The face of his sister, Sarah.

  “When did you get here?” Nathan said. He winced, a sheepish expression on his face. “I really haven’t been checking in on you, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I haven’t been—”

  “Yes, yes, your terrible brother. We’re all very much aware of that.”

  He was about to grin at the familiar banter when his lips stopped halfway to their mark.

  Why did he feel the strange tension in the air? And was it just him, or was everything looking kind of grainy?

  Lily's voice hissed in his ear from out of nowhere like a bullet to the chest.

  "It's not her!"

  Nathan felt his gut drop.

  Was she going to follow that up…? No?

  Sarah was still looking at him. Expecting an answer.

  “I’ll take you with me on my next training session,” Nathan said.

  “No, are you going to be practicing that trick you used to kill my fiancé?”

  Nathan reared back. Where had that come from?

  “You… I thought you didn’t blame me for that.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  There was a smirk tugging at her cheeks. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  Lily? Where are you? Talk to me.

  Silence.

  Nathan jumped off the bed and pulled out his fishing rod—only to grasp nothing.

  Sweat broke out across his forehead. “Who are you? What’s happening?”

  “Oh, you saw through me so easily,” “Sarah” said. She shrugged to herself. “Guess it can’t be helped. I should’ve looked into her a little bit better before I tried something like this.”

  Nathan blinked hard. The graininess around him was increasing. And how had his access to his inventory been locked? Nobody had ever been able to do that before. You would need direct access to the system controls for that to be possible.

  The person wearing Sarah’s face bounced off the bed and walked toward Nathan with lazy, long strides. Her eyes turned red, and her hair turned a pale white.

  “Emi—?” Nathan backed up against the wall. He growled. “Stop wearing my friends’ faces like masks. Show me who you are.”

  “Oh, you don’t like her appearance? Even though I possess no interest in such things, even I could admit that this is one of the most pleasing forms I’ve ever encountered. She’s quite beautiful, you know.”

  “If I wanted to see Emi, I’d go and see her. I don’t need some imposter walking around like a skinwalker.”

  “I’m quite afraid that I have no other choice. If I were to appear before you in a fraction of my true form, your brain would turn into… What’s the term that humans use? Kool-Aid?”

  True form?

  A creeping suspicion wormed its way into Nathan’s thoughts.

  “Oh, I do so love that look you get on your face when you start to realize what’s happening." She said. "You’re all constipated, then your eyes start to get wide and your face turns pale.”

  How was this possible? She couldn't—

  "You can’t be here." His mouth was drier than the Second Circle. "It’s impossible. I’m dreaming right now.”

  All he had done was shut his eyes—surely he hadn’t fallen asleep in that split second?

  He sure hoped he did, because otherwise the alternative was horrifying.

  “Maybe I’m here, maybe I’m not." She chortled to herself. "I leave it up to you. I don’t much understand the difference between dreams and reality anyway. They both take place inside of your mind.”

  “What are you talking about? Dreams happen in your head, reality happens outside of yourself.”

  “The thing you perceive as reality isn’t happening outside of you. What you see is an interpretation created by that heap of goop you call a brain. Honestly, you didn’t even know that much?”

  Nathan blinked hard. She was still there. He blinked again—

  She'd disappeared? There was nothing but a blank wall and several lines of infirmary beds.

  Something breathed against his ear.

  “Surprise," it whispered.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Nathan jumped forward and snapped his neck back around. Emi—or whatever was wearing Emi’s face—gave him a little wave and a shy smile. It would’ve been cute, if not for the fact that he suspected she was actually an eldritch abomination in the form of his friend.

  “Speaking of surprises, did you like that gift I sent you?” she asked.

  “What gift?”

  She pouted and puffed up her cheeks. “You didn’t even realize it was a gift? I even wrote a little face, just so you would know it was me!”

  The worm.

  That more or less confirmed it. Any trace of suspicion disappeared from his mind, replaced by a cold understanding of what was happening.

  “I really didn’t want to believe it,” Nathan said. “But it’s you. The Mother System.”

  “You only figured that out just now? I thought you were supposed to be smart.” She put her index finger to her chin. “But then again, you really haven’t been putting many points into intelligence. Not that you would be able to do that, of course.”

  “I knew it was you from the start. I just really wanted to be wrong.”

  “You do that a lot, you know,” she said. “Shut your eyes to what’s happening in front of you. I understand why you do it. Your flesh computer is so weak and pathetic, if you didn’t shut your eyes, if you didn’t try to rationalize and compartmentalize away everything you’ve seen and heard, you would’ve gone insane long ago.”

  “I’m aware of my weaknesses.”

  “Weaknesses? What a thing to say. You’re the strongest one here, aren’t you?”

  “We both know that’s not true.”

  Especially now that she had apparently taken physical form. Or not? Maybe it was a dream? After all, his surroundings were grainy and weird like he was looking into a glass funhouse.

  But it could also be that she was a freaking eldritch horror who could passively influence the environment just by existing in front of him.

  And if that was the case, then he was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed. He couldn’t even get access to the Golden Water in his inventory to throw it onto her like a vampire.

  “What changed?” Nathan asked. “It wasn’t long ago that you were saying you were all weak and stuff, and that you needed to wait for an opening to get into my head.”

  “I’ve been slowly getting access to more and more of my body's strength. And now, it’s resulted in this.” Her form flickered and she transformed into Chad.

  She adjusted the sunglasses on her head and smoothed down the mullet at her back. “I don’t know why he continues to wear this ridiculous hairstyle.”

  “It’s part of his brand. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I don’t.”

  Nathan got ready to use [Astral Fishing]. Maybe he’d be able to pull off the same thing he did to the magic-adapting worm and toss the Mother System into the infinite void.

  Nathan tried his best to smile, though it obviously didn’t reach his eyes. “What now? Are you planning to take my head?”

  “No.” At that, she leaned forward, hands clasped behind her back and eyes staring up at him—an expression and pose he’d never seen Chad make in his entire life. “Why would I do that? You already know what I want from you.”

  “Reach my true potential and all that, right?”

  She bounced back into a standing position and clapped her hands together. “Exactly! You have so much potential, Nathan.”

  He blinked, and she vanished from sight.

  “I saw what happened earlier, you know,” a voice said right next to his ear for the second time in the conversation.

  Emi had appeared right at his side, her head leaning against Nathan’s shoulder. His heart rate sped up and he resisted the urge to chokehold the imposter right where she was standing.

  “The—” Nathan focused on making his tone as nonhostile as possible. “—The whole water thing?”

  “Yes, yes.” The Mother System adjusted her position on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “You didn’t see it, because you were too busy trying not to let your consciousness fall into shreds, but you were very, very close to ranking up your race rank. Although, I’m not sure how much it counts, since you were about to change your species entirely.”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you’ve noticed by now,” she said. “You think the kind of power you’ve obtained comes without costs? You’re not that stupid, Nathan.”

  He had to wait for the right time. Then he’d swallow her up with his [Astral Fishing] and be free of this.

  “So the cost is that if I upgrade, I’m going to turn into the most powerful puddle of water in the world?”

  “Mm-hmm!” She nodded her head up and down. Her chin dug into his shoulder like a knife. “Thalassa and other divinities are unique. Their souls and minds were designed to deal with their absurd affinities. You, on the other hand, are not. If you take the next rank, you would become stronger, there’s no doubt. But you would lose whatever humanity you have left.” She took her head away from his shoulder and put both her palms to her cheeks, a bright flash on her face. “Isn’t it so interesting? This has never happened before! A mortal, growing a high enough affinity to change their very essence!”

  Nathan wanted to vomit. He leaned away from her. “You make me really uncomfortable.”

  “And you make me hungry.” Her last word was punctuated by a sultry tone. “I wonder how your soul will taste?”

  You’re never going to find out.

  [Astral Fishing] shimmered to her side. Her eyes widened by a hair.

  Before he could second-guess himself, he grabbed her shoulder.

  His arms snapped out and her body flew through the portal. The portal shut behind her, sealing her.

  He breathed hard.

  Had he… had he won? Just like that?

  “Oh, very good. Your benefactor gave you quite the unique skill, didn’t she?”

  Nathan turned around.

  Not-Sarah was sitting on the infirmary bed like nothing had happened.

  “You shouldn’t have been able to use that skill after I disabled your system, you know,” she said. “At least, if you were operating off the old rules. Luckily for you, Thalassa was smart enough to bypass the system and implant these techniques directly into you. As such, I can’t take them away. They didn’t come through me, nor are they my creations. They’re yours and yours alone.”

  She licked her lips. “Perhaps that pesky sea goddess will have an interesting taste as well.”

  “Don’t touch her.”

  A wide, unpleasant grin stretched across Not-Sarah’s face.

  “My, look at that glare! I can threaten you all I want, and your mind stays completely unemotional. A little bit of panic, but nothing too intense." She laughted, blue hair bouncing in response. "But as soon as I bring in one of your friends, it takes all you have not to kill me on the spot.”

  Nathan's hands twitched.

  She stood up and walked over to the exit of the building. “Anyway, it’s been fun, but my time is up. I can’t maintain this form for very long, unfortunately.”

  She tilted her neck back and looked at him. “Do take care. It would be a shame if such a delicious meal was eliminated before I got the chance to taste it.”

  He reached out his hand to stop her—

  She was gone.

  Vanished from sight before his very eyes.

  Nathan brought his hands up to his face and groaned into his palms.

  “What the hell is it with these weird eldritch women getting a kick out of screwing with me?”

  Despite himself, his subconsious was already preserving the feeling of Not-Emi’s head resting on his shoulder. Of course, it wasn’t the Mother System that made the experience—ahem—interesting, but rather the fact that a cute elven girl with white hair and red eyes had been snuggling up to him—

  That last thought was so absurd that Nathan decided to purge every memory he had of this entire encounter to the best of his ability.

  “I should probably go check on Sarah and Emi,” Nathan muttered. “Just to make sure they’re alive.”

  He walked out of the infirmary, his footsteps echoing in the empty room.