Responses
This makes so much sense, I had a theory in my head that, the story he's in is actually their reality and him thinking he's still 21 was a form of defense mechanism to cope with the trauma or something
Yeh, the false life mc is believed in is all his imagination. They did managed to go back time so this is their present that they have already experienced before. But only ml knows it and mc still have no clue. Thinking he's 21 is becoz its the age he didn't get to experince 'well' is what im guessing.
Mc and ml both died. Mc was in so much pain he started imagining a happy life, and dragged ml's soul with him. But since ml needed to escape, he gave him the book(which contained everything that happened to them) . Thats how mc got returned into current timeline, in the cage. But ml only got returned after chapter 25? Thats why his attitude changed abit..... Is what i am getting, sorry if im wrong. I already posted smth like this already but it got deleted becoz i forgot to flag it as spoiler ig.