The Vanguard Camp smelled of ozone, wet canvas, and cheap antiseptic.
Kaelen sat on the edge of a narrow cot in the healing tent, the chaotic sounds of the camp muffled by the heavy rain outside. He was alone, finally. Elara had been called away to tend to the other wounded, and Garrick was off reporting his "miracle" awakening to the Vanguard Commander.
Kaelen unbuttoned his torn, blood-stained tunic and looked down at his chest. Smooth, unblemished skin. Not even a scar.
He closed his eyes and focused inward. In Aethelgard, a mage's power came from their core—a physical manifestation of Aetheric Ink located near the heart. Garrick's was a blazing, miniature sun. Elara's was a serene, spinning emerald.
Kaelen's core had always been a dull, murky grey. The core of a 'Blank.' Barely enough mana to light a candle. But now...
"Show me," Kaelen whispered to the empty tent.
With a soft chiming sound, the air in front of him shimmered. A translucent, blue interface materialized, glowing softly in the dim light.
[ANOMALY STATUS]
Name: Kaelen Vane (Alias) / (Earth Designation Erased)
Role: Discarded Extra (Chapter 10 Deceased)
Current Trait: The Editor's Pen (Level 1)
Aetheric Ink Capacity: N/A (Error: Boundless/Unquantifiable)
[AVAILABLE EDITS]
Glimpse: Read the next 3 seconds of physical reality. (Cost: Low Ink)
Typo: Alter a minor variable in a target's trajectory or action. (Cost: Moderate Ink)
Kaelen stared at the floating text. It was so familiar it made his chest ache.
He remembered his past life on Earth—late nights bathed in the glow of a screen, dissecting massive, convoluted web novels. He had been a ruthless editor of narratives, hunting for plot holes, glaring at poorly written tropes, and mentally rewriting entire character arcs to force a broken story to make sense.
To the 'Archivists'—the unseen gods of this world—Aethelgard wasn't a living, breathing realm. It was just a rough draft. A pre-written manuscript of ink and parchment. Garrick was the golden protagonist, destined for a glorious climax. Elara was the tragic heroine, doomed to a sorrowful epilogue.
And Kaelen? He was supposed to be a discarded footnote. A sentence crossed out in red ink.
"If they want to treat my family's lives like a cheap tragedy," Kaelen muttered, swiping his hand through the interface until it vanished into motes of blue light. "I'll burn their entire draft to the ground."
The tent flap suddenly rustled, and Garrick ducked inside, shaking the rain from his golden hair like a wet retriever. Even covered in mud, the guy looked like he belonged on the cover of a heroic epic. He carried two steaming wooden mugs of bitter-root tea.
"Commander's thrilled," Garrick said, a wide, easy grin spreading across his face as he handed Kaelen a mug. "He says with my Supreme Core awakened, we can finally push the Vanguard lines past the Ashen Wastes. We'll be heroes, Kaelen. Real heroes."
Kaelen took a sip of the scalding tea, letting the bitter taste ground him. He looked at Garrick. For eighteen years, this idiot had been his brother. They had stolen apples from the village orchard, trained with wooden swords until their hands bled, and dreamed of seeing the capital city.
Garrick wasn't a bad person. In fact, he was painfully, irritatingly good. He was righteous. He genuinely wanted to save the world. But that was exactly what made him so dangerous. In any daastaan or epic, the righteous hero's path is always paved with the corpses of his loved ones. The Heavens needed Garrick to suffer so he could grow.
"Heroes die young, Garrick," Kaelen said quietly, his voice devoid of its usual warmth.
Garrick paused, his grin faltering. He pulled up a stool and sat across from Kaelen, his expression turning serious. "I won't let that happen. Not to you, not to Elara. You saw what happened out there today. I pulled you back from the brink! I have the power to protect us now."
You didn't pull me back, Kaelen thought, feeling a cold knot form in his stomach. I had to hijack reality so you wouldn't get us all killed.
"I know you do," Kaelen lied smoothly, letting a weary smile touch his lips. He needed Garrick confident. A confident protagonist was a predictable protagonist. "Just... don't let it go to your head. A Supreme Core makes you a target."
"Let them come," Garrick scoffed, downing half his boiling tea in one gulp. "Anyway, rest up. Tomorrow, the Commander is sending us on a subjugation mission into the outer edge of the Drafts. A localized dungeon break. With my new core, it'll be a walk in the park."
Garrick clapped Kaelen on the shoulder and ducked back out into the rain, off to spread his boundless optimism elsewhere.
Kaelen sat in the silence of the tent, the warmth of the tea doing nothing to chase away the chill in his veins.
The Drafts. Subterranean labyrinths where the Heavens tested out new monsters before writing them into the main storyline of the world. A subjugation mission was exactly the kind of early-game scenario designed to show off a protagonist's new powers.
It was also the perfect place for an anomaly like Kaelen to test his own.
Kaelen set his mug down on the wooden crate beside his cot. He focused his mind, drawing on the strange, heavy energy of the 'Editor's Pen' resting in his soul. He looked at the half-empty mug.
Typo, he commanded mentally.
He didn't cast a spell. He didn't use elements. He simply looked at the structural integrity of the ceramic mug—the very prose of its physical existence—and used the Pen to strike out a single, crucial syllable of its design.
Crack.
The mug shattered perfectly in half, spilling hot tea all over the floor.
Kaelen's silver eyes gleamed in the dim light. The gods had written a tragedy. But they were about to learn a harsh lesson about plot holes.