Lord of Perverted Ladies

The fingers tightened around my wrist.

Not painfully.

Just enough to stop me from moving.

The darkness around us remained absolute. There were no pillars. No notebooks. No chamber. No Editor. No Noah.

Only him.

Only me.

For several long seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Draft Zero sighed.

"...You’re taking too long."

"I don’t even know what you’re asking."

"You do."

His grip loosened.

"You just don’t want to answer."

The match flared again.

His face came into view.

Mine.

Every feature was identical except for the eyes.

His eyes looked like someone who had spent centuries rereading the same page, hoping the ending would somehow change.

"I asked you a simple question."

"Which one of us deserves to be remembered?"

I stared at him.

"Neither."

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"That’s your answer?"

"I don’t know who you are."

"I don’t know why you exist."

"So how am I supposed to choose?"

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"Better."

"What?"

"You’re finally answering honestly."

He released my wrist completely.

The moment he did, the darkness rippled around us.

It wasn’t disappearing.

It was becoming transparent.

Far away, I could make out the twelve pillars again.

Frozen.

The Editor remained exactly where she had been.

The boy hadn’t moved.

Noah still stood beside Whitmore.

Time hadn’t resumed.

Draft Zero followed my gaze.

"They can’t hear us."

"They’re outside the revision."

"What exactly is a revision?"

He laughed quietly.

"I asked the same thing."

"When?"

"The first time."

"The first time what?"

"The first time I met myself."

Silence settled between us.

I looked back at him.

"You’re saying..."

"...there was someone before you?"

"There always is."

"And after?"

He looked directly into my eyes.

"That depends on you."

The match slowly burned lower.

Wax dripped onto his fingers.

He didn’t seem to notice.

"I’ve been watching you since the warehouse."

"You changed things."

"I survived."

"You weren’t supposed to."

"I found the Archive."

"You weren’t supposed to."

"I met Lucien."

"You definitely weren’t supposed to."

He smiled.

"You’re making history increasingly difficult."

His words reminded me of the black Record.

The corrections.

The rewritten Chapters.

"So every choice changes the story?"

"No."

He shook his head.

"Most choices are expected."

"Only impossible ones matter."

I frowned.

"What makes a choice impossible?"

"The one no previous version made."

The sentence echoed in my mind.

No previous version.

"How many versions are there?"

"I stopped counting."

"Hundreds?"

"Higher."

"Thousands?"

"Higher."

I fell silent.

Draft Zero didn’t look proud.

He looked exhausted.

"The story keeps trying."

"And every time..."

"It fails."

"Why?"

"Because every version reaches the same place."

He looked into the darkness beyond the chamber.

"The empty seat."

The classroom.

The attendance register.

The reserved desk.

The letter.

Everything connected back to that single empty chair.

"What happens if someone sits there?"

He smiled sadly.

"You become important."

"Isn’t that a good thing?"

"No."

"It’s the worst thing that can happen."

The match finally went out.

Darkness returned.

This time, however, I could still see him.

Not with light.

With memory.

His outline remained perfectly clear.

"You read the letter."

"I did."

"You believed it."

"I don’t know."

"You wanted to."

He nodded to himself.

"Good."

"What did you write?"

The question escaped before I realized I had spoken it.

Draft Zero looked genuinely surprised.

"That’s new."

"What?"

"No version asked me that."

"I asked what you wrote."

He became quiet.

Then...

"I wrote the first sentence."

My heartbeat quickened.

"The Author said writing the first sentence matters."

"It does."

"What was yours?"

He looked away.

For the first time...

He hesitated.

"I don’t remember."

Silence.

"You forgot?"

"I surrendered it."

"Why?"

"Because the sentence became true."

The answer made no sense.

Or rather...

It made too much sense.

The first sentence wasn’t describing the story.

It was creating it.

If someone wrote the wrong first sentence...

Everything afterward would follow.

I suddenly understood why the Author feared beginnings more than endings.

Draft Zero noticed my expression.

"There."

"You finally see it."

"The first sentence..."

"...decides the direction."

"Not entirely."

"But enough."

The darkness around us cracked.

Thin streams of light seeped through.

Time was trying to resume again.

"We’re running out."

"I still have questions."

"You always will."

"What should I do?"

He smiled.

That same tired smile.

"Stop trying to become the Author."

"I wasn’t trying."

"I know."

"That’s why you still have a chance."

The crack widened.

Voices reached us again.

Noah.

Whitmore.

The Editor.

Faint.

Distant.

"As long as you keep asking who wrote the story..."

Draft Zero continued,

"...you’ll never notice who keeps reading it."

The sentence settled inside my mind.

Reading.

Not writing.

The Archive wasn’t built only for writers.

It needed readers too.

A story without readers...

Was just ink.

The realization struck me like lightning.

The First Observer.

The Historian.

The Author.

The Editor.

Each represented part of a story.

But...

Who represented the reader?

Draft Zero laughed.

"There it is."

"The right question."

Before I could ask anything else—

The chamber returned.

Sound exploded back into existence.

The pillars.

The notebooks.

The trembling floor.

Everything resumed at once.

Only an instant had passed.

"...which one of us deserves to be remembered?"

The whisper echoed one final time before fading completely.

The cold hand vanished from my wrist.

I looked down.

Nothing remained.

Except...

A faint ink mark shaped like a fingerprint.

The Editor immediately noticed it.

Her expression darkened.

"You spoke with him."

It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

She closed her eyes briefly.

"What did he tell you?"

I hesitated.

Then answered honestly.

"I don’t think he lied."

She opened her eyes again.

"I know."

The boy looked from me to the ink mark.

His cheerful smile disappeared.

"He touched you."

"Yes."

The First Historian walked over and gently took my wrist.

He studied the black fingerprint for several seconds.

When he finally looked up, his expression had become strangely serious.

"So..."

"He remembers you now."

"What does that mean?"

The boy released my hand.

"It means you can no longer disappear from his draft."

Before anyone could ask another question...

The original notebook slammed shut.

A deep bell echoed through the chamber.

Not once.

Not twice.

Seven times.

Each chime made one of the twelve pillars crack.

By the seventh...

Half the chamber was covered in fractures.

Dust rained from the ceiling.

The Historian’s Notebook flew back into my hands.

Its pages opened by themselves.

Fresh words raced across the paper.

Archive Integrity: 51%

Emergency Preservation Required.

The System appeared almost simultaneously.

______

[Main Story Updated]

A new role has entered the narrative.

Hidden Title Unlocked:

The Reader

Status:

Unknown

Condition:

No confirmed successor.

______

The blue window flickered once.

Then another notification forced itself over the first.

______

[Warning]

Someone has begun reading Chapter One.

Current reader...

Unknown.

______

The chamber fell completely silent.

Even the cracks stopped spreading.

The First Historian slowly looked toward the only doorway leading out of the room.

His face had gone pale.

"No..."

He whispered.

"He found it first."

For the first time since meeting him...

The child looked afraid.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!