Chapter 48: My Author is a Useless Capybara

The world of fuchsia light dissolved into absolute, silent white.

I was floating. There was no up, no down, no sound, no feeling of air on my skin. It was a featureless void, an endless empty space between realities. It was the loading screen for my miserable life.

But this time, something was different.

A single, solitary lawn chair sat in the middle of the nothingness. Lounging in it was a capybara. It held a glass of what looked suspiciously like orange juice, complete with a tiny, ridiculous decorative umbrella. The massive rodent looked up from its drink, its expression impossibly smug.

“Kukuku, Siegfried, Siegfried.”

Its voice echoed in the void. It was calm and deeply, profoundly annoying.

I crossed my arms. The fabric of my academy uniform felt solid and real, an anchor in this sea of nothing. I refused to be impressed. After everything I’d been through, a talking, omniscient capybara was just another Tuesday.

“Let me guess. You’re the author.”

The capybara took a slow, deliberate sip from its glass. The little paper umbrella wobbled. It was clearly enjoying this.

“Took you long enough. Most protagonists figure it out way faster.”

My jaw tightened. Of course he’d critique my performance.

“You haven’t learned anything after all these years of loops, huh?”

I stared into its placid, dark eyes. I was too tired for theatrics.

“I haven’t learned what?”

The capybara gestured vaguely with its glass, sloshing juice near the rim.

“The important things, my boy. The big picture.”

It was stalling. This useless deity was actually stalling for dramatic effect.

“What is it that I haven’t learned?”

The capybara set its drink down on an invisible table with a soft thump.

Its smug vibe evaporated, replaced by a deep, theatrical sigh. It leaned forward, its expression now one of grave seriousness, like a guidance counselor about to deliver bad news. The whole performance was absurd.

“You, Siegfried, do not know how to deal with a woman’s heart.”

It paused, letting the profoundly unhelpful statement hang in the empty air.

I just stared.

“Then again, neither do I.”

It leaned back, its voice suddenly small.

“I’m a web novel author. Kukukuku.”

The laugh was weak and hollow. All my suffering. All the deaths, the betrayals, the endless, repeating cycles of hell. And the architect of my pain was this. A clueless rodent in a lawn chair with romantic problems.

My anger, a familiar burning fire, just fizzled out. It was replaced by a pure, dumbfounded pity. The anger came roaring back a second later, stronger than before.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“You were too direct with Lilith! Your attempts to distract her were clumsy.”

“Then how am I supposed to be? What’s the master plan, oh great author?”

The capybara suddenly slammed its fist on the invisible table. The orange juice glass jumped.

“I DON’T KNOW! If I knew, I wouldn’t have to write self-insert power fantasies! I wouldn’t be so alone!”

The confession was so pathetic, so utterly devoid of divine dignity, that I was speechless. This couldn’t be my life. It just couldn’t.

“Damn you!”

“But look on the bright side.”

The author regained its composure, picking nervously at its paper umbrella. It avoided my gaze.

“I’ve tinkered with the system. Your protagonist transfer progress is now tied to your soul, not the timeline. It won’t reset anymore.”

Hope, bright and sickening, flared in my chest. That was huge. That was everything.

“And,” the capybara continued, “every time you die or the timeline resets, you’ll pop in here for a chat with me first.”

The hope died instantly. My blood ran cold. The first part was a gift from the heavens. The second part was a curse from the deepest pits of hell.

“That’s not a feature. That’s a punishment.”

“Calm down.”

I clenched my fists. My knuckles cracked in the silence of the void.

“Couldn’t you at least throw me back a little further? Give me more time to prepare? A day? An hour?”

The capybara looked away, suddenly finding the infinite white void intensely fascinating.

“Ah, no. Sorry. Used all my divine power to stabilize the save-state function. My mana is, uh, tapped out.”

I stared at the useless deity. The master of my fate. The author of my story.

“Useless.”

The useless deity just shrugged.

The white world around me began to fray at the edges, dissolving like a photograph dipped in water. The sounds of the party rushed back in first. The awful music, the dull chatter, the clinking of glasses. It was a sensory assault.

The polished stone floors of the academy materialized under my feet.

I was back. I checked my internal clock. Not a single second had passed. Across the room, Lilith’s eyes were still beginning to glow with that hard, fuchsia light. Elizabeth was still forcing a cookie on a miserable-looking Eksu.

Nothing had changed. But I had.

Okay. A new, new plan. Distraction was a failure. Brute force was a catastrophe. The author was a capybara with zero useful advice. So I was on my own.

I couldn’t stop Lilith’s feelings. I couldn’t redirect them. The author’s pathetic confession had accidentally revealed the truth. Her emotions were the engine of this story now. Fighting them was like fighting gravity.

I had to understand them.

This time, I needed to get inside Lilith’s head. I needed to figure out what she actually felt for Eksu. I needed to understand the weird, chaotic logic of her heart.

And then, I needed to make her accept it.