Chapter 5: Intent to Kill
Hodell thought about the reward for only a brief moment before making his choice.
The system was not alive. It had no emotions, no bias, and no pity. It merely measured the gap between two sides according to panel data, then calculated probabilities. Since it clearly judged his odds of fulfilling the hidden condition to be low, the likelihood of a special reward appearing had naturally risen.
That was also why the original protagonist had so often achieved exaggerated mission ratings like [Incredible] or [A+]. The system's standards were built around players, and players, by nature, were creatures who repeatedly did absurd things with perfect efficiency.
But this mission of his had not even given an evaluation.
Only survival.
That alone said enough.
[You have gained 20,000 experience.]
Although the [Sky Hunter Eagle Potion] sounded powerful, Hodell did not seriously consider taking it.
First, he had no idea what kind of physical reaction the potion would produce, or how he would conceal the aftermath. Inside this so called Erhai School, he was under constant surveillance. Any unusual change in his condition would be exposed immediately.
Second, in this place, a person often had no room to do what they wanted.
Compared to gambling on an unfamiliar potion, banking the experience and strengthening his foundation was the safer option.
That was how the matter should have ended.
But when he lifted his head and saw Reed's expression, something cold settled in his chest.
The disappointment in the man's eyes had not vanished.
It had only become quieter.
More dangerous.
Hodell ignored it.
He was soon escorted away, this time not toward his room, nor toward the training field, but toward the corridor that had always felt the most mysterious in the entire facility.
He remembered it well.
Once, he had heard terrible roars from here, sounds that no human throat should have been able to make. Ever since then, he had instinctively associated this stretch of corridor with the darkest part of the Erhai School.
The two guards at his sides remained silent.
They no longer shoved him with the same casual roughness as before. Number Three's failed attempt to beat him into awakening seemed to have left a bit of a shadow on them too. Now, their hands were firm, but measured.
At the end of the corridor, a metal door opened.
A laboratory waited beyond it.
The cold alloy door slammed shut behind them with a heavy clang.
Hodell's eyes narrowed slightly.
The room was large, perfectly square, and sealed tight. Its walls were made of dark metal, and the glaring white lights overhead cast a merciless pall over every corner, leaving nowhere for shadows to hide.
The air smelled of blood.
Not fresh blood alone, but layered blood. Old blood. Dried blood. Blood washed away and blood that had never truly left.
The guards tightened their grip on his arms and shoved him forward until he was standing in the middle of the room.
Then he saw the figure on the opposite wall.
It was a boy.
Thin. Frail. No older than a teenager.
Messy black hair clung to his face, and from within it drooped a pair of fiery red fox ears, limp and trembling with weakness. Behind him hung a tail of the same color, though its original vividness had long been obscured by dirt and dried blood. A thick metal spike had been driven through it, pinning it brutally to the wall.
Dark red blood trailed down the alloy surface in winding lines, gathering into a near black stain at his feet.
Hodell's breathing slowed.
The physical traits were close enough to his own to make his scalp prickle.
The boy's head hung low. His chest rose only faintly. From time to time, his body twitched in small spasms, each one the involuntary answer of flesh to pain it could no longer bear.
Reed stepped up beside Hodell, close enough that Hodell could hear the man's slow, steady breathing.
When he spoke, his voice was soft.
Too soft.
It slid into Hodell's ears like a cold snake.
"Come. Meet Number Fifteen."
There was a pause.
"Like you, he was once considered a subject of exceptional potential."
Reed's tone took on a trace of regret that sounded far too deliberate to be sincere.
"Unfortunately, he chose to use that talent incorrectly. He attempted to escape."
At those words, a jailer standing beside the boy moved.
He wore a gray uniform and had the broad, dull look of someone who had long since stopped seeing people as people. Without warning, he seized the boy's limp left fox ear and twisted it viciously.
The scream that tore out of the boy's throat was shrill enough to crack.
His body arched violently, like a live shrimp dropped into boiling oil. The movement pulled at the metal spike pinning his tail, and a second wave of agony instantly followed the first.
A faint snapping sound pierced the room.
Cartilage.
The boy's scream broke into ragged sobs.
Tears and blood ran together down his face. Every feature twisted under the weight of pain.
Hodell felt his stomach lurch.
A chill shot up from the soles of his feet and spread through his body.
Reed never once looked at the boy.
His eyes remained fixed on Hodell.
"It seems that was not enough stimulation," Reed said blandly.
The jailer nodded at once. From the pouch at his waist, he drew out a pair of serrated pliers, their metal teeth catching the white light overhead. He walked toward the boy again and tapped the cold tool lightly against the other fox ear, which was already trembling so violently from fear that it looked ready to tear on its own.
Hodell clenched his jaw.
This is a game.
He repeated the thought over and over.
This is just an immersive holographic game from the future. A setting. A scene. Data wearing skin.
He knew that what came next would be measured.
Not by the system.
By them.
His reaction would become a new entry in their records, a new line in their analysis. Fear, rage, panic, empathy, instability. Everything would be noted down and weighed.
If he wanted to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, the rational choice was simple.
Show nothing.
Pretend he was emotionally defective.
Pretend he did not understand.
Pretend he could watch this and feel nothing at all.
That should have been the right answer.
Then he heard the boy's broken voice.
Not words, at first. Only pleading sounds, shredded and desperate.
Then real words, barely held together.
Help me.
Hodell's eyes locked onto the boy's amber gaze.
Primal terror lived there.
Helplessness.
Pain.
And beneath it all, something that made his chest tighten.
The jailer paused mid motion and turned, showing Hodell a cruel smile. Reed was doing the same thing. Both of them were watching him now, waiting for him to crack in one direction or the other.
Reed took a step closer.
His breath brushed lightly against Hodell's neck.
"Look," he murmured, voice low and intimate as a demon whispering into a dream. "He is begging you for help."
He let the words sink in.
"Your kind is suffering because of your worthless stubbornness."
Another pause.
"Tell me, what do you feel now?"
His tone became softer still.
"Will you continue to hide that ridiculous power, or…"
Reed glanced at the boy and sighed almost theatrically.
"Ah. He does not seem able to endure much longer."
The jailer clicked his tongue, as though mildly annoyed that the process was taking too long. Or perhaps he simply wanted to prove his usefulness in front of Reed.
From his waist, he drew a high voltage baton.
In that instant, something inside Hodell quietly snapped.
It was not rage.
Not exactly.
Rather, his consciousness seemed to slip half a step away from reality. The room suddenly felt distant, as if he were looking at it through a pane of thick glass. The horror before him remained horror, and yet it no longer reached him in the usual way.
It was like a dream.
Like watching someone else's nightmare from far away.
He was there, and he was not there.
He saw himself standing in the laboratory.
He saw the boy nailed to the wall.
He saw Reed's expectant smile and the jailer's greedy cruelty.
But feeling separated itself from the sight.
Emotion detached from perception.
The transition was so smooth, so total, that for a moment even Hodell himself nearly missed it.
The muscles in his face, which had been taut with pain and suppressed fury, loosened bit by bit.
Not naturally.
Too evenly.
Too completely.
It was the kind of calm that did not belong on a living person.
The heat in his eyes vanished.
Not drowned by tears.
Frozen.
The fire went out under absolute zero, leaving behind only blankness.
Reed's expression changed instantly.
For the first time since entering the room, true bewilderment appeared on his face.
At the same time, the light in the boy's eyes began to fade rapidly.
His body convulsed once. Twice. Like a candle guttering at the very end.
Then, with what seemed to be a final surge of clarity, those dimming amber eyes focused sharply on Hodell's face.
There was no plea left in them.
No weakness.
Only hatred burned there now, forged so deep by pain that it had become almost pure.
And expectation.
Hodell understood.
The boy was no longer asking to be saved.
He was entrusting something else.
Revenge.
Then the fire went out.
The body hanging against the wall slackened completely. The eyes remained open.
Even in death, they still seemed to accuse.
For a moment, Hodell was confused.
Do you blame me?
Is it my fault because they value me?
Because I am the reason they used you like this?
The jailer grinned, proud of his work. He strode over without the slightest restraint, stopping directly in front of Hodell. Then, with a deliberate smear of his hand, he dragged the boy's still hot blood across Hodell's cheek.
"What are you staring at?" he sneered. "Trash. This is what happens when you refuse to cooperate."
Hodell did not move.
He looked as though his soul had been scooped out, leaving only a still body standing upright through habit.
Then the alloy door hissed open.
The interruption cut across Reed's next words and the jailer's lingering laugh.
A guard entered quickly, not even sparing the corpse on the wall a glance. He went straight to Reed, bowed, and spoke in a stiff, formal voice.
"Lord Reed, Dr. Moore has issued an order. Experimental Subject Seven is to be brought before him immediately."
For the space of a breath, time seemed to split.
Different people reacted in different ways.
Hodell knew that Seven was his code.
Not his alone.
A recycled designation passed from one body to the next, inherited whenever the previous owner died.
Reed's face changed at once. The cruelty and frustration vanished, replaced almost instantly by reverence and obedience. He straightened as if Dr. Moore himself had entered the room.
And in that exact instant, while attention shifted, while the order still echoed in the air, while every gaze loosened just enough to drift elsewhere, the pressure inside Hodell finally found a way out.
His head snapped up.
The emptiness in his eyes vanished.
In its place erupted something raw and blood red.
Not grief.
Not fear.
Murder.
The sharp metal fragment hidden inside his sleeve slid into his palm.
A roar ripped out of his chest like the cry of a dying beast, carrying pain, fury, disgust, and something so desperate it was almost pure.
He moved.
Faster than thought.
Faster than hesitation.
The jailer had just begun to turn his head toward Reed, still distracted by Moore's command, when Hodell lunged.
"Not good!"
Reed's expression changed violently. He reacted almost at once, reaching out to stop it.
Too late.
Hodell's body moved one beat ahead of Reed's realization.
The shard flashed like a streak of cold light.
Then sank deep into the side of the jailer's neck.
Precise.
Vicious.
Merciless.
The jagged metal ripped through artery and windpipe together.
Blood exploded out in a hot, violent spray.
It fountained across the room, splashing onto the stunned faces of the nearby guards, across Reed's darkening expression, and even onto the bewildered man who had just delivered Moore's order.
The jailer staggered backward, hands flying to his throat.
His face was still locked in confusion.
He could not understand it.
Could not understand why death had arrived this suddenly, from a subject who had looked half dead a moment earlier.
He made wet, choking sounds as blood poured between his fingers. Then his knees gave out. He crashed to the floor and convulsed in the growing pool beneath him.
Hodell stood where he was, drenched in red from head to toe.
His chest rose and fell violently.
His face was splattered with blood, and with that expression stripped bare, he looked less like a frightened subject than a madman who had finally found the correct answer to the wrong question.
Yet his eyes were terrifyingly clear.
The laboratory fell into a deathly silence.
.....
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