Chapter 2 The Error Boy and the Royal Pain
The moment I saw his glitched-out name tag, I knew he wasn't like the others.
Not just because of the blinking ERROR: NAME UNAVAILABLE, but because he wasn't sparkling.
Every other student at the Academy glittered faintly.
Some had aura trails.
A few even had idle animations—eyes fluttering, dramatic cape tosses, wistful sighs timed to background music.
This guy has no sparkles and not glowing.
Just a normal boy with his eyeglasses, a scuffed robe, holding his upside-down spell book and with a smirking face.
"You've been here long?" I asked, suspicious.
"Long enough to realize I'm not supposed to be," he replied, flipping the book right-side-up and pretending that made it better.
"But I'm very good at pretending I belong."
"So... you're an error?"
"I prefer 'narrative anomaly.'"
"I prefer 'possible ally with secret tragic backstory.'"
He paused. "...You read too much manga, don't you?"
"You have no idea."
We were standing in the shade of a massive cherry blossom tree, which had been in full bloom for at least five in-world years, judging by the constantly looping petal effect.
No one else seemed to notice.
That was the terrifying part—every background character moved like clockwork.
He leaned against the tree and broke the scene entirely.
"Name's—well, I don't actually know what they called me," he said, blinking.
"Sometimes I'm in a class. Sometimes I'm not. I don't appear on the dorm lists. When I try to use the dining hall, I get redirected to a black void where someone recites tragic monologues."
"Relatable," I muttered. "My toast tried to monologue this morning."
He chuckled. "So. Lady Verenia, huh?"
I tensed. "You know me?"
He gave me a look. "Everyone knows you. You're the villainess. The crown jewel of this entire glitched-out world."
"Fantastic," I muttered. "And let me guess—I'm destined to fall off a balcony in a ballgown."
"No. That event got corrupted last semester," he said cheerfully. "Now it's a fountain."
"Of course."
After that ominous-yet-weirdly-chill meeting, the rest of the day blurred into a carousel of chaos.
My schedule dragged me through an alchemy class where my potion exploded into sparkles shaped like my own smug face, a spell duel where my opponent monologued so long I countered him with a yawn, and a "required romantic tension break" on the academy stairs.
There, I met Love Interest #2.
He arrived on horseback.
Take note— Riding his horse INDOORS!
"Lady Verenia," he purred, flipping his golden hair like a shampoo commercial.
"We meet again, though fate has kept us tragically apart."
"We've never met," I pointed out.
He placed a gloved hand on his chest. "But our souls remember."
"Nope," I said.
He smiled. "Deny it all you like, but our breakup scene awaits us."
"We haven't even dated!"
"But we must have!" he cried dramatically.
"For I feel the pain of heartbreak every time I look at you."
"You're allergic to me, maybe."
He gasped as if I'd struck him.
A literal string quartet started playing in the background.
A chime dinged.
"I shall win you back," he said, mistaking my disgust for longing.
I walked off mid-swoon.
He tried to chase me but his horse clipped through a stair and vanished.
By sunset, I was done.
Done with the sparkles.
Done with the tea cups that reappeared every time I threw one out the window.
Done with the "mandatory rival encounters," which involved getting into fake arguments with an invisible heroine that didn't exist.
I marched to the library.
If this world had rules, someone had to have written them down.
And lo and behold, there it was.
The World Codex—a massive floating book chained to a pedestal in the library's center, glowing faintly and humming with soft jazz for no reason.
I reached out to open it.
It bit me.
Literally.
A sharp snap and I yanked my hand back.
"What the hell?", I screamed.
The page shimmered.
Words rearranged themselves.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I groaned.
Behind me, someone cleared their throat.
"Trying to break into the Codex? Bold move."
I turned.
Mr. Error Boy was back.
He looked amused.
"I'm not trying to break in. I'm just aggressively reading."
"Same thing here," he said, holding up a weird, glitchy notebook that flickered between languages.
"This place runs on narrative programming. I've been trying to decompile it."
"And?"
"It hates me," he said cheerfully.
"But I've got theories."
He beckoned me to a side table.
I followed, because frankly, he was the only person not trying to either romance or betray me.
Well, Maybe not yet.
"So here's what I've figured out," he said, spreading out a series of messy notes.
"This world runs like a visual novel—but it's missing a key executable. The Heroine AI. That subroutine was supposed to drive the story's emotional balance. But it never loaded."
"So it's trying to run without her."
"Exactly. And to compensate, it's trying to force you into every role."
"Villainess, rival, romantic interest, tragic backstory...?", I guessed.
"Bingo. And the more you resist, the more the world destabilizes."
I leaned back, absorbing all the info we've got.
"This is ridiculous."
"But also kind of fun?"
"Fun? I almost died in Spellcasting 101 because someone summoned a 'flaming heartbreak dragon.'"
"Okay, that's fun for me," he said.
I gave him a look. "You still haven't told me your name."
He hesitated.
Then tapped the blinking error tag over his head.
"I'm not supposed to exist. But if you want, you can call me... Bug."
"Bug?"
He shrugged. "Short for Debug. Also I've been crawling through the system's logic like a parasite. It fits."
I snorted.
"You're weird."
"You're the one whose magical affinity is 'narrative disruption.'"
"Wait, what?"
Bug flipped his notebook around.
"Check this out. Your stats aren't elemental. They're story-based. See? You've got 'Dramatic Irony: S+', 'Sarcastic Timing: A', and 'Unpredictable Outcomes: SS-rank.'"
I blinked.
"That explains why tea cups keep exploding whenever I try to act normal."
"And why the world keeps pushing you toward absurd villainess behavior, even when you resist. You're literally made to break the plot."
I grinned, despite myself. "That's... kind of awesome."
Bug leaned forward. "I think you're the key to fixing this place."
I blinked. "You want to fix it?"
"Don't you?"
I considered. "Maybe. But also? I kinda want to mess it up more first."
Bug grinned. "Now that's the right answer."
Suddenly, a soft ding echoed through the room.
Both of us looked up.
Above our heads, glowing script began to form in shimmering light.
I looked at Bug.
He looked at me.
And then the chandelier above us shattered—sending glitter, feathers, and rose petals raining down in the most over-the-top "romantic" flag trigger yet.
I sighed. "Yup. We're screwed."
He just laughed.