I am just an NPC ,but I rewrite the story-Chapter 32 - []

I woke up to the smell of dry hay and woodsmoke.

There was no white void. No server room. No smell of burning ozone or the metallic tang of blood. Just the earthy, grounding scent of a morning fire.

I opened my eyes. I was staring up at a thatched roof, darkened by years of smoke. Sunlight streamed through a small, square window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air.

I sat up. The bed was a straw mattress covered in rough wool blankets. The room was small—a wooden table, a single chair, a shelf with a few clay pots.

"What..." My voice was raspy. I cleared my throat. "Kaelen? Lysandra?"

Silence.

I threw off the blanket and stood up. My body felt... different. Not injured, but stiffer. Calloused. My hands—I looked at them. They were rougher, stained with dirt and plant sap. The quill tattoo was gone. The geometric scars from the Source Fragments were gone.

I touched my face. I needed a shave.

"Where are they?" I muttered, panic starting to coil in my stomach.

I rushed to the door. It was a simple wooden slab on leather hinges. I pushed it open and stepped out.

I wasn’t in the Capital. I wasn’t in the Northern Wastes.

I was in a village.

It was a small, idyllic hamlet nestled in a valley I vaguely recognized from the background art of Volume 1. Green hills, a winding river, smoke rising from a dozen chimneys. A goat bleated nearby.

"Hello?" I called out.

An old man was pushing a wheelbarrow full of turnips down the dirt path. He wore a patched tunic and a straw hat. I recognized him. Not as a character, but as a trope. The Village Elder/Farmer NPC.

I ran up to him.

"Excuse me!" I shouted. "Sir! Where is the army? The Royal Guard?"

The old man stopped. He looked at me, then spat on the ground.

"Army?" he wheezed. "Ain’t no army here, Ren. Unless you count the miller’s geese. Vicious bastards, they are."

I froze. "You know my name?"

The old man frowned, leaning on his wheelbarrow. "Did you hit your head, boy? Or did you get into the cider again? I’ve known you since you were knee-high. You live in that hut." He pointed to the door I just walked out of.

"No," I said, backing away. "No, I don’t. I’m a student. Saint Caelum Academy. Squad 7."

The farmer stared at me. Then he let out a dry, wheezing laugh.

"Academy?" He shook his head. "Ren, the closest you ever got to an Academy was reading those books you spend all your coin on. You harvest wheat. That’s what you do." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

My blood ran cold.

"What year is it?" I demanded, grabbing the edge of his wheelbarrow.

"Easy now!" The farmer swatted my hand away. "It’s the Year of the Red Comet, 906. Same as yesterday."

906.

I staggered back.

The Academy Arc... the entrance ceremony... that was Year 902.

Four years.

"Four years," I whispered.

"Ren, seriously," the farmer said, looking concerned now. "Do you need a healer? You look pale."

I ignored him. I turned and ran back into the hut. I frantically searched the room. I found a small mirror on the shelf.

I looked into it.

I looked older. My face had lost the softness of youth. My hair was longer. I looked like a man who had spent four years working in a field, not fighting gods and glitches.

I collapsed onto the stool.

The Backup.

The Editor’s reboot didn’t just fix the world. It reset my involvement.

The system had looked at the timeline, saw the anomalies caused by "Ren the Transmigrator," and deleted them. It restored the default settings.

In the default setting, Ren—the NPC—never goes to the Academy. He stays in the village. He lives a quiet life.

Which meant...

I hadn’t been there.

I hadn’t rolled the bottle to save Lysandra from the fire shard.

I hadn’t given Kaelen the bun in the cafeteria.

I hadn’t formed Squad 7.

"Oh god," I whispered, putting my head in my hands. "The original story."

Without me, the plot would have followed the book exactly.

Vance would have tripped Lysandra. Kaelen would have been humiliated.

Kaelen would have been isolated. The "Monster" of Class 1-A.

Lysandra would have joined Squad 1 with Jareth.

Ria would have remained a selfish rogue.

Cian would have been bullied into silence.

Tybalt... Tybalt probably dropped out.

And now, four years later... they had graduated. We were in Part 2 of the novel. The War of Shadows.

I stood up. My hands were shaking.

If the story followed the original script, then right now, Kaelen wasn’t a hero. He was an outcast. A wandering mercenary teetering on the edge of darkness, hunted by the Kingdom he tried to save.

And Lysandra... she was the Captain of the Royal Guard, tasked with hunting him down.

I checked my pocket.

The ID card. Arthur’s card.

It was there. It was the only thing that remained.

I tapped it.

A sleek, blue window appeared. No glitches. No static. Just clean, cold text.

[Narrative Status: Original Timeline Restored.]

[User: Ren (Background NPC)]

[Level: 1]

[Time Elapsed: 4 Years.]

[Current World State:]

The Hero: Missing.

The Heroine: Knight Commander of the Capital.

The Villain: Ascending.

"Valen," I hissed. "He’s still here."

Of course he was. If I wasn’t there to stop him in the Academy, Valen would have played the long game. He wouldn’t have needed to speedrun. He would have infiltrated the court slowly, perfectly. By now, he probably owned the King.

I grabbed a bag from the corner of the hut. I started shoving things into it. A loaf of bread. A waterskin. A rusty knife used for cutting vegetables.

I walked back outside.

"Where are you going?" the farmer called out, watching me storm past him. "The harvest isn’t done!"

"I’m quitting," I said, not breaking stride.

"Quitting? You can’t quit being a villager! Where will you go?"

I stopped at the edge of the village path. I looked toward the distant highway that led to the Capital.

"I’m going to find my friends," I said.

"Friends?" The farmer scratched his head. "Ren, you don’t have any friends outside this valley. Nobody knows who you are!"

I looked back at him. A sad smile touched my lips.

"I know," I said. "That’s my best weapon."

I turned and started walking.

I was Level 1. I had no magic. I had no money. And the people I had fought and bled with for months didn’t even know my name.

But I knew theirs. And I knew exactly where the story went wrong from here.

In Part 2, Chapter 1 of the original novel, there is a massacre in the town of Oakhaven. Kaelen is blamed for it. It’s the event that finally pushes him to embrace the Abyss.

Oakhaven was three days away.

"Four years late," I muttered, adjusting my pack. "But better late than never."

I began to run.