Taking a deep breath William readies himself for the vertigo he’s expecting to happen, or anything that would happen when shifting worlds (and possibly re-winding time, he never really asked too much about the death thing). But nothing happens.

Cracking his eyes open William looks around, maybe he had shifted already, and it was far less painless than he thought. But the scenery that greets him is not his house, but the familiar rolling green hills of Midran. He hadn’t moved.

The [1] is still floating in the air in front of him, the System’s screen slowly growing dimmer in the morning light.

“System?” he asks softly, trying to fight down the sudden wave of panic, “why am I still here?”

There’s a long pause, before a new smaller window blinks to life, the green of its screen a dark evergreen, [Uhm…. System is unsure.]

‘Okay, breathe William,’ he tells himself, forcing his lungs to work, “did you get the time wrong?”

[No!] the System quickly protests, [System could never! System has an inbuilt world clock; nothing can mess with Systems’ time!]

That’s what William thought, but… “Then, what happened?”

The angry windows blink away, as a cold wind whistles through the hills, a last clinging touch of the brutal winter.

[System…. System doesn’t know.]

“Can you figure it out?” he asks, thoughts racing a mile a minute, this was supposed to be his last day stuck here, he was supposed to be free! “Are you broken or something?”

[Rude! System is not broken, Host is broken!!!] the bolded message reads.

[...But] and a new window appears covering the angry messages, [System will run diagnostics to check.]

‘Did we do something wrong?’ he can’t help but think, ‘Did I not really complete the story? Is there a side story we missed somewhere? Why-‘He’s snapped out of his spiraling thoughts by a flickering green window, [….Host?….]

“Is something wrong?” he quickly asks, reaching up mindlessly to hold onto the fracturing pieces of code, “are you okay?”

[System feels… wrong.] The system says with a font much smaller than normal, the edges of its window fraying and glitching, [but quick scans show nothing wrong with System. System can perform longer verification but it will take many hours. Host should rest while System checks.]

“I’m not just leaving you in this state System!” he scolds, slowly lowering his hands, he couldn’t hold the holographic code even if he tried, “I can wait till your checkup is done. We both need to get back right?”

The screen glitches a few times before a new message appears. [System temporarily offline as System check is in process. Sorry for any inconvenience System’s inactivity causes Host.]

William sighs, staring blankly at the blinking inactive screen, he had tried his best to act calm for the System, but… what was he to do now? Did the System lie to him? Was there really no way to go back? Had he missed a mission or plot thread somewhere? ‘When did it all go wrong?’

Well, he knows the answer to that question. The moment his annoying little sister picked up that damn romance book.

….

William can with some confidence say he’s a rather normal person, or he was before he ended up impersonating a god.

Fresh out of high school, working a dead-end retail job, saving up every penny in hopes of going to an art school, that William realistically knows he’ll never actually attend. He was good at art, but it wasn’t near good enough to get the kind of scholarship money he would need. Stuck living at his mother’s house with his annoying little sister, who seemed to have every last detail of her life planned out while he was mostly worrying about how to ask his attractive co-worker out to lunch without sounding weird. It wasn’t the easiest life, but it was his, and he was happy.

But then, there was that stupid web-novel, “Bride of the God Emperor.”

His sister, Beth, had gotten hooked on it, and would ramble about it to any person who lingered around her immediate space for more than 5 seconds. On more than one occasion she made William pick up special edition merch for her while she was busy being a “good kid” at school. Something they both knew was a lie.

After endless pestering, he finally caved and read the damn thing. It wasn’t great, but it was a semi-enjoyable read, with a fairly competent main character and a truly interesting setting. The more he read the more he got hooked himself. Before long William was able to understand his sister’s rants and had bought a few pieces of merch for himself. He had become a fan.

But the book itself wasn’t the real reason he had come to this world, no, that happened much later.

A few months had passed since the release of “Bride of the God Emperor” in its physical form, and the passion they both had once shared for it had waned. The author had taken a break for health and marketing reasons, (supposedly there was a movie deal in the works) and had only recently started posting small side-stories, but the appeal wasn’t really there anymore.

It was hard to be too dedicated to anything in the mid-July heat, much less a romance novel about the sun god. On this particular hot day, William and Beth were lazing about the kitchen, nibbling on flavored ice-pops and taking semi-civil turns with the fan. He can’t recall which of them brought up the book, the memory is fairly blurry now, but he does remember what happened after.

Beth had asked if he had read the new side story.

He had not. He really hadn’t been paying any attention to the book since Beth’s interest had waned, but to be civil and entertain his sister he asked, “Which one?” as he adjusted the small electric fan to face him.

Beth frowned at her loss of cool air, but let it go, fishing out her phone, “The one with the demon king or whatever he is?”

Now it was William’s turn to frown, ‘We are talking about the book I think we’re talking about right? what demon?’ he thinks as he mumbles it out loud by accident, “what demon?”

“You know-,” and she huffs, quickly scrolling through her socials, before she makes a little “Aha!” noise and turns the screen to face William, “This guy! The one always following that stupid fate jerk around.”

“Oh, that guy,” ‘Right there was a demon’ William thinks, suddenly recalling an out-of-place character like that. He was the only demon actually mentioned in the novel besides the usual, “demons are evil” mantra. He narrows his eyes at the obvious fan-drawn rendition of the demon. He doesn’t remember the author’s description of the guy as being particularly attractive, just the fact that he had red serpentine-like eyes. But this fan rendition is giving the main love interests a run for their money. Too bad he wasn’t in more of the novel, but such is the fate of henchmen for the big bad guy after all, and so his story was pretty heavily glossed over, William’s not sure they ever even got a name for the demon. “Why is there a side story about him?”

“Solveig kills him.”

“Spoilers,” Williams huffs, twisting the fan to face his sister.

She smiles and takes a hard bite of her cheery ice pop, crunching on the ice loudly, “It wasn’t very good anyway,” she explains, going back to scrolling through her phone, “I mean I know why he did it, guys a demon and evil and all of that.” Beth waves her hand around in the air lazily as she adds, “But like Solveig was talking about revenge and it felt weird, like what did the demon ever do? He wasn’t really even involved in Fate-jerk’s plans. Why would Solveig need to get revenge?”

“Maybe there’s going to be another update?” William guesses, interest already faded from this particular discussion. “If you think about it “Bride of the God Emperor” is a pretty odd book.”

“Take that back,” she hisses, flinging her empty popsicle wrapper at him, it only gets halfway across the table. He raises an eyebrow, taking a bite of his own orange frozen treat. “It’s a great book,” Beth grumbles.

“I never said it wasn’t a good book,” William argues back, “but the world-building is a bit all over the place.”

She huffs clearly annoyed, but does reluctantly nod, turning the fan back to face her brother, “It is a bit weird,” she relents. “The author never really explained what demons really are or why the evil brother betrayed Solveig.”

“It’s a romance book,” William says, scrolling through his own phone, “I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit bland.”

“You were the one who brought it up!” she huffs, “don’t go back on your word!”

“What word?” he laughs, “I was trying to help your defense of liking it!”

She sneers, a glare in her eyes that holds no real heat, “You’re a terrible big brother.”

“Ouch rude little sister,” he counters back.

After that, neither say anything for a long while, busy with their phones and respective online worlds. Until-

“The mall should have air conditioning, right?” Beth asks out of the blue.

Williams hums, scrolling past a picture of a cat with a stick-on mustache, “I could be convinced to go if we stop at ScreamTown first.”

“Really?” she asks in fake disbelief. Beth knew her brother would ask that, he loved that stupid tacky Halloween store. “You want to go there again?”

Powering down his phone, William looks up at her with a carefully blank face, “You want me to pay for your lunch or not?”

She pushes herself to her feet with an over-the-top fake smile, “What are we waiting for?”

Laughing they both got up, fishing around for keys and wallets, turning off all the fans, and quickly racing to the car to avoid being in the sun any longer than they had to. As they climbed in William noticed his sister was tearing open a new cheery ice pop, “Mom said to only have two of those,” he scolds lightly, with his “big brother voice”.

“Oh please,” she says rolling her eyes and taking a large bite, “like we both haven’t already had five of these things.”

While that statement was true, 6 was going a bit too far, best to get some actual food into his sister before she turned into an icepop herself. “Last one,” He says, laying on the “big brother voice” even heavier, “and remember to hide the evidence.”

She laughs, pushing her artificially dyed blond hair out of her face as she rolls the window down, “Not my first rodeo,” she reminds, pulling her phone back out. “Did I tell you the author is hinting at writing a sequel?”

The sudden revisiting of a past topic would confuse most people, but this was just how Beth’s brain worked, constantly revisiting past conversations even when it’s been days or weeks, William had gotten pretty used to it, so he wasn’t phased in the slightest. “Are we still talking about “Bride of the God Emperor” or that other book you like with the vampires?”

Beth glares hard enough that William turns to check on her as he moves the car onto the highway, “You hate it when I talk about the vampire one.”

“And which book are we talking about?” he repeats, “I’ve learned better than to think you wouldn’t talk about something just because I don’t like it.”

She shrugs, scrolling some more, not even trying to defend herself, “While I do love to annoy you, dearest relative of mine, I meant “Bride of the God Emperor”,” Thank goodness, William really does hate that stupid vampire book. It’s sickly sweet, with overly clichéd character tropes, a butchering of normal vampire mythos, on top of the clearly sexist underline messaging. If you’re going to write a book about vampires at least make it so your vampires are actual vampires. “Sequel is supposed to be about their kids.”

William hums, stating his true thoughts, “Sounds boring.”

His sister shrugs, adjusting the air vent, “Could be cool.”

“No one ever likes sequels like that,” He counters, “it will just be the same plot but less interesting, I don’t mind the setting, but give us a different perspective,” he rants, thinking of all the other sequels he’s tried to like but always ended up being terrible. “Maybe a story about some demons falling in love or-,” William abruptly cuts himself off, catching sight of the car barreling towards them in the rear-view mirror.

He jerks the wheel, reaching a hand out to steady his sister and –

[Registration of new host complete! Commencing retelling of “Bride of the God Emperor”. The Administration hopes Host will be able to help write a sequel worth reading.]