The next few days passed in a blur of half-sleep and soft murmurs. Edric recovered slowly, but steadily.
Servants came and went, quiet, avoiding eye contact. They brought trays of clear broth, fruit, and folded linens. None stayed long. He caught their fleeting, fearful glances when they thought he wasn’t looking.
To them, he was someone else.
Someone dangerous, maybe.
A knock came at the door.
“Enter,” he said without looking up.
A maid stepped in quietly, setting a tray of tea and bread on the table. She never lifted her eyes, just bowed quickly, muttered, “My lord,” and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Edric said.
She froze mid-step, shoulders tensing.
He saw it — the tremor in her fingers, the way she kept her face turned away as if even being seen was a risk.
“Your name,” he asked softly.
She hesitated. “R… Rina, my lord.”
“Rina,” he repeated. “Tell me, are you afraid of me?”
Rina flinched. “N-no, my lord,” she lied, voice barely a breath.
Edric watched her breathe, shallow and tight. Fear wrapped around her like a second skin. He almost laughed, not out of cruelty, but because of how absurd it felt.
“You may go,” he said, turning back to the window.
She dipped into another rushed bow and fled, her footsteps soft but hurried.
Edric sighed. He hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t moved an inch. And yet, they behaved as if being near him was a threat.
That was the legacy of Lord Edric Artos, not glory, nor respect, but fear.
The maid’s footsteps faded down the corridor, leaving only the whisper of wind against the glass.
Edric leaned back in the chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
Piece by piece, a picture was forming.
Artos. Gareth. Avalon. Edoria.
He knew those names. He had written them.
Drafts saved in an old laptop. Worldbuilding notes abandoned halfway. He remembered Serah, the knight — steadfast, blunt, loyal to a fault. Gareth, the butler — cold, sharp-minded, never speaking more than necessary. A noble house with fading honor and rotting reputation.
This was his world.
A dry laugh almost escaped him. Of all the ways his night in the snow could've ended, bleeding out in the snow, choking on his own blood, this was one outcome he never planned.
He pushed himself up, knees shaking for a moment, and rested his hand against the windowsill. Outside, the manor courtyard lay dusted in thin snow. Beyond it, gray walls and distant towers vanished into white mist.
A scene he’d described a dozen times.
“House Artos,” he murmured. The name felt foreign on his tongue.
He was Edric Artos, the scum noble. The one fated to die.
A chill ran down his spine, colder than the draft creeping in through the window. He remembered enough to know how the story began… and where his role was meant to end.
He rubbed his temples, trying to gather the fragments of memory scattered like torn manuscript pages.
Judging by the timing, this was right after the Royal Academy arc, the part where students returned home for the autumn recess. After he's already had hostile encounters with his fiancé the female protagonist, and the male protagonist.
This was where Edric's role ended.
A private supper. A cup of wine raised in hollow celebration… then fire beneath the skin. In his notes, he had written it plainly:
“He died right there at the table, eyes bloodshot as foam and bile spilled from his mouth. Some called it poison, others justice.”
A disposable villain, whose death was meant to be the big payoff for the readers who hated him.
Edric exhaled slowly.
A faint creak cut through his thoughts.
The door opened, not timidly like the servants, but with composed certainty.
An elderly man entered, back straight, graying hair tied neatly behind his head. His gaze, cool and assessing, swept across the room before meeting Edric’s eyes.
“Good morning, young master.”
Gareth.
Exactly as he’d written him, controlled, courteous and mysterious. Someone whose motives were still a mystery. In the manuscript, Gareth had not mourned Edric’s death. He simply gave the order to have the body cleaned and buried without fuss.
Yet now, he bowed with perfect form.
“You seem well enough to stand,” the old butler observed. “A fortunate recovery.”
Liar. There was no relief in his tone.
Edric regarded him steadily. “How long?”
“Four days, my lord.”
“And the physician?”
Gareth’s eyes narrowed, a subtle shift, like a predator scenting something unfamiliar.
“He said the poison stopped your heart. That you should have died. No one could have survived it.”
A pause.
“And yet,” Edric said quietly, “here I am.”
“And yet here you are,” Gareth replied with calm composure.
The air between them seemed to grow colder.
Edric tilted his head. “You don’t sound thrilled.”
A faint curiosity flickered behind Gareth’s eyes. He stepped forward and bowed, lower this time.
“Oh, I am relieved, my lord,” he said smoothly. “However, I must say, young master had not looked at me like this before.”
Edric didn’t look away.
The old Edric would have raged, would have struck him for the implication alone. Instead, he simply asked:
“And how did I look at you before?”
Gareth straightened slowly, hands folding neatly behind his back.
“Like a man who believed loyalty was something owed,” he said, precise and unflinching. “Not something earned.”
A clean strike. Delivered without hesitation.
Edric tapped a finger once against the armrest.
Silence settled again, not awkward but measured.
Gareth broke it first. “Shall I announce your recovery to the house? There are many who are eager to see you.”
“Eager, you say?" Edric echoed, eyebrow lifting slightly. “And who might these people be?”
“For one, Lady Serah has not slept since your… accident,” Gareth said, touching his chin thoughtfully. “And there are a few petitioners waiting for an audience, though they have not been informed of your condition.”
“I can send them away, if you wish.” Gareth continued.
Edric inhaled slowly.
“…No,” he said at last. “Don’t send them away.”
Another flicker, brief but noticeable, crossed Gareth’s face. Interest. Calculation. Suspicion.
Of course he’s wary. The Edric he knew would have sent them away without question, he might have even demanded their deaths for their audacity.
That was the kind of man Edric Artos had been.
A scum.
But not anymore.
“I will meet them,” Edric said, turning away. “But first… I need a bath.”
He would do things differently.
A faint glint appeared in Gareth's eyes. "As you wish, my lord," he answered, "I will inform the servants and have them prepare a bath for you."
With that, Gareth exited the room, his footsteps slowly fading away.
Left alone, Edric's thoughts wandered once more.
"Damn it." He quietly cursed under his breath, "why didn't I flesh out the story more?"
In his notes, Edric was nothing more than a minor antagonist, his death merely a payoff.
"Poisoned by ??? — motivations unclear.” He never decided who did it. Was it a political rival? A vengeful servant? The protagonist’s faction? Or perhaps someone within House Artos itself?
He clicked his tongue.
Idiot.
He had written his own death… and hadn’t even bothered to assign the killer a name.
“Brilliant work,” he muttered dryly to himself. “Truly peak writing, murder by placeholder.”
A vague dread lingered. Whoever had done it in the unwritten plot… still existed. Still had a reason. And they might try again.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Would’ve been nice to at least know which bastard to avoid.”
A knock interrupted his thoughts, firm, composed.
The door opened before he spoke.
Lady Serah entered, not with stiffness, but with the controlled grace of someone who'd been holding tension for days. Her armor wasn’t polished. Her eyes were tired.
“…You’re awake,” she breathed, almost too softly to catch. Then, as if remembering herself, she straightened and bowed with proper form. “My lord. Gareth informed me of your recovery.”
Gareth told her first? Interesting.
Two servants followed behind her, arms full of neatly arranged towels and oils. They bowed quickly, murmuring “My lord,” without daring to make eye contact.
Edric observed Serah.
Her shoulders, once rigid, had loosened by a fraction. She looked, for a fleeting moment, relieved.
Exactly as he had written her, beautiful and fiercely loyal.
He held her gaze. “You came quickly.”
“Of course,” she replied. “The moment Gareth said you could stand on your own, and wanted a bath, I…” She paused, catching herself. Her tone shifted back into disciplined neutrality. “I made preparations.”
Edric nodded once. “Then, lead the way.”
Serah dipped her head, a warrior’s salute. “As you command.”
And so, with the servants trailing behind like nervous shadows, Edric followed her, deeper into the manor, toward the private bath chambers.
The corridor stretched long and quiet, their footsteps echoing softly against polished stone. The manor of House Artos, seen through his own eyes rather than from a writer’s detached narration, felt different, heavier, more real.
Tall pillars lined the hall, carved with delicate patterns of two serpents coiled on a sword, the Artos sigil wrought into stone. Between them, banners of deep crimson hung, trimmed with silver thread that shimmered faintly in the torchlight.
Right. Scum noble, lord of a rotten house… yet the carpets alone could feed a village for a month.
Servants stood at intervals along the hall, positioned like decorative furniture, their heads bowed, hands clasped behind their backs. He noticed how their shoulders stiffened when he passed.
If fear had a scent, it would be suffocating. It clung to these walls thicker than the incense burning in the braziers.
Unnecessary excess, rotting prestige, servants walking on eggshells… I really made him a cliché, didn’t I? He thought to himself.
Serah paused at the end of the corridor and pushed open a pair of ornate doors. Steam drifted faintly from beyond, carrying the scent of herbs and heated stone.
She stepped aside and bowed slightly.
“The bath is prepared, my lord. Servants will assist if you require them.”
Edric stopped just before entering, his eyes lingering on the steam rising like mist over water.
Instead, he glanced sideways at Serah, and truly looked at her.
“Thank you,” he said suddenly.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was a simple statement, but in this house, those words had weight.
Serah froze.
The servants carrying towels nearly stumbled, eyes snapping up in reflex before darting back down to the floor in panic.
For a moment, no one moved — as if the very walls were trying to process what he’d just said.
Then Serah, slowly… blinked.
“…My lord?” Her voice had softened without her permission.
He looked at her, expression unreadable. “I said thank you, for guarding me, and for escorting me here.”
Words of gratitude.
Words that have never left Edric's lips, at least from what the servants can remember. Words that might as well be a foreign language.
Her composure cracked, just barely, like a hairline fracture in glass. Eyes narrowing as she looked at him.
“…Yes,” she breathed, more to herself than him. Then she straightened, but there was something new in the way she held herself. Not stiffness… but caution.
She stepped back, giving him space to enter.
Edric finally moved, stepping past her into the marble chamber. Warm lantern light glowed against polished stone, and the sound of flowing water echoed quietly.
Behind him, Serah and the servants lingered at the doorway, waiting for dismissal.
Edric paused just once more, without looking back.
“You may wait outside,” he said. “I’ll call if needed.”
The servants bowed in unison and retreated hurriedly.
Serah hesitated for half a heartbeat, then placed a fist to her chest in a knight’s salute.
“…As you command,” she said, her voice low but firm.
The doors closed behind him with a muted finality.
Under the warm lantern glow, Edric let the silence settle.
He loosened the clasps of his outer coat, fingers moving slowly, almost detached, as if observing his own actions from a distance. The fine fabric slipped from his shoulders with a soft rustle, followed by the shirt beneath. The air of the chamber, thick with steam, caressed skin that wasn’t his… yet was.
He caught his reflection in a mirror situated on the wall.
Tall, pampered, plump, someone who made others dirty their hands.
His gaze drifted lower — then froze.
The veins along the left-hand side of his neck… were stained.
A branching pattern of red-black, like something had slithered beneath the skin and died there. The discoloration traced from below his jaw, towards his heart, all the way to his left arm, like a serpent coiling beneath flesh.
“…The poison,” he murmured.
A phantom sensation tingled beneath the skin, as if the venom still lingered, a memory etched into blood.
The mark pulsed faintly with the heat of the room. Almost alive.
He hadn’t written this.
Not in detail.
Not like this.
Slowly, Edric flexed his fingers, watching the serpent-like markings stretch and tighten with the movement of his veins.
He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
“…Hah.”
He stepped into the bath, water rippling around him in gentle circles. The warmth slowly washing away the fatigue his body felt.
For the first time since waking in House Artos, as Edric Artos, he felt relaxed.
"I could stay like this forever," he thought to himself as he closed his eyes.
But no.
It's not possible. He's still alive, and if he wants it to stay that way, he needs to make changes.
"I need to rewrite this abandoned story," he quietly spoke to himself, "And I will."