The Extra is a Genius!?

Noel sat upright in bed, groaning softly as the weight of fatigue clung to his body like a wet cloak. His head throbbed, and his throat still burned from the fever that had taken hold of him the day before. The dim morning light filtered through the curtains, casting pale lines across the wooden floor. He reached for the small nightstand beside his bed, fingers fumbling until they closed around the familiar texture of his dimensional pouch.

With slow movements, he opened it and pulled out the Diary of the Forgotten Son. The worn leather cover felt colder than usual in his hands.

"You left me hanging right when I was about to discover something big," he muttered under his breath, voice still hoarse. "I wonder... should I go with that theory? That the one who wrote this is the same bastard who killed Elarin...?"

His brow furrowed. That answer would come later—he was certain of it.

What mattered more was that Act IV had officially begun. So far, each act had always carried two major events. Torwan... that was likely the first. But what would the second be?

"I guess the system will let me know when the time comes," he murmured.

He opened the diary again.

The first two pages were blank.

Noel stared at them in silence.

"Does it mean something?" he wondered. "A message, or maybe a spell trigger?"

Hard to tell. But the way the pages progressed after that—almost like a real diary—left him thinking that maybe even this emptiness had meaning. Still, with his head spinning and his body aching, it was too much for him to analyze right now.

With a heavy sigh, Noel shut the diary and dropped it gently beside him on the bed.