Chapter Text
Manga Consciousness stared down at the form of the prone Su Bei laying in the bed from an omniscient overhead perspective. He wanted to share the good news. The author has completely given up on targeting Su Bei this time! From now on, he was a completely free man. As long as he didn’t deliberately destroy the plot, he would no longer be subject to any restrictions from the manga!
But his words were pointless. Unable to be passed on to the intended recipient.
There had been a 90% chance of success. Between the Life-Saving Puppet and the Life Stone, while Su Bei’s actions had been risky, the vast likelihood had been for a complete recovery, though it would take at least six months for him to regain his powers.
The problem was, Su Bei had never been lucky. Generally the opposite. Even though his luck had had time to return to “normal” after so much time had passed from his original intended death, the fact was that normal for him was also not good. Why else would the author have picked him as cannon fodder in the first place?
With the help of the items, his body had reformed, and even rejuvenated. He looked fine, almost as if merely sleeping. But the last, final step failed. His spirit did not reconnect with his body.
Su Bei was dead.
Of course, he wasn’t actually necessary anymore. Manga Consciousness’s 3% gamble had paid off. Humanity in this universe was saved. Manga Consciousness and all of the story protagonists and people of this world would now continue. The story could have a good ending.
For everyone except him.
But even for Su Bei, he was someone who would have died anyway, without Manga Consciousness’s interference, and had instead lived for two more years. As someone much more powerful, even. The weak Gear Ability changed to the powerful Destiny Gear. F class to S class. Cannon fodder to hero.
Su Bei never wanted to be a hero. He never wanted great powers. He just wanted to open a hardware store. Maybe travel the world here and there. To have his freedom from the author, and from Manga Consciousness.
And to live.
No.
This wasn’t right.
If Manga Consciousness had a head, he would have shaken it.
The world owed him. The author owed him. Manga Consciousness owed him.
He reached out to the author’s mind. The manga was about to be posted, but this could not be included. It couldn’t. He could feel the panels of the manga, so close to being completed. Su Bei’s sacrifice, displayed in all of its glory. The tearful breakdowns of Jiang Tianming and the others. And then, the last scene of this plot. Manga Consciousness stretched out his influence as deeply as he could. The image for the author to draw. The camera landing on the place where Su Bei disappeared. On the ground, a doll that was seven or eight parts similar to him could be vaguely seen, mostly covered by a pile of stones.
End of chapter.
His efforts paid off, and the manga chapter was posted including the scene he desired. Manga Consciousness couldn’t actually breath, but he let out a mental sigh of relief. If the readers noticed that doll, they’d think Su Bei was still alive. If enough of them believed…
But it wasn’t enough to wait and hope. 80% of the forum was needed to change reality. A single hint, with nothing else to back it up, wouldn't be enough.
So Manga Consciousness was just going to have to give them more.
With some trepidation, Manga Consciousness returned to his place within Su Bei’s brain, where he had been connected to Su Bei over the past two years. But this time, he increased his connection, taking the place of the missing spirit.
In all the body had been dead for merely seconds. No hospital or doctor would have yet given up. It was not long enough to cause permanent damage. That still left room for hope. Under Manga Consciousness’s influence, the brain functions resumed. Heart beating. Blood pumping. Lungs breathing air.
The body was frozen. It wouldn’t move!
For a moment, Manga Consciousness panicked before remembering the side effects from the Life-Saving Puppet. Three days of helplessness, unable to move.
That was fine. Su Bei had given him 2 years. He could wait out 3 days, keeping the body functions living.
It wasn’t easy.
Manga Consciousness had never experienced hunger or thirst before. The physical desires for substance plagued him, gnawing at Su Bei’s stomach,a feeling passed on to the possessing being. Objectively, he knew that this body was that of an Ability User, well capable of handling such hardship. Such knowledge didn’t help.
But eventually, he withstood the time period and found himself able to move.
At which point, a new problem revealed itself.
Crash!
The porcelain mug shattered in his hand, spilling water and shards of porcelain everywhere.
Manga Consciousness had never taken on physical form before. In helping to create the background of the Destiny organization, he’d occasionally taken on the illusion of the Leader’s black robed form as designed by Su Bei. He’d modified memories and objects, and even used the notebooks that had become the communication method of the organization. Not the same. First, that was in the past with his powers being supported by forum belief and second, all of his interactions were different from actually having a physical body.
Moving was difficult. He stumbled around Su Bei’s home as he made his way to the kitchen to get something to eat and drink. With the strength of an Ability User, his clumsiness did damage to the surroundings, breaking a doorframe, knocking a hole in one wall, putting a dent into the door of the refrigerator, and now shattering the mug he was trying to drink from. Silently apologizing to Su Bei in his mind, Manga Consciousness made a note to himself to find a way to cover for the costs of the damages later.
Eventually, he was able to eat the cup noodles the non-cooking Su Bei had available for emergency sustenance and relieve the urgency of his stomach. He then slowly, laboriously, cleaned up the worst portions of the mess he'd created. This accomplished, he made his way with slightly better agility towards the bathroom, where, after taking care of physical and cleanliness needs, he stared into the mirror.
It was Su Bei’s face, but it didn’t look like him. His demeanor was wrong. Su Bei always gave off a graceful, cool vibe, slightly dangerous and lazy. The body controlled by Manga Consciousness… looked like a zombie stumbling about. Practice might improve things, but there was also the face to consider. The expression was off. Worse, it looked… blank. Manga Consciousness tried to smile and the shape of the lips somehow looked tortured. Almost like someone was physically forcing the corners of his lips to raise.
He’d thought to appear in front of the manga protagonists, thus proving Su Bei’s survival, then simply wait for the next manga update to make it a reality. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, however, he realized this wouldn’t work. He couldn’t fake being Su Bei. If anyone got a look at him like this, they’d immediately conclude some sort of possession. Or worse. Fortunately, Manga Consciousness was able to prevent his stumbling movements so far from being seen by the author, or he might have already blown his chances at convincing the forum that Su Bei was alive and well.
That just meant plan A had to be discarded, however. In the course of being unable to move while needing to stay within Su Bei’s body to keep it alive, Manga Consciousness had thought of a back up plan.
He pulled out the Transformation Mask (Fake) from Su Bei’s storage ring and put it on, taking the appearance of the black robed Destiny Leader. The disguise stretched out Su Bei’s form, becoming a tall, relatively thin figure, body completely enveloped in a black robe, which also served to hide much of its finer details and movements. The face was a mass of black mist, not even revealing eyes, let alone an expression.
“This should work,” Manga Consciousness spoke out loud. It was, unmistakably, Su Bei’s voice. He tried again. And again.
“This is impossible! How does he modify his voice like that?”
In frustration, Manga Consciousness mentally checked Destiny’s stored items. Finding something that would suit his needs, he pulled out the red notebook that gave physical access to those items and used Su Bei’s Destiny points to purchase a voice changing device. The device had limited settings, but Manga Consciousness was an old hand at making reasonable modifications to items. After a few tweaks, he was able to produce the aged voice matching what Su Bei had used when taking the form of Destiny’s Leader in the past.
A bit more practice moving around and finally he was satisfied. He might not be able to fool others using Su Bei’s appearance, but Manga Consciousness felt confident that this form he could successfully manage.
Especially if he made generous use of invisibility potions to cover any time of extended movement.
In addition, within certain limits, he could create items. Having had access to the Fixed-Point Teleportation device in the past, Manga Consciousness created several new copies of the item, each of course excluding the flaw that pinged the original creator the location upon use. One he set to return to his current location. Another, he cheated with, giving it a previous setting to a spot within the school. Unfortunately, even though the setting was successfully placed, it still wouldn’t work. The school had protections specifically against such forms of entry. Breaking that stretched probability too thin.
After a moment, he thought of a solution.
Using the Destiny notebook, he sent a request to Principal Wu Di to allow access to his office so they could meet in person. As expected, after only a brief delay, the principal of Endless agreed.
Manga Consciousness took a deep breath. He could do that currently. The show was about to begin.