Chương 73: A Hostage Situation Disguised as a Roster

[Time]: Day 47, Thursday, 02: 15 PM [Location]: High-Altitude Research District · Sector 6 · Lab 606 Hathaway floated in the zero-gravity chamber of Lab 606, her [Mage Hand] scraping crystal residue with the mindless precision of an industrial robot. Her physical body was present, but her mind was currently trapped in the thousand-yard stare of a developer whose entire codebase had just been deprecated by a surprise patch.

At 1: 00 AM last night, after her third failed attempt to conceptualize an "original invention," she had desperately scoured the academy's remote digital archives from her dorm bed for inspiration. She had downloaded a high-resolution scan of a manuscript titled Science Fiction Story: Revision #96. On the first digitized page, the author had abandoned all literary pretension. Scrawled directly across the scanned parchment in massive, furious, black ink: [Ovelia is a piece of sh-t.] [Technology updates faster than a fetus can be born.] [Sci-Fi is f-cking impossible. Write your own damn book. I'm done.] Hathaway had stared at that introduction for a very long time. I understand you, she thought now, running her scraper across the brass hull. She had tried to patent a "smartphone network" only to realize this civilization ran a zero-latency telepathic broadband across alternate dimensions.

She had designed a "lightsaber" only to discover it was listed in the beginner archives under Culinary Tools for Slicing Dragon Steaks. Every idea she had ever possessed was built on solving limitations that simply did not exist here. Her four cognitive threads were running the same query from four different angles, each one returning null. What she absolutely could not accept was the Game Over screen. I survived the A1 Tutorial. I survived the Lab 606 selection. I survived Nino's brutal quiz with a glorious 61.

My save file is at 99% completion for the semester. And now you're telling me I'm going to hit a forced Bad Ending and fail the class because of a structurally impossible Final Boss (the term project)? Unacceptable. Below her, Victoria calibrated a resonance array in absolute silence. Deep inside the Leviathan, Nino clanked away with something that sounded large and vaguely structural. The quiet, rhythmic melancholy of a Thursday afternoon settled across the lab like a professional ambient soundtrack. BANG.

The heavy brass doors of Lab 606 did not open. They were kicked. The panels shuddered, groaned, and swung apart with the velocity of someone who had never in their life considered that a locked door might exist for a legitimate reason. Smack. Smack. Smack. Rubber flip-flops slapped against expensive metal grating. Rhode von Ludwig strolled in. She looked like someone had ctrl+c'd a beach delinquent and ctrl+v'd her into the wrong genre. Messy silver hair trailing loose behind her.

An oversized white T-shirt screaming"GLORY" in aggressive neon-red letters. A black mini-skirt so aggressively short it functioned more as a philosophical concept of clothing than actual fabric. Cheap rubber flip-flops. A half-eaten strawberry lollipop rolling around the corner of her mouth. And the goggles: industrial-grade, pitch-black, welding-grade containment units strapped across her eyes. Around their edges, crimson light bled out continuously—not a glow, exactly.

More like a containment breach in slow motion.

"Yo," Rhode said, surveying the lab with the casual authority of a building inspector who also happened to own the building.

"Nice setup. Needs more couches." She lifted the goggles by approximately one centimeter. A 150-lumen beam of unfiltered crimson light swept across Lab 606 like a prison-yard searchlight. It burned past the reactor housing, the collection arrays, the suspended crystal matrices—and locked directly onto Victoria Wellington. Victoria raised one white-gloved hand. Not defensively. In the manner of someone raising a hand at a particularly impolite painting.

"If your intention is to irreparably damage my retinas, Rhode," Victoria said, her voice perfectly level, though the ambient temperature in her immediate vicinity audibly cracked with frost.

"I recommend issuing a formal duel challenge rather than resorting to passive-aggressive optical assault." Clack. Rhode let the goggles drop back into place. Her grin was immediate, familiar, and predatory.

"Wellington," Rhode drawled, her voice dripping with the lazy arrogance of someone who solved calculus with a sledgehammer.

"Still sitting in the dark, over-calculating the exact geometric angle required to breathe? Good posture. Terrible survival instincts." From the zero-gravity void above, Hathaway peered down at her cousin. Oh no. Frost was now actively creeping up the legs of Victoria's chair. She is absolutely still holding that grudge, Hathaway realized, wincing at the sheer density of the hostility radiating from her roommate. They are going to blow up the lab before I even get the chance to fail my term project.

The access hatch of the Leviathan banged open, shattering the glacial standoff with the subtlety of a localized earthquake. Hathaway let out a long, quiet breath she hadn't realized she was holding, her shoulders slumping in sheer relief. Thank the Void for workaholics. Nino Lucent climbed out.

Grey hair frazzled, a wrench in one hand, a smudge of grease on one cheek, and in her eyes the specific energy of someone who had been interrupted mid-critical-calculation and was currently deciding whether to classify this event as "minor disruption" or "grounds for legal action."

"Rhode." Nino's voice was dangerously quiet. The quiet of a very large, very cold guillotine.

"I installed a Grade-5 biometric ward on that door. Multi-million-Solar security array. Pre-authorized mana signatures only." She looked at the door.

"Did you just bypass a multi-million-Solar security system by kicking the door frame?"

"Structural weak point," Rhode shrugged, with the philosophical ease of someone who had never once in thirty-three years been troubled by a locked door.

"Don't build flimsy doors if you don't want them kicked." She glanced up into the void.

"Get down here, pipsqueak." Hathaway descended slowly, landing on the platform. She looked at Rhode.

"Hi. What are you doing here? This lab requires three separate clearances."

"I have the 'I'm a Ludwig' clearance," Rhode said, her tone suggesting this was self-explanatory and she was slightly insulted by the question.

"It's a master key for anything that doesn't involve the Queen's private bathroom." She reached into the pocket of her T-shirt, pulled out a lanyard, and tossed it. Hathaway caught it. [Official Credentials] If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. [Affiliation: Royal Rosas] [Designation: Youth Academy / Substitute Roster] [Access Level: AAA – VIP Competitor] She read it twice. Her brain performed an orderly, dignified blue-screen.

A polite systems crash, error code: DOES NOT COMPUTE.

"Me," she said, in the measured tone of someone verifying a clerical error.

"Royal Rosas. The Grand Master's Tournament." She looked up.

"I was literally sipping tea and listening to gossip about this tournament just the other day."

"Don't overthink it," Rhode said.

"Every major family uses the tournament as an excuse to send their promising juniors along for the benefits. The Ludwig family didn't pay your tuition just so you could scrape dust in a glorified sweatshop."

"I got a 61 on my magitech quiz."

"Perfect score for a bench-warmer," Rhode said, with the enthusiasm of a talent scout who had just drafted a golden retriever for aesthetic reasons.

"You're not here to carry. You're here to absorb." She leaned in.

"You know what a top-tier club vault looks like? Tier-4 spellbooks, completely free access. Tactical simulators, unlimited sessions. S-Rank commissions set up specifically for rookie practice. You want to hunt a false god in a low-tier pocket dimension?" Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial pitch.

"We'll pin the boss to the floor, and you just cast an [Energy Siphon] variant on it. You can literally drain a false god dry to permanently expand your maximum mana capacity. Free stats." Hathaway's hands tightened on the lanyard. Free premium spellbooks. S-Rank dungeon access. Supervised boss encounters where I just plug in like a parasite and steal the boss's mana pool. It's a textbook carry service. Full squad boost. High-level players carrying a low-level alt account through endgame raids to speed-farm stats.

"As a substitute," Rhode continued, knowing exactly what she was doing, "you get all-access backstage. Competitor's box. Better than VIP. You sit in the dugout, soak up everything, and enjoy the show."

"Okay," Hathaway said. Her voice came out steadier than she expected.

"I'm in. Who else is on the roster?" Rhode held up her hand and counted fingers.

"I'm the Position 1 Vanguard, obviously. Pure destructive entry."

"Your cousin Bella is Position 2, playing secondary offense and battlefield control."

"Alucard is the Position 3 Center, running tactical setups."

"Tasia—the Empress herself—is the Position 4 Ace, the main sweeper." Rhode pointed her half-eaten lollipop at Nino.

"And her, as Position 5 Rearguard. Lead Engineer and the one who deletes whatever survives the first four of us."

"Wait," Hathaway said, holding up a hand.

"Alucard? She has the free time to play in a pro-league tournament?"

"It's her mandated stress-relief outlet," Rhode said sagely.

"If she doesn't get to legally vaporize people in an arena at least once a season, the White City's tax code gets surprisingly vindictive."

"And Tasia," Hathaway pressed, her voice rising slightly.

"The Twin Empress who famously treats 'governance' like a dirty word and refuses to touch paperwork. She is your Ace?"

"Obviously," Rhode smirked.

"She hates working, but she loves winning. Plus, she brings the sponsorship money and the aesthetic." Hathaway stared at the VIP lanyard in her hands. Rhode. Bella. Alucard. Tasia. Nino. My chaotic cousin. My other cousin. My terrifying employer. And the two immortal sisters who jointly rule the White City—a family that literally held the High Council hostage just to secure two Dominion Seats.

"So," Hathaway said, in a measured, academic tone.

"This isn't a team. This is a geopolitical hostage situation disguised as a sports roster."

"Basically a family reunion with a broadcast deal and more violence," Rhode agreed cheerfully.

"And you need a substitute because...?" Hathaway asked, genuinely confused.

"It's a standard relay format. Winner stays in the ring. With a vanguard like you and Bella, the enemy team is going to be completely incapacitated before they even see our Center, let alone the bench.""'Incapacitated'?" Rhode snorted, rolling the word around her mouth like a bad piece of candy. She didn't just say it. She weaponized the syllables. Rhode shifted her weight, deliberately leaning into Victoria's peripheral vision, her grin widening into something distinctly feral and completely intentional.

"Are you seriously using five-syllable euphemisms for 'violently murdered' now?" Rhode drawled, her voice carrying perfectly across the lab.

"You've been rooming with the Wellington for two months, and you're already picking up their pretentious, factory-line aristocratic vocabulary. Careful, Pipsqueak, or next week you'll start measuring your tea leaves with a protractor." Hathaway blinked. The frost on Victoria's desk didn't just creep this time; it spiked. Right.

'Incapacitated' is a human concept.

"My mistake. Killed," Hathaway corrected herself flatly.

"Exactly. It's the official arena, everyone has high-grade Resurrection Stones strapped to their chests," Rhode waved her hand dismissively.

"It's a wholesome national sport. We take the toddlers to the front row to see some blood and build character. You've been watching the Pro-League since you were three, don't act like a prude now." Rhode sighed, as if burdened by her team's sheer, unapologetic laziness.

"Anyway, this is why we need a sub. The early qualifiers. They're packed with enthusiastic, weak-ass amateur teams.

"Tasia refuses to get out of bed for anyone below an Arch-Witch. Nino says fighting novices is a waste of her hourly rate. Bella says revealing her ultimate aesthetic to trash mobs violates her boss-level mystique. We need a sweeper to clear out the low-level trash mobs so the rest of us don't have to show up until the quarterfinals."

"Ah," Hathaway nodded, her gamer brain instantly translating.

"I am the designated low-level farming bot."

"Bingo," Rhode beamed.

"Plus, I know you've always been a massive fan. Consider this a VIP backstage pass to watch premium blood-spatter. And when you're not sweeping the trash mobs, you will be fulfilling the most critical, highly contested role on the entire roster." Hathaway blinked.

"... Which is?" Rhode's expression turned deadly serious.

"The Coach."

"I'm the Coach?"

"On a team where the Vanguard is me and the Ace is an Empress, the Coach has exactly zero tactical authority," Rhode explained with absolute, unwavering sincerity.

"The Coach's only actual job is successfully ordering the high-end takeout for the locker room between deathmatches." She leaned in closer.

"It is a highly competitive, cutthroat position. I literally had to physically fight off three High Witches who wanted to be our mascot just to secure this slot for you." Rhode jabbed the sticky end of her lollipop at Hathaway's nose.

"Do not mess up the spicy mayo ratio on the salmon rolls." From the calculation terminal, a voice arrived. It was cool and precise, but it was accompanied by a wave of Killing Intent so dense it made Hathaway's lungs burn. The ghost-lights in the lab flickered violently, turning a hostile, sickly blue.

"Fascinating." Victoria finally looked up from her screens. Her blue eyes were devoid of any polite restraint, staring at Rhode with the unrestrained focus of a sniper.

"A team assembled entirely from absolute imperial nepotism, unchecked ego, and a profound disrespect for the dictionary. I imagine the tournament's insurance adjusters are experiencing genuine professional suffering."

"Watch your mouth, Wellington," Rhode said, turning to point the lollipop at her, completely unfazed by the localized blizzard.

"Or I'll put you on the water-girl roster."

"I would sooner retire from the sport of existing," Victoria whispered, the ambient mana around her humming with a lethal, high-pitched frequency. Rhode looked delighted. She turned back to the room, apparently satisfied with the damage, and headed for the door. She paused at the threshold. Turned back.

"Oh," she said, looking at Victoria with the considering air of someone making a minor structural observation.

"Fix your posture. You're leaning 0. 5 degrees to the left. It's unbecoming of a factory-line aristocrat." Snap. Victoria didn't just snap the Adamantite pen in two. She crushed it. Fine, metallic dust dripped from her white gloves. The shockwave of her suppressed rage rattled the loose tools on the workbenches. Rhode vanished through the doorway, cackling. The flip-flops echoed down the corridor in long, diminishing slaps, and then faded entirely, and then Lab 606 was still.

The particular quiet of a room in which one person had recently had their pen pulverized by aristocratic fury. Nino, who had been standing near the hatch through all of this, set down her wrench with the deliberateness of someone who had made a decision. She looked at Hathaway.

"If your extracurricular obligations interfere with your lab schedule," Nino said, each word arriving like a separate precision instrument, "I will atomize your cousin's ankles. Both of them. Consecutively." She climbed back through the hatch. The panel closed behind her with a finality that suggested the conversation was over. Hathaway looked down at the lanyard.

She looked at Victoria, who was meticulously wiping fine metallic powder from her pristine white gloves—with the focused care of someone performing controlled breathing exercises while internally drafting a formal complaint addressed directly to the concept of the Ludwig family.

"Victoria?" Hathaway said, carefully.

"Do not speak to me for the next six minutes, Ludwig," Victoria replied, her voice carrying the precision of someone actively suppressing a lethal impulse through sheer aristocratic will.

"I am currently recalculating the exact mana frequency required to silence your cousin on a permanent basis." Hathaway nodded. Turned back to the crystal formation. Picked up her scraper. Aimed. Click. The residue shattered. Hathaway rubbed the gold lettering on the lanyard. An hour ago, she had been staring down a seemingly unwinnable, game-ending academic puzzle. But then her gamer brain re-processed the roster Rhode had just listed. Alucard. Tasia. Nino Lucent.

Her notoriously strict grading professor was playing Rearguard on a team where Hathaway was about to be the locker-room attendant. The Empress who famously treated governance as a personal inconvenience and had apparently delegated the entire concept of "effort" to Alucard was somehow the Ace. Alucard, who ran the city's infrastructure, was the Center. Rhode hadn't just handed her a VIP pass to a blood-sport tournament.

She had just handed her unrestricted, casual backstage access to the greatest concentration of endgame R&D intellect in the Inner Sea of Stars. Plus the club's premium library vault. All she had to do was hand them a towel, pass them their spicy mayo salmon rolls, and casually ask her professor for a "small hint" between deathmatches. She pocketed the lanyard.

If the crafting quest is too hard, she thought, a slow, deeply capitalist smile spreading across her face, you don't keep banging your head against the low-level workbench. You infiltrate the endgame lobby, bribe the server admins with high-end takeout, and let a squad of max-level whales carry your academic raid.