Three minutes.
That's what the page had said.
Three minutes until what, Kikidori didn't know—but every cell in his body felt it coming. The sky trembled slightly. The three suns grew faint as if someone had drawn a veil across them. The wind carried no scent, only the weight of something ancient and watching.
He stared at the place where the masked figure had disappeared. A part of him wanted to chase after them. Another part screamed to run the other way.
But the book—the Book with No Name—was open in his hands, pages fluttering as though blown by wind he couldn't feel. Symbols danced across them. He couldn't read them… until one line began to translate itself before his eyes.
> [First Encounter Event Imminent]
Scribe Directive: Do not interfere unless provoked.
Scriptweaving locked: Authorization pending.
Time Remaining: 00:02:13
"Scriptweaving?" Kikidori muttered, the word strange and sharp on his tongue.
He flipped the next page. And just for a moment, it felt like the paper resisted—as if the book itself were hesitant.
The new page was different. Smooth as silk, but darker than ink. And then…
A glowing quill appeared on the page. Not real, but outlined in shimmering light. His name was written beneath it.
> Status: Observer. Initiation Level.
"You must witness before you can write."
---
The dune beneath him rumbled.
He stumbled backward, the Book still clutched tight. Down the slope, just over the next rise, something was approaching.
Then he saw them.
Five figures. Moving fast.
They wore armor that looked grown, not forged—twisting black branches shaped into chestplates and masks of bark and bone. Each of them carried curved spears crackling with violet energy. And at the center, dragging chains behind her, was a sixth figure—a girl.
She looked his age. Maybe younger. Pale skin streaked with grime and blood. Eyes sharp as glass. Her hair hung in a tangled braid, and her arms were bound in cuffs that glowed with silver etchings.
She fell to her knees as they reached the center of the dune field.
One of the armored hunters raised a staff. It pulsed once with violet light.
Kikidori felt it like a punch in the ribs. Something inside him screamed—this wasn't right. He wasn't just supposed to watch this, was he?
He looked down at the book. His hands trembled.
"Do something," he whispered. "Let me do something."
> Authorization Pending...
Scriptweaving Status: UNLOCKING...
Warning: Unauthorized Writing may provoke "Reality Tear – Tier One."
"I don't care!" Kikidori shouted, louder than he meant to.
His voice echoed across the dunes.
The hunters froze.
Their masked heads turned in perfect unison. All five of them looked directly at him.
The Book flared white-hot in his hands.
The quill on the page burned gold.
> Scriptweaving Unlocked: Emergency Use
"One Sentence. One Outcome. Choose Carefully."
A line appeared, blank and waiting. One chance.
One sentence to change reality.
His breath quickened. The girl below—she was about to be executed. The staff was rising. Her head bowed.
Kikidori grabbed the quill—not with his hand, but with his will—and the Book responded.
The page glowed.
He didn't think. He just wrote.
> "The chains shattered like glass, and the sand screamed her name."
A sound like thunder cracked across the sky.
The cuffs exploded into shimmering dust.
The girl lifted her head—and screamed.
It wasn't a normal scream. It was a scream laced with energy, raw and wild. The hunters staggered. One fell. The ground buckled.
Sand erupted into the air in a spiral.
Kikidori was thrown backward. He landed hard, his vision blurring.
When he opened his eyes, the girl was standing above him. Her arms glowed with fractured glyphs, and her eyes had turned pitch black.
"You wrote that," she hissed. "You did this."
He stared at her, stunned. "I… I was trying to help—"
"No one writes about me," she growled. "Not without a price."
She raised her hand—
—and the world split.
The air around them was broken.
A jagged ring of cracked sky hung above the dunes, like a window shattered from the inside. Kikidori could feel it tearing at the world—like invisible threads being snapped, one after another. Time hiccupped. Light bent. His heartbeat skipped and doubled.
The girl stood over him, eyes like ink wells, her hands trembling as they radiated with energy.
"You… wrote me free," she said, voice tight, cracking.
"I—I didn't mean—" Kikidori began, but she cut him off with a flick of her wrist.
The sand around them leapt into the air and froze mid-motion—rising in swirling spirals, then suspended as if paused in time.
"No one is allowed to write me," she said, stepping closer. "I was erased. I'm not part of the Archive anymore. I was deleted."
Kikidori stared up at her, the Book still glowing faintly in his lap.
"I didn't know," he said quietly. "I just wanted to help you."
She hesitated. Her expression—furious, haunted—wavered for just a moment.
"You're not from here," she said slowly.
He shook his head.
"New Archivist?"
"…Candidate," he corrected. "I'm still just… learning."
She let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Then let this be your first lesson. Nothing in this world stays saved. Every word written leaves a scar."
The sand dropped from the air with a thud.
Behind them, the five hunters lay twisted and broken. Their masks cracked. Their weapons wilted into vines and ash.
The girl turned away from them.
"…My name was Miren," she whispered. "Before they erased it."
Kikidori stood slowly. "You remember it now?"
She didn't answer at first.
"I remember… the pain of forgetting."
---
Then the sky pulsed red.
Above them, the three suns aligned into a straight line. The wind howled. A beam of golden light struck the dunes a dozen meters away.
The Book in Kikidori's hands flared open.
> Time Elapsed: 00:00:00
Encounter Logged: Scriptweaving Level One Complete
Penalty: Moderate Reality Tear Created (Tier 1.6)
Status: Survival Confirmed
Result: Awakening Achieved
Kikidori blinked as golden letters filled the air around him like falling petals.
> Archivist Candidate Kikidori: LEVEL UP
New Role Title: "Wordsmith of the First Draft"
Scriptweaving Slot: +1 Gained
Cognitive Page Memory: Unlocked (1/12)
Key Unlocked: Celestial Castles of the Minasan
Gate Access Initiated
The sand trembled beneath their feet.
Behind them, the space between two dunes split open like paper torn in slow motion, revealing a vast portal—shaped like an open book. Inside shimmered towers made of starlight and clouds, suspended in a sky of midnight blue.
Floating castles. Dozens of them. Some burned with red flame. Others shimmered like ice. One was built entirely from bones that moved. Another from songs that hummed audibly in the air.
Each castle pulsed with a different aura. And at the base of each stood a single figure—some in armor, others in robes, all holding books.
But none of their books looked like Kikidori's. Theirs had titles.
And none of them bore the eye of thorns.
---
"The Castles of Minasan," Miren said slowly, stepping beside him. "That's where they keep the others."
"The others?" Kikidori asked.
"The Readers," she replied. "Chosen by books. Not Archivists. Not like you. Each castle holds a kingdom created by their books—a world molded from the genre they were given. Fantasy, romance, war, horror… each shaped by the one who holds the story."
Kikidori stared in awe.
"Do they all work for the Archive?"
"No," she said, turning to him with caution in her voice. "Some worship it. Some try to break it. Some are prisoners inside their own stories."
"And me?" he asked softly.
"You… are something else. Something they haven't seen in a long, long time." Her voice darkened. "Your book has no title. No rules. You didn't get assigned a genre. That makes you dangerous."
Kikidori swallowed. "Then why did it choose me?"
Miren didn't answer.
But the portal rippled again. Words scrawled across the sky:
> "Choose a Castle. Enter a Realm. Observe, or Intervene. But remember—every stroke of your pen rewrites not just their story, but your own."
Kikidori turned to Miren. "Will you come with me?"
She paused, her mask cracked at the edges, eyes no longer black—but burning gold.
"…One step behind. That's all I promise."
Together, they stepped into the light
End of Chapter 3
(DON'T SHIP KIKIDORI AND MIREN BECAUSE MIREN WAS TRAPPED HERE FOR 2,000 YEARS AND YOU WILL LEARN MORE ABOUT HER NEXT CHAPTER)