Elena sat on the floor hugging her knees in front of a trash bag stuffed with the posters she had torn up, grieving over having ruined her entire collection.
Just then, a small notification appeared in front of her.
Before she had a chance to figure out what it was, another one came right after it.
Then another.
[New feature unlocked: Loyalty]
[The loyalty of the heroes you summon toward you can now be measured.]
[Loyalty changes based on your hero's feelings and attitude toward you.]
[You will receive rewards when Loyalty reaches certain thresholds.]
[Once a threshold is passed, Loyalty will never drop below that threshold again.]
[Loyalty is a hidden stat that only the summoner can see.]
Elena blinked.
She read it one more time.
Then she whispered in a trembling voice, "System."
This time, the screen that opened in front of her had a new tab. Summons. Under it, a single name.
Sora Akisora.
Elena tapped the name.
[Sora Akisora (Level 1)
Stats
Strength: 7
Speed: 4.9
Endurance: 6.15
Senses: 5.95
Energy: 0
Soul: 9.9
Resistance: 0
Estimated Combat Power: 210
Hidden Stat
Loyalty: 1%]
Elena's eyes locked onto the very last line. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
When she moved her finger over that line, another small window opened.
[Next Loyalty threshold: 19%]
[Reward: ???]
One percent.
That man, that Hero of Seven Tales, that long-white-haired, emotionless-eyed man, so handsome he looked like he had stepped right out of a poster, had felt something toward her.
Just now, right at this moment, somewhere out there, he had thought about her.
Elena's cheeks started to burn.
Images appeared in her head one after another. At nineteen percent Loyalty, Sora was standing in front of the door, looking at her with those emotionless eyes and saying, "I'm back." At fifty percent, he was down on one knee, holding her hand. And at a hundred percent...
scream
She felt something warm trickle out of her nose.
Elena wiped her nose with the back of her hand, looked at the blood smeared on her fingers, and started to laugh.
"Hehe..."
The half-naked emperors on the torn posters on the floor seemed to be staring at her.
"Hehehehehe..."
Her laughter echoed through the empty room. Low, broken, and bone-chilling.
"Hehehehehehehehe."
...
On the ground floor of the building, behind the glass of the entrance door, Sora stood with a slight frown, watching what was happening in the building's lobby.
At the first corner, he had stopped a taxi and, without even opening the door, asked the driver where the nearest internet café was. The middle-aged driver had looked at him like someone who had walked straight out of the last century. The last internet café in the area had closed ten years ago. The most expensive everyday computer an ordinary person could buy on the market only cost a single day's work, even for someone with a Life Profession.
The only similar place was the city library. But you needed ID to get into the library.
Sora had no ID in this world. He didn't have a registered name, an address, or even a past. He had nothing in his pocket except a pink wallet that belonged to someone else.
So he had come back.
To the home of the woman who had kicked him out.
And now, just a few steps from the building's entrance, he could see Elena's mother through the glass.
Rosalind was standing in the lobby on the ground floor. In front of her was a blond young man in a navy suit. The young man stepped closer to her.
Rosalind took a step back. The young man's hand grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him.
Rosalind pushed him off and forced a smile.
Being turned down didn't bother Victor, the mayor's son, at all. The left corner of his mouth lifted.
The expression on Rosalind's face was one Sora knew very well.
The expression of a woman who had been targeted by nobles and was uncomfortable with it.
The woman looked around, but there was no one else in the hallway.
A middle-aged woman whose only sin was being beautiful was being harassed by the son of someone powerful, at the entrance of her own building, in the middle of the day, in the hallway of a building no one cared about.
Sora pieced together the information that had appeared in his memory, the posters in the room, the fatherless home, and the way Elena had fainted after summoning him.
This family were far bigger losers than he had guessed.
They had no one behind them. No power, no protector, and no way out.
A family like this would cling tightly to even a single hand held out to them.
Sora's eyes narrowed slightly.
Manipulating that girl was going to be even easier than he had thought.