The Extra is a Genius!? - Chapter 422

Chapter 422: Chapter 422: The Truth – Part II
The library fell completely silent.

Only the soft hum of the hologram remained, its flickering blue light painting faint reflections across the walls of ancient books.

Noctis’s expression had changed — no trace of the smirk, no teasing glint in his eyes. When he spoke again, his tone was colder, heavier.

“You’re the key, Noel,” he said slowly. “But not because of destiny or blood or prophecy. You’re the key because you’re different every time.”

Noel blinked, his voice barely a whisper. “Every time…?”

Noctis nodded once. “Every cycle, when the world collapses, it starts again. The continents reset, the people are reborn, and time rewinds to the beginning. But the key—” he motioned toward Noel “—changes. A new soul. A new will. Sometimes a coward. Sometimes a hero. Sometimes… something in between.”

Charlotte’s lips parted, her voice trembling. “Then that means there were others like him before?”

Noctis’s eyes dimmed. “Thousands. And every one of them failed.”

The air grew heavy — colder than before.

Selene stepped forward slightly, her grip tightening around her wand. “Failed… to do what?”

“To reach him,” Noctis said. “My brother. Elarin.”

The name hung in the air like poison.

He took a slow breath, eyes lowering. “If you succeed — if you destroy him — the loop ends. Both of us disappear. The system dies. The world moves forward for the first time in eternity.”

Elyra’s voice was small, uncertain. “And if we fail?”

Noctis’s gaze lifted, his tone absolute. “Then the cycle restarts. Time bends back, the world forgets everything… and someone new wakes up in your place, Noel. Another version of you. Another key, trying again.”

The words sank deep — colder than any truth so far.

Noel’s chest tightened. He swallowed hard. “How many times has this happened?”

Noctis hesitated only a second. Then, quietly:

“More than a thousand.”

He looked at Noel — truly looked at him, as if studying something fragile. “You’re the closest any of them have come. But closeness means nothing if you stop here.”

The projection flickered, shadows passing across his face. “If you want to end this, you have to finish what no one else could. Because every failure means I wake up again, knowing I sent another innocent to die.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Noel stared at the floor, feeling the weight of a thousand unseen lives pressing on his shoulders.

And for the first time, Noctis’s voice broke ever so slightly. “I don’t want to reset again.”

The silence after Noctis’s words felt like a blade pressed against the air.

No one moved, not even Noir — her violet eyes glowed faintly from the shadows, fixed on the flickering blue figure before them.

It was Charlotte who finally broke the quiet, her voice soft but trembling. “And… what about us?”

Noctis looked at her. The question hung for a heartbeat before he answered.

“When the world resets,” he said quietly, “you all lose everything.”

Selene frowned, her grip tightening around her clothes. “Everything?”

He nodded once. “Your memories, your choices, your bonds. All of it. The moment the loop restarts, you’re reborn without knowing this ever happened. You don’t know Noel, you don’t know each other. You live your lives again — but not the same ones.”

Charlotte’s lips parted, but no sound came out.

Noctis continued, his tone steady but edged with something almost like regret.

“Maybe next time, you never meet him. Maybe the next ‘you’ never even looks his way. Maybe the world shifts so much that none of this ever happens.”

He turned his gaze toward Elyra, his expression grave. “Maybe your mother doesn’t survive that illness this time.”

Elyra froze, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes flicked downward, the sharp composure she always carried faltering.

Then his gaze moved to Selene. “Maybe you never free yourself from the chains your mother put around your life. Maybe you never fight back.”

Selene’s lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes hardening — not in defiance, but fear.

Noctis’s attention turned to Charlotte. His tone softened, almost pitying. “And you — Charlotte, the Saint. You’d probably spend your whole life trapped inside the Church, praying to a god who never hears you. Never meeting anyone who truly cared about you for you.”

Charlotte’s golden eyes widened, shimmering with tears she tried to hide.

Then he looked to Elena, his expression dimming. “You’d go back to your cage of expectations. Living for others — for the image your grandmother wanted — never for yourself.”

Elena didn’t flinch, but her fingers curled into her sleeves. The silence around her was loud enough to hurt.

Noctis let the weight of his words linger before adding, quietly, “That’s what happens when time resets. All of you become strangers again. Different stories, same world. The only thing that remembers you…” His eyes flicked toward Noel. “…is him.”

Noel’s breath hitched, a dull ache settling in his chest. He looked at each of them — Elyra, Selene, Charlotte, Elena — the thought of their lives erasing, their bonds dissolving like smoke.

Noctis’s voice fell to almost a whisper. “If this fails, the next version of you might never exist. And the next version of him…” — his gaze darkened — “might not have the strength to care anymore.”

The room went still. Even the faint hum of mana seemed to vanish.

Charlotte pressed her hand over her heart, whispering, “So this… this is what’s at stake.”

Noctis simply nodded. “Everything you are. Everything you’ve built. Gone. Again. Well, it’s not like you’re going to remember it anyway.”

Noctis’s tone shifted again — calm, precise, but carrying a faint undercurrent of exhaustion. The flickering light of his projection steadied as he looked directly at Noel.

“I can’t tell you who your enemies are,” he began, voice low and deliberate. “My brother’s influence has reached further than even I can see. He’s been… changing things, warping pieces of the loop. For the first time, it feels like he’s resisting it — pushing back against the reset itself.”

Noel frowned. “Resisting it? How—”

Noctis lifted a hand. “Don’t ask how. Just… be careful. I can’t name them, but I can tell you this: don’t trust too easily. Especially those you don’t truly know.”

The air grew tense again, his words sinking in like invisible weights.

He exhaled softly, his expression unreadable. “Now… about the crystal. As I said, it holds my brother. As long as it remains sealed, he can’t manifest freely — only whisper, only corrupt. Whoever took it has an advantage over us now. But he’s still caged.”

Noctis’s gaze sharpened, and he gave a small, almost reluctant smirk. “The only way he can escape is through a vessel — a body capable of holding his soul. And in this cycle, that would be you, Noel. Or…” — he paused, eyes flicking with faint amusement — “Marcus. You already know that, don’t you?”

Noel nodded slowly. “Yeah. Things didn’t happen like they did in the novel. A lot changed.”

Noctis’s faint smile returned. “Of course they did. The novel was just a trace of one failed loop — the last attempt. Marcus was supposed to be the protagonist that time.” He sighed, a quiet, tired sound. “Didn’t go well. The Noel of that world… didn’t last long. Couldn’t adapt.”

He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms. “But you did. You’ve lasted longer, gone farther, and done better than any before you. I didn’t expect it. Honestly? I’m impressed.”

Noel blinked, thrown off by the sudden praise. “…Thanks?”

Noctis chuckled lightly. “Don’t sound so unsure. You earned it. You’ve done more in one life than a thousand others before you.”

Noel hesitated before blurting out, “Wait— have you… seen everything?”

The corners of Noctis’s mouth twitched upward. “Everything that matters.”

Noel’s expression stiffened. He glanced awkwardly at Elena and Elyra before muttering, “You mean— you didn’t see, uh… everything, right?”

Noctis stared for a beat, then burst into genuine laughter — deep and unrestrained for the first time. “Oh no, no, relax! I’m not interested in your little extracurricular activities.”

Noel let out a long, audible breath of relief. “Good.”

When the laughter faded, Noctis’s expression softened. “But I’ve seen enough to say this: you’ve changed. The boy who arrived here lost and angry isn’t the one standing now. You’ve found people. A reason to fight. A place to belong.”

The faint hum of mana filled the silence between them.

“Enjoy it while you can,” Noctis added quietly. “Because things won’t stay pretty from here on.”

The blue light around him dimmed slightly, flickering at the edges. He glanced down, almost wistful. “Looks like I’ve got about five minutes left. So—” he gestured loosely with his hand, his voice softening again. “Ask whatever you want, Noel. If I can answer, I will. After this, I won’t have enough strength to appear again.”

The words hung heavy in the air — final, absolute.

Noel exchanged looks with the girls. Even Noir lifted her head, her violet eyes reflecting the glow of the fading hologram.

For once, there were no jokes, no interruptions. Only questions waiting to be asked.