Adam looked at the question embroidered on the plushie in bewilderment. He remembered the last time someone asked him this question, the Toy Maker had messed with his mind, so the book must be affecting his mind now as well. The problem was to figure out how it was affecting him.

In search of answers, Adam kept digging in the sand until the trapdoor of the bunker was visible. He opened it carefully and descended the stairs to the wooden floor below. Upon reaching the bunker, he used his finger to light up the room, hoping to find more clues to solve the challenge. The first thing he noticed was that the floor was full of librarian footprints.

Besides the librarian footprints, there were other violet-colored footprints surrounding 5 of the statues Adam found in the room. The statue that the young hero had seen drawn in his godfather's biography was the only one not surrounded by the violet circle.

The young hero carefully investigated the room, discovering a wall with a carved stripe, clearly a symbol of his past self. What scared Adam was that in addition to that stripe, the wall was covered with footprints neatly arranged along the wall, indicating numerous attempts and not just one.

Carefully, Adam continued examining the statues in the room, which were currently the second most striking feature of the bunker, besides the wall full of footprints.

At first glance, the statues didn't seem special. However, the young hero noticed something flashing on the forehead of the mannequin statue with guns. He looked at this statue more closely, searching for the clue left by his past self.

It seemed that the past Adam had carved a monocle on the forehead of the wooden mannequin, and the monocle appeared to be an important clue. The young hero pondered for a while until he realized it could be related to the school baron.

Adam didn't quite understand the reason for the clue, so he continued searching for clues in the room until he found a wooden plank with the following sentence written on it:

> "The world told me that defeating the king was impossible, but it's also impossible for the king to kill me in the future. To fight the king and defy the world, I will use these statues that belong to each warrior killed by the king in the past. I will return to their times, but this time, I'll survive and avenge the slain warrior."

*Shhhgg*...The six statues in the room began to turn slowly, facing Adam.

Seeing the statues looking at him, Adam knew he had reached the next part of the mission. He approached the mannequin statue to travel to the past and fulfill the challenge.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

*Clunk*...The sound of creaking wood was heard when Adam tried to touch the mannequin statue. Hearing the noise, the redhead became suspicious, stepped back, and walked over the same wooden plank.

*Cluunk*...The sound of creaking wood was heard again. Adam tried walking on the other planks on the wooden floor, but this was the only one that creaked.

With suspicion, the young hero got closer to the floor, lifted the plank, and illuminated it with his finger. He discovered that someone had carved a short question on the back of the plank:

> 'Who tells the story?'

After reading the message, the young hero dropped the plank on the ground and thought about the school baron, the plushie from the glasses store, Sofia, and the message. All those clues were leading him nowhere and not helping him with anything, but if he combined them with this message, their meaning became evident.

—This can't be...— Adam murmured, feeling confused. He stood up and illuminated the wooden plank behind him, reading it aloud:

> —The world told me that defeating the king was impossible, but it's also impossible for the king to kill me in the future.

Adam looked at the mannequin statue engraved with the baron's monocle and at the wall full of footprints, then reflected on the question embroidered inside the rabbit.

—The deception in my mind is believing that I have to go back to the past...— Adam murmured, looking at the six statues with a mixture of annoyance and caution—Why the hell would I want to go back to the past if the king can't kill me in the future? Let the future be my new present, and say goodbye to the problems of the past. What a stupid solution!

A bit irritated for feeling deceived, the young hero cautiously illuminated the mannequin statue with guns from a distance.

—So, the monocle and the circles of footprints on the other statues are meant to indicate that you would be the next statue to deceive me by touching you... and I almost fell for it...

Adam ignored the gaze of the six statues and walked towards the stairs, climbed up, and walked along the beach to the still-burning trunk next to the wizard's corpse.

He noticed that everything was burning except the bonfire, so Adam pondered this fact and took a branch from the nearby bush where the slingshot was hidden before. He burned the branch in the trunk's fire and used the burning stick to light the bonfire. With the bonfire burning, Adam sat on the sand, waiting beside it.

Hours passed, and night slowly approached. Adam was currently watching the sunset on the shore, letting his feet sink into the tide as he waited for the bonfire to extinguish.

Finally, the bonfire went out, and the setting sun on the horizon disappeared, leaving the island in complete darkness. It seemed there was no moon tonight. But when darkness engulfed the entire island, a light suddenly turned on, illuminating the beach: it was the bonfire reigniting.

Adam turned around to see the bonfire, but to his surprise, there was someone else in the bonfire's light: it was the ancient old wizard sitting on the trunk, calmly warming his hands by the bonfire as if it had never been on fire.