He exited the [Obsidian Hall] and began to walk aimlessly across the academy grounds, not having any real destination in mind, as he was trying to remove the crawling discomfort that wouldn’t leave him alone no matter how many deep breaths he took.

“Zian Herga is gone,” he muttered under his breath.

That name wasn’t supposed to be gone. He was the protagonist, the one who stood at the center of the story, the radiant sword that cleaved through darkness.

‘So, where the hell was he?’

Ruvian had already asked the system, multiple times, about anything related to Zian’s disappearance, hoping for even a sliver of information, a warning, or at the very least a vague notification of deviation. The source of this content ɪs nοvelfire.net

But the system remained silent.

The only messages that bothered him was just the anonymous entity that kept announcing useless information that he already knew.

[The Watchers of Good Endings were surprised with how the story has progressed.]

‘Is this one of the author doing? What the hell was she thinking? Why remove the protagonist?’

Extras are the grease that keep the machinery of narrative running: disposable, interchangeable, useful only insofar as they make the “real” character shine brighter.

But what happens when the protagonist vanishes?

There is no elegant way to put it: it is an act of narrative malpractice, an author’s equivalent of building a bridge halfway across a river and then shrugging!

Removing the protagonist is like ripping out the spine of a book and pretending the pages will hold themselves together. Ridiculous!

Ruvian sighed.

‘What a freaking joke!’

A doomed world, a calamity already set in motion, and the one person with any hope of fighting it has been deleted. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast, extras, side characters, comic reliefs, and cannon fodder, are now suddenly expected to carry the load.

'Let's try and look for him around the academy, he might have zero-sense of direction.’

The academy grounds stretched wide before him, a maze of cobbled paths and towering buildings that gleamed under the afternoon light, yet their grandeur offered no comfort to him.

He passed the Combat Training Grounds, where a few upperclassmen were engaged in sparring matches, blades clashing with the rhythmic sharpness of iron discipline.

He barely spared them a glance. He continued to walk until he arrived at the General Board Area.

Ruvian stopped in front of it, not because he was interested in anything it had to offer, but because his legs had brought him there.

He stared blankly at the sea of overlapping papers—requests for sparring partners, part-time assistance for alchemy experiments, and even a few passive-aggressive roommate complaints.

Somewhere near the bottom corner, someone had pinned what looked suspiciously like a love confession.

But none of it mattered to him. His thoughts were elsewhere. His fingers clenched as his gaze drifted upward.

“She didn’t even finish the damn story. And now I’m stuck in the fallout of her half-written mess.”

He ran a hand through his hair, letting the weight of it settle on his shoulders.

Then, just as he was about to turn away from the board entirely, something caught his eye.

A simple flyer.

A small square of parchment pinned neatly in the center among all the clutter, easy to miss if one wasn’t paying attention.

[Freshman Tutoring – Basic Combat, Theory, and Mana Flow. Just A Small Fee Required. Beginners Welcome, Mentor: Leon Feyric - Year 3, Class E]

The flyer held his gaze like an unanswered question.

‘Leon Feyric…?’

A name that rang with familiarity.

Ruvian’s thoughts slowed, then accelerated all at once, a floodgate cracking open inside his mind.

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In the original manuscript, Zian Herga had been mentored briefly by an unimportant upperclassman who had taught him how to channel mana properly for the first time.

It had been a fleeting mention in early chapters, nothing more than a few sentences in passing. The author had never expanded on it, never revisited Leon Feyric.

His brows furrowed as the implications sank in.

‘So this was how it happened.’

The detail had been skipped, one of many abandoned threads left to rot in the author’s unfinished manuscript. The connection had formed through this simple, unremarkable piece of paper.

“I suppose, Zian made contact with him through this flyer.”

Ruvian’s gaze drifted downward. The ink had faded slightly from the sun, the edges curled and brittle. This wasn’t freshly posted. It had been there for days. Maybe longer.

Leon Feyric had always been one of those background characters with too much potential and too little recognition.

Born with talent but shackled by the chains of reality. His family, according to the lore, had been burdened by an enormous debt.

A failed business venture, a betrayal from a close relative—whatever the case, the Feyric name had sunk into disgrace.

And so Leon, once considered a top-tier magic student in his cohort, had plummeted through the ranks not because of incompetence, but because he spent every spare hour working menial jobs scattered across the academy just to send coins back home.

He was in Class E because the system didn’t reward his sacrifice. Ruvian’s eyes narrowed, a cold clarity settling in behind them.

No one had taken up the offer.

‘Of course they hadn’t. Who would trust someone ranked at the very bottom to teach them anything? Even among the failures of Class E, hierarchy still ruled. Reputation mattered more than truth. And potential was worthless if it came wrapped in poverty.’

“This is why I hated this academy.”

If Leon Feyric had once helped the protagonist become a master of magic in secret… perhaps it was time someone else borrowed that wisdom.

His fingers reached forward and peeled the flyer off the board, the edges crinkling as he held it.

He wasn’t supposed to do this. He was supposed to let the story unfold and keep himself out of the line of fire. But that plan had burned to ash the moment Zian disappeared.

Now the only path forward was the one he needed to carve himself.

“Well, the protagonist is no longer in sight, I need to take drastic measures.”

He folded the flyer and slipped it into his coat pocket, and turned away from the board. With that, he walked back toward the dormitory he had come from, the sun dipping low behind the academy’s spires, casting dark shadows across the stone paths.

…

The next day.

The first January of the 472th Year of Necraz Calendar.

Located in the eastern region of the Averenthia Kingdom, Velthia Academy stood as a monumental institution dedicated to nurturing scholars of unparalleled skill.

The sheer scale of its grounds was staggering, vast enough to be mistaken for a small city. The academy spanned several square kilometers, its towering buildings interconnected by sprawling courtyards, enchanted walkways, and training fields designed to push students beyond their limits.

With approximately 2,000 scholars, the academy ensured a formidable faculty to uphold its reputation. Around 250 professors oversaw their education, each an expert in their respective fields—be it combat, magic, alchemy, or theory.

Beyond the faculty, the academy functioned as a self-sustaining ecosystem, employing a multitude of staff. Medical staff, groundskeepers, security personnel, cleaners and other workers. In total, the academy housed nearly 10,000 individuals, a thriving entity within itself.

Ruvian stood before the door of Class E, exhaling sharply before stepping inside.

The classroom was as unremarkable as he had expected. Class E—the lowest-ranked division, was reserved for those at the bottom of the entrance exam results. No distinguished figures would be found here, just commoners.

His gaze swept the room, seeking a suitable seat.

He settled at the farthest edge.

At the front of the room stood a large manaboard, its embedded magic circuits. Once activated, it could project illusionary holograms, one of the many tools Velthia employed to enhance its lectures.

The semester had yet to begin, scheduled to commence in the next 3 days. Outside, the cold of winter still lingered, the morning cold breeze visible on the glass panes.

The clock marked 8:00 AM.

Ruvian took in the gathered students with measured indifference. At a glance, the conclusion was obvious, everyone here was a commoner.

He was prepared to dismiss them all, to relegate them to the background of his mind as nameless figures with no bearing on his path.

‘Actually, not everyone.’

A thread of memory, faint yet insistent, pulled at the edges of his thoughts. Two faces, unremarkable but familiar.

The first, a former noblewoman, Vanessa Eldrienne, her lineage stripped away, her title reduced to dust.

She had once stood among the aristocracy, but fate had cast her aside, leaving her to navigate a world that no longer recognized her worth. She enrolled in this academy without her family name and with a false identity known as Violet.

Ruvian recalled a brief passage, an early chapter in the novel, where she had become the prey of Julian Rozenberg’s cruelty.

A minor antagonist exerting his power over the weak during the first day joint-session with Class A.

And of course, Zian Herga intervened to help her. A hero’s hand, reaching out, halting the cycle of torment before it could take root.

‘But she is not entirely weak, just pretending to be one. I guess…’

However, after Zian was kicked out of the academy. She also went missing, it was theorized that she had followed Zian but stumbled upon something else or the author just forgot about her, entirely.

Secondly, an unknown scholar, a complete oddity.

His presence held little significance in the overarching narrative, save for a single event. He managed to craft healing potions for Zian during an expedition beyond ordinary speed.

That was it.

It was then, the door creaked open, and the idle chatter in the classroom fell into a hush.