With no other seats available, Alba approached politely. "Miss, may I sit here?" The girl looked up, shifted aside, and returned to reading the Pure White Book. Something about her stirred a strange feeling in Alba, prompting her to glance again.
"Why not watch the performance? You're just reading that Book here." The girl replied softly that there was no need, because the performers were her students and assistants. Alba paused, suddenly filled with respect.
"Then… are you also one of them?" she asked carefully. The girl waved her hands quickly, denying it and insisting she was a proper person. Then she froze, her face draining as shock took over.
Her lips trembled as she snapped the Pure White Book shut and waved it slightly. "What did you say I was doing just now?" Alba blinked, confused, and answered that they were chatting.
"No, before that. The sentence before that," the girl pressed. Alba repeated that she was not watching the show and was reading the Book. At that, the girl suddenly stood up, drawing glances from nearby people.
She took a sharp breath, staring at Alba in disbelief. "You can see it too?" she asked. "This Book?"
Fei'er Li had not expected the target to walk right up on her own, and it even came with an extra surprise. The two of them quietly left the scene and went to an inn, booked a private room, and casually laid down dozens of sealed, restricted Magic before turning to stare at each other. After the barriers settled, the room became still, and neither of them rushed to speak.
"From the same hometown?" "Mm."
"Even if I am pretty sure, let us verify it first. I will start. When the odd stays odd and the even stays even... damn it, I have been here too long, I even mixed this up, haha." "I think it is fine even without that. I have not been here long either, but it looks like you have been here for ages. By the way, did we come from the same place?"
They sat facing each other and used a familiar language to confirm each other's identity, then started talking. The mood was calmer than expected, more like meeting an old acquaintance after many years rather than a dramatic reunion. There was a bit of quiet happiness, but nothing overwhelming, just an easy conversation like with a normal friend.
After hearing that Fei'er Li had transmigrated for decades and was truly an old-timer, Alba felt a little surprised but stayed composed. For some reason, her emotions barely moved. That felt reasonable, since if a God could bring one person over, bringing a few more was not strange, and it seemed there was more than one god in Otherworld anyway.
"I did not expect new people from home to show up. I thought there were only a few of us." "There are more? Not just us?"
"Yes. You should have noticed already. Just look at the comics, light novels, and all those products in the market. That is basically solid proof. I also investigated a few clues before. Someone from home likely arrived even earlier than us." "And that person's wing-flapping Butterfly Effect messed the plot up so badly that I was confused at the start."
Fei'er Li opened her Book and waved her fingers, and tea leaves and a kettle moved on their own. In just a few seconds, a pot of Black Tea was ready, and the tea streamed neatly into a cup. When Alba took it, the temperature adjusted itself to a comfortable level, making her glance at it with mixed feelings about people who liked to show off Magic.
She paused, then frowned slightly. Something felt off.
"Wait. Butterfly Effect? How could you tell? And you even mentioned the plot?" Alba caught onto it at once, because those words confirmed more than casual guessing ever could.
"Yes, it is what you think. Our transmigration is probably not into a generic fantasy world, but into a Book Transmigration Trope. It was originally a Western fantasy novel with Demon Lord and the Hero elements." "But I stopped believing in the plot over ten years ago. Reality and novels are very different."
"Demon King? Chosen Hero? Do those really exist?" "Most likely. Stretch your hand over here first, just put it here."
When Alba placed her hand on the pure White Tier-colored Book, she felt a trace of Holy Light inside her stir. At the same time, a strange sense of familiarity grew stronger. The surface of the Book flashed faintly, and a fourth mark appeared, shaped like the Sun.
Above it were three other marks, crystal, a fresh sprout, and a Dragon, all glowing together. Seeing this, Fei'er Li nodded. As expected, this was the last one. With one more Chosen Hero, the Hero Party would be complete.
A Warrior who could call in a substitute to fight, an archer who used Electric Current Drive, a Mage who could almost fly on her own, and now a Saintess who was also from home. That actually felt normal by comparison. It did raise another question though. If the team members were all this abnormal, what kind of being would the real Chosen Hero be?
"In the original story, the Chosen Hero was not some overpowered cheat. And honestly, the current World does not even seem to need one. Cutting the entire Hero Party out would not change much." "This mark means you are probably the remaining member of the Hero Party. Though at this point, having a Chosen Hero or not does not really matter."
"Me? But why does it not matter?" Alba was not too shocked by the identity itself, since strange things kept happening to her anyway. What surprised her was the reasoning behind it.
"Because the Four Heavenly Kings, the Demonkind, and other major enemies are basically gone. Even the Demon King has shown no movement for a long time. It is probably finished too." "From a big-picture view, things have been peaceful for years, so the Chosen Hero has lost its purpose."
After collecting things for decades only to find out it was free all along, the feeling was not disappointment but relief. The grim and cruel plot she had once expected could stay far away. On the surface, the enemies like the Demon King were gone, and although there was still the threat of the Evil God in the Abyss, Fei'er Li had personally seen cultists drop dead on the spot more than once.
After that, there were no proper Abyss Church left to be found. If this World was really easier than the original story, then whether those threats even still existed was questionable. With the Four Heavenly Kings almost wiped out, the Abyss Church gone, and no chance of tearing open the Abyssal Rift like in the original, many disasters simply could not happen.
As questions were answered one by one, Alba's expression subtly changed. She realized she had transmigrated into a character from a Book, and one who was supposed to die before the plot even began. Yet she was alive and well, which made the variable obvious. It had to be the God behind her.
Information kept piling up until her head spun, especially the part about the Abyss Church all dying without reason. When Fei'er Li noticed her odd expression, Alba swallowed hard. Entire cults dying like that felt uncomfortably familiar.
The Demon King, the Chosen Hero, the Abyss Church, and the Evil God were clearly linked. For all of them to be erased, the one responsible had to be at least at the level of a God. If even one part failed, the highest Evil God should have reacted, yet there was nothing at all.
A chilling thought formed, tied to the vague memory of a divine figure descending and crushing enemies with ease. Her back felt damp. What if those mass deaths happened because the Evil God behind them had already died? If even the Demonkind and the Demon King were wiped out, there was no way such a being would stay silent unless it could no longer act.
If a distant Elder God True Body died and took its believers with it, that explanation fit too well. Thinking of the strange request to search for the Abyss Evil God, Alba grew tense. She had just accepted that she was not ordinary, only to think, why would someone like her be involved in this?
Trying to steady herself, she asked, "Can I ask something?" She took out her Pure White Book and continued, "In the original novel you read, was there anything like this Sphere on my Book cover? Something called the Sun?"
Fei'er Li felt an odd sensation just looking at it, like staring straight at the Sun, and reflexively covered her eyes before realizing it. She had never heard of such an item, and even the word Sun barely appeared in the novel. In fact, by the late stages, the World was supposed to be plunged into darkness.