Chương 70: A Brief Summary of Margaret's Death

[Time]: Day 38, Tuesday, 02: 00 PM [Location]: High-Altitude Research District · Sector 6 · Lab 606"Bring a sleeping bag." Five days ago, Nino had issued that directive with the flat certainty of someone reading a weather forecast. The Deep Resonance diagnostic had confirmed what they both already knew: triple the normal Aether residue, complete crystallization. Under the old workflow, that wasn't a shift. That was a siege. A certified scrape until Thursday disaster stage.

Today, Hathaway walked through the brass doors of Lab 606 without a sleeping bag. She floated up into the zero-gravity chamber and looked at the reactor hull. The crystallized residue had fused into dense, interlocking formations gripping the brass plating like geological strata—the kind of obstacle that, three days ago, would have required her [Mage Hand] to function as a pickaxe for approximately four hours. But today, she had installed a patch. A faint crimson halo flickered in the depths of her eyes.

[Analytic Vision], running at a quiet idle. The world transformed into a diagnostic report. Under the high-fidelity overlay, the supposedly impenetrable crystal wall revealed itself. Glowing red stress lines webbed through every formation—micro-fractures, material weak points, the structural signatures left behind when mana had originally solidified under pressure. Old version: mining high-tier ore with a starter pickaxe. New version: the game literally highlights the monster's hitbox for you.

Every level designer knows the best puzzles don't make players slam their keyboards—they make players feel like absolute geniuses the moment they find the right solution. Hathaway raised her hand. The [Mage Hand] didn't form a scraper. It formed two precise fingers. She locked onto the central stress nexus of the largest crystal cluster and tapped. Click. A crisp, deeply satisfying sound. An invisible fissure webbed outward along the stress lines at terrifying speed.

One second later, a ten-pound block of crystallized Aether sheared off along its predetermined fault lines and disintegrated into perfect, uniform fragments that rained neatly into the disposal bin below. No dust. No shrapnel. No wasted mana. Pure, unadulterated physics ASMR. She glided half a meter through the air, aimed at the next weak point, and tapped. Click. Flawless extraction. And the next. Click. And the next. Click. User Experience Rating, her game-designer brain narrated serenely.

Old version = 1/10, four hours of manual labor, UX: abysmal. New version = 9/10, basically a rhythm game. Deducting one point because Amora did not include 'structural demolition tool' in the developer patch notes. Directly below her, Victoria was running her own parallel speedrun. The aristocratic Witch sat at the calculation terminal. Three translucent holographic panels hovered in a precise semicircle in front of her.

Her DIY interface spell had reached full operational maturity—she had completely bypassed manual keyboard input. Her blue eyes tracked across the scrolling data, her gaze alone acting as a direct cursor. She forcefully compressed error logs and locked in final calibration parameters at the exact speed of thought. The collar of her grey coat remained flawlessly stiff—as though she were not inside a zero-gravity reactor chamber, but seated in a private manor study, quietly auditing the month's tea receipts.

They didn't exchange a single word. No communication overhead. No status updates. Just two relentless workaholics running maximum APM on parallel fronts, moving in a cold, frictionless synergy that had never been formally established—it had simply emerged, the way high-efficiency systems always do. When Hathaway guided the last fragment into the disposal bin, she checked the terminal clock. 1 hour, 47 minutes. Nino Lucent climbed out of the access hatch.

She marched over to the cleared section of hull and dragged her fingertips across the metal surface with the hyper-critical exactness of a forensic pathologist examining a crime scene. No residue. Smooth as glass. The Academic Tyrant's face—permanently calibrated to a baseline resting irritation—registered absolutely zero emotion. She turned on her heel, walked to the main console, and pulled up the production spreadsheet. In the time-entry column for [Lab #4 — Deep Resonance], she typed in the numbers.

Then she closed the spreadsheet and walked back into the Leviathan without a single word. No 'good work'. No 'fast'. The hatch sealed behind her. Hathaway hung from the ceiling and grinned like a maniac. Performance evaluation: verbal praise = 0 points. Data entered into the official spreadsheet = 100 points. Entered without a frown = 100 points, plus the hidden achievement: [Render the Academic Tyrant Speechless]. Fifteen minutes later, they walked out of the lab. In the corridor, Victoria paused.

Instead of her usual, immaculate posture, she reached up and unclasped the top brass button of her austere grey coat—just one—allowing the rigid collar to relax by a single millimeter. Her specific, physical shorthand. Today's schedule has been cleared. Walking beside her, Hathaway felt the exact weight of what that meant. Five days ago, when Nino had delivered the sleeping-bag prophecy, the implication was obvious. The old workflow, the old tools—that version of today had been thoroughly deleted from the timeline.

The new patch was working. [Time]: Day 38, Tuesday, 08: 30 PM [Location]: Dormitory [Golden Bough] · Room 302 Hathaway had spent the subsequent four hours celebrating her newly reclaimed evening with a double-portion dinner at the cafeteria and a highly productive, entirely stress-free session in the library. A soft chime from her communicator greeted her as she stepped inside her room. [Salary Deposit: 1, 500 Solars. Current Balance: 2, 920 Solars.] Hathaway tossed her coat onto the bed and sat at her desk.

The hallway was quiet. Victoria's boots were neatly aligned by the front door, meaning she had already returned, but the aristocrat was nowhere in sight. She had conveniently vanished before the scheduled family call window, maintaining her staunchly tsundere position that she "had absolutely no interest in Ludwig family affairs," disappearing into her first-floor room to pursue this complete disinterest in private. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The communicator flared to life. Anna's signal. The connection stabilized into the familiar deep-sea ecology of the Atlantis Palace living room. Azure currents drifted softly across the ceiling. Anna and Margaret were seated side-by-side on the sofa, looking like two people who had just returned from an entirely normal commute. Crawling relentlessly over Margaret's shoulders was a tiny, silver-haired menace.

Rory paused her ascent, peering down at the screen with massive sapphire-blue eyes. She let out a demanding"Mu!" and then aggressively resumed gnawing on the massive Glacial Purity Fruit clutched in her tiny fists, getting sticky juice entirely caught in Margaret's hair.

"Good evening, Hattie." Anna smiled, smoothly dodging a rogue baby foot aimed at her tea.

"How was school? Learn any new spells?"

"Everything's going smoothly. Just used a Tier 3 to set a lab record, actually. And hi, you little loot goblin," Hathaway added, waving at the screen. Rory blinked, kicked Margaret in the collarbone, and went back to eating.

"That's wonderful—" Anna started. Margaret leaned forward, ignoring the baby currently using her head as a jungle gym. Her tone was identical to someone noting that eggs were on sale at the supermarket.

"Speaking of which—last Friday, I died." The room froze. On screen, Anna rubbed her temples, profoundly second-hand-embarrassed.

"I was in the middle of changing Rory's diapers in the living room when Blue-Coat Logistics pinged me. Do you have any idea how mortifying it is to get a delivery notification asking you to come sign for a package, because your wife went to a low-level tutorial zone to farm mobs, and somehow managed to get herself sent back to the respawn point in a mason jar? Hathaway didn't say anything. She sat very still and stared at her very much alive, very energetic mother.

Right, Hathaway blinked, her gamer soul rapidly realigning. Witches don't actually die; they just enter a respawn timer until someone carries their jar back to the base graveyard. I really need to stop applying Earth biology to these people. Anna and Margaret didn't leave any empty space for panic. Like two veteran project managers, they launched straight into debrief.

"The Blue-Coat Integration Offensive has completely stalled," Margaret said, prying Rory's sticky fingers off her ear.

"That impoverished world has a hard Tier 3 magic restriction. If we drop anything higher, the World Anchor shatters and we accidentally glass the entire planet. Since we can't just carpet-bomb the map with high-tier spells, we're stuck fighting on their terms. And remember that 'Native SSR Hero' we talked about? The Farmer's Daughter?" Hathaway's eyes widened.

"The one with the World Will's luck concentrated into her?"

"The very same," Margaret scoffed.

"Turns out, she's a literal Witch-disposal machine. Her melee statistics are entirely broken. Her movement speed has no business being that high. I couldn't dodge out of her charge hitbox, and she just sliced me into Witch-cubes like she was dicing vegetables."

"The rest of the squad came prepared, thankfully," Anna nodded.

"Everyone brought containers."

"So they scooped my cubes into a jar." Margaret gestured at an imaginary container.

"The squad brought me back, and the cemetery staff ran the highest-spec 'Blood, Bone, and Flesh of Sisters' resurrection ritual they could manage." Margaret waved at the camera to confirm her physical integrity was currently at 100%.

"See? Good as new." Just last Tuesday, Hathaway had been vibrating with excitement at the thought of a "Limited-Time Event SSR Protagonist." She had wanted to poke her. Now? So much for the cool event boss! She's just an overtuned mechanic with ridiculous plot armor! She actually killed my mother! I hope the devs nerf her into the ground.

"The most baffling part," Margaret continued, leaning forward with the energy of someone still processing a professional insult, "was the enemy army."

"We were told it was a ragged peasant uprising." Anna shook her head.

"Margaret's vanguard breaches the frontline, and what do they see? Forty percent spearmen with heavy shields eating the initial charge, thirty percent heavy infantry with anti-armor halberds pushing the line, fifteen percent citizen guards providing ranged fire support—flanks covered by knights and noble heavy cavalry."

"We checked our military manuals," Margaret said, slapping her knee.

"It's our own classic Witch combined-arms push tactic! These impoverished locals were using our own playbooks to hold a siege line. And their morale is locked at maximum because every lord and peasant and citizen is fighting to the death for their class interests."

"On the other hand," Anna said, casually sipping her tea, "the stalemate is holding beautifully. Hazard pay is still flowing, stipends are doubled. Margaret's squad spends their days in the rear camp, occasionally lobbing a fireball, and clocking out at five. Perfect paid vacation." Rory suddenly lunged, trying to stuff the half-eaten Glacial Purity Fruit directly into Anna's teacup.

"Rory, no. Drop it." Anna smoothly intercepted the tiny wrist.

"Are you really on your third one? You're going to get a tummy ache."

"Mu!" Rory shrieked indignantly, clutching the fruit to her chest like a dragon hoarding gold.

"Are you going to stop her?" Hathaway asked, highly amused by the chaos.

"How many of those has she actually eaten today?"

"Too many," Margaret sighed. Then, her expression shifted into the carefully calibrated look of someone disclosing an embarrassing insurance footnote.

"However. There was a minor complication during my resurrection ritual. One of the blood donors used to reconstruct the body... was a slightly short Witch." Margaret's calm facade cracked.

"Almost."

"The cemetery team noticed immediately," Anna was quick to add, having successfully wrestled the fruit away from a pouting Rory.

"They dumped an entire barrel of compensating mushrooms into the crucible." Margaret held up two fingers, indicating a gap of approximately five centimeters. Her voice was stripped of all performance. Just facts, and the lingering horror those facts produced.

"I was this close to losing five centimeters of height." To a Witch who treated frontline warfare as a standard occupational hazard, being killed and resurrected was a Tuesday. Losing five centimeters of height from a botched crucible? That was an unforgivable catastrophe.

"Oh—right," Anna said, as if suddenly remembering the administrative purpose of the call, settling a sulking Rory onto her lap.

"The Blue-Coat Command approved the death payout today. Frontline KIA converts to two full months of maximum hazard pay."

"Sixty thousand Solars." Margaret nodded. Her expression indicated this was a completely normal family budgeting conversation.

"There's nowhere to spend it on the frontline anyway. You should take all of it." Hathaway looked down at her communicator. [Wire Transfer Cleared: 60, 000 Solars. Current Balance: 62, 920 Solars.] Her game-designer brain switched to hard-math mode. Total legacy spell re-engraving cost: approximately 10, 000 Solars. Remaining unallocated capital: 52, 900 Solars. This isn't a death benefit. This is a massive Angel Round investment.

This money is enough to instantly patch every single numerical deficit in the current build. She looked up at the screen. Anna was wiping sticky juice off a fiercely protesting Rory's face. Margaret was adjusting her collar—perfectly composed, completely unbothered by the fact that she had been a jar of soup less than a week ago. Both of them were alive, present, and acting like it was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday evening. A deep, quiet warmth settled in Hathaway's chest and stayed. She took the money.

Margaret's death was, for all intents and purposes, just a botched raid mechanic with a respawn timer. But sixty thousand Solars was still an astronomical fortune. And her mothers hadn't hesitated for a microsecond. They had taken the absolute maximum payout for a frontline casualty and casually tossed it into her account like it was pocket change for the cafeteria.

"Received," Hathaway said. Her voice was steady, carrying a faint and completely unperformative smile.

"Thanks, Mom."

"Eat more! Look at you, your chin is getting sharp!" Anna shifted instantly into nagging mode.

"Spend it all—if it's not enough, Margaret can just die again—""Declined," Margaret cut in, cold and flat.

"If I actually lose height next time, I'm blowing up the Blue-Coat command tower." Before they could hang up, Rory squirmed free again, crawling directly to the lens. Two pure blue eyes stared straight into Hathaway's. The baby dropped her precious Glacial Purity Fruit. She reached out with both sticky little hands, pressing them flat against the screen, trying her hardest to grab her older sister for a hug. When her hands only met cold, flat glass, Rory let out a frustrated, confused"Mu?"

and patted the screen demandingly. The urge to hop on her broom and fly straight home hit her like a physical blow.

"She misses her sister," Anna said softly from the background, smiling. The call ended. The screen went dark. Silence returned to Room 302. Hathaway sat at her desk for a long time, the number [62, 920] glowing steadily on her terminal. The dormitory was quiet. There were no looming deadlines, no crushing debts, no immediate crises. She turned on the Void Terminal.

She navigated to her saved 'Wishlist'—a depressing folder she had created five days ago when she was desperately trying to calculate the cost of fixing her mana lag. It was filled with items she had stared at with suffocating despair: high-purity Aether ink, star-sand, crystallized logic nodes. Total estimated cost: 9, 850 Solars. A few days ago, that number was an impenetrable paywall. Today, she didn't even blink. She moved her cursor, checked the box labeled [Select All], and clicked [Checkout].

A golden rune flared on the screen: [Transaction Approved. Delivery scheduled for tomorrow morning.] Hathaway leaned back in her chair and let out a long, deeply satisfying breath. The sweet, clean numbness of her new spell was still radiating behind her eyes. Her family was safe, chaotic, and incredibly well-funded. And her passive stat-farming macro was primed and waiting. She closed her eyes, a genuine smile spreading across her face. Time to min-max this build.