“Well, that was dumb,” the girl says, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest.
“It was all perfectly calculated.”
“You almost died. You could’ve just let her go for now and caught up with her later, but you risked everything just to get back at her.”
“I never said I was a smart person.”
“Splitting your mind into three parts, accelerating each of them to the point where your brain is almost sizzling out your ears… that’s not just being ‘not smart.’”
“Look, there’s this guy I know from the third floor I have to compete with.”
The girl sighs. “So dumb. And your good mood is showing. Izzy told about it because apparently I didn’t notice before, and she’s right, you really do look more lively, talk faster, and joke more when you're in a good mood. So, you split your mind into three parts. You hid it from Faora and allowed her to take one of those parts into her Mind Palace.”
“She was careless, just as I expected. It’s fun when people underestimate you. A piece of advice from : if you truly think you have no chance against soone, don't put up a proper fight. Just do enough so they feel satisfied with beating you, let them underestimate you, and wait for an opportunity. It always worked on my bullies before.”
"Were you bullied like that a lot?"
"A bit? Having very young parents, an alcoholic dad, a face everyone apparently wants to punch, and later on a sister who ends up in prison for killing said alcoholic dad probably doesn’t make other kids or their parents like you very much."
"Do...do you wish it was different?"
"I think everyone wants to change sothing, but at the sa ti, if they really did change, I wouldn’t be the person I am now, and soone else would be standing here instead. Well, that guy would probably have died on the first floor, served up as food for Cinderbear or that giggling goddamn Phantom Goblin."
“That makes sense. So you allowed one of your minds to be taken by Faora, and then you followed that link, manifested the second part of your mind in her Mind Palace, and waited for the right opportunity.”
“Yes. [Manifestation] is a broken skill. At first, I wanted to kill her, and if everything went perfectly, I think I could have pulled it off. One of my minds was made to be durable and to get her attention, the second was made for killing her, and the third was a failsafe. But everything changed once I noticed you.”
She stays quiet and doesn’t react to that. So shy.
I shrug, “But I made so miscalculations too. I expected doubled thought acceleration because of her Mind Palace, but sohow it even managed to affect the mind I kept in my body. But sohow it worked out in the end.”
“I don’t know if you’re lucky, dumb, or just that scary. Maybe all three?”
I take a few steps and co to a stop in front of her. This ti, I speak with a more serious tone. “The first ti I lost. The second ti I t her, I was prepared. The third ti I see her, Faora will die.”
These words are almost a declaration, and I’m as confident in them as I can be.
The green eyed girl doesn’t even bother to answer.
Sitting in front of her, I ask, “So, Sophie, how are things with you?”
“You’ve probably already guessed.”
“Explain it to like I’m five years old.”
“Please stop giving such stupid instructions.”
“So?”
She pulls her knees even closer. Right now, she looks a lot like Izzy. Even the age seems similar, perhaps even a bit younger, but there are differences, especially in her expressions and the general vibe she gives off. It’s like the real Sophie, but slightly different.
“I’m a fragnt of my mind. Back then, I attacked her, and she fought back with a ntal attack I couldn’t handle. The attack cracked my mind, and to keep it from fully breaking, I split it into parts. I hid so in Blackie and a few in my body. They contain my mories and other stuff. It’s hard to explain properly, since I mostly went by feeling and instinct.”
“That’s a nice, simple, explanation.”
“I know you prefer them like that.”
“I do. So what was this piece doing inside Faora?”
She looks down at her small body and then back at . “This body, you see, is sothing like a manifestation of the mories it contains. I probably look like a child because the strongest mory it holds is from that part of my life.”
“You wanted to throw it away?”
When she looks at , her green eyes are very piercing. “I hate how perceptive you can be sotis.”
I don’t react to that and just wait for her to continue.
“Yes. The mories and parts of here are the ones I hate the most. The unforgivable things I did, the impulses I hate, and so on. In that mont when my mind broke, I split them off and left them in Faora’s mind through the connection she made. As you said, she can be careless when facing people she thinks are weaker than her.”
“And she didn’t notice you there?”
“Nathaniel.”
“Yes?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I think if I really try, I’ll beco a terrifyingly strong mind mage.”
“It seems that way,” I agree.
“Faora didn’t even notice . Yes, this part of is tiny and weak, and I was hiding, but Faora isn't weak or inexperienced, so logically, she should have. Instead, I kept improving the way I was hidden. I even siphoned off bits of her mana to keep myself stable without her noticing. I watched her, studied her, and planned. Over ti, the ntal abilities she was so proud of started to seem pathetic.”
Her eyes do not waver at all. “I slowly began to erode her, and in a few years, I believe Faora would be no more. Her mind would’ve been gone, wiped clean, without her ever realizing. And in her place, .”
"I'm probably not the right person to feel sorry for her, Sophie. Honestly, I think she deserves worse. So if you had a plan like that, why did you show yourself to ?"
Slowly, she burrows her head between her knees, and her hair falls over it until I can’t see her face at all.
“I don’t know,” she mumbles from there.
“Good enough answer, but I think you know.”
She ignores the second part of my sentence and changes the subject, “Why did you agree to join the Primordial Knights, Nat? Didn’t you want to start a guild and na it Angry Kittens just to make the others smile, all while pretending to be annoyed about it?”
“Sounds like sothing the 6th floor Nat would’ve done. He was a total weirdo who nearly got played by a particularly dangerous minion. And why would I do that? It costs shards. And it’ll take years before Tess and the others get strong enough, and only then would they be able to start gathering people for a guild. If they want to do it, then I’ll join and we can just roll with it.”
“Why join Primordial Knights?”
“To be honest? Weslin is one cool motherfucker, Sophie. I offered him all my shards to keep Luan busy. And the guy rejected it all for so strange reason and then proceeded to face down one of the strongest attendees in Beyond.”
“That does sound kind of cool,” Sophie agrees. “But you wouldn’t do it just because of that.”
“They have a guild leader with three primordial energies. An S-rank, and rumored to be one of the three strongest attendees currently in Beyond. She also seems like she wants to go to the sixth floor of Beyond. That makes curious. Plus, wouldn’t it just be more fun to help Primordial Knights reach first place in the guild rankings instead of joining soone who’s already higher? They also have a guy called Doc who apparently wanted to cut open and examine my body. He might be able to help with my construct problem.”
“Construct problem?”
“I have three new constructs.”
“…why are you like this?”
“I don’t know. Bla my environnt or sothing. Oh, and the system too.”
“You also don’t seem very annoyed by my presence in your mind.”
“I’m used to it. I bet once I return you to your body, it won’t even be a month before soone else ends up here. Maybe in the form of a hand like Lissandra, as mories like Lioren, or in a mory pocket like you.”
"Lioren… do you miss him?"
"Yes, a lot."
"...it's amazing how you can say things like that without hesitation."
For the first ti in a while, she looks up, and her eyes shine from behind her black hair. “You’re not going to ask what kind of mory is at my core.”
“Nope.”
“I see,” she repeats.
I nod. “A question. Can you see what I see or go through my mories?”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t do that, and I won’t. If you’re not here, I’ll be sleeping, and I’ll only watch through your eyes, and listen, if you call . I won’t touch your mories.”
“Got it.”
I walk over to the open window and close it. Even though this is my ntal space, the cold air from outside makes it feel like it’s freezing in here, and as I do, a few snowflakes manage to drift in.
Just as I’m about to leave, Sophie buries her face back in her knees and waves her hand. The window slams open with a loud clack that echoes through the room as I walk out. She stays there, and this ti, I black out for real.
When I open my eyes, I squint them closed again because the light of an orb reflecting from the surface nearby shines right into my eyes, blinding .
Weslin moves his head, and the reflection disappears.
"Yo, newbie, you alive?"
"Apparently," I say and cough because of my parched throat. "My bag..."
"Oh, I drank everything you had in there. So of it tasted really weird, and so were really nice."
I force my sight to unblur and focus it on Weslin.
"I ate everything in there, too."
"I hope you upset your stomach."
"Newbie, just say you hope I shat myself. Oh, and when I brought you here, I threw you on the ground for all the trouble you caused . You were passed out for two days, and my wounds still haven’t fully healed because of Luan's goddamned Fragnt, whatever that shit is."
Almost done checking my body, I thank my constructs for circulating my mana and thermal energy.
"I also used void energy a few tis to deal with the thermal energy and mana build-up in your body," Weslin says, curbing my enthusiasm a little. Then he adds, "Even though I didn’t have to do it all that much for the mana. Even passed out, your body just kept circulating it in that fucked up way you do."
"Thanks, I guess."
"You’re welco, you little bastard."
I turn my attention back to my body. To my knowledge, there was no part of my mind awake to deal with Mana Cycling, so my only guess is that my body actually started doing it almost instinctively, because of the years I’ve spent doing it constantly.
What a nice find. I’ll have to check it out later.
"Thanks for holding off, Luan," I add as I move my body into a sitting position.
Weslin, sitting on the chair near , just shrugs. Looking over his body, I still notice the wounds he sustained in that short fight. But as quickly as he lost, I realize how incredible it is for him to be in such a state, and more so, to still be alive.
"I should have taken the damned shards. I don’t even know what I was thinking when..."
Not hesitating, I open my status and initiate the transfer, at which point he pauses mid-sentence and looks at intently.
He stares for a few seconds before the notification window disappears. Canceled again.
"This is why I fucking can’t hate you, you little bastard. Damned little asshole."
"You’ll have to tell about your fight with Luan."
"I will. That shit was crazy. But first, there’s not much ti before we reach the Black Tower, and you’ll likely end up signing a contract with the Primordial Knights, so there are a few things you’ll need to look out for."
"Didn’t I say I’d join them without any pay or sothing like that?"
"You did? I don’t rember anything like that."
"I see. I must have misrembered. So what should I be most careful about in the contract?"
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