I look at her for a while before asking, “Ruler of Greed?”
“ I would prefer that you call me Ruby.”
“The Ruby I knew died, you aren't her.”
“That's true, but I like the relationship you two had. I want it too.”
“So greedy.” Get full chapters from novelFɪre.net
“Exactly.” She smiles at me. “Your disciple is cute, you know. I made a promise to your duplicate, so I'm making sure Envy doesn't hurt her. He even sent one of his vessels to kill her, but I dealt with him.”
“Thank you for that. If possible, I will pay you back.”
“There is no need, I'm doing it because of the promise I made and because I want to,” she says as if remembering something, “oh, and Envy also sent one of his vessels to Earth.”
My train of thought stops there. “What? Isn't Earth supposed to be protected while we’re in the tutorial? Some of the lumorans also mentioned there’s a non-attack phase for 10 years after the tutorial starts.”
“That’s true, but the vessel Envy sent isn't on Earth. Instead, it sits on your moon and observes the planet. He is a very childish man, isn't he?”
“I can only agree. And since I have you here, I may as well take the opportunity to ask you something.”
“Please do so while we wait for her.”
“Is there a way to transfer Whitey's memories out of my mind?”
She understands immediately but shakes her head, “The rules have already been twisted too much. There is no way to make that happen. As you’ve been told, the only way is for the remains of the lurker to take over your mind, only to end up the same way as her and that lynthari. But…”
“I like to be honest sometimes, so I’ll tell you something: even if there were a chance, I wouldn’t do anything to help. Don’t ever think of me as an altruist.”
“Good,” she nods, still smiling.
“So we are waiting for her? Can she even get here?”
“Yes, I left a way in, so she should be able to make it. I’d be very disappointed if she didn’t.”
Just as she says this, a tear appears in the air. It is long, black, and jagged. From one end of it, the black blade of a dagger sticks out after cutting it open. And a nauseatingly huge amount of mana seeps from within, so dense that it begins to twist the air.
Like some sort of monster, Lissandra forces her way inside, stretching the tear open. Her mana constantly fluctuates, surrounding her like a flame refusing to die in a blizzard. She steps through, and the hole vanishes with an audible thump, leaving the air charged, like a forest after a storm.
Lissandra looks at me, but then her eyes move over and stop at the Ruler of Greed.
“You are late, fake one.” The Ruler of Greed says, with the same smile plastered across her face as she addresses Lissandra.
“You're calling me the fake one? Ruby once called me Master,” Lissandra states calmly, entirely unshaken by the situation.
And for the first time, the Ruler of Greed shows a negative emotion. The smile on her face cracks, and underneath it, anger appears, a deep, red-hot anger with a strong dose of hate.
“My master died millennia ago in the greatest battle this system has ever witnessed. She fell to the most powerful Ruler of Pride that ever lived, and no one else could’ve matched her at her peak,” she pauses, greater hatred radiating from her and twisting the space around, “but be sure I will kill that man, and I will do anything to make that happen. And you, fake one, you are nothing but an inferior imitation. A pathetic shadow of Master Lissandra's great self. So no, I won't call you my master.”
“Hoo?” Lissandra seems amused, and while the Ruler of Greed shows anger, she remains confidently calm, “Here I might agree with you. The disciple I knew is also dead. I ended her false life by my own hand rather than let her continue to live as a shadow.”
“All of you are just imitations,” the Ruler of Greed pauses, “yet, even master’s imitations used to be so powerful. Fake one, I remember well the day the other Rulers and I tore down the old tutorial floors and raised the new ones in their place. Even back then, Lady Lissandra’s imitations began to sense that something was wrong with this place and with themselves. They tended to slaughter all the attendees. In other cases, they broke free from their floors and tried to escape the tutorial itself. To prevent that, we’ve had to modify the second floor countless times.”
The Ruler of Greed smiles. She does so proudly, with memories flashing behind her yellow eyes.
“The others wanted to change Lady Lissandra's imitation, to modify it, strip away certain memories, and limit the abilities she possessed. After a few decades, I gave in and agreed, after she came close to breaking into the thirteenth floor. But you know what happened when we modified her imitation? Those altered imitations would simply sit and watch the attendees, and every time, they ended up destroying themselves while causing as much damage as they possibly could. We lost hundreds of tutorials that way.”
She lets out a short laugh, her smile twisting into something almost unsettling. “It took a lot of attempts to come up with a version that would be even somewhat cooperative. We even changed the second floor itself. We built a setting with gods she believed were real and blocked her knowledge of the Rulers, along with a few other restrictions. And yet, even after all that, she still goes on a rampage from time to time.”
The Ruler of Greed looks at Lissandra. “Back then, I truly wanted to see her again. Maybe I even hoped she would escape when I chose the setup for my floor. Did I hope to have her by my side, or did I want to see her fight and kill the man I still cannot defeat? Did I want to give her a second chance against him? I was so young and foolish back then. But the more I watched, the more I realized that my master is gone. My master, with whom I spent so many years. My master, with whom I traveled the system, fought wars, explored planets and our abilities, faced the most powerful Rulers and Absolutes, and caught glimpses of beings older than the system itself. So I was curious what I would feel, meeting you . But you are just another one of those pathetic imitations. All high and mighty, without the slightest understanding of your place. A disgusting worm wearing my beloved master's form.”
Lissandra nods and asks simply, “Do you know what subclass I’ve chosen?”
At that, the red-haired woman meets Lissandra’s gaze and nods. “Lady Lissandra used to be Pride, but yes, I know what you’ve chosen this time.”
Lissandra takes slow steps towards the red-haired woman, staring at her intently, “And do you know why?”
“Because you want to kill me, oh, fake one?” The Ruler of Greed spreads her arms wide in a slow, deliberate gesture of challenge. A hint of her true mana leaks into the air. The ground trembles beneath it, and the space around her strains, as if the very fabric of this place were on the verge of tearing apart under the weight of her presence.
“Yes,” Lissandra nods, “I will kill a disciple of mine who is not truly a disciple of mine. I will punish her for what she has done and for allowing even an imitation of her master to be used this way.”
That makes the red-haired woman burst into laughter, but even that doesn't make Lissandra hesitate. Her determination doesn't waver at all.
The entire time, I sit there ignored, exhausted from the event, and with the confirmation of my fears: the impossibility of helping Whitey.
Yet these two ignore me, facing each other down with animosity clear in their actions.
Lissandra, who took Tess's life hostage. The Ruler of Greed, whose smile I saw when she was talking about Vega. She knows how much I dislike the fact that Vega has been left at her mercy, and even if she did leave Vega alone, that would probably just allow Envy to kill her, and I see how much she enjoys that.
Just as Tess was taken hostage by Lissandra, Vega has been taken hostage by the Ruler of Greed.
The more they talk and bark at each other, the more I feel that anger well up inside me. An anger that’s been there ever since the start of the tournament, ever since the 5th floor, where I had to endure all this.
And even now, with the Ruler of Greed merely using this as a chance to speak to Lissandra, something begins to snap as they hurl insults at each other.
"Do you ever stop?" I mutter, mostly to myself. But as they keep talking, I finally snap, my voice rising. "Can’t you just shut the fuck up?!"
The conversation ends in a blink, and both of them turn to me with evident surprise as I continue, my voice rising with every word “I don't know how you guys or that huge, starry-eyed hikikomori asshole in his tower make oaths under the system, but this is mine. If you continue to threaten me or the people around me, I swear I'll dedicate my life to being a dick and doing the exact opposite of whatever either of you wants or hopes for. I don't give a single flying fuck about how I look right now, I don’t care how childish I’m being, or how petty it might be. If anything happens to Vega, I swear I will make sure that Pride dickhead lives forever. You said you want to kill him, right? Yea, no fucking chance. I will dedicate my life to keeping his ass alive; hell, I will become his best fucking friend, I will learn his favorite colors, and I will call him on the weekends just to spite you. And you, fucking cockroach? Oh, we are not done yet. You have your word to keep, and I don't care how unfair it might be or whether it's your fault; if anything happens to Tess, I will make sure you pay. Because fuck you assholes.”
Breathe in, breathe out.
“Good? You understand? Great, fuck you. I'm tired of this bullshit. I'm done here. Bye and Fuck you.”
I destabilize my mana, and it runs rampant as I allow it to happen and even help until it blows off my head. Then I find myself back out in the common area, feeling no less angry about the whole thing.
“Feral one?” I hear a worried voice ask next to me. Myrra stands there, her Aurora Glass creating a barrier around both of us, glimmering.
Only then do I realize it's my mana seeping out into the air. The mana I raised to the extreme just to endure the pressure radiating off the two women, even as they simply stood there. Beyond Myrra's barrier are dozens of unconscious people and hundreds more dead and regenerated by the system. Even though I can't hear anything through the barrier, I see some of them crying, while others shake or writhe on the ground.
There would be more of them, and only the Aurora Glass barrier around us stops my mana from passing further, and even that barrier has begun to crack.
With a single thought, all that mana stops and freezes, taken back under my will. Then I pull it all back inside myself and start using Mana Cycling again to move it through my body, preventing it from passing beyond my skin.
“Your face too,” Myrra says.
I reach out and touch it, feeling my twisted expression of anger.
This time, I don't bother using a skill to limit my emotions, refusing to take the easy path for this. I simply take a shallow breath in and force myself to calm down, shoving those emotions back beneath the surface.
Myrra smiles, and her barrier disappears, letting in the sound of people screaming, coughing, and crying, but she forces my attention back to her, “It's back to normal. Do you want to spar, feral one?”
“I do not. I will be working on some items.” I hesitate and then ask her, “Want to watch?”
“Feral one, is this like when a human invites you in for a cup of coffee late at night?”
“What? No. Where are you even getting all these things from?”
“I'm fairly popular, you know, and people teach me a lot when I ask.”
I lift my hand, and she places hers in mine. I teleport us away. The sounds of the crowd vanish behind us, but my bad mood lingers.
We start walking towards my workshop. Myrra doesn't ask any questions, she just follows me, with her tail slowly swaying from side to side and a gentle smile on her face.
"This place, these people, the system. All of them are very intent on fucking us over, aren't they, feral one?"
At that, I can only agree and nod.