The world had never looked so full. And the blinding light of the morning sun had never been harsher.

Lines of cars piled up on the road, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, while hundreds of passersby trekked on the pavements, making their way to work, school, or wherever the hell normal people without seven part-time jobs went on Monday mornings.

Loud honking sounds bellowed in the distance, followed by obscene insults, which were probably ongoing arguments between people frustrated by the traffic.

As he strolled through the pavements, sandwiched between crowds of passersby, Jacob could hear a distant whistling sound. It was loud and sharp, standing out from the crowd of murmurs and footsteps.

He ignored that sound, just like he ignored the way people quacked him as they passed.

But what he couldn’t ignore was the monotonous, almost mechanical way he trekked to work, sandwiched between the crowd...

Jacob let out a weary sigh, slumping his shoulders.

"I hate Monday mornings."

Why were Mondays always like this?

So dull, so uneventful. It always snuffed out that relaxed feeling that came with weekends, reminding one that yes, indeed, they had to go to work and labor for daily bread.

"Tsk."

That wasn’t even the main reason he hated Monday mornings.

Ever since Jacob could remember, Monday had always been a bad day for him. Any bad thing that could ever happen to him happened to him on a Monday morning.

One time, he was wrongly accused of theft while walking in the middle of the road, and he spent an hour convincing both the policeman who’d arrested him and the old woman who accused him that he was innocent. Fortunately for him, the policeman was in a good mood that day, so he let him go after a few compulsory ’procedures,’ but unfortunately for him, he was late to his part-time job. And he got fired.

Thinking all about it now made Jacob’s brows furrow.

But he quickly shrugged the thought off, letting out another sigh. This one was to clear his mind.

He then slipped a hand into his pocket, finding his phone. And he gripped it tight.

’Yes,’ he thought, ’Now is the perfect time.’

Jacob’s heart drummed as he brought out his phone.

And as he unlocked the phone, his mind floated adrift. It felt like all his worries had melted, and the stinging anxiety, most of which stemmed from the landlord of his studio apartment constantly asking him for rent money, faded along with his other thoughts.

Jacob’s lips curled into a satisfied grin as he scrolled through his phone and opened the webnovel app.

See, Jacob was a.. deep otaku. At least that was what he called himself. Secretly, of course.

According to him, the term referred to a person who’d graduated from watching anime to reading manga and webcomics, and from comics to light novels, and then, at the end of the journey, webnovels.

And there was this webnovel in particular that Jacob had been reading every day on his way to work for five years now. And throughout the years, as he read Chapter-by-Chapter, it grew to become his favorite webnovel. He remembered finding it randomly one day while he was ’searching for diamond.’

The name of this novel was—

His thumb moved along the surface of his phone screen as he scrolled through the in-app library. And finally, he found it...

His grin stretched even wider.

—Dawn of the Five Calamities.

Heartbeat kept thundering as he walked.

’Take a deep breath, Jacob,’ he calmed himself inwardly, smile never fading.

The author of the webnovel always uploaded two Chapters during weekdays, never on weekends.

And, after uploading over 5000+ Chapters for exactly five years, the novel finally ended.

"Watch where you’re going, kid!" A random passerby growled as he walked past Jacob. But the young man ignored him; his pace had grown terribly slow, eyes fixed on his phone screen.

The novel actually ended last Friday. And, as an ending event, the author mass-released fifteen Chapters at once to ’commemorate’ the end of this long, long journey. Jacob respected this.

And so, out of respect for the author — and partly because he wanted to read the Chapters when his mind spiralled about negative stuff like it always tended to — he held back reading the fifteen Chapters until this Monday morning.

He planned to read just five Chapters this morning, then five the next, and another five the day after that. And then, when he would finally be done reading the novel, his heart would be left empty and hollow, lacking the juice that’d kept him sane on his way to work ever since he turned twenty years old.

He would have to find another novel to replace it.

Would he ever find another novel to replace it?

The thoughts overwhelmed him as he kept reading and walking. It was messing with his immersion.

What was so special about this novel [Dawn of the Five Calamities]?

It wasn’t a brain-melting ’peak’ series. The world-building was mediocre at best, and the power system was manageable.

He blinked.

’Oh.’

Now he remembered why.

It was the characters and the storyline that drew him in.

The Five Calamities. At first, just like the protagonist and everyone in the world of the novel, he hated those five calamities, the beings responsible for ruining the world, the beings that made every step of the protagonist’s journey arduous and difficult. The beings who ruined the world of the novel.

They were set up as these ultimate, hated, badass antagonists. Hell, the novel itself was even named after them.

But Jacob’s hatred for these antagonists began to falter the moment he learned their back stories.

One might’ve called him stupid for falling for that obvious thing authors always do to humanize their villains. But... their back stories resonated with him. Pained him.

They were all just like him. Orphans with ruined lives. The only difference was that the ruination of their lives led to the devastation of their world, while he... well, Jacob was just Jacob

Jacob thought that maybe the time he really fell in love with this novel was when he realized that those five didn’t become the Calamities on their own volition.

They were just slaves.

They were...

Jacob blinked, staring at the phone.

[Chapter 5280—Dusk of the Five Calamities.]

"Shit," he muttered, scratching the back of his head. "I know I’m a fast reader, but... how the hell did I," he chuckled nervously, "how did I read fourteen Chapters so quickly?"

He gazed at the Chapter title. It seemed his plan to read five a day until exhaustion had been ruined.

’This is it,’ he thought, breathing in. ’This is the end.’

He breathed out.

’Here goes nothing.’

"Hope they finally get their happy ending."

He tapped on the Chapter.

The very moment he tapped the Chapter, he froze in place, becoming extremely immersed. Dangerously so. He disregarded his surroundings, focusing entirely on the novel.

The Chapter was longer than usual. And from the high quality of the writing, he could tell that the author had put much thought and work into this final Chapter. Jacob honored this by reading it as slowly as he possibly could.

"Hey, kid!" Someone called. "Watch where you’re going!"

Jacob’s mind couldn’t even register the voice. This was the most immersed he had ever been. And it was happening right in the middle of the road!

Honk–! Honk–!

"Who’s this prick? Move! You’ll get yourself killed, goddamnit!"

His eyes were still fixed on the screen.

[And like that, Raphael Nicolas of the Five Calamities passed on.]

Jacob’s eyes widened. He continued reading.

[Vanessa’s flame was extinguished just like that. She’d died to, for the first and last time in her life, protect something valuable to her. Someone she loved.]

Jacob’s heart twisted.

"Is..." his breath caught. "Are they really all dying?"

This was bullshit. This was absolutely bullshit.

When he asked the author in the comment section the other day how the novel would end, the author had told him: ’The ending would be quite a satisfactory one.’

Satisfactory?

Is this... he never expected this. He’d spent five years reading this, goddamnit. The least he could get after investing so much time and money into this was a good conclusion. Thinking about all the money he spent, if he’d saved all of that—

[Sky Ravensborg had ended four of the five calamities. The ones who held the curse of IT, bringing ruin and damnation upon the world. Now the time had come for him to end the last calamity. And the world would be back to normal.]

’Not Mira! She had it worse than the rest of the calamities. At least...’

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth.

’At least give her a good ending.’

Jacob opened his eyes.

[The protagonist was already broken, bruised and battered. A result of the Earth-shaking battle.

But this was it. He had fought. And he had won.

The world would soon revert to its original state. All he had to do was—

Under the blinding violet haze of the havoc-inducing storms, Sky stood, fully mantled in his crimson-streaked silver armor. His hand trembled under the weight of the sword held firmly in his grip. Purple lightning flashed overhead, illuminating his tear-painted face. And the world groaned thunder as dark clouds twirled in the distance.

Sky’s eyes were wet and glistening, and his facial expression was contorted in a mixture of both sadness and rage. He didn’t want to do this. Heavens knew he didn’t. But he had to. For the world. For–

He held out his sword to the neck of the fallen calamity. The purple-haired woman was kneeling in a puddle of her own blood. She was missing an arm and a leg, and pain surged through every single nerve in her body.

But amidst the brain-wracking pain, she smiled. It was an uncharacteristically bright and sunny smile, surfacing on a pale face that had never known warmth.

How ironic it was for Amira to recover her lost smile on the day of her death.

She looked up to the protagonist, who had tears smeared all over his perfect facial features. The handsome protagonist had never looked more pathetic.

With her bright smile still intact, she resolved herself and whispered:

"Kill me, Sky."

Sky Ravensborg, resolving himself, beheaded the last calamity.

The End.]

Jacob stood perfectly still, staring at the screen.

"..."

They all died. All five of them.

’Just like that?’

He frowned.

’That’s how it ends?’

The young man didn’t feel the harrowing emptiness he’d expected to feel at the end of this long journey. He didn’t feel satisfied, nor did he feel fulfilled.

He clenched the chest area of his shirt.

"Hey!" Someone screamed, "Move out of the way!"

All... all Jacob could ask was why?

After everything those five had been through. They didn’t even get peace? They didn’t deserve to die that way.

This was...

Honk–! Honk–!

The loud sound of a car horn dragged Jacob out of his stream of thoughts, and he shuddered.

’That sounded really close–’

"Move out of the way! The truck’s brake failed!"

’Huh?’

Jacob turned his neck toward the direction of the honking sound.

His eyes widened as he stared face-to-face with the shining headlamp of a speeding truck.

Jacob cracked a humorless, nervous smile.

"You’ve gotta be shitting m–"

Truck rammed into man.

Ambient fading sounds echoed in Jacob’s mind as his vision blurred. He could barely hear the screams or murmurs of the passersby. And frankly, he couldn’t focus on them.

’So this is how I die.’

His vision finally faded, but he could still hear ambient sounds.

’My life isn’t flashing before my eyes.’

’But I guess I never lived much of a life. No good memories... Ah, I’d rather not remember the bad ones. My only good memory is of my favorite webnovel.’

’But why did they die like that? I never... I never got the chance to ask the author.

If only... if only those five were shown love and support...’

His thoughts became more scattered and fragmented, and the ambient sounds disappeared.

’If only they were raised right and guided properly. If only...’

Eyes shut forever.

Jacob died.