Webnovel's Extra: Reincarnated With a Copy Ability-Chapter 21: Identity [3]

"Why did you invest in the League of Shadows? You could have gone after Pandemonium."

"I’m not investing in the League of Shadows," I replied. "I’m investing in Maximus Sagaza."

It was true the League of Shadows itself was mediocre. Even after its future growth, it would still be small fry compared to the top underworld organizations.

But their leader?

That was a different story.

Even within the Sagaza family, very few had ever awakened a sub-skill—and none of them had anything as broken as Maximus’s Discipline.

Maya stared at me silently for a moment, then nodded like she understood and stood up from the bed.

I was sitting cross-legged, hunched over my phone.

Right now, I was rewriting everything she had just dumped into our chat.

Everyone in this universe spoke English—like some forced "universal language"—but in my old world, I’d studied Mandarin. So I was rewriting all of Maya’s info in Mandarin, in case someone ever got hold of my device.

It had already been hours.

That’s how much she remembered.

Even though she could recall the Chapters perfectly, Maya only wrote down the important events of each one.

For example: the destruction of the Triangle.

A detail I hadn’t known.

Despite how it looked from the inside, the Triangle was the third largest academy in the human domain.

Destroying it wasn’t just one school falling.

It was knocking down one of humanity’s main pillars.

Honestly? What the author did to humanity was borderline cruelty.

Most of humanity’s peak forces were wiped out. We lost so much territory and power that we eventually had to seek refuge in another domain entirely.

Lucas, despite being one of humanity’s most talented, lost a huge chunk of his strength when Zagan left him to become the Demon King.

And the ending... that ending...

I gritted my teeth as I kept rewriting.

"I almost wish I didn’t know any of this," I muttered.

"Me too."

We looked at each other for a moment. Then Maya glanced away, a little embarrassed.

"Now that you know," he said quietly, "please don’t do anything stupid."

"What would ’stupid’ be, exactly?" she asked, her tone sharper than she intended. "I lost my family. I went through hell. All because one person decided to raise me like a character—for entertainment."

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the bed, knuckles whitening, expression dark.

"I did too," he said.

I lied.

Because the truth? I wasn’t raised here. I wasn’t born here. I was Jack, from another world, thrown into this mess.

But I couldn’t tell her that.

And I couldn’t outright lie in the opposite direction either. So I said what she needed to hear.

"At least do what I’m doing," I said, forcing my voice to sound calm. I put my phone down and looked directly at her. "Use your memories to benefit youself. I erased all the Chapters I read, then broke the phone so nobody could find it here. But you don’t need to do that. Your skill doesn’t let you forget—and it also makes your mind untouchable."

Because it was an original ability, Maya didn’t have to fear mind invasions or memory-reading skills.

Reality was the strongest Book of all—second only to a lost Original Book that had vanished ages ago.

Maya held in her head everything that would happen, all the way to the end of the novel.

What she chose to do with that knowledge here—that’s what terrified me.

"We’re not inside the novel," I said firmly. "This is a world based on it. My existence alone is proof."

She looked back at me, doubt flickering in her eyes.

"We can’t change the past," I continued. "But we can change the future."

There was no longer a single "canon line" to follow. I’d realized that the first time I saw the students of Class 2B.

In the original story, that class didn’t exist. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Here, it was full of characters clearly created by readers—and others I didn’t recognize at all. Even in Maya’s memories as Wendy, they never appeared.

"I... I need to think," Maya said at last.

She stood up, almost dazed, walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out.

The door clicked shut.

"Haah..."

I let out a long sigh as I watched the door.

I understood.

For her, finding out she was "just a character" and not truly a real person... that was more than a shock.

I couldn’t demand more from her than what she’d already endured. She’d always been a troubled girl, even before awakening the identity of Wendy.

Pushing her too far would only break her further.

But Maya was smart.

And now she had Wendy’s mindset layered over her own.

No serious reader would be dumb enough to run around leaking all their meta-knowledge.

At least... that’s what I’m betting on.

"It’s what I’m counting on," I muttered, picking my phone back up and returning to the endless block of text she’d written.

I really hoped I was right.

Because more than anything—

I wanted to survive.

Knowing the future changed something deep inside me.

I couldn’t hesitate anymore.

I couldn’t afford to drift or waste time.

I couldn’t afford big mistakes.

And right now...

Maya was the biggest potential mistake of all.

If she couldn’t withstand the weight of knowing too much...

Then she’d have to die.

Whether I liked it or not.

Because before being Dreyden—the one who empathized with her, who saw himself in her, who genuinely wanted to protect her—

I was also Jack.

A human from another world, dragged here without consent, who wanted to stay alive more than anything.

"Are you okay? You look... worried."

I glanced down at my hands.

They wouldn’t stop fidgeting.

Lucas, now seated beside me in class, watched me with quiet curiosity.

After our talk about his demonic swordsmanship, he’d started sitting next to me regularly. Maybe he thought staying close would stop me from selling him out as a demon contractor.

"I’m fine. Don’t worry."

I turned my eyes back to the front, pretending to listen to the lecture.

I wasn’t fine.

Inside, there was a slow civil war going on.

On one side: Dreyden. The boy who wanted to protect Maya, who had been unreasonably honest with her about his plans, who tried to reassure her and share his burdens.

On the other side: Jack. The man who had kissed her because he knew she liked him, not just to calm her down—tilting her perception of him further, knowing exactly what that would do.

I couldn’t pretend I’d been clean with her from the beginning.

She’d been broken when I found her. I knew that.

And I used that.

I used that crack to slip in and gain her trust.

I knew she liked me. It wasn’t subtle—you just had to look at how she acted, the way her emotions reacted around me.

I wasn’t a saint.

Far from it.

But I had never truly considered harming her.

...Until now.

It had been two days since Maya used her ability.

She’d vanished from the Triangle.

When I investigated, I found out she had dropped out, using my name to pressure a Class C student into giving up some of their merits.

I didn’t chase her.

I didn’t track her.

That was my last act as "Dreyden," you could say.

Sooner or later, she’d come back.

She had to come back.

Because Maya had nothing outside the Triangle.

"You say you’re fine," Lucas said slowly, "but for someone who always pays attention when the lecture is about magical theory, you look pretty distracted."

"Don’t start," I muttered. "I’m not in the mood for jokes."

Seeing my reaction, Lucas’s suspicion only deepened, but he didn’t push.

"Alright," he said lightly. "The spear is no longer pointed at my neck, then."

I pulled my phone out under the desk and checked the time.

To be honest, my anxiety wasn’t about Maya herself wandering around somewhere.

It was about the future.

Before, when I didn’t know the ending, I’d simply assumed that like most stories, The Dance of Power would end with some form of happy or at least bittersweet resolution.

Now I knew better.

And because of that, I’d have to work harder.

Much harder.

I glanced at Lucas.

He was watching the board, but it was obvious he wasn’t really listening either.

"Let’s train after class," I said.

He turned, studied me for a second, then nodded.

It was time to stop holding back.