113 Choices 3

They always say keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Sofony had always been hearing this from TV series and she sometimes could not help but agree. When she was still a drama-addict regularly watching afternoon dramas with her mother every summer vacation, she had always pointed out to her mom how the female antagonist cleverly drew close to the naive protagonist by pretending to be her friend. Back then, she always felt like it was fun laughing at the female lead.

But now due to her circumstances, she realized this is only a good saying if the other was not aware that you're the enemy.

It was because once they knew, you would have no choice but continue keeping your enemies closer while pushing your loved ones away, especially if the enemy was not a weak and naive person but a deadly, vengeful and poisonous one.

There's no other choice. At least, for her, this was the case. She couldn't choose to run away with the others since the enemy would surely just keep coming after them. Considering Clarissa's grudge, she would be a fool to hope or assume that woman would let them off that easily.

Sadly, she has no choice but admit that she was currently not strong enough to shield them from the deadly strikes the opposite party could throw at them. In fact, she was hardly keeping her life.

This was why the better option was for her to keep them away from the battlefield. Maybe through this way, she could also have peace of mind and focus only on her and Gio's survival.

Because she finally acknowledged this, although it very much pained her, Sofony ultimately decided to let some of the Silver family's people bring Steffy and the Gomez' family out of the city.

Everything has been hastily arranged, but since Gio also helped out, at least the process went smoothly. Of course, most of the problem was still dealt through her hypnosis and memory eraser.

Now the story created was this.

The Gomez family relocated because Simonne offended someone high-ranking from his branch and was made to transfer to Jasper City. As his family was also threatened, he decided to move them away with him to the new city. Tomorrow would be their departure. They didn't have to worry about their documents and stuff since Sofony already arranged people to do it for them. Loopholes were probably left somewhere, but what matters was when tomorrow comes, they'll become another city's citizen.

As for Steffy and Wendy, both became two of HCA's exchange students who would go to a school in J country, an island country in the east. The group was only supposed to take off next week but she made them take their flight tomorrow. They'd only be back after a year. Sofony hoped before that, she had already taken care of the problem here.

When she heard it asking her, it was already the next day, late afternoon. Like yesterday, she didn't attend school. Instead, this morning, she hung around with the social workers still tending to the fire victims. In the afternoon, she sent off both Wendy and Steffy at the airport, waiting until their plane took off.

As she saw their plane disappeared in the sea of clouds above, no expression could be seen from Sofony's face. However, deep down, she felt very empty. And guilty. As she thought of why things devolved to this state, everything just felt so surreal. Things happened so fast that she, who had been caught reluctant and unprepared, just couldn't help but wish she didn't become an immoral host so that things wouldn't reach this point...

Actually, she had so many wishes. She really wanted to turn back time and become a normal girl again. She wanted to retain Gio and the Silver couple in that life and not ever cross paths with Clarissa or that Floyd again.

But it seems as she wished for these, the world deemed her greedy.

Maybe it was a very great sin to wish for the best of the two worlds. So she was now emotionally and mentally suffering.

'Do it. It's not like it's my first.'

After looking down to her feet with a bitter smile on her face, she replied to the system.

'...Go ahead,' she told it after being silent for around five seconds.

Sofony turned around and started joining the stream of people leaving the airport. Nothing changed in her posture, but her way of looking down to the floor as she walked towards the distant exit hinted to everyone watching her how lonely she was.

Her tone was at its lowest when she answered the system sarcastically, 'Aren't you the one daily reminding me that they're liabilities? That they will die young due to me? Aren't you supposed to celebrate now because your host is no longer dragged down by them? Huh?'

It was maddening but the b*tch in her always comes out whenever she was conversing with the system. She couldn't help it. It was hard to trust and like it since it was very mean and unpredictable. Sometimes it was kind enough to at least point out what she should do, take note of, or improve in her self. But most of the times, it was very annoying and spiteful, doing everything it could to downgrade her morals and self-confidence.

It was very heartless to the point that it could laugh even though she was getting punished.

She could swear, if only this thing has a physical body, it would probably be the very first thing she'd hack to death using her very own hands!

Her AI replied,

Two and a half months was more than enough time for Sofony to learn how to do deal with the system's useless ramblings. Hence, instead of listening to its nonsense and getting very incensed, she chose to summon her interface and checked her inventory. Three new items had been added there, all of which were redeemed in exchange with the shop tickets.

She checked the other tabs as well. Her main page shows she only has about 7,000 points remaining. To think it was initially around 200,000 which came from the 100,000 points of the second official mission, about 50,000 rewarded from the posts and news about Clarissa came out, and the rest from the non-missions she did where the mafia and the mayor's camp were mostly the targets.

It was almost laughable that she used to complain about a 200-points expenditure but now, she barely hesitated when the system asked her whether she would really want to spend a hundred fifty thousand points for something. It was not even a very useful and jaw-dropping item!

She sighed. Her steps then staggered as the effects of her first command was finally taking place. Due to her aching forehead, she almost stumbled and fell down. Fortunately, she was walking close to the wall so when she felt the first wave of headache and dizziness, she subconsciously inched closer to the wall and leaned on it.

'...Uhh...' She complained that her system did not warn her about the headache.

Sofony badly wanted to beat it up but the fact that she couldn't only bring her so much frustration. Plus this terrible headache. As she supported herself by half-leaning her left shoulder on the wall, she looked so pitiful and miserable.

Her appearance and state, of course, gathered some attention from the guards roaming and passersby roaming around. After all, she currently looked like a damsel in distress that many would love to save then gain favor from. It was just unfortunate that the first person to come to her 'rescue' was someone she didn't really want to meet.

A masculine voice suddenly echoed from her right side, concernedly inquiring,

"Are you okay, Miss Silver?"