Noe… please tell me I don’t have to act like this for the remainder of my stay here.

  “You can end it early if you wish, my Host, by eliminating Aspirant Claire,” Noe replied with a chuckle. “But I must warn you that I detect that the Lady Malice has established a Sponsorship agreement with her.”

  She did what? I frowned; thankfully I had my back turned to my guest when I did so. Wait, how’d she even get in that program? I thought there were forms or interviews or some hoops to jump through before that could happen.

  “I would imagine having close ties with the biggest financial contributor to Central’s operations, as well as being a major god that helped in the rescue of Stanton, made the process a little easier.”

  Wonderful… But why would she choose this one?

  “The Sponsorship was made only 22 hours ago, just after you and Noel tagged the woman. I would imagine that she assumed you would concoct another harebrained scheme and chose this action to spite you.”

  Come on, this one’s not that harebrained. I think it’s a pretty normal plan.

  “You created an entire artificial Trial ground below your guild’s headquarters, requiring extensive renovations and preapproval. You made one of the deadliest assassins in the Main Stage kidnap individuals and place them in cages, then you petitioned Q to lend you some monsters and doppelgangers. You did all this while using your Luck Charges to act out an elaborate play. What part of this is normal?”

  Okay, fine, maybe normal’s not the word here. But if it works, it works. I thought for a moment about all of the crazy ideas that came to mind and realized something. Huh, I think I have a disposition for over-engineering solutions, now that I think about it. Probably was an easier way to accomplish what I needed without all of this… uh, extra stuff.

  “Thank you for realizing that now, dear Walter, and that has not changed even with your slumber,” Noel replied, “It was how I came to be, so I thank you for your over-engineering. Still, it does not excuse your earlier treatment of Lady Malice.”

  I winced. Was what I made her do really that bad?

  “I would have done the same in her shoes had our positions been reversed, dear Walter.”

  Alright. I guess I deserve this.

  “What are you doing?” a voice said behind me. Shoot, I’d almost forgotten that Claire was still here… Wonderful. “Why are you not finding us a way out?!”

  I turned back, putting on my best smitten look again. “I’m sorry! I- I’m not very good at finding things! I’m usually the brawns of the operation.”

  The woman sighed and I could tell that she wanted to do something very unpleasant to me. Thankfully she held back. “Of course you are… Goddamn it!”

  “Pardon?” I said, feigning worry.

  I at least knew some of the restraints of her skill now that I’ve had a chance to spend some time with her. If I was correct, she had some kind of seductress-adjacent class - which, given Claire’s personality so far, was kind of insane - and had that meant that she had to act a certain way or else her grip on her minions would either diminish or break entirely. I wasn’t sure which, but it was good to remind her of that fact every now and then, if for no other reason than to have her suffer as I had. Look, I can be petty too, and misery loves company, as they say. Still not sure why she seems to hate me so vehemently, though.

  “Nothing, love,” she muttered with barely restrained rage. “I was just talking about how, um, strong you look.”

  I nodded like an idiot and puffed up my chest a little higher, ignoring the fact that she looked like she wanted to puke after complimenting me. “Of course! I’ll make sure that nothing hurts you, Claire! But uh, this corridor is all clear! I’ve already killed the mutant.”

  “Now if you’ll just move out of the way and watch my back,” she muttered as she forced her way to the front. She shoved me none too carefully out of the way.

  “I’d be glad to watch your butt- uh, I mean back, ma’am!”

  I could almost see her bristle with rage as I said that, but I’ll give her one thing, she knew how to control her emotions. Well, I suppose she had to if she was stuck with a job like that one.

  “Wait…” Claire said after she made it a few steps down the hall. “There’s a note in the corpse you killed. Wesley, take it out and read it.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I wiggled a tentacle over - simply because I knew she hated the sight of that thing - and retrieved the slip of paper. There was nothing written on it, but it wouldn't appear that way to Claire.

  “Uh… I’m not sure what it says.” I muttered.

  “Of course you don’t! Give it here.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  She snatched it out of my hands and a single Luck Charge was spent to manipulate her senses into reading something pertinent to our needs. She read it, and frowned.

  “Wh… but… how?” I saw her shake, not with rage this time, but with fear perhaps?

  “What’s it say?” I asked.

  She stared at me, this time without any of her usual spite. “You really couldn’t read anything on it? Nothing?”

  I shook my head. “It looks like a bunch of scribbles to me.”

  She grited her teeth, so hard that a trace of blood dripped down her lips, before putting the crumpled paper away. “It’s… it’s nothing.”

  “Maybe it’s related to finding out how to get out of here. I think the system message said we had to understand why we’re here or something.”

  “I know, I can read the system you fu-”

  I gave her a quizzical look, acting as if her spell on me was diminishing.

  “-un guy!” she corrected with an awkward smile, “Thank you, I had almost forgotten that message from 10 minutes ago!”

  “What’s that got to do with reading?”

  Her frustration grew and I could tell that she was beginning to lose it. Maybe I shouldn’t push her too hard. “I mean that I can read well. That’s it.”

  “Ah, okay. Maybe there’s more of these notes around, like clues that we can use.”

  She agreed with my assessment and instructed us to hunt down more of Q’s monstrosities. They posed little challenge, although I would have liked it if I wasn’t the one doing all of the hard work. All in all, we retrieved four new notes after killing about a dozen or so beasts. Judging from her reaction to reading them, I had the sneaking suspicion that they contained personal information that she would have told no one, and it wasn’t the kind of information she was likely willing to share. I had no way of verifying that since it was generated text based on the Absolute Luck skill, but this new revelation was something that I could work with.

  I held back one of the last papers and pretended to read it as well. From her point of view, it should still look like a blank sheet of paper.

  “Hold on…” I muttered as I continued to eyeball the page. “That’s… but how can they know that?”

  Claire frowned and snatched the paper out of my hands. She cursed when she saw that she couldn’t read anything off it and gave it back. “What does yours say?”

  “Uh…” I pretended to mumble as if whatever was on it was so important or embarrassing that I wasn’t willing to share it even with the person I “loved”.

  She sighed and unzipped her jacket again. Inching closer and closer, so close that she was practically touching me now, she whispered. “You can tell me, Wesley, you know you want to. What does the paper say?”

  “Attention, my Host,” Noe chimed, “Aspirant Claire has activated her class skill again. Please react accordingly.”

  I put on that brainless expression Noe had me use again and did my best to stare at an especially dull part of the wall. Okay, now what to tell her? Judging from the constant frown that she had when she was reading the other notes (more than her usual scowl that is), I could make some inferences on what Noe had put on that paper. Now to confirm that suspicion.

  “It says… it lists very personal information about myself,” I muttered, “Would you like me to list them, ma’am?”

  Claire’s face scrunched up at the mere thought of hearing more about my life and quickly shook her head. Although quite rude, was a little relieving since I didn’t have to make up some especially sensitive things about myself.

  “No,” Claire said after forcing down her disgust, “I do not, and I never want to hear anything about your personal life. But this information is something that no one else should know about, right? Things you haven't told your family, or best friends, or whatever, yes?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She frowned further and whispered. “So it’s not just me… shit!” She shook her head and turned her attention back to me. “You, you’re worthless at directions, but surely you know something about these fucking Trials or the Main Stage, right? At least on the Pandora side of things.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good, tell me what you think is happening here.”

  I couldn’t help but want to grin. Good, I was worried about how I could manipulate things under the effects of her skill, but here she was giving me the perfect opportunity instead.

  “Yes, ma’am… I believe that we were placed here not because of the System, but due to the influence or ability of someone else. I’m not sure if that’s another Aspirant or one of the workers in the Main Stage.”

  Claire nodded slowly. “That was my thought as well; there are so many supernatural abilities around that it’s easy to think someone could steal secrets or read minds or some other shit around. The blackmail’s easy to understand, but who could set something like this up? This requires help from the bastards in charge…”

  “I believe that is the case as well, ma’am.”

  “Do you know anyone in Pandora that has that kind of ability?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, like you’d know anything.” She sighed. “But wait, why would this mysterious individual choose to target us of all people? I can understand why he’d choose you. You’re good in a fight, I’ll admit that, but what about me? I’ve barely been in this place for a few days, there’s no way that someone would target me unless…”

  She frowned again as if she was lost in thought before she took out one of the notes from her pocket and really scrutinized it. Her scowl deepened as she took out another piece of paper from her inventory - an old handwritten note of some kind - and compared the two. Realization dawned on her and she continued to curse under her breath. It seems like I’ve underestimated Noe’s Absolute Luck Skill once again.

  “Fuck.”

  I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I wasn’t sure if I had the autonomy to do so under her spell. To be safe, I just sat around staring at that wall segment while she was working out whatever new revelation she uncovered. I wasn’t worried though, Noe’s done me solid so far, and her

  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” She continued, becoming increasingly agitated.

  She finally addressed me again after swearing a few times more - you’d think with a temper like her’s she’d resort to more colorful language than just the f-word, but apparently, her vocabulary was woefully lacking. Claire took something else out of her inventory, this time it was a small tablet, and quickly jabbed her fingers onto the screen until she found what she was looking for and turned it around so I could see.

  “Do you know this man?” she said with barely contained panic.

  I stared at the picture of the immediately familiar image and nodded. Holy shit, that was Ryan, I had almost completely forgotten about him after he up and disappeared from Pandora. Looks like the Overseer’s pet Aspirant was busy in other city-states.

  “Who is he?” Claire spat. “Tell me everything you know about this man.”

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