Chapter 3: Terms and Conditions of the Apocalypse

Instantly, I dropped to the ground and curled into a ball.

I’d read hundreds of these stories. When the transmigrator breaks the plot, reality objects. Lightning, divine punishment, all that jazz. So, I was a hundred percent expecting the sky to split open and God to show up and smite me personally.

I waited. Arms over my head, tail wrapped around myself, braced in the middle of the courtyard like an air strike was coming.

But, the birds kept singing.

Somewhere to my left, a student asked his friend, "Is that the sky-thanking girl?" and his friend said, "Yeah, she does floor stuff too, apparently."

I opened one eye. The world remained... aggressively fine.

I stood up, brushed off my skirt with as much dignity as a woman could salvage after assuming the crash position in public, and drew the only reasonable conclusion.

[Whatever put me here doesn’t care.]

Which meant... nothing had changed!

Great news, actually! No cosmic warden meant no cosmic homework. The gate was right there. The uniform was as good as sold. The hammock was practically assembled.

I made it almost to the gate this time. A personal record.

Then I stopped.

[...Hold on.]

Because here’s the thing about the universe not minding.

The universe also didn’t mind heart attacks, or landlords, or the cancellation of good anime after one season. The universe not minding something has never once meant it was fine.

So I stood there at the gate and, for the second time that morning, dredged up my own plot. Faster this time.

Lily goes to the academy. Multiple generically attractive men fight over her like seagulls over one fry. Lily assembles said seagulls into a harem, and then Lily, powered by friendship, love, and a frankly irresponsible number of stacked abilities, takes down the Calamity Queen and saves the world.

That was the machine. Girl in, harem assembled, apocalypse punched.

The problem that my mind so graciously put forth was that the harem... was necessary. I mean, yeah, Lily was OP by any reasonable standard, but the way I wrote it, the final battle only works because four devoted, overpowered himbos throw themselves between Lily and her world-ending mother at key dramatic moments.

Fuck. The logic was not good.

No meet-cute means no Cassian route.

No Cassian route means one less himbo at the final battle.

One less himbo means the choreography I wrote breaks.

The choreography breaking means Lily loses. Lily losing means the Calamity Queen wins.

The Calamity Queen winning means the world, this world, the one I am currently standing in, wearing this cute uniform, gets destroyed. With me in it. Hammock and all.

[... Shit.]

I turned back around.

[Okay. Okay, okay, okay!!! New plan. No, same plan, one extra step. I put the plot back on its rails, I make sure Mr. Trench Coat and the heroine have their destined little moment, and THEN I leave. Fix it, flee, foxgirls. In that order.]

Which raised a practical question: how does one repair a plot from memory when one’s memory is, and I say this with love, a landfill?

And then I remembered. This world had a System. I know it had a System, because seventeen-year-old me added one in Chapter 62, mid-story, with no setup, because a rival author’s System novel was outranking mine that month. Everyone in this world could pull up a Status.

Including, presumably, extras.

"Status," I muttered.

A translucent blue window unfolded in front of me, and I got my first official look at myself.

Name: Kohaku

Race: Beastkin (Fox)

Class: None

Rank: F

Level: 2

MIGHT: 2

FINESSE: 4

MANA: 1

AFFINITY: 0

WILL: 3

Titles: Extra (unlisted)

I stared at it for a long moment.

[Level two. LEVEL TWO. Two what? Two Chapters of survivability?]

For reference, and I know this because I wrote it, Lily’s stats at enrollment were all in the seventies. Serena’s were higher.

The named cast started this story somewhere in the clouds, and I was down here with numbers that would embarrass a farm animal.

[As expected of an extra. The author, ladies and gentlemen, reduced to the statistical profile of a stray cat.]

And the title. "Extra (unlisted)." Unlisted! The System couldn’t even commit to acknowledging me. I was a footnote’s footnote. I was the "and others" in the credits.

Then I saw the last line, and everything else stopped mattering.

Skills: ❖ MANUSCRIPT — Lv.1

Manuscript Points: 5

View scene: 5 MP per scene of original canon, exactly as written.

[...Oh.]

Holy shit, it wasn’t all doomed!

[That’s cheating. That’s beautiful, disgusting cheating!]

One skill. Exactly one. And it was the entire original text of The Heroine’s Heart, on demand, word for word, at five points a scene.

And it came with one free sample.

[Apparently, the universe functions on drug dealer logic.]

I didn’t even hesitate. I clapped my hands and rubbed them like a villain.

"Manuscript. The Cassian and Lily meeting. Show me."

The window rippled, and my own nine-year-old prose materialized in the air before me, exactly as jotted down, at 3 AM, by a seventeen-year-old visionary:

Lily’s heart fluttered like a caged songbird as she gazed up at the mysterious stranger. His obsidian hair fell across his eyes like a curtain of midnight sorrow, and the crimson streak within it burned like a wound that had never healed.

"The theater is that way," he said huskily, his voice like dark velvet dipped in danger. "Try not to get lost again... little rabbit."

Lily gasped.

No one had ever called her a small mammal before.

I closed the window physically, with both hands, like slamming a laptop shut when your mom walks in.

"FUUUUUUCK!"

My face was on fire. My EARS were on fire. Somewhere in the old world, my corpse was blushing.

[I published that. People READ that. One of them said it changed their life!]

But mortification aside, I had what I needed.

The scene, the blocking, the dialogue, the works. And more importantly, I remembered the shape of today now. Day one of the novel had exactly four beats:

The Cassian encounter. Already vaporized by yours truly.

The Entrance Ceremony, where the prince gives a speech and half the female cast imprints on his jawline.

The Serena encounter, where my ice queen steps on Lily’s foot, metaphorically and then literally.

And the Sorting, where everyone gets their Course and the whole board gets set.

Four beats. One already broken. Three still standing. And one fox with five... no, zero Manuscript Points, a farm animal’s stat line, and a world to un-cancel before checkout.

I cracked my knuckles and looked toward the Grand Theater, where a certain blonde was walking around, unattended, tragically un-flirted-with.

[Okay, fine. Lily? I hope you’re ready, sweetheart, ’cause I’m gonna throw you straight to a pack of wolves. And then, I’m OUT!]