Loner Becomes the Agent of Chaos

The stillness of Heart lake is strangely calming.

Maybe it was because of how tired I was, but even the hard wooden floor of the boat felt like the softest mattress, lulling me back to sleep.

"...ak...p..."

Even a night owl like me who would normally disintegrate in the sun, right now finds its warmth to be like a warm blanket in a winter morning.

"...ake...up..."

"Mmmmnnn.... 30 more minutes...."

School? Working? Social life? Right now, they're all-...

"GHK!"

*Thud*

My beautiful slumber was suddenly halted and the seemingly soft and warm wooden floor of the board was replaced with hard ground and itchy grass.

"Wh-What happened..."

"Good morning, Roland."

Beside me was the boat? or rather raft that seemed to have run ashore.

With Vor sitting on the opposite edge of where I used to be.

"You fell off when we hit a shore."

"Ah... Yeah, sorry..."

I sit back up and shake off grass and dirt.

"It is fine. We have arrived at our location."

I look around to see that we have landed in a small bank of the lake.

In front of us was a tall wall made out of stone.

The wall seemed to be around 100 feet tall, atleast based on where I was looking from.

And it was so wide that it stretched passed the lake that I could not see its end.

"Where are we?"

"The capital of the Empire."

"Ummmm... Behind this wall?"

"Yes."

"But-"

Vor slowly gets up from the raft with the suitcase in hand.

"Back then this wall did not exist.

In the past the Empire never had to worry about any attack coming from the lake. 

The lake created a natural barrier against any naval invasion from the north and they believed it to be, impenetrable."

Vor walks off the raft as I got up beside her.

"It was that complacency, that the armies of chaos took advantage of.

They stormed the city from the north, from heart lake.

And decimated Dragon's Reach. Killing everything in their path. So much blood was spilled that it looked like a sea of blood."

"...D-did you?"

"Is what my former student told me at least."

"..."

"After the attack and once the Empire reclaimed their capital, they created a great wall in the north, one so great it could withstand even a force like Chaos. 

No longer trusting that the lake would truly keep them safe."

"..."

"But in the end, perhaps because of ignorance or resources, they could not fully finish its construction. And as the age of chaos passed there is no longer any immediate threat from the north of their capital city that justifies its construction."

"Um! Wh-why are you sayi-"

With a bored tone, Vor plainly looks back at me.

"You seem to ask many questions, child. So I told you all of that to answer all of your questions at once.

No, no one shall notice us. The walls are undermanned.

No, we will not be caught once we get pass the wall. The north of the capital became a slum filled with vagrants and criminals, we can easily blend in without arousing suspicion.

No, we will not be staying here.

Yes, we can get past this wall. The walls here are less thick and do not have any counters against magic.

Are there perhaps any other questions I have not yet answered?"

"..."

I was left speechless as Vor read me like a book. I could only quietly shake my head as I look down in the ground ashamed and a bit embarrassed. 

"Very well then."

Vor touches the wall in front of her with both of her hands.

She starts to move her hands apart from each other, moving the wall as she does.

Slowly, a small crack in the wall forms that slowly gets bigger and bigger. 

Until it was big enough to fit a person.

"Come."

Vor walks through the gap in the wall with me following closely behind.

Though Vor said that the wall was still incomplete, it was still incredibly big.

Walking through the small dimly lit hall with only the sound of our footsteps around us, and the faint sound of civilization in front of us.

I follow closely behind Vor, who seemed to have made the hole wide enough just so her large hat can barely fit in.

The silence of the place lets my mind start to slowly wander about everything that has happened so far. And everything that will happen next...

Beyond here... the capital of the empire... lies the main setting of the storyline.

Spire Academy.

Everything that happened so far was not something I wrote in my novel.

I never wrote about a witch named Vor.

I never gave a reason why there was a lake in the middle of the continent, much less a lake with paranormal powers.

And most of all, I never wrote about a demon named Roland before...

Is that even my real name? It just seemed so natural at the time.

Now that I think about it... What is my real name? My memories seem fuzzy.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...................

"?"

Nope, making thinking noises didn't help.

Well I can't help what I can't remember. But I can still remember some of the stuff I wrote.

The alchemy recipes, The flags of the nation, the Otherhunter and the tactics he used, The witches, the Chaos beast...

All of those still line up with everything I wrote down about them.

But there are also things that don't line up.

The biggest example is Heart lake.

In the original novel, It never had that 'sinking' ability. And even more, I never showed off the map of the world in my novel. It was just in a piece of paper I had somewhere lying in my room and I only drew the lake in because I thought the map was too empty.

Its as if this world is filling out any details I left behind.

Or did I isekai into a world that is a lot like my novel.

If its the former then I should have wrote down that the Otherhunters were much weaker, slower, and dumber.

I don't care if its petty. One chased me for an entire for an afternoon!

*THUD*

"Ow!"

I was so busy with my thoughts that I didn't even noticed that Vor already stopped.

Causing me to walk straight into her smooth and soft naked back.

"We have arrived child."

I did not notice. But the hole behind us has already disappeared, leaving no trace of it behind.

And the dim light replaced by the warmth of the sun.

In front of us was what seemed to be a small city, with houses of differing sizes, mostly made out of wood and lime stone. Though many of the houses around us seem to be abandoned or outright destroyed. With beggars and impoverish looking folk wandering about.

Past these houses in the distance and towering above them behind a giant white wall, lined with large towers, were great buildings of differing sizes made out of white travertine. If the walls were that big, one could only imagine how tall those building must be to be able to peak out of it. You could only catch a glimpse of its splendor from where it was but its luxuriousness can be felt from all the way down here.

But behind those great building lies another white wall, much grander than the one before. The walls alone were engraved with many beautiful and mighty carvings of dragons. But these walls cannot compare to what they were protecting.

A large palace... No, it was far more grander than just a palace... It was a place were a god would reside in.

It was so large that it took up all the space inside the walls. Surrounded by 5 great towers with their own unique symbols with cone shaped roofs flying the flag of the empire. The five horned dragon in a red background with gold outlining its edges.

Behind the walls was a large and grand palace made out of marble and quartz with carvings of dragons adorning it. With five dome roofs made out of gold that shine throughout the kingdom and beyond. 

And finally in the middle of it all was a large sculpture of a skull of a dragon made out of red zircon crystal that towers above everything in the kingdom, maybe even the entire continent.

Perhaps it was this skull, that was said to have been carved since the kingdom was first established, that has given this city its name.

The capital of The Barkkeon Empire.

Dragons Reach.