Pale morning sunlight pierced the gaps of .
I rose slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed. The first thing I did was not to stretch my muscles or yawn, but to evaluate the "assets" I possessed today.
"STATUS WINDOW," I whispered softly.
A transparent interface screen flickered on my retina.
[Body Condition: 72% - Fairly Stable]
[Black Reflux: Latent (Standby Status)]
Seventy-two percent. Not an ideal number, but sufficient for basic operations. In my old world, working with a seventy percent physical condition due to sleep deprivation or back pain was daily fare for warehouse workers. If you stopped just because your body felt sore, your position would be replaced by someone else the next day. This world, Astraeus, was not much different. Only, what replaced you was not a new worker, but the angel of death.
The sound of the door hinge creaking softly broke the silence. Eris stepped in with a silver tray containing a pitcher of warm water and a clean towel. Her footsteps were very light, almost soundless, a natural defense mechanism of someone accustomed to being punished for making noise.
I did not turn to her directly. Through the reflection of the wardrobe mirror in front of me, I analyzed her every movement. Her posture was rigid, her shoulders slightly raised, and her eyes continuously scanned the surroundings before finally looking at me. Her pupils slightly dilated—a sign of hyper-vigilance, extreme alertness. She was still haunted by the confusion from last night, when I simply let her go without the routine Friday torture.
"M-Master Veyr... your warm water," Eris said with a voice restrained so it wouldn't tremble.
I stood up and walked closer to her. As I was within a meter's distance, I could see the muscles in her neck tighten. She was preparing to receive a blow that might come suddenly.
"Put it on the table," I said flatly, with no intonation of anger or friendliness. A purely work instruction. "Then prepare my traveling clothes. Don't use heavy silk. Choose dark linen fabric that allows easy movement. I have business in the north wing."
Eris blinked rapidly, looking surprised by the very specific and rational instruction. The original Veyr only cared about aesthetics and luxury, never thinking about the functionality of clothing. "Y-Yes, Master."
I let her work. Punishing her physically like the previous owner of this body did was a very stupid and inefficient act. Physical pain would breed a delayed rebellion. But psychological uncertainty? That would create absolute obedience. Eris did not know what I wanted, and that ignorance would force her to keep watching me closely. Exactly what I needed from the pawn of an "Observer."
---
The north wing of the Noctis Residence was a heavily guarded forbidden area. Its corridor was made of black obsidian stone that absorbed the torchlight on the walls, creating the illusion of an endless hallway. Two armored guards stood erect before a giant iron door carved with the emblem of a silver-eyed raven.
I said nothing. I merely raised the intricately carved key given by Alistair last night. Seeing the seal of the family head on that key, the two guards bowed respectfully and stepped back, allowing me to insert the key into its hole.
Click. Sccreeech...
The iron door slowly opened, emitting the heavy sound of scraping metal and a blast of cold air that immediately pierced my pores. The key in my hand instantly crumbled into gray dust—a single-use mechanism ensuring no duplicate access.
I stepped inside, and the door closed automatically behind me. Darkness enveloped me for a moment before hundreds of lumens crystals on the ceiling lit up by themselves, responding to the presence of a living being.
The sight before me was extraordinary, at least for the layperson. Thousands of artifacts, from swords radiating fiery auras, mithril shields, to staves studded with rare gems, were displayed on various shelves and crystal pedestals. All of them emanated a highly concentrated Narrative Force.
However, in my eyes, this room was a logistical nightmare.
"Very inefficient placement," I muttered as I walked past the first shelf.
High-value items were placed in a jumble without a clear categorization system. There was no threat label, no visible inventory index. A sword with a burning element was placed right next to a fragile scroll. If this were a logistics warehouse on Earth, the foreman would have fired the head supervisor today.
However, my main problem now was not the placement of items. As I stepped deeper, the air in this room felt increasingly heavy. The Narrative Force pressure in the air began to grate against the anomalous entity within my body.
The system gave a visual warning in the corner of my vision.
[WARNING: Extreme Narrative Force Radiation detected. Mortal vessel stability declining.]
Suddenly, a familiar pain exploded from within my stomach. Black Reflux.
"Ugh...!"
I staggered forward, leaning against a glass display case containing golden armor. It felt like thousands of hot needles were being injected directly into my bloodstream. The muscles in my arms tensed violently, and my veins protruded blackish from beneath the skin. In my previous world, this was equivalent to the pain of a pinched nerve when lifting a half-ton load that fell and struck the spine, but multiplied by two hundred percent.
A rusty metal taste filled my mouth. Blood seeped from the gaps between my teeth. The original Veyr might have screamed, rolled on the floor, and cursed his fate.
But I am Nael. I closed my eyes, regulating my breathing pattern: inhale four seconds, hold seven seconds, exhale slowly over eight seconds. I severed my mind's focus from the pain. Pain is merely an electrical signal from the nervous system to the brain, I suggested to myself. It's just an alarm from the machine. Ignore the alarm, focus on operations.
After nearly two minutes of struggling to maintain consciousness, the turmoil in my blood vessels slowly subsided. My breath came in gasps, but I managed to stand upright again. I wiped the blood on my chin with the back of my hand.
"This body's assets are truly defective products," I hissed softly, staring at the display case. "I have to find that artifact quickly before this curse completely destroys my vital organs."
I ignored the legendary weapons surrounding me. Picking up a glowing greatsword or impenetrable armor might sound tempting for the protagonist in a heroic tale. But for me, that was a stupid pawn move. Flashy weapons required a large Narrative Force to activate, and my body did not have that energy capacity. Furthermore, using a legendary weapon would only attract the attention of the Church of Fate and the noble factions. That was equivalent to putting up a sign reading "Kill Me" on my forehead.
I needed a support instrument. Something hidden, that worked behind the scenes. I traversed the back area of the room, searching for the dead stock section—the area where items deemed broken or worthless were discarded.
In the darkest corner of the room, beneath a pile of dusty, carelessly thrown covering cloths, I spotted a dull wooden box.
I pushed the cloth aside, letting dust fly into the air, and opened the box. Inside lay a book the size of an adult's palm. Its cover was made of jet-black leather that reflected no light at all; as if the book itself swallowed the light particles around it.
Artifact of Knowledge.
In the original novel, this was a fragment of The Eternal Manuscript, the primary book governing the fate of this world. Alistair considered it broken because no matter how much mana or magic the Noctis family elders channeled into it, this artifact never gave any reaction. Its pages were always blank.
I picked up the book. Its weight far exceeded its size, feeling like holding a solid lead plate. I opened its pages. Blank. The sheets were a worn bone-white, with not a single letter on them.
"Of course they considered it broken," I smiled cynically. My logic as a former database system operator worked instantly. "They tried to read a hard drive that hadn't been formatted. They tried to find answers from an empty worksheet."
The Narrative Force system of this world required a person to have "Ink of Fate" to carve their role. Ordinary elemental magic would not be able to penetrate absolute manuscript material like this. This book wasn't broken; it was merely waiting for the correct data input in the right programming language. It needed "Ink" with an anomalous weight equivalent to its existence.
Something rejected by the world. Something cursed.
I looked at the back of my hand, which still had streaks of pitch-black blood from the earlier Black Reflux. My blood was not normal human blood. The Black Blood Decree curse was a narrative anomaly, a disease that damaged the life script of its user. If this world was an orderly script, then my blood was the ink spilled that ruined the page.
"Let's see if my system sorting theory is correct," I muttered.
I bit the tip of my thumb hard enough to pierce the skin. A stinging pain shot through, followed by the emergence of a drop of blood. However, the blood that came out was not pure red, but a thick blackish red, as if mixed with poison.
I pressed my thumb right in the center of the first blank page.
For a moment, the room seemed to freeze. Silent. Even the sound of my own heartbeat seemed to be swallowed by the void.
Then, the reaction occurred.
The blood on my thumb did not dry on the paper. The droplet was greedily absorbed into the page of the book, like parched earth drinking a drop of water. Instantly, sheet after sheet of the book vibrated violently in my hand. Black lines began to spread from the point of my blood, forming complex webs resembling neural circuits, spreading across the entire surface of the blank paper.
An extremely cold sensation crept from the fingers of my hand holding the book, snaking up to my arm, shoulder, and piercing my skull.
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE INITIATED]
A blood-red holographic screen—not neutral blue as usual—exploded before my eyes. The sound of mechanical whirring mixed with the whispers of thousands of formless voices echoed inside my head.
[DATABASE SYNCHRONIZATION... ACCEPTED.]
[Anomalous Ink Detected. Accessing Fragment of Null.]
[Artifact Code: Codex Ignis (Corrupted).]
[Item Status: EMPTY. Awaiting Role Inscription.]
My breath caught. My logistics theory was correct. This book was finally online.
However, the next warning from the System made my asymmetrical smile slowly fade, replaced by cold calculation.
[NARRATIVE PROTOCOL WARNING]
[Entering data into the Fragment of Eternal Manuscript requires equivalent sacrifice. The world of Astraeus does not accept creation without loss.]
[To manipulate physical laws or create new script structures, Entity 'Veyr Noctis' must surrender part of its vessel's functions.]
The red screen flashed rapidly, displaying a single option demanding an instant decision.
[Sacrifice Option: Surrender 15% of your Sensory Nerve Integrity (Sensory) to reformat this Codex into a Passive Skill. Risk: Permanently lose sensitivity to temperature and touch in the extremities of the body. Agree? (Y/N)]
I fell silent staring at that screen. In this world, sacrificing sensory perception was suicide for a knight who relied on sensitivity during combat.
But in my head, the image of a chessboard stretched out. What pawn was most logical to sacrifice in order to gain center control?
If I lose 15% of pain sensitivity, that means the effects of Black Reflux will be passively reduced. This sacrifice is not a loss... it is an operational loophole.
"Agree," I answered coldly, letting the darkness embrace my arm. The ink of fate began to write my future.