[Location]: Yggdrasil Academy · Dormitory [Golden Bough] · Room 302
The hallway was bathed in blindingly bright sunshine. Outside the stained-glass windows, the cicadas of late summer chirped with annoying vitality. It was the noisy, chaotic, vibrant soundtrack of the living world.
Hathaway stood at the door of Room 302, her hand hovering over the brass handle.
She wasn't facing a dormitory door. She was facing the entrance to a Mausoleum.
The handle itself was sculpted into the shape of a skeletal finger, cold enough to freeze moisture from the air, leaving a layer of white frost on the dark wood.
"Hoo..."
Hathaway took a deep breath, mentally reinforcing her cognitive barriers. She checked her internal status bar one last time—[Sanity: Stable]—before her fingers touched the bone-chilling brass.
Creeeeak—
The heavy black walnut door groaned like a coffin lid being pushed open after a century of silence.
The moment Hathaway crossed the threshold, the world Died.
The sunlight from the hallway didn't flood into the room. Instead, it was instantly devoured the moment it crossed the threshold.
The room was submerged in absolute, heavy darkness.
The curtains were drawn tight, woven from the Second District's (Holheim) specialty silk, enchanted with the Wellington family's secret art—[Silent Black]. This black didn't just block photons; it swallowed sound, heat, and color. It turned the room into a sensory deprivation tank, mimicking the eternal silence of the Holheim Crypts.
The cheerful chirping of cicadas was severed instantly.
The air pressure dropped. A damp, gloomy chill—a mix of old parchment, dried rosemary, and high-concentration mana residue—seeped into her bones, making her joints ache.
"...Victoria?" Hathaway called out tentatively.
Her voice sounded strange—flat, dampened, as if she were speaking underwater. The darkness ate the vibrations before they could echo.
No answer.
Only a rhythmic, terrifying sound echoed from the depths of the darkness.
Swish... Swish...
It was the sound of pages turning. Fast. Too fast for human hands.
Hathaway swallowed hard. She strained her eyes, forcing her pupils to dilate to the limit, trying to parse shapes from the abyss.
Slowly, the darkness revealed its master.
In the center of the room, where the "living room" should have been, dozens of ghostly blue specks of light floated.
Books.
Hundreds of hardcover spellbooks were defying gravity, suspended in mid-air. They rotated and intersected in complex celestial trajectories, like a miniature galaxy made of knowledge.
And in the center of this "Universe of Paper," sat the Conductor.
Victoria Wellington was sunk deep into a high-backed Gothic iron chair.
Through the dim, ghostly blue light of the floating books, Hathaway could barely make out the embroidery on the chair's velvet headrest. It was silver thread, glistening coldly in the dark.
She only saw a fragment—a twisted silver thorn piercing a shattered lens—but that fragment was the key that unlocked a rusted door in her mind.
Back at the Entrance Duel, when she first saw this crest, she had merely recognized the shape. But now, in this damp, sunless crypt, the Meaning behind the symbol flooded her brain like black ink.
The complete image overlaid itself onto her retina.
It wasn't just a design; it was a testament to madness.
She "saw" the Inverted Cello, a silent tribute to Holheim's obsession with the music of the dead.
She "saw" the Shattered Monocle in the center. The memory clarified the gruesome detail: the lens wasn't cracked from the outside; it was exploded from within. There was no glass debris. Instead, a black, tar-like shadow oozed from the cracks, dripping down the silver threads.
To an outsider, this was mysterious and gothic.
But to the Ludwig DNA in Hathaway’s veins, this was simply... Gross.
It was the feeling of a sun-loving lion stepping into a damp cave full of bats. It was the clash of "Aesthetics."
The Ghost Data sneered in Hathaway's mind, practically screaming:
Look at them. Hiding in the dark like mushrooms.
They shatter their own glasses because they are too weak to handle the 'Glare' of reality.
They call it 'Elegant Mystery.' We call it 'Being a Creepy Stalker'.
Where is the Light? Where is the Passion? Turn on the damn lights!
Hathaway felt a phantom itch in her eyes.
If she were a "True Ludwig," her [Red Photophores] would have auto-activated by now, blasting Twin 150-Lumen Beams into this darkness, tearing apart Victoria's carefully crafted atmosphere just to assert dominance.
(“Turn off your high-beams!” “I am admiring the embroidery! Is it illegal to look?!”)
Hathaway suppressed the biological urge to glow. She stood there, blinking her dull, non-luminescent red eyes, and rolled them internally.
Shut up, ancestors, she thought, silencing the Ghost Data. You guys are the ones with the problem.
From a Game Designer's perspective, the "Ludwig Eyes" were a Design Flaw. Who in their right mind evolves bioluminescence in their corneas? Sure, the Ludwigs gaslit the entire world into believing it was "Style" and "Intimidation." But Hathaway knew the truth: It was just Light Pollution.
If you need a light, buy a flashlight for 5 Solars, Hathaway scoffed internally. Don't evolve a mutation that ruins your sleep schedule. My "Defect"—my inability to glow—isn't a bug. It's a patch. I'm the only normal person in this asylum.
With that grounding thought, the oppressive atmosphere of the room lessened slightly.
She focused on the person sitting below that "disgusting" crest.
Victoria didn't turn on any lights. For a Wellington, normal light was just noise.
Illuminated only by the faint, ghostly blue aura of the spellbooks, she looked eerily beautiful. Her skin was pale to the point of transparency, like polished marble. Her silver hair cascaded down like a waterfall of moonlight.
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She wasn't reading with her hands.
Her left index finger was raised in the air, moving elegantly and rhythmically, as if conducting a silent symphony. With every flick of her finger, a book would open, pages would flutter like bird wings, and the knowledge within would be absorbed into her mind.
Suddenly, the finger stopped.
The "Symphony" halted.
The hundreds of floating books froze in mid-air, their covers all turning toward Hathaway simultaneously.
Victoria raised her head.
Those deep blue eyes locked onto Hathaway. They were beautiful, vast, and completely unfocused. She stared "through" Hathaway, looking at a world that existed parallel to this one.
To her physical vision, Hathaway was likely just a fuzzy, pink-and-silver blob.
But Hathaway felt no safety in that blur. Because while Victoria's retinas saw a blob, her [Magic Vision] saw Everything.
Hummmm—
A low frequency vibration started in Hathaway's skull.
The air in the room seemed to thicken, turning into viscous syrup. Hathaway felt the floor beneath her feet turn into liquid mud. The Gothic chair grew taller, transforming into a throne that reached the ceiling. Victoria's figure elongated, becoming a giant looking down on an ant.
[Passive Effect: Wellington's Gaze]
[Type: Cognitive Distortion / Hypnosis]
[Status: Active]
Kneel.
A voice whispered in Hathaway's brain. Not an auditory hallucination, but a direct rewriting of her "Common Sense."
The floor is soft. Kneeling is comfortable. Submitting to the High Conductor is the only logical choice. Why are you standing? Standing is tiring. Kneel and be forgiven.
Hathaway’s knees buckled slightly. Her center of gravity shifted downward. The desire to surrender was sweet, like falling asleep in a warm bath.
No.
Hathaway’s eyes narrowed.
Inside her mind, two forces surged up to fight the invasion.
One was the "Gamer's Soul"—an alien rationality that treated this mental pressure as nothing more than a [Debuff Icon] on a screen.
The other was the "Ludwig Bloodline"—the ancient, arrogant DNA of the Crimson Witch family that found the very idea of kneeling to a Wellington biologically repulsive.
I am a Ludwig. I do not kneel to a blind girl in a dark room.
And I am a Player. You can't cutscene-kill me.
Hathaway gritted her teeth, her red eyes flashing with a defiant light. She didn't bite her tongue; she simply Refused.
She locked her knees. She straightened her spine. She forced her brain to reject the false reality.
Crack.
The illusion of the giant throne shattered like glass. The floor solidified.
Hathaway gasped, sweat drenching her back, but she was still standing. Upright.
"Oh?"
Victoria let out a soft sound of surprise. She tilted her head slightly, the ghostly blue light casting long shadows over her delicate features.
"You are late."
Victoria's voice was soft, devoid of inflection. It sounded less like it came from her throat and more like a resonance ringing directly on Hathaway's cerebral cortex.
"From the dormitory entrance to the L’étoile patisserie, based on a Witch's average walking speed (1.2m/s), plus the 12 minutes required to queue for the 'Void Blueberry Tart'..."
Victoria's unfocused eyes stared emptily at a point slightly to the left of Hathaway's head. "...You should have appeared behind this door thirty-five minutes ago."
She tapped her finger on the armrest.
"However, not only did I wait in vain for my afternoon tea... My auditory organs detect that your heartbeat is 15% faster than baseline. And my olfactory senses do not detect the scent of caramelized sugar or Darjeeling tea on you."
Victoria finally focused—or tried to. She squinted slightly, her pupils dilating.
The pressure in the room doubled. The floating books began to vibrate.
"Explain yourself, Hathaway von Ludwig. Did you lose my afternoon tea? Or do you believe that a Wellington on the verge of hypoglycemia is more merciful than an expulsion notice from the Academic Affairs Office?"
Hathaway clutched her staff.
The excuse "I lost it" would lead to being labeled "Incompetent."
The excuse "I ate it" would lead to death.
She needed a Scapegoat. She needed to redirect this cold, calculating rage toward a target that Victoria hated more than incompetence.
"The tea was stolen," Hathaway said, her voice trembling—half from real fear, half from calculation. "Rhode took it."
"Rhode?"
The name acted like a summoning spell for frost. The temperature in the room plummeted.
Victoria’s fingers tightened around her Adamantite Quill. The metal shaft groaned under the pressure.
"Your cousin? That... 'Muscle Gorilla' who walks around like a source of light pollution? She took my things, and you just stood there and watched?"
"I tried to resist!" Hathaway stepped forward, putting on her best 'Victim' face. "But Victoria, you know her. She is... unreasonable."
"Unreasonable is not an excuse for incompetence," Victoria said coldly. "You are a Witch. You have spells. You have a staff. Did you just hand it over?"
"I couldn't do anything!" Hathaway raised her voice, injecting a tone of genuine shock and helplessness. "It wasn't a duel. It was... a massacre."
"The President of the Alchemy Club tried to stop her with a Mach-3 Alchemy Mech." Hathaway paused, ensuring Victoria was listening. "Rhode didn't even chant. She didn't use a staff. She just used One Finger."
"She poked the mech's defensive matrix. And the entire machine... disintegrated. She swiped the tea bags from my hand while chewing on the wreckage of the mech's core."
Victoria went silent.
The quill in her hand stopped moving.
"One finger?" she whispered. "Against a Mach-3 kinetic barrier?"
"Yes," Hathaway nodded vigorously. "She destroyed it like it was wet paper."
Victoria let out a cold laugh. It was a terrifying sound, sharp and dissonant.
"Of course. Brute force. Overwhelming mana output to crush the structure before the logic can even engage. How... Rhode of her. She acts like a natural disaster because she lacks the intelligence to be a surgeon."
The anger was there, but it was just Disdain.
Victoria looked down on Rhode's methods. She considered them crude. This wasn't enough to make her lose control. It was just another confirmation that Rhode was a barbarian.
Hathaway swallowed hard.
Not enough.
Disdain isn't enough. I need Rage.
I need to make this personal.
She took a deep breath. She was about to walk a tightrope over a volcano.
She didn't know the exact details of the Wellington family feud. But she knew Archetypes. She knew that the "Hardworking Intellectual" (Victoria) always holds a deep, festering complex against the "Talented Savage" (Rhode). And she knew that for a family obsessed with "Structure" and "Logic," the ultimate insult is to call their philosophy Weak.
"If it were just the tea, or just the violence, I would apologize," Hathaway whispered, lowering her head to hide the glint in her eyes. "But... what I couldn't stand was what she said after she took it."
"She said something?" Victoria leaned forward slightly. The darkness in the room churned. "That creature... has opinions?"
"She laughed. Loudly."
Hathaway adjusted her posture. She relaxed her shoulders, mimicking Rhode’s nonchalant, arrogant slouch. She lowered her voice to imitate that lazy, punchable drawl:
"Oh? This is for that little blind girl in Room 302?"
Hathaway saw Victoria’s eyebrow twitch. The "Blind Girl" slur hit the mark.
"Giving such high-end mana food to her is a waste," Hathaway continued, fabricating the dialogue with the skill of a seasoned playwright, weaving truth and lies into a poison dagger. "Someone like Victoria is great at solving test papers, sure. She can recite the Universal Rune Dictionary backwards."
Hathaway paused, letting the silence stretch.
"But in actual combat? She is a joke. Just like the little duel. She lost to you, didn't she, Hathaway? A Wellington losing to a newbie... hilarious."
Victoria's face had gone completely still.
The mention of her loss to Hathaway—even though it was an accident—was a sore spot.
But Hathaway wasn't done. She prepared the Nuclear Option.
"And then... she said something else." Hathaway hesitated, acting as if she was afraid to repeat it.
"Speak," Victoria commanded. The floating books were trembling now.
"She said..." Hathaway whispered, "To be honest, the entire Wellington family is the same. They act all elegant and mysterious, hiding in the dark... But that's just because they are weak."
"They overcomplicate magic with their 'Perfect Logic' because they lack the raw power to just Crush reality."
"Victoria is just a cheaper copy of that Failure of an Heir."
...
......
Silence.
The silence in the room wasn't quiet. It was deafening.
The floating books stopped spinning. The blue ghost fires flickered and died, plunging the room into total darkness for a split second before flaring up in a violent, unstable Crimson.
SNAP.
The sound was crisp and loud, echoing like a gunshot.
The Adamantite Quill in Victoria’s hand—a metal harder than tank armor—finally succumbed. She didn't just bend it. She pulverized it.
Fine metal dust dripped from her pale fingers like glitter.
"Failure... of an Heir? Weakness... disguised as Logic?"
Victoria repeated the words.
Her voice was no longer the flat, emotionless tone of a conductor. It was trembling. Not with sadness, but with a Murderous Rage so intense it distorted the air around her.
She slowly stood up from her iron throne.
Her silver hair floated up, defying gravity, dancing like snakes in the charged air. Her unfocused eyes were now wide open, burning with a terrifying light. The [Hypnotic Field] went into overdrive.
Hathaway felt like the ceiling was collapsing on her. The walls were bleeding shadow.
Victoria stepped forward. Her bare feet made no sound, but every step sent a ripple of mana through the floorboards. She walked until she was inches away from Hathaway.
She loomed over her, radiating the pressure of a collapsing star.
"Words are cheap, Hathaway," Victoria whispered. Her breath was ice cold. "Since you claim she insulted the Wellington Doctrine... Since you claim she mocked Her..."
Victoria grabbed Hathaway’s shoulder. Her grip was like an iron clamp.
"Reproduce it."
"Huh?" Hathaway stammered, her legs shaking for real this time. "Reproduce... what?"
"The scene where she destroyed the Mech. The scene where she demonstrated her 'Superior Brute Force'."
Victoria pointed to the empty space in the center of the room.
"Use [Illusion · Memory Recall]. Now."
"I want to see exactly what kind of 'Power' gave that barbarian the audacity to open her mouth."
Victoria leaned in, her blurry, beautiful eyes looking straight into Hathaway’s soul.
"If you miss a single detail of her mana flow... I will dismantle your hippocampus piece by piece to find the truth myself."