Inside Max's head, somebody was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe.
'PFFT!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!'
It was Sylan. The spirit of the body's original owner was bent over double, wherever it was that spirits went to bend over, and he was slapping his knee with a hand that Max could not see.
'So much for your crush! Hahahaha! Woooooo! Just give up, Max. You know you can't beat the Crown Prince when it comes to being obsessed with Avoinese. You're cooked, bro. You can't replace whatever's inside that heart of hers, and it's full of evil, by the way.'
Max sat very still on the velvet couch, with his hands on his knees and a polite smile frozen on his face.
'Can you just shut up for once?' he thought. 'And where the fuck did you learn the word "cook"? Did you pick it up from my dork bitchass memories?'
Sylan did not answer. Instead, he began to whistle a cheerful little tune, which echoed around the inside of Max's skull like a bird trapped in a chimney.
'Fucker,' Max cursed him.
He turned his attention back to the woman on the couch in front of him. She was still sitting with her legs crossed and her porcelain teacup resting on her knee. The afternoon sun came through the tall windows behind her and turned her silver hair into a sheet of white fire. Her purple eyes were fixed on him with no expression at all.
Max cleared his throat.
"I-can you repeat that again, Your Highness?" he said. "It seems I didn't hear you clearly."
The room changed.
It was not a loud change. Nobody moved, and nothing fell. But the temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees, and the quiet that settled over the sitting room had a sharp edge to it, like the quiet of a blade being drawn.
'What did I fucking do?!' Max thought. He gulped. In the back of his mind, Sylan started laughing again.
"Are you deaf and daft at the same time, Ser?" Avoinese asked.
She said it softly, almost kindly. That made it worse.
"Do you want me to repeat what I said? I thought that noblemen like you were supposed to be intelligent. But it seems that you're just like most men, with a brain the size of an acorn. Or an almond."
She set her cup down on the saucer with a tiny, precise click. What she had said was perfectly clear, and the man across from her had asked her to say it twice. In her eyes, that was an insult to her time.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness!" Max said quickly. He raised both hands. "It's not that I didn't understand you. Of course I understood! But I'm confused. Why me? I assure you, there are many people who would be far better suited for this than I am."
Avoinese looked at him for a long moment. Then she picked up her teacup again and took a slow, thoughtful sip.
"I see," she said. "So that is what confuses you. It seems I have not told you the true reason for what I see in you."
She lowered the cup. Her purple eyes moved over his face, his shoulders, and his hands, studying him piece by piece. It was the way a jeweler looks at a stone she is thinking of buying, or a butcher looks at a cut of meat.
Max gulped again.
'I-I can't take the way she's staring at me, Sylan,' he thought. 'Help me. Please!'
'Like I care, dude,' Sylan answered. The laughter had gone out of his voice, replaced by a sour, tired tone. 'It's your goddamn fault that you caught her attention. And it's already our fucking twenty-fifth regression. I don't want to die again because of your bitchass.'
'Like it's my fault?!' Max shot back. 'Blame your goddamn cousin! I'm always saving his ass, because he's always simping for Emiliana! And most of her suitors, including the Crown Prince of Solania and the Second Prince of Amaria, keep trying to assassinate his bitch ass! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been forced to sacrifice myself so many times because of what a fucking buffoon your cousin is, Sylan!'
'I-I admit it's partly my fault.'
'Partly?!' Max nearly spat the word. 'You fucker, it's your fault that we died so many times! You kept begging me to save both of your cousins! And your trash body has a tiny mana pool, and it's too weak to survive a single punch from a fucking ogre!'
Sylan opened his mouth to argue.
Then he closed it again. The golden gears in his eyes ticked slowly, round and round, as he searched for a defense and found none. At last, he retreated into silence.
'Thank you,' Max thought, with a long, gusty mental sigh. 'And sorry. I'll admit that the first ten deaths were on me. But the others were yours. So when we die, it's your fault, not mine.'
"Mhm!"
Avoinese had coughed. It was a small, pointed cough, and it was aimed straight at him.
Max snapped out of his head and refocused. "I'm sorry, Your Highness. I'm still confused about why it has to be me. I'm only trying to understand."
"I admit that this is my own fault," Avoinese said. She stretched out the words, as if each one cost her something. "I did not explain why, Ser, and I do not like to repeat myself. So listen. Focus on me. Only on me. On everything I say, with the exception of being a pervert or looking at me with a lecherous gaze. If you do that, I will cut off your dick as payment."
She said it in the same tone in which she had said the word tea.
"And as I was saying, do not get caught up in whatever is running through that little mind of yours. Focus on me, and on what I say. Because this will be the last time that I warn you."
A faint, cold pressure rolled off her and spread through the room. It was not much, only a little killing intent, enough to make the fire in the hearth gutter and the hairs on Max's arms stand up. Any other man would have been shaking.
Max stared at her. His eyes shone.
'God,' he thought. 'She's so dashing.'
'There's no hope for you anymore, Max,' Sylan said. His voice was flat with despair. 'And they say that I'm the simp. Sigh. I should have just chosen to become a priest. Or at least a eunuch. Anything is better than dying and letting a simp worse than me possess my useless body.'
Max ignored him and bowed his head.
"I'm truly sorry, Your Highness. That was very rude of me. Please go on. I'm willing to listen to your explanation."
"Good." Avoinese lifted her chin. "Because I hate repeating myself. Consider yourself lucky, Ser. I have given you a second warning and a third chance, only because you are useful to me. Otherwise, you would have been dead for this insolence."
'God, she's overreacting,' Sylan said. He was almost wailing now. 'Even other nobles aren't this strict, and they certainly don't have this trash personality! I don't like her, Max. Just choose Eunice. At least Eunice only abuses her half sister, Emiliana. And she's still, by far, the best woman you could ever marry!'
***
Bell had been listening with her chin resting on her fists and her lips slightly parted.
"I'm not going to lie, Max," she said now, with deep seriousness. "What Sylan said was really true."
Max nodded slowly. A pang of regret crossed his face, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah. I should have listened to him. Sigh. He didn't even hate Emhyria like he hated her."
"And from what you're telling me, this Avoinese is a fucking jerk, and an asshole." Bell pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders and glared at the empty air in front of her, as if Avoinese were sitting there. "You know the kind of narcissistic lady you see in dramas? The one who thinks the whole world revolves around her and only her? She sounds exactly like that. And people like that, women or men, really irk me. A lot!"
"I agree," Max said. "Anyways. Let's continue."
***
Back in the elegant sitting room, Max kept his eyes on the lady on the couch and shut the door on the voice in his head.
'Yeah, keep ignoring me,' Sylan said bitterly. 'Just don't come crying to me when you really regret having feelings for her. Geez. I really don't understand why you fell for this bitch.'
Max nearly choked.
'Sylan,' he thought, in genuine shock. 'This is the first time I've ever heard you call someone a bitch. And you're saying it about Avoinese herself!'
'Yeah, because this is the first time I really hate a woman. Of course I'm going to call her a bitch! Based on your memories, I don't want any involvement with her at all. I would rather die, Max. So listen to me. Don't accept her offer.'
'And what, we die?'
'It's better than being her dog. And also, we literally have the power of regression, you fool.'
'And as I remember, you and I promised not to abuse it, because it slowly eats our emotions.'
Sylan sighed. It was a long, tired, ghostly sigh, and it carried more weariness than any ghost should have to bear. There was no point in arguing any further. Max was partly right, but Sylan was partly right, too. In his opinion, regressing would still have been better than listening to whatever Avoinese wanted to say.
'Fine. You win. But don't blame me when she's the reason you get killed. Remember my words, Max. Don't you dare blame me.'
Max did not answer. He had already turned his attention back to Avoinese, who had picked up her cup again.
"Anyways," she said. "The first reason is your connection to your cousin. I know that you have no ties to Emiliana. But I believe your cousin does. Does he not?"
"He does," Max said. "He has a friendly relationship with Emiliana."
It came out of his mouth before he could think. He had just handed over a secret for nothing, a card that should have been traded for another card. Inside his head, Sylan groaned and covered his face with both hands.
'So much for a fucking former Hitman.'
"Good." Avoinese gave a small, satisfied nod. "At least I have found a trustworthy pair of eyes. The second reason is that you have no presence at all."
"Who, me?" Max said. He blinked. "No presence at all?"
He truly did not understand. He knew that most people ignored him. But he also knew that it was because he ignored them first. It was a mutual agreement. He had never thought of it as having no presence.
"Yes," Avoinese said. "Even when I look directly at you, all that I see is a background character."
The room was silent.
'Wow,' Sylan said. His voice was full of wonder. 'What a way to say "I'm too narcissistic to care about you." Way to go on getting your fucking crush, Max. Even though it's a hundred percent impossible.'
Max had to admit that Sylan had a point. Even coming from his own crush, being called a background character was really rude. He opened his mouth to protest.
Then he closed it again. He knew exactly how dangerous this woman was. Most of the bad ending routes in Emiliana's story involved her, and he did not want to see how many of them he could unlock in one afternoon.
"Then what is the last reason, Your Highness?" he asked.
Avoinese took another sip of tea. She turned her head and gazed out of the window for a moment, at the green garden and the pale sky above it. Her profile was perfect, and her expression was empty.
Then she looked back at him.
"It is because you are the only man who did not fall in love with that wench, Emiliana."
***
"Wait, wait!" Bell shot up straight and held out both hands. "Before you continue! Did you really have no feelings for Emiliana? And Sylan, too? You didn't fall for her at all? Not even because of some kind of protagonist love potion, or anything?"
She was almost leaning into his face. The question seemed to have been sitting in her chest for the last ten minutes.
Max nodded and rubbed his chin.
"Yeah. Neither me nor Sylan ever fell in love with Emiliana. She was just bland. Her appearance was bland. Everything about her was bland. Even most of the other female characters in the game were more interesting than she was."
"Wow." Bell sat back on her heels. She looked deeply let down. "So she's your generic protagonist type, huh? And here I thought she might be amazing. My mom loved playing that game so much."
"Yeeeep!" Max said, and he held out his arms in a shrug. "She's your generic MC, Bell."