"Hah... Whatever. It isn't like part of it isn't my fault," Aefia whispered to herself as she slowly walked away from the training fields, her muscles aching from having picked yet another pointless verbal and physical spar with Helio.
"Honestly... life here is entirely too exhausting to deal with. Leukemia is tough to deal with," she muttered under her breath, stretching her arms above her head and cracking her stiff neck.
Right beside her, floating like a tiny, irritated plushie with small wings, Puppet crossed its stubby arms and scoffed. "If your technique weren't so aggressively sloppy, you wouldn't ache like an old hinge. Stop complaining. If you spent less time picking fights with that broomstick, you wouldn't be groaning every two steps."
"Quiet, plushie," Aefia muttered under her breath, reaching up to gently flick the floating wolf's ear. "I am not in the mood."
Puppet let out an offended squawk, its tiny wings buzzing angrily as it darted just out of reach. "Do not strike the divine manifestation! And oh, marvelous! Take it out on the creature who actually saved your miserable skin!"
"You already ate my breakfast bun this morning. That's your compensation for the week. I said quiet."
"We were supposed to take a walk! You promised!" Puppet hovered right up to her face, its amber eyes narrowing into tiny slits as a sudden thought made Aefia halt mid-stride.
Aefia paused in the middle of the corridor, her hand rising to lightly press against her temple where a dull, persistent throb had begun to pulse.
The thought flickered through her mind out of nowhere, stopping her footsteps entirely. It triggered a sudden, vivid memory of Professor Miriam—the warm, steady-handed professor who was one of the very few people in this facility who actually looked after Aefia's erratic health without an ulterior motive. A soft, familiar face in a place full of cold eyes.
"A checkup..." She mumbled.
"I have been cooped up in this tiny, pathetic body all morning and I demand fresh air! A checkup?! You are prioritizing a boring room filled with white coats over my walk? Unbelievable! Absolutely scandalous!"
"Stop yelling," Aefia grumbled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "You can come along or you can go float in the corner of my room."
"I am coming along to supervise your terrible choices!" it huffed, zooming over to land square on her shoulder, digging its small paws into her fabric.
Without another word, Aefia turned on her heel and changed direction, making her way down the winding hallways toward the faculty medical wing.
Puppet trailed after her, grumbling mentally the entire way about being dragged around on erratic errands.
She knocked on the heavy wooden door.
"Come in," Professor Miriam's voice called out softly.
When Aefia pushed open the door, she looked up from her desk, her motherly eyes softening instantly at the sight of her favorite, perpetually overworked candidate.
"Ah, Aefia. Good timing. Take a seat," Miriam greeted warmly, setting her pen aside.
Aefia sat down at the edge of the examination cot. Miriam pulled up a chair, conducting a quick series of cognitive tests and checking her reflexes with a small light.
"Miriam..." Aefia suddenly muttered. Her focus drifting off to the ceiling lights. "When was it that I had met you again? In the cafeteria or... Where?"
The professor's smile faded into a deep, troubled frown. She let out a heavy sigh, adjusting her glasses. "Why are yous ddunky asking a question like that? I found you bleeding by your room door."
"Oh..." She answered, tilting her head slightly. "But... When was that?"
Miriam's eyebrow furrowed, then she reached out toward her head. Rubbing her finger around her scalp and tapping slightly—feeling the bone beneath the skin jagger and cracked.
"It seems you got hit quite hard in the head recently, child," Miriam said gently, tapping a digital readout on her desk. "Your cognitive patterns are fragmented, and your memory retention is severely compromised. Your memories are terribly foggy, aren't they? These gaps aren't just going to fade on their own."
"I guess so," Aefia replied faintly, staring at the floor.
Miriam reached for a notepad, scribbling rapidly across a sheet of paper. "I am writing you a recommendation letter to a specialized hospital outside the facility. You need proper neurological evaluation, or the latent neural damage could get far more dangerous in the future if we don't address it now. And don't worry about finances and all... I will handle it."
She tore the sheet off and handed it over.
Aefia just stared blankly at the paper, offering a dry, indifferent shrug. "If it happens, it happens."
"Aefia, take this seriously," Miriam scolded affectionately.
"Right. Thank you, Professor," Aefia murmured, taking the letter, turning on her heel, and walking out the door.
The moment the heavy office door clicked shut behind her into the quiet hallway, Aefia held the paper in her hand for a second without slowing her pace. With a flick of her wrist and a completely blank, detached expression, she casually tossed the official recommendation letter backward over her shoulder.
A tiny tear in space opened up for a split second—her inventory skill swallowing the recommendation whole before it could even hit the ground. It vanished completely, archived into the void where it would never bother her again.
Puppet snapped its head back in sheer disbelief, its amber eyes wide. "Did you just... throw away your own medical letter?! You do realize that was an official medical referral, right? You just threw away your only ticket to fixing your broken brain! You are already stupid right now! Go. Get. It. Back!"
"I don't need it," Aefia said flatly, her footsteps echoing down the hall.
"You are insane! Completely off your rocker! That woman gave you a way out, a specialist, and you just shoved it into the abyss?!"
"I said I don't need it, Puppet," she repeated, her tone dropping several degrees. "A hospital won't change anything right now. My brain works well enough to keep me alive. That's all that matters. First my blood... Now my brain. My lifespan is short—that is all I can say. I am not spending my energy to keeping myself alive if it doesn't want to."
"You are infuriating! Utterly, shockingly infuriating!" Puppet threw its head back, letting out a tiny puff of grey smoke from its jaw as it grumbled on her shoulder.
Aefia didn't answer. Her eyes remained fixed on the long, empty corridor ahead as she stepped forward into the cold air of the facility.
Aefia hadn't made it more than twenty paces down the quiet administrative corridor before a familiar, unwelcome shadow stepped out from an intersecting hallway, blocking her path.
"Candidate Fifteen," Avry's sharp, calculating voice broke the silence. The woman paused, sweeping a cold, scrutinizing glare over Aefia's tired posture before narrowing her eyes. "Do you have a moment? We need to speak."
Aefia didn't stop immediately. She let her feet drag for two more slow steps before coming to a halt, her expression completely devoid of warmth.
Puppet, perched on her shoulder, let out a tiny, warning growl beneath its breath, its amber eyes locking onto the professor with instant hostility.
"Lead the way," Aefia said softly, her voice light and entirely unbothered.
Avry gave a crisp click of her heels, turning around to walk briskly down the secluded hall toward the private administrative wing.
She trailed behind her at an easy, unhurried pace, keeping her hands tucked casually into her jacket pockets.
As the distance between them and the main hallway grew, she tilted her head slightly, her gaze fixed on the back of Avry's head.
"Professor..." She began, her tone airy, as if asking about the morning weather. "Do you want to know what I know about your dirty little secret?"
Avry's stride faltered for a fraction of a second, but she didn't stop. "What absurd nonsense are you babbling about now, Fifteen?"
"I know for one thing," Aefia continued smoothly, her words laced with a quiet, lethal confidence, "that you sometimes sell off incompetent candidates under the table... and then slip out to kidnap new victims like me whenever the facility head isn't looking."
In a split second, Avry spun around on her heel.
Her face contorted in a flash of pure, murderous rage, her arm shooting out like a striking viper. Her fingers clamped tightly around Aefia's throat, slamming her back against the cold wall with a sharp, heavy thud.
"Shut your mouth," Avry hissed through gritted teeth, her eyes wide with frantic, dangerous tension. "You don't know a single thing about what goes on here, you arrogant little brat. Keep speaking like that and I will make sure you don't survive your next evaluation."
Puppet bristled, its ears flattening as it prepared to pounce, but she didn't even flinch.
Instead, a slow, dark smirk pulled at the corner of Aefia's lips. Her eyes held no fear, only a chilling, hollow amusement as she reached up with a pale hand, wrapping her fingers around Avry's wrist. With surprising, effortless force, she pried the woman's grip off her neck, stepping away from the wall.
"If you don't provoke me or cause me any problems," Aefia murmured, adjusting her collar with a casual flick of her wrist, "then of course... those words will stay sealed behind my mouth. There's a reason I am just giving you a polite warning, Professor."
She stared at her, her chest heaving slightly as she swallowed hard, forced to re-evaluate the calm monster standing in front of her.
Without uttering another word, Avry turned back around, her posture stiff and rigid as she continued walking toward a heavy, reinforced door at the end of the hall.
She pulled out a keycard, swiped it through the scanner, and pushed the door open to reveal a private, soundproof office.
Aefia walked in without hesitation. Avry stepped in behind her, shutting the door firmly and locking it with a heavy, digital click. Moving behind her large metal desk, she pulled a thick, confidential dossier out of her drawer and slammed it onto the desk surface.
"Before I even consider sending you into high-grade solo dungeons," Avry said, her voice strained as she forced herself back into a professional, authoritative tone, "you have a primary assignment to complete. Consider this your screening test."
Aefia stepped forward, flipping the thick folder open.
Right on the front page was a high-resolution photograph of a boy. He had messy brown hair, sharp hazel-brown eyes, and a stubborn, defiant scowl painted across his face.
According to the document, he was sixteen years old, originally hailing from Spain, and listed as Candidate Nine from another facility.
Aefia's eyes lingered on the photograph for a brief second as a subtle spark of recognition flickered through her memory.
Diego.
Nada's love interest... How could I not recognize. But does that mean the plot is moving really fast right now?
"He escaped three days ago," Avry explained, leaning her hands against the desk as she watched Aefia scan the pages. "Currently, this boy—Diego—is about to be sold off as a slave to a very powerful, beast-like businessman on the black market. But he is far too valuable of an experimental asset for the higher-ups to let go of that easily."
She narrowed her eyes, her lips curling into a cold, cruel smile. "Your objective is to locate him, intercept the trade, capture him, and bring him directly back to our facility. It will be extremely dangerous, given the forces involved... but you chose this upon yourself when you insisted on going into solo dungeons."
Aefia quietly read through the last few lines of the report before smoothly snapping the folder shut with a crisp, definitive sound.
"This is fine by me," she stated flatly, tucking the folder under her arm.
She turned on her heel, heading straight for the heavy office door. But just as her hand reached out to grasp the metallic doorhandle, she paused.
Aefia turned her head slightly over her shoulder, looking back at the woman standing behind the desk. For a split second, the ambient light in the room seemed to bend, and Aefia's dark irises flashed a vivid, crimson red.
"And Professor..." Aefia said, her voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper that rattled through the soundproof room. "I know exactly what I meant when I said I wanted to go into solo dungeons. I don't need advice from people who know nothing about me. So kindly—the next time—keep your arrogant opinions to yourself."
With a swift turn, she twisted the handle, stepped out into the hallway, and let the heavy door shut behind her with a deafening thud.
Inside the quiet office, Avry remained frozen behind her desk. Her breath caught violently in her throat, her hands trembling slightly against the cool wood as her eyes stayed wide with shock, staring at the empty doorway.
"...Did her eyes..." She whispered to the empty room, her voice shaking as cold sweat broke out along her neck. "...just momentarily change color?"
***********************
First draft: 23.11.2025
Rewritten: 01.10.2026