As Otto read through the pages of the magic book he was surprised to see a folded-up page fall out from between the pages.

“How did that stay in there all this time!?” Otto wondered picking the page up.

The page looked old and fragile; it was stained a yellow-brown colour.

It looked like a primitive version of a newspaper.

“A hero from another world blesses humanity with magic…” read the headline.

“Clerics and scribes from all over the world gathered today in Agartha as Otto Einhart single-handily defeated the corrupt king and ascended to the throne promising to teach mankind the ways of magic!”

“Pages detailing basic spells were handed out in the courtyard where the crowd enjoyed the ability to create magic lights on command!”

“What the hell…” Otto looked over the page, again and again, seeing his name clear as day.

He looked back at the cover.

“Murlin E.”

“Murlin is just the title… Otto Einhart…”

Otto flipped through more pages in the book finding more loose scraps of paper.

“Farming, trade and the world of entertainment are forever changed as various schools of magic are introduced!”

“At last humans have been made equal in power to the beasts which up until now took dozens of men to slay!”

“Schools dedicated to creating more intricate magic working off the spell-making language described by the Murlin Otto Einhart have begun to pop up around the world! What a time to be alive!”

Otto sifted through more of the pages.

“First magic-based act of mass terrorism reported in the north where an undiscovered group of magic users used air and fire magic to destroy a local tavern, the fire spread to several homes calling for restrictions on fire magic in cities and other densely populated places!”

“More attacks popping up all over the world as Murlin continues to create more and more magic for us to use, many people are calling for anti-magic magic, confusing Murlin greatly, he was quoted as saying: ‘What... the fuck is anti-magic magic? Like isn’t that actually just magic?’’”

Otto picked another page up.

“In a desperate attempt to quell the outrage, a guild of adventurers and skilled mages dubbed the court-mages were assembled under Murlin Otto’s vague instructions.”

“During a protest, Murlin was quoted as saying: ‘Guys, if you hate magic so much, why don’t you invent some sort of magic police?’”

Confused Otto reached for a differently-coloured page, this one was white and looked like it hasn’t aged a single day.

“I never should have thought them magic…”

“Maybe there was a reason humanity never learned it?”

“As the Murlin I am directly responsible for connecting everybody else with my magic… for some reason people in this world can’t control magic by themselves…”

“I’ve been spending more and more time thinking about cutting them off…”

“If nothing else, I can do that, right?”

“My second-in-command doesn’t seem keen on the idea… but with every passing day I’m having more doubts…”

“What the hell is this? Some diary? From… myself?”

Otto picked up another page.

“I don’t know how, but it happened, he took it from me…”

“People from this world shouldn’t be able to wield magic without a Murlin… but he did… could he be from another world too?”

“In any case, half of my spells are broken… I can’t even create a golden battery…”

He flipped the page around.

“That man is a lunatic! I was on my way to a meeting with the Archmages when I saw what looked like a collar around my neck… no matter what spell I use I can’t remove it…”

“Then I felt the mana vacuum… the bastard is ready to suck the world dry to control the mages…”

Otto flipped through the book in hope of more answers but found no more letters or newspaper bits.

“What the fuck kind of time-travel bullshit is this?!” he demanded.

He was about to ask the book but he knew nothing would come out of it.

“What’s the point of asking… I already know the answer, it’ll just tell me to read… the book to the end!“

Otto’s face lit up as he flipped to the last page of the book seeing the text properly now.

“I will fix my mistake…”

“To do that I must die…”

“He who usurped the title of Murlin restricted my magic making me powerless… But I came here once I’ll definitely be able to come here again…eventually.”

“Even if it takes me a hundred years, or even a thousand… I have to come back here and undo my mistakes…”

“I have to discover a new magic system from scratch like before…”

The words on the final page changed from monologuing to talking to Otto directly.

“If you can read this, it means I’m finally back…”

“I pray that there are still people for me to save…”

“Up until now, you were in my home… A prison of a tower designed to isolate you from the rest of the world so you can learn magic…”

“It feels odd apologising to myself… but I’m sorry…”

“That said both of us owe it to this world to fix our mistake…”

“I’m sure even in the world you find yourself in, there are those in this world worthy of using magic…”

“It took me so long to understand what he Archmage of light magic meant…”

“A world cannot exist where the unworthy use magic…”

“Find the Archmage, he’ll tell you what to do…”

“I’m counting on you, myself!”