The Transmigrated Author

Chapter 305: Exit

[Central Fortress — Upper Levels]

Three days.

That was all it took to clear the remaining quests.

Three days of sweeping through the last pockets of resistance in the central fortress, hunting down straggling machines that hadn’t received the shutdown order, and putting down a handful of demonic hybrids that Richard had kept in cold storage beneath the fabrication centre.

Nothing as strong as him but they were enough that required a repeat of what Jan and Louise had done.

By the second day, word had spread.

The outer territories of New Eldervale, the Shadow lands, the Golden Scales region and the Crimson Flame territory had finally been stabilised for weeks already.

We’d dismantled their leaders, broken their machines, and freed their people.

Now, with Richard captured and the central fortress cleared, the last obstacle was gone.

Envoys from each region arrived through hastily repaired communication channels, confirming what we already knew: the nations were ready to rebuild.

A society that had been fractured by Richard’s ambition could finally function again.

Jan handled most of the diplomacy.

It turned out being the ’hero’ came with a natural authority that made people listen.

Valencia backed him up when needed. Bazz, once Camila had splinted his wrist properly, turned out to be surprisingly good at negotiating supply lines and something about growing up in a merchant family he’d never mentioned before.

I stayed in the background. Answered questions when asked and let them lead.

By the third morning, the wall at the end of the deepest corridor finally changed.

[Quest Completion: 100%]

[Access to the teleporter has been permitted.]

The door slid open without a ceremony it was just a quiet pneumatic hiss and the smell of dust drifting out from the chamber beyond.

We stepped through together.

**

[Central Fortress: Transmitter Room]

The room was circular. High-ceilinged. The walls were lined with conduits that pulsed with a faint blue light, feeding into a raised platform at the centre.

It looked less like magic and more like technology that had forgotten its own origin like something between a ritual altar and a launch pad.

At the edge of the platform, a translucent screen flickered to life as we approached.

[Shards Required: 5]

"Well," I said, reaching into my pocket, "this is it."

The others followed. Jan produced his shard first. Valencia next. Alice. Then the one I’d been carrying—the real fifth, still warm from three days against my chest.

Each piece settled into a designated groove on the platform, and as the last one clicked into place, the light in the conduits intensified.

FWANG!

[Combining shards...]

The five fragments lifted from the platform. They rotated slowly in the air, their individual pulses synchronising until they beat as one.

Then, in a flash that left afterimages burned into my vision, they merged.

A single object floated down into my waiting hand.

[Item Crafted: Momentous Future]

[Description: The shard with the access to the future. Crafted from five fragments scattered across a world that was never meant to leave. It holds the resonance of every hand that touched its pieces and every future those hands will build.

[Effect: Ability to take the party outside the orb. One-time use.]

[Second Effect: ???.]

I turned it over in my palm. It was smaller than I’d expected no larger than a pendant—and it pulsed with a light that wasn’t quite any colour I could name.

It felt warm and cold at the same time. Alive and completely still.

"What does that extra effect mean?" Alice asked, reading over my shoulder.

"It means we’ll find out later," I said.

"Right now, the first effect is what matters."

I stepped onto the platform and the conduits along the walls flared brighter, responding to the shard’s presence, and the air began to hum with something that felt like pressure without weight.

The others followed without hesitation.

Jan stood to my right. Valencia to my left. Behind us, Camila, Alice, Bazz, Jae, Lyra. Christian and Anouz flanked the rear. Even Louise, still silent after three days, stepped onto the platform without complaint.

Richard’s unconscious form was slung over Anouz’s shoulder. Still chained. Still out.

We’d debated leaving him, but the treaty agreements required a prisoner exchange. The outer territories wanted justice, and justice meant a trial.

HWAMMM!

The hum grew louder. The light from the conduits climbed toward blinding.

"Rel."

Valencia’s voice cut through the noise.

I turned and she was looking at the shard in my hand.

I didn’t see a reason to say no. I held it out.

She reached forward. Her fingers brushed the surface of the shard at the exact moment my grip shifted to pass it to her.

Our hands touched the crystal together.

"...!"

[Teleportation initiated.]

The platform activated. The light from the conduits surged to blinding, the hum rising to a roar that swallowed every other sound in the room.

Suddenly around us, the others were already fading, their forms blurring into the light as the teleporter pulled them out.

And at the same time, the Momentous Future reacted.

FWANG!

The pulse erupted. Light burst from the shard and swallowed everything.

And then I found myself somewhere else.

***

[Location: ???]

I opened my eyes and I saw a vast, empty space with no walls, no floor, no sky.

It was an infinite horizon of nothing in every direction, like standing inside a thought that hadn’t finished forming.

"...!"

And in front of me, a figure.

He looked like me. Older by maybe three years.

The same face, but sharper at the edges with his cheekbones more defined and a jaw tighter, with eyes carrying a weight that hadn’t settled into mine yet.

His hair was slightly longer, messier, like he’d stopped bothering to cut it regularly.

And his clothes were different?

He had An all-black suit with a formal in cut, but reinforced with tactical plating at the shoulders and forearms.

It seemed they were armored and functional too.

The uniform of someone who’d turned mercenary work into a permanent identity.

And hanging from the side of his face, a mask. Half-broken. Split vertically down the center, the jagged edge resting against his cheekbone. It was the kind of mask designed to conceal identity, but right now it wasn’t hiding anything.

It just looked like something that had taken a hit and never been repaired.

"..."

For a moment we both stared at each other.

He looked exhausted. Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix. The kind that settled into the bones and stayed there.

The pinnacle of an ultimate soldier, and every year of it was written on his face.

"You look miserable," I said.

He smirked. It was my smirk. The same slight tilt. The same dry edge.

"How would you know that?"

"Trust me." I crossed my arms.

"I can tell if I’m a shitty loser on any day of the week."

He let out a short breath not quite a laugh, but close.

The smirk didn’t fade. If anything, it softened slightly.

"Still making jokes."

"Still taking them."

We stood there for a moment, two versions of the same person, sizing each other up.

I took in the details he probably thought I wouldn’t notice.

The way his shoulders sat heavier than mine. The way his hands hung at his sides, loose but muscle memory that seemed ready for anything.

The way his eyes moved across me with the same analytical rhythm I used when I was reading a room.

He was me. And I was looking at what I’d become.

"I take it this meeting wasn’t accidental," I said.

"It was fated." He tilted his head slightly.

"With or without intervention. The shards were always going to bring us here. You touching it at the same time as Valencia just locked in the timing."

Valencia.

I filed that away for later.

"Then tell me something useful." I met his eyes.

"Did I do everything right?"

The smirk vanished.

Something passed through his expression but on his face it felt like shame, or something close to it.

He didn’t look away, but he didn’t answer either.

"You can’t tell me," I said.

"I don’t have access to the system right now." His voice was quieter.

"And even if I did, there are restrictions. I can’t give you what you’re looking for."

"Then what can you give me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he spoke, slower this time, choosing each word like it had weight.

"You’re going to lose things. People. Parts of yourself. And every time, you’ll tell yourself it was worth it because the story needed it."

He met my eyes.

"One day you’ll look back and realise the story never needed half of what you gave it. You just didn’t know how else to win."

"..."

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Because the worst part wasn’t the warning it was the way he said it.

Not with anger. Not with regret. Just the flat, exhausted certainty of someone who’d already lived through every word and was only now saying them out loud.

I looked at him—at the broken mask, the all-black suit, the exhaustion carved into every feature—and for the first time, I saw past the surface.

He wasn’t just miserable. He was still standing. Still fighting. Still here after all this time wearing a mask he’d never bothered to fix and carrying the weight of every sacrifice he’d made for a story that never needed half of them.

"That’s all you can say?" I asked.

"That’s all I can say."

"You don’t have your sword," I said.

He glanced at his hip. Empty.

"No. I don’t."

"What happened to it?"

Another pause. Another thing he couldn’t say.

Then—

FWANG!

The sound cut through the void.

A system window materialised in front of me, bright and sharp against the endless white.

[A new main story quest has been created!]

I stared at it.

[Quest: Hold out against your future self in battle for one minute.]

[Rewards: ???]

My eyes moved from the window to him. He was already looking at me.

The smirk was gone. The exhaustion was still there, but something else had surfaced beneath it.

Something serious.

"Did you see it?" he asked.

I didn’t answer.

But he already knew.