Chapter 20: Let the Horrible Revelation Sink In

“Are you all right, Miss Guevera?” She snapped her head up and swallowed the lump in her throat as Instructor Ignatius stood over her desk. He looked somewhat concerned. “You don’t seem as attentive as usual.”

He glanced down at the few papers in front of her. Tori followed his gaze and her stomach twisted. Her usual page or two full of notes had two or three sentences and none of her doodles or charts she used to visualize concepts.

She looked back at her instructor with guilt. “I’m sorry, Instructor Ignatius, I’m a bit distracted today. This won’t happen again. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Her words didn’t seem to reassure the man. He thought for a moment. “If you need to review today’s lesson, come see me after class this week and we’ll go over what you missed.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry about this.”

Instructor Ignatius gave her a small nod. “I know you have a lot of things going on, but don’t take more than you can handle. If you do become overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to ask for help.” He stepped away from her desk and Tori closed her eyes. She leaned back against her seat and let out a low, frustrated breath.

It was inevitable that personal problems could affect her mental state and then spill over into work, or in this case, school. She was still human. Forty-years-old or otherwise. After running a hand down her face, she collected her belongings and began to walk towards the practice grounds for sword.

Halfway there, she came to a stop. Wielding weapons when she was in a daze was not a good idea, no matter how decent she thought her reflexes were. She had some skill, but she wasn’t reckless. The last thing any sort of athlete or martial artist wanted was to be injured.

Tori turned around and took two steps in the direction of her dorm.

Ilyana would be there soon and start doing her afternoon reviews. Knowing her, if she noticed Tori even moderately sad, she’d immediately try to find out what was wrong and no reviewing would be done. She appreciated her friend’s loyalty, even if it was programmed into her, so Tori didn’t want to bother her.

The only other place she could think of to be alone was Cafe Fortuna.

When she stepped through the doors, Madam Lillian Jager, Tobias’ mother, was at the counter. She welcomed Tori brightly, but the plump and rosy woman’s smile waned as she saw Tori’s face.

“What’s wrong, my lady?” She had a deep, rural accent from the northeast that Tori liked. Perhaps because the tones and fluidity of it reminded her of her original world’s grandmother’s accent. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was comforting. The woman rounded the counter and walked across the empty cafe. She raised her hands and cupped Tori’s face. “You are...tired?”

Tori nodded her head silently. “Mama J, can I get some chicken soup?” It was her comfort food of choice, no matter what world she was in.

“Yes, yes, Mama J will make it for you. You go to the boss’ room. I will bring you soup.”

Tori thanked her softly and trudged to the stairs. She didn’t question being treated like a child in need of comfort. She was distressed. She welcomed it.

The door to Pier’s private room was at the end of the hall upstairs, right above the front of the cafe. She’d only been there once, when Axton invited her and the others up the day he found her seething about the stolen vests. She pushed open the door and walked into the warm room with a large table, chairs, and a plush, oversized settee by the window.

She put her bag on the table and then went to lay across the settee. She needed a moment to decompress, then she could think clearly. As she sprawled on the soft, purple velvet, the weight around her body seemed to sink and she closed her eyes. Her breaths were low and even.

Laying on the settee reminded her of when she first woke up in the game world, trying to make sense of everything. She’d lay on the fancy bed, staring at the canopy, trying to understand who she was and the world around her. Back then, she didn’t see a point in panicking or being afraid, though the feelings were there.

Her situation was what it was and without knowing the situation of her original life - whether she was dead or just in a coma - she wasn’t about to kill herself to see if she’d go back. That’s not the type of person she was and frankly, she thought doing so was ridiculous.

Who’d rather put themselves through the momentary pain and stress of death just to see if there was even a chance of returning to her original world when they could live and see what it was like be the beloved daughter of a wealthy and influential family, and explore a fantasy world?

Of course, she missed her family, friends, and carefree life, and the world she grew up in and was used to. To this day, she’d have moments where she was reminded of her original home and her heart would ache. There were nights she’d wake up with tears in her eyes after dreaming of her mother crying over her dead body or her best friend of 22 years suffering a panic attack after finding out about the accident when she didn’t reach Osaka to meet them.

The words ‘I’m fine; don’t worry about me’ always died in her throat just as she woke up. All she could do was swallow her cries and turn her back to Ilyana, hoping she didn’t wake her.

If she could go back, she would...within reason.

A chance at returning wasn’t worth the finality of death if it failed. At least, not to her.

Even if in eight years she was going to die in this world, she certainly wasn’t going to rob herself of an interesting life experience before then. Tori opened her eyes and stared at the exposed wooden beams above her. She narrowed her eyes.

“I can do a lot in eight years....” she said to herself. Even if she spent most of it in school, she’d get to experience new things, which was always a thrill for her. It was why she took so many classes and learned random things. It was why she traveled the world and enjoyed varied interests that served no practical purpose in her career. “Huh....”

A knock came from the door.

“My lady, I bring you soup!”

Tori swung her legs over the edge of the settee and rushed to open the door so Mama Jager didn’t have to hold the tray for too long.

“Thank you, Mama J.” Tori reached out to take the tray. “I can get it. Do you want me to bring it downstairs when I’m done?”

“No, you leave it here. Eat and rest, okay?” The fifty-something year old woman reached out and patted Tori’s cheek affectionately. “If you need anything, we are downstairs.”

She headed back and Tori turned around, using her foot to close the door while she held the wooden tray with the rather large bowl of chicken and vegetable chunks floating in thick soup. There was a hot cup of coffee with milk next to the bowl and her favorite Cafe Fortuna dessert, custard tart. She placed the tray on the table and smiled softly. This was more food than she expected.

Tori sat down and ate what she could before rummaging through her bag for her pencil and some paper to help straighten her thoughts. She needed to at least have an idea or suspicion on what was happening to react. How she chose to react would determine how she faced the world, and how she faced the world, even if she died in eight years, would determine how well she lived.

First thing first: the characters.

Dimitri’s nonsensical conversation with her that afternoon, asking her to essentially give in to Alessa, was making sense until it didn’t. Tori understood why he’d ask such a thing: he wanted to help the protagonist. However, Dimitri was supposed to be a sensible character. He was being groomed to one day be a Prime Minister.

Tori gave him a reasonable explanation on why she didn’t agree and an option that would give Alessa what she theoretically wanted, which was jobs for her village. Yet he acted as if she was dead set on destroying those jobs and harming Alessa.

First Gideon and then Dimitri, and Adrien, who seemed to insist she was blaming Alessa for the stolen designs when she never voiced it. Even Fabian had agreed to Alessa’s suggestion that Tori sit at the front of the class for the midterm exam.

Tori wrote out all their names and little notes beneath them. Sooner or later, the other targets would also somehow come into conflict. No matter how reasonable she thought she was or how lenient she reacted to try to mitigate any backlash, they came to dislike her, like the dating sim intended.

She tapped her pencil on the paper.

According to the wiki article, it was Victoria who always plotted against Alessa because of jealousy. It was mostly in the form of bullying, like isolation or verbal abuse. While Tori thought a lot of shit about Alessa recently, she hadn’t acted out in any way the game had her act originally. She never sought out Alessa. When they crossed paths, Tori remained polite, but distant. She even put in the effort to appease her.

So why would Alessa and her love interests retaliate and look badly upon her if there was nothing to fight back against?

Tori drew a line from Alessa’s name to each love interest, trying to remember whatever encounters she could with each. Technically, Alessa never fought back against Victoria. Victoria would confront her and Alessa would be victimized. It was always the love interests protecting her or coming to her defense.

“Holy shit.” Tori sat up straight and looked at her paper with disturbed revelation. “She earns romance points by beefing with me.”

If the character Victoria didn’t exist, would Alessa need to be protected by the love interests? Of course not. Victoria was a catalyst. She was a plot device and the dreaded cannon fodder.

And now that Tori wasn’t causing trouble, Alessa couldn’t be a victim. A baby who wasn’t crying didn’t get attention, after all. It stood to reason that for Alessa to have more encounters and raise her romance points, she needed to have conflict and if conflict didn’t come to her, she’d proceed to look for it by coming to Tori.

“But why does it have to be with me?” Because that’s what the game is programmed to have her do.

This brought about the question that had been sitting in the pool of dread in her stomach since she spoke to Dimitri hours earlier: was she just in the world of the game or was she in the game itself while it was being played?

“Ooh....” She tapped her pencil and grimaced. She saw that movie about video game characters being stuck in their predefined roles and having depression. She knew where it went. “I don’t like this.”

It did cross her mind that perhaps Alessa was in the same situation as her: a different soul trapped in the body of a mobile game dating sim character. However, that would mean one of either two things: Alessa’s soul either knew about the game or didn’t.

If she knew about the game, then she was playing it in real time. She would know things that Tori knew. More if she played the game previously. Alessa would already have a massive advantage, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

If she didn’t know about the game, she would likely be much more confused and tense, struggling to fit in and make sense of it all.

Alessa fit in fine. She showed no notable hints of another transmigrated soul.

No modern mannerisms. Specifically, no modern Japanese mannerisms Tori was used to seeing in her Japanese ex-pat co-workers and their families. Tori herself carried over mannerisms from her original life: the way she walked, the way she gesticulated when she spoke, and her facial expressions. Alessa did show the traits of a rural girl in the city, which fell in line with her game backstory.

Alessa also had no significant reaction to the down vest, other than to hand it over to Adrien.

Regardless of whether Alessa was another modern transmigrated soul or not, it didn’t change the situation that the game was in motion and the other characters continued acting in line with the original narrative despite Tori being uncooperative.

Her initial suspicion was that she was just in the world of the game. She assumed the plot could be changed with a sort of butterfly effect once one aspect of a timeline was changed. That change being that Victoria de Guevera was now inhabited by the soul of Tori Felix. She doubted such bad things would happen to her and her family if she didn’t cause trouble with the main characters.

But if she was in the game itself while it was being played, then she was a glitch in the system and the game was self-correcting to progress as intended. That meant that no matter what she did, she’d conflict with Alessa, and her love interests, for one reason or another.

No wonder she had such a deep suspicion of all of them to begin with.

“Well, fuck.” She tossed her pencil on to the table and leaned back against the chair. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, then reached for her coffee. She took a big gulp and mulled about it for a moment to let the horrible revelation sink in.

The forced scarcity of supplies for the excursion made sense despite, logically, the surrounding stores should’ve had an excess of goods knowing to expect students coming to prepare for the yearly excursion. Scarcity would force an encounter with Adrien.

The red bellied viper appearing in a habitat where it wasn’t supposed to be was a plot device to force an encounter with Fabian.

The school letting 180 teenagers into a forest for three days and telling them to cross a river despite it being a massive lawsuit waiting to happen was one big encounter to get closer to Gideon, Fabian, Dimitri, Constantine, and Montan.

She was sure that there would be more instances. Whether or not they would affect her directly, such as the supplies did and the viper did not, was unknown. But they would happen because the game was in progress and someone had to get a man.

Tori let out a bitter laugh and shook her head.

Her life was in a game that wasn’t going to let her be anything but the villainess used to move the story along.

If that was the situation, how would she deal with it?

She stared at the jumble of names and words on the paper.

She narrowed her eyes and slowly drew a large circle around the group of names and then an arrow pointing to where she’d written her own name.

“Don’t waste your energy...work smarter not harder....” she whispered to herself. “Let your opponent come to you.”

Tori brought her coffee to her wry, smirking lips. Since conflict was inevitable, she would simply have to be prepared for it.

“Keep your elbows in, Ewan. What happens when your elbows stick out?” Tori shouted as she stood across from her friend, sword in hand.

“They’re a target!”

“Then keep your elbows tucked.” She waited for Ewan to take a step. She watched his knees bend and head start to tilt to her right. He kept his sword up as he took a small step to his left, but kept his hips facing her. His shoulders tensed and he took another step to the side, setting his trajectory on her right line to get her dominant arm.

She lifted her hilt up and his wooden sword hit hers. As soon as impact was made, she did a quarter turn to align her hips to him and rotated her blade over her shoulder to cut down across his right side.

Ewan took a quarter turn and lifted his hilt in the same fashion to block her cut before taking a step back to put distance between them and holding his sword in front of him.

Behind her mask, Tori’s eyes crinkled up. “Good! Good! Very good, Ewan! Never pause after an attack, even if it is blocked or parried. Get out of distance before adjusting. Good job realigning yourself at a safe distance afterwards. You never took your eyes off me and kept me in line.”

She stepped back as well, and lowered her sword. She removed her hand off the pommel as a sign that this was a full pause on the sparring and not just putting distance between them. Ewan let out a heavy, tired sigh, but she could see his brilliant, happy smile behind the metal grids of his mask.

“Should I have stayed close and tried for another hit?” he asked as he lowered his sword.

“No, not at that close a distance. If you can’t get a strike in two or three tries, even one try sometimes, put distance between you and realign yourself. If you stay too close for too long, you’ll become entangled and risk going from a sword fight to fist fight or grappling. Or, if they have a dagger, you’re now within stabbing range,” she told him. “Don’t be afraid to put distance between you. Just remember not to take too many steps back. Why is that?”

“Walking forward is always faster than walking backwards. They will reach you first and you may not be in a good position to defend,” Ewan repeated.

She nodded, very pleased that he was listening to her. Teaching and helping others were always a good way to review the fundamentals, so she was always happy to do so. Of course, Ewan was the only person in the association who didn’t hesitate to ask her for guidance. However, she had noticed others listening in and then correcting their postures or cuts or steps once they heard her explain and walk Ewan through them.

“Hey! Number one!” A voice shouted across the training grounds and she turned around at the voice. Four people walked towards them in school uniforms. JP lowered his hands after getting their attention. “Are we going to celebrate with dinner or not?”

Tori laughed and raised her hand. She lifted the front of the mask and pulled the helmet off her head. “That depends, am I buying?”

“How can the one who came in first pay?” Sonia grinned. She pointed a finger at Ilyana, who was giggling. “Tonight’s on number two!”

Her friends reached the entrance of the walled off training grounds. As a rule, guests had to stay near the entrance to avoid accidentally walking into a match or being hit with a sword.

Tori and Ewan turned to each other and lifted their swords up, saluted, and lowered their swords. Ewan removed his helmet as Tori put their swords in one of the wooden barrels against the wall. She pulled off her gloves.

“Should I change first?” Tori asked. She shoved her gloves into the pocket of her pants before doing the ties of her padded jacket.

“No, I’m hungry,” Henrik said. “We were just waiting for you two to finish.”

“Let us at least get out of our practice clothes and wash our faces first,” Tori said. “Unless you want to smell sweat and leather over dinner.”

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Henrik made a disgusted face. “We’ll wait.”

“Ewan! Clean up and meet out here!” Tori told him as she headed to the girls’ changing room to one side of the grounds.

“Tori, I saw your name on the academic rankings for the first years. Congratulations!” One of the upperclassmen smiled at her as she entered.

“Thank you! I was aiming for at least the top ten, but this was unexpected.”

“You were so busy before the exams with your store,” another upperclassman said. “How did you have time to study?”

“Yes, what’s your secret?”

Tori shrugged off her jacket and smiled. “Spite.”

That was what drove her to study harder and shut people up.

And it was what currently drove her to take on whatever problems the game threw at her. She wasn’t just going to wait for conflict to arise without taking as many precautions as she could. While she was doing that, she was going to make sure she and her loved ones enjoyed their lives and their time together before the game could take her out.

When she ultimately died in eight years, technically seven and a half, and couldn’t stop the plots from happening, at the very least she was good to the people around her and she did what she could to be happy.

And if, by some miracle, she didn’t die, everything would be even more worth the effort. Her survival would be the greatest ‘fuck you’ to not only the main characters that were supposed to ruin her, but also to the game that made this fucked up situation happen.

Tori quickly wiped herself with a clean towel and then changed back into her uniform. She stuffed her practice clothes and school blazer into her bag, put on her down trench, and headed out.

Everyone was waiting for her and Tori gave Ewan a suspicious look. “Did you actually clean up?”

“I wiped down,” he said. He lifted his arm and sniffed it. “Do I still smell like sweat?”

“Yes,” Henrik said mercilessly.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Tori said as she patted Ewan’s shoulder. “Sweat more now, bleed less later.” It was a mantra she and many buddies in various martial arts abided by and she tried to apply it where she could.

The chatting group went to a restaurant across the main plaza. Ilyana had rushed over after class that day to make reservations after their midterm rankings were posted. To the utter shock of pretty much everyone else, Tori’s name stood at the top, silently mocking them. Ilyana had come in second, just two points off, and Dimitri third, a satisfying five points off.

“Agafonova,” Ilyana told the host at the entrance to the restaurant as they entered. The restaurant wasn’t too fancy. It was mainly filled with younger people coming in for a nice meal after a long week.

“Miss Agafonova, please follow me.” The host smiled at them and Ilyana looped arms with Tori before following.

They were brought to the second floor and a circular table in the corner, with windows on both sides so they could see into the plaza and the fountain at its center below. Bright, white light crystals illuminated the fountain and the space around it much like how it would’ve been back in her original world and Tori sat down to admire it.

She glanced at the chattering group trying to figure out what to order from the menu. The corners of her lips curled up and her eyes crinkled with mirth seeing them all having a good time together.

While she acknowledged that Ilyana’s loyalty to her was because she was programmed to be, that loyalty and affection still felt real, so Tori never questioned treating it as if it was. She also never thought to treat Ilyana badly. In the game, Ilyana was almost a servant of Victoria, who was only there to do whatever evil bidding Victoria had her do. Ilyana didn’t deserve that, so Tori treasured her, as she did the close friends she was torn away from in her original world.

The others were an anomaly and one that couldn’t help but give Tori a bit of hope. In the original game, Victoria wouldn’t touch a sword. She would never fight Ewan, become his friend, or be invited into his excursion group and meet the others. All of that happened to Tori.

Which made her wonder: why did people who were game NPCs react differently to her?

Her theory was that in the game, Victoria bullied Alessa for some time and it seemed like no one except the love interests intervened. Other characters didn’t get involved and some even followed Victoria’s lead and ignored Alessa when they weren’t sidekicks like Ilyana, thus adding to Alessa being bullied. That would imply that NPCs were initially neutral parties that simply reacted to what happened around them and weren’t programmed to hate her no matter what.

It left them susceptible to be swayed in her favor. Without that pre-existing malice, if Tori wasn’t a terrible person to them, they wouldn’t have any problems. And if Tori was her usual amiable self with them, as she was with Ewan and the others, she’d make friends and could be on good terms with people.

Just like normal, uninfluenced by the game.

And uninfluenced by the game, she would treat them as she would normal friends.

Her eyes moved to Henrik, who was telling Ewan he couldn’t order the most expensive piece of meat on the menu just because Ilyana was paying. Her friendship with Henrik led to a connection with Horizon's Merchant Guild’s master, which was beneficial in the Golden Cow incident. Perhaps the saying ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ also rang true in this world. Same with Albert and his grandmother.

Tori furrowed her brows. “I thought we invited Albert.”

“It’s his grandmother’s birthday this weekend and he had to go for a suit fitting,” Sonia said, taking a sip of water.

“Is it Madam Martin?” Tori asked.

“Don’t know. He didn’t say which grandma.”

“Hmm....” Tori wrinkled her nose. If it was, she wanted to send a small plant to wish the nice lady who helped them at the grand opening a happy birthday.

“Albert!” Tori lifted her head and saw that JP had opened his comcry. “Which grandmother’s birthday is it?”

“...Grandma Letty. Letizia.” Albert sounded confused. “Is that why you’re calling?”

Tori leaned across the table and motioned for JP to bring his comcry closer to her. “Just wanted to know! Sorry you missed dinner.”

They heard him let out a pained groan and laughed. “It’s because I’m not part of your excursion group, isn’t it?”

“You’re an honorary lion, Albert!” Ilyana assured him.

“I wanted to come eat.”

“We haven’t started yet and have room for one more,” Tori said with a smile. “Is your fitting over?”

“Yes, we’re just leaving.”

“Is it far from the plaza across from school?” JP asked.

“Uh...not really.”

“We’re in Azul, second floor. You have fifteen minutes,” Henrik said as he smirked. “We’ll save you a seat.”

“Dad, I’m going to dinner with my friends!” They heard Albert yell to someone on his end. “I’ll be there! Don’t start without me!” The comcry went dark and the group snickered.

They put their menus down and relaxed, informing the server that they were waiting for one more and to bring another chair. Tori remained looking out the window, admiring the view. The plaza the night before the weekend was always lively with students from Lycée and Université, all there to unwind after classes.

She could see some familiar faces below.

Her eyes narrowed at the sight of a young woman waiting by the fountain in her school uniform. A face Tori didn’t particularly want to see, yet continued to watch.

Alessa stood by the fountain, in good lighting. Her golden hair was blowing gently in the breeze that Tori didn’t recall there being a few minutes earlier. She tried to guess who she was meeting. She was going to go with Dimitri and if not him, then Gideon.

It didn’t take her long to let out a little ‘tch’ of disappointment. It was Montan Alvere.

“What’s wrong?” Ilyana asked as she leaned over.

“I see our classmate and the one who tried to buy our tent,” Tori said, lifting her chin towards the window. Her friends all craned their necks to see.

Sonia squinted. “Are they on a date?”

“Did he bring her flowers?” JP asked. They all squinted and leaned closer to the window to try to make out if the white bundle in his hands were flowers.

All at once, they confirmed. “It’s a date.”

They all drifted into silence as they watched with critical eyes as Alessa interacted with Montan. They seemed to talk for a bit before Montan led her away, across the plaza to the most expensive restaurant there.

“Is he taking her to where I think he’s taking her?” Henrik raised a brow.

“To be fair, he is the Duke of Alvere’s son. It’s not as if he lacks money,” JP said as he leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah, but they’re not doing too well lately,” Sonia said.

Henrik shook his head. “I don’t think they were doing well since the late Duchess passed away. The current Duke Alvere has no idea what he’s doing. You should see how many of his businesses are having issues. Half of them still haven’t paid their yearly dues to the guild.”

“Is this the Duke Alvere who married his lover?” Ilyana asked, furrowing her brows. Like Tori, she wasn’t a local, so wasn’t up to date with any gossip or had any idea what was going on in Horizon’s social circles despite technically being a noble herself.

“He’s the one,” JP said. “Our mother is from the Alvere Duchy originally. It was one of the oldest duchies in the empire. It was the late Duchess who was born into the family and she was doing a great job until she got sick.”

Sonia shook his head. “It was before that.” She looked at her two non-local friends with a glint of conspiracy in her eyes. “The late Duchess had a childhood engagement to the son of the man who saved her father’s life.”

Oh no, I see where this is going already. Tori frowned.

“Up until the two were of legal age, everyone assumed that they would call off the engagement as neither party wanted it. The Duchess didn’t want to be with a man who already had a very open relationship with another woman. Honestly, who would? But for some reason, it wasn’t called off. Our mom said the current Duke suddenly wanted to go through with it and even broke it off with the other woman.”

Ilyana had a displeased expression. “But he didn’t.”

Sonia shook her head. “A few years into the marriage, the Duchess became ill and then died. Suddenly, the duke remarried and had a ‘new son’.”

“Our big spending classmate over there,” Henrik said, narrowing his eyes as he looked out the window.

“Do you really think that they’re going to allow him to become the next Duke Alvere?” Ewan asked as if he were watching a play and wasn’t sure what came next. “I mean, he’s not actually carrying Alvere blood.”

“Blood right is important with the old families,” Sonia nodded.

Tori sighed and crossed her arms as she kept her eyes out the window. “Yes, but it’s not like they have a choice, do they?” The four Horizon natives gave her a strange look. She turned back to the table and frowned. “What?”

“Tori, don’t you know?” Sonia asked.

“No, no, I don’t think he’d talk about it,” Henrik said. “He did denounce and change his name.”

Tori squinted. “Who denounced and changed his name?”

“Sir Nassaun,” Ewan said. “He’s the son of the late Duchess and the current Duke.”

“Axton?” That explains why he’s also attractive. She raised a brow thoughtfully. The older brothers of the love interests are so much better looking. Does the game know that?

“If he changed his name, he probably doesn’t want to have anything to do with the duchy, right?” Ilyana said with a bit of sadness.

“Of course not,” JP replied. He lowered his voice. “There’s a rumor that the current Duke had a hand in killing the late Duchess.”

Tori’s eyes widened. The wiki article didn’t cover that part. She lifted a hand to her chest, thinking about Axton who tried to cheer her up having to go through such an ordeal.

“Don’t bring it up to him,” Henrik told Tori. “It’s all a rumor and none of us really know what happened except that he doesn’t get along with his family....” He trailed off and Tori nodded.

She lifted her hand and the server came over. “A glass of white wine for me, please.”

“Yes, Miss.”

As soon as it arrived, she took a rather large sip.

Somehow, hearing about the relationship between Axton and Montan was both upsetting and comforting. On one hand, she wished Axton didn’t have to go through this. He was a good guy and a good friend. On the other, it meant he likely had a certain degree of dislike towards Montan. Even if Montan was innocent in the whole ordeal with their parents, she couldn’t blame Axton if he had some resentment.

Still, she’d have to get a sense of how Axton felt about his half-brother before she got involved in anything too bad against Montan. In fact, she should also do the same with Gideon because of Piers, but the thought of easing any counter defense against Gideon didn’t occur to her until now.

It was bad enough that no matter what she did, the protagonist and her love interests would have conflicts and fight her. She’d also have to be on her guard against them all the time. That was probably what annoyed her the most about the whole situation.

Tori didn’t care that there were people who hated her. That couldn’t be helped.

She also didn’t let herself sink into the dread of an inevitable death in a few years. For the time being, she had resigned herself to that.

Dealing with Alessa and her targets would probably be the most exhausting thing she’d face until she either died or graduated Université, moved back to Presidio, and became a bum. If they continued to be as frustrating as they had been in the few times they’d crossed paths so far, after nearly eight years of it, she’d probably welcome the sweet release of death.

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