“I’m so bored~” Mimi groaned as she sprawled across the soft comforter of a large bed. She stared up at the canopy blocking her view of the ceiling and kicked her feet in irritation.

  Across the room, Ant was lounging on the sofa, having returned to human form. He looked completely relaxed as he flipped through a random book he had taken off of a shelf.

  “I miss the internet,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Still speaking nonsense?” Ant replied without even looking up. “You’re the one who asked to be put on ‘house arrest’ or whatever you called it.”

  Even though she probably sounded like a lunatic whenever she spoke about the real world in front of him, Ant always remained unbothered. His blasé attitude made Mimi realize that his opinion of her didn’t matter anyway, and so she also stopped caring. She would rant to herself in front of him without batting an eye now.

  “Do you want to read this book? It’s pretty interesting,” he offered. It was uncharacteristic of the coldhearted snake. Mimi couldn’t help but be curious.

  “What book is it?” she asked.

  “Your diary.”

  “...”

  “...”

  “Put that away!”

  She chucked a pillow at him but Ant was able to dodge it with a slight movement of his head. He didn’t even look up!

  “I’ll kill you!” she cried from the bed. Despite her words, she made no effort to get up, lazily rolling around like an angry worm.

  “Go ahead,” Ant replied unperturbed.

  He knew that she was all bark and no bite. Mimi huffed, hugging a different pillow to her chest in irritation.

  If I go try and rip it out of his hands, it’ll only encourage him further. Plus, even though I hate to admit it, he’s stronger than me.

  She decided to try and change the subject instead.

  “Still,” she complained, “I can’t believe you actually bit me for real!”

  “You asked for that too.”

  A few hours earlier.

  “Um, sorry?” Prince Dimitri asked in confusion. “You want us to arrest a house?”

  Ah, right. They probably have no idea what ‘house arrest’ means in this world.

  After clarifying the idea of it to them, the Crown Prince seemed rather inclined to the idea. Arius remained standing upright behind Dimitri with a firm expression. He didn’t voice his opinion on the matter, but Mimi had the slight impression that he was displeased. The reaction made Mimi a little depressed on the inside, though she tried not to show it.

  “I’m glad. If you just give me my old room back, I promise to stay within the palace and not cause trouble,” Nemesis swore with a hand over her heart.

  “If you do anything… unpleasant again,” Dimitri warned, suddenly serious, “especially to Iliana, not even the Emperor will be able to save you.”

  Mimi knew he meant every word, but she wasn’t the least bit intimidated. After all, she had no intention of going near the protagonist again. That would be Ant’s job.

  So, she merely waved off the threat. “Yes, yes, I promise not to touch her.”

  “And this new… pet. You’ll have to keep it under control as well,” Dimitri added. He was eyeing the snake warily, but Ant was barely even paying attention. The snake let out a yawn.

  He appeared so defenseless that Mimi had the sudden urge to mess with him. “Don’t worry about my little Spirit.” She grabbed the snake’s face with both hands and cooed at it. The reptile froze as if startled by the unexpected action. “He wouldn't hurt a fly!”

  Mimi rubbed her cheek against the top of the animal’s head affectionately, knowing it would get on Ant’s nerves. What she didn’t expect was for a sudden sharp pain to prick the back of the hand holding him by the chin. She opened her mouth in disbelief.

  “Ah…”

  Time seemed to freeze for a moment as everyone processed what just happened. Mimi’s head immediately felt woozy and her vision began to swim.

  “You son of a bitch! Did you really just bite me!? After I was talking so good about you!”

  She grabbed the snake by the neck with both hands and shook it, but Ant merely stuck out his tongue at her.

  “Seems like you get along well,” Arius commented sarcastically.

  “Hahaha,” Nemesis laughed. It sounded painfully forced even to herself. “Of course we do!”

  “Uhhhh, Nemesis? Are you okay?” Dimitri asked uncertainly.

  The villainess’s body had begun to sway.

  “I’m fine!” she snapped. “This little bastard can’t hurt me!” She whacked Ant on the head one last time.

  And then, she passed out.

  When she woke up, she had been laying in the bed of her old room in the palace, so she figured her deal must have been accepted. Ant had already made himself at home in his human form, looking totally innocent.

  How dare he act like nothing happened!

  After pointedly ignoring him for a few minutes, Mimi got bored and caved, sparking up a conversation. She supposed that she did ask Ant to bite her earlier, but she had said ‘later’, not right in front of the Crown Prince and Sir Arius! She had been made a fool of yet again.

  At least, on the bright side, she had learned something. Her healing ability did, in fact, have an effect on detoxifying Ant’s venom. But seriously, how strong was his venom anyway? A bite that tiny, and it made her collapse for a few hours. Regardless, it was good to know she wouldn’t die from poison.

  Having sufficiently pouted, Mimi sat up with a huff. She glared at Ant who still refused to look up from his stupid book (her diary, by the way!), and he pretended not to notice. Not one to give up, she continued to stare at him even harder until he snapped the book shut with a sigh.

  “Stop trying to bore a hole in my head. We accomplished our goal. Why are you so angry?” he asked in that irritatingly monotonous voice.

  “I don’t even get an apology for you knocking me out?”

  He leveled her with a blank stare of his own. “You want me to apologize for doing as you asked?”

  “Ugh, I seriously can’t deal with you.”

  “Oh? Should we end our partnership here, then? I could always go back to my original plan-”

  “No!” Mimi hastily interrupted. “Absolutely not.”

  She took a deep breath before standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Forget the apology for now. We should first focus on eliminating any potential threats.”

  He raised a skeptical brow. “Don't think I didn’t pick up on that ‘for now’. But what threats are you talking about exactly? I thought you were the greatest threat around here, but the airheaded prince seemed on board with your ‘house arrest’ plan.”

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  “Yeah, and that’s what worries me,” Mimi explained, coming to a stop in front of the sofa. She took a seat on the ornate wooden table across from him and Ant winced like the very action caused him great discomfort.

  “What do you mean?” he asked instead of commenting on the lack of etiquette.

  “Dimitri agreed much quicker than I thought, even though there’s seemingly very little in it for him. He also mentioned that even the Emperor wouldn’t be able to protect me if I misbehaved. Clearly I have some kind of leverage, but it isn’t very helpful unless I know exactly what it is. They want my healing ability, but why? It only works on myself. I can’t figure out their motives, and that makes me uneasy.”

  To her surprise, Ant listened patiently, devoid of any of his usual sarcasm. After thinking a moment, he spoke. “So you want to figure out what their plan is?”

  Mimi nodded. “If it involves me, shouldn’t I have the right to know? Besides, whatever it is, I have a bad feeling…”

  The memory of that cold, damp dungeon was still fresh. Her weary body kept on the edge of frozen death. The unusual and contradictory behavior of Prince Dimitri. The supposed secret that had somehow gotten all the way to the Emperor. There were too many unanswered questions.

  Worst of all, Mimi didn’t have any knowledge of this plot from the original game. It was totally focused on the protagonist’s story after all. Was this only happening because the original plot had deviated? Nemesis didn’t fully return to the palace in the original ending. Is that what the system was hinting at by the difficulty level? Could returning have been a mistake?

  “Where do we begin?” Ant asked. “It won’t be easy if the Emperor’s involved.”

  Mimi was surprised he was taking it so seriously. It must have shown on her face, because he quickly clarified. “If something happens to you, it doesn’t bode well for me either. We still don’t even know where Iliana is at this point.”

  True. I can’t forget about the system’s objectives. I need Ant and Iliana to meet so he can start to get between her and Dimitri.

  “We can search for her whereabouts as we go along,” Mimi agreed. “But as for leads, I actually already have an idea.”

  “Huh, I’m impressed. Let’s hear it, then.”

  “I recently remembered some details from when I was younger. My ability was kept strictly secret. The only ones who knew were my father and our estate physician,” she explained, tapping on her chin in thought.

  It was tough to sort through Nemesis’s memories unless they willingly surfaced on their own. But more importantly, they had totally blurred with Mimi’s own memories, making them difficult to distinguish. Wading through them was too tedious and many things were difficult to recall without a trigger. However, in the memory where she broke her arm, something stuck out to her. The family physician had an apprentice at the time, and it just so happened that that apprentice was a character that Mimi remembered from the actual game.

  “My family’s physician was quite accomplished. His apprentice went on to become the palace physician, and he should be here in the palace right now.”

  “You think he’s the one who leaked your ability? I suppose that would be the most likely suspect,” Ant agreed.

  “Even if he didn’t, at the very least, he likely knows something.”

  The physician’s office, along with the infirmary, were in the medical wing of the palace. Since the knights’ quarters was also on the premises, the place was often frequented by knights who were injured during training. The last Emperor thought it was important to have enough room to treat soldiers on site. Though the medical wing was quite large, the head physician’s actual office was rather small and cramped, shoved off to one side like an afterthought.

  Mimi had changed into one of her more comfortable gowns. It was a pretty white and gold one that complimented her newest accessory, the large snake casually wrapped around her shoulders. It was a bit slimmer and not as heavy as the winter gown since the inside of the palace was kept warmer, and the light colors nicely contrasted her dark hair and eyes.

  As she strolled through the halls, everyone from servants to guards to palace officials stared at her in a mixture of awe and horror. Many of them couldn’t believe that the infamous villainess was practically roaming free and steered clear of her approach, some even fleeing at the sight of her. A few brave souls merely trailed her figure with their eyes full of displeasure. She made sure to match each of their gazes with a sly smirk, sending a chill down their spines. And every time she did-

  Ding!

  [ SYSTEM: +1 Villainess Point ]

  Ah, this is too easy.

  Finally reaching the medical wing, she strode past the disapproving looks of the knights and headed straight for the physician’s office. However, she was stopped halfway by one of the assistants.

  “Please wait, Lady Cain!” The assistant rushed ahead of her with her hands out before bowing deeply. “My apologies, my Lady, but I’m afraid the physician is very busy right now-”

  “It’s urgent,” Nemesis replied, tone leaving no room for argument. She was taller than the other woman and looked down at her in annoyance. Spirit also lifted his head to glare down at her. Though it had only been half a day, word had spread quickly about Nemesis Cain’s strange new pet to the point that even the servants knew it by name.

  “Eeep!” The assistant looked frightened but didn’t back down. “The doctor checked on you earlier, but i-if you’re still feeling unwell f-from the snake venom, I can ask him to go find you again in a b-bit!”

  This woman is being rather persistent.

  “Why can’t he see me now?” Nemesis asked.

  “Please take a look around for yourself, my Lady,” the assistant gestured.

  Nemesis swept her gaze around the room, brows furrowed. Each side of the long room was lined with a dozen or so patient beds. Belatedly, she noticed that most of them seemed to be occupied and that very few of them were the usual knights. Flashes of Nemesis’s memories appeared in her head and Mimi quickly raised a hand to massage her throbbing temple.

  Since Nemesis didn’t often get sick, and even when she did she recovered quickly by herself, all of her memories of the infirmary were visiting Dimitri or Arius. Each moment seemed to pass by in a second, not long enough to fully grasp but enough for one clear detail to stand out.

  I’ve never seen it this crowded. And what’s more, these people don’t look injured. There are even servants and commoners among them.

  “A-are you alright?” the assistant asked in alarm as Nemesis clutched her head.

  Nemesis waved her off. “I’m fine. What’s going on? Is there some kind of illness going around?”

  The assistant shook her head to signal that things weren’t that simple. “That’s what the doctor is trying to figure out. All of the patients’ symptoms are rather strange, and more of them have been showing up over the past few days. The doctor has his hands full.”

  “Well, when do you think he’ll have time?” Nemesis demanded.

  “D-don’t worry! I’ll let him know you’re not feeling well a-and he’ll stop by your room this evening!” the assistant assured her.

  “Fine. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  With a huff, Nemesis turned and strode away. The assistant let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and her shoulders simultaneously sagged in relief. Then, the woman scurried off to go check on the patients.

  Back in the room, Mimi was once again pacing. Ant, who was now a human, stood by the bookshelf and scanned the spines. Apparently, he had gotten bored of the diary already. Occasionally, he took out a book to examine the cover only to put it back a moment later.

  “Something’s weird,” Mimi muttered. She turned to Ant. “You have some medical knowledge, right? What do you think?”

  “What does it have to do with us?” Ant questioned. He sounded entirely uninterested. “Let’s just wait for the doctor.”

  Completely selfish!

  “Just answer the question.”

  Ant sighed. He seemed to do that a lot. “I don’t really have much medical knowledge, you know? I just learned how to make a few medicines from-... from somewhere.”

  He caught Mimi’s gaze. “I still want to know your opinion,” she told him earnestly.

  Ant finally stopped fiddling with the books and sat down. Mimi slowly sat next to him on the sofa, looking at him expectantly.

  “Those people didn’t look sick, but I could tell something was off about them,” he admitted.

  Mimi tilted her head. “How could you tell?”

  “I don’t know,” Ant shrugged. “Maybe it has something to do with my spiritual power. It made that part of me feel uneasy.”

  Then he seemed to remember something. “Didn’t you feel it too? You suddenly clutched your head.”

  “Oh, that,” Mimi chuckled awkwardly. “It was nothing. It must have been some leftover effects of the venom.”

  How could I tell him that it was from recalling memories that weren’t my own!?

  Ant closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. For some reason, his gaze was fixed on the ceiling. “... Sorry.”

  It was said so quietly that she nearly missed it.

  “...What?”

  Did my ears deceive me!?

  “I shouldn’t have bitten you,” Ant said, though it sounded strained. His jaw was clenched and he was still strongly avoiding eye contact.

  “...”

  “...”

  A few beats of silence passed until-

  “Pfffffft!”

  Mimi couldn’t contain it. She burst out laughing. She never expected in a million years for the snake bastard to actually apologize!

  “Why are you laughing?” Ant grumbled beside her.

  “No, no, I’m sorry for laughing,” Mimi wheezed between breaths, finally calming down. “I just wasn’t prepared.”

  “You asked for it!” he protested. “Ugh, I’m never listening to you again.”

  Mimi smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. For once, the smile didn’t appear out of place or sinister on her face. She felt strangely relaxed compared to a few seconds before.

  “Thanks,” she chuckled. “That really relieved some stress.”

  Ant folded his arms grumpily. “Whatever.”

  “But can we really just wait for the doctor?” Mimi wondered, returning to the topic at hand.

  “What other choice do we have?”

  She knew Ant was right, but Mimi couldn’t shake the restlessness she was feeling. She didn’t know where the sudden urge to act quickly came from. That was, until that familiar sound rang in her ears.

  How does it always seem to know what I’m thinking? Creepy.

  [ SYSTEM: Warning! The Bad End deadline is approaching. Please remember the three stipulations. Failure to comply within the allotted time will result in punishment. ]

  Mimi froze. Any stress that had been relieved came rushing back full force.

  Deadline!? What’s this about a deadline!? How come it was never mentioned before!?

  [ SYSTEM: The original Bad End concludes tomorrow. To retain player engagement, this system thought it would be best to stick to a similar timeframe for the new ending. ]

  Tomorrow!? You must be joking. What about the new plotline!?

  [ SYSTEM: This system acknowledges the user’s efforts. That is why this system has decided to grant the user an extended deadline. ]

  So I just have to complete the tasks within that timeframe? What’s the new deadline?

  [ SYSTEM: Ten days. ]

  “...”

  [ SYSTEM: … ]

  Are you fucking kidding me!? You expect me to do all of that in just ten days!? Scam! Stupid, shitty scam!!!

  [ SYSTEM: So far, the user has failed to complete even a single task. The character Nemesis Cain is not villainous enough. The character Anteros Theron is only slightly more bearable in the eyes of the players. The characters Dimitri Narcis and Iliana Callista are still romantically involved. ]

  Do you even know how difficult accomplishing all of this is!?

  [ SYSTEM: Yes, this system acknowledges the user’s chosen path is difficult. Thus, the ‘Difficulty: Hard’ title was activated. That is why this system extended the deadline for the user. ]

  It would have been nice to know there was a deadline in the first place.

  … Wait a minute. You said there would be a punishment if I failed. What kind of punishment exactly?

  [ SYSTEM: This system will no longer be able to sustain the existence of the character Nemesis Cain. The character Nemesis Cain will die. ]

  What about me!?

  [ SYSTEM: This system doesn’t understand the user’s question. ]

  Nemesis Cain will die, but what will happen to me?

  [ SYSTEM: This system understands now. This system apologies for the confusion. The user has synchronized completely with the character Nemesis Cain. The user is Nemesis Cain. ]

  Mimi felt her blood run cold.

  “Are you sure you’re alright? You look pale,” Ant suddenly asked, but Nemesis was unable to reply. Her gaze remained fixed at an invisible point in space.

  Sweat ran down her temple and her hands trembled as she reread the last system message over and over again.

  [ SYSTEM: You will die. ]

  Then, a new window popped up. It was a timer, and the numbers were already going down.

  [ SYSTEM: 9:23:59:56 ]

  [ SYSTEM: 9:23:59:55 ]

  [ SYSTEM: 9:23:59:54 ]

  [ SYSTEM: Good luck. ]