"Just what I needed. A mystery character with a grudge."
The words tasted bitter, like the stale coffee I hadn't bought yet. I adjusted my collar, trying to shake the feeling of being watched, and ducked under the wrought-iron archway of the botanical gardens.
The sun was bleeding out on the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows across the neatly trimmed hedges. The greenhouse—a massive dome of glass and steel—glowed orange in the dying light. It was warm near the vents, smelling of damp earth, exotic fertilizer, and impending felony.
I found Ria exactly where she said she'd be: sitting on an overturned potting bench behind the main structure, peeling a green apple with that same dagger she'd tried to stab the shadow hound with.
"You're late," she said without looking up. A coil of apple peel hung unbroken from her knife, defying gravity.
"I walked the long way," I said, checking the perimeter. "I had a fan club on the library roof."
Ria paused, the knife hovering over the fruit. She looked at me, her green eyes sharp. "Fan club? Like admirers, or the 'I want to wear your skin' kind?"
"The second one. Hooded. Saw a flash of a Fire Shard."
Ria frowned, slicing a wedge of apple and popping it into her mouth. "Fire Shard? That's Vance's signature. But Vance is currently enjoying the hospitality of the disciplinary dungeons. Unless he escaped?"
"Unlikely," I said, sitting on a stack of clay pots. "The security there is tight. This was someone else. Maybe a copycat, or... an avenger. Someone angry that I ruined the opening ceremony."
"Great," Ria mused, chewing thoughtfully. "So we have a suicidal genius in the basement, a demon-summoner on the loose, and now a pyromaniac stalking you. Is your life always this dramatic, Ren? Because usually, I have to work hard to find this kind of trouble."
"It's a recent development," I muttered. "So, the library. What's the plan? We can't just walk in. The night shift librarians are practically gargoyles themselves. And Elara is watching the front door like a hawk."
Ria tossed me a slice of apple. I caught it. It was tart and crisp.
"The plan is simple," she said, wiping her dagger on her trousers. "I cause a distraction. You get the key. We go down. We stop the boom. We get snacks after."
"What kind of distraction?"
"The kind that gets people looking up while we go down." She pulled a small glass vial from her pocket. It was filled with a swirling silver powder. "Flash-bang dust mixed with a little levitation spore. Harmless, but flashy. I'll set it off in the Astronomy Tower vents. It'll look like a meteor shower is hitting the north wing."
"That... might work," I admitted. "But the basement door. Elara said it's sealed. Not just locked, sealed. Mana wards."
Ria grinned, tapping the side of her nose. "Ren, locks are just polite suggestions. Wards are just puzzles. And I love puzzles. Besides..." She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I swiped a Master Key card from a sleepy prefect during lunch. It won't open the Vault, but it gets us past the main security grid."
I stared at her. "You pickpocketed a prefect? Do you know how much trouble—"
"Relax, Grey-coat. I put it back before he finished his soup. I just copied the mana signature onto this."
She held up the gold coin she always played with. It pulsed with a faint blue light.
"Impressive," I said, genuinely meaning it. In the book, Ria's skills were mostly implied. Seeing them in action was different. She was a rogue class in a slice-of-life setting.
"Shall we?" She stood up, tossing the apple core into a compost bin with perfect aim. "Sun's down. The library closes in ten minutes."
The Great Library at night was a different beast. During the day, it was a sanctuary of learning. At night, with the shadows stretching between the towering shelves like fingers, it looked like the inside of a whale's ribcage.
We waited in the bushes near the side entrance until the main lights flickered off. The last few students trickled out, complaining about essays and professors.
"Now," Ria whispered.
She crushed the vial of silver powder in her hand and blew it toward an open vent near the foundation. The dust sparkled as it was sucked into the air intake system leading to the Astronomy Tower across the quad.
Thirty seconds later, a muffled BOOM echoed from the north side of the campus, followed by streaks of silver light shooting out of the tower's chimney like backwards lightning.
"What in the hells?" a guard shouted from the library entrance, running toward the spectacle. "Is that a flare? Is the observatory on fire?"
"Go," I hissed.
We slipped through the side door while the guard was distracted. The interior was dim, lit only by the low-power emergency crystals lining the walls.
"Basement access is behind the Restricted Section," I whispered, leading the way. My Observer Vision was active, painting the silent library in shades of blue wireframe.
[Stealth Check: Pass.]
[Heart Rate: Elevated.]
We moved silently across the carpeted floors. The smell of old paper was overwhelming here.
We reached the heavy iron door marked 'Maintenance and Archive Storage - Authorized Personnel Only.'
"Do your thing," I said, stepping back to keep watch.
Ria pressed the gold coin against the lock plate. The blue light flared. The tumblers inside the mechanism clicked—one, two, three times.
Clunk.
The door swung open with a groan that sounded like a dying cow.
"Grease hinges," Ria whispered, shaking her head and pulling a small oil can from her belt to squirt the metal. "Amateurs."
We slipped inside and closed the door behind us.
The stairs went down. Deep down.
The air grew colder with every step. The smell changed from paper to ozone and damp stone. It felt heavy, like the pressure before a thunderstorm.
"Ren," Ria said, her voice lacking its usual playful bounce. "Do you feel that?"
"The static?" I asked, rubbing my arm. The hair was standing up on end.
"No. The wrongness." She stopped on a landing. "It feels like... like the world is thin here."
She was right. The walls of the stairwell seemed to flicker in my peripheral vision, like a texture failing to load in a video game.
[Warning: Proximity to Source Code Fragment.]
[Reality Stability in this Sector: 68%]
"Keep moving," I said, pushing down the nausea. "Cian can't be far behind."
We reached the bottom. It wasn't a storage room. It was a cavern. The floor was etched with glowing runes that pulsed with a sick, erratic rhythm. In the center of the room stood a stone archway—a gateway—that led nowhere.
And there was Cian.
He was kneeling in front of the archway, surrounded by open books and crystals. He was muttering feverishly, his hands moving in complex patterns as he drew chalk lines on the floor.
"It fits," Cian whispered, his voice echoing in the silence. "The geometry fits. If I invert the polarity of the third rune... the door opens. The knowledge... infinite mana..."
"Cian!" I shouted, stepping off the stairs.
He jumped, spinning around. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. He looked manic.
"Ren?" He squinted at us. "And... Ria? What are you doing here? You can't be here! It's delicate! One wrong vibration and the frequency collapses!"
"That's exactly why we're here," I said, walking slowly toward him, hands raised. "Cian, listen to me. That archway isn't a battery. It's a tear."
"You don't understand!" Cian scrambled to his feet, blocking the archway with his small body. "The texts say it connects to the Aether! Pure energy! I can prove I'm not just a bookworm. I can power the whole city! My father will have to look at me then!"
"You're going to power a crater," Ria said, stepping up beside me. "Look at the runes, genius. The third one isn't 'Invert'. It's 'Nullify'. You're not opening a door; you're deleting the doorframe while the door is still closed. Do you know what happens when you divide by zero with magic?"
Cian blinked, looking back at his chalk drawing. "No... that's a translation error in the modern editions. I'm using the Archaic High-Elven syntax..."
"Cian," I interrupted, checking the grey text floating over the archway.
[Object: Unstable Narrative Hole.]
[Status: Primed.]
[Trigger: 30 seconds to Critical Mass.]
"We don't have time for a lecture," I said, panic rising. "It's already active. Look at the keystone."
The top stone of the arch was vibrating. Dust was falling from the ceiling. A low hum, like a swarm of bees, began to fill the room.
Cian looked up. His face went pale. "It... it shouldn't be doing that yet. I haven't finished the circle."
"It's feeding on your ambient mana," I realized. "You're the battery, Cian."
"I... I can't stop it," Cian stammered, backing away. "It's pulling on me."
The hum grew louder. A crack appeared in the air inside the archway—not in the stone, but in the air. It looked like black lightning frozen in time.
"Ria!" I yelled. "The runes! Scuff them out!"
"On it!" Ria dove for the chalk circle, kicking at the lines with her boots.
"No!" Cian screamed. "If you break the circle, the feedback will kill us!"
"If we don't, the explosion will!" I grabbed Cian by the collar and yanked him back. He was light, but he fought with desperate strength.
"Let go! I have to stabilize it!"
"Ren!" Ria shouted from the floor. "The chalk isn't coming off! It's burned into the stone!"
I looked at the arch. The black crack was widening. I could see... code inside it. Strings of binary and text, swirling in a void.
The Source Code.
If that thing fully opened, it wouldn't just be an explosion. It would be a deletion event. It would wipe this sector of the story.
I needed to disrupt the flow of mana. But I didn't have magic.
Wait. I have the Observer ability.
[Ability: Whisper.]
[New Application Available: Narrative Interruption.]
[Cost: Moderate Mental Damage.]
I didn't hesitate.
"Ria! Get back!"
I shoved Cian toward her. "Cover his ears!"
I turned to the archway. I didn't look at the stone. I looked at the grey text hovering above it—the interface of the world itself.
[Status: Primed.]
I focused all my willpower on that word. I reached out with my mind, feeling a headache split my skull like an axe.
"Edit," I gritted out through clenched teeth.
Change 'Primed' to 'Paused'.
The world turned grey. The hum stopped. The dust froze in mid-air. For a split second, I was standing in a void of silence.
Then, the pain hit me. It felt like someone poured molten lead into my ears.
I fell to my knees, gasping.
The grey world snapped back to color. The humming didn't stop, but it changed pitch. It went from a rising scream to a dull, sputtering cough.
The black crack in the archway shuddered and sealed itself shut with a sound like a wet towel snapping.
The runes on the floor stopped glowing.
Silence.
I slumped forward, catching myself on my hands. My nose was bleeding.
"Ren?" Ria's voice was shaky.
I looked up. Cian was staring at the archway, his mouth open. Ria was holding him, looking at me with wide eyes.
"What did you do?" Cian whispered. "The flow... it just... stopped. That's impossible. The inertia alone should have..."
"I... fixed the translation," I wheezed, wiping blood from my lip. "Bad syntax."
Cian looked at me, then at the dead archway. He scrambled out of Ria's grip and ran to the keystone. He touched it. Cold.
"It's inert," he murmured. "It's completely dead." He turned to me, his eyes filling with tears. "I failed. Again. I couldn't even blow it up right."
"You didn't fail, you idiot," Ria snapped, standing up and dusting off her knees. "You survived. That's a win in my book."
She walked over to me and offered a hand. "You okay, Grey-coat? You look like you went ten rounds with a troll."
"Headache," I muttered, taking her hand. "Big headache."
[Story Stability: 96.0%]
[Objective Complete: Disable the Library Trap.]
[Hidden Objective Complete: Recruit the Genius (Pending).]
"We need to go," I said, checking the time. "The flash powder won't distract the guards forever. And Elara is probably counting the seconds."
"Right," Ria said. She grabbed Cian's arm. "Come on, Einstein. You're coming with us. And you're explaining why you thought summoning a black hole was a good extracurricular activity."
Cian didn't resist. He looked defeated, clutching his journal to his chest.
We made our way to the stairs.
But as we reached the landing, the heavy iron door at the top of the stairs clicked.
Someone was opening it from the outside.
We froze.
"Elara?" I whispered.
Ria shook her head. "No. She would have knocked or announced herself. This is..."
The door swung open slowly.
A figure stepped onto the landing.
It wasn't Elara. It wasn't a librarian.
It was a student wearing the distinctive crimson uniform of the Combat Track. He had slicked-back brown hair and a smug, cruel smile that I recognized instantly.
Vance.
But... Vance was expelled. I saw him dragged away.
"Well, well," Vance said, leaning against the doorframe and twirling a wand between his fingers. "I knew keeping an eye on the little genius would pay off."
He looked at me, his smile widening.
"And look what we have here. The Rat from Row 43."
"Vance?" I said, stepping in front of Cian. "You're supposed to be in jail."
"Daddy has good lawyers," Vance sneered. "And the Headmaster has a price. Probation, they call it. As long as I keep my nose clean."
He pointed his wand at us. The tip glowed with a nasty, dark red light.
"But catching three students trespassing in the Forbidden Sector? That's not keeping my nose clean. That's me doing a public service. I turn you in, I become the hero, and you three..." He chuckled. "You get expelled."
"Or," he added, his eyes drifting to the archway below, "I could test out this 'infinite mana' theory myself. Since you did all the prep work."
Ria's hand went to her dagger. "Ren," she whispered. "I can't fight a Combat Mage in a hallway. No room to dodge."
I looked at Vance. He wasn't the clumsy villain from Chapter 1 anymore. He looked dangerous. The air around him felt heavy, distorted. The "Avenger" tag from earlier made sense now.
It wasn't a mystery character. It was the original villain, reinstated by the universe to fix the plot hole I created.
"Vance," I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite the pounding in my head. "You don't want to touch that arch. It's broken."
"I'll be the judge of that," Vance said. He took a step down the stairs. "Move aside. Or I'll test my Scorch spell on your face."
This was bad. If Vance reactivated the arch, I couldn't stop it again. My mental energy was drained.
I needed a variable. Something unpredictable.
I looked at Cian behind me. The boy was shaking, but he was staring at Vance with a strange intensity. He was clutching his journal so hard his knuckles were white.
Recruit the Genius (Pending).
I leaned back slightly.
"Cian," I whispered. "Does your journal have any... defensive spells? Maybe something archaic?"
Cian looked at me. "I... I only know theory. I've never cast them."
"Well," I said, watching Vance raise his wand. "Now would be a really good time for a practical exam."
Vance fired.
A jet of fire shot from his wand, illuminating the dark stairwell.
"Shield!" I yelled, tackling Ria to the ground.
But the fire didn't hit us.
Because Cian stepped forward. He didn't cower. He opened his journal and shouted a word that sounded like grinding stones.
"KHEM-SET!"
The air in front of us solidified. It didn't glow like Mira's shield. It turned into a translucent grey wall of force—gravity magic.
Vance's fire hit the gravity wall and curved, shooting straight up into the ceiling, scorching the stone.
Vance stumbled back, shocked. "What the—"
Cian stood there, panting, his hand outstretched. He looked terrified, but alive.
"I..." Cian stared at his hand. "I did it."
"Nice one, Einstein!" Ria yelled, scrambling up. "Now, Ren! Run!"
We charged up the stairs while Vance was disoriented. Ria shoulder-checked him as we passed, sending him stumbling into the wall.
"This isn't over!" Vance screamed after us as we burst into the library main floor.
"It never is!" I shouted back.
We ran through the library, dodging the confused night guards, and burst out into the cool night air.
We didn't stop running until we hit the edge of the student dorms.
Panting, we collapsed on the grass behind the statue of the Founder.
"Okay," Ria wheezed, lying on her back. "That... was definitely a heist."
Cian was sitting with his head between his knees, hyperventilating. "I cast a spell. A real spell. I almost killed a noble."
"You saved us," I said, patting his shoulder. "Good job, Cian. Welcome to the team."
Cian looked up, sweat dripping down his face. "Team? What team?"
"The 'Don't Let the World End' team," I said. "We're working on the name."
I looked up at the sky. The stars were out.
I had saved the genius. I had stopped the trap. I had gained two allies.
But Vance was back. And he knew our faces. And he knew about the basement.
The "Avenger" plotline was fully active.
And somewhere in the dark, the Editor's quill was probably writing a very angry review of my performance.
"Ren," Cian said quietly. "That archway... when you stopped it... I saw something."
"Saw what?"
"Your eyes," Cian whispered. "They didn't glow like magic. They looked like... text. Scrolling code."
I froze.
"You're tired, Cian," I said quickly. "Trick of the light."
Cian didn't look convinced, but he nodded slowly.
"Maybe," he said. "But Ren? Whatever you are... thank you."
I smiled tiredly. "Don't mention it."
I stood up. "Get to your dorms. Tomorrow, we act like nothing happened. And Cian? Hide that journal."
As they walked away, I stayed by the statue for a moment.
The long-term goal was clearer now. The "Source Code" in the basement wasn't just a trap. It was a fragment of the truth. If I wanted to reach 0%, I needed to find more of them.
And I needed to figure out how to stop Vance from blowing my cover to the entire school.
"Round two, Vance," I whispered to the night. "Bring it on."