Snowflakes fell from the sky—or rather, from the True Body of a God, though there wasn't much difference. The time had come for the final curtain call.
Nile couldn't see them. Who knew where his eyeballs had flown off to?
Still, he could guess what the aftermath of a hard-fought battlefield looked like. A sense of struggle from both sides decorated the ground—lifeless bodies of men lay among the ashes of divine beings. A display of harmony achieved through death. A norm he still hadn't gotten used to. Though, fortunately, he didn't have to worry about that anymore.
This was the final one: the last battle against the invading Gods and humanity of the world—the rightful owners had won at long last. For better or for worse, this was also his last battle in this world.
Most of his organs had stopped working a while ago, but some vital ones clung on, letting him feel the sporadic touches of ice on his skin. Pointless struggle. Even Gods would face certain death if their body was as wrecked as his.
No sight. No sound. No smell. No pain, thankfully.
Only a strange awareness of the falling remnants from the slain God anchored his drifting thoughts to the broken shell of his body.
He was rather glad—a painless death was the second-best case scenario even if many begged to differ.
He imagined his own soon-to-be lifeless body lying somewhere nearby. He'd been sent flying after landing the final blow against the God's plot armor. It had cost the entire cast several sacrifices of disposable cannon fodders like himself. Even the main characters had been two steps away from their grave the last time he checked.
If it turns out that this wasn't the final boss, I would like to kindly advise everyone to just give up on this world and kill themselves.
Just like that, the main story had come to an official end. Whatever epilogue followed would have nothing more to do with him.
They could visit his grave if they wanted to involve him somehow. Maybe after the two main characters got together, they'd bring their quirky toddlers to visit the man who had taken care of their messes. The person who was once their mama and papa's all-in-one toolbox.
With little to ground himself, he floated around in the void inside his head, where his voice was the only matter that existed. His thoughts jumped from one cliff to another before landing on the novel that had started all this.
He remembered the web novel he had written since he had always enjoyed reading them. He picked romance, thinking it should be easy enough...even though he had never been in a relationship whatsoever.
I may have never been to Rome, but I read a lot about it and that should do it, right?
So, with full confidence, he'd written his first novel: a typical love story between a bubbly commoner girl and a cold-hearted Duke with a dark secret.
He posted a dozen chapters before the first review came in, then the second, and the third. Soon, the entire review section agreed on one thing, and one thing only—he sucked at romance, and the two main characters had zero chemistry.
So, what did he do?
He changed the main genre. One moment, the male lead had the main character pinned on a soft bed; the next, the sky tore apart as servants of Outer Gods flooded in to hunt for their Gods. Tada! Now, the world had magic and the main characters all awakened supernatural never-seen-before abilities.
The romance can't suck if there's none. Here's a system, and off you go to fight against Gods.
He had done it just for kicks and giggles—until it wasn't, when he woke up inside the world he created, on the very day he ended it. With zero instructions or explicit quests given, he found himself in the body of a side character to whom he had given his name.
Before, when it was still a romance novel, the character was the owner of the flower shop that the male lead bought out to appease the his girl. The lucky side character made a fortune from the deal, living a carefree life offscreen, as Nile wanted to.
Now that the main theme was apocalypse and survival, side characters—especially—wouldn't have a good time.
Suddenly his thoughts halted as he noticed the lack of snowflakes falling on his face—as if something was shielding him from above.
Maybe some debris had an unstable foundation, hanging precariously above his head. If Grim Reaper existed, today would be his busiest day. With a grumpy face of someone working overtime, Nile visualized Mr. Grim Reaper staring down at him—yet another body amid the ruins.
He wasn't scared to die.
After all, he had long brainwashed himself into believing that after the story reached its happy ending, he would surely return to his world. In most isekai novels, characters found themselves in another world at the will of a greater being who wanted to change the world's ending for whatever reason.
It had taken longer than expected to reach this point, but he had finally finished the story he started—even if he didn't live to see the end.
Soon, he would find out where his 'good deed' would take him: either back to his mundane yet peaceful world and a typical corporate slave life, or to an afterlife where he would simply cease to exist.
Nile noticed his thoughts gradually slowing down as fewer and fewer snowflakes came to melt on his skin. Maybe the snowfall ended as the last of the God's remains were spent to quench the thirst of the world it wanted to devour. Or maybe his remaining sparks of consciousness had burnt out. Nile couldn't manage another thought before he, too, faded away.
The story had ended with no farewell.