New Novel
Chapter 14: The upcoming script

Chapter 14: The upcoming script

The room gradually grew quiet after Leviana sank into sleep.

Lathel sat beside the bed, carefully pulling the blanket a little higher before placing the cup of water and medicinal fluid in their usual spots. After her brief window of wakefulness each day, Leviana’s body would automatically enter an extended state of rest. Her breathing had already become steady, and her face no longer held the tension from her conversation with Catrina.

At a glance, she appeared to be sleeping deeply.

In truth, Leviana’s consciousness had not yet fully submerged.

Her current state was different from the three years she had lain completely motionless. Leviana couldn’t actively open her eyes or control her body once sleep set in, but she could still vaguely perceive nearby sounds, fluctuations in mana, and sometimes even particularly strong emotions from the people beside her.

She knew Lathel was still sitting there.

And Catrina still hadn’t left.

The masked woman sat not far from the bed, watching Lathel in silence.

After the conversation just now, many words had risen to her lips only to be swallowed back down.

Catrina wanted to ask how he had been living all these years, wanted to know how the people in this family had treated him, and wanted to tell him that from today onward, she would never let anyone hurt him again.

But in the end, she simply sat still.

Leviana was right about one thing.

The Lathel before her was the Lathel of right now.

He hadn’t lived through the years by Catrina’s side, had never set foot in the Veyr territory, and had certainly never promised to stand beside her in formal attire at a wedding meant for only two.

All of those precious memories currently belonged to Catrina alone.

If she forced them onto him, what she received might not be love.

It might only be confusion and wariness.

Catrina looked at Lathel a while longer, then let out a quiet breath and finally stood.

Lathel heard the movement and turned. He signed:

"Are you leaving?"

Catrina’s gaze lingered on those familiar gestures.

Her hand reflexively started to rise, but she quickly lowered it again.

"Yes. I still have a few things to take care of."

Lathel nodded.

Catrina walked to the door, then stopped without realizing it.

She turned her head to look at him.

Lathel was still sitting beside Leviana, close enough that the woman on the bed would only need to reach out slightly to touch his sleeve.

Catrina knew she should be patient.

She had also just agreed with Leviana that matters from the previous life needed to be handled more carefully.

But when she actually saw the spot beside Lathel belonging to someone else, the discomfort in her chest was impossible to avoid.

"I’ll be back."

Lathel was slightly taken aback by the rather abrupt announcement, but he still gave a polite nod.

Catrina looked at him for a few more seconds before opening the door and leaving.

Her presence quickly vanished from the hallway.

In her sleep, Leviana sensed it too.

The vague tension in her consciousness immediately eased.

’Finally decided to go.’

The thought had barely formed before Leviana sank deeper into sleep.

Lathel, meanwhile, stared at the closed door for a long while.

Catrina truly baffled him.

A person he had never met somehow knew the personal signs he used, mentioned wanting to marry him, and then behaved as though the two of them had known each other for a very long time.

Leviana was just as strange.

The two women were clearly hiding something together, and whatever it was seemed to involve him directly.

Lathel thought about it for a moment, then let it go.

Too many things beyond his understanding had happened in recent days. Leviana had just woken after years of coma, Catrina had appeared out of nowhere, and his own body had started to sense mana after he accidentally swallowed a drop of Leviana’s blood.

Even if he sat and pondered all night, he might not find any answers.

’Wait until Leviana is better, then ask.’

Lathel wasn’t the type to force people into saying things they weren’t ready to say. If the two of them truly had a reason to keep their secret, he could wait a while longer.

He turned back to the bed and checked the fingertip he had accidentally cut on Leviana. The wound had nearly vanished, leaving only the faintest red mark.

Lathel breathed a sigh of relief and tucked her hand back under the blanket.

He was about to stand and check the remaining medicine supply when a very small chime suddenly sounded beside his ear.

Ting.

Lathel stopped mid-motion.

A faint purple spark appeared in midair, then slowly stretched into the shape of an envelope.

The moment he saw it, the puzzlement on Lathel’s face immediately softened.

The corner of his mouth curved upward without him realizing.

In her sleep, Leviana sensed the change at once.

She had been on the verge of sinking fully into rest, but the faint trace of happiness from Lathel caused her fading consciousness to waver.

’What’s making him so happy?’

The purple envelope drifted slowly downward.

Lathel reached out and caught it.

This wasn’t the first time he had received one of these.

Around two months ago, a similar magic letter had suddenly appeared before him. The sender called herself a mage who was far too bored and had decided to create a type of letter magic that chose its recipient entirely at random.

Even she didn’t know whose hands the letter would ultimately land in.

Lathel had been suspicious at first, of course.

He had considered it might be some form of magic used to probe for information or pinpoint the recipient’s location, so his earliest replies were extremely brief. He wrote no name, mentioned no family, and included nothing that could help anyone identify who he was.

After some time, Lathel realized his caution was probably unnecessary.

The person on the other end had never once asked who he was.

She didn’t seem to care where he lived or what status he held either.

Most of what the two of them exchanged were things so trivial they would hold no value for an outsider.

One day, she spent nearly an entire page complaining about a bird that landed on her windowsill at the exact same moment every dawn.

Another time, she asked whether a piece of bread burned on one side still counted as food or had already met the standard to qualify as a weapon.

Occasionally she mentioned that it had rained, that she had just read a book so terrible she wanted to tear it apart, or that someone nearby was talking so much she had to restrain herself from using a silencing spell on them.

Some letters were even simpler.

[Nothing worth mentioning happened today. How about you?]

Lathel had gradually grown used to it.

For him, this way of talking was actually more comfortable than face-to-face communication.

Through the letters, he didn’t have to watch people’s expressions when they discovered he couldn’t speak, and he didn’t have to scribble on a board in a rush for fear the other person would lose patience. They were both strangers, and so the small, mundane things in life became surprisingly easy to share.

Lathel opened the envelope.

The first line was the same as always.

[Dear Stranger.]

Below it was the slightly slanted handwriting he had grown quite familiar with.

[Today I discovered something very serious.]

Lathel raised an eyebrow slightly, then kept reading.

[I spent nearly half an hour searching for the book I was reading.]

[Only to find it was still in my hand.]

Lathel said nothing.

The next line appeared quickly.

[I’m quite certain this was caused by lack of sleep and has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence.]

[If you laugh, your next letter may turn into a frog.]

The corner of Lathel’s mouth curved up in the end.

In her sleep, Leviana sensed it immediately.

’He’s smiling?’

The happiness was very faint, but she caught it almost at once.

Lathel wasn’t someone who often showed his emotions. A smile that clear was enough to make even a sleeping Leviana start to feel uneasy.

She wanted to open her eyes and see what was in his hands, but her body refused to obey.

All she could do was keep sensing.

Lathel read on.

[That said, my mood is fairly good today.]

[A troublesome matter was finally resolved, though the person who helped resolve it gives me more of a headache than the original problem.]

[What about you? Anything nice happen in the past two days?]

Lathel thought for a moment.

The first thing that came to mind was, of course, Leviana waking up.

That involved her condition and the entire Avarenne family, so he didn’t plan to go into detail with someone whose identity he still didn’t know.

Lathel took paper and a pen from the drawer.

He wrote:

[Someone who had been ill for a very long time finally woke up.]

[Her body is still weak, but she’s gradually getting better.]

The pen paused for a moment.

Lathel added:

[I’m very happy.]

In her sleep, the unease that had just surfaced inside Leviana immediately subsided.

’At least he’s talking about me.’

She had barely begun to feel better when Lathel continued writing.

[Also, I met a rather strange person today.]

Leviana: ’...’

The unease that had just vanished came rushing back.

She didn’t even need to think to know who "the rather strange person" was.

Catrina.

Lathel had been about to write more, but after reconsidering he kept it to a single simple line.

[She said a few things I didn’t understand, but she doesn’t seem like a bad person.]

He reread the contents once, then folded the paper and placed it inside the envelope.

A faint purple glow immediately enveloped it.

Just a few seconds later, the entire letter vanished right from the palm of his hand.

He looked at the empty air before him, his mood still fairly good.

Two months of conversation hadn’t told him anything important about the person on the other end.

But perhaps that was precisely why he felt at ease.

Between them there existed no interests, no obligations, no status.

They were just two strangers who occasionally told each other small, inconsequential things.

In her sleep, Leviana silently committed this to memory.

A mage of unknown identity.

In possession of a type of letter magic she had never heard of.

Had been in contact with Lathel for two months.

Most importantly, this person could make him smile with just a few written lines.

’When I wake up, I need to look into this magic.’

Leviana quickly found herself a perfectly reasonable justification.

Lathel was far too trusting. Checking whether the sender posed any danger was simply a necessary precaution.

Naturally.

Lathel had absolutely no idea that he had just prompted a sleeping woman to silently add another name to her list of subjects requiring investigation.

He stood, preparing to continue organizing the medicine supply.

Right then, a pale blue panel unexpectedly appeared before his eyes.

Lathel stopped at once.

The smile on his face quickly disappeared.

The envelope just now had been magic he’d grown familiar with over two months.

But the thing hovering before his eyes right now was an existence he had nearly forgotten.

A line of text appeared on the panel.

[UPCOMING SCRIPT CONTENT]

Lathel stared at it for a long time.

’The system?’

From his very first day in this world, he had once seen a similar glowing panel.

Back then, the system had only informed him that he had connected to a "Script World" and that the activation process was complete. Lathel had spent a great deal of time trying to call it back, but no matter what he tried, the notification panel remained silent.

Years passed, and he gradually gave up.

The only thing Lathel could guess from those lines years ago was that this world perhaps belonged to some kind of story. However, he had never known the name of that story, much less its contents or the characters who played important roles within it.

As for himself...

Lathel had also once thought that a mute abandoned by his own family was probably just a supporting character tucked away in some tiny corner.

So the system’s disappearance hadn’t been hard to understand.

But today, after years of silence, it had reappeared.

Lathel reached out and touched the glowing panel.

New lines of text immediately appeared.

[Activation conditions met.]

[Script trajectory has begun to shift.]

[New function unlocked.]

[UPCOMING SCRIPT]

Lathel frowned.

He didn’t know what condition had just been fulfilled, nor did he yet understand whether the "script shift" the system mentioned was connected to the recent events.

The panel continued to change.

[This function will display a portion of content that is likely to occur in the near future.]

[Actual results may change depending on how the script unfolds.]

Lathel read it through once more to make sure he understood correctly.

In other words, what the system was showing him was only a possibility of what might happen, not a future set in stone.

Immediately after, a line of red text appeared in the center of the panel.

[SCRIPT CONTENT #001]

Lathel unconsciously straightened in his seat.

The final line materialized slowly.

[EVENT: THE FIRE]

Lathel’s eyes turned serious at once.