Chapter 337

Looking at his own death notice posted on the official website, Su Bei couldn’t help but sigh. He had wanted to publicly fake his death, but wasn’t this a bit too much? Would a normal Ability user’s death even be announced by the government?

However, Meng Huai clearly had his own thoughts on the matter: “On the surface, you died to eliminate Nightmare Beasts. Such a deed is worthy of being announced, and it also helps convince the Nightmare Beasts that you’re truly dead, doesn’t it?”

What he said seemed to have some merit, so Su Bei stopped dwelling on it. In any case, he had already had the Manga Consciousness cover his tracks, and with an ability item from the ‘Destiny’ organization called “Without a Trace,” no one would be able to find him, no matter how powerful an ability they used to investigate.

With that matter settled, it was time to start his journey!

But before the trip—

“What’s the point of hiding it from me? I’m sure among the next batch of tourists who come in, some will be willing to tell me,” Su Bei said unhurriedly as he packed his luggage.

He believed that whatever the Manga Consciousness knew, the wealthy readers who came to sightsee would also know. Since they could talk freely, it shouldn’t be hard for him, as a popular character, to get some information from his own fans.

If all else failed, he could even incite his fans to act as his proxies. He couldn’t go to the real world to beat up the author, but his fans in the real world certainly could, right?

This internal monologue was not hidden from the Manga Consciousness. Hearing it, its heart went cold, and it wished it could go back in time and give itself a sound beating for telling Su Bei he could talk to the readers.

“Don’t be like this,” the Manga Consciousness said in distress. “Although the author is indeed irresponsible toward the world, doesn’t care about its balance, wants to kill you, and only thinks about making money… Ah, dammit, if I keep talking like this, I’ll want to beat him up myself!”

When it first tried to persuade him, Su Bei had actually been a little angry. Because Su Bei wasn’t joking; he really did want to beat up the author.

The essence of all the hardships he had endured was brought about by the author. Although from the author’s perspective, he wasn’t entirely without innocence. In a shonen manga, cannon fodder characters were bound to appear; it was unavoidable.

But if the author was innocent, then wasn’t he pitiful? He was the one who had been suffering all along! What was wrong with beating up the author after everything was said and done?

However, hearing the Manga Consciousness talk itself into a corner, Su Bei couldn’t help but want to laugh. “Yeah, he deserves a beating. I’m just going to beat him up, not break his limbs or kill him. Don’t you think he needs to be taught a lesson?”

“But the author is, after all, the true master of this world,” the Manga Consciousness said, troubled. “Besides, aren’t you worried he’ll start retaliating against you after getting beaten up?”

In fact, it was also worried that after being beaten, the author would retaliate against the world itself. After all, they were all at the mercy of the author’s pen. If he suddenly went crazy, none of them could stop him.

That was indeed a problem, but Su Bei had already thought about it. “It’s fine. I can threaten him while I’m beating him up. If he continues to target me, I’ll just keep beating him.”

Manga Consciousness: “…”

It said with difficulty, “You’re a 2D character, after all. You only have one chance to go to the real world.”

“Then I’ll threaten him that if he continues to target me, I’ll make his protagonist go offline,” Su Bei said with his arms crossed, completely serious. “I think if I asked Jiang Tianming and the others to drop out of the academy, there’s a good chance they’d agree.”

It was more than just a good chance; they would agree 100% of the time, okay? If they might have hesitated before, after the incident where Su Bei faked his death for them, the Manga Consciousness knew that Jiang Tianming and the others’ trust in Su Bei had reached its peak. As long as Su Bei said dropping out was good for them, they absolutely wouldn’t hesitate.

Crap. For a moment, it couldn’t tell who was more destructive to this world, Su Bei or the author. A world without its protagonist would definitely fall into chaos.

“What if he decides to destroy this manga world?” the Manga Consciousness asked hesitantly.

Su Bei shrugged. “Didn’t he put the World Cornerstone in here?”

A single sentence to wake the dreamer!

Right, the author had already fused the World Cornerstone with ‘King of Abilities’. If he destroyed the manga now, the Cornerstone wouldn’t return, which would be a massive loss. So the author would never do that. It had worried for nothing.

“Wait a moment. I’ll go check the situation. If the author is… um… not too resistant to the idea of being beaten up by you, I’ll tell you how to get to the real world,” the Manga Consciousness finally said after a long hesitation.

It was the consciousness of this world, but also a sliver of the author’s subconscious. As the subconscious, it could influence the author’s thoughts, and naturally, it could also perceive them.

Su Bei wasn’t in a hurry and continued packing his luggage. This trip would last half a year, so clothes, shoes, toiletries, charging cables, power banks… he had to bring everything he needed. Although he had money and could buy whatever he lacked on-site, it was never as convenient as bringing his own things.

Just as he closed his suitcase and was zipping it up, the Manga Consciousness finally returned. “I can tell you, but you absolutely cannot cause any physical harm to the author, nor can you injure his hands. Um… it would be best not to hit his face either.”

Su Bei immediately laughed, a laugh of exasperation. He refused without hesitation, “Everything else is fine, but not hitting the face is a no-go. What’s the point of hitting someone if you don’t hit their face? That’s exactly what I’m going for this time.”

He was going to beat the author’s face into a pulp.

Manga Consciousness: “…”

With a long sigh, it felt that life was difficult and couldn’t be bothered to argue anymore. “I’ll arrange it for you. You just pick a time. But let me remind you, once you’re in the real world, you’ll just be a normal person. You won’t have your ability, Mental Energy, or the physical enhancements from your ability. Most importantly, you can only exist in physical form in the real world for one hour. When the time is up, you’ll be automatically recalled.”

One hour was a bit short. After all, Su Bei wasn’t just going out to beat up the author; he also genuinely wanted to see the real world. However, it was more than enough time to beat up a normal person. He couldn’t ask for too much.

Su Bei was very satisfied with the automatic recall. Perhaps because he lived in a manga world, he had a bit of PTSD about time-limited things. If it weren’t an automatic recall, he’d genuinely worry that some accident would prevent him from returning in time.

After all, he was a protagonist, too. Protagonists were destined to face all sorts of accidents.

That’s right. Although the thought was a bit cringey, Su Bei genuinely considered himself a protagonist. He was already an anime character, so what was wrong with having some cringey thoughts? Given the dramatic plot twists he had experienced, it had to be the treatment reserved for a protagonist! Su Bei just didn’t know if he was the protagonist of a fix-it fanfiction or the protagonist of an original story.

But that didn’t matter. No matter what, he was 100% the protagonist of his own life.

Su Bei quickly made a decision. “Tomorrow afternoon. The author will definitely be awake by then, right? Just send me right in front of him. I’ll handle the rest.”

It’s because it’s being left to you that I’m worried. The Manga Consciousness felt like it had been infected by Lan Subing, unable to control its urge to retort. And it was just a consciousness.

The next afternoon, Su Bei traveled light, ready to depart for the real world. When the Manga Consciousness said it would arrange things, it really did. All the materials were prepared for him. Of course, traveling to the real world wasn’t simple. He needed to create a magic array himself and then get the Manga Consciousness’s approval before he could leave.

Normally, one would use an array to summon the Manga Consciousness, obtain permission to leave the world, and then use a new array to send oneself out.

But he had already completed the second step, so he only needed to proceed to the third.

“Wait, is this array for real?” Seeing the blueprint sent by the Manga Consciousness, Su Bei’s initial excitement instantly cooled, replaced by a sense of absurdity.

He had thought that an array capable of teleporting someone from a manga to the real world would be something profound and grand, at least looking like the ones Lei Ze’en often used.

But as it turned out, while the rest of the array’s patterns were complex and mysterious, the symbol in the center was clearly a middle finger!

Su Bei: “?”

“Seriously? Who designed this array? Who is it flipping off?” Su Bei stopped what he was doing and asked, his face full of confusion.

“Don’t stop!” Seeing him about to lift the pen from the ground, the Manga Consciousness quickly interjected. “This array must be drawn in a single, continuous stroke. If you stop now, all your previous effort will be wasted.”

Su Bei continued drawing while asking, “So what’s the deal? Who designed this array?”

“It was designed by the female protagonist of a novel world, an expert in arrays, to break out of her novel world. The middle finger… um, you can interpret it as her attitude toward that world.”

Hearing this, Su Bei’s brow relaxed, and the motion of his hand drawing the array sped up considerably. “Then I can only say she’s a person of great taste. This world indeed deserves a middle finger.”

After finishing the drawing, Su Bei stood in the center of his array as instructed by the Manga Consciousness. The array lit up with a yellow glow and gradually rose above Su Bei’s head. Then, a large hand made of energy reached out from the array, grabbed Su Bei like a doll, and tossed him upward.

Su Bei felt something pulling him up on a spiritual level. In just a few seconds, he experienced the magical sensation of an out-of-body experience. Everything seemed to become blurry yet clear, and his mind felt cool and empty, unable to form any thoughts.

Then he felt his soul slowly descending, finally landing in an unfamiliar room.

Landing silently on the ground without making a sound, Su Bei looked up and observed quietly. It was a bedroom with light blue walls and matching curtains and bedsheets. On the wall hung a poster of an anime character Su Bei didn’t recognize, along with various manuscripts. There was a large group portrait of many people, which depicted all the students of S-Class and Meng Huai.

But Su Bei wasn’t in it.

Su Bei wasn’t surprised by this. He was never a character designed by the author, so of course he wouldn’t appear in the original concept manuscript for the group portrait. The only thought in his mind right now was, “I’m in the right place! This is the room of the author of ‘King of Abilities’!”

His gaze shifted to the side. Not far from the bed was a computer desk, and sitting in front of it was a man with black hair, black eyes, and black-rimmed glasses. Since the man’s back was to him, Su Bei couldn’t see his face.

The man was engrossed in his drawing, sketching a few lines before picking up a coffee cup beside him for a sip, looking like a coffee addict. Thanks to his height advantage, Su Bei easily saw what he was drawing: the scene of his own return to the academy.

Without a doubt, this person was the author Su Bei was looking for.

Su Bei didn’t waste any time. He patted the author’s shoulder, then crossed his arms and watched him leisurely.

The author first frowned in annoyance and turned his head, seemingly to see who was disturbing him. But his body immediately froze as he remembered this was his bedroom. Logically, no one else should be here.

Who could have snuck into his room so silently? A ghost?

In just an instant, the author felt cold sweat beading on his forehead. But his body was already turned, and turning back to hide it would be pointless. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and raise his eyes to look at the strange yet familiar blond young man who had suddenly appeared behind him.

Seeing the author’s dumbfounded expression, Su Bei grinned maliciously and asked, “Do you know who I am?”

As he spoke, he was also observing this face that bore a thirty percent resemblance to Jiang Tianming.

To be honest, Su Bei hadn’t expected the author to resemble Jiang Tianming, but on second thought, it was understandable. Jiang Tianming was the first protagonist the author had created; it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call him the author’s own son. It made perfect sense for them to look a little alike.

Visually, the author seemed to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight. That was still quite young for a manga author, at least younger than Su Bei had imagined. He had thought the man would be an uncle in his forties.

Although he looked a bit like Jiang Tianming, his overall appearance was much more average. He had a very ordinary face, the kind that would disappear in a crowd.

After seeing his face, unexpectedly yet reasonably, the author quickly calmed down and said hesitantly, “Su Bei?”

With such a distinctive personal style, it was hard for the author, who was currently drawing this very character, not to guess who he was.

Honestly, his first reaction was that an obsessive Su Bei fan had cosplayed as him to come and kidnap him.

But he quickly realized that he had never revealed his personal information online, so even if fans wanted to find him, they couldn’t. Besides, what kind of cosplay could be so realistic? Hair, eyes, and clothes could be faked, but this face couldn’t possibly be fake, right?

A face as handsome as a super popular guy’s, and it was seventy to eighty percent similar to the Su Bei in the manga. He wasn’t completely ignorant about the manga world, so a guess immediately formed in his mind.

“It’s me.” Seeing that he had actually guessed, Su Bei asked directly, “Do you know what I’m here for?”

“No, the more important question right now is how you got out, isn’t it?” The author, finally processing the situation, asked in a bit of a breakdown, “How could you materialize here? Has the world betrayed me?”

As an author, and a very popular one at that, he knew a great deal about his created world. The matter of a character coming from a small world to the real world, much like a character like Su Bei who had completely escaped the author’s control, was rare but not unheard of.

Because a character like Su Bei had appeared in his work, he had researched many related cases and thus learned a lot of niche knowledge about created worlds, so his reaction was naturally quick.

As far as he knew, for a character to come to the real world, they had to have the consent of that world’s consciousness. And generally, the world consciousness of a work was inextricably linked to the author, equivalent to a projection of the author’s own consciousness.

Now, his own projection had betrayed him. How could he accept that?

The reason he said it had betrayed him was, of course, because Su Bei had materialized in physical form. If it had been a phantom, the author wouldn’t have been worried. But a physical materialization… this made him have to worry about his own safety.

Understanding his underlying meaning, Su Bei sneered. He wrapped his left hand around his clenched right fist, cracking his knuckles. “Looks like you know what kind of bastard things you’ve done.”

If he didn’t know he was in the wrong, a normal author wouldn’t be so afraid of a character from their work appearing in the real world. Even if it was an unexpected character like him.

After all, unless it was someone who broke through the world’s barrier, anyone let out by the world consciousness would certainly be someone it deemed harmless to the author. After all, if the author died, the work would most likely be doomed.

Yet, even knowing that Su Bei had been let out by the Manga Consciousness, the author was still trembling. It was clear he was self-aware enough to know what unscrupulous things he had done, which was why he was so afraid.

Sure enough, after he said this, the author immediately averted his eyes, a guilty expression on his face.

Su Bei nodded in satisfaction. “Then I can rest assured. I don’t have time for explanations anyway.”

With that, he threw a punch.

“Ah—”

As it turned out, even without a powerful physique, ability, or Mental Energy, it was a piece of cake for Su Bei to beat up a shut-in. He barely used any force and already had the author beaten black and blue on the ground.

He didn’t break his promise to the Manga Consciousness either. He didn’t cause any internal injuries or wounds that would take a long time to heal, and he deliberately avoided his hands. Only the face… left hook, right hook, uppercut, down-punch, elbow strike, kick… it could be said it experienced every kind of attack.

“So weak.” After ten minutes of this, he knew any more would cause real trouble. Su Bei executed a back-drop, slamming the man to the ground, and then nonchalantly sat on his back.

Beating up a normal person was really boring. Not only was there no fun in a real fight, but he couldn’t even use his full strength. Even as a normal person, Su Bei’s natural strength was considerable. Combined with his skills, if he really went all out, he was afraid the author would be beaten to death.

“Ow! You… Hiss! How dare you hit me? I’m… Hiss! I’m the manga author!” the author snarled, wincing in pain. In his current state, it was hard for him to look intimidating.

Su Bei said nonchalantly, “If you want to break your promise and retaliate, I’ll just make your protagonist exit the stage early.”

Just as he had said before, the author wouldn’t destroy this manga, so he couldn’t possibly act against Su Bei under this threat. Otherwise, the losses would far outweigh the gains.

After giving the author a sound beating and seeing his swollen, pig-like face, Su Bei felt a wave of relief. It felt as if all the frustration that had built up for so long had vanished completely.

“I… Hiss!” The author tried to speak but sucked in a sharp breath because of the cut on his lip. He still forced himself to finish, “I would never… Hiss! Go back on my word… Hiss!”

He was a man of principle; he wouldn’t go back on a decision once it was made. Besides, he had just screwed Su Bei over. Even though he was an unexpected character, he had suffered an undeserved disaster this time. Although the author was angry about being beaten, he felt it was justifiable and wouldn’t be so classless as to renege on their deal.

Su Bei raised an eyebrow. “Then the Manga Consciousness really doesn’t know you well enough. It was scared to death.”

“Scared to death, but it still let you come, didn’t it?” After catching his breath for a moment, feeling a bit better, he retorted sarcastically, “We’re even now. From now on, stay out of my manga.”

“You think I want to be in it?” Su Bei shot back without courtesy. “And what do you mean, ‘even’? Did I try to kill you multiple times? Besides, I was the one who came up with the method to completely eradicate the Nightmare Beasts. I won the bet. Don’t you think you owe me a lot?”

That hit the nail on the head. The author was in the wrong. A hint of complaint flickered in his eyes, which were swollen into slits. He muttered under his breath, “Why did the world consciousness tell you everything?”

He quickly pulled himself together. “If you want to participate in the upcoming plot, I can accept that, as long as…”

“While participating in the plot, I want a death-exemption gold medal from you, and a custom-tailored growth plan,” Su Bei said, sensing his guilt and making an outrageous demand without hesitation.

The author immediately refused. A lazy person like him would never do something so troublesome. “Isn’t that asking for too much?”

Instantly understanding his bottom line, Su Bei said pretentiously, “Then I’ll reluctantly just take the death-exemption gold medal.”

He could figure out a growth plan on his own; the death-exemption medal was the real necessity.

“So that’s your real goal…” The author gave him a dead-fish stare, but he knew he really did owe Su Bei a big favor. It was one thing when Su Bei was in the manga, but now the guy had chased him into the real world to collect his debt. Refusing now would go against his principles.

“Fine, I agree. Can you get lost now?” After accepting his demand, the author said irritably. All he wanted now was for Su Bei to get the hell back to the manga and leave him with a peaceful space to write.

Getting a satisfactory answer, Su Bei got up from him and glanced at the time. “I can still be here for over half an hour. Take me out for a walk.”

“Me?” The author didn’t need a mirror to know what he looked like right now. “In your dreams.”

He would absolutely not go out with this face.

That was expected. Su Bei didn’t push him. “Then I’ll go out by myself. Are there any precautions I should take?”

Before the author could reply, he added a warning, “You’d better think carefully before you speak. If I break the law out there, you’ll be the first one I snitch on.”

Author: “…”

The threat was indeed effective. Letting a character from a fictional world materialize without prior authorization was something you could go to jail for.

After thinking for a moment about the worldview within ‘King of Abilities,’ he quickly thought of something he had to warn Su Bei about. “After you go out, don’t touch anything that might contain a fictional work, like TVs, screens, game consoles… all of those could suck you in.”