56 To Free Oneself From Inhibitors 2 (1/2)

Saturday, two days before the new start date of the School Fest.

After reading so many books about management and accounting, and trying her best to follow the bald cafe manager's directions on how to manage the cafe and the staffs, she finally heard the system's notification about the skill being updated in her user interface. Even though it received the lowest evaluation rating, it still meant that her efforts finally paid off and this managerial skill she had been working hard for the whole month was eventually acquired and acknowledged by the system.

It was truly something worth celebrating for.

After all, gaining skill through this way was really time-consuming but really worth the effort and the feeling of accomplishment should be greater than suddenly having the system award to her.

Oddly though, Sofony only glanced at the congratulatory message for a second, without the least change in her expression, before looking away.

These days, she was too preoccupied with something and had no energy to spare to brood over this minor accomplishment. She was not in the mood to feel happy about a seemingly normal life skill. In fact, as her train of thoughts got interrupted by the system announcement, her eyes narrowed and her forehead wrinkled in annoyance.

She was easily irritated these past few days. Before, even if she lost her wallet to a sneaky child pickpocketer while in the streets, she would only feel sad a bit and then move on. But now, even a simple matter, like a bus ticket collector not giving her 1 credit change for a 9 credit ride. would make her furrow her brows and raise her voice at the collector.

The irritation she felt all over her body continued to grow each passing day. She just suddenly couldn't help sighing at times, becoming cranky and ill-tempered. It was not her week of the month, this was why many people around her were confused and worried. Some of them asked about her condition, hoping to make her fessed up. But for some reason, their concern only made her mood worse. Like the only purpose of people's unwanted interest, no matter how genuine or fake, was to annoy her.

She couldn't understand herself. This fact was making her more agitated. As this condition persisted, she began to see the world differently, as if it was much darker and deceiving than ever before.

'Perhaps, it's been always like this, it's just me being stupid and blind to see reality. It's like because I've been so used to seeing things positively... or rather, because I'm too used looking at things using my naive eyes, I couldn't see the truth.'

She couldn't help but feel scared and uneasy, fueling more the uncomfortable irritation eating away at her.

One time, she thought that maybe what she did against Felicity's father turned her this way, as he was the first person killed by her. There's also a chance it began when she witnessed Gio's dark side... or maybe the darkness within her that had budded and accumulated after everything she's done under the system's directions finally erupted and was now taking over her sanity and heart.

She laughed self-mockingly at this realization.

'Now that I think about it, where am I qualified to criticize others of their faults when I'm like this? And why am I afraid of Gio when all he's done is hunt a bastardpervert who tried to target his bedmate, me?'

'I'm the worst to think I couldn't rein myself in from always jumping into conclusion.'

Sofony began shaking her head and exhaled a cold breath of air. Then while remaining seated on a swivel chair within her cafe's small office and to somehow distract herself, she started allocating pleasure points to her newly gained skill. A few seconds later, the system showed her a screen where her managerial skill had a D next to it. Since the page displayed was already displaying her skills, she also upgraded Hypnotism and Acting to A. Fortunately, she had enough points to spend. Yet unfortunately, the reason she currently had more than ten thousand points at hand was due to accomplishing a few non-system missions...

Felicity's father's death seemed to have catalyzed it all. She meant not how his death was orchestrated by her under the pretext of it being the system's second official mission. It was about her first time taking somebody's life despite it being done in an indirect way.

After she hypnotized herself that it's okay not to feel guilty over a garbage man's death, it gradually became easier for her to calm her conscience down. Of course, when the system tasked her to indirectly deliver death to a random man recently sentenced to life imprisonment due to serial killing, she still resisted. But as the system repeatedly reminded her of her fear of death and her weakness when compared to the other hosts, plus its threat about Felicity's identity, she was forced to hypnotize people again to arrange another death... which then turned into another the next day, until it became a daily thing, and her aversion to the deed itself became lesser and lesser.

At first, she was still crying and vomiting. The frequency was also high. Yet presently, even if she still felt like crying and puking, she could now stop herself from completely doing them. She could sense herself becoming much more unfamiliar and unfeeling, irritable as well. However, ever since Mr. Dimatrionez died, and the system threw at her the third official mission of entrancing herself regarding that man's death, self-hypnosis became like a habit to her, like it's the only thing that would help her lessen the guilt, pain, and fear.

Now, the sleepless nights were over.

Yet her hate towards herself never lessened. Because she's never the type to not recognize when she's in the wrong. She knew her sins. Even though she's not the one that directly inserted the knife to those people's chests, she's the one that organized the crime and she's guilty of it. Double guilty when her act of self-hypnosis to escape her conscience was factored in.

'But what's the point of realizing it? When I discovered that doing immoral things not assigned by the system would still give points, and after being forced to gain the habit of self-hypnosis, I honestly could see my bottom line blurring. I'm afraid there would come a day when even Gio would become too good for someone like me...'

After sighing for the nth time today, a ding suddenly echoed within her mind which made her subconsciously tremble at her seat. Then as expected, a very irritating voice rang in her head, which made her expression unsightly and dark.

<System: Hello, my bitchy hypocrite host, time for another mission~ Hehe, now that you're no longer as hesitant to grow stronger as before, how about we do something exciting like stealing your sexmate's prey?>

At this question, Sofony's hand holding the pen stilled in the air and the pair of expressive black eyes looking down to the documents she was working on dilated. Its last word made her think of that person Gio had captured and endlessly tortured since a little more than a week ago.

'Floyd?'

A laugh came as a reply to her question.

<System: Who else, my stupid host?>

Silence reigned for quite a long time after it showed her the official mission announcement. A few minutes later she started organizing the papers and documents into a neat stack piled at one side of her table. After this, she took a deep breath then leaned on the backrest and began chanting her calming mantra - the various crimes and reasons why it would be okay to destroy that person.

She had to repeatedly whisper, 'It's okay because he's a terrible criminal.'

'He's scum. He killed many innocent people.'

'He's destroyed the lives and future of many just to satisfy his sexual urges and other vices.'

'Yes, he's society's dreg. So it's all okay.'

Deep within her though, she knew it's never okay, as she was also someone without any right to harvest somebody else's life.

...

Alina City remained the same. Among her citizens, there were some living their lives in a boring and repetitive manner, while others tread on a wire to survive and see the next day. There were people like Wendy, even though not at all saintly, but were still living under the light. There were also those like Sofony who were rapidly getting engulfed by darkness. The point was, things had always been this way. And where goodness laid was also where evil hid. It's a mystery why light always has to have a dark side like a shadow.