134 Awareness 2

Twenty minutes later...

Despite her small episode of jealousy and insecurity a while ago, Sofony hadn't forgotten yet about the person who made her come out of the condo and make this trip, the threat who could take her and Gio's lives if given an opportunity. The person was now reduced into nothing but a lab rat. But like what Sofony told herself this morning, it was just too hard to be at ease if the bound enemy could be possibly hiding a trump card which she was not aware of.

This was why when she arrived at the laboratory and learned that Clarissa almost escaped from there, her face became very dark and cold.

"Where is she?" asked Gio to his cousin.

"Back to the operating table," replied Lauren whose appearance became more haggard and unkempt. "Out of anger, we cut off her two hands and removed three organs while she was still awake."

The woman stopped momentarily, sighing in frustration, "I'm furious right now. Do you two know that she killed one of our assistants? When I found that poor boy at one of the exits of this underground lab, he was already dead! No part of him was intact, and we only recognized him through the fingerprints left on the trolley table. She also almost poisoned four doctors to death! The antidote you have given me, Ms. Silver, saved them. But until now, they've yet to awaken!"

Lauren led them to the OR, stopping in front of a glass room where three people dressed in surgical gowns were surrounding the operating table. An operation was ongoing so they did not enter. Or rather, Sofony and Gio were not allowed to enter.

"I'm sorry to hear about that, Dr. Walker," said Sofony, feeling guilty for what they experienced.

A second later, a grim expression was on her face when she accused the system,

'You didn't tell me that Clarissa tried to escape! Didn't I already authorize you to deduct points from me whenever she tries to do anything funny? You glitchy again?!'

Her angry tone, of course, did not stop the system from laughing. Because no explanation was given, Sofony thought that it was purposely irritating her when it answered 'it couldn't'. She almost assumed that the system was playing with her again. But then, a sudden realization crossed her mind, forcing her to become silent. She remembered that she was not the only host marking Clarissa. Right. Leo Jones was surely around too. And if he took action while she was away, then it made sense that the system couldn't notify her when Clarissa tried to escape.

In this kind of situation, it was hard for her to judge whether she should be happy that her backup did his job even without her informing him. It was just disheartening that she had no way to access information related directly or indirectly to hosts at Level 5 and above.

"Whatever," the disheveled doctor suddenly said, rolling her eyes. "We have to think of how to compensate the family of my dead assistant. I also have to convince those four to continue assisting me here. Honestly, even though I'm after the accomplishment of discovering this woman's secret, it's still a headache having to deal with troublesome matters like these. I totally didn't expect her to turn invisible and escape. Wait, now that I remember it, the scene was weird back then... There was still a 'her' in the room even after we retrieved another her from the exit."

Sofony shook her head, "It must be an illusion..."

"...Damn," the other woman frustratedly messed with her already tousled hair. Her mind skipped the possibility as she had only begun to deal with someone like Clarissa. The woman still had no clear list of what a host could do.

Gio, who was watching the scene in front, asked, "Before this, did your people do surgery on her?"

Lauren immediately replied, "Oh? Now that you asked this, yeah. We did. This morning, we took out her kidneys. And it's two, if you're thinking of one. And guess what? We just found out," she paused, grimacing for a second, "...my mistake, I mean, confirmed that she could regenerate body parts!"

Gone was the annoyance in the woman's face after saying this. Only extreme excitement was there. Lauren was like a kid who discovered a very magical world in an amusement park. Verifying that there was really someone who could heal without the support of the current science and technology marveled her so much. The woman's body was radiating madness and happiness. Her eyes sparkled in anticipation of what more mysteries she'd discover inside this fine specimen's body.

Of course, her number one priority was to discover how the specimen regenerated those organs. How did this woman do that? Was it through magic? Or sorcery? Or is there just something in a human body which people could trigger to achieve these effects?

"Did you ever leave her unattended?" Gio's voice resounded, breaking his cousin out of her fantasies.

Lauren turned to the man and frowned, annoyed that he interrupted her train of thoughts. Then after guessing what the other was implying, she became more irritated. "Are you asking because if ever we did, you're going to say it's us who slacked off and did not heed her warning?" The 'her' she mentioned was naturally Sofony.

Gio only stared at Lauren for a second, then concluded, "You did."

The older woman frowned again, offended. "I'm monitoring her that time from another room, experimenting whether she'd heal herself once out of people's sight. And guess what? Uhh, no. There's no need to guess because I already said it a while ago. But in case, you forgot, she really freakin' did!"

The woman purposely left out the part where they did not manage to syringe the specimen with another dose of hallucinogens on time which most likely allowed Clarissa to sober up and almost successfully escape. True, it was a mistake. It was enough that she recognized it by herself. She did not mention it to Gio and Sofony because, uh, why would she stupidly broadcast it to the world?

Gio did not speak anymore, continuing to watch what little could be peeked at from their position. On the other hand, Sofony began exchanging words with the doctor. She arranged meetings with the people working in the lab by batches and hypnotized them to never leave Clarissa by herself or slack off with the hallucinogens and sedatives again.

'They can experiment all they want, to their hearts' content.'

'They just have to ensure that is Clarissa not ever slipping away!' she thought, eyes brimming with frost and hate as she stared at the glass room's direction. How she wished she could hear the pained cries and screams inside...

"If you have free time, you can try to torture this woman to produce items. The more she produces, the more she'll have fewer chances of leaving," suddenly, Gio said when they were walking back to the first floor of the mansion, about to part with Lauren.

"Oh?" The woman in a white lab coat quizzically exclaimed. She thought for a moment then asked, "You said she could produce items. Out of thin air? Hmm... Though I'm wondering how could that be possible, I seemed to recall that there's that invisible wall which sheltered her from outside attacks for half an hour or so yesterday..."

Meanwhile, Sofony stiffened. An expression of disbelief and puzzlement was on her face when she turned to Gio who was engaging in another discussion with Lauren.

Actually, she was about to say this to Lauren in secret. Because the suggestion would surely sound weird to whoever listens to it, she planned to have it be implemented through hypnosis. She was thinking that since Clarissa no longer has a good source of Pleasure Points, it means that whatever spent would not be easily replenished. Once the secondary host no longer has any points with her to buy Intel or items from the shop, escaping for her would become a mere pipe dream. This was why she wanted Lauren's team to force the woman to cough up items and from time to time heal herself.

The latter was already being executed. And she was about to bring up the former... when Gio beat her to it.

The moment she heard him say this to his cousin in such a blatant and confident manner, she repeatedly blinked her eyes, asking herself, 'Did I ever tell him about the points and the shop?'

'Uhh, I guess... I did tell about the latter, and since he's very smart, he most probably realized that there should be a currency involved..."

'But I'm sure I never told him about the missions and how we gain points... We're not allowed to say those things to non-hosts since that will be surely risking the system's existence...'

'So how did he think of this by himself?'

'System?'

It did not reply to her immediately but when it did, an impossible amount of points was demanded from her, prompting her to be left in a rage, thinking that the system was trying to cheat her again.

'What play are you trying here, huh? You insatiable points-grubber! Why so many points? I don't even have a tenth of what you're demanding! Damn you!'

The anger just came to her as she couldn't accept that such a question would make it require that many points. She might be not yet very knowledgeable about how the points for Intel were calculated, but she knew that intelligence about non-hosts would at most cost around 100, plausibly 200 if the individual was dangerous and influential.

So where did it get the guts to ask a million points for a fairly normal question which was not even about another host's earth-shattering secret?

And why was the hateful system suddenly pretending to be dead?

After the cousins' discussion, since she only closed her eyes and did not speak the curses and bad words her heart was currently pouring out to the system out loud, Sofony appeared to be only momentarily resting and taking a few deep breaths.

Gio only gave her a glance then grabbed her arm.

"Let's go. Our business is done here."

Sofony opened her eyes, feeling a bit disappointed that she did not get any answer to her questions. Until Lauren said her goodbye, the damnable system no longer responded to her, leaving her speechless and confused. It took quite a while to get over it, realizing that no matter what the reason was, Gio would definitely not do any harm against her.

'Right. I'll just pretend that I didn't ask the system and I didn't hear it demanding me a million points...' she whispered under her breath, making sure Gio would not hear her.

After that, she met his gentle eyes and felt her mind and heart calming within seconds...

...

...

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