111 Choices 1

Thirty minutes after the explosion, the girl alerted by the system arrived at the apartment and saw the disaster it had become. The place was like a scorching pit of hell. Or at least, the fire, heat, and screams made the scene appear like one!

It was very chaotic and noisy. and people panicking, shouting, and crying could be seen everywhere. When she turned her head to the right, she even saw a burly man with burnt hair and hideous-looking upper arm crying for help while escorting a coughing old woman out of the fire.

"Hey, folks! More manpower needed here!"

"Aaaaaaahhh! My house! My appliances! Everything I saved up for decades! Why are they all burning!!!"

"Damn! My unit is already turned into ashes!" said one of the men hammering the cement floor with their fists.

"Someone's trap on the third floor!"

"Help! I'm begging you, please help me! M-my mother's still inside!"

"O-officers! Please!!! M-y youngest child is t-trapped there too!

"Uggghh, everyone!!! I'm begging you to stop crying or shouting nonsense! Please help the others supply water to our boys here!"

"Bring out your damn hoses and pails! Grab even the bottles and gallons of mineral water from those stores! Just grab anything! Help transport water! These red guys' extinguishers are not enough for this!"

The firefighters were still doing their best to put out the fire. However, since the area was where mostly poor and middle-class families lived, a large number of houses were partially made of inflammable materials hence even without mentioning the apartment, three other moderate-sized houses were also devoured by the fire. According to the onlooker she had asked, the cause of this was the numerous explosives detonated from the apartment.

"Where's my sister!?" she questioned the man in black nearby which she knew was Gio's subordinate. Panic and worry showed from her voice, face, and eyes.

"Miss, she's safe. I rescued her from the roof of the house beside the apartment. I don't know how she gets there. However, the incident must have caused her some trauma because she kept saying she mysteriously teleported there."

Sofony's nails almost dug through her palm as she balled her fists. She hysterically shouted, "I asked where she is!"

She already knew that something was fishy about the fire accident. But instead of unveiling the truth behind it, she was more worried about Steffy's safety!

Is she okay? Was she injured? Did she become very traumatized?

She didn't know the answers thus she asked about her sister's location!

Finally, the man realized his mistake and corrected himself, "She's with the firefighters' medic team. Let me lead you where the makeshift tent is."

The girl nodded. A minute later, when she finally saw that Steffy was okay, just looking a bit lost and with a few scratches on her arms and legs she got after accidentally tripping on the ground earlier, Sofony finally managed to calm down. She walked over to the trembling girl curling in the corner and pulled her into her embrace.

"Steffy, sis is already here... You're fine! I won't let you get hurt again!"

The girl repeated this for two more times before the other woke up from her stupor and raised her head to the older sister.

However, Steffy's subsequent reaction baffled her. The girl's eyes widened as if Sofony appearing in front of her was something unbelievable. The girl kept shaking her head before she stuttered some words out,

"...Sis? Y-you're here?"

"E-eh? But you are at the apartment when it exploded!!!"

Her eyes also widened due to what she heard. She dumbfoundedly looked at the other girl and blurted out. "I'm in the apartment?"

Steffy shook her head, acting as if she didn't hear the question. Her lips trembled when she said,"A-and you're also wearing our school uniform! You're with me a minute before the explosion! No, y-you're there less than ten seconds before that! And, and I suddenly found myself somewhere at the house next to our building! I, I appeared on the roof! Believe me, I'm not kidding! I-I really seemed to have teleported there!"

With knitted brows, Sofony went silent.

She needed time to digest the information she heard from her sister.

Almost a minute passed before she asked the system, 'That Clarissa came here...using my face?'

The damnable thing spouted many insults and nonsense before it said,

"...."

While Sofony's heart was continuously growing cold from the realizations that one by one dawned to her, Steffy still was not finished mumbling things to Sofony. The girl appeared to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown as she tightly grabbed on Sofony's clothes and asked,

"S-sis, are you really there when o-our apartment is blown up?!"

"I,... I'm glad that you're also safe. B-but did you also disappear from there like me? I-I really don't know what happened!"

"But I, I swear I'm telling the truth! I'm not lying! I'm really not lying!"

Steffy's eyes pleadingly stared at her, as though begging Sofony to believe her. The girl seemed like she was in dire need of someone else' assurance. Maybe in her current unstable mind, it's the only way she could believe that she was still sane.

The immoral host met those teary eyes.

A troubled expression showed on her face as she nodded. "I believe you, Steffy."

However, when she said that, it was only to comfort the crying girl. Deep within, she was actually thinking to let the other calm down first before disclosing to her that the 'Sofony' with her before the blast was not her.

Sofony was at the shooting range when this all happened!

The one deceiving Steffy with her face was nothing but a malicious and hateful 'doppelganger'!

As she hugged and patted her sister on the back, her eyes went to the dying fire outside the tent. She was lost in thoughts for quite a while before she asked herself,

'Is she also the one who set the apartment on fire?'

The one she referred to was Clarissa, her only enemy host.

Shaking her head, she mused, 'She is probably the only one there but it's confusing because she doesn't have that tendency.'

'Clarissa's the type who preferred to hack someone with her knife or punch people with her fists.'

'She also likes mind-controlling her unsuspecting victims...'

'However, I still can't be so sure as she's still ultimately a host, I'm certain she can resort to anything if dictated by the situation.'

Her eyes flashed with anger and helplessness. She had to self-hypnotize herself just so she could go back to carefully studying the situation described by the girl and the system.

'So is she really the root cause of this?' she again asked herself.

'But, if she is, why would she send Steffy away? Given her grudge against me, I'm sure she'll take that chance to kill her. Which means, she'll surely let the explosions do the job.'

'Hmm. Wait, explosions...'

'Yeah, I remember the people outside saying the cause of the big fire is the detonation of countless explosives from the apartment...'

'Then if it's not that hateful b*tch...'

A few seconds later, Sofony stopped thinking about it. She had already figured out what took place.

If Clarissa had no intention to spare her sister, then only another host could have.

Someone who only accidentally did.

Other than that person, who else could be so addicted to blowing up things?

There was only that crazy boy who bombed their bus before, right? Since he was targeting the Violent Goddess, it must be him who bombed the several casinos and prostitution houses operated by the mafia.

'If I'm guessing it correctly... That boy... And that Clarissa...'

It was their battle that saved Steffy. Weren't it for that crazy bomber's intervention, her sister would have certainly died, and the guilt she already felt for the girl would have multiplied ten times...

However, while half-relieved and half-helpless towards them, Sofony couldn't deny that she was still angry that their battle took place here.

.....

When Steffany Mendez finally calmed down, a bit, Sofony immediately brought her away. Thankfully, the Silver couple consented to let the girl stay at one of their condo units. It was located at Western Alina and was only ten minutes away from the school. Sofony planned to stay with her tonight as well since the girl clearly needed some pillar of support.

She remembered a few minutes after she asked for her new parent's help, when Harry and Cindy later learned that her original house was bombed by someone, they immediately and worriedly asked about her safety. They even told her, they would investigate if this was some sort of extreme attack from a corporate enemy.

Of course, she took this chance to push some of the blame to the mafia and the mayor's family. It was the truth anyway. If their witchy b*tch did not try to attack Sofony's sister, then... nothing would probably change because the bomber kid would still throw bombs at her somewhere. In short, only because Clarissa was in the apartment area that the explosion occurred there! But even if not there, another site would still be reduced into rubble and ashes by those two!

However, it was also due to this that her sister did not turn into a corpse!

This left her hesitating whether to be thankful to that scarily mad boy or not!

After temporarily settling Steffy's issue and leaving behind some bodyguards there, Sofony spent the next couple of hours barging into the offices of some foundation leaders and high-ranking politicians in the city. Since she didn't know if bringing up Gio or the Silver's name would help speed up the approval process for her request, she ultimately decided to hypnotize those people and make them do something about the victims of the big fire.

When the leaders and social workers finally started implementing their measures, she didn't immediately sigh in relief and leave. She stayed in the city hall for a couple of minutes to see how the other politicians would react. While at it, she donated a huge chunk of her money to the relief operation members through her mobile banking app.

This was all she could do in order to ensure those people would get help ASAP...