Philip rubbed his face with both hands, like someone who needed to reorganize every neuron before they simply abandoned his skull and went to live in another body.
"Okay… okay. Let's take this slowly," he said, gesturing as if he were physically trying to contain his own meltdown. "It's not that I'm exactly a transmigrator… but technically… yeah, I am."
Rosalind blinked, confused.
Philip let out a sigh and raised a finger, as if he were teaching a class.
"The difference is that you fell here for one reason. And I fell here for another. We came from different worlds and… well… with different objectives."He gave a crooked smile—one that tried to be charming but only radiated exhaustion."I came for work."
Rosalind frowned.
"For… work?"
"Yes," he confirmed, pointing at himself with his thumb. "I'm what… an interdimensional contractor? A multiversal civil servant? A cosmic intern? Depends on the day and my boss's mood. But officially…"
He paused for dramatic effect.
Then he messed up his own hair with both hands, resigned:
"…I'm tech support."
Rosalind stared at him like she was looking at an instruction manual in ancient German.
"I don't understand."
Philip closed his eyes for half a second, took a deep breath, and replied:
"I came here to fix shit."
"Fix…?" she repeated slowly.
"Exactly. When a narrative world starts malfunctioning—plot holes, continuity errors, characters who shouldn't exist, a protagonist who transmigrated without the system noticing because it's incompetent—" he shot a murderous glare at the ceiling "—that's when they send me."
Rosalind swallowed.
"And… I'm part of this… shit you need to fix?"
Philip's expression softened into a lighter, honest, but slightly pained smile.
"Rosalind… This world has a system. One that was supposed to be yours originally, from what I understood from my system's shitty explanation. But something went wrong, and what should have been yours… ended up with Charlote."
Rosalind turned pale—not from fear, but from sudden, heavy understanding, the kind that rearranges everything you thought you knew.
"The… system…?" she repeated quietly. "It was supposed to be mine?"
Philip nodded slowly, massaging his temple as if remembering the headache Seravion had gifted him.
"From what my system told me—very poorly, by the way—you were the original chosen one. The protagonist who would receive support, benefits, skills, narrative protection… all that standard crap."
"But…" Rosalind whispered, "I didn't get any of that."
"Exactly," Philip replied, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Because something went wrong in the process. And instead of you receiving the system, everything was transferred to Charlote. She got the whole package. Status, protection, bonuses, protagonist aura… everything."
Rosalind stayed still.
Silent.
Like she was fitting together pieces she had always suspected but never dared to assemble.
Philip continued, voice softer now, almost careful:
"You're not imagining things when you feel like situations always favor her. Or when you get screwed over for no reason. Or when she trips and somehow the entire world shows up to hold her hand. That's not destiny, not luck, not natural narrative."
"It's the system. The one that should have been yours. And ended up in the wrong person."
Rosalind stared at the floor for a few seconds, hands trembling.
"So… I'm living… with no protection at all?"
Philip hesitated. Then nodded.
"Yes."
Rosalind took a deep breath—one, two, three times—trying to stay upright when most people would have collapsed.
When she finally looked up at him, there was something burning in her eyes. Not anger. Not despair. Clarity. Determination.
"And you came to… fix that?"
Philip gave a crooked, tired, but sincere smile.
"At the end of the day, you knowing this helps me way more than me tiptoeing around trying to guess what's going on. So let's get straight to the point."
He stared at her with unusual seriousness:
"Does this world's system control people? I mean… do you lose your voice? Freeze up? Forget you have a mouth to answer with or hands to slap her with?"
Rosalind widened her eyes a little, surprised by his bluntness, but Philip continued:
"Does that only happen when you're near Charlote? Because… before she existed, when you were with Mac, with no interference… were you like this? Or were you not like this?"
He finished, firm and clear:
"I need to know if this version of you is really you… or if it's the system pulling strings."
Rosalind blinked, startled by the direct question—but didn't back down. Instead, she straightened her shoulders, as if gathering facts she had avoided confronting.
"I…" she began slowly. "I wasn't like this."
Philip raised his eyebrows, encouraging.
She continued, voice steadier now:
"Before Charlote showed up, I argued with Mac when I needed to. I… defended myself. I didn't freeze."
"I had… autonomy. A voice. A temper." She swallowed. "I wasn't this emotional ragdoll I've become these past months."
Philip let out a very meaningful "uh-huh," dragging his hand down his face as if checking off items on a bingo card of disasters.
"And when she arrived?" he pressed.
Rosalind clenched her hands, tense.
"When Charlote joined the school… it didn't happen all at once. At first, I just… felt uneasy. Then I started noticing that whenever I tried to respond to something, my throat would close up. Like… like something inside me was holding me back."
"And when she was around Mac, then…" Rosalind hesitated, but met Philip's eyes. "I literally forgot what I wanted to say. Forgot my arguments. Forgot that I was angry. My body wouldn't move properly."
Philip bit his lip, a slow "holy shit" expression forming.
"That answers about ten of my questions at once," he muttered.
"Does that mean the system controls people?" Rosalind asked urgently. "Or… controls me?"
Philip took a deep breath.
"The system isn't supposed to control anyone," he explained. "It's supposed to adjust probabilities, narrative flow, events."
"But if it ended up in the wrong hands… and Charlote is using it—consciously or not—"
He pointed at Rosalind, serious:
"Then yes. Your freezing, choking on words, losing your voice… that's the system interfering to keep her story intact."
Rosalind closed her fist.
"So it's censoring me."
"It's distorting you," Philip corrected. "The original protagonist being forced into the role of a submissive side character."
He sighed.
"That's why I asked if you only feel like this near her. The system doesn't have infinite power—just triggers. Proximity, context, narrative relevance."
"And my relationship with Mac?" Rosalind whispered, bitter. "Was that… manipulated too?"
Philip looked at her for a long moment.
Then answered gently—but without lying:
"If the system wanted Charlote to be his center… then yes. It needed to push you away. Weaken the bond between you two."
He tilted his head, meeting her eyes.
"I need to know something. Something important for deciding what I do about Mac now that I'm here."
He took a breath.
"Do you love him? For real?"
Rosalind paused. Like she was opening, for the first time, a drawer she had never been allowed to touch.
"When I arrived here, I was scared," she began quietly but firmly. "The house wasn't mine, the family wasn't mine, nothing was mine."
She bit her lip, looking down.
"Then I met Mac. I was a scholarship student at his school… I guess I should've realized then that something was off about this world. But… he was kind to me. He was the only thing that felt real, safe. So I fell in love with him because… while nothing belonged to me… Mac did."
Philip stayed silent. Quietly cursing Seravion, the system, Aureon, and the entire celestial team responsible for putting a real person with real feelings inside a cliché romance plot.
Rosalind breathed and continued—now with bitterness that came from clarity, not anger.
"But then Charlote came. And he changed. I… I felt like a clown around his friends. I thought it was because I was poor. But when I saw Charlote… I understood. I understood why he had been so kind to me."
She lifted her eyes, and they held a sad calmness.
"I don't think my love for Mac was because of the system. I think it was human. Mine."
Philip nodded slowly.
"And now?"
Rosalind let out a broken, exhausted breath—the kind only someone who has already shattered inside can release.
"Now?"
She looked at him with raw sincerity.
"My love for him died the day I saw Charlote. I don't hate Charlote because of Mac… I hate her and this system because they didn't let me leave."
She swallowed hard.
"They trapped me here. Used me as a punching bag. I thought my throat closing up whenever I tried to break up with Mac was because… maybe… some part of me still loved him."
She shook her head.
"But now I see. It was the system controlling me. Not letting me escape the narrative created for me."
Philip felt a hot sting of anger—not at Rosalind, but for her.
He crossed his arms, clicked his tongue, and muttered:
"Yeah. This is even deeper than I thought. But now that I know… I can finally start dismantling this shitty story. One step at a time."
Rosalind looked at him—and for the first time, there was trust. Cautious, but real.