When Selene heard the knock on the door, she felt a strange sensation. It was as if something was wrong, but she couldn't figure out exactly what. She stopped looking at the dress and approached the door cautiously.
"Princess! It's morning already. Are you awake?" a female voice asked, continuing to knock as if she wanted to wake the person inside.
Selene debated whether to respond. After all, she didn't know if the person behind the door might harm her because she was in poor physical condition. Although she retained her skills, she could not perform some of them due to her current strength.
"Princess?" the woman asked, as if she had noticed Selene's movements. This caused Selene to narrow her eyes before looking more carefully at her surroundings.
There were vases, candlesticks, utensils, chairs, and many other things that should be in a noble's room. However, except for the vases and chairs, nothing would be useful for fighting if necessary.
Selene approached one of the chairs, which appeared to be made of mahogany, at least, the type that existed before the cataclysm. But when she tried to lift it, she realized it was too heavy.
Her action also caused the furniture to squeak, prompting the woman behind the door to stop knocking. She realized that the princess she had been calling all this time was already awake.
"Princess, it's almost time for breakfast. I'll come in and help you get dressed," said the person. Then, the sound of keys could be heard. Selene had no choice but to sit on the edge of the bed and watch the door open.
A woman entered. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun, and her attire was similar to that of the maids Selene knew, only it was much more modest. There was no large neckline, and not much skin was showing.
She looked at Selene, who was sitting on the bed. Recognizing her as the 'princess' she had been calling earlier, she smiled subtly and bowed deeply.
"Princess, it seems you have taken a long time to wake up this time. The queen is growing impatient with your absence," the woman said. Straightening her back, she waited for a response from Selene. Hearing none, she tilted her head slightly and noticed the open wardrobe revealing a dozen beautiful dresses hanging inside.
"Oh, Princess! It seems you've been awake for a while. Perhaps you didn't want me to help you get dressed this time? Don't worry; you know I'm very discreet," the maid said, winking at the purple-haired girl. Selene remained silent, only tilting her head slightly as she watched the black mist rise from the woman's body.
'That unfiltered thirst for blood. Is it because she thinks I'm a fragile princess who won't notice? I've only lost my strength, not my talent or my Noeia!' thought Selene, watching the woman walk toward the wardrobe with measured steps.
If she were inexperienced, she would only notice that the woman is disciplined and restrained. That's not surprising, considering she serves the nobility in a castle. Those qualities are basic for every servant.
But Selene was young. She may not have had the vast experience of veterans, but her natural talent for seeing threatening mists, as well as her experience, made her notice the woman's unusual rhythm.
At that moment, something clicked for Selene. Rhythm! That was it! That was what had seemed strange to her when the woman knocked on the door. Each knock was delivered with the same force in the same place with the same time interval.
It was too rigid and unnatural, and it felt deliberate. Selene was a fighter who solved many problems with her fists and kicks. She was also a smart girl who knew when to use her brain and when to be careful.
She didn't blindly trust her talent because nothing is perfect; everything has a downside. Although she hadn't encountered anything that could outsmart her gift, she knew it existed, so she prepared herself to understand what made something dangerous.
Why was there red fog in that river? Was it simply dangerous, or were there external factors at play? Someone who fully trusted their abilities would simply dismiss it as another source of danger, but Selene would investigate what caused it.
It could be a predator or a corpse further upstream. Or, the water could be full of radiation for some reason. For this reason, although she was sometimes dismissive of low-threat colors, she always remained on guard.
She mocked someone who held something that posed a pink threat to her, but she was careful not to get hurt. After all, a dog could pose this level of danger, but what if it bit her just because it trusted that she wasn't dangerous? That would be negligent!
She was also more attentive to people who clearly wouldn't attack her, such as her friends. However, she could always see flashes of green mist in them. Since that afternoon, she would probably see them more often.
That's why she didn't act immediately; not only was she weak, but this woman's black mist was also calm and undisturbed. When a mist of a certain color seemed agitated or disordered, that's when she was in danger.
That was why she could live peacefully with her friends. Their mists never stirred when she was around. Even when they argued and got angry for some reason, they always remained still, showing that they did not want to harm her.
Only she knew about this. Not even her father knew, which left it as an ace up her sleeve in case her talent became known. She was always seeking to grow to overcome any danger that might arise, keeping things that could be used at key moments.
"How about this dress, princess?" The maid's voice brought Selene back to reality, especially since she had come too close and was showing her a dress.
The garment was black with blue details ranging from light to dark. The sleeves were slightly puffed, and around the neck, there was a fabric crest that looked like feathers.
It was a beautiful dress. It was the first one Selene had looked at when she checked the wardrobe. She had never thought, however, that the maid had specifically chosen it. Had the maid been watching her before entering the room?
Selene thought so. She tried hard to control her expressions, not wanting them to change too much while she thought. She simply nodded, agreeing with the woman's good taste.
"Then why don't you let me dress you?" the woman asked. At that moment, Selene noticed the black mist emanating from the woman's body stir violently, indicating that she had decided to act against Selene.
"All right, step aside," Selene ordered. The maid took several steps back. This only made her bloodlust and murderous intent much more obvious. Yet, the purple-haired girl had only a subtle smile on her lips.
She might be very weak at the moment, but the Noeia was a power that remained with her. She could feel this energy stirring within her mind, ready to interact with the world.
She had already begun channeling this power. When she stood up and started to take off her pajama nightgown, gray threads emerged from her head. The threads were covered by the fabric of the garment she was removing.
The threads penetrated her skin, entering her body and traveling through it before deciding what to improve this time. Because she was extremely weak, she had to pay much closer attention to these details, which only increased the tension she felt, making her smile.
"Something happy on your mind, Princess?" the maid asked, her blue eyes growing colder. She even took a step forward without being ordered to.
"I thought of a joke, but it's too dirty to say out loud. Come, come closer." Selene acted like a shy girl who wanted to share something interesting.
Although she was naked, her tender posture, constant blinking, and somewhat exaggerated movements portrayed her status as a spoiled princess well. The most important thing, however, was her command.
She had allowed the woman to approach her! The maid wasted no time. She didn't care that the innocent princess wanted to explore her sexuality unusually. After all, she was a noblewoman. But when the maid got close, the purple-haired girl's nightgown fell over her face.
"Your joke is useless, princess. I can see through things. How would you know that?" The maid's hands reached for her princess's neck, but this time, it was not to dress her; it was to strangle her.
"Oh, I suspected as much. But I didn't want to blind you. I wanted you to focus on what was in front of you and ignore..." Selene swung her leg hard, striking the maid's crotch. The maid was not prepared for this type of attack.
After all, the princess was just a weak woman, powerless and vulnerable to anyone with malicious intent. However, Selene had taken advantage of these disadvantages, managing a sneak attack.
Although women don't usually have testicles like men do, anyone who's been hit in the groin wouldn't want to be hit again, regardless of gender.
The maid groaned, but that wasn't enough for Selene. Ignoring the pain in her foot, Selene moved forward and struck her enemy's solar plexus with her elbow, knocking the air out of her lungs.
However, the woman recovered faster than Selene expected. She hit the purple-haired girl in the face with a force greater than any normal human could muster, making Selene feel as if her father had hit her.
"Princess, it seems you have learned a few things in secret. But I am a grateful person! You never thought you would have the power of nobility, too, did you? But noble blood also runs through my veins!" the maid growled before lunging at the princess. Instead of being concerned, the princess burst out laughing.
"A Noetarch from the past! How strong were they? Come on, let me feel your power!" Selene exclaimed, laughing loudly while maintaining a guard stance, despite feeling dizzy and experiencing tinnitus.
That single punch really shook her brain! Selene took the maid head-on and kicked out, but the enemy grabbed her leg and spun around, throwing the princess into the distance.
Her body flew across the room, over her bed, and landed on the chair she had tried to move earlier. The fall was thunderous, breaking one of the chair's legs, but Selene didn't care. She continued to laugh loudly.
"Haha! Looks like today's the day I got completely beaten up, huh?" Selene said, causing the maid to look at her strangely before leaping and landing on the purple-haired girl.
"I don't know what you're talking about, princess. But I don't think you can keep frolicking around," the woman said confidently before making a claw gesture and showing her five sharp nails.
This gesture made Selene think of something, but now was not the time for distraction, so she spat at the woman. Her saliva was stained with blood because the princess had been injured in previous attacks, even biting her tongue.
The maid stepped aside with a look of disgust. She didn't want her clothes stained with bloody saliva. It would be difficult to remove, and she still had to maintain her façade before escaping the castle after the murder.
The maid was already getting angry at the princess's insistence on clinging to life. Why didn't she just let herself die? She had to die! To fulfill her revenge, the princess had to die. The woman frowned as she watched Selene struggle to her feet, holding onto the table leg with a nail sticking out of its base.
"It's useless, princess. You've been spoiled your whole life. You don't have the grace that belongs to your family. You have the life that should be mine!" the maid shouted before lunging at Selene, seeking to tear her body apart with her own hands.
Her nails grew much longer to do this, and although this would normally make them prone to breaking easily, for a Noetarch like her, they were just a means to attack.
"I won't let others control my life and death, bitch!" Selene growled, lunging forward. However, her body flew backward.
Five red lines stained her chest with blood. This was strange because she looked like an entity made of threads. However, she was undoubtedly wounded by that blow. She continued to laugh, though, because her enemy was now in worse danger than she was.
The chair leg had pierced the maid's chest! How did that happen? It was simple. Selene risked injury to hurt the woman, and from the looks of things, her injury was serious.
She dislocated her shoulder, elbow, and wrists to attack at a strange angle that took the maid by surprise. This was the second time this had happened during the fight and probably the last.
"Princess, you..." The maid felt a sharp pain in her heart. It had been pierced by Selene, who used her knowledge of anatomy to drive the screw straight through the woman's ribs and kill her.
Selene had learned to fight, or rather, to kill, from her father. He was a war veteran who had left the battlefield and taught her everything she knew. She was like a poisonous snake! She preferred to fight directly but was also good at sneak attacks, seizing opportunities, ambushes, and risky moves.
However, she always fought on the offensive. Despite her cunning, she was a fighter who faced her enemies head-on.
For this reason, even though she could have slipped away, she always jumped into the fight, as she did with the men who robbed her in the desert. She could have finished them off more efficiently, but she was cunning, not an assassin.
She liked to be on the edge of danger, on the brink of the abyss. She wanted to feel the shock waves with her own flesh and use her fists to crush her enemies and her legs to shatter their bones.
Had she not dedicated herself to developing greater control over her hormones, she would have undoubtedly used them to concoct a chemical cocktail that would have turned her into a berserker. However, she was direct, not stupid, and she didn't want to become a fool by her own hand while fighting.
"Too bad this won't leave a scar in reality. But this pain... It's stayed with me forever," Selene said as she stood up. However, her right arm hung at her side, and her left foot could barely support her weight, causing her to limp.
"Was all this part of your plan? What threw you into that chair?" the maid asked. She was feeling weaker and weaker, but her hatred kept driving her on. She was ruthless, even tearing out what had stabbed her heart.
"No, I'm not a super strategist. I'm just good at seizing opportunities. I learned that if I want to survive, I have to hold on to and use everything; nothing else matters but my own survival.
That's why I make myself strong. That's why I seek freedom. I have to kill you, even though I've hurt myself." Selene had broken her arm during the attack and injured her foot with her initial kick.
"I should not have been so trusting!" the maid cried, pulling out a hidden knife.
Her clothes were stained with blood gushing from her heart; each beat was just another drumbeat accompanying her death. Her arrogance had doomed her, but she had a promise to keep and an oath to fulfill. She lunged at Selene, using her superior, albeit weakened, physique to kill her, too.
"You shouldn't have, but you clearly did it again," Selene said. She twisted her body, her bones cracking, and managed to contort herself so that the woman's dagger passed right through her body.
Now that she was close and could see that she couldn't use her full strength, such as by kneeing her, Selene straightened up and went straight for a weak spot: her neck. Her teeth weren't as sharp as they appeared, but they were sharp enough if force was applied. Couldn't she simply control her jaw to close tightly?
Thus, her lips closed around the maid's carotid artery, and with a tug, she tore off a good chunk of flesh. Blood bathed her body, but perhaps because of the previous wound, she was simply stained by it, not bathed in it.
"Did you think that, with your current performance, you could accomplish anything? HAHAHAHA!" Selene laughed as she watched the woman fall, her eyes fading but boiling with hatred and rage.
"You have a nice knife," the purple-haired girl murmured, snatching the weapon from the woman's hand and running it across her bloodstained lips.
"I'm sorry, but I have to kill you." Selene had already hurt her enemy, but she didn't leave things to chance. She crouched over the woman's body, pinned her hands down with her knees, and repeatedly stabbed the dagger into her neck until her head could no longer be held up.
Blood and flesh were everywhere, but Selene simply got up, threw the dagger aside, took the woman's head, held it up to her eyes, and let out a sigh of exhaustion.
"It was probably easy to kill you because you were my first enemy. Who knows how strong you would have been if you had taken this seriously? But I live; you fall. Now your head belongs to me. No, you belong to me," Selene said with a smile. Suddenly, a holographic screen appeared in front of her.
[You have completed a milestone! You killed Meredith on your first interaction with her! You have earned a save point and a recovery. Do you plan to use them?]
Selene agreed absentmindedly; her mind was elsewhere. When the simulation informed her that her progress had been recorded, she decided to end it. The environment then reverted to what she had materialized during her first dream session while under the influence of the gold coin.
"Having a normal body is something I find interesting. I should implement that somehow. But can I take that maid out of the simulation? She would be an excellent training partner!
However, that would lead me into deep territory concerning simulated lives, special entities that inhabit the mind, and similar topics. Would it be possible to bring her into my mental space instead of a dream or simulation? That would be interesting!" Selene's eyes sparkled, though it was difficult to see this clearly because they were made of purple threads.
She began working with the interface in front of her and reached her action log. There, she could see the dress the maid had shown her in more detail. It materialized on her body, and she was eager to wear it in real life.
Then, she stared intently at Meredith through the projected screen. She wanted to access her data so she could simulate it in a dream, in addition to the other ideas she had voiced aloud a moment ago.
Only Meredith, because Selene really liked how she was designed and her willingness to fight, which was very similar to her own. She triggered her own awakening and, when awake, picked up her communicator crystal, which showed her the time:
It was 4:46 a.m. She had fallen asleep about an hour ago, so she had used the Dream Interface Core during that time. However, she already knew how she would feel when she reached certain limits because of her experience as a normal human and her use of Noeia in those circumstances.
Even though it wasn't real, she could still feel the pain from that fight in her body as if she had really fought someone. She didn't dislike this feeling; rather, she treasured it because it allowed her to improve, even if only by 0.1%. To her, every little bit counted.
"Well, I have two options: sleep deeply while listening to music or stay awake and program search bots to collect data for me..." Selene didn't debate this issue much. She simply stood up and grabbed a pair of blue-and-black headphones.
She returned to her bed, played the songs she had bought for a lot of money, and fell asleep with them playing. The melodies of an era that would never return accompanied her dreams.
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Late in the morning, Selene tried to peel a giant white egg with blue speckles on its surface. It had been boiled, and now it was time to remove the shell. She was in the kitchen with her cup of coffee and her communication glass next to the sink. It was scouring the entire network and downloading lots of data.
Suddenly, the crystal vibrated, indicating that she had received a message. She reached out her hand and projected the message onto her retina. She smiled as she read it.
[I've been told that I'll be free of all the bandages covering my body in two days, so we'll go see the underground fights that night.]
This was clearly a message from Morgana, whose healing powers were helping her recover from injuries that she said were extremely serious and had brought her to the brink of death.
"Looks like I'll have a show to watch soon! I'd like to participate, too~" Selene began to hum as she held the peeled egg in her hand and cut it in half, revealing its yellow center.
She took a plate and sprinkled it with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. She gathered her things, went to the dining room, and began eating breakfast while watching the news. She skimmed over the fact that, half an hour earlier, seismic waves had been recorded emanating from Three-Headed Mountain.
It was just a simple news item that he didn't pay much attention to. After all, similar earth movements were detected everywhere, so it wasn't unusual; the world was always shaking.
However, she noticed that more people were talking about this particular area, so she started investigating further. Apparently, some people had sent messages using special methods indicating that something unusual had happened.
It was Hunger Mountain that had trembled! Some people in the distance could see it, especially groups designated by city-state governments that monitored the area due to fears that its effects would spread beyond it.
No one was crazy enough to approach Hunger Mountain, but these peculiarities were noteworthy and gradually became better known to citizens interested in the area.
"Hmm, when there's more information, I'll take a trip to the Three-Headed Mountains. It would be interesting to find some things if I'm lucky," Selene muttered, quite interested in what might follow.
[The design of that dress is absolutely beautiful! Where did you find it? Did you make it? It doesn't matter! I'm going to sew it for you!]
While having breakfast and checking the internet, Selene received a message from Kim on her communicator. However, she didn't respond, knowing her friend would send more than 100 messages in a row. She decided to wait.
As her communicator screen became a substitute for some of her personal toys, Selene found a news item that caught her attention because of its content.
[The Mechanical Titan has been detected on the north coast.]
Selene broke out in a cold sweat because she had planned for her trip to go north. She was interested in seeing the sea. Although she didn't have the means to go into it, she wanted to observe it up close and maybe swim in it.
"Damn it! Dad has to know about this. He always brags about seeing that thing from afar," Selene said before putting the rest of the egg in her mouth and drinking the rest of her coffee in one gulp.
The Mechanical Titan was one of the most incredible and terrifying things in the world!