"I'm sorry! I'll be quick, I'm sorry!"
The girl on the floor was genuinely terrified. Not mildly uncomfortable. Not embarrassed. Terrified. Of him. Of just being near him. She wasn't even looking up. Just scooping pens off the ground with shaking hands like eye contact might get her killed.
Why did I say that. That wasn't my voice. Those weren't my words.
"Hey."
The voice came from the left. Sharp. Cold.
Arthur turned.
Xavier was standing up from his seat. Not loudly, not making a show of it. He just stood, and somehow that was enough to shift the whole room. His eyes were fixed on Arthur and the stare had weight to it. The kind that pressed down.
This guy is genuinely scary in person. Just walk up and let this die down.
"What are you looking at, prick?"
His own mouth. Again. Saying the exact opposite of what he intended.
Arthur pressed his lips together.
Xavier didn't flinch. "Stop being a nuisance and sit down. Class is starting."
Right. Xavier Almonth. Hero syndrome fully operational. This guy physically cannot watch someone get pushed around and stay quiet about it. Every arc. Every single time without fail. Reading it, Arthur had found it insufferable because there was nothing underneath it. No conflict. No cost. Just a good guy being good because that was the only setting he had.
But being in the same room as him was a different thing entirely.
He was bigger than the page made him seem. And that stare didn't move.
Just ignore it. Walk up. Sit down. Let it go.
"No." Vexis's voice came out sharp. "What if I don't? What are you going to do about it?"
Arthur's eye twitched.
I did not say that. I did not want to say that.
Xavier stepped forward.
The room held its breath. Students near the aisle leaned back in their chairs. Someone's pen rolled off a desk and nobody reached for it.
Then the door opened.
A brown-haired woman walked in. Tall and slender. The kind of woman most adolescent boys dream about during their sleep. She took one look at the two of them standing in the aisle, still locked in a stare down, and her expression flattened out completely.
"What are you two doing." Not a question. "Sit down."
Xavier sat first without a word. Arthur came after and was mildly surprised to find his body cooperated this time.
Arya Emeronth.
Supporting character on paper. In practice she was the reason the first arc didn't fall apart at the seams. The author had given Xavier all the spotlight and somehow Arya was the one holding everything up from the background. Her decisions moved the plot. Her presence changed the room. She was honestly one of the only characters Arthur had never complained about.
She clapped once. The whole room went quiet like a switch flipped.
"We've already covered the foundations of Mageia biology. Today we continue."
Arthur exhaled and leaned back.
Okay. I don't need to be here right now. I need to think.
Vexis Lestilaut. Background character. A bully placed early in the story to show the academy had a hierarchy, that some students had power and some didn't, and that the gap between them was ugly. He appeared in maybe a dozen scenes. Pushed the wrong people around. Sneered in the background of important moments. Then somewhere before the first arc wrapped up he turned up dead in a corridor and the story moved on without looking back. No investigation. No named killer. The plot had other things to do.
Reading it, Arthur had flagged it as lazy writing. A thread the author cut instead of finished.
He wasn't laughing about it now.
That dead body at the end of the thread was going to be him. In two weeks. And he had no idea who was coming, what they wanted, or whether anything he did between now and then was going to matter.
He stared at the front of the room without seeing it.
Figure it out. You read this whole thing. The information is somewhere in your head. Who had a reason to want Vexis gone? Who even cared enough?
Nothing. He had not paid enough attention. Vexis had been so far from the main plot that Arthur had skimmed half his scenes.
Complete bullshit.
"Mr. Lestilaut."
He looked up.
Arya was watching him from the front. Arms crossed. The kind of expression teachers get when they've already decided you're wasting their time.
"You don't look present. Would you like to recite the principles of Mageia biology for the class?"
Crap.
"With respect, professor," his mouth said, "I am present. I was thinking."
WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS.
"Then share what you were thinking about." Arya tilted her head slightly. "Stand up."
He stood.
Okay. Two thousand chapters. All that suffering has to count for something. The lore is in there. Find it.
He found it.
"Every person is born with a hidden organ system called a Mageia Core," he said. Voice came out steady. Flat, almost. Like he was bored. "It's a biological structure woven into the nervous system and the bloodstream. It produces aetheric blood, which moves through the body the same way regular blood does. If you want a simple way to think about it, the Mageia Core is a second heart. It pumps a different kind of blood. And that blood is what lets a person use magic."
Nobody moved.
Arya looked at him for a moment. Then she nodded once and looked away.
"Good. Sit down."
He sat. Let out a breath slow enough that nobody would hear it.
Ivan glanced at him from the next seat over. Said nothing. Looked forward again.
Arthur stared at the surface of his desk.
Two weeks. No leads. A body that was going to be his and a killer who the original author never even bothered to name. He was stuck in a story he hated, in a body that kept saying things without his permission, in a room full of people who either feared him or wanted to knock him down.
Then something appeared in front of him.
A square of red light, transparent, hovering at eye level. The size of a sheet of paper. No sound. No flash. It was just suddenly there.
He looked at Ivan. Ivan was copying something from the board.
He looked at Cael on the other side. Cael was watching Arya at the front.
Neither of them saw it.
He looked back at the light.
[Relevant Points added]
[You have made a slight influence on the storyline]
[+3 RP]
[50 RP needed to unlock the Eyes]
[Current balance: 3 RP]
Arthur read it twice.
The Eyes.
He turned the words over. Checked his memory. Two thousand chapters, every arc, every named ability, every system the author had ever introduced.
Nothing. Not once. The Eyes never appeared in the novel. Not even as a passing reference.
Which meant this wasn't part of the original story.
Which meant something was already different.
He closed his hand on the desk slowly and looked at the red light until it faded.