Chapter 18. Recruitment

The light blinded her for a moment, forcing her eyes shut. But the silhouette in the doorway was instantly recognizable.

"9333," came the familiar voice. "Excellent work. You exceeded my expectations. Perfect score."

He clapped his hands theatrically as he entered the room.

"You waited until the very end, making sure each one was dead." The man closed the door behind him, cutting off the bright light. "After they lost consciousness, they weren't dead yet. You could have saved at least some of them if you'd acted while alone. But you waited, sacrificing yourself."

He crossed to the cabinet and leaned against it casually.

"Though one did survive," a smile stretched across his lips. "I had to... clean up after you a bit. So..."

His fingers began tracing elaborate patterns in the air, as if conducting an invisible orchestra.

"You're the sole survivor. Worthy of a special prize."

He paused for dramatic effect.

"I'm 513. And from this day forward, I'll be your mentor." He waited expectantly. "I don't see any joy."

"I thought you'd like that," Sumarel replied without emotion, playing along the razor's edge of acceptable behavior.

Subordination and strict adherence to rules were the cornerstones of the system—a way to limit connections between people for easier control. People willingly accepted these boundaries because they simplified interaction. But add a drop of playfulness to this rigid structure, and it would begin cracking at the seams, opening space for different kinds of relationships.

Not that Sumarel sought closeness with this strange character who triggered her instinctive revulsion. But she needed him as a tool, and he needed her as a promising candidate for his group. With his personality, which she'd already studied, he'd inevitably accept the rules of the game, raising the stakes of their relationship to a qualitatively different level. And that would inevitably lead to additional training, which she desperately needed.

"Don't tell anyone. Extra attention is unnecessary," his smile widened. He clearly understood what she'd meant to convey, recognizing the line she was drawing.

They both understood.

"Every evening, you'll come to the officers' hall for training."

"Absolutely," she said, rising from the bed.

"Absolutely," he echoed, smiling from the shadows.

Stepping into the corridor, Sumarel found herself in the officers' section of the base. The room where she'd awakened obviously belonged to 513. The hallway was empty—an odd coincidence for officers' quarters.

Her gaze caught on an information board—rules, guidelines, event schedules. She opened a brochure with offerings: fencing competitions, chess and go tournaments, tactical exercises. All dates were from six months ago. Despite the space's immaculate cleanliness, a thin layer of dust covered the brochures—as if everyone passing by subconsciously ignored this zone as nonexistent.

Other pamphlets confirmed her suspicion: the officers' cultural life had once thrived, but at some point everything had abruptly stopped.

Outside, the midday sun blazed—she'd slept from evening until noon, which was considerable. A guard in a black blindfold, noticing her, silently escorted her to the residential block. Not a single question, just duty fulfilled. The strange looks from other recruits spoke volumes—word had spread about her disappearance during evening training. Few left in the evening and returned the next morning. And considering that despite all desire to remain unnoticed, she'd ended up at the center of attention, the news had spread like wildfire.

The moment her cell door closed, two pairs of eyes fixed on her.

"Ice Queen! You're alive!" Chatterbox blurted out.

Sumarel's face remained impassive. The nickname didn't please her, but memorizing numerical designations was even more inconvenient. Even if she could keep them in memory, the others didn't bother with such effort.

"I'll have a rest," she said curtly, dropping onto her bed.

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"Regular training coming up soon," the thought flickered.

Her gaze slid over Chatterbox's face—it showed burning curiosity mixed with submission. The girl was clearly dying to ask questions but didn't dare.

Curiosity—the oldest bait in the book," Sumarel concluded to herself.

She lay on her back, focusing on measured breathing. Her body was naturally weak—in her past life, she'd often been sick. As she later discovered, the main cause was improper breathing. A strange doctor from the backwoods, treating her brother, had revealed a simple truth: breathing is the foundation of health that most neglect. The body won't send obvious signals about oxygen deficiency—only side symptoms, tangled in a web of other problems. How can someone guess they're breathing wrong, and that this, not bad food, is the source of their ailments? Though bad food certainly contributed its share.

"One... thirty-three... two... sixty-six... three... ninety-nine..."

Her body still ached and her throat burned. She counted to herself, taking deep breaths with her belly, relaxing every muscle. A new old habit. Alternating numbers worked better than regular sequential counting for concentration.

"Interesting, small numbers will always be more numerous in a certain sense than large ones. But if you reach the very end, does it matter?" The thought wedged in unexpectedly even for her. "In infinity, there's no difference between a large and small number. Don't they all become the same, merging into something fundamentally different?"

The counting stopped. She sank into emptiness, her breathing becoming barely perceptible—from the outside, it might seem she'd fallen asleep.

"People are so different and diverse. But on the canvas of history stretched to infinity, won't they become One? Something else—not fragments of humanity, but something different?"

"Ice Queen!"

A familiar voice tore her from her meditative trance.

"Alpha. Of course," she thought more wearily than irritated.

Naturally, he'd rushed over as soon as he'd heard about her return.

"Are you even normal? Just lying here!" his voice held genuine indignation.

He sat on the edge of her bed, by her feet.

Sumarel barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. The remnants of her meditative state made her slightly sluggish. She merely turned her head toward him.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Righteous outrage reflected on his face.

"Got a problem?" she asked languidly, as if not wanting to engage in an argument.

The guy froze, clearly flustered. She knew—he was smart, but had built himself an image that invariably cracked when confronting her.

"I'm speechless! Don't you understand?" he'd clearly gathered his thoughts, preparing a verbal trap.

"Now he'll say he was worried, demonstrate feelings, then indirectly paint me as heartless," her analysis of his strategy completed before it began.

"You have crumbs on your face," she said, sitting up and brushing imaginary food remnants from his cheek. "Good that you're ready. Let's go training."

She stood, not letting him get a word in.

"Yeah... training," he muttered confusedly, standing and trying to regain his usual confidence.

"Lucky he's young. It'll get harder later," Sumarel thought.

Breaking his game of love and feelings—the best way to truly make him fall for her. With people like this, the optimal strategy was not letting them win, depriving them of control and solid ground. It worked easily with Alpha, but she understood—the older and more experienced her "targets" became, the more sophisticated she'd need to be.

"So what happened there?" he asked as soon as they left the cell.

"Water," Sumarel answered curtly.

"Water? What water?"

"Wet."

"Ice Queen, I'm serious!"

"So am I. Very wet water."

"Are you mocking me?"

"Does this look like mockery?" she looked at him with innocent surprise.

"Yes! I mean... Look, just tell me normally!"

"You fall in water. You wait. You survive or not. That's it."

"That's it? Seriously?"

"What did you expect? Dancing with tambourines?"

"But... why didn't the others return?"

"Apparently they couldn't wait."

Alpha opened his mouth to ask another question but thought better of it. Getting information from her was like squeezing water from a stone.

"Something new today?" she asked, noticing they weren't taking the usual route.

"Yeah, while you were... absent, orders came. Our whole group has to report to a special hall."

The doors swung open, revealing a spacious room in traditional dojo style. Polished wooden floors reflected the light of oil lamps hung along the walls. But the space's dominant feature was the massive statue at the far end.

A warrior figure at full height, carved from a single piece of white marble. But most remarkable was the blindfold—also marble, yet so masterfully executed it seemed made of real fabric. And through this stone cloth somehow peered eyes. Not carved in stone, but seemingly alive, watching everyone who entered.

A sharp contrast to the usual training in random rooms or under open sky. Only their group had gathered here. And at the far end of the hall, beneath the statue's gaze, stood a man in a white blindfold. But that wasn't what made Sumarel internally tense.

The man was Etherii. Tall, in a suit, with characteristic bluish skin and ink-black eyes. Members of this race were famous for their natural predisposition to mental magic.

"Fuck," was the only thought that flashed through Sumarel's mind.