Chapter 107: The Unwritten Future
Chapter 107: The Unwritten Future
He slowly opened the lid.
Click.
The sound echoed through the silent chamber.
The lid rose.
Andras looked inside.
His expression froze.
There was nothing there.
The case was empty.
The Ring of the Eternal Reservoir was gone.
For several seconds, Andras simply stared at the empty case.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t speak.
His fingers remained resting against the edge of the box as his mind processed what he was seeing.
Gone?
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
He had remembered this scene clearly.
Lucian had discovered the hidden chamber.
He had opened this exact case.
And inside it...
The Ring of the Eternal Reservoir had been waiting for him.
Yet now there was nothing.
Andras slowly straightened.
His eyes narrowed as he examined the interior of the case.
There were no signs of damage.
No broken lock.
No fragments.
No trace of a struggle.
Whoever had taken the ring hadn’t forced the case open.
They had simply removed it.
Andras’s gaze swept across the chamber.
The ancient stone walls remained untouched.
The faded runes continued to emit their weak silver glow.
Nothing else appeared to have changed.
His expression gradually returned to normal.
Then a faint smile appeared.
"Interesting."
He closed the empty case and placed it back on the pedestal.
His disappointment was real.
He had come all this way expecting to obtain an Extraordinary-rank artifact that had once played an important role in the protagonist’s journey.
Instead, he had found an empty box.
But the disappointment didn’t last long.
Because the empty case raised far more interesting questions than the ring itself.
Andras folded his arms.
"Who took it?"
The first possibility was obvious.
Someone had discovered the chamber before him.
But that immediately raised another question.
Who?
The chamber had remained hidden for thousands of years in the original story.
Even Lucian had discovered it only after the academy had already been open for some time.
Andras had deliberately arrived here early because he knew where it was.
He had expected to be the first person to reach it.
Apparently, he had been wrong.
His gaze moved toward the empty pedestal.
"Did someone discover the chamber before me?"
It was possible.
Perhaps the original novel had never revealed everything.
That thought made Andras pause.
He had always treated the novel’s events as a reliable outline of the future.
But a novel was still a story.
The narrator had not necessarily described every event that had occurred in the world.
There could have been people whose actions had never been mentioned.
There could have been secrets even the original author had never revealed.
And there was another possibility.
Andras’s eyes narrowed.
Had the timeline already changed?
He had arrived in this world months before the academy’s original storyline began.
"Did the timeline change because of me?"
The possibility was difficult to dismiss.
But there was another problem.
Lucian.
Andras knew exactly when Lucian was supposed to discover the chamber.
According to the original novel, it happened roughly a month after the academy opened.
But that had been the timeline of the story.
This was reality.
Lucian didn’t necessarily have to follow the same schedule.
What if he had discovered the chamber earlier?
Andras’s expression became thoughtful.
"Has Lucian already found it?"
He considered the possibility.
Lucian was the protagonist.
Luck seemed to favor him with an almost absurd consistency.
If the original story claimed that Lucian would eventually discover a hidden opportunity, there was no guarantee that he would discover it at exactly the same time in this altered timeline.
Perhaps some insignificant event had pushed him toward the library earlier.
Perhaps he had already noticed the old shelves.
Perhaps he had even entered this chamber.
And if that were true...
The ring could already be in Lucian’s possession.
Andras remained silent for several moments.
Then another thought surfaced.
One that was considerably more disturbing.
His smile slowly widened.
"What if there’s someone else?"
The possibility was almost amusing.
What if he wasn’t the only one?
He had read enough novels on Earth to know how common such scenarios were.
Regressors.
Transmigrators.
Reincarnators.
People who possessed knowledge of the future.
People who had memories from another life.
People who had entered fictional worlds just as he had.
Andras’s eyes gleamed.
"Could there be another person like me?"
He imagined the possibilities.
Perhaps someone from Earth had been reincarnated into this world.
Perhaps another reader had transmigrated after reading Rise of the Sword Hero.
Perhaps someone had returned from the future with knowledge of everything that was supposed to happen.
Or perhaps there was a person who knew far more about this world than Andras could possibly imagine.
If one such person existed...
Then the disappearance of the ring suddenly made perfect sense.
Someone else could have known about this chamber.
Someone else could have arrived before him.
Someone else could have taken the artifact.
Andras let out a quiet laugh.
"Now that’s interesting."
His disappointment had completely disappeared.
In fact, he found himself more excited by the empty case than he would have been if the ring had been waiting for him.
If everything happened exactly as it had in the novel, there would be very little uncertainty.
Lucian would discover the chamber.
Lucian would obtain the ring.
Lucian would follow the path written for him.
Andras would simply steal opportunities from the protagonist one after another.
That would certainly be useful.
But it would also become predictable.
Andras had never liked predictable things.
He preferred uncertainty.
Uncertainty meant possibilities.
And possibilities meant opportunities.
He glanced around the chamber once more.
"If everything happened exactly like the novel..."
A faint smile crossed his lips.
"...that would be boring."
His gaze returned to the empty case.
"For once, I actually don’t mind losing something."
He turned away from the pedestal.
There was no point standing here any longer.
The ring was gone.
Whatever had happened to it, he couldn’t solve the mystery by staring at an empty box.
Andras began examining the chamber.
If Lucian had eventually found a way out, there had to be another mechanism.
He walked along the curved wall, running his fingers over the ancient stone.
Nothing.
He examined the faded runes.
Nothing.
He checked the floor.
Still nothing.
Andras frowned slightly.
He knew from the novel that Lucian had eventually escaped the chamber.
The story had never described the process in great detail, but there had been a mechanism that allowed him to return to the library.
Andras continued searching.
His eyes eventually settled on one of the stone pedestals.
Unlike the others, it had a shallow depression carved into its surface.
He approached it.
"Could this be it?"
He placed his palm against the depression.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then—
Click.
A faint sound came from beneath the floor.
Andras immediately stepped back.
The silver runes embedded in the walls flickered.
A thin line of light appeared across the stone beside him.
It formed a narrow circle.
Then the air inside the circle distorted.
A familiar sensation passed through the chamber.
Andras understood.
"So that’s how you leave."
He stepped into the circle.
The moment both feet entered its boundaries, the surrounding space warped.
His vision blurred.
The chamber seemed to stretch away from him.
Then everything went dark.
---
Andras opened his eyes.
He was standing exactly where he had been before entering the hidden chamber.
The old shelves stood before him.
The library remained unchanged.
For a moment, he simply stood there.
Then he glanced toward the windows.
His eyes narrowed.
The sun was gone.
Night had already fallen over Ambrose Academy.
The library was almost completely dark, illuminated only by the magical lamps hanging from the ceiling.
Andras looked toward the old shelves.
To anyone else, they were nothing more than ancient bookshelves.
No hidden entrance.
No strange chamber.
No indication that anything unusual existed behind them.
Andras gave a faint smile.
"So it really was that simple."
He turned away.
There was no reason to remain in the library any longer.
He quietly made his way toward the entrance.
The corridors outside were nearly empty.
Most students had already returned to their dormitories, and the academy that had been bustling throughout the day had settled into a much quieter rhythm.
Moonlight filtered through the tall windows, illuminating the stone corridors with pale silver light.
Andras walked through the silent halls.
His thoughts remained focused on the empty case.
He still didn’t know where the Ring of the Eternal Reservoir had gone.
But now he had a new mystery to investigate.
Andras couldn’t help but smile.
Perhaps tomorrow would be interesting.
He eventually reached the residential area reserved for first-year students.
The corridor was quiet.
A few magical lamps illuminated the walls, while the occasional distant voice could be heard from one of the rooms.
Andras stopped in front of his door.
He raised his hand.
Knock. Knock.
He waited.
No response.
Andras knocked again.
Knock. Knock.
This time, he heard movement from inside.
Footsteps approached the door.
The lock clicked.
Andras stood there calmly as the door began to open.