"Young master it's time to wake up."
I slowly opened my eyes, the feeling still alien to me. A body not my own. I slowly made my way to wash up, splash myself with water to wake up from this dream. Even a week's worth of time wasn't enough to adjust to this new sensation. Neither was the vision. My eyes were blurrier, more faded, lacking some colors which I could see before. But the strangest of it all was the absence of a sound I never heard before. A sound that was always there in retrospect. A loud drum signaling life itself. The absence of a heart beat felt strange. My blood still pumped but my heart remained frozen.
Even all of this wasn't as strange as looking into a mirror and seeing a character you've never thought of for years. Pale skin, jet-black hair already greying, the youthful appearance that counteracted that grey hair, a face you couldn't tell the gender of. The sharp magenta eyes staring back from the mirror. Eyes in thought. Thinking.
Thinking about why this damned character was the one I ended up possessing.
Veritas Ersatz.
A character from my first novel. He was introduced as an insider spy into the holy Ersatz family. His purpose was to leak Intel about the family to the main character and eventually die due to his family.
"Status window"
As those words fall from my lips a familiar ding sound is heard.
———————
Name: Veritas Ersatz
Rank: D
Race: Dead Homunculus
Class: N/A
Title: N/A
Alignment: [Neutral Chaotic]
Strength: C [528/1000]
Dexterity: D [40/100]
Constitution: D [28/100]
Intelligence: B [210/300]
Mana: F [0/10,000]
Wisdom: S [500/500]
Charisma: A [847/1000]
Luck: ? [?]
Status afflictions:
[Dual Cores]
[Mana Blindness]
Passive skills:
[Blessing of Harmony] Lv.20
[Honorary Emissary] Lv.100 [Max]
[Veilbreaker] Lv.25
[Adaptive mimicry] Lv.1
[Domain intrusion] Lv.1
[Unique ego] Lv.9
Active skills:
[Alchemy] Lv.70
[Appraisal] Lv.41
[Mana sight] Lv.8
[Ego engravement] Lv.2
[Cognitive acceleration] Lv.100 [Max]
———————
These stats aren't god awful. Having 2 maxed out skills is already impressive. Normally you'd need months of work to get a skill to max level. However even these skills are useless without mana to wield them. Even ignoring my severe lack of usable mana my constitution limits what amount of power I exert. It wouldn't matter if I had S rank strength, without your bones and muscles being able to withstand it you can't wield it.
Veritas' awful constitution is due to the fact he's the only naturally born Homunculus. The Holy Ersatz family is in secret, a family of Homunculi. And Veritas is the only child between two Homunculi. This led to him being born with multiple problems, not only does his stat spread make no sense but the essence of his problem are his mana cores. He has dual mana cores, normally that'd mean that he would have an over abundant supply of mana. But his cores are the only two cores that are mutually destructive to each other. Holy mana and demonic mana.
The mutually destructive mana leads to his weak body, and mana blindness. But worst of all, he can't even use magic. The mana in his veins is in a paradoxical state, meaning the mana he wields that he can use is zero.
I take out a bottle full of pills from the medicine cabinet. I scoop out a single pill and I hesitantly consume it. The taste is awful, tastes like my tongue is being grinded down. Eventually this feeling makes it down my throat, and into my veins.
———————
[Pure mana pill] has been consumed.
———————
Status[dual cores] has been temporarily cured
Time remaining till status effect returns:
168 hours
———————
Mana has been temporarily increased to 10,000
Time remaining till mana returns to normal:
168 hours
———————
This is the only thing that allows veritas to use even a little bit of mana and stop his dual cores from destroying himself. Having S tier mana may seem too overpowered but unlike natural mana I can't regenerate mana. I have to ration this mana for 7 days.
Sighing and leaving the shower I wonder why couldn't I just have possessed the final villain or a random side character? Veritas has only two things going for him, Money and knowledge. I enter my room to see my clothes prepared and lying on the bed.
This is the third thing going for him, his loyal maid Cecilia Sybille. She's the one who found me walking the streets having escaped from the cemetery. I wasn't good at writing character motivations so I don't know why she is so loyal to Veritas. I'm lucky she is though, she's the disciple of an archangel. Which is also why Veritas never bothered to learn how to fight, I'm not sure if he knew her real identity but he could've probably figured out how strong she is.
I had already worn the clothes she had prepared, It felt more awkward at the lack of my awkwardness wearing these clothes. It's not just that fictional characters wear clothes that no one in real life would wear, Veritas' fashion sense was awful for someone blessed with the blessing of Harmony. All his clothes were black. Throwing out the entire closet might've been suspicious so all I've done for now is wear a white jacket to diversify his look.
After looking in the mirror for longer than I'd like to admit, I finally had enough confidence to not get embarrassed wearing these clothes. I check my phone for the date and time.
February 15th.
I had marked today's date in every calender I own. It's the date when the Aquinas academy's newest semester begins. And also the date the main storyline of the novels begin. I have many goals for this date, the main one is to gather as much Intel as I can about how far the stories deviated already. Veritas had died before even meeting the main characters, so anything is possible at this point. The second one is to cement myself as a supporting character.
Why not the main character?
I pull out my phone, opening it beyond just the lock screen this time. I swipe my app library till I find an app with no icon. Just a black box with the title of the app being "Arbiter of truth". Opening it, all the screen displayed was text. Text I regrettably recognized. It was the first three chapters of my first novel. But different. The text seemed to be modified to fit the current alterations in story. Almost like this text was an all-seeing eye dictating what will happen.
The main character has already been decided for the story but the supporting cast hasn't. I can also think of some theories about this text. It only follows what's narratively relevant. Meaning as long as I can separate the me that behaves according to the narrative and the me that wants to control the narrative, then I can stay safe from being controlled by this arbiter of truth and I can fix the problems in how this world came to be.
I put down my phone and gazed upon the buildings surrounding me. I had already walked far without realizing. The buildings were a mix of both Victorian and modern, combining these styles in a way that felt foreign yet familiar. The sky cloudless, stretching as far as I could see. Only interrupted by the faded silhouette of a tower in the far distance.
This wasn't how I described the world in the novel.
The world I wrote was purely victorian, with a cloudy sky that dyed the world grey. The different descriptions were due to how this world was created. Rather than me transmigrating into the novel, it's more like the novel transmigrated into my world. Eighty years ago when I died was when it began. The continents moving, sea levels rising, a giant tower rising from beneath Australia. A new constellation shining brighter than any star, enough to be visible in daytime. Millions died when the world changed. They were replaced. New people from the other world, the novel world, found themselves in this new world. Many still do to this day.
The world stabilized itself. A little too quickly to be realistic. Most likely this world tries to create a good narrative rather than a believable one.
However there's still two major issues. Gates and the status windows. In the original novel all the monsters existed in the same world, there were no gates or any such phenomenon. Neither was there any form of a status window. All the monsters i wrote about still exist in the real world though. Foreign monsters, I never wrote about exist beyond the gates. The world beyond the gates is a ruined world with primitive ruins. It doesn't match any part of my novel. Meaning it's most likely from another novel. Then what are status windows? In the world I wrote all attacks and spells were naturally executed, there were no such things as skills or stats. Is it from the same novel the ruins are from? Or a different one? I can't tell the scale of this. Every single world beyond a gate could be a different novel.
As I walk absentmindedly I bump into someone.
"Ah! Sorry"
"No no it's okay, you're here for the Aquinas academy's entrance exam right?"
"Uh yes, by the way do I know you? You look familiar."
I swear I could've seen this guy before. Silky Black hair, a light warm face and most unique of all, yellow irises with concentric rings extended from his pupils. Another face I've never thought of in a long time. Once a character I wrote with passion. His name I remember vividly even though it's been years.
"You must be confusing me with someone else I wasn't in this country until a few weeks ago."
What he said wasn't a lie. He wasn't in this country, he wasn't even in this world. The main character of "The saint returns from hell after devouring 9,999 souls", a returnee. I have to get acquainted with him.
"I guess I'll be seeing you often from now. Well if you pass that is."
"I think you should worry about yourself more Beethoven. I'm Alex. What about you?"
I have to use a different name. Veritas is legally dead. I can't let the Holy Ersatz family find out he's alive. A name that's familiar to me. The name I used to write this novel in the first place.
"Moriarty."