"He found it first."
The First Historian’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
Nobody moved.
The fear on the boy’s face spread through the chamber faster than the cracks beneath our feet.
This wasn’t the nervousness of a child.
It was the fear of someone who had seen the same disaster happen before.
The Historian’s Notebook suddenly became heavy in my hands.
Not physically.
It felt as though every memory stored inside it had become restless at once.
The pages flipped rapidly.
No words appeared.
Only blank paper.
Waiting.
The System remained suspended before my eyes.
______
[Warning[
Someone has begun reading Chapter One.
Current Reader...
Unknown.
______
The notification didn’t disappear.
Instead, the word Unknown flickered repeatedly.
Almost as though the System was trying to identify someone it should have already recognized.
The Editor stepped beside the First Historian.
"Are you certain?"
The boy nodded once.
"I can feel it."
"He turned the first page."
Whitmore looked between them.
"What happens if someone reads Chapter One?"
The boy looked at him.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Whether they’re supposed to."
Silence settled over the chamber.
Detective Hale finally broke it.
"I’ve had enough of half-answers."
He took one step toward the center of the room.
"Tell us plainly."
"What happens?"
The boy looked at him with surprising sympathy.
"If the wrong person finishes Chapter One..."
"...they become convinced the rest of the story belongs to them."
Hale frowned.
"I don’t understand."
"You don’t need to."
The Editor answered quietly.
"I do."
She looked toward the sealed notebook.
"They stop reading."
"They start rewriting."
The room fell silent again.
Somewhere beyond the chamber, another page turned.
Only one.
Yet the sound echoed endlessly.
The First Historian looked toward the ceiling.
"He reached the second paragraph."
The twelve pillars shook violently.
Tiny fragments of stone rained onto the floor.
One of the silver symbols went dark.
The Historian’s Notebook finally reacted.
Fresh words spread across the first page.
A witness has mistaken themselves for the protagonist.
Then another sentence appeared beneath it.
Correction probability decreasing.
My pulse quickened.
Mistaken themselves...
For the protagonist.
I remembered something Draft Zero had said.
"Most choices are expected."
"Only impossible ones matter."
Someone was making an impossible choice.
No...
Someone believed they had become the center of the story.
The Editor suddenly looked directly at me.
"What did Draft Zero tell you?"
Everyone turned toward me.
I hesitated.
Then answered honestly.
"He said someone changed the original story."
The boy closed his eyes.
"So he told you that much."
"He also said..."
I paused.
"...the Author wasn’t the only one holding a pen."
Neither the Editor nor the First Historian looked surprised.
Instead...
They exchanged a quiet glance.
Whitmore noticed.
"You already knew."
The Editor nodded slowly.
"We hoped you wouldn’t learn until later."
"How many?"
I asked.
"How many people can change the story?"
The First Historian quietly answered.
"Anyone."
The chamber became deathly silent.
I stared at him.
"Anyone?"
"Anyone who reaches the first sentence."
The weight of those words settled over everyone.
Noah rubbed both hands through his hair.
"So..."
"Anyone who gets here can rewrite reality?"
"No."
The boy corrected him.
"They can only rewrite what they truly understand."
"And that’s somehow worse."
Noah muttered.
Nobody argued.
Another page turned somewhere beyond the chamber.
The cracks spread farther.
This time...
One of the stone pillars split completely in half.
Instead of collapsing, it unfolded.
Like paper.
Its stone surface peeled away into hundreds of handwritten pages drifting gently through the air.
Each page carried only one sentence.
I caught one instinctively.
The handwriting looked hurried.
Uneven.
Different from the Author’s careful script.
It read—
Lucien should never have survived.
The ink trembled.
Then rewrote itself.
Lucien must survive.
Again.
Lucien dies here.
Again.
Lucien leaves the Archive.
The sentence changed over and over.
The page couldn’t decide which version belonged.
The First Historian took it gently from my hand.
"He already reached the revision stage."
"What does that mean?"
"He’s testing possibilities."
The page dissolved into dust.
The boy looked genuinely troubled.
"He’s reading too quickly."
The System flashed again.
______
[Archive Integrity]
49%
...
47%
...
45%
______
The percentage was falling faster now.
Almost every few seconds.
The chamber itself seemed to notice.
The original notebook trembled slightly upon its pedestal.
For the first time...
It opened by itself.
No wind touched its pages.
No invisible hand wrote upon them.
Instead...
Words disappeared.
Entire paragraphs faded into blank paper.
The original notebook wasn’t recording history.
It was losing it.
The Editor immediately stepped forward.
"No."
Her voice cracked for the first time.
"Not this one."
She reached toward the notebook.
The moment her fingertips touched the cover—
Black ink exploded outward.
It wrapped around her wrist before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.
She stumbled backward.
The First Historian caught her before she fell.
"It rejected you."
She looked at her hand.
A fresh black line circled her wrist like a bracelet.
"I know."
Her voice had become strangely quiet.
"It always does."
My eyes drifted toward the original notebook.
Something had changed.
There were now two sentences on its first page.
The first remained unchanged.
Every witness writes.
The second...
Had been rewritten.
Instead of—
Every historian remembers.
It now read—
Every historian chooses.
I froze.
"It changed."
The First Historian nodded.
"I know."
"It shouldn’t be able to."
"It didn’t."
He looked toward the chamber entrance.
"The Reader did."
A cold breeze swept through the room.
Not from outside.
From inside the Archive itself.
The pages drifting through the air all turned in the same direction.
Toward the doorway.
Footsteps echoed beyond it.
Slow.
Measured.
Not hurried.
The Editor’s face hardened.
"Someone’s coming."
Detective Hale instinctively raised his flashlight.
The beam stretched through the doorway.
Nothing.
Only darkness.
The footsteps continued.
Closer.
Closer.
The First Historian stepped in front of the original notebook.
His cheerful smile was completely gone now.
"He finished the Chapter."
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
Then...
A voice.
Calm.
Almost amused.
"I’ve been looking for this room."
None of us recognized it.
Not Lucien.
Not the Author.
Not Draft Zero.
Someone new.
The voice continued.
"I finally understand."
Another step echoed.
"I wasn’t reading a story."
One polished black shoe crossed the doorway.
Only the lower half of the stranger’s body was visible.
Long dark coat.
Black gloves.
One hand held...
A copy of Chapter One.
Its pages were covered in fresh handwritten notes.
Corrections.
Entire paragraphs crossed out in red ink.
The stranger laughed quietly.
"It needed editing."
The First Historian’s breathing stopped.
His lips parted slightly.
"No..."
He whispered.
"That’s impossible."
The stranger took another step.
Still keeping their face hidden beyond the doorway’s shadow.
"I found something interesting."
They casually flipped through the annotated pages.
"You’ve all been asking who wrote the story."
A page turned.
"But none of you ever wondered..."
Another page turned.
"...who published it."
The System violently flashed across my vision.
______
[Emergency Warning]
Unauthorized Narrative Authority Detected.
Classification...
Processing...
Processing...
Error.
Authority cannot be identified.
Reason:
No record of this individual exists.
______
The blue window cracked.
Actual fractures spread across its surface before it shattered into countless fragments of light.
For the first time since awakening in this world...
The System went completely offline.
And in the silence that followed...
The stranger finally stepped fully into the chamber.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter