Pov: General
Scribbling in a notebook, we find our MC focusing intently on what she's doing, using both hands to write two sentences simultaneously.
Coming to an abrupt stop, she waves her hand over the page, forming a quick magic circle in a practiced manner. The page she was writing in brightens before the contents are replaced with childish doodles.
As soon as the brightness subsides the door to the room opens without any warning. Walking through the now open door, Ephedra slowly approaches Parsley with her iconic smile on her face.
Turning around with a grumpy face, Parsley comments in annoyance about what her presence entails. " Nooooo, it's not time to go to bed yet! I still have 5 more minutes!" She protested in annoyance.
" Fufufu~, sorry to say it little one, but it's already way past your bedtime, you should be happy I let you stay up this long." She commented, covering her mouth with a chuckle.
"Bu-But I have to finish my drawing!!" I told her, shoving the drawing in her face.
Sweat-dropping at the child's antics, the elf looks at the drawing with a slightly strained smile on her lips, and a twitch in her eye.
"O-Oh, this is such a nice drawing, I'm sure you will be a great artist when you grow up." She said, looking at the childish drawing of her family and coco, while she was to the right with drawings that signified she stunk drawn all over her. Looking closer she can even see a piece of poo on top of her head in the drawing.
' Damn brat!' Ephedra thought with a vein-popping on her forehead.
" I know right!!" The child responded, puffing up her chest in pride.
' Hmnnn....' Not as big of a reaction as I was expecting.' Parsley mentally noted, thinking to keep testing how far she'll go before her mask breaks.
" Hmnn! Now, let's get you to bed, shall we?" She hummed in confirmation, directing Parsley to her bed.
Tucking her in, kissing her on the forehead, and telling her goodnight, she walks over to the door.
Stoping by the now open door, she turned her head to the side. " Your parents said they should be back home by morning, so you'd better sleep so you can greet them in the morning, okay?" The elf said, trying to make sure the energetic dwarf goes to sleep.
" Really! Okay!!, you can count on me, auntie!" The dwarven child responded, successfully bringing back the twitch in the elf's eye.
' I swear she's doing this on purpose.' The elf internally grumbled.
" Alright, sweety, goodnight," Ephedra said, closing the door behind her.
*Creeeeek*
*Clank!*
'.....'
As the minutes passed by, a serene silence befell the room. After about 2 hours, the door slowly opened so that it didn't make a sound.
Ephedra peered into the room through the crack in the door, after confirming that Parsley was asleep, she slowly closed it and walked off....
Opening her eyes, Parsley jumped off the bed with an annoyed expression.' Took you long enough' She thought, tiptoeing to the door. After reaching it she slipped on a pair of shoes.
After putting them on, two pairs of bright pink magic circles appeared at the soles of the shoes.
"Hmn... Hopefully, I can be done with this tonight." She muttered quietly, tapping the shoes on the ground, testing if the sound nullification magic worked.
It's been close to 3 months since she got the quest from the system. She's been taking her sweet time carefully mapping out her target's routine, the difference between her subcounsiese and conscious actions/behavior, emotions during certain situations, and facial expressions when she thinks no one's looking.
It took a while, and multiple sleepless nights of deciphering the barrier she put up around her room and finding a way past them without alerting her. Today she was hoping that her latest prototype would help her at least bypass the soundproofing.
Besides that, Parsley's also been subtly interrogating Coco to get more information, which has its ups and downs to it.
For one, every time I mention her in a conversation, the mood instantly drops, and he gets all awkward. She theorized that Ephedra told him to keep his mouth shut. But after pushing deeper and finally getting a piece of relevant information out of him, he froze. Seemingly realizing he said something he shouldn't, then a wave of fear washes over him, growing paler by the second before excusing himself by rushing out the room. The next morning he had a slight limp and was much quieter than usual.
So the only pieces of information that I got were:
1. Ephedra isn't his real mother and was actually his nanny before his father cheated on his mother with her, which resulted in them getting divorced and Ephedra getting a permanent residence at their house.
2. She's the one that started buying him girly clothes and getting rid of his old boyish ones.
3. He doesn't like her.....
4. And that she most likely beats him on occasion.
The last one made Parsley feel quite bad about taking so long, but hey, what can she do about it?
It's not a lot of information, but considering how tightlipped Coco is, it was enough.
One thing that Parsley has noticed, is that Ephedra seems to like to cause conflict, I mean why else would she buy the boy girly clothes which directly correlates to his low self-esteem.
And ever since she showed op, Angelica and Zoro seem to have these small disagreements now and then, but considering that before she showed up they never fought, at least not to Parsley's knowledge, it was a big deal.
'*Tch* Damn, the observe skill would be really useful about now.' She cursed, lamenting at the lack of the iconic observe skill.
'It's like the first skill that any MC with a system gets!!! But nooooo.... I just had to get the one system that doesn't hand me skills on a silver platter.' She continued. Stalking down the hallway, checking around the corner before resuming her trek to Ephedra and Coco's room.
After a while of sneaking, she stopped in front of the door, narrowing her eyes, activating her breathing technique.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated primarily on the door but keeps a bit of focus on the walls too.
Slowly opening her eyes with a serious glint in her eyes, she exhales a long breath. Moving both her hand simultaneously, she slowly starts drawing runes in the air, using both hands for different parts of the circle.
While she was concentrating, various runic markings started appearing all over the walls and door.
Carefully, she spends the next 7 minutes crafting runic symbols in the air. Making one final stroke with both hands at the same time, she breathed out a shaky breath, wiping the sweat that appeared on her forehead away.
' *Sigh* Damn! That took way longer than expected! Hopefully, it works...' She thought, leaning slightly on the door, hoping to actually hear something this time.
...
Not hearing anything for a while, I got annoyed. Drawing another magic circle in front of my ear, I try again, but this time with a magically enhanced hearing.
*Moan~!!*
' !!!!!'
'.....Eh?...'
Soft moans can be heard coming from behind the door. Concentrating more on just the door, she can also hear a soft whimper or crying.
' The f*ck!!' Parsley thought, pumping a sh*t tone of mana in the circle by her ear, enhancing it further.
*Sob*
*Moannn~!!*
" You've got to be sh*tting me." She whispered, unknowingly clenching the hems of her shirt.
Going through all the possibilities in her head she came to one conclusion every. single. time...
Her arms start trembling at how hard she's gripping her shirt. ' I- Is he crying?' She asked no one, a deep foreboding feeling enveloping her.
Widening her eyes in disbelief, unable to contain her spiraling thoughts and emotions, she lost concentration and a minuscule amount of mana pulsed against the barrier around the room.
When the moans abruptly came to a stop, and fast footsteps could be heard approaching, a chill went down her spine.
Panicking, she instinctively activated the second feature on her enchanted boots.
Instantly the magic circle around the shoes changed, as soon as it did she jumped as high as she could, using the jump boost from her bots to reach the ceiling on top of the door.
Activating the last ability, the circle changed again before receding back into the shoes.
Reaching the ceiling, she placed her hand first to decrease the momentum, before quietly placing her shoes against the top of the wall and the ceiling.
Now hanging upside, the door flew open in a forceful manner, and out came an unrecognizable figure of a woman.
' T-That's- Sh-She's!!' Parsley exclaimed internally.
Because out of the door came a seductive bodacious red-skinned, menacing-looking demon woman, not the elf that she was used to seeing. She was wearing a seductive BDSM type of outfit...kina like the ones fallen angels in DxD wear.
{Pic}
Looking from left to right, checking to see if anyone was there, she furrowed her brows before tuning back around nonchalantly.
"Hmn... must have been the wind." she said out loud, but internally she thought otherwise. ' Like hell, it was the wind, were underground goddamit!' She seethed, millions of thoughts going through her head about what that mana pulse could have been. But almost immediately disregards it, in favor of savoring the meal laying on her bed.
Walking back into the room with sway in her hips, the door slowly started closing behind her. Just before it fully closed Parsley took a risk and moved closer to the top of the door, peering inside to deny what she's been thinking all this time.
Breathing a sharp breath, she saw a motionless Coco with seemingly dead eyes with running tears staring at the approaching demon accidentally making eye contact with a Parsley.
His eyes gain a light before it turned into a look of horror and shame, he tries to cover himself up from her eyes,
" Oooooh~, Why are we getting all shy now? Fufufu, hmnnn~!! Your fear tastes so good! The best I've ever had in fact, so why don't you scream a bit for mama? *Crack*" Ephera said, cracking the whip in her hands hard on the floor.
*Clank*
And so the door closed, obstructing Parsley's view of the room, but she did hear a low whipping sound, followed by cries.
" Sh*t." She said out loud, slowly walking down the wall before sneaking back to her room, emotions in turmoil.
Reaching her room she closed the door behind her, leaning her back against the wall, she slowly slides down, palming her hand to her face, unable to come to terms with what she just saw.
[Players Mind has increased by 1 Lvl]
Leaning her head against the wall, she closed her eyes and sighed.
"....."
Silence.....She sat there in complete silence, just thinking for a while, perfectly remembering the dead look in Coco's usually bright eyes, regretting the amount of time she took to get where she was even more.
'...I have to do something....But...' She thought....not entirely sure how to go about the discovery that she made.
"..What can I do?" She voiced in dismay, confused about how things turned out this way.
She stood up and slowly staggered over to her bed, before throwing herself on top of it.
Staring up at her ceiling in thought. She stayed like this for a few hours, thinking about her now shattered image of reality, about how she thought that this was just a peaceful cartoon world, and about the f*cked up situation surrounding Coco.
Before falling asleep, she couldn't help but curse the R.O.B. that sent her to this clearly worse version of the show..... and that's saying something
...
..
.
( 1993 word )