No... I am not interested.
The two stared at the transparent screen that faded into thin air, the expressions on their faces darkening at almost the exact same second.
They wondered with overwhelming bitterness: could three brief, plain words carry such a devastating, despair-laden impact?!
The System screen that appeared and vanished instantly seemed like a completely unfeeling entity, utterly indifferent to the horror it had sparked inside them.
In those heavy moments, an absolute, suffocating silence blanketed the suite—a silence so profound you could hear a pin drop. The two stood frozen, staring at the floor, their minds squeezed tight as they analyzed this predicament.
If this magical System was this sterile, brainless, and downright malicious.. then what was the point of it?!
In standard novel tropes, wasn’t this cursed entity supposed to act as their guide and helper to overcome dilemmas faster?!
Instead of helping them, however, it simply acted as though it couldn’t care less about their existence.
"We were the fools and idiots from the very beginning.." Elliot exhaled the words in a raspy, calm voice, though it carried a sudden realization.
She said it as if she had uncovered the ultimate truth of the game, even though she was merely trying to construct a logical explanation for the absurdity and mess they were currently plunged into!
Michael nodded in attention as Elliot pressed on, her tone turning sharp and rising in intensity:
"We know for a fact that this pathetic, twisted entity wants to force us into having sex by any means possible! So why on earth do we expect it to guide us or toss us a lifeline?! It’s in its absolute best interest to leave us drowning in this fog of ignorance until we make a fatal mistake and surrender to our fate!"
In a flash of pure fury, Elliot spat out a string of muffled curses in quick succession. Her soft, androgynous face twitched so violently it looked as if it might crack from sheer rage and boiling internal heat!
Then, her pupils suddenly settled, and she spoke in a firm voice: "But we don’t need it!.. Every single door is blocked in front of us anyway. And you know what, Michael? Even from this System’s refusal to answer, we can extract the real truth!"
Michael stared at his friend in utter bewilderment, feeling a deep surge of pity. To him, it looked as though Elliot had completely lost her mind under the immense pressure! How could any sane person pull a decisive answer out of a cold, dry refusal from the System?!
Michael had expected Elliot to break down or go crazy in this nightmarish situation, but he hadn’t expected her to lose her mind this fast! He wondered gloomily to himself if he would have to carry the burden of this entire journey alone once his friend lost her mind completely!
Yet Elliot shattered all his grim expectations when she continued explaining her breakdown with demonic composure:
"Isn’t it the System’s ultimate goal for us to comply with the pills and fall into the trap to feed its sick desire? If those cursed souls could actually use our extraordinary spatial abilities the moment they hijack our bodies, the System would have rushed to answer with a simple ’yes’! It would have said it just to deepen our despair, destroy any hope in our backup plan, and leave our bodies exposed for those souls to do whatever they please!.. Its refusal to answer is nothing more than a trick to keep us wallowing in doubt!"
Michael’s eyes snapped up to Elliot’s hybrid face; it was as if a sudden lightbulb had flashed inside his skull!
Wasn’t this a stroke of absolute brilliance?! Michael wondered in shock: Does this bastard’s human brain only operate at peak efficiency when backed against a lethal guillotine?!
"Are you saying with this breakdown, Elliot.. that we should take the gamble immediately and execute our plan to switch into the organless, androgynous form?!" Michael asked, his eyes wide.
Elliot nodded, her lips stretching into a faint smile.. but slowly, that smile expanded into a suspicious, rubbery grin—the unmistakable smirk of a certified lunatic spreading across her beautiful, androgynous features!
That sinister smile materialized so slowly that a cold chill ran straight down Michael’s spine for a moment!
"Elliot.. What’s wrong with you, man?! Why are you smiling like that?!" Michael asked, his tone wary.
Elliot opened her mouth and let out a muffled, mocking laugh: "Heh.. See that, Michael? Not a single peep out of it!"
Michael blinked blankly, entirely missing the point. "What peep are you talking about?"
Elliot’s smile widened with smug satisfaction: "Not a single word from this damn System, exactly as I predicted and built my hypothesis on!.. That bastard with the mechanical voice didn’t even try to refute my claims or call me a liar, even though I’m dead certain it’s listening to every single letter coming out of my mouth right now! It’s staying dead silent because it knows full well that if it showed up to argue with me in any way, I’d know for sure I hit the absolute truth!.. See how it hides in the shadows, helpless with nothing but silence?!"
You brilliant lunatic!.. Michael growled inwardly as he grasped the trick.
Michael instantly understood what was spinning inside his friend’s sharp mind; this whole public breakdown had been nothing short of a psychological trap—a calculated provocation to force the System out of its silence. The moment the System popped out to defend its words, the hidden truth between the lines of its responses would be exposed!
It took Michael only a few seconds to catch onto his friend’s scheme before the trap’s net actually began to pull shut!
Whoosh!
A light screen materialized in midair out of nowhere, displaying text followed by rapid, consecutive words dripping with suppressed anger:
[How I adore watching humans interpret every situation and circumstance based on their own delusions and desires! You may believe whatever you wish and spin it however you like.. Do you honestly think you are smarter than me and hold the reins of deception?! You must understand clearly that your true and only enemy in this world is your own flawed human mind, which reshapes facts into whatever interpretation flatters its ego and expectations!]
When Elliot saw the System screen rushing to reply and defend its stance in such a competitive tone, her inner smile burned far wider and brighter than her external grin! The trap was snapping shut, and the mechanical entity was wobbling straight toward the bait!
Elliot tilted her head forward, speaking with open mockery toward the light screen: "If my interpretation and analysis were as trivial and superficial as you claim, O Revered System, you wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of appearing so fast to defend yourself! If I were reading things wrong, that would serve your interests perfectly—it would throw us into a far deeper abyss, which is precisely what you want! You’re stupid because you showed your panic and refused to give a straight answer from the start.. If you had told me coldly: ’Yes, the souls will be able to use your spatial abilities,’ would I have kept overthinking and running intense tactical calculations?! Of course not! But you hid the answer because you didn’t want us searching for alternate maneuvers; you simply wanted us to lose hope and surrender under the weight of ignorance!"
The light screen flickered rapidly, a mechanical voice bursting forth:
[Ha!.. If you are so bold as to claim such supreme genius, why did you come asking me in the first place?! You are the author of this world, yet here you stand helpless, ignorant of basic rules! Isn’t that utterly pathetic and laughable?!.. You still don’t realize that this mess is the simplest, most trivial problem you could ever face here. Your mind formulates the actual solution, yet you sit here panicked, obsessing over losses and consequences far more than what you stand to gain! To spare you this pathetic circus.. the simplest favor I can grant you is to let you lose hope early, so you don’t face a far harsher shock down the line!]
The text cut off, but the mechanical System failed to notice.. or so they thought.. that it had implicitly confessed with its own tongue that Elliot’s solution regarding the androgynous form was indeed correct and effective!
Elliot smiled coldly, speaking with mocking sarcasm as she addressed the glowing interface: "You know very well you gave us the answer just a few seconds ago, don’t you?"
Elliot threw it right back at the System after hearing it blurt out that her mind already knew the solution but feared the consequences!
The screen paused its flickering for a second before the final mechanical response flashed:
[I have known exactly what you were plotting and thinking from the very first second!.. Only a complete fool thinks they caught me in a cheap provocation! If you delude yourself into thinking you are that clever and that you defeated me tactically, you are merely a clueless idiot who has understood nothing about the rules of this world!]
With those final words, the screen vanished completely from thin air, leaving Elliot and Michael staring at each other with dry, sarcastic disdain—yet with absolute certainty this time