The Sword Princess's Game (Part 4)

"Are we really going to keep asking private questions?" Stifling a laugh, Sonia said, "If this keeps up, all our dark histories are going to be exposed." "Yes!" Adele said decisively. "It wouldn't be fun otherwise!" Originally, their only intention was to get Sonia drunk to buy the dorm a night of peace. They hadn't expected the pleasant surprise: during the drinking game, Sonia was actually willing to honestly disclose information about "that person." How could they possibly pass up this chance? "Alright then. Never have I ever..." Sonia thought for a moment. "...spit in a roommate's food." She raised her bottle toward Adele in a toast and took a sip first out of respect. Adele had no choice but to take a drink as well. "Adele!" Lois said in shock. "How dare you—" "But Lois, your temper was awful those few days," Adele said helplessly. "And you weren't the only one on your period. My mood was terrible back then too, plus I had cramps... Seeing you put on such a foul face, both irritating and haughty, wasn't it only natural for me to play a little prank?" Lois froze. "I thought you got caught by Sonia... You actually dared to spit in my food! You're disgusting!" "You think that's disgusting?" Adele wasn't about to take an earful lying down. With a bit of alcohol in her system, she struck back immediately: "Well, never have I ever used a roommate's toothbrush to scrub a windowsill!" The atmosphere in the dorm froze. Ingrid turned to look at Sonia, only to see her drain her bottle completely. Noticing the swordswoman's surprised look, the village girl explained, "I always keep my toothbrush in an exact spot. The moment anything seems off, I replace it. Well, though I really shouldn't have had to drink to that, since what I did was use her toothbrush to scrub the toilet. "Though whether out of guilt or psychological trauma, Lois threw her toothbrush away after every single use for that entire month. So all I did was scrub the toilet clean for nothing." However, Adele airing her dirty laundry infuriated Lois. Everything had gone smoothly for Lois her entire life; only a select few, like Sonia, had ever managed to put her in her place, and Adele certainly wasn't one of them. "Never have I ever called someone 'Master'!" Adele blushed so hard her face looked ready to drip blood. "You were listening in while I showered!" "I wasn't doing it on purpose. It's just that as a water sorcery faction sorcerer, I can clearly distinguish extraneous noises in running water," Lois mocked. "Though I never expected dramas would get into your head to that degree. Watching them wasn't enough; you actually wanted to roleplay them in real life! Slave, prisoner, investigator, teacher, student, screen maiden, and even a married woman... Now, every day when you take a shower, I put down whatever work I'm doing and focus entirely on listening to the audio drama you and your fiancé put on. Ha, what other surprises do you have that I don't know about?" Her shoulders trembling as she listened, Adele bit her lip so hard tears seemed ready to fall. Seeing her like this, Lois sobered up slightly, wondering if she had gone too far. But right then, Adele squeezed a few words through her teeth: "Never have I ever... when everyone was in the dorm, secretly under the covers... and during class, secretly under the desk... Oh right, and once outside—" "A-dele!" Lois shrieked and lunged straight at Adele, tangling into a brawl with her. Sonia and Ingrid immediately cleared the way to let them fight. It wasn't out of callousness, but because the match-up was reasonably even: water sorcerers were the least lethal among sorcerers to begin with, and Lois disliked exercising and dieted to maintain her figure, leaving her physically weak. Adele, on the other hand, ate well, slept well, and volunteered every weekend, keeping her in excellent physical shape. As long as Lois didn't use sorcery spirits, Adele actually held a slight advantage. More importantly, airing each other's dirty laundry like this was no longer something that could be smoothed over with mutual apologies; this chapter had to be punctuated with blood. Conveniently, Sonia and Ingrid both thoroughly approved of this fist-to-flesh method of communication. Rather than stopping them, it was better to let them have a good brawl to vent their grievances; once exhausted, they would naturally make up. Sonia walked out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing. Ingrid followed her out, so the Paw-Stretching Swordmaster asked, "What were you all trying to pull today anyway?" "You noticed?" "Back in our first year, I thought about getting Lois drunk so she'd make a drunken scene, but she doesn't like drinking—she practically never touches alcohol." Sonia jutted her chin toward the room. "Look at how terrible their drinking manners are." "So what you did just now was intentional?" Ingrid asked, leaning her back against the railing. "I just wanted to deflect the topic away from me." Sonia shrugged. "I didn't expect it to work so well, instantly shattering their plastic sisterhood." "They're just drunk. Once they sober up, they'll go right back to normal," Ingrid said. "Unlike you." "What do you mean?" "Haven't you noticed how serious your problems have been this month?" Ingrid sighed. "Bad temper, insomnia, staying up late—put all that aside. But you're constantly spacing out, sometimes bursting into tears out of nowhere, and your swordplay training has been kept to the absolute bare minimum. Do you know what people on the forums are saying about you? They say you really do have the mentality of a village girl, that you won't work hard anymore, and that relying on your Sanctuary realm, you're throwing your weight around with reckless abandon..." "I'm not, I just..." "Of course I don't believe that forum bullshit, but I can see your state with my own eyes," Ingrid said. "Adele put it well: your symptoms can be summed up in three words—long-distance relationship. Fretful over gain and loss, thoughts completely tangled, yearning for what you can't have, your mind entirely wrapped up in the person you love, without any capacity left to think about how to hone your swordsmanship. "It's not that I can't understand, but I'm still disappointed. You know full well that wallowing in an emotional quagmire is meaningless, yet you still willingly sink into your negative feelings, refusing to replace self-pity with training. "I said before that love only slows down my sword strokes, and my stance hasn't changed. To you, is love really so important that you'd sacrifice so much of yourself for it?" Having said all this in one breath, Ingrid let out a long sigh. "This isn't the proud, stubborn Sword Princess I know." Sonia stared blankly at Ingrid. Her heart was filled with bitterness and self-reproach, along with grievances she couldn't voice. "I'm in trouble," she said pitifully. At the root of it all, every bit of Sonia's negative emotions could be traced back to a single decree: the Starry Homeland Security Emergency Order No. 51. This was an emergency decree issued by the Starry Kingdom the day after the Empty Door sorcery spirits erupted. Simply put, it stipulated two things: no sorcerer was permitted to use Empty Door sorcery spirits to create unknown Void Realm passages—violators would bear criminal liability and be sentenced to three or more years of sorcerer imprisonment; and surveillance and cleanup efforts against "intruders" would be intensified—any intruder illegally crossing into the Starry Kingdom would immediately trigger stellar surveillance and face carpet sweeps by sorcerer forces. Sorcerers were forbidden from creating Empty Doors, and outsiders were forbidden from entering the Starry Kingdom. This was what had caused Sonia to break down: she had thought that with the new concept of Empty Doors, the Watcher would soon be able to come to the Starry Kingdom and reunite with her. But the enactment of Order No. 51 completely extinguished that possibility—unless she was willing to have the Watcher come to the Starry Kingdom only to reprise his best role as a fugitive, spending their future dates in sewers watching rats wrestle. Nothing could be more miserable: just when the village girl thought there was hope, it instantly turned to despair. The situation was even worse than before: in the past, though outsiders were treated with hostility, the protocol in most cases was "detention" or "custody," which would have left room for maneuvering if the Watcher were discovered. But Order No. 51 explicitly stated that all outsiders deserved to die; sorcerer forces were not to hold back, but do everything in their power to annihilate any vermin that endangered the Starry Kingdom. Which meant that once exposed, the Watcher would have only one path left: becoming the enemy of the entire world... a path he was all too used to walking. If they met in the Starry Kingdom, it would inevitably invite tremendous trouble. So Sonia obviously had only one other option: leaving the Starry Kingdom through an Empty Door. This did not sound easy. After all, it meant Sonia would have to abandon her career, her status, and every connection she had built in the Starry Kingdom. But most importantly: how would she arrange things for her mother? Take her mother with her? But her mother wasn't even willing to come to Jialesi, let alone go to a foreign country. Right now, the money Sonia sent alone was enough for her mother to comfortably live out her twilight years in their hometown, yet she still couldn't stop pottering about in her own fields. How could someone who clung so much to the past leave her homeland in her old age? Leave her mother behind? Leave her mother alone in the Starry Kingdom while she left to live happily ever after with the Watcher, unable to return for the foreseeable future—unable to invite her mother to her wedding, unable to let her mother know when she had a child, unable to find her mother whenever she missed her... That was her only family. Sonia had always believed she could resolve all problems swiftly and decisively—something she had long taken pride in. But in truth, she simply hadn't needed to make decisions about things truly precious to her. When the things that mattered most to her heart were placed on the balance, she hesitated just like the ignorant villagers she knew, unable to pick them up, yet unable to let them go. Anticipation for the future, responsibility toward the past—the two intertwined into a hemp rope that strangled the breath out of her. At times, she resolved to pursue her happiness, only to weep with guilt; at other times, she wanted to stall for time and wait for future changes, but her reluctance and ferocious desire for control left her stifled and furious. This was why she had become so temperamental this past month—she was truly suffocating. "Trouble?" Ingrid thought for a moment. "Is there anywhere we can help?" "If there were, I wouldn't be polite about it," Sonia exhaled. "Thanks, though." However, Ingrid's sincere words, while making the Paw-Stretching Swordmaster feel deeply ashamed, also stirred a strange thought in her mind. Ingrid's core idea was actually exceedingly simple: I know you're distressed. If that's the case, why don't you use your sword to cleave through all your troubles? What, you can't cut through them? Then go practice your swordsmanship until you can! Sonia knew perfectly well that her enemy wasn't her mother or the Watcher, but Order No. 51. In fact, she didn't even need to rebel against Order No. 51; she merely needed Order No. 51 to make an exception for the Watcher, and she would be able to keep him by her side forever. If she had enough power, could she accomplish that? Just how much power would be required to do so? Regardless, just as Ingrid said, studying was never wrong, and cultivation was certainly right. If destiny were to arrive one day, a prepared Sword Princess would always be better than a love-struck village girl who did nothing. Smack! Sonia vigorously slapped both her cheeks, pulled a hair tie from her pocket, and tied her long hair into a ponytail. Having played the tragic heroine for a whole month, it was time to get back onto the path of the sword saint! Ingrid watched this and let out an amused snort. "Who knew drinking actually worked." "Tee-hee," Sonia chuckled and hugged Ingrid. "Can't help it—who told me to dote on Ingrid the most?" "I thought it would take more effort than this. I was even prepared to clean your ears tonight while talking sense into you," Ingrid said. "I've never given anyone a lap pillow before." "Oh." Sonia nodded. Meeting the swordswoman's expectant gaze, she turned around and walked back into the room. "Then I'll just have to go back and keep drinking." By then, Adele and Lois had exhausted themselves fighting. They sat in their respective chairs panting, glaring at each other from time to time. Aside from slightly disheveled hair and clothes, however, there were hardly any signs that they had been brawling. Sonia opened four bottles of cocktails, handed them out, and raised her bottle. "Cheers." Surprised to see the village girl acting so proactive and polite, they felt that the familiar Sword Princess had returned and the terrifying Sword Demon had vanished. Breathing sighs of relief, they raised their bottles and clinked them together. "Cheers!" Right at that moment, everyone's miracle bracelets suddenly vibrated and chimed. Sonia looked down and saw an emergency bulletin: [The Starry Police Department warns: Three suspected Sanctuary intruders have appeared in District 37 of Jialesi, at the "Narrow Abyss." Please evacuate the vicinity of the "Narrow Abyss" immediately! Please evacuate the vicinity of the "Narrow Abyss" immediately! Gryphon Meteorologist forces are about to take control of the scene. All non-essential personnel, please evacuate the vicinity of the "Narrow Abyss" immediately!]