My blood turned to ice. This wasn't a game monster. This was in the house. My stats were for fighting in a dungeon with a rapier. Here, in my flimsy nightgown, I was just a seven-year-old. I was "strong," but I was unarmed and unarmored.
Creak...
My enhanced [AGI: 22] senses picked it up instantly. A single, soft footstep on the floorboards in the hallway. It was light. Too light for Theodore or Marie. Too stealthy for Gideon.
The footsteps stopped. Right outside my door.
My heart was a thunderous drum against my ribs. I was about to dive for my [Inventory]—what good would a C-Rank material be?—when the door handle slowly, silently, began to turn.
The door eased open, a sliver of moonlit hallway cutting into the darkness.
A small, blonde-haired shadow slipped inside.
Thomas.
I let out the breath I was holding, but my heart was still hammering. Why was the System calling him a hostile threat? Was he sleepwalking?
"Thomas?" I whispered, my voice a perfect imitation of a scared, sleepy child. [Deceive (E-Rank)] was so natural now, I didn't even have to think about it. "What are you doing? You scared me."
He didn't answer. He just stood there, a silhouette against the hall light. The meek, nervous, book-clutching kid from the pantry was gone. His posture was... wrong. He was standing perfectly still, perfectly balanced. Confident. Cold.
"You know, you're a real problem, 'Silvie'," he whispered.
His voice was not the high, stammering mumble I was used to. It was low, calm, and chillingly adult.
"What... what are you talking about?" I said, sitting up, my hand gripping the thin blanket.
"Gideon," he said, stepping fully into the room. The moonlight from my window caught his face. His wide, brown eyes weren't nervous at all. They were flat. Analytical.
"He's so simple, isn't he? A classic 'brute' archetype. All it took was me whispering that the 'red-haired monster' looked down on him. That you 'told me you were smarter than him.' He did exactly what I predicted he would."
My mind reeled, trying to process his words. "You... you made him attack me?"
"Of course. I had to test you. You're an unknown variable." He took another step, his shadow falling over my bed. "And you failed the test. You're weak. You just took it. You're just like the 'Silvie Briar' from the script. Pathetic."
Script? How did he..?
My System, which had been silent, suddenly blazed with a flurry of frantic, red-text alerts.
[TARGET: Thomas Briar - STATUS: ???]
[LEVEL: ???]
[SKILLS: ???]
[TITLE: ???]
[CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR: CANNOT COMPUTE. HOSTILE ANOMALY DETECTED.]
My blood didn't just run cold. It stopped.
He's like me.
He was hiding his level. He was hiding everything. The... the [Brainy Spare]... it was all an act. He wasn't just another NPC pawn. He was a player.
"You..." I breathed, my "Useless Silvie" mask completely shattering.
"I am," he said, a cold, tiny smile touching his lips. "And unlike you, I'm not here to play the game. I'm here to win it. And the first step to winning... is clearing the board of all the useless, unpredictable pieces."
He glanced at the vial of green liquid on my nightstand. "I was hoping you'd drink that by morning. That 'Feverfew Tincture'? It's a paralytic. A slow-acting one. But you're awake now."
He reached into the pocket of his own nightshirt and pulled out a small, gleaming object. It wasn't a book.
It was an apothecary's scalpel.
"I guess I'll just have to be more direct," he said, his voice a pleasant, conversational whisper. "It's a shame. I really do need to get Gideon next, and this is so... messy."
He took a step toward my bed. And I had nowhere to run.
He took a step toward my bed. And I had nowhere to run.
My mind was a screaming white-noise static of panic. 'No rapier. No armor. I'm in my nightgown. `[Level 16]` vs `[Level ???]`. He's got a blade. I've got a blanket. This is not a fair fight!'
He was so confident. He had tested me. He had analyzed me. He had found me "pathetic" and "weak." He was a planner, an analyst.
He lunged.
It wasn't a clumsy child's swing. It was a practiced, adult-minded, lethal lunge, the scalpel aimed directly at my throat, designed to end this quickly and silently.
But he was working with bad data.
`[Skill: Quickstep]`
In the fraction of a second his lunge began, I burst into motion. I didn't roll off the bed, I didn't even "dodge." My `[AGI: 22]` and the `[Quickstep]` skill combined. I exploded sideways, a seven-year-old's body moving with the supernatural speed of a `[Level 16]` grinder.
Shhhk-THUMP.
The sound of the scalpel burying itself deep into the thin mattress and the wooden bed-frame—exactly where my neck had been—was horrifically loud in the silent room.
I landed on my bare feet on the cold floor, ten feet away, by the door. My escape route was secured. My heart was trying to punch its way out of my ribs, but I was alive.
There was a moment of absolute silence.
Thomas slowly, very slowly, pulled his scalpel free from my pillow. He turned, his body no longer relaxed and confident, but coiled. Tense.
His brown eyes were wide. His "test" had failed. His analysis was completely, totally wrong. The "Useless Sidekick" was not supposed to be able to do that.
"How...?" he whispered. This time, the whisper was not for effect. It was real.
"You're not the only one who knows the 'script'," I said, my voice cold. My hand was on the doorknob.
His eyes narrowed. "You... you're... from Japan?"
"Yes," I said. "So, let's cut the crap."
This was it. The real test.
"What 'cheat' did you get?" I asked, my voice low and casual, as if I were asking about the weather. "Did a god pop up when you arrived? Give you a special 'blessing'? A unique skill? Or are you just... stuck, like me?"
I was fishing, and I was baiting the hook by pretending to be in the same boat as him—just a reincarnator with memories and nothing else.
Thomas just... stared at me. His face, illuminated by the moonlight, was a mask of pure, unadulterated confusion.
"'Cheat'?" he repeated, the word sounding foreign. "'God'? 'Skill'? What are you talking about? I just... I woke up here. As a baby. With my memories. That's it. There's no 'magic,' there's no 'system'."
Bingo.
My panic, which had been a cold knot in my stomach, instantly evaporated. It was replaced by a sharp, icy, calculating rush. My internal smirk was back.
He wasn't a "player." He wasn't an "Anomaly" with a System. He was just a standard, non-gamer reincarnator.
He was an adult with a scalpel.
And I was... something else entirely.
"No 'System'?" I said, letting a small, pitying smile touch my lips. I let go of the doorknob. I wasn't running. I was in charge now. "Oh, that's a shame. So you're just... an adult mind in a kid's body? With no cheat skills? And you still thought you'd take me out with a scalpel?"
"What are you?" he hissed, taking a step back. The `[HOSTILE INTENT]` warning on my screen flickered from bright-red to a dull, pulsing orange. He was re-evaluating. "A... a 'Returner'? Did a god give you a 'Blessing'?" He was grasping at in-world explanations, things he must have read about.
"Does it matter?" I said. "What matters is that whatever I have is faster than whatever you have. Your test failed, Thomas. Your data is wrong."
I let my gaze harden. "I'm not 'weak,' and I'm not a 'pathetic piece' to be cleared off the board. I'm here to save Amaryllis."
"Save... Amaryllis?" He looked at me like I was insane, a new, genuine confusion replacing his killing intent. "She's a scripted NPC! She's the villainess! Why would you waste your time on her?"
"My reasons. You have your goal—'winning' by taking over this backwater barony. That's... small."
His eyes flashed in anger, but I pressed on. "I have mine. So here's the deal... you can try to kill me again. But as you've just seen, I'm fast. And I'm a very, very light sleeper. Or... you can help me."
"Help... you?" he growled, his mind clearly spinning.
"I need to get to Oakhaven tomorrow. You're going to make sure 'Old Man Hemlock' takes me. You're going to cover for me. In return..."
I let my smile turn cold, a perfect mirror of the one he'd given me earlier.
"In return, I'll consider not 'accidentally' tripping when Gideon lunges at me, and letting him impale himself on the garden shears instead. He's a clumsy kid. It would be a terrible, terrible'accident'."
His eyes went wide. He understood the threat perfectly. I wasn't just fast; I was vicious. I was the one who had orchestrated the "accident" with the rose bushes.
He stared at me for a long, silent minute, the scalpel gleaming uselessly in his hand.
"...You're a monster, Silvie Briar," he finally whispered.
"Takes one to know one," I said. "Now, are we partners?"