Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 497: Paperwork And Paranoia

The days came and went in a whiz.

For the entire week, from sunrise to sunset, my friends had their noses buried in the books. I had to be the one to remind them to eat sometimes.

Juliana was back to avoiding me. I guessed she still wasn’t happy that I agreed to do my father’s bidding.

The boys weren’t pleased with me either. Michael especially seemed concerned about my mental health.

He said that between returning from the Noctveil Wilds and participating in the Mock War, I had barely caught a break.

That much strain wasn’t good for my psyche.

I just shrugged in response every time he asked me if I really had no other choice. Because I really didn’t.

The truth is… I was terrified of the Syndicate. If they really had their claws lodged as deep in the Academy as I suspected, then I needed every bit of political power and resources I could get.

Because if I was right and one of the two Aces was the mole, then I needed to flush them out in time. I already had a plan set in motion for that, but to capitalize on it, I needed lots and lots of influence and connections and money.

All of which I would get once I was the heir of Theosbane.

Oh, and speaking of one of the two Aces…

“Sit down,” Vereshia, from behind her desk, pointed at a chair across from her as soon as I entered her office.

There was no one else here but the two of us.

I took the seat, sinking into the cushioned chair. “I never get to apologize to you.”

She gave me a tight smile. “Samael. People apologize when they learn from their mistakes. You don’t do that. So no need for sorries.”

“Oh, no. I wasn’t actually going to apologize anyway,” I smiled back. “I was just telling you that I never got a chance. Also, I thought your reaction was a little excessive.”

Her smile disappeared entirely. “My reaction? My reaction was… excessive?”

I nodded, all innocent and sweet. “Yes.”

“Get out.”

“…See! This is exactly what I mean. You’re being unreasonable.”

“I said get out.”

“But you called me here.”

“I’m beginning to regret that decision.”

“Too late.”

Vereshia stared at me for several seconds before pinching the bridge of her nose. “Has anyone told you how exhausting you are to deal with?”

That seemed like a rhetorical question, because just as I began to answer it, Vereshia reached under her desk and brought out a thick binder, throwing it in front of me.

“What’s this?” I inquired.

“Intelligence briefing,” replied the Cadet Council President. “It contains logistics planning and rules of engagement for my crew once we reach Iron Height. I need your signature on all the attached agreements. The last section also includes the names of my people and their respective roles. Since they’d be under your command until we get to our destination, I expect you to remember their faces and positions.”

I stared at the binder. It was nearly as thick as my palm. “That’s a fucking novel! You can’t expect me to go over everything in it!”

“Samael,” Vereshia sighed helplessly. “I know you’re very eccentric and frivolous about these sorts of things, but I want you to take this one seriously. You’ll be expected to make an in-depth mission report once we get back. And since I’ll be writing mine based on the same operation, I want there to be no discrepancies between our accounts. I’m very meticulous about these things.”

At first, I thought she was exaggerating.

But as I would soon come to know during our time together, she was, in fact, not exaggerating. Not even a little.

She was the most annoyingly thorough person I’d ever met.

She had a system for everything. A system for organizing her reports. A system for organizing her tasks. A system for organizing the systems she’d made for organizing her tasks.

It was ridiculous and scary in equal measure. A crippling case of OCD, maybe.

But blissfully unaware of the sheer depth of her madness at the time, I whined, “Are you absolutely sure I can’t bring my Shadow along?”

I didn’t know if I’d survive paperwork without Juliana, let alone remembering the names and faces of some background NPCs.

Vereshia’s face suddenly hardened at my question, her blood-red eyes fixing me with a deadly serious glare. “Absolutely not. Not a single first-year would be dragged into this mess. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s the deal. If you break it, I’ll file it as an official breach of protocol and call off the mission immediately.”

“Okay, calm down.” I raised my hands, scoffing. “I was just asking. Besides, I know that unlike me, they have to appear for the final exams.”

“Good.”

“Although, in my defense, she’d probably be much more useful than half the people you’re bringing along. Including me, if I’m being honest.”

Her glare returned. “Don’t push it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I grabbed the binder and stood up, adjusting a random crease on my shirt. “When are we leaving?”

“In two days,” Vereshia replied, already turning her attention to her computer screen, no doubt doing something important. “And by the way, since you’ve never been to an actual war, I’ve asked a specialist to accompany us.”

“A specialist?” I frowned.

A specialist was someone who had a high success rate in specific types of missions. But Cadets who specialized in warfare were rare.

There definitely wasn’t anyone like that in the first year, and maybe only a handful in both second and third year.

So who was Vereshia talking about, you wonder?

I had some guesses.

“You might know him,” she said, throwing me a glance up. “He’s the second-year Ace. Aarav Caldwell.”

•••

Well, gods must’ve been favoring me.

One of the reasons I was looking forward to Vereshia accompanying me on this mission was because I needed to confirm if she really was the handler, if she really was in charge of the Syndicate’s spies in the Academy.

If she wasn’t, by the process of elimination, that would’ve only left Aarav. But I would never have been completely sure about him.

Yes, I could’ve investigated both of them separately, but that would’ve taken too much time. And time was one luxury I didn’t have in abundance.

So having Aarav join us was perfect.

Absolutely fucking perfect.

Though I really wish I was allowed to bring Juliana along with me. She was much better at reading people than I was.

I was tempted to enlist her help but… I first wanted to make sure where her loyalty actually lay. I liked her. Liked her a lot. But the truth was, she was a sociopath with a history of using people for her gain.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t saying she was untrustworthy. Her behaviour was already vastly different from the game.

At this point in the story, she had warmed up to the main characters, but she wasn’t nearly as open as she was with them now in reality.

I suspected it had something to do with what she saw in her vision in that Nightmare Temple when we were stuck in the Wilds.

Yet, as I said, she was an opportunistic sociopath.

An opportunistic sociopath who was currently working to make me fall for her so I’d be easily manipulated, by the way.

So forgive me for not putting all my trust in her just yet.

“Haa,” I huffed. “Love life is so hard.”

When I returned home, my friends were all cooped up in the drawing room, holding a group study session.

I left them alone and came down to the basement gym. It was high time for me to try out my new powers, wasn’t it?

My Origin Card was still called ⟨Matterweave⟩, I checked. However, I could feel I had unlocked a new application.

Organic matter manipulation. Finally!

I knew that because as soon as I deployed my innate ability, I could feel the matter in my own body eager to obey my whims just as compliantly as the stone beneath my feet.

With this new sub-power came a profound understanding I was shocked by.

You see, before, whenever I tried manipulating organic matter, I thought of it as something alive — or something that had once been alive.

It was messy, without any proper structure. There was a mental dam stopping me from properly perceiving it.

But now… it was gone.

I could see the structure of organic matter.

Not literally with my eyes, of course. It was more like suddenly gaining another sense. A strange, almost instinctive awareness of every tiny component that made up living flesh.

Muscles. Bones. Blood vessels. Nerves. Organs. Cells. All of it was matter. And all of it was mine to command.

We were made up of dead things stacked together until, at some point, we stopped being dead and started being alive.

It was… weird to think about. I always knew this, obviously. But now I comprehended it.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this right. It’s really hard to explain. I mean, you would know. You’re a god. You must know cosmic concepts my mortal mind couldn’t even begin to understand, right?

Anyway, that’s what it felt like.

And as terrifying as it was, it was also fucking exhilarating.

I stood at the center of the gym and took off the leather glove from my right arm, revealing a grotesque limb of dark flesh.

Charcoal-like patches were hardened all across its surface, a faint ember glow burning beneath the cracks, making it seem like hot magma was flowing in my veins.

Six fingers I had, all ending in razor-sharp claws that gleamed ominously under the gym lighting like small obsidian knives.

For the last twenty hours, I had been studying this graft with my innate ability every free chance I got.

I figured I was ready to mold it to my will.

I raised my hand and focused. Almost immediately on cue, the dark flesh rippled.

There was a sharp sting that I felt in my marrow, more irritating than painful. And then I was watching the muscles beneath my skin shift and rearrange themselves.

It was a surreal sight, the charcoal-like plates sliding across and melting into my flesh. Pretty soon, the shape of my arm began to change.

My claws shortened, and the one extra finger fused back into the limb. The entire hand flattened, and the dark coloration began to fade to a more natural skin tone.

Just like that, merely a few seconds later, my right hand had become a perfectly ordinary human hand.