"O-Oh, hey there, Wolfie! It is not what it looks like. Unless it is. What does it look like? Actually, don't tell me. Let's just get this over with. Scum like me don't deserve to live..."
Silver Wolf stupidly blinked for a few moments upon hearing his oddly panicked words. She looked at his face, which was painted with an extremely bothered expression. Though, not directed at her, despite the fact that she broke into his room without warning.
Then, she looked at the bag of cookies in her hand. She had ignored Kafka's command to give one to Firefly, and had brought them here in her own little rebellion.
Finally, she looked at Sunny's crotch.
"Hey!"
A swirl of Shadow Essence suddenly blocked her view as Sunny's Transcendent armor — a gift from Kafka, if she remembered correctly — encased his figure. Silver Wolf frowned, mumbling:
"I was watching that..."
"...Watching what, exactly?"
It was only then that she realized that she had been caught doing something she shouldn't.
"Uh..."
Was she supposed to question how an underdeveloped, malnourished street rat, managed to acquire a weapon like that? Or maybe she was supposed to compliment it? It wasn't as if she disliked what she saw.
...Wait, was she just going to forget what she had interrupted. Her expression became blank. She felt a deep pit form in her stomach.
'Another loss...'
Silver Wolf stepped back.
"I, uh, am I interrupting something? Because I could come back later..."
Sunny grimaced, eyes looking everywhere but her.
"Yeah, you did."
Silver Wolf lowered her gaze, then nodded. She turned around—
"Where are you going?"
She paused at his question, sending him a perplexed look when she turned her head back.
"I-I'm not going to stop you from getting some play, you know? So... I'll give you your space."
Somehow, Sunny ended up seeming even more confused. He squinted.
"That's... not what was happening? Or not what I wanted to happen."
Understanding dawned on his face as he realized how unbelievable he sounded.
"Wait, no, I was not getting laid! It was completely against my consent because she used some weird mind attack and tricked me into getting naked and it's actually my Aspect's fault but the point is that nothing was meant to happen so I should thank you for being an interruption—"
Silver Wolf raised her hand, causing him to pause.
"I get it. Chill, dude."
A trace of concern was still on his face, in his body language, and buried within his eyes.
"You sure? Because I'm really not lying."
"I know. You wouldn't take advantage of your gang like that."
He looked just a bit happier, and Silver Wolf felt the situation wasn't too weird anymore.
She sighed, both in exasperation and relief(?), before wondering why he cared so much as to explain himself. In the past, whenever [Fated] put him in... lucky situations, he usually just let others assume what they wanted...
Suddenly, she recalled the bag she was holding. Silver Wolf held it up for a moment, looking at the chocolate chip cookies within the translucent wrapping, before giving Sunny a mischievous look.
"Want cookies?"
***
As Sunny silently munched on Kafka's cookies, something Silver Wolf was very likely to get drilled for later, she thought about what to do. What to say.
Should she ask him how he was feeling? No, that sounded too forced. Generic, even. Didn't sound like something the big Silver Wolf would say. Didn't even feel like something that could ever hope to properly encapsulate how utterly fucked he must feel.
It had been her fault. Silver Wolf left Firefly to her own devices, not acting even as she broke the Script to be near Sunny. She should have known that sick bimbo would have no self control.
...What was she even doing here? There was nothing she could say to him to make him feel better. The two of them were similar, but so different.
The thing that hurt Silver Wolf the most wasn't even comparable to whatever he must have felt. She was shallow, always wanting more and more like a starving worm.
Silver Wolf reclined in Sunny's chair as if she had deemed it her own, picking up her gaze to... meet his?
Why was he looking at her?
He froze for a moment when their eyes met. Then, he continued to eat the cookies she had brought him — at a frightening speed, too.
Sunny looked away, suddenly finding the fabric of his sheets to be the most intriguing thing in the world.
...Silver Wolf was creeped out.
...Now that she thought about it, he was probably a little weirded out, as well.
She was back at square one. What could she possibly do for him?
'...Could that work?'
Silver Wolf found herself hesitating for a few moments, considering whether using this was the right move. Morally, at least.
...Since when did she have morals?
With that, her Menu booted up.
[Status]
[Skills]
[Inventory]
[Equipment]
[Bonds]
[Minigames]
[Dungeons]
[Settings]
She focused on her [Bonds] Menu. The mechanic was her main way of acquiring new skills — leveling them was a different matter altogether, but she digressed. A moment later, new tab appeared.
Bonds: [AR-26710], [Blade]...
Silver Wolf's eyes squinted as she scanned the list. They were supposed to be sorted from highest Bond Level to lowest, and the highest was supposed to be Sunny...
She paused, then made the window scroll down, revealing a unique section.
Romanceable: [Sunless].
Her expression ended up souring. Honestly, what a stupid gimmick. It was obvious that she wouldn't be good at this. She may as well be a social reject.
[For realizing your place in the social hierarchy, your Wisdom has increased by 1!]
She almost punched the notification on her screen. Silver Wolf stopped for a few moments, then focused on Sunny's name.
Then...
She read. She kept reading. Silver Wolf continued to read. Her eyes lingered on every word that she could...
And she ended up failing, because she didn't like reading.
And there was far too much information on Sunny's character page!
Sure, plenty of it was locked, and required her to do stuff(?) to unlock, but plenty of it... was just there to give her a headache! Why in the world was there a six hundred chapter novel about his life?!
...And that was just him. Because guess what?
Each. And. Every. Single. Heroine. Had. Pages. Upon. Pages. Of. Lore!
She saw Firefly and Kafka. She saw that pink-haired girl who was with him on the Express. There was the Masked Fool that he was friends with, too.
'Seele, Tingyun, Seishan, Herta... Constance?! That Constance?! Can't this thing be a bit more selective!'
The list went on. And those were only the ones who were unlocked. Somehow, her Aspect could see the fucking future.
...But they were all greyed out, so she had no idea who they would be. Or perhaps they were only placeholders.
She swiped all that garbage away, a sickening feeling welling up within her as she thought about how many harlots wanted a piece of this guy.
Why this guy?! There was like... a few trillion of them across the Universe!
'Go after them!'
In her anger, Silver Wolf came across something interesting. She saw an image of a chibi little Sunny eating cookies, a distraught look on his face. An animated speech bubble floated above him...
Silver Wolf paused for a few moments, before focusing on it.
That was when she heard it:
"Their face is the same."
"Stupid sword..."
"I don't know what she's looking at, but she looks really cute."
"Why does Tingyun keep lying?"
"Too much sugar..."
Silver Wolf felt lobotomized.