The Author's POV

[Leviathan building, Lock.]

Bang—!

Kevin hastily entered his room, smashing the door against the side of the wall.

"Goddamn it, Where is that book?!" He repeatedly muttered out loud in haste.

Dashing towards his room, Kevin ran up to his bookshelf and threw all the books down from it as he looked for the red book.

[01 : 37 minutes]

With the timer by the side of his vision, Kevin couldn't be any more worried.

He was running out of time.

"Here it is!"

Finally, after getting rid of most of the books on the bookshelf, Kevin found the red book and placed it on the table.

Without wasting any second, he opened the book towards the last page and started reading.

"I…will…kill…you!"

Before Ren could even react, Durara aimed her staff in his direction. What followed after was a bright white light that shot in his direction, and time froze.

…Or, at least, Ren wished for it to have stopped.

Shooting at him like an unstoppable tsunami, the bright light came towards him, enveloping his entire body.

Although he couldn't tell for real, Ren felt his whole existence disappear like that.

…It all happened too fast.

What followed after the white glow was total darkness.

"Oh shit…"

Staring at the book, Kevin's face paled considerably, his arms trembled in shock. His knees buckled slightly and he uncontrollably sat down on his chair.

'The system was right… Ren really did die… This…not again…'

"What do I do, what do I do?"

Flipping through the pages of the book, Kevin had no idea about what to do next.

The system said that he had to change the outcome, but…Ren was nowhere near him! How was he supposed to help?

"How am I supposed to do this!?" Kevin shouted in desperation as he looked at the system interface in front of him.

The Quest said to use the time codex, but what exactly was that? It was the red book, wasn't it...? But, how was he supposed to use it?

He had no idea.

"System!" Kevin shouted, his voice filled with urgency and helplessness as he tried asking the system for help.

But it was useless. No matter how much Kevin asked, the interface wouldn't respond to him.

The only thing he saw was the timer slowly ticking down on him.

"Shit…shit…"

Kevin's voice echoed in the room as he flipped the book around and tried to look for anything that could help him.

At the moment, Kevin did not know how to help Ren, nor did he know how to prevent the world from ending if the demon king truly descended in two years' time as the system told him.

It had never lied to him before, so he knew that if he didn't save Ren, the demon king would truly descend in two years' time.

Even though he had many questions to ask, such as how Ren's death was correlated to the demon king's ascension, Kevin had no time for such questions.

"Ahh… Just what I am supposed to do...?" Kevin muttered as a helpless expression appeared on his face. He wanted to do something-anything-to help Ren. But what?

Ding—

Just as Kevin was about to succumb to despair, a familiar chime rang in his ears.

lifted his head and a new window popped up

him flipped open and a golden

pages of the book continued to flip rapidly, until, finally, stopping at the last page. A message window appeared in

was one

wish to

"Yes…yes!"

nodded

"Change!"

He said out loud.

enveloping the book brightened up considerably, forcing Kevin to raise his hand to block

It was blinding.

Ding—

rang, and the window in front of him

do you

"Ren's death."

quickly answered, his

Ding—

too vague and the user does not

dashed as the glow around the book diminished slightly and a new interface popped up in

"Bullshit!"

Bang—!

frustration as his fist

"Huff...huff..."

to calm

a short

second mattered, and the more time he wasted the less

is too vague... not enough

Kevin quickly analyzed the two sentences that appeared on the

it also says that my

his skill activated, Kevin's thought process was quick. In a matter of a short second, he had carefully analyzed the

two short seconds passed, Kevin lifted his head and looked at

"94%? Haa... That's go—"

certain sentence written in the

'What if...'

suddenly popped up inside of his mind as he

eyes scanned the whole text in a lightning-fast manner as

"Ukh!"

suddenly let out a pained groan. The more he read, the greater his headache

think and process things at a rate far higher than normal, it also came with downsides. One such

two pages, the pain in his

had tried to

The pain was agonizing.

mental strength, he

"Haaa…haaa…"

breathing became

reading fifteen pages, he was able to understand what

the book down, and placing his palms by the desk, Kevin supported his exhausted

So you're basically trying to shut down the dampening system so that you can gain access to the portal. If so, if that 94% changed to 100% you'd survive, right?

racking his brains over the matter, it was the most plausible solution he

[00 : 35 seconds]

seeing that time was slowly running out,

Kevin glanced at the system interface

the

concise, straight to the point. He didn't want to be rejected once more for being too vague in his

Ding—

his head, and a new

invalid. User does

Kevin's heart sank completely.

enough mana...? Is my mana still n-not enough? What is the amount of mana required in order to change

question, but contrary to his expectations, the system

Ding—

[C rank.]

out in a

surprise only lasted for a brief second as his brows then

was because he was still

rank would increase within

his forehead, Kevin started to

my current condition. What do—Ah!

seemed hopeless, Kevin suddenly remembered