to trouble along the way.

Well, coming back to the topic,

There was one thing I was extremely confused about, how the hell did the events change their course?

Am I somehow making a mistake here? But I don’t think I have missed anything. Then how? And why?

‘No, right now isn’t the time to think about it. I should wait for a bit and observe this guy first’, shaking my head I came to a decision and continued to look at Adam.

He had a confused expression on his face as he kept on looking at me.

If I am not wrong, then I am sure that even someone like Astaroth must have been facing some problems in order to find out about me, as at the end of the day, I wasn’t someone from this world, no, I was the one who had created this world. All of these characters who are present around me are nothing but a product of my own imagination in the first place. So it’s obvious that even someone like Astaroth would have some difficulty finding out about me.

Adam continued to look at me with wary eyes while at the same time the 4 women also kept on looking at me with baffled expressions as if they weren’t able to figure out why Adam was giving so much attention to someone like me.

But the confused look on Adam’s face didn’t remain for too long as his expression suddenly turned cold and frigid and his body started radiating an unbelievable amount of Qi, the fundamental unit of power in this world.

I flinched in surprise at the spontaneous change in his aura. I was terrified to my core as I involuntarily started shaking and sweating. I was extremely afraid of the entity before me. I looked at the 4 women who stood not too far from me, they too were in the same position as they kept on looking at Adam’s back with expressions of awe, fear, envy, and lust.

But I didn’t have any time to pay any attention to them as the next words that Adam said made me almost faint on the spot,

“The Creator’s Apprentice!”, Adam spat with his eyes full of fury and his voice full of hatred.

I was confused by the words he said at first, but just a moment later when I thought about them once again a thought clicked in my mind,
‘The Creator’s Apprentice? Creator… could it be… that he has figured out that I am the one who has created this world? But how? Is Astaroth so strong that he was even able to figure out my identity?

But even if he was strong enough to discern something like that, why did use the word ‘apprentice’ in it, I mean shouldn’t I be just the Creator? Adding a word like ‘apprentice’ only leads me to believe that I may not be the only one who created this world! No, it actually seems like I didn’t create this world at all!’

My heart was in a panic. I knew for sure that something bad must’ve happened to this guy standing before me as at his core he is a very tolerant and soft person.

But what could’ve happened to him to have brought such a change to him!?

I was immersed in my thoughts when Adam once again spoke, “So you are one of them, hah?

So I was right! Something really did happen to him! Shit!

Trying my best to stabilize the situation I decided to step in but before I could even utter a single word Adam flicked his wrist casually and muttered just a single word, ‘Purgatorio’, the moment after which black flames got conjured from his hands and started eating everything in its vicinity.

The fire first fell on Gerund who was lying unconscious on the ground but before he could even manage to utter a single moan he had been completely devoured by the colossal black flames. Watching this I couldn’t help but step back in horror as I remembered the technique called Purgatorio that I had created as one of Adam’s strongest moves.

It was probably the strongest technique in my novel as I still hadn't written anything about the main villain apart from his goal.

The fire that devours everything.

This was the strength of this technique as it wouldn’t stop until it has completely devoured its target. This fire is immune to water or air, the only way this fire could be stopped is when the user calls it back, otherwise, it’s almost impossible to stop it.
It’s a pity that I had to stop the writing of my novel in the middle because of which I wasn’t able to properly explore the strengths and weaknesses of Purgatorio, otherwise, there might have been a way or two to deal with it.

Coming back to the present scenario, the fire kept on devouring anything and everything that it came into contact with. It was so strong that even things made up of metal weren’t spared from its vicious ability. Right now I was truly regretting giving the protagonist such a broken technique.

The fire was so vicious and ferocious that it didn’t even spare the four females from Amifa as they died while screaming in agonizing pain that was far above what a human could ever imagine.

Finishing everyone off Adam once again looked at me, his blue eyes had once again turned pitch black. His indifferent face sent shivers down my spine as I found myself falling to the ground.

I was scared, so scared that for a moment the only thing I wanted was for everything that was happening around me to end. I couldn’t care less if it all ended with my death, I just wanted everything to end in a moment. I expected Adam to finish me off in one swoop and be done with whatever he had wanted.

But contrary to my expectations Adam just knelt on the ground and looked me straight in the eyes. The expression he had was enough to tell me one thing, this guy has given up on everything.

He is just passing his time, he isn’t living he is just existing. I know I might sound somewhat metaphysical but what I am saying was the truth. This man Adam, he didn’t have any reason to live.

Adam stayed silent for a bit and just kept on looking at me with his dark abyss-like eyes in response to which I also kept on looking at him.

Giving me a faint smile Adam asked me in a somewhat soft voice, “You are clueless about what’s happening, aren’t you?”

Shaking my head I said, “Well, rather than clueless it’s more like I am confused”

Nodding his head as if understanding what I said Adam gave me a big smile and said, “I am sorry to do this, but I don’t have a choice”,

I was confused so I asked him, “What do you… kuhk!”, but before I could ever complete my sentence I felt a stabbing pain in my chest.

Turning my head downwards and looking at my chest I found a dagger stabbed deep inside it as the clothes I had been wearing were completely drenched with my blood. Touching my clothes I tried to look to remove the dagger but to no avail, I wasn’t even able to move it an inch.

My vision started getting blurry with time as I found myself gradually losing my ability to hear, followed by smell, and lastly the sensation of touch. I felt as if I was floating in the air and my vision gradually blackened with time.

But there was one thing that I found to be odd; I wasn't afraid at all.

Yes, there was no fear of death in my heart.

As I saw my life passing right before my very eyes, I didn't feel any fear or sadness.

No, it was as if I wasn't watching my own death but rather someone else's. Honestly, I was a bit baffled as to how could I be so indifferent and composed as I was dying, a lingering thought that I will finally be free from all the headaches and tension about surviving that had kept me going on and on for the last 6 months provided me the much-needed comfort that my soul had been begging for.

To be honest, the moment those 4 women from Amifa arrived at the establishment, even though it might seem that I was trying to survive, in reality, a part of my mind couldn't help but think, 'Ah I will finally be free', as I looked at the 4 of them sitting across the table acting all high and mighty.

Perhaps I think this way because I don't think this body and life are mine or perhaps I am just too tired of carrying on, honestly, even I don't know.

But now that I have been enveloped by this darkness, this numbness, and this loneliness, these things don't really seem that bad to me at all.

I guess death shouldn't be that bad either.