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[Alexandr Korol]

And the Mystic-Old-Man is one of the main characters of “Alternative History”, which is also later revealed in the fifth volume, where it becomes clear who he is and where he comes from. But only when I started working on the fifth volume did even he begin to learn who he truly is. Before that, like St. Petersburg, he was hidden. That’s what I’m saying — until you give something a name, until you call it by the right word... You see, you could be holding an object in your hands and always think of it as just a stick. But if I take it and show you — “See, there are holes here, you need to blow into this part, and press here,” and I tell you that it’s a musical instrument — then suddenly, that stick, which was always right in front of you and in your hands, stops being just a stick and becomes a magical flute. The same thing happens in “Alternative History”. Everything is already right in front of you. All it takes is to call it something different, to name it in another language. That’s why it’s “Alternative History” — an alternative perspective on the same things that have always been present in your life, in my life, in the life of every person. Do you hear me?

Imagine, as I go through my notes now, I see certain key moments that were very important, and later in the future, it will become clear that none of this happened by chance. In “Alternative History” Volume One, Big Alexander tells me that I need to know the “Red Dragon.” He also tells me that Tutankhamun was an alien and that the King Tut ring was not just given to me for no reason by those above. And now, imagine this — I only come to know the “Red Dragon” in the fourth volume. You can even note it down, look it up, and in general, it’s better to take notes on everything I write, marking down unfamiliar words that you will later need to search on Wikipedia and read about. And here you go — there is Ladon, the Red Dragon, read about it. This topic is explored in great detail in the fourth volume, but you see, it was already embedded in the first volume. And the King Tut ring — do you know that the whole topic of Egypt is only fully revealed in the fifth volume? And that even this ring, let’s say, begins to acquire an insane power only in the fifth volume? Even though, of course, I have always worn it and never parted with it all this time. And only then does it gain meaning and an explanation — why I wear it, why it was given to me, and why it is connected to Egypt. All of this is explained in the fifth volume. Because I have a conversation with the Mystic-Old-Man —