Only I Am A Reader

'She seems to be quite strong.'

If Leo had listened to Aurora's call, he would have been surprised once again by the sudden change in her personality.

The speech might have not changed, but the person who told it wasn't exactly the same. That being said, Leo had long left the scene. He was more interested in his fangirl's identity.

'Could it be a relevant character in disguise?'

Considering that her abilities couldn't be underestimated, Leo wondered if he was missing something.

It could have been some mischievous Villain who was using his name to sow chaos, the novel was already deviating too much that it seemed viable. However…

'It's not even remotely close.'

Leo's perfect memory of the novel couldn't be doubted. Aside from the similarity to his own abilities, nothing like the fangirl's abilities had appeared in the novel.

No matter how Leo looked at it, she appeared to be a completely new character…

'Well, another thing to search for.'

As much as Leo wanted to just catch the girl and find out everything he wanted to do, not even he could track her. Her Enigma also seemed to share the same subtle attribute of his own. 𝚋𝚎𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖ𝚎𝚕.𝚗𝚎𝚝

As such, he could only settle for the next best thing, searching the web. If she was truly an ardent fan like she claimed to be, she had to have left a digital footprint at one of the Cassian Fanatics' forums.

'I didn't really want to do that, but…'

In reality, Leo had been keeping away from all things related to him online. It was nice to be praised online, but Cassian's fans were on another level.

Not to mention those who idolized him for being 'pure evil', even those who harmlessly saw him as a cool person had a lot of cringe-worthy posts.

Leo had been traumatized when he took one look out of curiosity. Unfortunately, it seemed like he had to relive that trauma again very soon…

Preparing for variables was a necessity. Leo couldn't just ignore someone who might screw up everything for him, so he had to make some sacrifices.

'Of course, the next event takes precedence.'

Before he knew it, Leo had already traveled back to his safe house. Naturally, what occupied himself the most was still the Gate Clearing Event, finding clues to the fangirl's identity was just a bonus task.

'Wait.'

…Or so he thought.

'Someone is here!'

He had yet to enter the building, but Leo already received a response from the Shadow that he left lying around!

Did the squatter return? With how meticulous he had been, Leo believed that someone like that wouldn't go back to the same place twice. Unless…

'That was really intentional!'

Just as Leo had guessed before, the person who entered before didn't do so at random! Leo wasn't sure how they found out about his safe house, but this whole situation reeked!

The timing was especially strange. Was this home invader waiting for him to leave before stepping foot inside?

If that was truly the case, Leo would have surely noticed it. However, this couldn't be a pure coincidence. Something was definitely wrong.

'You want Cassian? Fine.'

Without hesitation, Leo used Shadow Movement to instantly appear on the right floor.

Rather than being intimidated by the situation, he welcomed it. Things were a bit entangled, but the Invader had come back just as Leo hoped.

As long as he caught him, he could finally find the answer to one of his many curious questions!

'I will give you Cassian.'

Before going in, Leo used Shadow Copy to change back to Cassian's popularized outfit. It was an all-black suit and his signature mask.

Since this Invader had left him confused, Leo wanted to make sure that he would return the favor.

Melting into the floor, Leo seamlessly went through the door but chose to remain hidden. The Invader wasn't in the living room that was right behind the main door, his presence came from Leo's bedroom!

'Caught y…'

In the next instant, Leo was already emerging from the Bedroom floor. However, the scene he saw wasn't what he expected.

'What is this?'

A girl was lying on the bed and hugging his pillow. Moreover, it wasn't just any girl.

'Is this for real?'

Her figure wasn't as visible now that she buried herself in the bed, but the faint Enigma was unmistakable. This was the fangirl that had just crashed Aurora's public event! The same one that had glanced in his direction before disappearing!

'I knew it couldn't be a coincidence, but this is too big of a leap!'

Once Leo ran some theories in his head, the fangirl being the home invader actually made a lot of sense, albeit a bit hard to swallow.

'...Focus.'

Leo's mind almost went to hypothesis wonderland trying to understand everything, but he quickly switched his focus to what was important. His Shadow already covered the bed's base as tendrils grew high above.

'I can question her all about it later.'

He needed to catch this Intruder first! Once Leo had her in his bindings, he could slowly extract the facts that he needed to properly comprehend the reason behind this.

"Ah!"

The Shadow tendrils made the bed look like a Venus Flytrap that was ready for its meal. However, just as it was about to close over the oblivious fly, she slipped out of the bed as if something had pulled her away with a rope.

"It- It's-"

Landing perfectly on the floor, her eyes met Leo's, prompting a jolt of awkwardness from both of them. Nonetheless, the Shadow tendrils still tried to do their job as they extended toward their target's new location.

"C- C-"

On the other hand, the girl continued to stutter as if unaware of her situation. Still, once the tendrils reached her again, her body suddenly sprung above. Her back was now stuck to the ceiling!

"Y-"

Seeing that direct capture wasn't working against the Invader's unpredictableness, Leo tried to initiate some sort of conversation to distract her. However…

"Sorry!"

The girl only blurted an apology before performing the same magic trick she used at First Hero Plaza, she pulled down a black curtain from the ceiling before rolling into it.

'Seriously?'

Leo had gone in rushing to find answers, only to stumble into more complicated questions…