He Was Too Soft to Hurt Anyone Until They Took Me Away Chapter 05

He Was Too Soft to Hurt Anyone Until They Took Me Away Chapter 05

I opened my eyes in a hospital room. My parents and friends were gathered around the bed.

The second my eyes opened, my best friend burst into tears.

“Chloe, oh my God. Five days. You were out for five days. I thought you were… don’t ever do that again.”

Five years inside the book. Five days out here.

Once everyone settled down, I checked myself out.

The system went dead after sending me back. No messages, no notifications. Gone.

A successful mission would’ve paid me $100 million.

I failed. So much for retiring early.

Back to the corporate grind.

Five years in that world, and aside from the mission headaches, Julian had spoiled me rotten. Julian cooked, cleaned, handled everything.

Now I was back to feeding myself, and it showed.

The instant ramen I made tasted like cardboard.

I caught myself reaching for my phone to tell Julian dinner was bad. The apartment was quiet. Empty.

Like those five years had never happened at all.

A week crawled by.

I was just starting to feel normal again when a sound I recognized pinged inside my head.

[Ding. Mission success confirmed. $100,000,000 deposited to the host’s account.]

I froze.

I grabbed my phone. The number staring back at me had a lot more zeros than it had yesterday.

If the time ratio still held, seven years had passed inside the book.

Julian had actually snapped?

The system answered that question real fast.

[Host, that stunt you pulled back then destroyed him.]

[He did go dark. But he blew past every projection we had. Ethan and Maya can’t even slow him down anymore.]

[So… any chance you could go back in and talk him down?]

…

Just like that, I was back inside the book.

The system gave me a new body this time. I was Tessa Hayes now.

I turned my new face this way and that in the mirror.

“So what was it? What finally pushed him over the edge?”

The system answered flatly.

[The cliff. Watching you fall broke something inside him. He realized that playing nice didn’t protect the people he loved.]

I raised an eyebrow. “Aw. So he actually cared about me?”

“Great. I’ll go find him, tell him I’m back. He’ll be thrilled, right?”

The system went dead silent.

[Strongly advise against it.]

[System scan indicates Julian’s Hatred level toward the host is currently at… 99%.]