The children stood frozen—not by magic, but by anticipation.
Their blank scrolls trembled in small hands.
Behind them, the black veins pulsed like infected arteries. Lysara knelt, silent now, watching Jin with something like awe.
And above it all—the presence.
[AUTHOR'S ECHO — STATUS: OBSERVING]
THREAT LEVEL: ???
NOTE: ENTITY DOES NOT INTERACT. ONLY JUDGES.
Jin ignored it.
He focused on the journal.
On the first blank page.
His pen hovered.
He could lie. Invent a grand prophecy. Give them heroic deaths. Efficient. Satisfying. Safe.
But—
He remembered his own margin note:
"If trauma isn't carried, growth is weightless."
So he wrote—slowly, honestly—the truth behind the deletion.
"The village of Eldmere wasn't on the map. Not because it was unimportant—but because no one looked.
It sat in the valley where the river forks, hidden by mist that smelled of pine and wet stone.
Seventeen children lived there. Not chosen ones. Not future heroes. Just kids who raced goats, stole honeycakes, and whispered about the stars falling."
As he wrote, the words glowed, then lifted off the page—golden script floating into the air like fireflies.
The nearest child blinked.
A tear cut through the dust on its cheek.
[NARRATIVE JUSTIFICATION — PARTIAL SUCCESS]
COHERENCE: 89 → 91 (+2 RECOVERED)
EFFECT: "THE SKIPPED" CALMED (TEMPORARY)
WARNING: EMOTIONAL CONTENT DETECTED — MAY TRIGGER UNSTABLE MEMORIES
The scrolls in their hands began to fill.
Not with grand destiny.
With details.
"My brother's laugh sounded like a goose choking.""We buried the old smith's cat under the third oak. Marked it with a spoon.""The well water tasted like iron and rain."
Jin kept writing.
"The Protagonist—Kael—wasn't brave that day. He was twelve. He hid in the root cellar when the sky cracked.
He didn't save anyone.
And that shame… that's what made him strong. Not power. Guilt."
A gasp rippled through the children.
One—smaller, freckled—stepped forward. His scroll now read:
"I was Miro. I gave Kael my lucky stone. He dropped it running."
He looked at Jin.
"…Did he ever find it?"
Jin's throat tightened.
In Draft 2, yes—Kael found it in the final battle, used it to focus his ultimate spell.
But Jin shook his head.
"No. He didn't."
Miro nodded. Smiled faintly.
"Good. It was just a stone."
And then—he faded.
Not violently. Gently. Like a sentence read aloud, finally at peace.
One by one, the others followed.
Not erased.
Integrated.
Their scrolls dissolved into light—and sank into the cracked earth.
Where they touched, the black veins healed.
Green shoots pushed through stone.
[QUEST COMPLETE: ☑ JUSTIFY THE SKIPPED]
REWARD: 1 ROLE POINT
+ CLASS UNLOCK: [ARCHIVIST]
+ SKILL UNLOCK: [REMEMBRANCE — PASSIVE]
— Recover lost narrative fragments. Store them in journal. Use to reinforce coherence.
A warm pulse filled Jin's chest.
The journal flipped open.
A new page bore a title in elegant script:
ROLE SELECTION
☐ ARCHIVIST
Keeper of lost stories. Strength grows with truth remembered.
— + Coherence regen (1/min in safe zones)
— Can "cite" past events to empower edits
— Weak to lies, denial, censorship
(Other Classes Locked — Requires More Role Points)
Jin selected ☑ ARCHIVIST.
A soft chime.
His armor shifted—subtly. Silver filigree now traced the seams, like ink on parchment. The journal's cover warmed, etching a sigil: an open book over a broken chain.
[WELCOME, ARCHIVIST JIN MIN-HO]
LEVEL: 2
COHERENCE: 91/100
He exhaled.
For the first time—he felt grounded.
Then—
A cough.
Lysara stood. Her robes were tattered, her golden eyes dimmer—but her posture was straighter.
"The Prologue…" she murmured, touching a newly sprouted vine. "It's whole again. Not perfect. But… real."
She looked at him. "You didn't fix it. You honored it."
Jin pocketed the pen. "Some stories don't need fixing. Just… remembering."
A beat.
Then—she knelt.
Not in surrender.
In oath.
[FOLLOWER REQUEST: HIGH PRIESTESS LYSARA]
LOYALTY: CAUTIOUS (NEUTRAL)
POTENTIAL: HIGH
WARNING: FOLLOWERS REQUIRE NARRATIVE INVESTMENT (E.G., CHARACTER ARC, SHARED GOAL)
Jin hesitated.
Follower? In webnovels, this usually meant free power, loyalty, maybe a subplot.
But Lysara wasn't a trope.
She was a consequence.
He offered his hand. "Stand up. I don't need servants."
She took it. "Then what do you need?"
He looked past her—at the horizon, where the spires still bled static.
"I need to know why this world collapsed."
Lysara's gaze darkened. "The Star-Eater."
"The… what?"
"The final boss. The 'Eternal Throne's' purpose was to contain it." She pointed to the largest broken spire—the one snapped mid-air. "That was the Seal Spire. When the Author deleted the Prologue, the seal's foundation—our sacrifice—was voided."
She turned to him, deadly serious.
"The Star-Eater isn't coming, Archivist."
"It's already here."
"And it's… hungry."
As if on cue—
The crimson moon shattered.
Not metaphorically.
A jagged crack split it open—revealing teeth.
Thousands of them. Obsidian. Curved inward.
And from the fissure, a voice—not sound, but thought, pressed directly into their minds:
"…so many stories… left unfinished…"
"…feed me your endings… or become prologue to mine…"
The ground heaved.
From the fissure in the moon, a tendril—thin as a thread, black as deleted text—unspooled.
It lanced down.
Not at Jin.
At the journal in his hand.
Jin yanked it back—but too slow.
The tendril touched the cover.
[! NARRATIVE VIOLATION !]
ENTITY: [STAR-EATER — ASPECT: "THE CONSUMED ENDING"]
ACTION: MEMORY THEFT
Pages flipped wildly.
Words bled off the paper—rising like smoke, drawn toward the moon.
Jin's rejection notes. His edits. His own memories—
—the smell of his mother's tea,
—the sound of his first published author's voice,
—the weight of his red pen on draft after draft—
—all being siphoned.
[COHERENCE: 91 → 78]
[HP: 94 → 82 (PSYCHIC DRAIN)]
[SKILL WARNING: "REMEMBRANCE" OVERLOADING — FRAGMENTS CORRUPTING]
"No!" Jin clutched the journal.
He could feel it—his identity thinning. Becoming generic. A nameless editor. A placeholder.
Lysara grabbed his arm. "It feeds on closure! Give it none!"
Jin gritted his teeth.
He couldn't fight it. Not head-on.
But he was an Archivist now.
And archivists don't just store stories.
They curate them.
With his last strength, he flipped to a blank page.
And wrote—not a lie. Not a boast.
A question.
"What if the Star-Eater… was never the villain?"
The tendril jerked.
The voice faltered.
"…what…?"
[NARRATIVE PARADOX DETECTED]
COHERENCE COST: 5 (73/100)
EFFECT: TEMPORARY STASIS (STAR-EATER ASPECT CONFUSED)
The siphon stopped.
The moon's maw hung open—uncertain.
Jin gasped, slumping.
Lysara caught him. "What did you do?"
He smiled weakly, blood on his lips. "Gave it… homework."
Above them, the Star-Eater's tendril curled back—thoughtfully.
And deep in Jin's journal, a new entry appeared—written in jagged, alien script, over his own:
"QUERY RECEIVED.
AWAITING EVIDENCE.
…you have 7 days."
[NEW QUEST UNLOCKED]
☐ PROVE THE STAR-EATER'S INNOCENCE
TIME LIMIT: 7 DAYS (STORYVERSE TIME)
REWARD: ???
FAILURE: TOTAL NARRATIVE CONSUMPTION
Lysara stared at the sky. "You just… negotiated with the apocalypse."
Jin closed the journal. His hand shook—but his voice didn't.
"First rule of editing," he said, pushing himself up.
"Never delete a character until you understand their motive."
He looked at the horizon—where the next Storyverse loomed, faintly visible through a shimmering rift: a neon-drenched city under a blood-red sky.
Storyverse #8891 — "Neon Requiem: Cyber-Samurai Protocol."
(Rejected. Reason: "Worldbuilding > plot. MC's arc buried in lore dumps.")
Jin tightened his grip on the pen.
"Come on," he said to Lysara.
"We've got a draft to audit."
And together, Archivist and Priestess, they walked toward the rift.
Behind them, the healed courtyard bloomed.
Before them—the multiverse.
And somewhere, beyond the fourth wall—
The Author's Echo watched.
And for the first time…
leaned forward.