Kyle sat hunched over his desk, the faint glow of the mana-lamp casting long shadows across the journal's pages.
His pen moved quickly, leaving behind neat lines of text in an unfamiliar script.
The language was French - something that shouldn't exist in this world, but remained his private cipher from a past life.
He set the pen down with a sigh, rubbing at his temples.
The problem went beyond simply stealing the sword from the Vipers.
Nothing was unfolding as it should have. The deviations from the novel's plot kept piling up, each one more unsettling than the last.
The entrance exam had featured four Silver-Rank monsters instead of three.
The VR combat trials had been restructured into partnered battles rather than the free-for-all described in the story.
