Chapter 254: Defining Justice

“Promise me you won’t deny my words and will admit the truth… Ow.”

I kicked the shin of the person spewing nonsense.

Reysir, who wasn’t even actually hurt, made a fuss and finally took his hand off my mouth. I honestly don’t know why he only stops his ridiculous behavior after getting hit.

“Let me be clear, my nature is nothing like what you just said.”

“Then what is it?”

“……”

I had spoken up to correct Reysir’s misunderstanding, but the follow-up question left me speechless. I couldn’t exactly tell him about my {Author} and {Possessiveness} attributes.

As I remained silent, unable to offer a rebuttal, I saw Reysir’s eyes curve into a mischievous shape.

“Why can’t you answer? You really are a tsundere cat, aren’t you?”

“That is absolutely not it.”

“Then what? Shy and bashful? Playing hard to get?”

“……”

At this point, I even wondered if it would be better to just reveal my {Possessiveness} attribute. At least if I mentioned that, I might become someone to avoid, but I wouldn’t be overcome with this wave of shame.

‘Wait, no. If it’s Reysir, would he just find a way to link that back to being a tsundere and use it to tease me?’

I couldn’t talk about the {Author} attribute either. He would inevitably ask how that could even be an attribute, not to mention his persistent demands to see any novel I might be writing.

There was the option of making up a lie, but that would be the worst possible move. Once the [Truth-Reading Eye] skill developed further and the stage three options were unlocked, he would be able to read attributes as well.

‘It’s better not to tell a lie that will obviously be caught…’

Hold on. Given the circumstances, even if [Truth-Reading Eye] became capable of reading attributes, wasn’t there a high probability that the {Author} attribute wouldn’t be read correctly and would instead be strangely distorted?

Perhaps only {Possessiveness} would be shown, but that was just a ‘perhaps.’ If [Truth-Reading Eye] succeeded in detecting both attributes, the {Author} attribute would likely be replaced by whatever embarrassing and cringeworthy word Reysir associated it with.

Therefore…

“Reysir.”

“Yeah?”

“If your skill ever evolves and allows you to read even more information, do not use it on me. If you’re curious about changing elements like stats or skill ranks, I’ll tell you as much as you want. Just never try to read them yourself.”

I had no choice but to speak in a serious tone. If the word {Tsundere} actually appeared on my status window through his [Truth-Reading Eye]… I would be so ashamed that I wouldn’t be able to show my face anywhere.

“Do you have such an embarrassing attribute that you have to make a request like that?”

“It’s not really like that… Anyway, just don’t do it if I tell you not to.”

“All right, if that’s what you want.”

Originally, he didn’t use [Truth-Reading Eye] on me recklessly anyway. Since he had made a promise, Reysir would never use that skill on me behind my back.

‘Judging by the way he’s smirking, he seems convinced my attribute is one of those words…!’

Still, it was better than having it confirmed. I tried to find comfort in that fact. However, I couldn’t suppress the surge of irritation rising within me, and I found myself glaring at him while muttering.

“With a personality like this, how can your representative attribute be {Justice}…?”

I suspected that a ‘hateful and sly prankster’ was quite far from the protagonist image Author Senna pursued. In the Original Work before the remake, Reysir was described as a serious and weighty character. His extraordinary nature and heroic qualities, so different from ordinary people, were also heavily emphasized.

It was only natural that words like ‘mischievous’ were not registered as the Original Protagonist’s attribute.

‘Still, couldn’t he have had something like Persistence or Tenacity as an attribute?’

Of course, {Justice} felt much cooler and more like a protagonist than those words. A ‘righteous protagonist’ was a guaranteed steady seller, after all. Furthermore, the word ‘Justice’ carried the meaning of ‘the correct path following the truth.’

Therefore, it was a very appropriate attribute for someone possessing the Silver Ethere of the ‘Truth’ characteristic.

But…

‘If you ask whether Reysir is an absolutely righteous person, well, that’s another story.’

Of course, if you had to pick between righteous or not, he was definitely on the righteous side. However, Reysir simply moved toward his own goals; he didn’t take the lead and fight specifically for the sake of justice.

This didn’t mean he turned a blind eye to the oppressed or yielded to injustice in the original work. It was just that the situation itself didn’t provide him with a reason to steel his resolve in the name of justice.

‘His goal was to find the cause of the Demonic Realm’s creation and eliminate the phenomenon entirely, so he mostly fought monsters!’

The Demonic Realm and monsters were strictly ‘disasters,’ not injustices that stood against righteousness. Occasionally, he encountered villains like Karbaldr in the Demonic Realm and executed them, or took down the suspicious organization that had turned Nidhr into a monster.

But looking back, that was more of a response to a fight initiated by the opponent rather than an act of conscious justice.

He had clashed with the Imperial Family, which was thick with corruption, but he didn’t plan a full-scale rebellion. His actions were limited to passive resistance. Part of that was because it was impossible to gather a following when everyone around him ended up dead.

‘If I look for the fundamental cause…’

In the first place, Author Senna portrayed the Imperial Family as a corrupt group to heap pain and trials upon her protagonist, not to write a revolutionary narrative about overturning the social system. Toward the end, Reysir became so strong that even the Imperial Family couldn’t touch him, but that was it.

‘When I read the novel, I just passed over it without much thought…’

Now that I was thinking deeply and weighing everything, I concluded that the original author had messed up the settings. If she gave her protagonist the {Justice} attribute, she should have prepared a story to match it.

If she had no intention of changing the planned storyline, she should have at least modified the attribute registered in the protagonist’s status window.

“Why? Do you think I’m not a righteous person? Is it because I tease you a lot?”

As the [Character Analysis] skill ended, I heard Reysir’s questioning voice. Seeing him grinning, he was definitely making fun of me.

“I know that being playful and being righteous are two different things. It’s just that I don’t think {Justice} is the right word to define you…”

I was snapping back irritably when I paused. I realized that the word ‘Justice’ could have more than one meaning; there were numerous homonyms. Author Senna likely meant ‘Justice’ as in righteousness, but since the characters weren’t specified…

“Then what word do you think fits me?”

“……Justice.”

“Huh? Didn’t you say it doesn’t fit?”

While it was impossible for me to change the words written in Reysir’s status window, there was room for a different interpretation.

“I don’t mean ‘Justice’ in the sense of being ‘just.’ I mean ‘Definition’—the act of defining something.”

Among the words with the same sound, if I were to find one that could serve as an attribute and suited Reysir… there was ‘Loyalty’ or ‘Affection.’ Or by changing just one character, there was ‘Warmheartedness.’

“So, what is the {Justice} you’ve defined for me?”

“If I tell you… are you willing to accept it as the word that defines you?”

“Yeah. To be honest, being called ‘righteous’ never really resonated with me either. Besides, don’t you have that [Person Analysis] skill?”

“That skill doesn’t provide direct help in analyzing someone.”

“That’s why I can trust it more. It means you’re already someone who knows how to carefully observe and understand others, as long as you have the time to think.”

I always felt this, but he was really good at saying such embarrassing things with complete sincerity. Because of that, I leaned more toward the word meaning ‘Warmheartedness,’ but…

‘If the words I say right now are what determines Reysir’s attribute…’

I spoke carefully.

“Not in the form of ‘being just,’ but used as the word ‘Definition.’ The act of clearly clarifying and determining the meaning of a word or object… I think this word suits you best as your representative term.”

Rather than an attribute emphasizing a warm heart, this was much more fitting for the protagonist image Author Senna pursued, in the sense that it carried authority and weight. Therefore, it would be easily accepted as an official setting.

Furthermore, according to the original work, Reysir would later obtain a skill called [Discernment of Good and Evil]. Since that was a Silver Aether attribute skill derived from the {Justice} attribute, I concluded that ‘Definition’ was more appropriate than ‘Affection.’

“Why? Is it because I defined you as a tsundere and treated you like a cat?”

“……”

I couldn’t say that wasn’t part of the reason. As I avoided his gaze and looked away silently, Reysir let out a soft chuckle. I wondered why there wasn’t a word that sounded like ‘Justice’ but meant ‘He’s so annoying I could die.’

“Rather than that… weren’t you going to write down your status window and show it to me?”

“Ah, right. I did say that, didn’t I?”

Lest Reysir change his mind and say he couldn’t accept ‘Definition’ as his attribute, I signaled my intention to end the conversation on that topic and move on. Fortunately, he accepted this and immediately adjusted his grip on the marker.

[Strength] 119

[Stamina] 126

[Agility] 107

[Mental Strength] 82

[Aether (Truth)] 100

[Aether (Lightning)] 128

[Defense] 105

[Attribute Resistance] 99

***

I had wondered if his stats would be higher since he reached S-rank in [Spearmanship] faster than in the version before the remake, and it was exactly as I expected. Even his lowest stat, Mental Strength, was much higher than mine, and the rest were at a level that didn’t even allow for comparison.