The Art of Gold Digging
Ch.36- Faster.

"Seven chapters, huh?" Amy muttered, letting out a sigh.

[Yes. They've been accumulating since things started getting complicated.]

"Complicated… That's one way to put it."

She glanced around the chamber. Now that Lain and Iris had left to explore, there were only four people left, without counting herself. Zayd remained at his post, eyes closed in what might have been meditation. Ash had dozed off against the wall, exhausted, and Lyra meanwhile continued her healing on the unconscious Crow.

"Will reading them help?" Amy whispered, low enough so nobody overheard her. "Will they explain why chaos creatures are here early? Why did Crow's father appear? Why everything feels so... wrong?"

[I believe so. The divergence point should be clear once you see it, for better or worse.]

Her fingers tightened on the book's damaged cover. "I'm scared, Libris."

[Of what you'll see?]

"Of what I've already done." Her voice was barely audible. "Of what I might have changed without realizing it."

[Amy... these changes aren't necessarily your fault.]

"Then what else could it be? Crow's father, Abaddon, said there were 'wildcards' affecting the timeline. Variables that shouldn't exist. That's me, isn't it?"

[Correlation doesn't equal causation. Sometimes butterflies create hurricanes, and sometimes hurricanes were going to happen anyway.]

"Right…" Amy took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Ready or not, there is no point in stalling it anymore, is there?"

[So brave~]

She smiled faintly at the comment. "I wish I could stall it, but we don't have much time, right? Lain and Iris will come back any second."

[Indeed. Moreover, given my current state, I can only maintain consciousness for another... thirty-seven minutes.]

"Then we'd better hurry."

[Indeed. Opening Chapter 156. This covers the events from Crow's perspective during the week before your infiltration of the Eastern Wing.]

The pages began to glow softly, transforming to reveal the chapter's cover art. Contrary to the usual, the light was dim enough that Zayd, Lyra, and Ash did not notice it.

The image showed Crow standing alone in what appeared to be his dorm room, but the perspective was fractured, like looking through a shattered mirror. In each fragment, a different version of events played out: In one, he held a letter with trembling hands. In another, he stood over a map of the Academy. In yet another, he gripped Bloodedge with white knuckles.

The title read: "Chapter 156: The Weight of Knowing"

"Alright… Here we go," she whispered, and began to read.

The chapter opened with a familiar scene - Crow's room, but from a different time. A week before the Eastern Wing infiltration.

Crow sat at his desk, surrounded by maps, notes, and various artifacts. Dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn't slept properly in days. The golden key from the box lay before him, occasionally catching the lamplight.

I need to be ready, his internal monologue began. Whatever Father left for me in the Eastern Wing, whatever secrets the Library holds... I can't afford to fail.

A panel showed him activating his third ability - Soul Sight. The world shifted into strange colors and patterns as he examined the key more closely.

The Headmistress's office, the thought bubble read. That's the next step.

The scene shifted to the Academy halls. Crow walked deliberately, his ability active as he mapped every corridor, every guard rotation, every magical ward.

A text box read along with a page full of art and timeskips of Crow doing research on the Academy's layout:

Day 1: Eastern corridor guards change shifts at six-hour intervals. No deviation.

The page also detailed some other observations and some of his thoughts.

Then, the next pages and those that followed continued the trend set by the first.

Day 2: Magical wards pulse in a seven-layer configuration. Professor Vanheim passes through at 7:43 PM precisely.

Day 3: Discovered service passages. Potential alternate routes...

The panels showed his meticulous note-taking, each observation clearly full of detail. But there was something else in his expression, a growing unease.

A flashback panel: Crow standing outside Building B, staring at the aftermath of his battle against the blood mimics. His fists clenched.

Were we always meant to find that key? Was this always supposed to happen? Did Father plan this whole thing...?

The page turned.

Day 4: Meeting with the others, testing their readiness.

First, it was Amy after class. 

The chapter showed their short conversation between classes, just like she remembered. They talked about when they were going to go, and it depicted her informing Crow about Zayd butting into the operation—news that did not amuse Crow in the slightest.

Once he finished talking with Amy, it was Ash's turn, whom he found in the training hall.

"I'll be straight with you," Crow began as they sparred. "Do you really want to come?"

"Have I not made myself clear?" Ash grunted, dodging a strike. "No, of course I don't."

"And yet you're still coming…"

Ash grinned. "I'm just that stupid."

The conversation was short. Once Crow was sure Ash was ready and willing, he rapidly left, ignoring the complaints of his friend to finish the sparring.

Next was Lain in the library.

"...I will go, worry not…" Lain stated.

Crow gave her a simple nod. "I wanted to make sure."

Just like with Ash, a short conversation. There was no time to waste, his thoughts read.

Next was Lyra's turn. He found her in the hall between classes.

"I'm going, no matter what," she said before he could even speak. "I'm coming. You'll need a healer."

"I see…"

The chapter progressed through the week, showing Crow's growing exhaustion as he refined his plans. Multiple panels showed him studying the administrative building's architecture, memorizing every detail.

Then came a scene that had been hinted at for a little while: Crow's encounter with Zayd.

The manga panel showed Zayd in his room, seated at a small table with tea service laid out. Crow stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

"Come in," Zayd said without looking up. "I've been expecting you."

Crow entered cautiously. "Then you know why I'm here."

Zayd poured two cups of tea. "To determine if I'm trustworthy." He looked up, his amber eyes meeting Crow's dark ones.

A panel showed Crow's Soul Sight activating, the world shifting into abstract patterns of color. A text box described him using his ability to help him read Zayd's body language better.

"What is your objective?" Crow asked.

Zayd's smile was sad. "To be free. Just like you… The Gaspard family serves powers you don't understand," Zayd said, his fingers tracing the rim of his teacup. "But service and loyalty are not the same thing."

Crow frowned, clearly annoyed. "Can't you respond clearly instead of asking me to trust you based on riddles?"

At his response, Zayd merely sighed. "I'm asking you to recognize a kindred spirit. We're both trapped by our birthrights, aren't we?"

Crow's hand moved unconsciously to his left shoulder. "How do you know about—"

"I overheard you." Zayd's expression grew serious. "But that doesn't matter right now. Here's what matters: when we enter the Eastern Wing, I won't betray you."

"..." Crow took a long moment to think but eventually nodded. However, his internal thoughts revealed he did not believe a single word spoken by Zayd, and that even if he hadn't had a real confrontation with Zayd, the fact that his family was connected to his father was enough to distrust him.

After the conversation was over, the scene shifted to Crow walking through the Academy corridors, his mind heavy with preparation and doubt.

Day 5: Vanheim's special lecture.

The panel showed the lecture hall filled with students, but the focus remained on Crow's face as Professor Vanheim wrote a single word on the board.

"Recent events have necessitated accelerating certain aspects of your education…" said Vanheim as he began his lecture.

Crow tried to listen, but since this was mostly reminders for the second years and with all the stuff he had to worry about, he barely registered anything apart from the superficial.

The lecture reached its conclusion with Vanheim's warning about awareness being the first line of defense. The students began to disperse, but Crow remained seated, staring at his notes.

Tomorrow night. No room for error. Ash, Lyra, Lain—I can protect them. But Zayd...

A panel showed him clenching his fist. I can't trust him. Not completely. But I can't exclude him either. Too many variables.

As he thought about Zayd, his mind also traveled to Amy, the one who had shared the news with him of Zayd's involvement. And despite his intuition saying otherwise, he couldn't help but be suspicious of the girl.

What if she planned this whole thing?

Eventually, he just sighed and dropped that train of thought. Lain had assured him that even if that girl was something to be careful of, the chances of her being against them were little. And although there were too many uncertainties to trust her yet, he did trust Lain's observation—that girl was rarely wrong about anything related to people after all.

Crow let out a sigh as he kept pondering and eventually reached the conclusion that he was better off preparing for what they would face there rather than worrying about those two. He still needed to make some preparations. They were, after all, walking into what looked like a setup…like always…

Crow's thoughts turned to his father, and the panels grew darker.

"Will he be there?" he muttered.

It was at the same time that those words were said that the perspective shifted. And instead focused on Amy, also in the classroom.

She sat in her seat, Libris by her desk.

A speech bubble appeared: "Is he going to be there...?"

The panel focused on Amy's expression—vulnerable, afraid. Her hands were clenched in her lap.

"My father... will he appear?"

Libris's response wasn't shown in the manga; instead, only Amy's expression was shown.

The final scene showed her profile, her face partially hidden in shadow. She had gone completely silent.

The chapter finished with her standing up and walking toward the exit.

[End of Chapter 156]

Amy stared at the page, the final panel of her walking away still glowing faintly before the light faded.

"So that's it," she whispered. "The story's really going to dig into my past now. My family."

[I tried to stop—]

"I know, Libris. And you shouldn't have."

[It was my choice.]

"A stupid choice." The words came out harsher than she intended. She softened her tone, aware that Lyra might hear despite her focus on Crow. "Sorry, I'm being ridiculous, aren't I? It's just…"

She waited for the familiar surge of panic, the tightness in her chest, the racing thoughts. But there was... nothing. Just a hollow acknowledgment, like reading about rain when you're already soaked.

"I should be more upset about this," she murmured, closing the book absently. "Shouldn't I?"

[Amy...]

"No, really. It's weird. After everything that just happened—Crow's father, the corpses, the colossus, the chaos creatures, you almost dying, the Goddess showing up—this feels so... small." She traced a crack on Libris's cover. "Like worrying about a paper cut while bleeding from a stab wound—here we are, trapped in a nightmare future with the literal apocalypse hanging over our heads, and I'm worried about... what? Some readers learning about my shitty childhood? God, I feel so dumb…"

[Nothing dumb about putting oneself first. Maybe even the contrary.]

"Perhaps… It's just, there is simply so much at stake that…" She paused, then added with a weak smile, "No pun intended."

[I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.]

"Oh, come on. It was kind of funny."

[No, it really wasn't.]

Despite everything, Amy felt her lips twitch slightly. Even damaged and exhausted, Libris could still make her want to smile.

"Seven chapters, though," she said, growing serious again. "That's a lot of accumulated content."

[Indeed. And you still have the readers' comments to analyze.]

Amy glanced at the others again. Ash was definitely asleep now, soft snores escaping him. Lyra remained focused on her healing, sweat beading on her face. Meanwhile, Zayd hadn't moved from his meditation pose.

"How much time do we have?"

[Thirty-four minutes before I need to rest. Plenty of time if we focus.]

"Right." Amy straightened slightly, preparing herself. "Then let's keep going. No more time to waste."

[Very well. Chapter 157 is titled "Convergence of Intentions" and covers mostly the reunion before entering the headmistress's office.]

The pages shifted, revealing a new cover art. This one showed a split-screen composition: the top half depicted all the main characters training in different locations around the Academy, while the bottom half showed them gathered around a table in Crow's room.

Without wasting time, Amy began reading.

The chapter opened with a rapid recap of everyone's activities in the past week before the infiltration:

Everyone had been training in their own ways, preparing for the infiltration. And as time visibly passed, the montage accelerated, showing all of them pushing harder.

The scene then shifted to Saturday evening—the meeting in Crow's room.

But instead of starting when Amy arrived, the manga showed what happened before:

Crow paced nervously in his room, checking and double-checking his maps and plans. A close-up panel showed his hands trembling slightly as he arranged papers on his desk.

Father... if this is another one of your tests...

A knock interrupted his thoughts. Ash entered first, followed by Lyra and Lain.

"Looking as bad as usual," Ash commented, noting Crow's obvious stress. "When's the last time you slept?"

"Sleep is for people who don't have family mysteries to solve," Crow replied dryly.

Lyra's expression grew concerned. "Crow, you need rest. Your body can't—"

"My body is fine," he cut her off, though the dark circles under his eyes suggested otherwise.

Lain said nothing, but her silver eyes studied Crow with quiet intensity.

The next panels showed Zayd's arrival, and the subtle tension that filled the room. Crow had already informed everyone of his presence, yet still, the gazes did not stop.

Thankfully for Zayd, after little less than a minute came Iris's unexpected entrance, and everyone's shocked expressions while Ash strategically placed himself where no one could see him.

"What are you—" Crow began, but was rapidly stopped by Iris, who gestured towards Ash and began explaining.

Flashback Panel: Iris cornering Ash in the training hall: "Whatever you idiots are planning, I'm in."

"We're not planning anything," Ash had lied poorly.

"Bullshit. I overheard you complaining aloud about Zayd in the lockers. You've been acting weird all week. Crow looks like he hasn't slept in days. Even the ice princess has been more intense than usual." Iris crossed her arms. "Either you tell me, or I tell Vanheim you're up to something."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

The flashback ended, returning to the meeting room as Amy finally arrived.

The manga showed the meeting largely as Amy had experienced it, but with one additional big detail she just noticed.

[I don't like that expression on your face. It's annoying.]

Amy barely registered the words as she stared at her drawing, more specifically at her outfit.

"Damn Libris, maybe you were right. Those scars you have might have been worth it."

[Did I just hear that correctly?]

Amy's eyes lingered on the panel showing her entrance to Crow's room. The outfit Libris had created for her—fitted black pants, form-fitting top under a sleek tunic with gold detailing—looked even more striking in the manga's art style than it had in reality.

"I still don't get used to how pretty I am," she muttered, half-amused, half-embarrassed.

[Do you remember we are under a time constraint, right?]

"Yeah, yeah." Amy quickly flipped through the rest of the chapter. The meeting played out exactly as she remembered—the planning, the arguments, the revelation about Zayd, and finally her stating her objective of saving everyone. Nothing new or unexpected.

[Chapter 158 is next. "The Best Laid Plans."]

The cover art made Amy grimace despite herself. It showed Ash and Zayd in dramatic action poses, but in the background was the unmistakable silhouette of their "distraction."

"I can't believe they actually drew it," she whispered.

[At least it's censored, although barely.]

Amy skimmed through quickly. Most of it was identical to her experience—the infiltration of the administrative building, avoiding the guards, Crow picking the locks. But interspersed were scenes from Zayd and Ash's perspective that she hadn't witnessed.

One panel showed them in the service passage:

"I still can't believe this is the plan. I love it so much," Ash muttered as they climbed the narrow stairs.

"It has a certain... crude efficiency," Zayd replied, though his expression suggested he shared Ash's disbelief.

Another panel showed Ash holding the illusion artifact:

"How big should we make it?" Ash asked with barely suppressed glee.

"Large enough to be seen from multiple buildings," Zayd said clinically. "But not so large as to seem physically impossible."

"So like... twenty feet?"

"That should suffice."

Amy flipped faster through the pages, showing the actual implementation. The artist had, thankfully, used strategic shadows and light effects to keep things from being too explicit.

"They really spent three whole pages on this," she muttered.

[The readers seemed to enjoy it, based on the comment counts.]

"Of course they did." Amy shook her head, continuing to skim until the chapter ended on a cliffhanger with the headmistress behind her desk looking at the students caught red-handed.

[You're speeding up.]

"There's nothing new here," Amy said, flipping pages more rapidly. "Just different perspectives of things I've already lived through."

[True, but sometimes perspective matters.]

"Not when we're on a time limit." She was already moving to close this chapter. "How many more?"

[Three chapters remain. And we have... thirty minutes.]

"Then let's get to the important parts. Whatever changed the timeline should be in these last chapters."

[Speaking of which, Chapter 159: "Library of Futures." This one is... significant. Or more like the end.]

The cover art immediately set a different tone. It showed two figures facing each other across a void—Crow on one side, battered but defiant, and a shadow on the other. Between them floated fragments of memories like broken glass and a little golden strand of hair.

Amy's fingers tightened on the page. "This is it, isn't it? Where everything start going wrong?"

[Not yet. But the clues start appearing.]

"I see."

The first pages of Chapter 159 opened exactly as Amy expected—the confrontation with Headmistress Elyndra in her office. But instead of the tense atmosphere she remembered, the manga had rendered the entire blame-shifting sequence in an unexpectedly adorable chibi art style.

Tiny versions of themselves pointed fingers at each other with exaggerated expressions. Chibi-Iris had steam coming out of her ears. Chibi-Ash wore a mischievous grin while gesturing dramatically towards the mortified Chibi-Lyra.

"They made it cute," Amy muttered, flipping through the pages quickly. "Of course they did."

[The tonal whiplash is rather effective. Readers seem to appreciate the brief levity before—]

"Before everything goes to hell, yeah." Amy's eyes scanned the pages, noting the headmistress's amused reactions drawn in the same chibi style. "Nothing new here either. Just a bad attempt at comedy by a talentless author."

[Ruthless…]

She flipped faster, past the part where they entered the passage, past their walk through the dark corridor. The art style had returned to normal by then, showing their tense journey in dramatic shadows and careful detail.

Then she reached it—the page where they emerged in the nightmare. The frozen wasteland stretched endlessly, rendered in stark blacks and whites with subtle blue tones. Dead trees reached toward an empty sky like skeletal fingers.

[Look at the bottom right corner.]

"What?" Amy stared, confused, before following Libris's command. Then instantly after, her breath caught.

In the distance, barely visible through the gloom, was the suggestion of abandoned buildings.

But that wasn't what made her stop.

In the bottom corner of the spread, almost hidden in the artistic composition, was a single silhouette. Small, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. It showed a figure watching from the shadows of a dead tree—tall, cloaked, with only a hint of silver-streaked hair visible.

"Abaddon, right…?"

[Yeah.]

"Damn," Amy whispered. "He was already there, watching us from the beginning…"

[Indeed.]

She flipped to the next page, her movements urgent now. The manga showed their discovery of the frozen city, their horror at recognizing Eldoria. Then came the reveal of the Devourer—the colossal woman in the sky.

The entity filled an entire page, her obsidian skin cracked like drought-stricken earth, her wings torn and bleeding darkness. But it was her eyes that drew focus—two voids that seemed to look directly at the reader.

Below, the characters were rendered tiny, insignificant against such cosmic horror.

[Chapter 160: "Father and Children."]

Then came Amy's explanation about the future, and Crow's decision to continue to the Library despite everything. The manga portrayed the group's fear and determination in equal measure.

Amy skimmed through their journey back to the inn, the encounter with the screaming headmistress. Then the whole revelation about her being a blood puppet, and finally, the corpse.

The manga portrayed Elyndra's corpse in graphic detail—perhaps too graphic. The grotesque positioning of her limbs, the wounds that had killed her, all rendered with clinical precision.

"They really didn't hold back," Amy muttered, a small sense of wrongness clouding her mind. It wasn't disgust, more like…weird.

Without pausing to think much about it, she continued reading.

The swarm of creatures pursuing them as they ran was shown through dynamic action panels, each member of the group fighting desperately. The artist had captured the overwhelming nature of the assault, using overlapping panels and motion lines to create a sense of complete chaos.

And then the moment of Abaddon's appearance was given its own dramatic spread. He materialized from the shadows.

But again, there was something different.

In the manga, as he appeared, there was a small panel insert showing his hand. Wrapped around his fingers was a single golden strand of hair.

[End of chapter 160]

"Whose hair is that?" Amy whispered, leaning closer to examine the detail.

[...]

"Libris?"

[Keep reading, Amy.]

Amy stared in silence at the book for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and continuing.

[Chapter 161: "Past"]

The conversation between father and son played out as Amy remembered, but the manga added internal monologues she hadn't been privy to:

Crow's thoughts: He looks older than my dreams. More tired. More... human.

Abaddon's thoughts: You've grown strong, my son. Strong enough for what comes next. Forgive me.

"Forgive him? Jesus, this guy…" Amy hissed under her breath.

The revelation about the mark, about suffering being necessary for its growth, was illustrated through metaphorical imagery—chains breaking, flowers blooming from blood, a phoenix burning and reforming. It was beautifully drawn but disturbing in its implications.

Then came the philosopher's speech about the Goddess, reality, and suffering. The manga portrayed this through increasingly abstract art, reality seeming to bend and fracture around Abaddon as he spoke his truths.

But the biggest change came at the end.

As the chaos creatures flooded in and the battle began, and Libris's golden light destroyed everything in its path, there was a moment—just a single panel.

Abaddon's eyes had finally seemed to find first the book, and then Amy in the crowd. His eyes snapped open, filled with shock.

"You…!"

Then his gaze had shifted to the golden hair still wrapped around his fingers, and his expression became desperate.

"That man…! So he also had descendants!"

"What?" Amy frowned. "Just what is he talking about?"

[The chapter's almost over. We should see how it ends.]

Amy flipped to the final pages, watching Libris's sacrifice play out in dramatic panels. The golden light expanded, erasing chaos creatures from existence, forcing even Abaddon to flee. The artist had rendered it beautifully, making Libris's damaged form seem both tragic and heroic.

The chapter ended with a close-up of Amy clutching the burned book, tears streaming down her face. The final panel showed the light of the teleporter activating and a single golden hair drifting down, landing on Libris's cracked cover.

The whole conversation with the Goddess seemed to have been skipped.

[End of Chapter 161]

"That hair again," Amy said, her voice tight. "Whose is it? Mine? But I never..."

[Twenty-five minutes remaining. One more chapter.]

"Right." Amy steadied herself. "Chapter 162?"

[Indeed. "The Weight of Gold"]

The cover art was unlike any previous chapter. Split down the middle by a jagged line, it showed two Amy's: On the left, the current Amy clutching a damaged Libris. On the right, a younger Amy—perhaps seven or eight years old—standing in what appeared to be a modest home, reaching toward someone just out of frame.

Between them, floating like falling leaves, were strands of golden hair.

"Fuck me..."

[Reasonable reaction.]

Amy stared at the cover art, her stomach twisting into knots. She didn't need anybody to spell it out for her; her brain had connected the dots.

“Please tell me what I’m imagining isn’t the actual answer.”

[I think I have an idea of what’s on your mind, but you’ll still have to tell me first.]

"...since I'm becoming a character in this world, and a backstory is being created for me…  Does that mean that I have a family here too…?" she whispered, more to herself than to Libris. "That golden hair Abaddon had, and his words. Could it be, a father is being created in this world…"

[That is indeed what happened.]

"Christ..."

Emotions surged through her, emotions that she did not completely understand. It was all so weird.

After everything that happened, and after everything that she had gone through, everything had been feeling muffled for a while, like looking at things through a mirror.

It was as if the emotions were happening, and they were there, but she wasn't the one feeling them. Instead, it was her body that slightly trembled for reasons she could not fully internalize.

"How much time is left?"

[Twenty and a half minutes. But Amy—]

"I'm fine." The words came out sharper than intended. She softened her tone. "Not the kind of fine that means I'm actually suffering, more like the fine that feels fine, really."

[I don't know whether to believe that.]

"I'm serious, Libris. After everything we've been through, after everything that happened… It just doesn’t hurt…. Moreover, who knows, maybe the family the reader will create is better than my previous one…"

Amy was opening the chapter with trembling fingers, but before she could start reading, Libris' voice made her pause.

[That’s not how it works, Amy.]

“What…?”

[That, “father”, and the people that are being created by the manga, are really your parents. A little different, but still your parents.]

Amy frowned, not being able to comprehend Libris' words for a few seconds. After a few seconds of staring at nothing, her mind finally woke up, and she finally managed to move her lips.

"I don’t understand… None of this makes sense. What do you mean? I thought it would just... invent a backstory based on what readers think of my character. Sure it would use phrases and stuff and who knows, making them shittier, but I did not know it will pull from my real past?"

[That’s because I never told you, at least not directly…]

“Why…just…why…?”

Libris let out a sigh, before speaking, its voice in that robotic quality that it put on occasionally and made Amy's heart beat a little faster every time. [Remember when I told you that you should incorporate parts of your real backstory back during our conversation after having tea with Zayd at the academy.]

“I do.”

[Well, this is why…]

Amy's eyes widened slightly. "That comment about being honest about my past..."

[Yes… I’m sorry. I couldn't tell you straight up—doing so would violate the goddess's spell on me directly. It would have rendered me just as unusable as my current state, perhaps worse since there was no guarantee the goddess would heal me like she did right now… I just… wanted you to have at least some semblance of control over your own story, Amy. If you had chosen which parts to reveal, which aspects to emphasize, you could have shaped how the narrative incorporated your past.]

"But I didn't listen." Amy's voice was barely a whisper.

[You didn’t know, my message was too ambiguous. So don’t try to find a way to put this into yourself…]

"Libris, when you tried holding the chapter…was that what you meant by giving me more time…?"

[...]

It’s silence was all she needed.

Amy let out a low, hollow laugh. "God, I'm such an idiot."

[You had no way of knowing, Amy. The system is designed to be opaque, to prevent exactly this kind of manipulation. When someone becomes a character in this world, their backstory isn't invented from whole cloth—it's woven from the threads of their actual past, transformed and adapted to fit the narrative structure of this reality.]

Amy stared at the unread chapter, processing this information. "So my father... my real father..."

[Will exist here in some form, yes. Changed by the narrative, filtered through the readers' perceptions and the story's needs, but fundamentally still connected to who he was in your world. The same will be true for anyone else from your past who becomes relevant to the plot.]

"That's..." Amy paused, searching for the right word. "Invasive."

[It's how the goddess ensures authenticity in her stories. Real emotions, real connections, real pain—all transformed into narrative fuel.]

Amy sat in silence for a moment, her fingers still resting on the unopened chapter. Around them, the chamber remained quiet—Zayd still meditating, Ash snoring softly. 

It was then that she noticed Lyra's eyes on her.

“Amy, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Amy stopped her with her hand. She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. "I'm alright. Just talking things over with my artifact…”

“I…uh, see…”

Lyra nodded to Amy and rapidly went back to keep healing Crow, occasionally still giving some sneak glances.

[Amy—]

"No, really. I am." She whispered, turning to Libris, her voice was steady now, almost eerily calm. "We don't have time for this, don’t we?"

[Still fifteen minutes and forty-three seconds.]

"That is nothing. I need to hurry up.”

[Is that really a good decision—]

“Libris. I need to hurry up, you and I both know it…”

[...]

Amy gave a weak smile towards the book in her hands before focusing on the chapter.

She truly needed to hurry up.