Sato Kenji was a "Protagonist."
I watched him through the eyes of a Slime-Node tucked into the moss of a Great Oak. He walked with the heavy, purposeful stride of someone who believed every step was a footstep toward destiny. He wore the Holy Avenger's plate—glistening white steel that didn't collect dust or mud—and carried the Sun-Eater blade, a weapon that hummed with a frequency that made my own silver cells itch with irritation.
Behind him followed a small detachment of Paladins, their faces set in grim masks of righteous duty. They weren't looking for a village; they were looking for a "Nest."
"Archivist," I pulsed from the safety of the Iron-Crag's command center. "Is the 'Stage' set?"
< Answer: Potemkin Protocol engaged. Visual and Auditory filters at 100% capacity. The 'Twelve' are in position. >
"Let the curtain rise."
Kenji pushed through a final thicket of brambles and stopped dead.
He had been told by the High Priest of Oros that the Forest of Jura was a "blight on the world," a place where a silver demon gathered an army of ravenous beasts to devour the Western Continent. He expected to find bone-pits and blood-stained altars.
Instead, he found a scene out of a pastoral painting.
In the center of a sun-drenched clearing stood a small, peaceful hamlet. It looked like a replica of my village from Loop 01, but optimized for maximum "Pathos." There were no Starmetal forges or railguns here. There were only Goblins in simple linen tunics, tending to a communal garden.
Kenji's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, but his eyes widened. "What... what is this? I thought the monsters were raiding the borders."
"Sir Knight!" A small Goblin child (actually a highly trained infiltrator named Pip, wearing a [Refractive Mask]) ran toward him, holding a bundle of forest wildflowers. "Have you come from the Holy City? Did the Priests send the medicine for my grandfather?"
The Paladins behind Kenji drew their swords. "Stand back, Hero! It's a trick! A glamor!"
"Wait!" Kenji shouted, blocking the lead Paladin's path. "He's just a kid. Look at his mana signature... it's... it's almost non-existent. He's weak."
I watched the "Hero" from my throne miles away, a faint smile on my humanoid lips. I had spent days teaching the Goblins how to suppress their mana. I had given them "Sickness Tinctures" that made their skin look pale and sickly—not enough to hurt them, but enough to trigger Kenji's "Protector" instinct.
"We are just... surviving," a voice rasped from the shadows of a nearby hut.
I had stepped onto the stage.
I wasn't in my Sovereign form. I had altered my appearance to look like a weary, aging scholar. My silver hair was dull, my eyes lacked the cobalt glow of the Archivist, and I wore the tattered robes of a Millis Priest.
"Who are you?" Kenji demanded, his Sun-Eater blade dimming slightly as his confusion grew.
"My name is Aris," I said, coughing into a handkerchief I had pre-stained with fake blood. "I was a scholar of the Holy Kingdom... until I saw what they were doing to these poor creatures. I couldn't let them be slaughtered for a prophecy that doesn't exist."
"The Prophecy is real!" one of the Paladins roared. "The Slime is the Anchor of Ruin!"
"Look at them," I said, gesturing to the "shivering" Goblins and the "docile" wolves sleeping in the shade. "Do these look like the harbingers of the end of the world? Or do they look like refugees of a Church that needs an enemy to stay in power?"
Kenji lowered his sword. His [Plot Armor] was designed to protect him from "Evil." But in his mind, "Evil" was a monster that snarled and bit. "Evil" was not a dying scholar protecting orphans.
< Alert: Hero's Narrative Alignment is shifting. [Plot Armor] integrity: 92%. >
"The Church told me you were building an army," Kenji said, his voice cracking. "They said you had weapons that could kill God."
"I have a plow, Hero," I said, my voice heavy with a manufactured sorrow. "And I have a well. If those are weapons that threaten your God, then your God is a very fragile thing."
That evening, Kenji did something the Inquisition never expected. He stayed.
He sat by our "humble" fire and shared his rations with the Goblins. He told stories of Earth—of Tokyo, of anime, of a world where people lived in peace. My Goblins, trained by the Archivist to mimic "wonder" and "hope," listened with rapt attention.
Laina, the priestess from my previous loops who had joined Kenji's party, sat near me. She looked at me with a suspicion that bordered on recognition.
"You speak like him," she whispered so the others wouldn't hear. "The silver ghost from the mountain."
"Memory is a fickle thing, Laina," I replied, my voice a soft vibration. "Sometimes we see what we want to see. Sometimes we see what we need to see to keep our souls from breaking."
She didn't speak again, but her eyes never left my hands.
Far above us, in the Iron-Crag, the real factory was humming.
While I played the "Tragic Hermit," Baron was finalizing the Inversion Battery. If Kenji's power was fueled by his belief in his own heroism, then we were going to give him a choice:
Become the Hero the Church wanted—and murder a village of "innocents"—or become a Traitor to the Holy Kingdom and join the "Monsters."
"Archivist," I thought as I watched Kenji laugh with Pip. "He's a good kid. In another life, we might have been friends."
< Answer: In Loop 01, he would have killed you without hesitation. Logic dictates that his 'goodness' is a variable currently being manipulated by your 'deception.' >
"I know," I said, my core feeling a cold, hollow ache. "That's what makes this a tragedy, Archivist. I'm the one who's turning him into a villain."
I looked at the sky. The first white crow of the Inquisition's main force was approaching. They weren't coming for a dialogue. They were coming to see if their Hero had finished the job.
The play was moving into its second act.
[Volume 3: Chapter 2 End]