When they left the large city wall behind, the atmosphere changed. Houses were made of wood and bricks now, and not limestone. Lostina seemed somewhat on edge for a while, looking around to make sure nobody was following them, and she also kept her eyes open until she found a little store, where she purchased water and food. Then, she went back to moving at the side of roads and in the shadows.

The sun edged closer to the horizon. Signs of civilization thinned out, and the road got a little rockier. Lostina started to relax, but not by too much.

“Is everything alright?” Theora asked.

Lostina nodded awkwardly. “Just, I’m realising that we are entering… nature.”

Nature. After leaving the large city and its outskirts, the main road Lostina had chosen was leading them over the slowly descending ridge of a mountain. The grass was short, with little rocks littered around, while the remnants of scattered evening sunlight coated the distant summits in pink glow.

“It’s a nice place.”

“No,” Lostina said. “Well — yes, but. There’s probably… bears? What if we get hurt on the way? What if we meet bandits? I didn’t consider that we’d actually have to, like, hike. If one of us stumbles and breaks a leg…” She shuddered, and then switched the bag she was carrying from one arm to the other, seemingly strained.

“I can put our luggage into my interdimensional travelling coat,” Theora said.

Lostina hummed. “Your what? Oh well, why not. If it means I don’t have to carry them…”

Theora stored one bag after the other in folds of her coat, trying her best to memorise where she put them. By the time she was done, she had forgotten.

“But also,” Lostina continued, “I have no idea how to like, live outside? I realise we might have been a bit rash with just, going. There’s a settlement not too far away — only a few hours… But it’s getting dark. I didn’t realise… Ugh.” She shuddered again, massaging her arms. “What if there’s wild boars? This world is totally made up. What if there are tigers?”

“It’s alright,” Theora said. “I will protect you.”

Lostina gave a careful, long side-glance. “Look,” she murmured, sounding a bit less stressed. “Flirting does help me calm down, but also, please take this seriously. Bears are not impressed by chivalry. I think.”

Theora blinked. Flirting?

“Perhaps we should get a guide,” Lostina added. “That’s assuming we make it to the next settlement alive. Gosh, I wish I hadn’t spent all my life at home. I have no clue how this stuff works.”

The ridge was getting a bit narrower, the hillside steeper. She made the mistake of looking down, then closed her eyes, and whispered a count to ten.

“By the way,” she continued, seemingly to distract herself, “Did you get any error messages while being out and about today? Like, outline-related?”

Theora shook her head, and Lostina hummed.

“I guess you wouldn’t have done anything to impact the grand scheme. I didn’t try to scam people who’ll be important later, because I was afraid I might get screwed over in the middle of it. Would have sucked. So, I had to find some side-characters, which was inconvenient, because I know less about them.”

“What exactly are these outline errors you are talking about?”

“Ah. You haven’t seen any at all yet? Actually, we should test that at some point. You said this is a story in your original world? And I’m the main character there? In that case, maybe the errors only apply to me. Perhaps your actions are unrestricted.”

Theora gulped. No rocking the boat. She wasn’t supposed to change the plot. If she indeed wasn’t restricted in the same way, then that would put her in a bit of a predicament if Lostina were to start asking for favours.

She decided not to mention that for now, though. After all, it would be a little rude to tell this desperate girl that Theora couldn’t help her simply because she wanted to observe the original plot line, which… apparently was putting Lostina through quite some ordeals.

“But,” Lostina went on, “Essentially, an ‘outline’ is a predetermined set of events that an author decided need to happen to tell their story. Like cornerstones. Small deviations may be possible if they lead to the same outcome, but once the outline is screwed, the author can’t follow their vision anymore. Of course, not all authors use them, and some authors do use them, but scrap them constantly. The original author of Procrastinating the Apocalypse is, unfortunately, pretty adamant on the outline being kept, it seems… So, when I try to do something I’m not supposed to, it throws an error, and my agency gets restricted. Meaning I’m unable to do the thing.”

So, the author was some kind of overreaching entity that would dictate the course of history? It did sound a little like the System Theora was already used to. It made Lostina’s frustration even more relatable.

“Sucks, big time.” Lostina gave an exasperated sigh. She accidentally looked down the mountain again, then braced herself and pulled her gaze back to the path. “Like, what’s even the point? Typically these kinds of stories are power fantasies, where the main character gets spawned into another world they already know everything about, and because of that they can do some amazing things that make the reader feel awesome by extension. Why use this kind of setting if you’re not going to have this dynamic? Fucking annoying. That author in your world sucks just as much as the original author of this one.”

“Frustrating,” Theora agreed with a nod.

They fell into silence for a while. Their paces crunched over the road; the only sound besides the winds.

Lostina eventually raised her voice again.

“There should be a small village somewhere ahead, according to the map I stole,” she said. “But it’s probably not a good place to stock up. Too small. But still… I’m a little worried…”

Theora gulped. Maybe she should offer a distraction? There was a question Theora wanted to ask. She was, however, unsure how to phrase it, or properly get it across, so she went over different ways to formulate it.

Eventually, she tried, “Say, you know a lot about stories, right? May I ask you a question?”

“Sure, whatever,” Lostina said. “Not an expert or anything, just what I picked up from reading and writing a lot.”

“So, let’s say you wanted to hide something in a story. How would you do that?”

Lostina frowned. “Like, hide what? Information?”

Theora looked at the far summits, trying to find her words. “I’m not sure what it is. It seems to be hidden somewhere in this world. But, I can’t give any other information that would be less abstract.”

“Hmm…” Lostina scratched her neck, staring ahead. “Well, typically, if you want to hide something in a book, I guess you’d do it on the last few pages, because those are the ones the fewest people will actually read. Each page provides an opportunity for a reader to drop the story, after all. Or, maybe the second-to-last chapter, if you account for people skipping ahead. So, if we think of this as a novel, then the finale could be where your thing is hidden.”

That made sense, but at the same time, it felt a little awkward. Because if the Fragment was really hidden in the last event of this story, that meant Theora had an additional incentive not to meddle with the outline. Another reason not to help.

“Though, actually,” Lostina added in thought, “Maybe you’d want to hide it in an implication instead. In subtext. Like, sprinkle some hints and ideas over the entire course of the plot, and provide the last, most important clue at the end that brings it all together. So that only people who have read it all, and attentively so, would be able to piece it together. That might be the best way to hide something inside a story. Granted, you’d have to put in a lot of effort. Can’t imagine the author of this story going through that.”

Theora’s heart sank.

Picking up hints? Putting together the implications? She was fairly bad at that. Plus, it reinforced the idea of sticking to the original outline even more, because otherwise, she might miss something important.

She stared into the night. Perhaps she could delegate the heavy thinking to [Head in the Clouds]…?

 

Head in the Clouds. You sure are a cheeky one.

 

Theora gulped and blushed and looked at the ground. Not having the Interface to filter the answer of the Skill made it even more resounding in her own mind… On that note, she also didn’t have access to her party screen anymore, or any other parts of the System. She really was in a different world now.

Of course, her Skills belonged to her, and thus, she could still use them, but… They’d feel a bit different without the Interface. Some Skills, like [Appraise], didn’t actually work without access to the System, although Theora didn’t have any of those.

She hadn’t practised using Skills raw in a long time. 

“Anyway,” Lostina said with a shrug. “If you need any help finding that thing of yours, feel free to—”

The air was punctured by a scream.

Despite the echoes, Theora managed to pinpoint it to the direction of a few roofs that had come into view next to a forest in the valley. It must be the settlement Lostina had referred to.

Immediately, she increased her pace.

“Hey, wait,” Lostina said, trying to keep up. “Hey. Hey. I don’t think— Wait!”

Theora stared, waiting for an explanation.

“We can’t go there! It’s nighttime. This could be anything. Remember, we are low-level?”

“You can stay here if you wish.”

Lostina’s eyes were wide. “We can’t help the way we are. If it’s an Erratum, we will die. Oh god, please don’t leave me behind.”

“You think this is an Erratum?”

Lostina nodded. “Could be something else, but — if it’s Errata, it means there might be a rift too, with more to come.”

Theora nodded. “Let’s go help,” she said, and made her way down the path. “I will keep you safe.”

Lostina swallowed and bit her lip, but decided to keep up anyway. “Look. If it’s an Erratum, we run. Okay? I’m not gonna let you fucking die on me.”

Meanwhile, Theora started rummaging around in her cloak. With each grab, she found another useless thing; mostly magical artefacts of medium to high grade that she’d received and forgotten about ages ago.

“What are you looking for?” Lostina asked, already out of breath, trying not to stumble over rocks.

“Healing potion,” Theora said. “In case someone is injured. Bandages, too.”

The moment she said that, she did grab a flask inside the coat, and produced what she needed — red, glowing, thick liquid in a rounded, corked glass carafe. Those years of taking care of Dema had ingrained in her mind not to walk around without healing potions anymore; and thus she’d requested some in Hallmark. She tossed it over to Lostina.

“Apply to injuries, or let them drink it.” She then also found a few bandages, and started to wonder how she was getting these things so quickly. “Here.”

Lostina frowned and nodded, pressing both in front of her chest, and daring a short glance back to the stuff Theora had thrown away. “You have so much with you. Why didn’t you sell any of these to make money?”

At that, Theora’s brain froze. She looked back at the Amber Hourglass she’d just discarded. That’s right — it was junk to her, but maybe someone else could have made use of an item that turned sand into gold, or things like that. 

She tried to shove the thought away as they made further down the slope.

A fight was going on next to a small house a little outside the settlement.

A man lay on the ground heavily wounded, bleeding, holding his stomach. Another few people were running away into the settlement, and meanwhile, a woman clad in armour and wielding a long spear fought— something.

Theora could only guess it to be an Erratum.

An intricate humanoid statue carved of white clay, wings on its back made up of endless feathers, a large sword in its hand that seemed glued to its body, thick armour and a symmetrical, round, unblemished face, eyes with no pupils, long, sculpted hair that still seemed to wave in the wind.

All of it was made of the same material, as if sculptured by hand, and then possessed with uncanny movement. It fought precisely, with a measured weight behind its strikes.

The woman it opposed was losing.

Her weapon gave her a range advantage, and she managed to put the occasional scratch on the creature, but she was heavily outclassed in raw strength, and continuously pushed back. Theora realised that this person was stalling for reinforcements to arrive. She probably wouldn’t make it that long.

She had scratches all over her protection from lashes that had made it past the distance, and a deep bleeding cut on her face.

Despite her grand words, Lostina didn’t turn and run once she saw the creature. She was panting heavily, sounded close to losing consciousness, but kept going, clutching the potion and the bandages.

“Is it one of them?” Theora asked.

Lostina nodded.

“Can I pick you up?”

“What?”

Theora offered her arms, and Lostina nodded, although seeming confused and horrified. With a quick gesture, Theora fetched her in a princess carry, and jumped far.

Lostina screamed. 

They landed where the man was lying, and Theora dumped Lostina next to him.

That’s when the knight noticed them. “Run away!” she yelled, and the distraction almost cost her an arm. “I’ll hold it off until reinforcements arrive!”

Meanwhile, Lostina started to apply first-aid, frantically, but focused. The Erratum lost all interest in its opponent the very next moment, and turned around to Theora. With a quick jab, the knight took the opportunity to cut into its wing, but left it unfazed. Instead, it lifted its claymore towards Theora, and struck.

The blade was coming down.

Being fast meant effort. It was tiring, and being hit by attacks was easy. However, that made Dema sad. It made Iso sad, too. And, it made Bell mad.

So, Theora stepped aside. The weapon lunged into the ground with a thud and threw up a wall of dirt.

The Erratum was strong. There was no expression on its face; it was just blank. An empty shell. Cast upon the planet to fulfil an awful purpose, with nothing of note inside itself.

It was like Theora.

She put a hand on its waist. Cold, dry. Soft, for a rock. Ah, that’s right. How to use it again, without the Interface? Theora focused for a moment, manifesting the Skill’s aura in her mind, and then, released it.

 

Obliterate.

 

The creature disintegrated into fine powder, the remains carried away in the wind of the night. A lance stabbed the air where a head had still been just a moment before, and then the knight lowered it, confused. Theora turned to Lostina, who had administered the potion and stopped the bleeding, the man wrapped-up in her arms, breathing heavily, but conscious. 

“Oh my god,” Lostina let out with an incredulous laugh. “What the fuck? You are one hell of a [Baker]. You can turn stuff into flour?”

Theora blinked. “Not what I did.”

“… Sure looked like it, though,” the knight added, cracking a smile. She grazed through her long black hair, bloodying it. “What the fuck. Summoned ones really are something else. Thanks. Might have ended roughly for old Sammy.” She nodded towards the man, then relaxed the tension in her muscles, walking over to take him off Lostina’s arms.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not flour,” Theora insisted.