Chapter 187: A Lonely Village

  The map the Elder had given John was truly useful. Without it, both he and Prota would likely have been lost for days, even with their system.

  Surprisingly, Prota could detect no illusion magic barring their way. However, the forest itself was quite confusing to navigate, with no visible paths and very few landmarks to track one’s way. It was to the point that using the system’s map was a requirement rather than an aid.

  And since the forest was so immensely huge, without that map, the village would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “Hey, Prota,” John said, panting. “You’re sure you took a carriage out of this village?”

  Prota nodded, but even she was beginning to doubt the validity of her memories. Would it really have been possible to take a carriage out of these woods? In the first place, there wasn’t space for a horse, let alone an entire wagon to be pulled.

  “Seriously… well, according to the map, we should be close. Hm… maybe take a break, then,” he muttered.

  Prota was more than glad to agree. The two sat down, and John pulled out a bottle of water. Prota eagerly took it, draining the contents before passing it back to John, who tossed it back into the pocket dimension.

  “How much do you remember, by the way? Like, aside from what Zero told me? It’s not important or anything,” he added hurriedly. “But… you know. I’m just trying to figure out what I can before we head in.”

  “Nn… I don’t know,” Prota muttered. “Not enough.”

  “Yeah, checks out. Still… I wonder if that village is even there anymore?”

  At the moment, that was John’s greatest concern. The [Author] probably wouldn’t do anything like that to them, but what if they didn’t care? What if the village was just… gone?

  “Hey. I know we talked about this, and we’re past the point of really needing to do this, but… are you sure?” John said worriedly. “Prota. This past isn’t… It’s not something to be fond of. I wouldn’t blame you for opting out.”

  “John is-”

  “No. If you say you’re not going, then I’ll figure something else out,” John sighed.

  He wasn’t looking at her, and he was acting incredibly casually, but those words meant a lot. This was another place where his powers were potentially being held. For him to give up on it, just because Prota wasn’t feeling up to it…

  “Nn… thank you,” she muttered, but a sense of joy was welling up within her. “But Anta… maybe here. I have to find her.”

  “Right. That’s what I thought. Just checking.”

  He sighed, not entirely relishing the thought of entering this village. Dealing with [Story] villains was fine. Fighting deities and horrors was fine. But entering a town likely meant for him…

  That was akin to fighting the [Author], but without actually being able to fight them. The only real result was a draw. John got what he wanted at the cost of some painful memory or reminder.

  But he couldn’t not go in, either. That was also losing. That would be admitting he was a coward, a fraud, and…

  A failure.

  That was the one thing John could not tolerate. He could dismiss a lot of things. Bad tropes. Bad writing. Stupid [Characters]. A dumb [Plot]. Trauma, pain, loss, all of those things, they’d happened to him, and he was still here. He was still sane.

  Failure was not the same thing as failing. Failing would simply mean not accomplishing whatever task was set out for him.

  But to him, a failure was someone who wouldn’t accomplish their goals. Someone who was refused to do what they sought to do.

  For John, if he gave into the [Author] because of fear, even a single time, that was enough. If he let the [Author] have their way, not out of his will, but out of laziness or a lack of effort, his entire existence was void.

  John typically didn’t care for much. He was lazy. He put things off until the last minute.

  But when it came to something like this, there was only one option for him. He reserved all his motivation, all his energy, solely for the purpose of maintaining his own being.

  For John, freedom wasn’t just a want.

  It was an absolute necessity.

  “Well, only one way to find out,” John grunted as he stood up.

  The rest of the walk was in silence. Both John and Prota could feel their hearts racing as the map told them they were only a few minutes out.

  What would be waiting for them?

  “That’s… an ordinary village,” John muttered.

  The two came out of the trees to see a small, simple village surrounded by basic wooden posts. There was a gate with two men standing guard, but it wasn’t anything fancy.

  “Is this really it?”

  The Elder had said this place was supposed to be hidden with powerful illusion magic, to the point that he’d felt the need to give them a map. The map had been helpful, yes, but where was the magic? Where were the layers of protection? And was it really all to just deal with this?

  Well, they’d get nowhere by standing at the outskirts of the forest. Slowly, they made their way to the gates.

  “Ah, visitors! Mark, wake up!”

  One of the guards stood up with a jolt, and it was only then that John noticed the man was asleep. Well, they probably didn’t get many threats to begin with.

  “Oh. Uh… registration, please,” the man mumbled, his voice groggy.

  “Yeah, here.”

  Thankfully, it seemed that the adventurer’s licenses they’d received in the Town of Beginnings were still valid. Well, even poorly made fakes would probably have worked. The guard didn’t seem to pay much attention to the licenses in the first place.

  None of that mattered, though. They were in.

  “...what now?” John said, staring.

  The place was even smaller than the Town of Beginnings. Well, the first order of business in any place was finding a place to stay. Thankfully, after a couple of minutes, they found a shabby little inn.

  “Hello?” John called out as he walked in. “Anyone here?”

  At the counter was an old man, seemingly asleep at the desk.

  “Hello?”

  “Ah- wha- whozat- oh, guests!”

  The old man shook his head, reaching around the table until he found his glasses. Slowly, he put them on, straightening his collar before smiling at his new customers.

  “Welcome, welcome. Our town doesn’t get many guests, you see. I apologize. Now, what might you two be looking for?”

  “Place to stay,” John shrugged. “A room with two beds, or two rooms, whichever is easier.”

  “A double bed it is,” the old man said, turning back.

  He reached into a cabinet and withdrew a set of keys, passing them over to John.

  “That’ll be a silver coin a night.”

  “Here. Give me the room for two months,” John said, tossing over a gold coin. “Keep the change.”

  “Oh! You shouldn’t-”

  “Nah, it’s fine. Just give me some recommendations on good places to visit if the opportunity ever comes up,” John grinned.

  This was an act. Anybody in this village could be a spy, an enemy, and that would do. John had already considered all the elements of his being before engaging in any conversation.

  They were B-rank adventurers. This meant they had a decent level of skill and were also fairly rich. Those at B-rank were one of two types of people: they were either arrogant assholes, or people who realized they were still miles from the peak. Of course, there were other types, but to reach B-rank meant you had a good degree of skill. With that came either pride or willingness to learn and be humble.

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  It was always best to play the role of the latter.

  If this man were a spy, he would definitely report the arrival of two new adventurers. John couldn’t act too indifferent; such actions would raise suspicions. At the very least, John had to give some kind of impression, and acting average wouldn’t do.

  He had to act the way he was expected to act.

  Of course, getting on the good side of the villagers was something to be done as well. It wasn’t necessarily the worst thing to act like an arrogant asshole, but there was no good reason to do so. If he could curry the favour of anyone in this town, it was in his best interest to do so.

  “Have a good stay, you two,” the man said with a kind smile.

  It was reminiscent of the Town of Beginnings. Such a quiet place. A nice little town.

  But what lurked underneath…

  “Alright. Now what?”

  Similar to the Ninetails clan, John didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. There was no direction, no goal, no nothing. He was beginning to realize just how dependent he’d been on Destiny. Without a hero to follow, he was truly lost.

  “Maybe this is why I didn’t get shit done in the first couple of years I was here…”

  Regardless, the first order of business was to blend in. They could investigate all they wanted to, but if they were deemed suspicious at any point, it was all over.

  “Come on, Prota,” he sighed. “Let’s go do some quests.”

  “Quests?” Prota repeated, hopping off her bed.

  John’s face turned to one of disgust as he realized what they were about to do. Or, rather, not the action itself, but what it would imply.

  “Yeah. Quests. Come on, it’s time to be employed.”

  ~~~

  John had wanted life to be normal, but things were a little too normal.

  It wasn’t in the sense that things were too perfect that they were suspicious. It was just that this town really was nothing special. It was small, sure, and in a strange place, but nothing about it seemed to have anything of interest in the slightest.

  For a while, John and Prota took quests, but none of them were anything particularly interesting. This town didn’t have a mercenary guild, meaning that requests were often taken by the few adventurers who were here.

  Even the quests were boring. The town didn’t have anybody above C-rank, so it wasn’t like there was anything dangerous or exciting. Occasionally, there would be a gang of goblins or horned rabbits that would appear, but those were hardly threats compared to what John and Prota had been through.

  So, for John, this town was normal in the worst sense possible.

  Even talking with the villagers would result in any holes being patched up.

  The town was isolated because it’d been built by a few stragglers long ago. Most of the people here were those looking for refuge, those who’d gotten lost and had no home to return to, or were descendants of the first settlers.

  It was hard to leave, but it was definitely possible, and there was a route that one could take to leave and enter relatively easily. There was, in fact, a path. John hadn’t seen it at first, but there was a trail that was big enough for a small wagon.

  This meant that Prota might have actually left by carriage, meaning there were even fewer holes in her story to go off of.

  The people here were friendly, but there were also jerks and the occasional crazy. Children ran around, playing, but there were also squabbles and spats. The food was good, but it wasn’t always amazing, and the inn they were staying at genuinely seemed like a rundown inn that hadn’t gotten customers in quite some time.

  It was awful.

  Not the town. That was fine. It was quite cozy, actually, and John quite liked it.

  No, it was the stupid lack of any information at all that was driving John crazy. If this were a normal [Story], there would’ve been a semblance of perfectness. Someone covering a secret, the adventurer’s guild having no quests at all, the innkeeper being robotic in nature, something.

  Anything.

  But this genuinely just seemed like another town they might stop by and leave with in a few days. A town that the [Author] wouldn’t write about in detail, a town to be ignored by the [Readers]...

  A town to be ignored by the [Readers].

  “Prota,” John said one day. “This town. Does it seem familiar at all?”

  “Nn…”

  She wasn’t entirely sure. It did resemble the town she’d experienced in the illusion with Sofya, but at the same time, she couldn’t be sure of how accurate that illusion was. At this point, her entire past was just as much of a mystery as it was to John.

  “Great,” he sighed.

  Well, that didn’t affect his current theory.

  For a normal [Protagonist], it would just be another town. But for John, who understood the [Story], who understood tropes, this town was literally too perfect. Sure, to a [Character], it would seem normal, but to someone who understood story tropes, to someone who understood the [Plot]...

  If he really was in a place that was meant to progress the [Story], then there would normally be hints. Clues. Oddities that would eventually be discovered in an eventual path to the conclusion. Even in the land of the Ninetails, he’d been given a hint in the form of… well, that was a little awkward to think about.

  But still, it made perfect sense. If you knew about the [Story], there was no better place to hide a secret than in plain sight. The less strange the location, the more it would be hidden from the [Readers].

  The [Protagonist] wasn’t the one looking for this place. It was John.

  But it was strange. In order to realize this level of perfectness, he had to live as a [Character] first. This wouldn’t have been possible if he were thinking only as a [Reader]. He wouldn’t have paid attention to the random children running around. He wouldn’t have paid attention to the quality of food. He wouldn’t have looked at the lives of all these individual people.

  Those were things [Readers] weren’t shown. He could only see them because he was a [Character]. He could only tell that things were “normal” because of his unique status.

  If it had been the him of many years ago, would he have even noticed this? Would he have looked at these random [Characters] carefully enough to notice that this was a town he shouldn’t be in?

  It was scary to think about. What if he had just left without giving it a second thought? He would’ve realized that there were no clues, no [Plot] trails, and would have concluded that there was no correlation to the [Story] at all.

  But now…

  “Where do I go from here?” he muttered.

  Just because he’d confirmed that he was in the right spot didn’t mean much. He didn’t know how to progress. What was he supposed to do, start rampaging and destroying things until he found some kind of secret? No, that wouldn’t work. Not that it wasn’t practical, but the [Author] definitely wouldn’t allow it.

  So, they continued to take quests, making a few silver coins here and there while living quiet lives.

  They soon settled into a routine. Wake up at any time. Grab a meal. Walk over to the adventurer’s guild, look at the quest board, take on a request, maybe not. Explore the town, talk to a few people, maybe grab a drink, and spend time out until it gets dark.

  There was no purpose. No direction. Just a lazy lifestyle involving very little work. If this were the end of the series, once again, John wouldn’t have minded this lifestyle. It was a little bland, but it was peaceful. Quiet.

  There was only one oddity left: no one seemed to recognize Prota. Of course, she’d grown a bit from the time John had met her, but how many people had blue eyes of a different colour? Moreover, John had yet to meet any mortals with snow-white hair. There was something to be said about important [Characters] and strange hair colours, but this was something he was willing to overlook for now.

  Did no one really recognize a girl they’d branded as a demon?

  Suddenly, a new thought began to enter John’s mind. What if Prota had never come from a village? What if this was all a ruse? If souls could be extracted, why not memories? What if Prota’s entire past was just one big lie?

  No. The [Author] wouldn’t do something like that…

  Right?

  Thankfully, just like before, there was something to break the monotony. Something to break the continual nothingness.

  It was midday, and the two were wandering the streets, trying to see if there was anything else to find. Neither of them was actually putting in much work, but it wasn’t like they had anything else to do.

  “John,” Prota said suddenly, tugging on his shirt.

  Her tone was surprisingly intense, which wasn’t too surprising given where they were, but was definitely surprising given their surroundings.

  “Wha- huh? What’s up?”

  “That… that’s Jinae,” Prota said quietly, almost in an exhale.

  John frowned. “That’s not… how would she even be here?”

  “It’s her,” Prota insisted.

  Before John could even react, she let go of his shirt and dashed off, trying to follow the figure she’d seen.

  It wasn’t easy. The streets weren’t crowded, but they were narrow, and there were a lot of turns one could make. Prota had already lost sight of the figure she thought was her old mentor, but that didn’t matter.

  She kept running, kept chasing the ghost of a past she didn’t even know was there.

  “Prota!” John exclaimed, finally catching up. “Seriously, it’s not like you’re going to get hurt, but…”

  He looked around, but there was no one to see. No Jinae in sight.

  “...she’s not here,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  Prota just nodded. It was a far cry, anyway. Why would Jinae be here, of all places? Logically, it didn’t make sense.

  “Keep an eye out, though,” John said next.

  Prota’s head snapped up.

  It didn’t make sense logically. But in terms of the [Story], it made perfect sense. Jinae was an important figure. Of course, it was possible for the [Author] to just discard her entirely, but it made more sense for her to reappear at some point.

  And if John thought about it for a little bit, Jinae being here made sense. After all, if his theories were correct, this town held the most relating to the “truth” than anywhere else in the world. If it really had been created to make use of [Deus Ex Machina] energy, then it made sense that Jinae would be chasing it.

  Of course, that would go against his idea that there the town used [Story] related mechanics to—

  Hold on a minute. A very powerful barrier, one proclaimed powerful by even a clan dedicated to illusion magic. A town not meant to be found. There was a bit of an oxymoron there, given that the barrier was something recognized by a [Character]...

  But what if it wasn’t? What if it were a barrier particularly because it blocked out [Characters]? Prota hadn’t sensed any magic, but John, on the other hand…

  Prota wanted to keep looking, and John was more than fine with that. He had a whole new mess of things to think about, and the inn room was the best place to do so.

  “Zero,” he said quietly. “You can tell me this much at least, right?”

  “...it’s not here anymore,” Zero said quietly. “You killed the guy who set it up.”

  “No fucking way.”

  Zero? Giving him answers?

  “Hey. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” Zero said, but his tone wasn’t playful. “Just… you know. You have a right to know about things related to your powers.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then don’t.”

  John cursed inside. It was a powerful barrier because it deterred [Characters] specifically, although Doctor probably hadn’t known that.

  Was his theory wrong? What if this town really was just normal? What if the perfect cover was all just in John’s imagination?

  “No. You were right,” Zero muttered. “This town was never in the original [Story]. It was made for you. Well… you know what I mean.”

  “It was made for Prota,” John sighed. “Right.”

  “In short, you used the right method to get the wrong solution. This town is too perfect, but that’s because the setting never existed in the first place. Its history wasn’t something in the original [Story], so the worldbuilding doesn’t encompass it. However… that wasn’t something made to throw you off. I don’t think the [Author] did anything to throw you off from coming here. This was something you were meant to find, in the end.”

  “...I see.”

  “I just… things will probably be getting a lot more complicated in the future. Finding the town itself isn’t what’s meant to be hard,” Zero sighed. “That’s the only reason I’m telling you all this. In fact, you should be moving on about-”

  The door slowly pushed open, and Prota hesitantly walked in.

  “Prota? What’s up?” John said, getting up.

  He froze, however, when he saw who was with her.

  A familiar, old face. A slow, steady walk, wrinkles creased into her skin, silvery grey hair and a kindly look. The perfect image of an old granny who might run some kind of street-side stall.

  “Ah,” the old lady smiled. “It seems we meet yet again.”

  “Jinae Rumba,” John said slowly. “...you really were here, huh.”