The first eight of my ten minutes were spent in a way that no villain should be caught doing.
Panicking.
Not in a dramatic way (screaming, throwing things, and collapsing against the wall). Apparently Cedric Valdrake's body was not meant for that. Even when he was also gripped with an existential level of panic, his shoulders were not going to curl down. His spine was holding stiff, it's like they were made of armour for how aristocratic holding posture was, ingrained into the muscles so much that his body defaulted to 'regal disdain' as most bodies default to 'breathing'.
No, mine was the kind of panic that was quiet. The kind that happened behind the eyes while the face was still. The kind when your mind was racing through calculations so quickly that it felt like it would hurt itself, going through all of your stored data, as the time counted down to dinner with one of the most dangerous men in a world that had recently cancelled the fiction factor altogether.
7 minutes to go.
I was compiling everything I knew.
Duke Varen Valdrake. Head of House Valdrake. Cultivation Rank: Monarch (A-Rank). In pure raw power, he would be able to wipe a city block clean with a single hand gesture and crush me like everyone on earth crushes an ant (not with any real physical effort, just by vaguely noticing that there is a small object in the way of them doing so).
In game terms, I had seen Cedric's game character four times. Twice in a cut scene format - once in a memory.As I stood in Route 3's bad ending looking at Cedric's dead body, the only thing I said was one line from a dialogue that was argued about on fan wikis for years, "A letdown, but I had figured that would be how it turned out."
In six minutes, I would be sitting down to a meal with this man.
As I navigated the bedroom — which happened to be mine at this time — I moved with the precision of one disarming a bomb. Each object I saw was a clue. Each detail provided information.
The room I was in was huge. It had cathedral height ceilings. Dark wood panels covered the walls. There was a writing desk carved out of something that appeared to be a petrified shadow; it had nothing on it except for a quill in holder and a leather notebook that I would not open yet. There were bookshelves along one wall that were filled with books, all of which were written in a language I could understand; this was likely due to being in control of Cedric Valdrake's body. All the titles in the books were a mix of books about Aether theory, military history and the genealogy of the Valdrake family.
There was a wardrobe, which was taller than I am, that was open and had nothing but black, dark purples and dark gray clothing on the racks inside of it. There was nothing of any bright color. It appears that the aesthetic for Cedric Valdrake was "funeral guest of honor who is more important than the dead person."
After I found some clothing based on the knowledge I had from the game, I got dressed quickly. In the cutscene that shows Cedric Valdrake at dinner at Route 1, he had been wearing a high collar black coat with silver buttons and the Valdrake crest (a circle of void swallowing a crown) sewn onto the left side of the coat above his heart. I was able to find this same coat. I had seen from the game there were twelve buttons on the coat, and each button had a stamp of a small void sigil on it.With fingers that were well-versed in the motions of doing so, I did them up.
Four minutes.
I looked into the mirror again.
The face looking back at me through the glass had the appearance of a weapon that had been shaped into human form. Everything about Cedric's physical appearance was meant to instil fear in other people; from the angles of his features to the defined line of his jawbone to eyes so light violet they seemed as though they were absorbing the light instead of reflecting it. Even though he is 17 years old he appears as if he is older because his family did not allow him to experience childhood.
In addition to all of these reasons for looking like a weapon, Cedric is objectively and very uncomfortably good-looking. He is the kind of good-looking person that causes most people to want to either get closer or back away depending upon their instinct for survival and self-preservation.
I adjusted the collar. Straightened the coat. Watched as the face in the mirror settled into its natural expression. Cold, composed and with just enough contempt that it appeared I would graciously choose not to end the world because it is an inconvenience to me.
Perfect. This is how Cedric looked in every single cutscene, every visual dialogue box and every promotional image. I needed to be this.
Two minutes.
I closed my eyes while taking a deep breath and held it.
I released it.
Forty-seven death flags. Although not each one of them was the fault of Duke Valdrake directly, his manipulations created a large number of them by manipulating politics. As the architect behind multiple schemes similarly in nature to the one that use Cedric as a disposable pawn meant to provoke enemies, absorb threats, die at an optimal time strategically; these were his goals and what he uses Cedric for.There were three instances in which the Duke gained direct benefits from Cedric's death.
The Duke personally ordered two of those instances.
There are also two instances in which the Duke did not stop anyone else from trying to kill Cedric.
This makes the Duke the "Father of the Year."
I took a moment and thought about everything that had just happened. Then I walked toward the door. I grabbed the handle, it's cool to touch, the decorative knobs had a very ornate design; in the shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth. Apparently, the entire Valdrake family decorates their house using ominous symbols and they put it up in not a subtle way.
I opened the door to the maid standing outside.
She appeared very young – probably at least as young as I am if not maybe 1 or 2 years older; she had brown hair that was pulled up tight in a bun on the back of her head. She seemed to have been trained to be very professional and never to show her fear of everything that exists in a house like this where the walls have probably seen things that would make even a horror author write something.
"Young Master," she said with a curtsy. She didn't take her eyes off the floor. "Please come with me."
The maid never once looked up at me as she led me through the house and neither did any of the other servants I passed while following the maid.
In the game, there is a loading screen tip about House Valdrake — "Servants of House Valdrake are trained to work in silence and never to see anything. Anyone caught not following this rule is never seen again."
I had considered that to be just some flavor text for world building. Stepping through the actual hallways of the Valdrake estate, watching real life people press themselves against walls as I walked past; their expressions were blank and their bodies were frozen in an act of practiced invisibility — now it doesn't seem like just flavor text anymore.
It made me think that it was a warning of some sort.
The Estate matched the way it was represented in the game but wasn't the same at all. The same architecture as the game, same vaulted hallway, dark stone corridors, Void-sigil lanterns with an illumination darker than shadows, and arched windows that looked out at grounds stretching to the horizon. But in-game it didn't capture the sense of weight; how it felt, how the sound felt in the air (humming under the hearing threshold), and that the air tasted like iron but you could taste, even though you couldn't see - was the scent of Void-Aether saturating the walls after hundreds of years of Valdrake residence.
I could feel it through my clothing. A weight. A presence. Almost as if I were in the palm of a hand that could close at any time.
I had to walk through the lengthy corridor to get to the dining room; it was long enough to be classified as a psychological weapon unto itself. At the end of the corridor, there were double doors made of black iron, fifteen feet tall and serving as the entryway to the dining room. The doors were each twelve feet wide, were engraved with scenes of Valdrake history (battle, remain victorious, a person holding the earth in their fist wreathed in void in the middle of the double doors).
The maid stopped in front of me and performed a curtsy followed by pointing toward the double doors without speaking, then dashed away from me in such a way that her footsteps were barely heard and/or didn't reach my ears.
So there I stood alone looking at the double doors.
The double doors were closed, but behind the double doors was something that was able to be felt. There was no audible noise behind the double doors, nor any air being released behind the doors or any crawling senses present in the space, only an immense feeling of pressure.The air within the hall had been captivated and was being drawn inward toward the room and the solitary occupant within it, like swirling water that had fallen down a drain. This is what it felt like to be in close proximity to a Monarch rank cultivator – the physical world was literally being bent to accommodate them.
I opened the doors wide.
The dining room could accommodate up to fifty guests; however there were only two places set at the table.
The table was made from obsidian and polished to a mirror finish; it was large enough to land a small aircraft on. The room was illuminated by three separate chandeliers which appeared to hang like constellations of trapped void-light from its ceiling. The silverware was sparkling; while the crystal glassware captured the dark light bouncing off of it, and produced colors that were outside of the visible spectrum.
At the far end of the table, and in direct opposition to where I entered, was Duke Varen Valdrake, who was seated alone.
The Duke's appearance in real life could not have been represented correctly within the game.
Even while seated he was tall and possessed a very broad back and shoulders which conveyed that he possessed a hidden power, rather than one which he chose to flaunt. His hair appeared to be the same color of black as mine, but it had silver strands at each of his temples that did not represent aging, but rather represented having been in contact with metal that had become embedded in stone.
His face was an older more hardened version of what I had seen in the mirror only weeks ago; in addition to having the same angular features as I did, his eyes were also violet like mine; however, unlike Cedric's face which exhibited a youthful cruelty, there was an extreme amount of power associated with the Duke's existence that had a cruel appearance and was developed as a result of his decades long rule of absolute power.
His eyes exhibited calmness and patience, which I could only attribute to the fact that he has never encountered anything in his life that was beyond his control.He has been reading my document. He did not look up at me as I walked the entire length of the table — which I'm sure felt like around forty years to me — pulling out the closest chair, and as I sat while he continued reading his document.
Three seconds — five — and then ten elapsed before he put his document down.
In the game, this scene was nothing but a dialogue exchange. Cedric had sat down, and the Duke began asking him about preparations at the academy; Cedric responded with stubborn arrogance, the Duke had expressed his mild satisfaction with Cedric's mannerisms. The scene ended after perhaps 40 seconds of dialogue with static portraits of the two characters.
But here, the silence was an aggressive weapon.
He was testing me; I knew that because I had taken apart every interaction the Duke had in the game and analyzed his patterns similarly to how one might analyze their own boss fight. Varen Valdrake did nothing without reason; the silence was measuring my capability to sit in the presence of a Monarch-rank aura without twitching, squirming, or attempting to fill the dead air with a string of words.
Original Cedric could only sit silently for an estimated 15 seconds before needing to speak at 17 years of age.
I maintained my perfect composure, and I counted out to 30.
At the 23 mark, a change occurred on the Duke's face; not a grin — I was convinced those muscles had long ago atrophied — but I saw what looked like what I would call a minute softening of the skin around his eyes; there was interest — much the same as a wolf might show when a rabbit did something odd.
He put the document down.He told me I looked like I rested. He was right. He sounded like he sounded while playing the game — very deep and measured, where each word was ordered with the same precision as if it were a chess piece that was moved. The speakers in the game can't convey the inflections of his voice. There is a certain amount of void aether that reverberates when he speaks. This does not so much sound like a threat but is more like an ambient reality, just like gravity or time or space. There is no way to touch someone with gravity; you just expect the fact of it to apply to you.
I said, "I slept well, Father."
Father was a strange word to come out of my mouth. I had no idea who or what he was in connection with me being his son. My actual father was a ghost who left when I was twelve; his only connection to me after that was an occasional birthday card until fifteen, at which point there was nothing. A person with his eyes and the ability to reshape reality was not my father.
Cedric would call him "Father," and Cedric would give it a measured amount of respect — the right amount of respect to acknowledge a person in an authoritative capacity but not enough to indicate submission.
I tried to say it about the same way Cedric would.
The Duke was watching me. His violet eyes were looking over my face as though he were reading a ledger — verifying each entry to ensure they added up. I did not break eye contact because I thought that Cedric would have maintained that same level of eye contact, a Valdrake-style action that said he would not turn away from the Duke until the Duke allowed it. Therefore, I felt that breaking eye contact with him would signal weakness to this man, resulting in a death flag, which I did not register in my systems as a parameter to evaluate.
"The academy term starts three weeks from today," he said. "You have been accepted, and House Seraphel's girl will be there also.""Drakeveil, Kaelthar's 2nd son, Embercrown heiress, several commoners that Emperor is allowing to compete as part of equality initiative."
The disdain in his voice is palpable as the words freeze in the air. The Duke has no issue with commoners, like the other nobles who hold ideology or irrational hatred. He simply does not acknowledge them, as he would a passing storm outside his window.
"I am aware," I replied. "I have reviewed the entry lists."
I lied.
I had not reviewed anything, as I had only been in this body for approximately 20 minutes. However, Cedric (the character from the game) will have reviewed them, as the original character was obsessive about understanding his competition.
"Excellent," the Duke lifted his wine glass. The wine was black with a light violet glow -- void infused wine (of course). "I expect you to reach Zenith level during your first semester. If your assessment does not favour you, I expect Gold."
In the game, Cedric started at Gold level; however, he had a D-tier Aether Core.
I have an F-tier Aether Core. An F-tier Aether Core that is smashed and barely functional; that will qualify as more than an average human. It is barely awake.
I don't know what will happen if the Duke finds out. The game never showed how Cedric could be this weak; however, I do think a Valdrake heir who cannot meet the Valdrake family's minimum standard of fighting will become..."Zenith, Zenith!" I repeated my name with the same amount of prideful bravado as the original Cedric was able to have, based solely on the fact that he was not aware of his own handicap. "Any other answer would be an affront to my family name."
He loosened his expression slightly in response, but still there was no sign of approval. Only an evaluation of the difference between the words I was saying to him and my ability to fulfil them at this very moment; and to his mind, he had now convinced himself that there wouldn't be any difference between the two. The original Cedric's most persistent character trait was his tendency towards extreme confidence and pride. It was this precise trait which caused his mutilation in six of the seven possible futures he found himself in during the game.
Confidence and pride are sometimes mistaken for each other when presented properly, because both are associated with belief in one's own ability. The key for me is to have the Duke of Newford place the same level of belief into my statements that the original Cedric had.
"In their desire to create an equal to you, House Seraphel will position itself to place their daughter in front of you as your equal, between your households. Their rivalry predates your births," he said while taking a small sip of dark wine. "Do not allow yourself to be distracted by that child's gender; she is only a means to an end for House Seraphel."
The name of the Seraphel daughter is Seraphina.
The primary heroine of the game; long silvery-white hair; golden eyes; 'saintly' ability to heal mortal injuries and create blinding light when needed, and at the start of route one, would have shared romantic interest(s) with Cedric Valdrake, but in the end would despise him for his actions leading to the public embarrassment of her at the Annual Entrance Ceremony.
And somehow as I tryMaintaining the illusion of being an enemy to the character Seraphina will become a fine line, as I would like to behave that course towards her.
"I see," I answered."To discuss your connection to the ember girl — "
Valeria. The political fiancée.
"—Her father is interested in speeding up the engagement. I've said no, but you will meet her before you go. Keep up appearances of being cooperative; the embercrowns are currently in a good position to help me achieve mine."
They are useful, not allies or friends. Useful to me. Like a tool.
I took note of his phrasing; the engagement between the valdrakes and embols was played as a mutual political arrangement, while the Duke had a very different tone and made it clear that it was an arrangement of dominance rather than partnership. The embercrowns are a fallen house, and want to achieve status through the Duke, and he chooses to keep them close enough to be useful to him.
"Of course, father."
Food was served. Servants appeared from places I hadn't seen; they moved in a way that was precise and choreographed, setting dishes of food that I couldn't identify down so precisely that I couldn't imagine what would have happened if they had made a mistake. The plates were black ceramic; the food tasted amazing to me — meats that glimmered with what I now could see was faint aether infusion; vegetables that were too bright to be natural; a sauce that smelled like a thunderstorm.
I ate as I believed that Cedric Valdrake would eat: slowly, deliberately, and in a mechanical manner with no evidence of enjoyment. The food was truly incredible, and all the taste buds that were inherited with this body tasted things that were more complex than anything I'd ever tried before. But, Cedric Valdrake was never known to enjoy food publicly; he ate as a means of sustenance. There is a distinct difference.
The Duke ate in a similar manner. Must be a genetic trait.
We both ate in silence for several minutes and I was well aware that while there was no conversation, the silence was still a test, just in a different manner. The Duke was observing my manners, my posture while seated, how I held each utensil, etc. For the most part, I was able to utilize Cedric's muscle memory to complete all tasks appropriately; however, there were times — holding my fork incorrectly, taking too long to select my drinking glass, etc. — that the gaps in my knowledge came to the surface.
To make up for my lack of knowledge, I took my time eating; precision and accuracy would compensate for uncertainty.
Then Duke said something that forever altered my entire existence.
"Your mother has sent me a letter regarding the memorial."
My hand froze in mid-air while I held up a chopstick, and I caught it before resuming my motion so that I could finish chewing. It took me approximately three seconds of chewing while I processed the words he had spoken.
My mother. I know that Cedric had a mother, because the game mentioned her twice: once when establishing that she is not currently residing at the estate and once, when establishing that she has been living at her own coastal manor; there was no mention of whether or not she ever lived with the Duke (they separated for reasons that were never revealed). So it's safe to say I don't know a lot about Cedric's mother.
"Okay," I said because I did not want to get into any trouble; and I knew it was the safest thing to say.
"She said she would like to host it at her coastal estate." The Duke went on to say: "As it stands, I have told her that whatever you choose will occur."
A memorial? At Cedric's mother's house? For Cedric's sister? There is going to be a memorial for Cedric's sister?
"It's been 4 years," the Duke continued, "And Sera would have been born 4 years ago this spring."
Sera.
The explosion of the name was so loud in my head; I thought a flashbang went off inside my brain.
Cedric has a sister...SERA, who died 4 years ago. And there was actually going to be a memorial for her. The game has contained over 4,127 hours of gameplay and this has never been mentioned.
I searched all of my memory files for every single piece of dialogue, every single piece of lore, every single text document that has been datamined, every single theory ever presented about any of the forums I have ever visited, and I did not find anything.There was no such character as Sera Valdrake in any versions of Throne of Ruin previously played by me.
At the corner of my vision, the Villain's Ledger flickered, as though it were reacting to my internal alarm's sudden spike.
I opened the ledger and searched for Sera, sister, Valdrake family.
There are no entries. The system has no data. There is no death flag associated with the name.
Blind spot.
The game has not just excluded that piece of information but most likely did not know about it or did not consider it significant or that perhaps -
This world is bigger than the game showed me.
That thought landed in my stomach like a stone in still water with RIPPLES that spread to implications that I wasn't ready to face.
"Cedric."
The Duke's violet (my violet, his violet, the violets of bloodline from whom one could recreate the universe) eyes were looking me right dead in the face, as carefully as a surgeon's blade. He has seen me pause. Of course he has seen me pause, as he sees everything.
I needed to respond. Cedric is used to responding. The question is how he responds – and there was no script or walkthrough or wiki entry for this. For the first time since I woke up I had no clue where I was going and the destination was about a dead girl with a father that treated his living son as expendable in every path through the game.
So I went with honesty.Not honestly — yet as close to the truth as I could hope for from Cedric's mask.
"The coastal estate is good." I felt like I had spoken in Cedric's voice, which always sounded stoic. "She loved the ocean."
I wasn't even sure if that was true. I guessed based on living so close to coastal estates; on being born to a mother who raised me by the ocean as well; and the fact that children often share their parent's preferences.
Something flickered in the depths of the Duke's eyes — there for a moment, but before I could process it, it was gone.
"She did."
With that, he returned to his meal, and the subject was closed. As I sat an entire twelve feet away from a man who might have really loved his daughter but would murder his son in all but three of the possible versions of this story, I thought:
What else have I yet to discover about this game?
How much of this world exists outside of this scripted space I've memorised?
How many characters in this story have ever had lives that ended up on the loading screen that never once showed something out of the nature of the story being told?
The food that had once tasted very good, now felt like it had cemented into ashes in my mouth... because I'm starting to see how only 4,127 hours of gameplay had allowed me to create a map of the world — yet the map did not have complete continents.
The Villain's Ledger was quietly pulsing on a soft blue colour.
I ignored it without looking.Dinner wrapped up as it was started - in silence. The Duke stood first. When standing he was even taller than he was while sitting - he was at least six feet four inches tall, and he was built like a statue; his Void Aether pressed against the walls in the room like an unending sea of the ocean. He stared at me for a minute.
"Three weeks. Use them."
Then he left, not waiting for me to answer. I sat by myself at a black table made of obsidian, in a room that could hold fifty people for dinner, in a house that vibrated from the power of the bloodline I inherited from a body that did not belong to me; and I lowered my mask.
For just a minute.
Long enough for my hands to tremble.
Hana died because I did not have enough. Not enough money, not enough time, and not enough power. Hana died because the world I live in is cold and uncaring, and I, too, am small.
Sera Valdrake also died. And the game - my bible, my cheat sheet, my 4,000 hour guide to not dying, didn't even know Sera existed.
I looked at my shaking hands. Cedric's hands. Long and pale.
Not for long.
I opened the Villain's Ledger.
\--
STATUS
Name: Cedric Valdrake Arkhen
Age: 17
Rank: Initiate (F)
Aether Core: CRITICAL DAMAGE
> Estimated Recovery: UNKNOWN
> Expected Rank (per script): Adept (D)
>Actual vs Expected #### ERROR ####
Bloodline: Void Sovereignty (Dormant)
> Potential: SSS
> Current Access: 0.3%
Death Flags Active: 47
> Next Flag: Flag #1 - Entrance Exam
> Time Until Triggered: 24 Days 6 Hours
Narrative Deviation Index: 0.0%
Villain Points: 0
\--
F Rank.
The weakest character rated within the game system is E-rank.
And I had a bloodline that, if I had enough Void Aether, could possibly erase matter from existence, and right now I had enough Aether to, on a good day, make someone else's tea a few degrees colder.
I have 24 days until the next death flag active against me is triggered.
My father's dinner conversation just exposed a hole in my entire knowledge base that is the size of the deceased Sera Valdrake.
I stood up. The chair scraped against the stone. The noise seemed to echo too loud through the empty room.
Three weeks to prepare. Three weeks to find out how to train my broken body. To find out how to hide my devastating weakness, and to find out everything that the game did not teach me about a world that is far more complex than the story I thought I knew.
My mask slid back into its proper place. Cold, composed, the villain's resting face.
I walked out of the dining room without looking back.
\--
Villain Points Earned: +10
Reason: Successfully tricked a
monarch-ranked being via continuing
psychological manipulation.
Ledger note: Acceptable. For a corpse.
\--
I wiped away the notification.
The system's level of hostility was almost comforting to me. At least one thing in my new life was exactly what it was stated to be.