I stared at the flickering messages, pulse still thundering in my ears. My heart sank as I closed my eyes and let out a ragged breath. “For Saevrin’s sake,” I muttered. “I’m trying to avoid exploiting, damn it.”
I didn’t feel myself moving. It was as if I took one breath in the caves and the next in… uh, what? I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to my new surroundings.
The starkness was jarring; sterile white walls glowed brightly under fluorescent lights, giving the entire place a clinical glare. A faint antiseptic scent lingered, tickling the back of my nose. Definitely hospital vibes, but without the comfort of bustling nurses or the distant hum of medical equipment.
I was on a bed.
Well, a bed was generous. It was more like a pristine slab covered in a thin, crisp sheet that felt oddly cold under my fingertips. The sheet was so glaringly white it almost blended seamlessly with the floor and walls. No doors, no windows, nothing to break up the relentless monotony. It was stretching endlessly around me like a designer had run out of imagination halfway through.
My breath caught, chest tightening. A designer? Wait…
“No… Damn it, Karzi!” I cursed under my breath, irritation bubbling up through confusion. “What kind of nonsense is this?! Hey ██████! You enjoy censoring me, huh? Boring! Render some scenery, or at least put flower here, it’s—”
Right in the middle of my frustrated rant, something shimmered into existence. A delicate pink rose materialized on the floor, petals soft and perfectly formed, vibrant against the clinical whiteness. It lay there as if casually tossed and forgotten, completely out of place.
I stared at it, dumbfounded.
My mouth opened and closed a few times before I found words again. “I…” My voice faltered. “You ██████!” I cursed, feeling a surge of hysterical laughter rising in my chest. “Wait… no! Can I say ██████? You ██████ system! Oh, stupid system!” My laughter spilled out, edged with incredulity. “Stupid ██████! Wait, ██████ ██████! You can’t just arbitrarily censor me!”
Just as I felt ready to fully descend into madness, something else appeared above the rose. A fluffy little cloud, absurdly adorable, materialized with a tiny popping sound.
It hovered there, wearing pastel pink glasses perched on a face drawn simply with curved lines for eyes and a long, gentle smile. It bobbed cheerfully in the empty air, as if this was the most normal thing ever. “We can, Charlie,” it said, voice gentle, almost musical.
I stared, momentarily forgetting my panic. “Okay… Are you ██████?” I asked hesitantly, already bracing for the inevitable censorship.
The cloud bobbed up and down enthusiastically, its cartoonish expression radiating cheerful acknowledgment. “In a way. I’m not what you call the system, exactly, but consider me an assistant? Or perhaps a splintered consciousness. A piece of something larger.” The cloud floated closer, now eye-level with me as I swung my legs over the side of the cold bed.
“Right,” I nodded slowly, brain scrambling to catch up. “Okay, Cloudy, spill it. What’s wrong?” I mentally steeled myself, fully expecting a torrent of nonsense.
“Cloudy?” It paused. “Designation accepted.” Its little cartoon smile broadened, becoming ridiculously cute. “You are… interesting, Charlie.”
We stared at each other. Its black, pupil-less eyes were strangely mesmerizing, impossible to beat in a staring contest. I sighed, realizing quickly that staring battles with adorable sentient clouds probably wasn’t the best use of my limited sanity.
“Alright, Cloudy,” I said with deliberate calm, brushing blue strands of hair back from my face. “Tell me more. How? Why? What am I supposed to do now?” My voice dropped, exhaustion creeping back in. “Help me out here, okay?”
The floating cloud hovered closer, its painted anime-style face shifting to something annoyingly cheerful. “You used to be… uh… well, not used to be? Some in your life called it a simulation, or a dream world, but neither was exactly true. Fake? Sure. But almost real. Someone asked us very nicely if you could become real. We agreed,” it explained, sounding incredibly proud for a sentient ball of vapor.
“The young punk!” I snapped, flinging my arms out dramatically. My voice echoed harshly in the overly sanitized room. “I should’ve taken the blue pill.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. We were already stitching your soul together,” the cloud chirped happily, forming an insufferably cute face complete with upturned, squinting eyes, like it was typing an emoji directly into my irritation. “You see, that was the problem. The ones you call players can’t have Rimelion souls. But you? You already had one.”
“And then you shoved me into Rimelion with that ridiculous ritual,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Your existence in the simulation itself was… well, let’s just say you were an invaluable stress test,” it admitted cheerily, a pink blush appearing beneath its painted eyes.
I froze, heat flooding my face as embarrassment and irritation performed an awkward dance in my stomach. “I was… what?!” I jumped up, pacing furiously around the pristine white room, the scent of antiseptic emptiness stinging my senses.
Cloudy bobbed alongside me, unaffected by my frantic steps. “Let me guess. My entire job was finding exploits, breaking your pretty simulation apart, and you fixed them as fast as I found them?”
Cloudy bobbed eagerly, clearly delighted by my quick deduction. “Precisely! The actual test servers on Earth aren’t useful now, because reality isn’t a simulation anymore. You don’t stress-test something that’s actually reality.”
“Fantastic. My very existence is a cosmic joke,” I groaned, collapsing dramatically back onto the bed. I threw an arm over my eyes, trying to block out Cloudy’s incessantly cheerful smiles. “Cloudy,” I growled softly, daring to glance up again. “My character build is broken! Fix it! For a glorious moment, I thought I was strong! Don’t take that away!”
Cloudy hovered silently, a tiny cartoon sweat drop appearing beside its head. I leapt off the bed, lunging towards it, but it drifted back, just out of reach. My glare intensified, radiating enough anger to theoretically ignite the cloud if physics worked in my favor. “DO. NOT. DARE!”
“Sorry!” Cloudy whimpered sheepishly, the painted cheeks flushing an even deeper pink.
“ARGHHHH!” My hand shot forward, passing uselessly through the vapor. The sensation was like plunging my hand into cold mist, unsatisfying, intangible, and infuriating. “WHY?!”
My voice cracked, frustration simmering dangerously close to tears. Memories of Irwen, uh, mom, flickered in my mind, and I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm myself down. “Please… just explain,” I muttered weakly, sinking back onto the bed.
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Stupid emotions.
Cloudy drifted gently above me, its expression softening slightly. “When you declared yourself a princess, your old items reactivated.”
I blinked, disbelief wrestling with cautious hope. I glanced reflexively at my feet, but disappointingly, my beloved heels were nowhere in sight. I narrowed my eyes again, locking onto Cloudy’s irritatingly serene expression. “You mean…?” I prompted with exaggerated patience. “Explain. Clearly.”
“Your items are bound to your soul. They traveled with you, you just didn’t satisfy the requirements until now. That’s why your clothes don’t have holes anymore. Your old gear got eaten.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, massaging my temples dramatically. “And let me guess, now you’re going to snatch them away again, aren’t you, Cloudy? Don’t dare.”
Cloudy made an embarrassed wobble in the air, pink shading its misty cheeks. “They’re designed for players, not you,” it said apologetically. “They require adjustments.”
I groaned loudly, the sound echoing in the empty room. “Fine. But I swear if you even think about nerfing my heels, those glorious heels, I’ll find a way to turn you into rain. I need that mud-walking magic!”
The cloud flushed an even deeper shade of pink, twirling uncertainly in the air. “We can… adjust that,” it said carefully. “Normally, you wouldn’t see any item descrition at all. But, given this unprecedented situation…”
A moment later, glowing words materialized before my eyes:
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at Cloudy. “Let me guess… no more trapping enemies in ice?”
“No.” Cloudy’s voice was almost meek.
I leapt from the bed and paced experimentally, the satisfying click of my heels resonating against the sterile floor. Each step left a brief trail of shimmering frost that quickly dissipated. “Feels the same, at least. But what about Unyielding Poise? Diamond Reflex? Quickened spellcasting from my cape?”
Cloudy hesitated, its small eyes darting nervously. “No, Charlie. Those features were… removed.”
I stopped pacing abruptly, spinning on my heels to face the cloud, feeling my temper flare. Deep breaths, Charlie. Don’t murder the cute cloud. “Did you leave me anything useful, Cloudy?”
The cloud bobbed anxiously, hovering closer. “Your regalia, we preserved the self-repair and you unlocked a disguise ability. Observe.”
Another message materialized:
“Fine, fine,” I sighed dramatically, rolling my eyes toward the sterile ceiling. “Not like arguing helps. And what about my items I left with Twirs?”
Cloudy twirled playfully around me, almost cheerful. “Why would they accept you? You died! You’re a completely new person now!”
“Don’t lie, Cloudy,” I muttered bitterly, sulking over my severely nerfed gear. “They’re Twirs. Rules never stopped me. And speaking of, I leveled up! Can I at least get an explanation about that? What’s the point?”
“I’m not allowed to explain,” Cloudy replied regretfully.
I threw my hands in the air in annoyance. “Unbelievable! I soloed a Queen chamber and you stole my achievement! That’s daylight robbery, Cloudy!” I punctuated my tantrum with a forceful stomp.
Click.
The sound echoed perfectly in the empty space. My eyes widened as I looked down to see my beautiful heels shimmering elegantly, frosty trails swirling beneath them.
A delighted smile spread across my face, and with a thought, I easily suppressed the frost effect.
“We… can offer compensation for the trouble caused by your… non-exploiting,” Cloudy admitted gently. “You’ve lost opportunities you shouldn’t have. As a princess, you won the Royal Challenge, but your designation prevented the achievement. Please wait…”
I nodded eagerly, mentally commanding the rest of my outfit to shift into my princess attire. A brief shimmer later, a bit of mana surged into it and my battle gear gracefully transformed into my pristine princess gown, delicate fabric rustling softly around me, perfectly fitting.
It felt perfect.
“This is what we suppressed until now. Plus… we think for your contributions, you can advance your stats.”
“That’s…” I grinned, the corners of my lips twitching like they’d just remembered how to be smug. “Something.” My eyes flicked through the notifications, pulse ticking up with each bold letter. “So about those stats… Both to rare, if it works the way I think? Is that possible?”
Go high, then compromise. Classic haggling technique. Also, I might have been grinning too hard for someone probably under observation.
“No. One rare is… permissible. Second, uncommon. No haggling.”
“Ugh,” I winced. “Don’t read my mind, Cloudy.” The cloud spun a lazy circle, like a judge unimpressed by my arguments. “Okay, okay. Magic rare, body uncommon,” I conceded. There wasn’t a question of whether to boost my body.
As much as I desperately wanted to be a cool warrior-mage hybrid with sword skills and magic missiles, it was pretty clear Cloudy didn’t share my class fantasy.
The moment the stats settled, I felt it, like an invisible net that had been tangled around my limbs, suddenly unraveling. My core tingled, not in the romantic way, more like I’d accidentally licked a mana battery.
The hum of arcane flow buzzed just below my skin.
Cloudy bobbed, glowing faintly pink like it had been hit by a compliment. “This is exceptional, Charlie. Usually it takes years to advance that far. Please don’t… try to exploit until we find every broken system and fix it.”
I rolled my eyes so hard it almost qualified as an ocular workout. “Wasn’t trying, Cloudy. I’m just built different. So… now back to Karzi?”
How should I structure the chapters at the end of Book3?
