After fighting off the first Erratum, Theora scouted the area for a while to make sure no others were present, and eventually did find two more, as well as a small dent in space-time, which a [Summoner] present in the village was able to close easily. With that, Lostina declared the danger mostly over.

They ended up staying the night. When Theora explained they were on their way to try and save a village from an upcoming Erratum attack, people there happily provided the two with travelling resources and other useful things for the journey.

“We should still pay them,” Theora murmured early the next morning, when she and Lostina were sitting at the table of Sammy’s husband to eat breakfast. “After all, we don’t currently need the money for anything else, and they look like they might need it more. Plus, it seems customary in this world to pay for things.”

Lostina grimaced. “Fine, whatever. I guess I can always scam people for more if we need anything. You still have all our money in your cloak, so feel free to do what you see fit.”

Theora nodded, and put a forkful of salad into her mouth. Lostina didn’t seem very invested in that money, and was mostly focussed on her crudely self-drawn map that she had lying next to her bowl of soup. She’d apparently stayed up late with some others to help plot out a route to their destination. It was at the edge of the kingdom, and fairly hard to reach.

“Still, this makes no sense.” She shook her head in what seemed like slight annoyance, her hair strands bouncing.

“The route?”

“No, you,” she said, looking at Theora without raising her head. “The only person who’s supposed to be able to face off against Errata that easily is Gonell.”

Theora leaned back, hiding her face behind her hand. Was her mere presence already messing things up?

“I suppose if it was an issue, you’d have received an outline error,” Lostina mused. “If you can get such errors. In any case, we’ve got all we need. I wanted to recruit Luke — the [Summoner], I mean — but it threw an error. That’s fine, though. We have travelling utensils now, and I suppose bears aren’t an issue with you around.” She gave a small sigh. “And three days to spare. We should be able to make it, even if you run off a few more times to play hero.”

“You sound like you disapprove.”

Lostina shrugged. “Well, I’m not opposed to it. But, Errata are overpowered as fuck, and I had no idea your class was this ridiculous.”

“It’s not my Class…”

“Anyway, yeah, as long as you don’t get us killed, it’s fine by me. I guess I kind of treated this as ‘just a story’ at first, and the author can still go to hell, but it would suck if people suffered despite us being able to do something about it. They summon us to this world because we get unique Classes. Native people only have twelve different ones to choose from. So… if we can help out, we should.” She sighed. “You know, I’ve been wondering. In your original world, what genre is this story?”

“What do you mean?”

“Genre. As in. Is it an Adventure story? Action? Drama?”

Theora tried her best to hazard a guess, but… The first few pages definitely felt a little dramatic, and not very adventurous. But she couldn’t judge a book by its first few pages. “I wouldn’t know. All I know is that it’s Dema’s favourite, and that some people I talked to behaved a little restrained when I told them I would take her on a date here.”

Lostina massaged her temples in slight perplexion. “I’ll ignore most of what you just said because it sounds ridiculous. The reason I’m wondering is just — is this a story with a good end? Or a tragedy? Because so far, it seems a lot like a tragedy. The kind of story where, no matter what the main characters do, they won’t be able to change the tragic outcome.”

“You say that after we may have kept someone from dying.”

Lostina winced a bit, but then shrugged. “Okay, but. That was just one measly Erratum attack in one very small settlement. And it’s been making me think — if we treat this story as real, and the people here too, and not ‘just a story’, then… Isn’t it fucking depressing? We won’t be able to stop these attacks, and once you’ve found your thing, and once I’ve saved Gonell, maybe we’ll be off and everything here will stay just as depressing.”

“Every single action has meaning,” Theora said.

Lostina frowned. “Yeah, I mean. Yes. Sorry. Wasn’t trying to… But, don’t you think it’s depressing at all?”

Theora nodded. “Of course I would prefer if people found a solution to the issue. And if I have a way to aid in that, I will try.”

That said, doing so might make it harder or impossible for her to find the Fragment of Time.

“Yeah… That’s what I mean… I’m here to save Gonell, and god knows that’s exactly what I’ll do. Because I can’t let the author get away with that nonsense. But… I mean, I guess it’s a bit presumptuous. We weren’t in the original story, we were added to it after the fact. And the original story seemed like the type where they’d eventually find a solution on their own. I don’t think I can do shit about this anyway, I’m just a measly [Pretender] who happens to know some things about the setting.”

“A pretender,” Theora echoed. “Do the Classes we receive have something to do with our previous lives?”

Lostina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, narrowing her eyes a bit in thought. “I would assume so. Wallace, the original main character, got the [Procrastinator] Class after transmigrating, and that pretty much mirrors his past life. The Class lets him choose arbitrary time windows to accomplish certain results, and the closer he gets to the deadline before fulfilling that condition, the more he powers up. It’s high risk, high reward. Also a good power for a story setting because it comes with free countdowns and suspense build-up. Was always engaging to read.”

She poked around in her soup, trying to stab a piece of carrot, spilling a few drops over her map. “Meanwhile, I used to pretend a lot in my old life. Was born with a body I didn’t feel very comfortable in, so to speak, and had to act a lot to fit in, ’cause of some outside pressures. That stuff got fixed with my transmigration, luckily. Here, I have other reasons to pretend, though. What about you?”

Theora stared at her plate. “Not sure. I was trying to learn how to bake, recently. I haven't gotten very far yet, though. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to become better at it here.”

Lostina smiled. “Well, at least you’ll always have enough flour.”

“It’s not flour.”

Lostina ignored her. “Things will be a little tense until we see what we can do about the village, and a lot of stuff depends on how it all’s gonna shake out. But, Gonell’s date of death is about seven months from now, so if you stay with me until then — which I assume would be the end of the novel in your world — then you might have enough time to get into your Class.”

Theora nodded. “That would be nice.”

After they finished eating, Theora left two bags of money, and then they made off to continue their journey. By now, Theora was getting somewhat worried about the absence of Dema. She really missed her, which was one thing. But also, what if something had gone wrong? Dema would know how to rejoin the main plot, so if there was any possibility for her to have met them by now, she’d likely have done so.

That meant that either she’d been placed in a spot that was very far away, or… she was in a position where she couldn’t leave. And in that case, Theora didn’t have any way to locate her. After all, the Interface she was used to didn’t work inside this story.

Suddenly, Theora wished she had some kind of keepsake of her. Something to remember Dema by whenever they were separated.

“Hey,” Theora started at some point, as they were traversing along a barren cliff. The wind blew strongly, so she raised her voice as much as she felt comfortable to still be heard clearly. “Can I… Can you…”

“Huh?” Lostina went, looking back at her, black sclera and lime-green pupils staring with curiosity. Her eyes were almost as captivating as Dema’s.

“Can I… like. The money… Could I use some of it for myself, maybe?”

Lostina shrugged. “Sure, whatever. I think we have enough supplies now to stop worrying about that for a while. If it makes you happy, go for it.”

Theora let out a breath of relief. Lostina was truly a blessing of a person. How could she be so nice? 

Now, Theora simply needed to look out for something suitable. 

 

The next day, they ended their journey in another settlement, and after one more day of travel, Lostina found a mountain cave for them to sleep in. It was full of little bats, and their constant flaps helped Theora doze off. However, just before she could truly let go, Lostina’s voice brought her back awake.

“Tomorrow evening we’ll reach the village,” she murmured. A few seconds passed, and Theora could hear her swallow. “I’m kind of starting to get scared. What if we really can’t do shit? If all our actions get blocked, and we simply turn up to watch everyone die?”

“Do you really think that can happen? What if we… ignore the error messages? If we just save them anyway?”

Lostina shuffled in her bedroll, and sat up. Her hair was wildly out of order, and she gazed down at Theora, worried. “We are characters in a story, Theora. Well, not you. Though there’s a chance you got turned into one by voluntarily coming here. You understand what that means, right?”

She really did not.

“I don’t really know a lot about stories.”

Lostina sighed. “Well. Let’s suppose the error messages hint at one simple fact: That this story is still actively being written. That the author is very much present, and overseeing this world. And we are characters in that world.”

Her gaze went across the ceiling, as if she was looking for something in the world behind it. “That’s a bit scary, right? Because it would mean we are at the author’s total mercy. Sure, we have our personality traits, and authors generally are encouraged to keep behaviour of their characters consistent, but like… If we annoy them enough, or prevent them from telling the story the way they want to, they can force us to do whatever, or just kill us off. Deus-ex-machina-style.”

“… Deus ex machina…?”

“Yeah.” Lostina took a brittle piece of earth from the ground, turning it in her hand. “It lets them do whatever they want. Like we are up against some uber-powerful reality warper. Think of it as an author’s Ultimate Skill.”

She rumbled the piece apart.

Ah. An all-powerful being, with an all-powerful Skill.

“Sure, the Skill has a cost,” Lostina continued. “It usually damages the story’s integrity. If an author uses it, they might lose readers, or income. Or get axed. But, not all authors are deterred by that, you know? If we annoy them enough, they will drop a piano on us, and there is literally nothing we can do to stop them. Some will rip the inner logic of the story apart simply to get rid of us. Like they did with Gonell.”

“So, you are saying… If we ignore the errors, and succeed to change the outline against the author’s wishes, we might get written out of the story.”

Lostina nodded. “Exactly. We can’t win, is what I want to say. Not really. Not without the author’s approval. It’s possible that the error messages are just an early warning shot of sorts. A generous message informing us to ‘tread lightly’, or we will be squashed.”

She sighed, and shook her head, looking somewhat sad. “Of course, we should still try. There’s got to be a way to use the knowledge we have about the setting… I just don’t know how, yet. We do need to be careful, though. That’s what I’m worried about. That, if we take one step too far, everything will fall apart.”

A being so totally and utterly strong that it could do anything to Theora or anyone else, at a whim.

It seemed like a dream. Even the System at her home wasn’t that powerful; Theora could, in theory, severely harm it, or even dismantle it. She chose not to, because of how many other people were still dependent on it, and because of the damage dismantling it might do to reality. And, no matter how hard that System tried, it would not be able to harm Theora. The difference in power was too great.

It had proven as much with the delegation sent to seal her.

And now, hidden within the layers of this world, there possibly existed a creature that was to Theora what Theora was to everyone else?

A looming threat. A being that tolerated one’s existence, if one was lucky.

Perhaps this was what she deserved.