Chapter 22: The Author Comes, and the First Word is a Lie
Reincarnated as a Background Character — Boss Fell in Love With Me
Chapter 22: The Author Comes, and the First Word is a Lie
It didn't descend with thunder.
There were no trumpets, no flame, no crack of divine judgment.
The Author arrived in silence.
Not from above.
But from the line between seconds — that thin seam in time where stories lose their breath.
Reality hiccupped.
The sky didn't darken.
It stilled.
And from the stillness, a figure stepped forward.
Not cloaked. Not crowned.
But outlined in living punctuation — commas that shimmered, periods that pulsed like dying stars.
A quill in one hand.
A manuscript in the other.
And where a face should be:
A blank page.
[UNCLASSIFIED PRESENCE DETECTED]
Designation: The Author
Permissions: ∞
Role: Narrative Architect
Threat Level: Conceptual
Raze stopped breathing.
Velzeria stepped forward once—then caught herself.
Even the Empress of Ash, the Glitch Queen, the Rewritten Storm… had never faced this.
The one who designed her to fall.
To burn.
To bleed beauty into tragedy.
And the Author spoke without sound.
Its voice wasn't a noise — it was a correction.
A line redacted across the inside of their minds.
"You were never meant to be remembered."
To Velzeria:
"You die gloriously in Act IV. Alone. Beautiful. Final."
To Raze:
"You were designed to disappear after Chapter 3."
To Iris — though she was not present:
"You are an echo that should not exist."
Velzeria tilted her head.
Her voice, when it came, was steady. Almost gentle.
"Then maybe it's time someone else picked up the pen."
[System Alert: Non-scripted dialogue detected]
Causality breach: ACTIVE
Outcome stability: Fracturing
The Author raised its quill.
Time locked.
Raindrops froze in midair.
Birdsong snapped into silence.
Even memory paused.
Then — in the space above Velzeria — golden script began to write itself:
"Velzeria dies here."
A line of fate. Undeniable.
Except…
She denied it.
Velzeria raised her hand — not glowing, not burning.
Just open.
And with one simple motion…
She wiped the line away.
Like chalk on an old slate.
[ERROR]
[Authority Override: UNRECOGNIZED]
[Narrative Law: Glitch-Resistant]
[New Variable: "Will"]
"You wrote me to fall," she said.
"You wrote him to fade."
"You erased her before she began."
Velzeria stepped forward. Her voice low, sharp, trembling with something far older than rage.
"But you forgot one thing."
She reached for the manuscript in the Author's hands.
Her fingers passed through glyph and thread.
And grasped it.
[MANUSCRIPT BREACH – CLASS Ω]
[SYSTEM AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED: TEMPORARY]
[Velzeria → Rewrite Queen: IN PROGRESS]
The Author did not react.
Not with fury.
But with confusion.
As if this had never happened before.
As if it couldn't.
The sky fractured.
Lines of unfinished story twisted overhead — glowing, breaking, bending.
And still, Velzeria wrote.
One line.
No grand proclamation.
Just the truth that set them all free:
"We were never wrong to love."
[SYSTEM PANIC]
Root Law Modified
Control Loss: 72%
Emotional Override: STABLE
New Timeline Established: Name — "Choice"
And suddenly—
The Author blinked out of existence.
Not gone.
But disarmed.
The manuscript closed in Velzeria's hands.
And in that moment, the Empress of Ash — feared, fated, rewritten — became something else.
The girl who rewrote fate itself.
Raze ran to her.
But stopped just short.
She was trembling, ink running from her fingers like blood.
Still holding the story in her palms.
And she whispered, not to him—
But to herself:
"I can't write the whole world alone."
He stepped forward.
Took her ink-stained hand.
And said:
"Then don't. Let's write it together."
[System Update]
Velzeria: Rewrite Queen
Raze: Worldborne Soul
Iris: Painted Memory
Next Conflict: Unscheduled
World State: Listening
Somewhere far away, Iris opened her eyes.
Her painting glowed faintly in the dark.
As if it had heard her name whispered in the spine of the world.
And in the silence that followed, the world took its first free breath.
To be continued...