Teleported into My Own Novel as the Author!

The streets of Oryn-Vel stretched ahead, the city alive with its usual nighttime energy—lanterns flickering, voices murmuring, the scent of roasting meat and spiced ale drifting from tavern doors. Char trailed behind Tess, still mulling over the conversation with Elyan.

A meeting. A high-profile one.

His mind raced with possibilities, trying to recall if he had ever written anything about it in his old drafts. He remembered crafting the Syndicate as a powerful underworld force, but this—Roake killing Marrow, the sudden power struggle—this wasn't part of his original story.

Which meant anything could happen now.

"So," Char finally said, breaking the silence. "What's the plan?"

Tess glanced over at him, tucking a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. "We're gonna crash that meeting. Elyan's informant should be able to pinpoint the location soon."

Char nearly tripped over his own feet. "Crash the meeting? As in, walk straight into a gathering of the most powerful criminals in the city?"

Tess grinned. "More like sneak in and eavesdrop first. But if things go sideways, yeah, we might end up in a fight."

Char let out a sharp breath. "Right. Because that's exactly what I'm good at."

Tess stopped walking and turned to face him, her expression unreadable in the dim streetlight. "That reminds me. We need to fix that."

"Fix what?"

"Your complete and utter uselessness in a fight."

Char frowned. "Hey, I wouldn't say complete—"

"You bought two knives and don't even know how to hold them properly," Tess interrupted, folding her arms. "If you wanna stick with us, you need to learn how to fight. Fast."

Char groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. He wasn't an athlete, wasn't some skilled swordsman—hell, he barely knew how to throw a punch. Sure, he'd written about fights before, had detailed countless battle sequences in his old drafts, but writing about combat and actually engaging in it were two completely different things.

"Great," he muttered. "Just great. How the hell am I supposed to learn to fight before this meeting?"

Tess smirked, already turning to walk again. "Simple. I'll teach you."

Char hesitated, then hurried after her. "That sounds… dangerous."

Tess shrugged. "You'll survive."

"I'd like to see the statistics on that."

Tess laughed, the sound light and effortless. "Relax, Charon. You won't be fighting Syndicate leaders just yet. But if you wanna stay in this world and not get yourself killed, you'll need to hold your own. Tomorrow, we start training."

Char exhaled, half-exhausted already just thinking about it.

His own world—his own story—was forcing him to become something he never imagined for himself.

And he wasn't sure if that terrified him or thrilled him.

*

The city stretched wide beneath him, the streets bathed in the quiet glow of lanterns and the flickering remnants of hearth fires from shuttered windows. Char sat cross-legged on the roof of the safe house, arms draped over his knees, staring out over Oryn-Vel's labyrinthine streets.

It had been days—maybe a week—since he'd arrived here, but the passage of time felt distorted, like he was caught in the folds of a dream that refused to let go. His training was still in its early stages. Elyan had said there would be a meeting between Syndicate members in two days, but she'd gotten info that it had been pushed back to a week. At least that gave Char a bit of time to train his body in preparation .

He was supposed to be in his room, in his own world, slumped over his laptop as the glow of the screen burned his eyes. Instead, he was here, inside a story that had long since slipped from his control.

And that thought scared him.

At first, it had been thrilling in a strange way. A world he had created had taken on a life of its own. He had met people who weren't just characters anymore—they were real. But the deeper he got, the more tangled everything became. This wasn't the story he had written. Silas Roake wasn't supposed to die so soon. Marrow wasn't supposed to be killed by his own ally. And Rook—Rook hadn't existed at all.

Somewhere along the way, the story had become something else.

And now he was stuck inside it.

His fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeve. He missed home. He missed his old life, his normal life, the mundane things he never thought he'd long for—his mom's humming as she cooked dinner, his dad's absentminded flipping through the news, Finn's endless teasing and the way he could make even the worst days bearable.

Would they even notice he was gone?

The thought twisted in his gut. Time here felt strange, but what if it passed normally back home? What if he had vanished without a trace, just gone, leaving his parents to wonder if their son had simply disappeared into thin air?

And Finn—damn, Finn would never let him live this down if he ever made it back. "Dude, you got isekai'd into your own story? That's the most Char thing I've ever heard."

Char huffed a quiet laugh, but it quickly faded.

He wasn't just a reader anymore. He wasn't even the author. He was a piece of the story itself now. And if that was the case, then…

His stomach twisted as his mind raced.

What chapter was he in?

The story had diverged so much that it was almost impossible to tell, but it still followed some semblance of the structure he had written. The Syndicate was still a looming force, and the characters he had crafted were still roughly where they should have been.

But there was still something missing. Or rather, someone.

Tess wasn't the protagonist of his novel. Nor was Marin, or Callen, or even Ishmael.

No.

The protagonist was one person.

A flicker of movement caught his eye from across the street.

Char stiffened, his breath catching in his throat as he shrank back against the sloping roof, heart pounding in his chest.

A shadow flitted across the rooftops, moving fast and low, barely making a sound. Whoever it was moved like a phantom, purposeful and precise, a silhouette against the dim glow of the city's lanterns.

A chill skated down Char's spine.

He already knew.

Before his mind could fully process it, before he could even try to reason against the instinctive dread creeping over him—he knew.

Char's fingers dug into the tiles beneath him, his breathing shallow as he dared to peek out again.

There, standing on the opposite rooftop, bathed in the silver glow of the moon, was a figure he had crafted himself.

A figure he had written.

Edmund Ardent.

The protagonist of the novel.

And he was here