North Drake
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Book 1: Prologue: The Last Day And The First Day
🕑 Added 2025-08-03 16:42:27 +0000 UTCHey, I did a little rewrite of the very first chapter. I don’t think it’s perfect, but I do think it reads a lot smoother now. I’ll also be reworking the next chapters over the coming weeks, whenever I have a bit of spare time. When I finally finish my work on Book 1, I’ll provide a new EPUB for everyone here! (:
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By Her Grace – a progressive Isekai Light Novel
Prologue:
The Last Day And The First Day
Grace woke up early at 6 a.m., just before her alarm went off. Today was the best day of her sixteen-year-long life. Her last day. It was breathtaking. Amazing. Wonderful. It was everything Grace had hoped for.
Grace stood up, yawned, and walked to her mirror. She saw a girl about 5'6" tall with average looks. Like most girls her age, she had grown out her black hair. Her eyes were muddy brown with no shine to them. All in all, Grace thought she was a pretty boring girl. But today, for the first time, it felt good to be so average. No one would pay attention to her.
She poked her cheeks. "Finally, I won’t have to see you anymore," she muttered, then turned away from the mirror and got dressed. She put on her school uniform; first the stockings, then the top, and finally the skirt. She tied her hair into a ponytail and fastened a red bow around it.
After dressing, she emptied her school bag onto the floor. Books, notebooks, and pens scattered across the floor in a chaotic heap. Today, none of it mattered. No homework, no tests, and no expectations. It was liberating. She giggled—a sound that felt strange in the otherwise quiet room.
Grace grabbed her empty school bag and carefully packed a previously prepared package inside, handling it as if it were fragile. Once it was tucked away, she zipped the bag shut and slung the strap over her shoulder. It felt oddly heavy.
Without hesitation, she stepped out of her bedroom and quietly closed the door behind her. She was going to school. As she walked down the hallway, the house was silent. Her parents were still asleep, unaware that today was different. Grace moved silently, her footsteps light against the floor. Reaching the front door, she paused for a moment. "Well, see ya in hell, boring folks..." she mumbled and closed the door behind her. It was as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Finally, she closed this door forever, and she would never open it again.
Aside from her average looks, Grace was anything but average. She possessed a photographic memory, had a significantly above-average IQ, and had been training her body since she was a child. Grace had been bored ever since she was five.
She lived in a dull world where, while her average looks allowed her to fit in perfectly on the surface, her other qualities made her feel like a one-eyed person among the blind. At the age of five, Grace became aware for the first time that she was living in a boring world full of fools. Her peers at school couldn’t articulate themselves properly, spent their days talking nonsense, and, even worse, the adults didn’t understand the simplest mathematical formulas, had no idea how to optimize or improve themselves, and wasted their lives leading lives that were far too dull.
Around that time, Grace began to discover the world of literature. Her role models were no longer real but fictional. She was particularly drawn to characters who turned away from the established system and broke free from it. Inspired by these fictional characters, Grace began to shape her life around them.
She now sought not only to broaden her horizons with classical education but also absorbed everything that happened in her fantasy stories. As a result, Grace identified three key elements of life on which she wanted to grow: Eruditas, the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual clarity; Vitalis, the balance of physical health and strength; and Dominatus, the quiet strength of superiority through understatement and strategic restraint.
This led her to start attending various sports classes, with a particular focus on martial arts, in her quest for self-improvement. With each passing day, Grace’s determination to master the elements she had chosen grew stronger, but so did her sense of superiority. As her knowledge expanded and her body grew stronger, she began to see herself as someone far above those around her, a silent observer in a world full of mediocrity.
When Grace arrived at school, no one paid her any mind. She was a little early for class; not many students had arrived yet. A small grin crossed her face as she stepped through the doorway. That was it, her last day in this damn boring world, and it was going to be glorious.
Some students eyed the average-looking girl in the entrance hall. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she moving? After a few seconds, she reached into her bag and pulled something out. Gasps broke the silence. The girl now stood before them holding a gun. A deafening bang. She raised the weapon and fired at the ceiling. Then she aimed at the few students with a smirk on her face and stated, "Do you want to live? Get out of here!"
Silence. No one dared to say a word.
"Oh, come on, puppets, hush." Her voice was almost playful, but there was a dangerous edge to it. One of the students, trembling, slowly began to move toward the door, his eyes never leaving the gun. Grace’s smirk didn’t falter, but her eyes locked onto him, calculating. "Smart move," she said softly, before turning her gaze to the others, her finger still resting on the trigger. Abruptly, the other students left the hall as well. “Good,” said Grace to herself, pulling more items from her school bag.
She glanced around the empty hall, now cleared of its audience. Not a single body left behind. That, too, was part of the plan. Grace had never intended to kill anyone here, not because she cared, but because it would have cheapened things. Shooting her classmates would have been a pathetic copy of other, lesser acts; pointless violence by the desperate and invisible. She wasn’t desperate. She was the main event.
Besides, their lives meant nothing to her. The so-called “blind” didn’t matter, not enough to warrant her effort, not enough to be the centerpiece of her final performance. Real power wasn’t measured in body counts. It was in making the world watch, unable to look away.
Grace felt certain, almost amused, at the thought that none of this would end with her death. Death was for those who vanished, who became nothing. But she would remain, unchanged and undimmed. She’d glimpsed it before: that inner radiance, quietly threaded through her life, always just beneath the surface. The bomb, the stream, the spectacle, these were only the final notes in her own carefully composed symphony. Definitely not a suicide, but a passage. A statement, not a surrender. Her certainty shone within her, unwavering and absolute, a quiet light that would not be extinguished.
Light. It was always there, even when everything else was dark around her.
There had always been a kind of hush around her, even as a child, a silence that stuck to her skin like dust. She remembered waking up before sunrise, padding quietly through a house already emptied of warmth. Her parents spoke in passing, voices drifting by like echoes in a station. Meals were spent staring at screens. Sometimes she’d try to catch their attention with a clever line, a good grade, a joke borrowed from a show. Usually, she got a nod or nothing at all. The loneliness felt physical, as if she could press a finger to her chest and find a hollow there. But she was not alone.
Even then, she sensed it: a strange, steady presence, somewhere deep inside. Not a voice or a whisper, it was just a glimmer, like a thin seam of light under a locked door. It never told her what to do, but it never left her alone, either. Sometimes she’d close her eyes and chase it, willing it to turn into something more. But it stayed where it was: patient, and unchanging. As if it was waiting for her to catch up.
She learned to fill the emptiness with other things, stories, games, endless scrolling through places where no one knew her name. She got used to her own company. She grew smart, then sharp, and finally restless. She watched the world for patterns, tested its limits, poked at the edges to see if it would bleed. If she ever wondered what was wrong with her, she learned to bury the question.
It wasn’t until she went live for the first time—awkward, unscripted, and anonymous—that something clicked. The chat scrolled, the notifications pinged, strangers watched her and for a brief hour she felt the world reaching back. Attention washed over her like heat. It didn’t fix the hollow, but it lit it up.
She started streaming more. Late nights, weird hours, her face half-lit by the screen. Her words reached people. They followed. They cared, or pretended to. And that was enough. It became the only time she felt real, when she could see her effect ripple outward, instant and bright. She could be anyone she wanted, but more than that, she could be seen.
The world stayed dull and distant, but she didn’t care. She had her light, her audience, her own pulse flickering in every reply and emoji and stream highlight. Alone, yes. But never invisible.
Now, in the echoing quiet of the school hall, with the weight of her own plan pressing in from all sides, Grace felt the familiar glow. She was in control. She was moving forward. It wasn’t a death or a plea, just one last, brilliant turn in the spotlight.
She caught her reflection in the glass; average, forgettable, but with eyes now alive with certainty. If the world wanted a villain, a legend, or a ghost, she would be all three. But never ordinary; she wanted to be the antagonist of this dull world.
The next item she pulled out of her back, was a camera that connected to her smartphone via Bluetooth as soon as she pressed the “on” button.
Soon, she was online and saw her viewers entering the stream. She posed for the camera with a peace sign and began speaking:
“Hey, it’s me again, DarkGirl112… yay!!!”
“As promised yesterday, I’m in my school right now, and look guys,” she pointed at her gun, “I’m totally weaponized. Haha. I’m glad you’re all here!”
The moment Grace showed the gun, the chat exploded with a mix of shock and excitement, messages flooding in at an insane pace:
“WHAT THE HELL?!”
“IS THIS REAL?!”
“DarkGirl112, you’re crazy!!”
“Are you going to shoot someone??”
“OMG, you’re SO badass!”
“This is insane, I’m here for it!!”
Grace began to giggle. “Hey, stop it, guys! I actually shot at the ceiling—look!” She pointed the camera at the ceiling, then placed it back on the stairs. “So, guys, the show must go on!”
With that, Grace ignored the chat and pulled out a third item from her school bag, her own homemade bomb. She grinned as she looked at it. After all, homemade was obviously better than any store-bought bomb; it hadn’t been made by those amateurs from her world, but by Grace herself.
She placed the bomb between her legs and pressed a button on it. It started to tick.
“Alright, guys, are you ready for the promised show?” Grace winked at her viewers.
The chat exploded with excitement.
“YESSS, the real action begins! Show us what you got, DarkGirl112!”
“She’s going all out now! Let’s see how far she takes it!”
“You’re crazy, DarkGirl112! I’m loving it!!!”
The viewers’ comments flooded the screen, each more thrilled and encouraging than the last. Grace's grin widened as she read through the messages.
But not all viewers liked the madness they witnessed. Some viewers began posting their locations, desperate to alert authorities in the hope of stopping her before it was too late.
“This isn’t funny anymore. Someone needs to stop her!”
“DarkGirl112, what are you doing?! This isn’t a game!”
“I’m calling the cops, this is insane!”
The chat became increasingly frantic as more viewers tried to intervene, but Grace remained unfazed, fully absorbed in the chaos she was creating.
"Calm down, guys," Grace stated. "The authorities are already informed; didn’t you forget I shot in the school? LOL." She paused, smiling at the camera, letting the tension build. Then, with a faint grin, she ignored the chat again.
Outside, the sound of loud voices and sirens grew nearer. The timing was almost perfect now… just a little more to go.
But who was the streamer DarkGirl112 actually? Over time, the name DarkGirl112 started to spread through forums, late-night chats, and private servers, a digital rumor given form. Her streams weren’t about connection; she wanted an audience, not friends. She measured herself in view counts, in ripple effects, in the heat her words could generate half a world away. What she built online was a following as sharp-edged and unpredictable as she was, drawn to her mix of cold logic and showmanship. Together, they mocked the world, pushed at boundaries for fun or out of boredom, sometimes just to see what would break. If there was ever loyalty, it was a cult of personality, nothing more.
It was exactly what Grace wanted, not intimacy, but attention; not acceptance, but a stage, and the more notorious she became, the more she felt the world finally responding.
So, it came to be that Grace sifted through various internet forums and found like-minded individuals online. They were, admittedly, a bit morally questionable, but they shared Grace's wavelength and understood her unique perspective. And Grace became something of an idol within this niche community, using her streams to share her worldview and connect with the like-minded individuals she had found. Her community typically shared the same views, humor, and perspectives on the world. They mocked the established society, and some members even set out to push and break societal boundaries. For Grace, it was the perfect place to build a community according to her will, steer it in her desired direction, and put herself in the spotlight. The early streams of DarkGirl112 were relatively harmless, mostly falling into the "just chatting" category, where Grace interacted with her viewers.
However, her streams became increasingly controversial. DarkGirl112 soon became known as a hidden gem in the forums—a go-to for those looking for a society-critical stream from an idol who also offered intense and provocative content. One particularly legendary stream was when DarkGirl112, wearing a mask, went live at night and beat up drunk people.
But the last stream was about to break all boundaries. The day before, DarkGirl112 had announced her 'final and greatest' stream, sending many of her now numerous fans into a frenzy. And here she was now, armed with a pistol in the stream and sitting on a bomb. In total, there were 564 viewers live, following her final stream.
“Tick… Tack…” Grace grinned at the camera and pointed at the bomb between her feet.
Behind her, the viewers could see the door to the school entrance hall open, and a few police officers stepped into the hall. The officers stared at the scene in front of them for a moment, unsure if they were perceiving the situation correctly. Then, one of them quickly pulled out his radio and whispered something into the mic, while the other took a cautious step forward, his weapon drawn. Grace continued to grin at the camera, her eyes never leaving it.
"And now... the entrance of the heroes of our world… Guys! Look at how they’re pointing a gun at a sixteen-year-old girl… OMG!"
Her Chat was going crazy again at the scenery:
"This is next level! This is crazy entertainment!"
"Guys, this is really bad. Someone needs to stop her!"
"WTF? You’re going too far now, DarkGirl112. Put the gun down!"
"DarkGirl112, you're literally a legend. Don’t stop this show."
The officers were clearly overwhelmed by the situation and didn’t know exactly how to respond. The officer who had aimed his weapon at Grace shouted, “Get on the floor and drop the weapon!”
In response, Grace burst into maniacal laughter. “Are you sure you’re capable of ordering me around, Mr. Officer?” Grace shouted back, then pointed at the bomb at her feet. “This is no dummy! You can believe me, so you better step back...”
The officer hesitated, his hand shaking slightly as he kept the gun aimed at Grace, unsure of what to do next. Grace’s grin only grew wider, her eyes wild with excitement as she continued to taunt him, her foot lightly tapping the bomb. The tension in the air was palpable, and it seemed like the entire room was holding its breath.
Suddenly, a faint clicking sound echoed through the hall—it was not the trigger of a gun; no, it was the bomb. The officers' eyes widened, the tension rising even more as they looked at each other, unsure of what had just happened. Grace, however, seemed even more exhilarated, her grin turning into an almost predatory smile.
Grace turned back to her online audience. “It’s about time, Ladies and Gentlemen! Count with me from 3…”
The officers' long training kicked in, and they quickly turned to flee the hall, attempting to put as much distance between themselves and the imminent danger.
Grace had reached the end of her plan, her eyes gleaming with a wild excitement. She knew it was over the top, maybe even cliché, but she didn’t care, she admired figures like the Joker, especially Ledger’s version from The Dark Knight. There was something pure in that kind of chaos, that ability to tear down the world just to see what might crawl out from the ruins. In her mind, the Joker wasn’t just a villain; he was the proof that you could spit in the face of society and make the world watch you burn it. Grace grinned at the camera, hungry for attention. Rules were for people afraid to see the truth.
The thought of leaving this empty world behind hadn’t come from despair. No, she believed herself an evolutionary apex, too sharp and brilliant for the dim, ordinary masses around her. Every day, her ego grew, fed by her own perfect memory and obsessive cataloging of every detail, every victory, every slight. She trained herself to recall every lesson, every movement, copying fighting styles from anime and games as if real life were just another simulation to master. Somewhere along the way, reality and fiction stopped meaningfully diverging.
She idolized not just the Joker, but also the Narrator from Fight Club, the nameless voice who broke free by destroying everything that defined him, and, of course, Lord Henry Wotton, Oscar Wilde’s charming monster of cynicism and indulgence. Grace borrowed their philosophies wholesale: she was above morality, untethered from conscience, entitled to pleasure and power because she could see further, feel deeper, want more.
Of course, she’d want to escape this world. The only real surprise was that it took her so long to realize just how bored she was. The plan came together in fragments, first, there were memories from before birth, blurry and luminous, always surrounded by light. The light was comforting and guiding. In those memories, she saw herself as a golden sphere drifting through an infinite space of branching radiance. She convinced herself that her soul—yes, that sphere—had chosen this world precisely because it was dull. No rivals. No real challenge. It was a sandbox for her greatness. Now, the time had come to leave this boring world behind and decide for herself where to go next. She was destined for more.
She doubled down: meditation, lucid dreaming, staring into herself until she was sure she could glimpse the In-Between, a place where normal souls lost themselves and began again, but not her. She was certain she could break the cycle, take her memories, and shape her own future. She believed it absolutely. That was her edge, her pride, her flaw, and her entire identity.
Her three pillars—Eruditas, Vitalis, Dominatus—were gospel. Self-perfection was prophecy. The only thing left was to make the world witness her exit, edgy, theatrical, and unforgettable. In the end, it wasn’t about freedom. It was about proving she was never ordinary, not for a second.
The officers left the school just in time. As they were outside, it exploded behind them. In disbelief, they looked back at the destruction...
On the same day, Grace became the number one topic on all news channels. Clips from her stream were shown repeatedly. The stream was analyzed minute by minute, with every detail recapped, and friends and classmates were interviewed. The online forums of Grace's community were also buzzing with activity.
Comments flooded in:
"They’ll try to call her crazy, but she’s just ahead of her time. The world will catch up eventually."
"DarkGirl112 knew what she was doing from the start. Her whole life was leading to this moment. Respect."
"No one has ever been this bold. What DarkGirl112 did was necessary, it needed to happen. We need more like her."
"I don't get it. She killed herself. What was the point? This isn’t some movie; this is real life."
"I was a fan, but this... this is just too far…”
But the overwhelming sentiment in the forums was one of shock, their beloved DarkGirl112 left the world without her simps. Many people believed also this was a conspiracy and DarkGirl112 was actually alive.
And Grace? It was her last day. A glorious last day. A day to remember… but also a day full of her exaggerated ego and pointless self-promotion.
And then, it was dark. Nothing no golden orb, no golden branches…
…
…
Grace opened her eyes. It was her first day in her new life.
Comments
The Time walrus
I definitely feel like it does a better job setting up... basically everything actually. I'm not sure if it would fit with Grace's character, it kind of goes against her philosophy, but I would have loved a good monologue from her instead of just grinning. But that's just because I'm a sucker for a good dramatic monologue. Reading this also made me realize I hope we get at least a little bit more of the original Grace back. She's silly and naive, but I can't help but love her self assuredness and drive.
Bunny
Wow! Your revision turned out great. Im happy you took the time to rewrite it, it gave the first chapter alot of depth. Gone is the cringy schoolshooter, giving stage to an intelligent, somewhat crazy and mysterious girl. I liked it alot! Already looking forward to the next chapters!
