Evelyn Hart’s eyes snapped open.
Her chest still burned where the venomous snake had sunk its fangs into her. The agony of that miserable death felt lodged in her bones, refusing to fade.
She stared at the black canopy above the bed without moving.
Then she shot upright and frantically checked herself for wounds.
There were none.
Had she really come back to life?
In her previous life, she had been forcibly thrown into a game called Fallen Realm.
After entering that world, every player was assigned the primary class path best suited to them. From there, they could unlock different specialized branches.
Evelyn, however, had been a complete beginner. She hadn’t even known which path she was suited for.
The most gaming experience she’d ever had was with casual match-three games like Candy Crush.
To survive in that deadly world, she had swallowed every last shred of pride she had. All she asked was that the others not abandon her whenever they went out to fight monsters.
But surrender earned no kindness there. It only gave people more room to show how cruel they could be.
The courtesy and decency she’d learned in the modern world had become utterly worthless.
Worse still, the people who called themselves her allies had exploited and enslaved her, making sure she never gained a class skill that could truly keep her alive.
It wasn’t as though she had never fought back.
Every time she tried to climb, someone shoved her even lower.
By the time she died, the only useful skills she’d learned were how to identify crystal ore and plants.
“Miss Isolde, you’re awake.”
A stiff female voice suddenly came from beside the bed.
Evelyn looked up and found a maid standing in the shadows.
The next instant, fragments of memory flooded her mind. They came fast and jumbled, pounding against her skull until her temples throbbed.
Isolde Sylvain, the adopted daughter of Duke Valen Sylvain.
She was the beautiful madwoman from an early dungeon in Fallen Realm, an NPC who helped the duke lure players and travelers to their deaths before toying with their corpses and souls.
The master of this castle, Duke Valen Sylvain, had once been a human noble.
In his pursuit of divine power, he rebuilt his own body with pieces of the dead, murdered his wife and daughter, and devoured his servants. In the end, he turned the entire castle into a nest of monsters.
The original Isolde had been adopted by Valen at fourteen. Instead of running away, she had embraced his dark arts as sacred doctrine.
She selected victims for him, lured powerful people into the castle, then extracted the lingering souls of those who failed and stuffed them into dolls for her amusement.
The maid standing before her was one of Isolde’s creations.
Lia.
Isolde stared into the maid’s dull, corpse-gray eye, and her stomach tightened.
The good news was that there were no living people nearby to stab her in the back.
The bad news was that if she ever crossed paths with the righteous factions, her current identity would probably get her strung up on the city walls on sight.
Even worse, she knew how this dungeon ended.
Several player parties eventually joined forces to storm the castle and kill Valen. They carved two treasures from his body.
One was a divine-tier item. The other was a top-tier skill.
The parties that claimed them later steamrolled everything in their path.
But this time, Evelyn had arrived earlier.
Valen was still alive, and both treasures were still inside him.
Isolde lowered her gaze as the trembling in her chest slowly settled.
She didn’t know why she had been reborn, but one thing was clear.
This was her chance.
Valen wasn’t overwhelmingly powerful this early in the game. If she killed him first and took the divine-tier item and top-tier skill, she would never have to beg on her knees again.
She would never have to live at anyone else’s mercy.
And the people who had thrown her to the monsters in her previous life, the ones who had looked down on her and ground her beneath their heels, would not walk away clean.
Before any of that, however, she had to survive what was waiting for her now.
Valen was still developing his power, but he was hardly some experience mob lying in a coffin and waiting to be looted.
By the later stages of the game, after the major guilds had formed, he had become a horror capable of wiping out most players with ease.
The raid had only succeeded through sheer numbers, specialized items, a carefully balanced mix of classes, and relentless use of the terrain to wear him down.
Even then, more than half the players had died.
Now she was wearing Isolde’s face.
Her identity was her greatest advantage and her greatest danger.
The original Isolde had worshiped Valen with fanatical devotion. The slightest change in her behavior could expose her.
If he saw through her, she would probably end up as a fresh piece of replacement flesh.
Isolde pushed herself upright and looked down at this unfamiliar body.
Her fingers were long and slender, her skin unnaturally pale. A dark red line resembling a stitched scar marked the inside of her left wrist.
She recognized it as the mark of a Soul-Stitcher.
Soul-Stitchers were witches who specialized in corpses and forbidden magic. To make dismembering bodies easier, they implanted magical Soul Threads inside their own bodies.
She studied the mark, her expression slowly darkening.
It was useful for taking corpses apart and stitching them back together.
But it was nowhere near enough to kill Valen.
“Miss.”
Lia spoke again from beside the bed.
“His Grace ordered you to report to his study as soon as you woke. You are not to delay.”
Only then did Isolde get a proper look at her.
Yellowed bandages covered half of Lia’s face, their edges stained with gray-black grime. Only one cloudy eye remained visible.
Her traditional maid’s uniform was worn and frayed. Strands of dull blond hair clung to her neck, and she stood rigidly straight, like an old doll that had been left in an attic for years.
“Did he say what he wanted?” Isolde asked.
“He did not.”
“Is anyone else in the study?”
“Only His Grace.”
Isolde climbed out of bed. The moment her feet touched the floor, her knees nearly gave way.
The original Isolde’s emotions seemed to be lingering inside the body.
Joy. Longing. Worship. Greed.
They clogged her chest in a sickening tangle.
“Do you have a mirror?” she asked.
Lia turned and retrieved a cracked mirror from beside the cabinet.
An unfamiliar face stared back at her.
Pale and thin, with long black hair falling to her waist.
Her features were almost too beautiful, though a lingering darkness weighed on her eyes.
Isolde Sylvain.
The “little madwoman,” as players had called her.
At least she had the perfect face for lying.
She pressed a hand against her black skirt and counted three heartbeats. Once she was sure she could face Valen without giving herself away, she stood and opened the door.
“Let’s go.”
Lia inclined her head and followed her out of the room.
The corridor was dim, its walls lined with faded portraits. Every painted figure had empty black holes where its eyes should have been.
As Isolde passed, the hollow sockets turned to follow her.
The carpet was damp and swallowed the sound of their footsteps. The air smelled of chemicals and old blood.
Isolde kept a measured pace at the front.
The memories in her mind were too fragmented. She needed time to sort through them and find anything useful.
Valen usually kept to himself and hated being disturbed. If he had summoned her to the study today, it was unlikely to be for idle conversation.
She remembered players discussing his weakness after the dungeon had been cleared.
It wasn’t in his head or his heart.
It was the Silver Core embedded in the third vertebra of his spine.
The players had not arrived yet. If she could maintain Isolde’s usual behavior and find a chance to get close to that core, she might have a shot at killing him before he suspected anything.
At the end of the corridor, a heavy wooden door came into view.
The crest of Sylvain Castle was carved into its surface.
A raven with its chest split open, crimson spider lilies blooming between its ribs.
Lia stopped and knocked.
“Your Grace, Miss Isolde has arrived.”
A man’s deep voice came from inside.
“Come in.”
The moment the door opened, a thick, nauseating stench rolled over Isolde.
Formaldehyde, blood, and the sour reek of rotting flesh filled her mouth and nose.
Her stomach lurched. She nearly vomited on the spot, but forced it back down.
The study was enormous, with towering bookshelves that reached the ceiling. Alongside heavy old volumes stood rows of massive glass jars.
Twisted human organs and pieces of unknown creatures floated inside them, gleaming coldly beneath the ghostly green candlelight.
And in the center of the study, something lay coiled in a heap.
Isolde drew a silent, careful breath.