"You truly are in an exquisite predicament, aren't you, Amon?" Masha's voice was like honey laced with needles, her teasing smile never wavering.
"I appreciate the praise, Masha," I replied, my voice deadpan as I stared back with a blank expression.
A second ago, I had been in the bathroom, the shock of cold water against my skin the only thing keeping me grounded. Now, I was in a bourgeois living room—another of Masha's whimsical fabrications—seated in an armchair while she lounged across from me.
"Relax. I'll port you back to the exact microsecond I snatched you," she chirped, her smile widening until it was almost predatory. "You won't be late for your little 'playdate' with that adorable sister of yours."
"Did you summon me here just to sharpen your wit at my expense?" I asked. I was beyond being startled. My exhaustion with the System—and with her—had reached a point of absolute emotional stasis.
"Not quite," she chuckled, her playful aura shifting into something slightly more clinical. "I summoned you because I'm curious. You had a golden opportunity to create a skill that negated the side effects of your 'Final Boss' cheat. You could have erased the risk of madness entirely. Yet, you chose [No Longer Human]. Why?"
"It's simple math," I answered, my tone clinical. "In a world governed by a System with a will of its own, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If I had tried to force a loophole to negate a fundamental limitation, the System would have balanced the scales. It would have imposed a hidden penalty—something far more insidious and restrictive than a threat of madness."
I paused, meeting her gaze with a level of clarity that seemed to surprise even her.
"I conjectured that a 'counter-skill' would have been nerfed or tethered by some balancing mechanic that I couldn't foresee. By creating a separate, offensive SS-rank skill instead, I avoided that risk."
"Impressive," Masha said, offering a slow, deliberate nod of approval. "I'll admit, I expected a certain level of density—perhaps even idiocy—from someone in your position. It appears my initial assessment was flawed."
I offered no rebuttal. I simply sat there, watching her silently as she rose from the bed and crossed the room toward me. Every step she took felt like a predator closing the distance, her presence expanding until it filled the bourgeois space.
"You possess a keen eye for observation, Amon. Your reasoning is... sophisticated," she continued, stopping just inches from my chair. She leaned down, her gaze boring into mine with a newfound, predatory interest. "Most would have been blinded by the allure of a 'perfect' counter-skill. They would have walked right into the System's balancing trap and brought a swift, miserable misfortune upon themselves."
I hadn't expected praise from her. In fact, hearing it sent a cold shiver of anxiety through me. Being 'interesting' to an entity like her was a double-edged sword. If Masha thought I was clever, she wouldn't hesitate to throw me into a nigh-impossible quest.
"Your flattery is duly noted," I said, my voice steady despite the alarm bells ringing in my head. "But I have a duel in ten minutes. Are we finished with the interview?"
"Aw, you're no fun at all!" Masha pouted, her voice trailing off into a theatrical whine. She looked genuinely wounded, though I knew it was just another layer of her performance. "I'm standing right here, practically within kissing distance, and you're still so... tepid. Do you have a heart of stone, or are you just that bored with me?"
I stared at her in a long, heavy silence. The proximity was objectively awkward, a calculated move to throw me off balance.
"... Just send me back," I said finally. My expression didn't shift into anger or embarrassment; it settled into a look of quiet, awkward resignation.
Masha sighed, a sound that managed to be both melodic and mocking. "Fine, fine. Back to the lions' den you go. But don't say I didn't try to give you a moment of 'relief' before your sister tries to break your ribs."
She snapped her fingers.
The bourgeois living room dissolved into a blur of colours, and the scent of expensive perfume was replaced by the sharp, sterile smell of my room's bathroom. I was back in front of the mirror, the cold water still dripping from my chin.
. . .
Amon and Sophia stood at opposite ends of a tranquil, green plateau. Sophia had traded her doll dress for a black t-shirt and white baggy pants—practical, loose, and lethal. She looked every bit the combat specialist she was destined to become.
"I won't be holding back, Amon," she warned, a manic grin stretching across her face. With a shimmer of magium, a sword materialised in her grip. She settled into a low, aggressive stance. "You'd better brace yourself."
"I'd be disappointed if you did anything less," Amon countered. He didn't reach for a blade. Instead, a sleek, matte-black wand slid into his hand.
Sophia stared at the tool for a heartbeat before erupting into a mocking laugh. "A wand? Seriously, Amon? Hahaha! We're fighting like a coward today, are we?" She wiped a stray tear of laughter from her eye, her amusement genuine.
"Forced Obeisance."
The words were barely a whisper, but the effect was instantaneous. Amon pointed the wand, and the air around Sophia didn't just thicken—it collapsed. An invisible, crushing weight slammed into her shoulders. Her laughter cut off with a grunt as she was forced onto one knee, the ground beneath her boots cracking from the sheer gravitational pressure.
"Hellfire Arrow."
Amon didn't give her a second to breathe. Dozens of glowing, orange-red magic circles materialised in the sky like a crown of embers. From their centres, arrows of brilliant, liquid flame rained down, turning the plateau into a furnace.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"You've been training well, Amon," a voice whispered directly into his ear.
The flames were still roaring where she had been a second ago, but Sophia was already gone. She appeared at his flank, her tone dripping with mockery. "But party tricks won't save you."
She swung her blade with a violent, calculated precision. Amon moved—his reflexes sharpened by his week of hellish training—weaving through the initial arc. But Sophia was a natural. Her final strike, a lightning-fast horizontal slash, tore through his guard and carved a deep red line across his chest.
"Healing Breeze!"
A faint green hue washed over Amon, stitching the muscle and skin back together before the blood could even hit the grass. He scrambled back, but Sophia was a relentless predator. She closed the distance in a blur, her sword erupting in a blinding, golden radiance.
"Slash of Glory!"
She swung, sending a massive wave of pressurised golden energy hurtling toward him—a strike meant to end the duel then and there.
The golden arc of energy tore through the air, connecting squarely with Amon's chest. There was no blood, no impact—just a silent erasure as his body dissolved into nothingness.
"Disappointing," Sophia muttered, clicking her tongue in genuine frustration. She lowered her sword, the golden glow fading from the steel. "I suppose I got my hopes up for nothing..."
"An all-out offensive style is perfect for ending a duel quickly, Sister. But it is a double-edged sword."
The voice was calm, logical, and entirely too close. Sophia spun around, her eyes widening as she caught sight of Amon standing casually several yards behind her. She moved purely on instinct, leaping back to create distance and snapping her blade back into a guard position.
Confused fury flickered across her face before the realisation set in. Illusion magic. From the moment the simulation had hummed to life, she hadn't been fighting Amon. She had been dancing with a phantom, pouring her magium and focus into a sophisticated duplicate.
While she was burning through her "Slash of Glory," the real Amon had been standing at the edge of the plateau, silently observing her movement patterns, her weight distribution, and her emotional triggers.
"So, my intuition was right," Sophia chuckled, though her tone was laced with a new, dangerous edge. "You really were fighting like a coward."
"Correction," Amon said, his smile remaining calm and maddeningly polite. "It would have been cowardly if I had used that opening to strike you while you were distracted. As it stands, I was simply ensuring we could have a proper conversation before the real duel begins."
"She's currently B-Rank," Amon calculated, his internal processor running at maximum efficiency. "With the Gravity Grimoire and the cognitive boost from [No Longer Human], I can force my output to the threshold of S-Rank. It was never going to be a fair fight."
The reason he had observed her wasn't fear; it was curiosity. For a ten-year-old, B-Rank was exceptional—a testament to her "Protagonist" plot armour. But exceptional was no longer enough to bridge the gap between them.
The polite, practised smile slid off Amon's face, leaving behind a cold, marble-like expression.
Sophia flinched. To her, Amon had always been the happy-go-lucky brother, the one who took everything with a gentle bow and a warm laugh. Seeing this hollow, predatory version of him was more than unsettling—it was terrifying. For the first time in her life, she felt the instinctual urge to run from her younger brother.
"Blackhole Bullets."
Amon levelled his wand. From the tip, projectiles of absolute darkness erupted—not light, but the absence of it. They were infinitely dense points of gravitational force.
Sophia reacted with a warrior's instinct, flooding her blade with magium to parry the incoming fire. But the moment the steel touched the first bullet, it didn't deflect. The sword shattered into a thousand useless shards, the metal literally crushed by the bullet's mass.
The projectiles didn't stop. They pierced through her shoulders and thighs, pinning her in space.
"Wha—"
Sophia's voice died in her throat. The "bullets" didn't just wound her; they began to feed. Her entire being started to contort, her limbs twisting at impossible angles as the localised gravity fields began to collapse inward. With a final, silent surge of force, the "Protagonist" was consumed by the crushing void of the black holes.
Quest Complete.
Reward:Sophia's Maddening Love.
Amon stared at the translucent text, his mind hitting a total processing error. The logic that usually kept him calm sputtered and died. For several long seconds, he just stood there, a thick vein throbbing rhythmically against his temple as his knuckles turned white from clenching his fists.
"Is the System actually fucking with me?" The urge to punch directly into the interface was nearly overwhelming. He had fought to save Sophia from a predator, to save himself from her blade—and the System had responded by turning her heart into a ticking time bomb of obsession.
After a few ragged, deep breaths, his anger cleared, leaving only a cold, simmering resentment towards the System.
"Simulation End."
The green plateau flickered, pixels tearing and glitching like a dying VHS tape before the reality of the sterile, high-tech Combat Room snapped back into place, where Sophia was on the floor, looking down.
Amon didn't look back. He didn't offer a hand to help her up. He didn't even grant her a final word. He simply turned on his heel and walked out of the room, his footsteps echoing a hollow, rhythmic beat against the floor.
Behind him, Sophia remained on the cold ground, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. She wasn't angry. She wasn't humiliated. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her own shoulders, clutching herself as she stared at the ceiling with glazed, dreamy eyes.
"I... I never... I never thought..." she whispered, a small, delirious giggle escaping her lips. "That my type of man... would be my own brother. He's so strong. So cold. So... perfect."
She lay there in the silence of the training hall, the memory of being crushed by his spell replaying in her mind like a cherished secret.
. . .
It had been barely a day since Amon had offered his "repressed" memory to Emilia. In that short window, the Grand Duchess had mobilised the full weight of the Crown Family's network. With the Information Guild's reach and the Crime Investigation Bureau's authority, she had prepared a funeral for Lax's reputation.
When the raid finally hit the Lax Estate, the scene was one of clinical efficiency. Royal Guards and seasoned detectives swarmed the grounds, systematically stripping the mansion of its secrets. Initially, they found nothing. The estate was a masterpiece of hidden tracks and scrubbed evidence.
But they hadn't accounted for Emilia Von Crown.
While the detectives focused on the floorboards and safes, Emilia walked through the Duchess's bedroom with the cold, discerning eye of a predator. She stopped before a collection of paintings—opulent, seemingly innocuous art. Looking closer, she noticed the deliberate, rhythmic imperfections in the brushstrokes.
Morse code.
The translated sequence revealed a password—one bound to the owner's biometric signature. Emilia didn't waste time with legalities. She forced Lax to utter the phrase, and the air shifted as a hidden passageway groaned open behind a bookshelf.
The descent into the basement revealed a nightmare. Beyond the laboratory filled with restricted chemicals and magic-altering equipment lay a series of locked rooms. Inside, they found the survivors—dozens of young boys kept in conditions that made even the battle-hardened Royal Guards turn away in disgust.
The evidence was undeniable. On the spot, Lax was stripped of her title, her assets frozen, and her hands shackled. In a single morning, the woman who had planned to ruin Sophia's mind was herself erased from the upper echelons of society.
Emilia sat at the head of the banquet table, the morning's cold fury finally beginning to dissipate. The air in the room was lively, filled with the scent of roasted meats and expensive spices, effectively drowning out the lingering memory of the basement in Lax's estate. It was in these moments—surrounded by her family—that she felt her energy truly return.
"You look particularly handsome today, Arnold," she noted, her voice softening as she watched her husband enter.
"Thank you, my dear," Arnold replied, offering her a warm, genuine smile. He took his seat beside her, the chemistry between them as vibrant as the day they were wed.
"Augh, could you please save the flirtation for your bedroom?" Amon interjected, not even looking up from his plate. He maintained a perfectly practised look of disappointment, though his tone was laced with clear, mischievous intent. "Some of us are trying to eat in peace without being blinded by your radiance."
"My child," Emilia started, a faint pink hue creeping onto her cheeks even as a small vein throbbed on her temple. She gave him a look that was half-amused and half-warning. "Do not ruin my moment with your father. Eat your vegetables and keep your commentary to yourself."
Arnold's ears turned a slight shade of red at Amon's teasing, but he let out a hearty chuckle, shaking his head. As he reached for his glass, he noticed Sophia's eyes darting toward Amon for the tenth time in five minutes.
"Sophia," Arnold asked, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. "Is there something on your brother's face? You've been staring at him since the appetisers."
"Oh, there's nothing wrong, Dad," Sophia replied. She didn't look away immediately; instead, her smile widened into something soft and unnervingly bright. "I'm just admiring how perfect my little brother is. Don't you think he's beautiful?"
Emilia's fork paused halfway to her mouth. She arched an eyebrow, her gaze shifting between her two children. "You've never been one for such... enthusiastic admiration, Sophia. Did something happen while I was doing work?"
"She challenged me to a duel yesterday," Amon answered for her, his voice flat and radiating irritation. "And I dropkicked her."
Arnold nearly choked on his drink. "You... what?"
"Ever since she lost," Amon continued, ignoring his father's shock and his mother's surprise, "my personal space has effectively ceased to exist. She's been sticking to me like a shadow. I can't even walk to the bathroom without her 'happening' to be in there. It's exhausting."
Sophia didn't look offended by his bluntness. If anything, she seemed to lean into the "irritated" attention he was giving her, her cheeks taking on a faint, rosy glow as she hummed happily to herself.
"My Lady, My Lord," Jack interrupted, his presence as silent as a drifting shadow until he stood before them. He offered a precise, measured bow. "There was an urgent call from the Grand Duchess of the Leone Family."
"Raise your head, Jack," Emilia said, her expression shifting from maternal annoyance to the sharp, guarded look of a politician. The Leone name was synonymous with complicated. "What did she want?"
"The Grand Duchess has extended a formal invitation to you, the Lord, the Young Lady, and the Young Lord," Jack explained, his voice devoid of personal opinion. "Her daughter is turning nine years old tomorrow. The Grand Duchess has requested the presence of the entire Von Crown family at their estate for the celebration."
Arnold let out a soft sigh, leaning back in his chair. "Her daughter's birthday... tomorrow? That's remarkably short notice for a formal request from a Grand Duchess."
Amon felt a sudden, familiar weight on his arm. He didn't even have to look to know Sophia was leaning into his side, her cyan eyes fixed on him with that new, unsettling intensity.
"A party?" Sophia whispered, her voice uncomfortably close to his ear. "That sounds tedious. But if Amon is going... I suppose I could find a way to enjoy myself."