"I had a good sleep, Father."
I did not feel comfortable saying the word that way. The word felt weird in my mouth. He was not my father. My father was somewhere out there, a ghost that was left when I was twelve, who sent cards every year until I was fifteen, and then stopped. The man who stood before me did not have violet eyes or the ability to reshape the reality around him.
But that was the way Cedric would say "father." He would say it with the proper amount of respect — there was enough authority to acknowledge the authority of the Duke but not enough to imply submission.
I said it the same way that Cedric did.
The Duke studied me. The violet eyes of the man moved across my face as if he were reading a ledger, checking each line, adding the numbers on each page to see if they balanced out. I held the gaze of the Duke because Cedric held it, I held it because a Valdrake does not look away from his father first, and I held it because I knew in my gut that showing any sign of weakness would place me on the "death flag" list for this man, and that the death flag would not be counted in the overall death count of the souls in the system.
The Duke looked at me and said, "Your term at the academy begins in three weeks. We confirm you will be enrolled. House Seraphel's daughter will be there. Drakeveil's child, the second son of Kaelthar, and Embercrown's heiress. Also, along with a few others, the Emperor requires to be included in his initiative for equality, the majority of whom will be commoners."
The way the Duke said "Equality Initiative" had such a large amount of quiet disdain that the words seemed to freeze in the air. The Duke does not hate commoners the way other nobles do; he does not feel passion for them or hatred for them; he just does not think about them. They are an entity in a category below his notice; to him, they are simply weather."I reviewed the enrollment lists."
This was a lie. I had not had time to review anything as I had only existed in this body for approximately 20 minutes. However, the game's Cedric would have reviewed them; Cedric was extremely concerned with knowing the capabilities of his competition.
"That is good," said the Duke as he picked up his wine glass. The wine in the glass was darker than any I had ever seen; it was almost black, with a slight violet glow. Void-infused wine, of course. "I expect you to achieve Zenith level by the end of the first semester and Gold, at a minimum, if the result of the assessment is less than favorable."
In the game, Cedric was awarded Gold tier at the beginning because he possessed a D-grade Aether Core.
I, on the other hand, possessed an F-grade core. A broken, nearly useless, barely functional F grade, just barely able to be described as "still alive".
I didn't know what would happen if the Duke found that out. In the game, the original Cedric's weaknesses never showed. I believed, however, that if a Valdrake heir didn't meet the minimum requirements for combat, then he would be an expendable Valdrake heir.
"Zenith," I stated with the kind of arrogance that a Cedric who did not yet know he was crippled would feel. "To achieve less than that would be an insult to the name."
Again, the Duke's eyes softened just a little bit more. This was not approval; it was an evaluation. He was evaluating the distance between my confidence and my ability. At the moment, there was no reason to doubt the two were equal. Cedric's consistent characteristic was arrogance; it would be a long time before I was able to develop that same characteristic within myself.This trait of arrogance led him to failure six out of seven times along the various routes.
When it came to expressing the two feelings, either through speech or writing, they sounded so similar as to be difficult to distinguish from each other. People who are confident in their abilities have a clear belief in themselves, while arrogant people tend to believe their own hype.
To convince the Duke that he holds these beliefs regarding himself is the only solution to my problem.
The family of House Seraphel will be using their daughter as a weapon against you because they have been enemies of House Valdrake long before either of you were born. The Duke sipped his wine, and stated, "You should not be fooled by her because she is simply a pawn of House Seraphel,".
The girl's name was Seraphina Luvel Seraphel.
She was the main female character in the game. She was a "saintess" with shimmering, silver-white hair and bright, golden eyes. She could cure mortally wounded soldiers, and incinerate entire armies with concentrated light. She was the first route's designated love interest, and she was also the girl whose hatred towards Cedric Valdrake in the game's original version stemmed from being humiliated by him at the entrance ceremony of the academy.
She was the girl I must not make any moves toward or towards in the future but somehow still appear to be making antagonistic moves towards.
"I see," I replied.
Concerning your arrangement with the Embercrown girl, Valeria, whom you have pledged to as a fiancée. Her father has expressed eagerness at speeding the relationship along. For the time being, I have declined his request. You will meet with Valeria prior to leaving. For the time being, maintain a facade of cooperation with your family. The Embercrown family may prove useful to you in their current role.
"Useful" does not mean "allies". "Useful" denotes a role similar to that of a tool, as opposed to being considered an ally or friend.
In the game, the political arrangement between House Valdrake and House Embercrown was created for mutual benefit, however, the tone of the Duke suggested otherwise. There is a distinctly higher claim of superiority by House Valdrake throughout the conversation. House Embercrown is a Fallen House, and their need for redemption fuels their drive to regain lost titles and position."The Duke allowed their proximity to him for selfish purposes."
"Of course, Father."
The food came out as the servants appeared from behind walls, hidden from view moments earlier. They moved with a beautiful silence and placed down the dishes of food I could only guess at, and the way they placed everything down — with such exactness — gave every appearance of being punished if an error was made, almost as though it were a deadly task. The dishes were a fine black ceramic, and the food was completely unlike anything I could describe to you; the meats looked as though they had been infused with Aether, the vegetables were unnaturally bright, and the smell of the sauce was like a thunderstorm.
My mode of eating mirrored Cedric's: mechanically and in a deliberate fashion without apparent enjoyment. The food was incredible; however, based on my inheritance of taste buds from the body, I found much greater and deeper flavour combinations than anything I had experienced previously. However, Cedric Valdrake took no pleasure in consuming food in public, but rather only in consuming it. This is a significant distinction.
I noted that the Duke also ate in the same manner as Cedric. Genetics have this commonality.
After several minutes of characteristic silence, I was aware that silence was still essentially a "test" for me — this time a different type of test. The Duke was assessing my manners at the table, my posture, and the way I held my utensil. The muscle memory of Cedric assisted with many of my mannerisms, however there were a few moments during which I incorrectly held my utensils, either due to my lack of knowledge or due to lack of practice, and I could sense that I was on the verge of failing the test.
As a solution to my fears, I ate slowly; taking longer than necessary ensured that I would do everything correctly.
The moment that the Duke spoke, my world changed forever.My mother has written to tell you about the memorial."
I froze and held the chopstick in mid-air. In those three seconds, I mentally processed what I had heard. My mother! Cedric had a mother normally you'd only see two to three times in the game as a passing mention. There was no indication of where she was before the "separation" from the Duke. I didn't really have much knowledge of her and as far as I could tell, she was not an integral part of any route in the game at all.
"Is that so?" That was my safe response.
"Your mother has requested that the memorial be held at the coastal estate. However, I let her know that the decision is entirely yours."
Memorial for? The memorial for....
"Now, four years later, it will be exactly fourteen years since Sera was born. So, I want you to consider this date," the Duke said and for the first time his voice was not filled with cold authority as before but was filled with some other unknown intensity that I could not determine.
Sera.
The name exploded in my head like a flashbang.
Cedric had a sister.
Cedric had a sister named Sera who had died four years ago and there would be a memorial and in over four thousand one hundred twenty-three hours of gameplay, I had never once seen or heard any mention of Sera in the game.
I scanned all of my mental records of the game looking for any reference to Sera Valdrake in any form (dialogs, lore entry, datamined, or theory from any forum) — Sera Valdrake did not exist in any form of Throne of Ruins I could remember.
The Villain's Ledger, like an entity capable of seeing my heart, flickered at the edge of my vision in response to the sudden spike of fear that rippled through me.
I brought up the ledger and searched for "Sera", then for "sister", and then for "Valdrake family".
It came up empty each time. There were no entries or data or death flags associated with that name.
The Villain's Ledger had not just omitted that detail — it simply didn't have that entry or was not considered important to the game or perhaps even...
That I was seeing things in this world that the game developers had never imagined.
This thought settled in the pit of my stomach like a stone landing in a pond, and the ripples spread out further and further and further — I could not face the implications yet.
"Cedric."
The Duke was staring at me with his violet eyes (my violet eyes as well) with all of the preciseness of a scalpel. He saw the pause. Of course, he saw the pause. This man sees everything.
I had to say something. Or at least Cedric would say something. The question was what — and I did not have a script to follow. No walkthrough. No wiki. I was flying blind for the first time since I awoke, and the destination was talking about a dead girl with the man who (in every single route I had played through) had treated his living son as inconsequential.
I would go with honesty. Not my honesty but rather the closest version of "honesty" that could be pulled through Cedric's mask.
"I'm fine with the coastal estate," I said. My voice was steady.Cedric's voice was calm and steady. "She loved the sea," he stated plainly.
I am not sure if he is accurate, but it seems logical to think of her as being from the coast and therefore liking the ocean. It is likely that she would have similar tastes as her son, having raised him on the water.
The way he looked at me when I said that there was something more than what I was asking him revealed something to me in his eyes for a brief moment, but it also disappeared quickly, before I could find out what it was.
"She loved the sea," he confirmed.
Then he resumed eating his meal, indicating that the subject of her love for the sea was now closed. I was sitting on the opposite side of a long table made of polished obsidian from a man who may or may not have ever loved his daughter, and who even in many of his stories would eventually kill his son, and I had time to wonder:
What are the gaps that I have yet to learn about in the game?
How many real moments exist in the world that are outside the context of what I read about in the loading screens?
What will the loading screens reveal about other characters and their lives?
After consuming so much of the meal it tasted bitter and burnt in my mouth and about to spit it out is not because of the taste, but because now 4,127 hours of gaming have made me aware of a world that I have only a portion of the overall map available to me.
The Villain's Ledger quietly glimmered between us.
I ignored it and continued to eat.
We finished our meal just like we started — with no conversation. The Duke left first.Standing six-foot-four, he towered over me like a monument, and the Void Aether flowing from him filled the room like a tidal wave that wouldn't recede. He stared at me for a lengthy time before finally speaking.
"Three weeks," he said. "Use them."
He departed without waiting for my reply.
The obsidian table in this dining room, which was designed for fifty people, belonged to the bloodline I've inherited from a woman's body I didn't own, and as I sat alone in this dining room, I allowed myself to take my mask off.
Just for an instant.
Just long enough for my hands to tremble.
Hana died because I lacked resources. I didn't have enough money, time, or power. She died because the world I became a part of was harsh, unforgiving, and I was powerless.
I now had the memory of Sera Valdrake's death. The game — my go-to book of cheat codes, survival guide written over the course of four thousand hours — didn't recognize she existed.
I glanced down at my trembling hands. Cedric's hands are long, thin, pale, and unblemished.
But not anymore.
I opened the Villain's Ledger.
---
[ STATUS ]
Name: Cedric Valdrake Arkhen
Age: 17
Rank: Initiate (F)
Aether Core: CRITICAL DAMAGE
> Estimated Recovery: Unknown
> Expected Rank (per Script): Adept (D)
> Actual vs Expected: #### ERROR ####
Bloodline: Void Sovereignty (Inactive)
> Potential: SSS
> Current Access: 0.3%
Death Flags Active: 47
> Next Flag: #1 — Entrance Exam
> Time to Trigger: 24 days, 6 hours
Narrative Deviation Index: 0.0%
Villain Points: 0
---
F-rank.
In a world where the weakest character in the game is E-rank, with a bloodline that could theoretically destroy matter from existence, my bloodline was currently being used at 0.3% — which if I used my brain, I'd say that I had enough Void Aether to possibly cool someone's tea on a good day.
Twenty-four days until Flag #1.
With a father whose dinner conversation had revealed that everything I thought I knew was missing a gaping hole where Sera died, I stood up. My chair made the loudest sound when scraping against stone in this empty room.
I had three weeks to figure out how to train a broken body, cover up a terrible weakness, and learn everything about the world outside of the game that the game wasn't going to teach me — it was obviously much more profound than the story I thought I understood.
I slowly placed my mask back into position. Cold. Composed. The villain's resting face.
I left the dining room without looking back.
---
[ Villain Points Earned: +10 ]
Reason: Successfully Deceived a Monarch Rank Entity by continuing psychological performances.
Ledger Note: Adequate for a corpse. ---
I discarded the notification.
For some reason, the system's hostility offered me reassurance. At least one aspect of this world operated precisely as advertised.