Beatrice stood there, silent and unsure, her eyes flicking toward the Man behind his desk as per usual once more.
She sighed to herself saying. 'I can't believe I loss.' She said with a defeated expression on her face.
But that aside, she looked and questioned him, asking him as such. "So… D." She said quietly, refusing to look him in the eye. "Since I lost… what now? Are you going to kill me?"
Dante — or rather, D, as she had being ordered to call him — exhaled softly, his posture relaxed but his gaze unreadable. "Kill you?" He tilted his head slightly, as if the thought were absurd. "Now why would I ever do that!? It will be a waste if I kill you, I am not going lie."
Beatrice frowned. "Then what is going to happen to me, since you owned my existence now!?"
He smiled faintly, making a chill run down her back, as he responded saying. "Think of it this way." He said. "From this point forward, your life will function something like… a player being controlled by a gamer... That gamer being me."
Beatrice blinked. "I don't follow."
"I don't expect you to...not entirely at least." He said, his voice quiet but steady. "But it means that at times, when I decide to use my ability, I can… direct your path. Influence your actions. It won't be constant, but when it happens, you'll know. You'll feel a tug on your will, like a marionette's string being drawn."
Her stomach tightened at the mentioned of being controlled like that as she said. "So I am your puppet now basically, until die if I had to guess!?"
Dante gave a low chuckle. "No. Not really... You are my player character for this world. There is a difference. Puppets have no will, but players still make choices. They just don't always get to choose which game they play though. For the most part I will allow your free will. I am not a monster, I am a gamer."
Beatrice didn't fully understand, not yet, but she knew that tone. It was the same one nobles used when speaking about peasants...patronizing but final. Still, what choice did she have? She had agreed to the contract, and lost.
And yet… something in her chest flickered. 'I guess if it is him, I don't mind being controlled, in theory my chances of surviving against my siblings just skyrocketed.'
While she wrestled with that thought, Dante's computer pinged. A new message glowed across the screen. "HMMM!?" He groaned with intrest.
[Congratulations on winning your first game]
[Reward: +600 Strands of Negativity obtained]
Dante arched a brow. Virgil, the guide spirit, didn't waste time. But ever so curious Dante typed back, as he wanted to asked this question for a while now.
"What exactly are these Strands of Negativity used for?" Virgil replied almost instantly.
[Strands of Negativity are the currency and essence of your kind, as Administrator it very important to have Negativity in abundance. They allow you to create, maintain, or alter constructed Dream Worlds. In your case, they are the resource necessary to utilize Lordship within other people dreams space]
Dante leaned back slightly, intrigued. "Dream worlds you say." he typed, and continue. "Is it like my own!?"
He typed again. "Please explain in detail." Virgil then responded.
[Every Spirit, from the weakest to the Outer's, possesses an Ability an expression of their nature. The Administrator's core power is divided into three branches:
[When you use Lordship, you shape a dream world within your contractor's soul — a full realm, real as the waking world. When they sleep, they enter it. In this realm, time flows differently. They fight, bleed, or just go along with the narrative of the story you set for them, and grow stronger within, and what they gain there carries over into reality]
Dante's lips curved slowly. "So… I can make games inside people's dreams, like real life video games basically!?"
[Precisely. And each dream world can only host one game per contractor. The stronger the world, the more it costs. Choose carefully, your Negativity is limited]
That last sentence sparked something deep within him.
The bastard daughter.
The outcast.
The half-blooded mistake of a noble house that treated her existence like a stain on their crest.
He could see the threads of resentment, self-loathing, and desperation curling off her like smoke. Perfect ingredients for growth, or corruption.
As such he already decided what world would fit her perfectly.
"Tell me something, Beatrice." He said suddenly, folding his arms. "You hate your bloodline, don't you?"
She froze, glaring at him. "What is it to you?"
He smiled faintly. "Because hatred is a kind of fuel you see. And you'll need it for where you're going."
Beatrice frowned. "And where exactly am I going... I don't follow."
"To your first game world." Her confusion deepened. "My… what?" Dante reached toward the computer, his fingertips hovering above the shifting data streams. "You've entered a contract, remember? That means you're bound to me, and that I, as your Administrator, have to assign your first trial. Consider it… your tutorial."
The monitor pulsed with faint golden light as Virgil's voice printed across the screen once again.
[Initiating Lordship Protocol… Choose the Genre of the World]
Dante's grin widened. "Genre, huh?" He thought back to his old days as a developer, the nights he had lost to game design, obsessed with balance, mechanics, and punishment that taught. For Beatrice he thought himself, the best kind of world for her would be one where experience is shaped and given to the players through suffering.
He knew exactly what to choose.
"Make the first world of the Soul genre." Dante typed and waited.
[Confirmed. Genre Selected: SOUL]
[Please allocate resources]
Dante typed again: "Use all 700 Strands."
[Confirmed. Constructing Dream World through the randomizer and the allocator: World created: Sunderland is ready for play. Would you like to read the Lore before sending your Avatar there]