A person is born with an inherent essence.
Some call it temperament, others call it talent.
Ludger decided to call it essence.
And Ludger believed that this thing called essence was something that did not change.
He believed that every person had some immovable foundation that could never be altered.
Of course, it could change.
If one dismantled every component of their own mental structure, piece by piece, and rebuilt it from scratch, perhaps it could be done.
But the process would involve unbearable hardship and pain, something most people could not endure.
In the end, people could not change.
The reason Ludger thought so pessimistically was because this world had been built that way from the very beginning.
To be precise, this beautiful garden built by the gods changed the moment it fell into the hands of Lumenis.
Lumenis isolated this beautiful garden and turned it into a giant birdcage.
The god wanted the world to remain unchanging, exactly as it was.
To preserve the beauty he envisioned, he cut away the buds of possibility that might bloom in the future.
“And so, the beings living inside the cage had no choice but to face the fate and destiny they were born with.”
No matter how much they struggled, it was impossible.
Those who eventually broke bowed their heads to their fate.
The moment everything in the world was born, it was essentially given its ‘role.’
That was the law Lumenis created.
However, that law did not apply to everyone equally.
There were those who escaped the law. I was one of them.
Those whom the world called demons—Apostles of other gods.
In a way, they too lived trapped by their own purposes, but if they wished, they could make different choices.
Like the Great Demon Suruna, who sacrificed everything to save the Saintess even though she served another god.
The Holy Nation that received authority from Lumenis was the same. They used their powers to indulge selfish desires.
Even the Saintess rejected Lumenis’s will. Because of that, the Verdict Tablet left Bretus’s hands and wandered the world.
But those who could not escape the law had no choice but to live the fate they were given. Casey Selmore was the same.
Casey Selmore had always been destined to become the Azure of Water and to become a detective to eradicate evil.
If there was a turning point that made her change, it began when she met Ludger himself.
It sounds conceited to think this way, but I had a big influence on Casey Selmore.
Casey, who would have simply used her natural talent to solve unknown cases, ended up throwing her entire being into chasing James Moriarty.
From the moment she met Ludger, Casey chose a life that was not the life originally set for her.
Of course, she did not realize this herself.
Her surface-level reason for chasing Ludger was simply to arrest the mastermind who had caused all those crimes—James Moriarty.
But the more she dug into the truth of the cases, the more she encountered a world completely different from what she knew.
Hidden truths. Twisted good and evil. What is right and wrong.
She faced many trials. Sometimes she broke and fell into crisis.
Even so, Casey endured. Not by her own strength alone. Ludger’s influence was not absent there, either.
And now—
Casey Selmore showed him a life that was no longer that of a detective.
“It's funny for me to say this, but... isn’t this not even my job?”
“It’s our job.”
“Where exactly is the copyright supposed to be in all this?”
“Can you even claim copyright for something adapted from a real-life story? Besides, you changed the names. And that’s not the point.”
No, Ludger did think that was important.
But he gave up arguing and signaled for Casey to continue.
“I mean, yes, I had fun writing it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have written that much. It’s not like I wrote it thinking about publication. My sister did that without asking me.”
“Anyway, it became a massive hit. I still can’t believe it.”
“It’s weird for me to say this myself, but—don’t you read the newspaper? I’m an incredibly famous author!”
“Is that something you say to someone who lived for three years in a place more remote than an uninhabited island? I haven’t even stepped foot in a bookstore.”
“Anyway! I can’t live like this forever. Things have calmed down, so I should get back to my real profession. But people won’t leave me alone.”
He understood.
Her work had made an insignificant, small publishing house earn money on par with major corporations.
Would they really say “Alright then, good job,” if Casey simply declared she was ending it here?
When a goose that lays golden eggs says, I’m flying away now, no one waves happily from below.
Instead, they cling and beg, trying everything to keep the golden eggs coming.
Violence probably wasn’t an option anyway.
There were publishers who locked up disobedient authors and pressured them to write a minimum number of characters a day, using violence if they disobeyed.
Well, it was still an era where such barbarity existed.
But they could never do that to Casey.
Who in the world would dare try that on the Azure of Water?
Her older sister was also a mage with a color title and the head of a famous magical family.
So the publishers could only cling to Casey’s pants hem, crying and begging her to please, please continue.
“And do you know what pisses me off even more? My sister supported them and got in my way too.”
“Well, of course she would.”
Marias Selmore didn’t like her younger sister wandering around doing whatever she pleased.
A Casey at marrying age acting like that was bad for the family’s reputation.
That was why Casey had no choice but to make Ludger pretend to be her fiancé.
Although that had eventually been exposed.
“From the family head’s point of view, having a solid excuse to keep you within the family is unavoidable.”
“What? Are you taking my sister’s side now?”
Casey glared at Ludger with sharp eyes.
Ludger only shrugged and smiled faintly.
“So this is the result of that choice?”
“Yeah. If the protagonist dies, that’s that. The story ends on its own. What are they going to do about it? It’s over. The end.”
“But then it got printed in the newspaper. Loud and clear, in huge letters.”
“That’s where the problem began.”
Casey’s expression darkened.
“I didn’t know what I did would cause such a huge mess. People are going around wailing that a famous detective died, and some crazy people even held a funeral! Right in front of me!”
“Hm. That is... quite extreme.”
“No, think about it. It’s ridiculous! It’s just a fictional character! Just something I made up—why are they this upset?”
“Strictly speaking, it’s not entirely fictional.”
“Whatever! It’s driving me crazy. Every day someone is outside my house protesting, demanding I bring the protagonist back to life; the editorial staff keeps trying to track me down to force me to write; and you know what’s funniest? Even my sister nagged me. Asking why I killed the protagonist.”
“That is... pretty serious.”
“Right?”
“No. I meant your judgment in killing such a popular character.”
“Hey! Not you too?!”
Casey clenched and unclenched her fist, as if ready to grab Ludger by the collar.
“I’m seriously going insane!”
“So you ran away to cool your head {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} a bit?”
“Yeah. If I stayed there any longer, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Well, once you decide to disappear, no one could catch you anyway. So, do you feel a little better now that you’ve talked it all out?”
Casey’s ragged breathing finally began to settle.
“...A little. But not enough. The problem still isn’t solved.”
“So you’re trying to get some advice from me.”
“You’re part of this story too, aren’t you? Come up with a good idea.”
“...Says the person who just used my story without permission?”
Ludger gave her a look of pure disbelief.
“Anyway! What do I do now?”
“What’s there to worry about? Just bring him back to life.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
Casey raised an eyebrow—but she didn’t explode the way she had earlier.
Because deep down, she had been thinking the same thing as Ludger.
“You said he fell under the waterfall. Then just say he actually survived. Especially since it’s a story based on real events.”
“...I originally did that to bring it to a proper ending.”
“But it didn’t end that way. So you go back to square one and choose another option.”
Ludger held up one finger.
“First of all, bring the protagonist back. You can add whatever reason you want.”
“But I officially announced his death in the story! They even held a funeral!”
“Then say he intentionally faked his death and hid.”
“But the final boss has already been defeated. What comes after that?”
“Was I the final boss?”
“I mean the character in the story, not you.”
Same thing.
Ludger resisted the urge to nitpick.
“Well, just say there was someone behind the scenes. That he was merely a puppet of an even greater evil.”
“Would the readers accept that? It breaks the story’s coherence.”
“Listen to you talking about coherence like a real author. They’ll accept it. They don’t care about rational justification. They only want the character they love to show them a story again.”
“No matter what...?”
Casey started to speak, then fell silent.
Scenes resurfaced in her memory—people genuinely grieving over nothing more than printed letters on a page.
Were they stupid?
From a purely rational perspective, one might say so.
But on the other hand, that was the pure emotional realm that allowed people to fall deeply in love with something and enjoy it wholeheartedly.
She had merely written what she experienced, with minor variations.
But her readers hadn’t read it that way.
That was the power of story.
It touched emotions, pulled at hearts, and stirred fierce empathy.
Casey had no choice but to admit it—
She had underestimated that emotional weight far too much.
“You understand now.”
“...Haah. But it still sucks. That means I’ll have to write again.”
“Who said you have to? You can bring the protagonist back and write another story. But no one said you have to keep writing forever.”
“Oh...!”
Casey trembled, as if something suddenly clicked.
“Now that I think about it... why didn’t I realize this earlier? I can just write whenever I feel like it.”
“Even if you pretend otherwise, you were feeling responsible to meet people’s expectations.”
“Responsibility?”
Casey didn’t think the word responsibility suited her at all.
Look at her past.
She found her family suffocating and annoying, so she ran away to be a detective despite her sister’s objections.
She loved being called a genius and wanted to solve more cases.
She wanted to eradicate evil, but mixed into that was her own desire for personal satisfaction.
She butted into cases however she liked, solved them however she liked.
She never cared how uncomfortable or troubled others felt because of it.
She did solve cases—but she could have been a little more flexible.
It wasn’t like there were any cases she couldn’t solve.
Casey thought her past self was foolish, arrogant, and self-centered.
A troublemaker who acted however she pleased, without a shred of responsibility.
But Ludger said she did have responsibility.
“I... never knew.”
“Of course you didn’t. Ordinary people can’t notice something like that.”
“But I’m a genius detective...”
“Can a detective know everything? Then how much did you know about me?”
Casey could not answer.
“A detective is just a person. They make mistakes, they shake, and sometimes they fail to realize things.”
Ludger wasn’t speaking only to her.
He was also speaking to himself.
“Did I... change?”
“Maybe you changed, or maybe you were always like this.”
Does a person’s essence change?
The moment life is born, it must live.
And as one walks through life, they face a broader world.
They clash with ideologies, break them, or are influenced by them.
Because of that, they behave differently than before.
That is what living is.
Realizing things, changing one’s thoughts, making new choices.
Breaking free of the birdcage called destiny and finally taking flight.
That was the world Ludger wanted.
“You’ve grown up a little.”
Casey blinked, a little startled, then laughed softly.
It was a much lighter smile, freed from the weight crushing her.
“What are you talking about? I was always an adult, you know?”
