I put the cup down before I dropped it. The words stayed where they were.
I moved my head. They followed. I shut my eyes. They disappeared.
When I opened them, the title was still waiting.
"All right."
I looked toward the door, lowered my voice and tried again.
"Open."
A second line appeared beneath the first.
HOST RECORD AVAILABLE
No sound accompanied it. No pleasant voice congratulated me on arriving somewhere I had never agreed to visit.
I focused on the line.
The title expanded.
[ THE VILLAIN'S LEDGER - HOST AUDIT ]
────────────────────────────────────
HOST CEDRIC VALDRAKE ARKHEN
AGE 17
AFFILIATION HOUSE VALDRAKE
ROLE PRIMARY VILLAIN
CORE DAMAGED - INITIATE F
EXPECTED ADEPT D
AFFINITY VOID AETHER
BLOODLINE VOID SOVEREIGNTY
POTENTIAL SSS
DISCREPANCY CAUSE SEALED
TECHNIQUE BASIC VOID CIRCULATION
NULL TOUCH - NEGLIGIBLE
SLOTS CLEARED 0 / ACTIVE 0
OTHER OPEN 47 / TOTAL 47
NDI 0.0%
VP 0
ALERTS NONE
────────────────────────────────────
COMMENTARY: Familiar conduct is advised.
My eyes went straight to the core. F. I looked again. Still F.
Below it, the expected rank remained D, apparently to make sure I understood how badly things had gone.
"Why?"
Nothing changed.
I tapped the air where the rank appeared. My finger passed through it, but a thin underline formed beneath the selected row.
CURRENT COMBAT CAPACITY: INITIATE F
CORE CONDITION: DAMAGED
"Yes, I read it. Why is it damaged?"
CAUSE: SEALED
ACCESS CONDITION: RELEVANT EVIDENCE
I sat down slowly.
Cedric had been a D-rank student at the beginning. Not unbeatable, but strong enough to make most of the early fights unfair. Some routes required preparation simply to survive his attention.
F was the bottom.
Two promotions separated F from D. A change in clothing wasn't going to cover that gap.
I glanced at the table where I'd nearly collapsed trying to move the power inside me.
So much for starting with a powerful body.
SSS potential looked impressive until I compared it with the rank directly above it. Whatever the body might become, it was currently struggling to walk across a bedroom.
I left the rank alone and moved to the slot count. Forty-seven. That number was familiar.
I focused on the slot count.
The audit narrowed into another view. Most of the rows folded away before I could read them.
[ THE VILLAIN'S LEDGER - FATALITY REGISTRY ]
────────────────────────────────────
#01 ENTRANCE EXAMINATION OPEN
#02 DUKE'S FIRST TEST OPEN
#03 CORE INSPECTION OPEN
#04 SEALED OPEN
#05 SEALED OPEN
...
CLEARED 0 / ACTIVE 0 / OTHER OPEN 47
────────────────────────────────────
I stared at the number at the bottom. I had counted them myself.
Not on one playthrough. Cedric didn't spend the game dying, getting up and finding another way to embarrass himself. Different decisions opened different routes. Some canceled others. A choice that kept him alive for another month in one route delivered him to a different killer in the next.
Forty-seven fatal endings across all the branches I'd recorded.
Sometimes an opponent killed him in front of the player. Sometimes a report arrived afterward. Sometimes he disappeared into a procedure or a sealed room and never came back as himself.
I'd made a list because people kept arguing about the exact number. At the time, it had seemed like a good use of an afternoon.
Now the list was hanging in front of my face.
Selecting the first entry gave me no further details. I had to work with what I remembered.
The entrance examination. Cedric attacked Aiden, lost control of the situation and gave the academy a reason to expel him. Losing the fight wasn't the fatal part. Losing the academy's protection was.
Enemies waited beyond its jurisdiction.
If I reached the exam, I needed to avoid the assault. Keep my place. Remain where killing me would be inconvenient.
Simple enough as a sentence.
Less simple with an F-rank core and everyone expecting Cedric.
My attention moved to the second entry.
DUKE'S FIRST TEST.
I remembered a closed study door. An altered response during a private examination. A later report saying Cedric had failed to recover from a bloodline correction.
The player hadn't been present for the procedure.
I had never needed to know how the Duke performed it.
My hand went to my chest. There were choices before that scene. A conversation at the estate. A report about Cedric's condition. Different answers had changed whether his father handled the matter privately.
I could remember the study door clearly. The exact dialogue before it was much less clear.
My guide would have had it. Three hundred pages, on a computer I couldn't reach.
I tried to reconstruct the sequence anyway. Who reported first? Did the player learn about the examination before it happened, or only read the result afterward? I had followed several routes through the same early period, and the scenes were starting to overlap.
I couldn't afford to turn the most familiar version into the only version.
For now, the useful part was simple. My father expected a certain level of strength. Someone would notice if I failed to show it. Being taken somewhere private afterward was a possibility I needed to avoid.
Suddenly, the missing details seemed worth a great deal more than the exact location of a hidden chest.
A knock came from the door. I stood too quickly, then caught the bedpost when the ache sharpened.
"Young master? Your clothing."
The attendant.
"One moment."
I stared at the registry.
Close.
The words vanished.
At least that worked.
"Enter."
He came in carrying a folded shirt and trousers. A dark coat hung over one arm. His eyes went to the chair beside the bed, then to the washing cloth I had left on the dressing table.
I followed his glance.
Had Cedric ever wiped up his own water?
Probably not.
"The cloth was wet," I said.
The attendant bowed his head.
"I'll replace it."
That hadn't explained anything. Somehow, it had still worked.
He laid the clothes out and waited. I waited too.
After an awkward few seconds, I realized he was expecting to help me dress.
"Outside."
"Young master, with your condition..."
I looked at him.
His mouth closed.
I didn't particularly like how easy that had been.
I liked the thought of explaining my unfamiliarity with Cedric's clothes even less.
Once he left, I picked up the shirt.
The material was soft enough to make my old work shirts seem like punishment. Unfortunately, the buttons were arranged in a way that required several attempts and a brief, private argument with the collar.
My hands solved the cuffs before I understood the fastenings.
I paused. Then I undid one and watched myself repeat the movement.
My fingers caught it easily again. I set that problem aside. One at a time.
After dressing, I reopened the Ledger and asked for the menu.
It returned the available views.
No save option. No load option. No return to title.
I tried asking for a reload, then a previous checkpoint. Both requests returned the same answer: function not available.
I pressed my tongue against the back of my teeth.
"Recovery after death?"
NO SUCH HOST FUNCTION
The reply stayed there until I dismissed it.
I couldn't prove every possible thing about this place from a floating screen. I didn't know who had made it or why it knew my list.
But I had no sensible reason to test whether dying would wake me up.
Not with the memory of my fingers searching for the phone still clear enough to make my stomach turn.
I sat at the desk and found blank paper in the top drawer.
The pen used a nib. Naturally.
I spent a moment figuring out how much ink was too much, then wrote three things.
Keep the academy's protection.
Hide the damaged core.
Avoid the Duke's correction.
All three depended on surviving this house first.
I looked at the closed door.
The attendant was going to report that I was awake. Preventing him from reporting anything might look worse than allowing an ordinary update. If everyone knew Cedric's habits, sudden secrecy would draw attention.
Familiar conduct is advised.
I disliked the advice more because it was useful.
Asking about NDI gave me the full name, Narrative Deviation Index, and the same reading of zero. Asking what it measured gave me nothing useful.
I exhaled through my nose.
An index measured something. I had no evidence yet about what made it rise, or whether higher meant better. Assuming either would be stupid.
I wrote the name below my three priorities and left space beside it.
VP became Villain Points when I asked. The balance remained zero. I didn't have the patience to interrogate another empty field while someone waited outside with news for my father.
My father.
I needed to stop thinking those words without remembering whose father they meant.
A second knock interrupted me.
"A message from His Grace."
I folded the page and slid it beneath a blank sheet.
"Come in."
The attendant presented a narrow card on a tray.
I took it.
The handwriting was clean and small. No greeting. No question about how I felt.
Have the household record your progress. I expect recovery before your departure. You will present yourself when summoned.
Below the message sat a name.
Cassian Valdrake Arkhen.
I read it twice, then placed the card on the desk.
"Has an answer been requested?"
"Only confirmation that you received it."
I nodded.
He withdrew.
I waited for the latch to settle before looking at the hidden page.
Avoid the Duke's correction.
I drew a line beneath it. Then another.