Meeting the Hero

By Clarice Lauv

Amber doesn’t understand why her soul has inexplicably entered the book she has been reading—The Sword of Wrath. To get back to the real world, she has to follow the instructions of a weird System that rules this world: to play a role the System assigns to her and generate a high enough "score" before escaping the magic book.
But there is a problem. The role assigned to her is “Constance Henning”—the hero's mentor, a "villain" role who will eventually die a miserable death. This is not like picking a role to play in a movie—she will bear the actual sufferings of that specific character.
Though being assigned the role of a vicious sorceress, Amber personally holds no grudge against the hero—Karl, who suffered a bitter childhood because he was a hybrid of demon and human. Amber feels sympathy for Karl’s misfortune but is forced to make life miserable for him. And the biggest challenge would be to push Karl down to the Infinite Abyss as the plot demands.
But facing the warm and innocent boy who trusts her so much, can she really bring herself to do that?
“I feel that Master Constance is especially cold to me. In fact, only me.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clarice Lauv
• Release date: Apr 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370773220

Clarice Lauv

Clarice Lauv is the author of Meeting the Hero, book one of the series In Love with the Protagonist and her debut novel. She is an alumnus of McMaster University and loves comics and stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres, and plans to write more romantic novels set within these genres.

Book preview

Meeting the Hero

(Book one of In Love with the Protagonist series)

By Clarice Lauv

Copyright © 2017 Clarice Lauv

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 1

When Amber first opened the book The Sword of Wrath, she didn't sense anything weird.

She picked it from a stall at the second-hand goods market held on campus. The book was not thick; it did not indicate who the author was; bound by a string, it had a cover like a dusty antique. The story was set on a fictional continent called Acadia. According to the mythology of the book, Acadia was filled with common humans, talking animals, mythical creatures, immortals and demons.

Like most hero-legend stories, it described how a poor boy climbed to the top of the pyramid of power, while women went wild for his romantic and inspiring image, competing for his attention. The summary read:

The main character is a half-demon, half-human youngster called Karl Jenkins. Accepted neither by humans nor demons, he suffered a bitter childhood. Abandoned by his father, he and his mother, a human woman named Estee, became homeless from trying to escape the villagers’ persecution. He was adopted by a poor lady named Nerissa after Estee died of a disease due to poverty. But his foster mother was accidentally killed in an exorcism rite held by a Guardian family, the Gallaghers. Later Karl had a chance to study under one of the seven famous Guardian families as an exorcist apprentice. However, his Master, Constance Henning, who knew no sympathy nor pity, showed no tenderness and abused him over the years before discovering his real identity as a half-demon on Karl’s 18th birthday. In order to escape his master, he was forced to jump off the Infinite Abyss, where he transformed into a pure demon and discovered the Sword of Wrath.

Karl suffered various difficulties and finally managed to escape from the Infinite Abyss with the Sword of Wrath. His personality changed drastically after being betrayed and oppressed cruelly by the humans. He obtained incredible power from the Sword of Wrath and successfully took over the thrones from various demon dukes and unified the entire demonic realm. With the help of demon armies, he became a cold tyrant. He took revenge on those who had been cruel to him during his early days, and ultimately ruled the mainland of Acadia.

Buy the book if you want to read the whole thing. We don’t provide books for free reading.

A voice interrupted Amber, and she lifted her eyes. She saw Gina glaring at her. Unconsciously, she had been really concentrating on reading the book and had almost finished two chapters.

This is Jeremy’s book, said Amber, looking at Jeremy sitting beside Gina. This is his stall.

We’re partners, said Gina.

The students were asked to organize a market fair, and Gina had borrowed Jeremy’s stall to sell her unwanted stuff. Amber and Gina had been at odds with each since the first day they met. In Amber’s eyes, Gina was the typical mean girl, and she was sometimes angry that Jeremy, her friend since childhood, liked Gina.

Whatever she did, Gina would find faults or make things difficult for her.

OK, I will buy it.

If you want to buy this book, you’ve got to buy my hat. These items are sold in a set, said Gina.

Amber frowned and looked at Jeremy, and then back at Gina. I don’t want your hat, it’s ugly.

It has to be sold in a set, right, Jeremy? Gina stood up and looked at Jeremy.

Um... Jeremy looked rather vexed and scratched his head.

Are we friends? I will say it once more: I want to buy this book alone, not with any other garbage. Amber raised her voice.

My hat is not garbage! said Gina. Just look at what you’re wearing!

What’s wrong with my dress? snapped Amber, as she glared at Jeremy. I don’t care, I’m taking the book alone. If you listen to her, our friendship is over.

Amber snatched the book and dropped a few coins on the desk. As she turned to leave, the pages of the book suddenly came loose and several of them dropped to the ground. Amber squatted down to pick up the pages and found one was under the wheelchair of a teenager.

Amber lifted her face, and to her surprise, the teenager in the wheelchair was Gore.

With a pale and solemn face, the boy had the same hazel eyes as Amber’s, meeting her eyes in a languid manner.

Gore... Amber glanced at his legs. She hadn’t seen him since she’d last heard of his injury in a car accident. He refused all calls from her and her mother Janice, didn’t even give them a chance to care for him.

How’s your leg...

Hop it, said Gore while turning the wheels on his chair.

Amber wanted to grab him, but Gore glared at her and snarled, Go away!

People on the campus were staring, so Amber let go of his arm. Without saying anything, Gore left Amber behind.

Jeremy gave Gina an embarrassed smile. Gina stuck out her tongue at him and showed him a broken string in her hand with a sly smile.

You tore my book? asked Jeremy, surprised to see Gina had actually cut the binding string of the book.

Just let her read an incomplete book. Gina winked. Jeremy noticed there was a missing page under the desk. He picked it up, but Gina snatched it away.

Don’t give her this. She randomly folded the page and dropped it in her bag.

Don’t be like this—she’s a nice girl, said Jeremy as he started packing up things to go home.

Nice girl? Then why does she have such an awkward relationship with her brother? sneered Gina. You saw how Gore responded to her. It seems not much better than my relationship with her.

It’s quite complicated, sighed Jeremy, and I know it troubles her. Their relationship has been this cold for years. I never saw them talking to each other on campus.

Gore turned his head after he went a few meters, to ensure that Amber didn’t follow him. He noticed there was a piece of paper stuck in between his wheels. He picked it up and realized that it was a page from a book.

It looked like it was from the book Amber bought just now. He was brushing the dust from the page when three teenagers walked toward him.

Hey, Gore! one of them shouted at him with a malicious smile. Gore grew nervous and stuffed the page into his pocket.

Hey, how’s your day, lame duck? said one of the boys.

Gore tried to turn his wheelchair and go away, but was stopped by the other boy.

Trying to run away, huh? How about telling the teacher again about how we were bullying you?

Too bad, he always wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

How about getting out of your chair? Going for a walk will help you to shake off the lethargy. Another boy giggled and punched Gore, and he fell off the wheelchair. A boy stepped onto his palm and ground his boot into it.

Gore, lying beside his wheelchair, just stayed silent and took it, as if he was too spiritless even to resist. After pushing Gore around and torturing him for almost half an hour, Gore’s attitude somehow infuriated the boys further.

I have a suggestion, said one of the boys, raising an eyebrow. To make him beg for forgiveness.

They put Gore back into the wheelchair and pushed it into the depth of the woods behind the school.

After walking for around ten minutes, Gore realized that the boys were bringing him toward the lake behind the school. They stopped and stood on a rise overlooking the lake.

This will be interesting, what do you think? asked a boy behind Gore, his hand holding the wheelchair handles.

Gore gave a snort of contempt without turning his head.

You don’t believe I will let go of the handle?

With a sudden jerk, the boy shoved Gore’s wheelchair hard and sent him down the slope, toward the lake below.

They heckled and jeered behind him. Gore tried to stop his wheelchair several times, but it failed and kept sliding. Suddenly, he gave up trying and relaxed.

Why bother? Wasn’t he absolutely frustrated with his own life?

Instead of stopping, he rotated his wheelchair toward the lake.

Hey, you can’t stop your wheelchair? shouted one of the boys behind him. They were no longer laughing.

Should we go and pull him back? asked another boy. Is he going to drown himself?

Just wait and see first—that loser doesn’t have the guts.

It was getting darker as the sun began to set. Gore stared at the black water of the lake, wondering if all the torture could end if he continued to rotate the wheels of his chair toward it.

The feeling of being betrayed, and an outcast... The only way he could still have control over his own life was to end it.

To break free.

Hey!

Before the cold lake water actually passed over the top of his head, Gore heard the boys yelling on shore, but then he was seized by a sudden and tremendous fright as something seemed to drag at his legs, hauling him down.

He was out of his depth.

The sudden shock, maybe partly from the chill of the water, caused him to involuntarily breach the water surface to gasp. However, the same process repeated itself until he was battered and winded.

Intense pain bloomed at the top of his chest, spreading downwards and inwards. Ears ringing, Gore felt as if he saw something glowing in the darkness under the water—something coming from his pocket?

A sense of loneliness and isolation overwhelmed him, and somehow he felt as if he was gently sinking to rest on the softest bed. As colorful light shot into his eyes, he thought maybe death had come to take him faster, right here, alone and forgotten.

* * *

Hi, Mom, I’m back.

Amber decided not to tell Janice that she met Gore and he ignored her at school today.

This would be Amber’s last year in high school, and she’d reunited with Gore when he transferred to her school six months ago. She was delighted, but soon disappointed as she found Gore held a deep grudge against her. Since she got his cell phone number from his ninth-grade classmates, he’d only picked up Janice’s call once. Gradually, she told Janice less and less about the various encounters with Gore at school, partly because they never talked, and also because she believed it would only upset Janice.

Based on the campus gossip, Amber learned that Gore injured his legs a month ago when he tried to run away from his home. Janice visited him once in the hospital, but it seemed to be an unpleasant experience. Since then, they never talked about Gore at home.

How was your day at school? Janice poked her head out of the small kitchen.

I bought an old book from Jeremy at the fair at school, said Amber. You won't believe how sheepish he becomes around Gina.

In fact, Amber bought this book partly because she couldn’t bear the sight of Jeremy being so obedient to Gina. The book just looked like any ordinary revenge story, nothing special.

She spotted the fresh flowers in the bottle on the table.

Nice flowers, said Amber.

Mr. Hauser brought them. Janice smiled.

Amber grinned. He’s still contacting you?

Mr. Hauser was Amber’s math teacher from primary school. He had been single since his wife’s death.

He invited me for dinner several times, said Janice.

He’s a nice guy, said Amber. Why don’t you try him out?

Janice shook her head, said, Maybe later, I’m just not ready for a new relationship yet.

Come on, said Amber. You have been divorced long enough. I really think you should hang out more with different guys.

No worries, I know what I’m doing. Janice smiled and waved at Amber to get her to drop this topic.

Janice was still attractive and graceful despite her age. Amber believed she could start a new relationship very soon.

Amber went upstairs to her room and lay on the bed.

She thought about her early days when she still lived under one roof with Janice, Gore and her stepfather, Raymond Walter.

She, in fact, missed the days she’d spent with Gore. They had once been really close.

Amber lay in the bed but had a hard time falling asleep. She got up and took out the book.

She had read a portion of it before she went to bed. Now she continued reading from a scene after the hero jumped down the Infinite Abyss.

After Karl’s foster mother died, in order to get a shelter for himself, he joined the Hennings, one of the major Guardian families of Acadia, to study magic. Becoming an apprentice of the Hennings, at least he would have free shelter and food.

To be a Guardian of Acadia was a special occupation in the book. They were sorcerers who turned into half-immortals as their magic power enhanced to a certain level, and were granted supernatural power by the Patrons, who were the godlike immortals from Sanctuary. The Guardians had special status in Acadia and were under the management of the Guardians' Council. They worked as the agents between humans and Patrons, protected the folks of the local communities, and taught their human followers magic and exorcism to fight against the demons.

In Acadia, the Guardians’ powers were inherited in familial lines, and the selection of Guardians relied solely on family origin. This showed that they were indeed the gods’ choice.

The selection of apprentices was strict. However, Karl still managed to enter the Hennings, founded by the Master Guardian Abner Henning, and apprenticed under Abner’s daughter Constance. Constance Henning had been jealous of her sister, Carolina Henning, and the two competed for the Hennings’ inheritance.

Constance Henning’s character and personality could be seen clearly:

Abner sat on the chair, looking at Constance with fury.

"Constance, do you know what