"Lobotomy by choice. Just another Tuesday."
I muttered the words as I burst into Room 104, startling Tybalt, who was in the middle of trying to scrub mud out of his uniform with a bar of cheap soap.
"Ren!" Tybalt yelped, dropping the soap. "Don't slam the door! I'm already on edge. Every time I hear a noise, I think it's the prison warden coming to take away my socks."
"Leave the mud, Ty," I said, locking the door behind me and dragging my trunk out from under the bed. "We have a bigger problem than laundry stains. We need to hold a staff meeting. Now."
"Staff meeting? Who's the staff?"
"Us," I said. "And the rest of Squad 7. Grab your laundry basket. We're going to the basement."
"Why the basement?"
"Because the spin cycle is the only thing loud enough to drown out what I have to say."
Twenty minutes later, we were huddled in the humid, soapy air of the Dormitory C laundry room. It was empty, save for a row of massive, rumbling magical washing machines that shook the floor like a mild earthquake.
Cian was sitting on a vibrating dryer, swinging his legs nervously. Ria was leaning against a folding table, playing with a loose thread on her sleeve. Kaelen stood by the door, arms crossed, looking like he wanted to fight the appliances.
"Truth Serum," Ria repeated flatly after I explained the situation. "You're sure?"
"Elara confirmed it," I said. "Inquisitors. Tomorrow morning. They're going to dose us and ask exactly what happened in the forest."
"Well, we're dead," Cian said, putting his head in his hands. "I can't lie under serum. It's alchemical compulsion. It bypasses the frontal lobe and forces the vocal cords to articulate memory. If they ask about the bunker, I'll sing like a canary."
"I'll just refuse," Kaelen growled. "They can't force me to drink it."
"They can and they will," Ria countered. "If you refuse, it's an admission of guilt. They'll expel you, arrest you, and then dose you anyway in a holding cell. Vance's father is a Council member, Kaelen. He doesn't want the truth; he wants a scapegoat."
"So we tell the truth?" Tybalt asked hopefully. "That Vance attacked us with a wolf and we saved him?"
"If we tell the truth," I said, stepping into the center of the room, "we admit to using forbidden items. We admit to finding a Pre-Ancient bunker. And we admit that I, a student with 'No Magic', somehow summoned a hive of wasps and broke a sonic frequency. I'll be dissected in a lab, and you guys will be accessories to treason."
Silence descended on the room, heavy and damp. The washing machine behind me entered its spin cycle, thud-thud-thudding rhythmically.
"So we can't lie, and we can't tell the truth," Kaelen said. "What's the third option?"
I took a deep breath. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Source Code Fragment.
It wasn't glowing brightly anymore. It looked like a jagged piece of glass with static trapped inside it, humming against my skin.
"We edit the script," I said.
Cian squinted at the crystal. "Is that... the thing from the skeleton?"
"It's a memory drive," I lied, keeping it simple for the non-gamers. "High-level illusion tech. I can use it to create a... overlay. A temporary artificial memory."
"You want to brainwash us?" Ria asked, raising an eyebrow. "Ren, that's dark. Even for me."
"I want to synchronize our stories," I corrected. "If we all believe the same lie, the Truth Serum won't register it as deception. It detects conflict between memory and speech. If I change the memory... there's no conflict."
"That sounds dangerous," Tybalt whispered. "Will I forget my mom's meatloaf recipe?"
"No," I said. "It's a shallow edit. It only affects the last 24 hours. Once the serum wears off and the mana dissipates, your real memories will come back. Probably."
"Probably?" Kaelen stepped forward. He looked at the shard, then at me. "Ren. You're asking me to let you inside my head. That's a lot of trust."
"I know," I said. "But it's the only way we walk out of that interrogation room as students and not prisoners."
Kaelen held my gaze. The dark mana around him flickered, sensing the power in the shard. It didn't like it. It recoiled, hissing.
But Kaelen nodded. "Do it."
"Me too," Ria sighed, hopping off the table. "I've had worse hangovers. Let's get this over with."
Cian nodded shakily. Tybalt just closed his eyes and whimpered, "Save the meatloaf. Please save the meatloaf."
"Okay," I said. "Circle up."
They stood in a tight circle amidst the laundry baskets. I stepped into the center.
I clutched the crystal shard in my right hand. It felt sharp, cutting into my palm.
[Source Code Fragment (1/5)]
[Action: Integrate?]
"Integrate," I whispered.
The pain was instant. It wasn't physical; it was conceptual. It felt like I was being unzipped and put back together wrong. My vision pixelated. The laundry room dissolved into lines of green and white code.
[Integration Successful.]
[Observer Level: 3 -> 4]
[New Skill Unlocked: Narrative Overlay (Beta)]
I gasped, my eyes snapping open. The world looked hyper-real. I could see the variables floating over my friends' heads like status bars.
[Target: Kaelen. Mental Resistance: High.]
[Target: Ria. Mental Resistance: Moderate.]
[Target: Cian. Mental Resistance: Low.]
[Target: Tybalt. Mental Resistance: Paper-Thin.]
"Listen to my voice," I said. My voice sounded distorted to my own ears, layered with a digital reverb.
"Yesterday," I began, weaving the lie. "We entered the forest. We tracked the Iron-Boars. We heard a scream."
I pushed the narrative out. I visualized the scene: Vance fighting boars, not us. The wasps being a natural nest he stepped on. The bunker never existing.
"Vance was overwhelmed," I continued, sweating as the mana drained from me. "We stepped in. Kaelen used his sword to defend him. Tybalt made a wall. Cian pulled the wounded to safety. Ria scouted the exit."
I walked around the circle, touching each of them on the forehead.
"We are heroes," I whispered. "We saved a classmate. That is the truth. That is the only truth."
As I touched Kaelen, he flinched. His darkness fought back, a black smoke rising to meet my hand.
Trust me, I projected the thought directly into his mind.
The smoke receded.
"That is the truth," Kaelen murmured, his eyes glazing over.
I finished the circle. The crystal in my hand didn't shatter; it absorbed into my skin, leaving a faint, glowing tattoo of a quill on my palm.
[Overlay Complete.]
[Duration: 12 Hours.]
My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the cold tile floor.
"Ren!" Tybalt shouted, snapping out of his trance. He rushed over to catch me. "Are you okay? You look like you just ate a lemon. A really sour one."
I looked up. They were all blinking, looking confused but calm.
"What happened?" Ria asked, rubbing her temples. "I feel... fuzzy. Did we decide on a plan?"
"Yeah," I rasped, my head pounding like a drum. "We decided to tell the truth. About the boars."
"Right," Kaelen said, nodding slowly. A strange conviction settled in his eyes. "The boars. Vance was surrounded. We had to step in."
"He was lucky we were there," Cian added, adjusting his glasses. "Otherwise, the wasps would have finished him."
It worked. They believed it. The real memories were buried under a layer of digital paint.
"Let's go back to the dorms," I said, letting Tybalt help me up. "Big day tomorrow."
The next morning, the Academy Inquisitors arrived.
They didn't look like teachers. They wore long white robes with hoods that covered their eyes, and they moved in perfect unison. They set up a temporary interrogation room in the Faculty Hall—a stark, windowless chamber with a single table and a mana-dampening field.
I was called in first.
I sat in the chair. Across from me sat the Lead Inquisitor, a woman with pale skin and lips that looked like they had never smiled.
"Ren of Class 1-C," she said. Her voice was dry. "Drink this."
She pushed a small cup of clear liquid toward me.
I picked it up. It smelled like nothing.
I drank it.
A cold sensation washed over my brain. It felt like my thoughts were being submerged in ice water. My impulse control vanished. If I wanted to say something, I would say it.
"State your name," the Inquisitor said.
"Ren," I said immediately. I couldn't stop the word.
"Did you encounter Vance of House Thorne in the Forest of Whispers?"
"Yes."
"Describe the encounter."
My mind raced to the memory. But which memory?
I saw the bunker. I saw the typewriter. But those images were blurry, like a dream I couldn't quite recall.
Overlaying them, bright and clear, was the image of Vance fighting a giant boar.
"We heard screaming," I said, the words flowing effortlessly. "Vance was fighting Iron-Boars. He stepped on a wasp nest. We intervened. Kaelen killed the boars. We dragged Vance to safety."
The Inquisitor stared at me. She glanced at a crystal orb on the table. It glowed a steady, calm blue.
[Truth Verified.]
"And the magical anomaly detected in the North Sector?" she asked. "The vacuum?"
"I don't know what that is," I said. And in that moment, under the influence of my own edit, I really didn't. "Maybe a weather phenomenon?"
The orb stayed blue.
The Inquisitor narrowed her eyes beneath her hood. She leaned forward.
"You are a student with no affinity, Ren. Yet you claim to have survived a Grade-3 encounter. How?"
"I ran away," I said. "I hid behind a tree while Kaelen did the work. I'm... not very brave."
The orb pulsed blue.
The Inquisitor sat back. She looked disappointed.
"Very well. You are dismissed. Send in the next student."
I walked out of the room. My legs were shaking.
One by one, the others went in.
Tybalt cried and talked about how scary the boars were. Blue orb.
Cian talked about the tactical disadvantage of wasps. Blue orb.
Ria complained about Vance ruining her boots. Blue orb.
Kaelen sat in silence, answered in monosyllables, and confirmed the rescue. Blue orb.
By noon, it was over.
We stood outside the Faculty Hall. The Inquisitors were packing up. They hadn't found a single crack in our story.
Elara was standing by the door. She watched the Inquisitors leave, then walked over to us.
She looked at me, then at Kaelen.
"They bought it," she said, sounding stunned. "The orb didn't flicker once. You... you really just saved him from boars?"
"That's what happened," Kaelen said. He looked at me, a flicker of confusion in his eyes, as if trying to grasp a thought that kept slipping away. "Right, Ren?"
"Right," I said.
Elara frowned. She looked at me closely. "You look exhausted, Ren."
"Stress," I said. "Interrogations are tiring."
"Hmph." Elara adjusted her clipboard. "Well. Vance is awake. He's claiming you attacked him with demons. But without proof, and with five corroborating testimonies confirmed by Truth Serum... his father has no case. It's being ruled as 'Battlefield Delirium' caused by wasp venom."
"Delirium," Ria said, suppressing a grin. "Poor guy."
"You're free to go," Elara said. "But Ren... don't think I've stopped watching."
She walked away.
I let out a breath. The Overlay was fading. I could feel the real memories returning, sharp and clear.
"Ren," Kaelen whispered, leaning in. "Why do I remember fighting a boar... and also a wolf made of bones?"
"Side effects," I whispered back. "Give it an hour. The boar will fade."
"Good," Kaelen said. "Because I hate boars."
We survived. We beat the system.
But as we walked back to the dorms, the sky darkened. Not a cloud. Not a glitch.
A shadow.
A massive, sleek airship descended from the clouds, blocking out the sun. It was painted in black and gold—the royal colors.
It hovered over the Academy courtyard. A banner unfurled from the side.
[The Royal Selection Committee]
"What is that?" Tybalt asked, pointing up.
I stared at the ship. My heart sank.
In the novel, the Royal Selection happens in Chapter 40. It's when the King arrives to pick candidates for the Royal Guard.
It was happening now. In Chapter 16.
[Narrative Alert: Timeline Acceleration Confirmed.]
[Event: The King's Arrival.]
[Target: The Hero.]
"The Editor wasn't kidding," I muttered. "We skipped twenty chapters."
The ship landed with a heavy thud, crushing the flowerbeds I had carefully avoided stepping on for two weeks.
A ramp lowered.
And walking down it wasn't the King.
It was a man in black armor, wearing a cloak made of shadows. He had a scar running down his face, and his eyes...
His eyes were glowing with the same text-code as mine.
[New Antagonist Detected: The Rival Author.]
He scanned the crowd of students. His gaze locked onto me instantly.
He smiled.
And in my head, a voice that wasn't mine—and wasn't the Editor's—spoke.
"Found you, Player 2."
I froze.
"Ren?" Ria asked. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Not a ghost," I whispered, gripping the quill tattoo on my palm. "A competitor."
The Academy Arc was over. The Tournament Arc was about to begin. And apparently, it was going to be a multiplayer game.