Chương 6: Editor’s Authority (2)
[–You are using Inherent Skill: 'Editor's Authority'.(1/3)]
[–Remaining Time / Time Limit:
00:00:14 / 00:00:15]
Isiel and Nebo and the cat all stopped moving. The fluttering curtain also stopped in the middle of being blown by the breeze.
A bunch of ragged papers floated up, spread out, as if to cover the scene.
As if things had been written several times on the same piece of paper, the pages crumbled even under a careful touch of a hand.
Faded half-erased letters overlapped under the vivid black letters.
They were letters that he had never seen before but the contents could be read. What was written on the papers was clearly <Albion Kingdom's Prince>. It was the <Final Manuscript> that Kleio hadn't seen yet.
The last paragraph on the spread-out pages was describing the crisis that Kleio had just undergone.
After the last paragraph, there wasn't anything written yet. There was just a bunch of frayed papers where the previously written contents had been erased.
'Am I supposed to personally revise something that's being written in real time? Editor's Authority was something like this!?'
[–Remaining Time / Time Limit:
00:00:07 / 00:00:15]
There was no time to hesitate. The time limit continuously decreased.
Kleio, who had been looking back and forth between the pen that appeared in his hand at some point and the disheveled manuscript, rapidly moved his hand.
'It has to mean the same as Korean revision marks!!!'
Kleio picked the scene where he casts magic – the entire last paragraph – and slashed a strikethrough. Blue ink mixed with gold powder flowed out of the pen.
[–The author accepts the editor's suggestion.]
[–The relevant paragraph is being edited.]
As the paragraph on the manuscript was deleted, the manuscript also scattered and disappeared.
Right afterwards,
The world transformed.
The windows and walls, floor and ceiling lost their quality and changed into black lines, tangling. The bundle of print letters that had made up the world soon bleached white.
For a moment, Kleio felt a distant sense of buoyancy, like he had been thrown into a vacuum.
The appearance of the familiar living room, Isiel, and the cat returned in front of the panting Kleio .
Bam–!
"Kleio Asel, you better come out right now."
A boy with a big build rushed straight toward Kleio. He looked so angry he didn't seem able to see straight.
–A paragraph's worth of time had been turned back.
This world was a manuscript, and when the manuscript's sentences were revised, so too was the world.
Having promptly faced that enormous power, Kleio seemed blank from the shock.
Above all,
'What kind of author listens this well to an editor!'
There was no time to marvel over it for long. The tough boy had approached to a short distance in an instant.
"Do you know how much I've been called over thanks to you jumping into the river? Even though I treated you well because I felt sorry for you!"
Kleio used all his strength to hide behind Isiel.
"Help me!"
Isiel's reaction speed was like lightning. Holding her sword by the sheath, Isiel easily blocked that boy whose build was about twice that of hers.
"I don't know what's going on, but must you start by throwing around punches?"
"Ughhh–."
Having been hit by Isiel's sword sheath, the boy weakly fell over.
Kleio, who had been suffering from the nauseating feeling of buoyancy also lost strength in his legs and collapsed down.
The living room where the two boys were flopped down and just the one girl was standing, was a mess.
Hanging her sword back on her waist, Isiel asked Kleio.
"Are you okay, Kleio?"
"I've been saying from a while ago that I'm not…"
Kleio sprawled out with cooled sweat dampening his heated body. Isiel was taken aback, and gripped the boy. His body was as light as a rag doll.
"Tsk, what kind of boy is this sickly… Get ahold of yourself! This wimp."
Isiel's way of speaking was the same, but there was a faint hint of bewilderment.
'Was she the one who moved me… last time too…'
The fresh smell of roses was strangely familiar. Held in the thin but firm arms, Kleio lost consciousness.
***
Kleio slept like the dead for two days.
He woke up on the third day, but his body was listless, so he washed, ate what he was given, and laid around again. Whenever he woke up occasionally, he contemplated what the 'Editor's Authority' was.
He had wanted to try it out again, but hesitated in using it because he couldn't clearly know the limit, and because it skill was limited in the number of times it could be used.
The rectangular section on the back of his hand was the clearest for several minutes right after using the skill. It looked like a navy-blue metallic line that wasn't a tattoo or a burn had appeared on his skin.
'It's a relief that it became faint again. I was wondering how I was going to go around with it there.'
While he was in the middle of going back and forth between worrying what to do and thinking 'oh whatever', he fell back asleep.
The fourth day, Friday afternoon. Waking up, Kleio found out that his body finally felt refreshed.
When he woke up, his housemate Nebo Yarbi was watching over him.
The large boy had lost the energy with which he threw his fist four days ago. He just kept on apologizing to Kleio with a constipated face.
"Sorry."
"Alright, I get it."
"I was really wrong."
"I said I got it."
"Really? Are you going to forgive me?"
"Well."
With a dark expression, Kleio just returned an ambiguous answer that seemed like he was accepting the apology but also seemed like he was not.
With yellow bruises on his cheekbones and forehead, Nebo's state was a mess. It was clearly Isiel's doing.
'That's right, the law is distant and fists are close.'
Seeing how his attitude had changed, it seemed as if he had been admonished. It probably was something like 'don't bully a weak kid' or something like that.
'Of course the student at the top in admissions and during school is scary. Thanks to that, it looks like it became easier to stay here for the time being.'
Still checking Kleio's mood, Nebo carefully spoke more. He couldn't act however he wanted because he didn't know what kind of relationship Isiel and Kleio had.
'He wouldn't be afraid that I would tattle to a girl about him, right?'
"…I also fed that insane… I mean, fierce cat."
"Thanks."
"Meoow(It was constantly chicken. I have a lot of complaints)"
"Behemoth said to convey his thanks, too."
"Its name is Behemoth?"
"Yeah. Moth for short."
"Is it Moth for being a pest[1]? Fucking weird name…"
"Meeoooow!"
"Ack! Don't hit me, this punk."
Smacked by the cat's front paw where he had been hit by Isiel, Nebo let out a dying sound.
The one animal and one person who tussled, raising up dust, only stopped fighting after a long time.
Nebo, who seemed more relaxed after letting lose a burden in his heart, dragged a chair over the side of the bed again and sat.
"But did you really lose your memory?"
"I said I did."
"Hah, really. What a mess…"
"That's right. It's a mess. So who called you over and made you suffer so?"
Kleio smiled. It was an exhausted society person's business smile. Nebo read a subtle ominous feeling from that unfamiliar expression.
'Ahh. What's with him? He's being scary.'
"Ah, it's nothing. Headmaster Zebedee called me over, but it was a misunderstanding. Really."
"Hm, I see."
Nebo just scratched his head and turned his gaze to the window. The person he had shared a dorm with for several months felt strange and unfamiliar.
Up until now as well, it had been common for sickly Kleio to stay lying down in the dorm during the day. It might have been that he had been escaping the fact that he couldn't follow his classes, using his body as an excuse.
Kleio, who had been frightened of people's hostility and chose to go around in secluded places.
The little kid who couldn't even leave the school because he was afraid of the expectations from Baronet Asel, who poured out enormous donations.
The walking disaster who had eventually jumped into a river in the middle of the night and overturned the school.
It was unfamiliar to Nebo for that kind of person to comfortably raise his head and stare at him.
Kleio continued speaking in a placid tone.
"Nebo, do you happen to have anything to do this afternoon?"
"I do. I'm going to practice the connecting motions assignment that Professor Fehite gave out."
"Why don't you skip practice for a day?"
"…Why should I?"
"I want to go to the bank. I'd like someone to guide me there. Professor Reuba told me to ask you?"
Nebo seemed very unwilling, but maybe he was worried about Isiel and Reuba, because he reluctantly nodded.
"Thanks, Nebo."
"Somehow, you seem like a completely different person, instead of just losing your memories."
[1] The last syllable in the krn transliteration of behemoth is 'mot' and 'mot-nan-ee' is something like 'idiot, ugly person, etc.' Obviously the pun doesn't come through in eng so I went with moth = bug = pest.
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