Amateur VS Professional

"We have been waiting for you for a long time."

Walking into the room, Xiao Xun heard the voice coming from the end of a high-end wooden table, three people of different sizes who seemed to be cut from the same mold sat there.

The man who spoke looks about in his 30's, with a pail blond hair, straight nose and gray eyes, he could probably be a model in modern times.

Despite the painkillers, his legs were shaking from prolonged disuse as he approached the table. "Edmund La Mort is honored to meet his father, Edmund La Mort is honored to meet his mother." He bowed unsteadily.

"What about your sister? Don't you know how to pay respect?"

What respect? She's my younger sister! Even though Xiao Xun was complaining in his heart, he still smiled his adorable smile and gave a small bow, "Your eldest brother, The heir to the La Morte family, greets his little sister, untitled." The little girl sitting to her father's left twisted her mouth, looking at him with wide eyes for a second before covering her expression with an incredibly fake smile: "Brother! Your little sister was so worried to hear you were ill up until a few moments ago, how lucky you look perfectly well now!" 

'It's so creepy to hear a child speak such ambiguous words'

[Yeah, I don't understand how anyone could mistake her or you for a child.]

'People don't like to think anything is different from the patterns they know, even if I declared myself an evil time lord and started throwing thunderbolts at them, they would just assume they were hallucinating.'

[Who wouldn't?!]

'My point exactly.'

Without permission from his father, he sat at the other end of the table. 

It didn't really matter where he sat, since there was no plate for him anywhere.

"Your sister was worried about your well-being, so she made you a dish as usual. Remember to thank her."

A maid placed a suspicious-looking piece of raw fish in front of him; he could almost see the purple aura of death surrounding it.

[The fish was identified as eels. Uncooked eels must not be consumed as their blood is poisonous. The host is advised to avoid eating.]

Xiao Xun looked over and saw the rest of his family served. Even though they got the same fish, they clearly got a big, wonderfully cooked piece.

'How long do the painkillers last?'

[A month.]

Very well, he didn't pay 30,000 points for nothing!

He shoved the piece of uncooked eel into his mouth and held his stomach dramatically.

""Alas! My stomach!" Suddenly rolling forward and backward on the floor, Xiao Xun cried in pain while holding his belly.

[Alas? Really?]

'Shut up, you're bothering my acting.'

"Please! Put me out of my misery! Please!" He crawled over his father, trying to reach the dining knife he was holding.

One of the reasons to the clear favoritism of Edmund's parents is that, in line with his parents's guidance, Edmund was very afraid of showing weakness in public. Even if he'd scream in pain in his room, he would never try to act cute or fragile in front of them. That's why his 'little sister', Elisha, who grew up in this environment, could win their favor so quickly.

Xiao Xun could follow Elisha's steps, trying to be an adorable little kid and, step by step, winning them over. But unfortunately, what has been done once will always be weaker the second time.

He will always be secondary to Elisha.

Instead, he gave them a shock—an actual danger to his life—before their eyes might make them reset.

And if not? Well, who said he had to stay in the mansion and wait to die? He can always be a really, really sad orphan, can't he?

He snatched the knife from his father's limp hand and thrust it determinedly deep into his stomach. 

Even with a full-level painkiller, the feeling of the blood draining from his body in such quantities was not very pleasant.

His vision quickly went black while seeing his father kneeling in front of him.

He tried to say a dramatic last sentence but unfortunately, he could only spit blood.

****************************************

"Are you insane? Who gives someone uncooked eel?" After Edmund was out of danger the doctor scolded the family members who stood on the side of the room.

More than that, who doesn't call a doctor when their child is crying in pain, and more than that, in a litteral coma?

The old doctor recognized that he had been poisoned in small amounts over a long time. He would be lucky if he'd survived this, but his constitution will always be weak.

"I- I didn't mean to- mom!" Elisha covered her face in her mother's embrace, who, in her turn, gave the doctor a menacing look. "Could you watch your language around children? What if Edmund doesn't make it and my little daughter would blame herself for the rest of her life? Consider others's feelings for a bit!"

The doctor was shocked by this one-sidedness, even more shocked to find the old butler nodding in agreement.

Elisha was the only one who brought light to this dark mansion. Her cheerful figure when she bakes with simple servants in the kitchen or the lifeful joy she shows when she succeeds in a test intended for children three years older than her.

The young lady was perfect in every way, both friendly and respectful. No one wanted to see her light extinguished by a death she did not intend.

No one, not the parents or the servants, stopped for a moment to wonder why only Edmund's eel was served uncooked.

Xiao Xun was out for one day and night.

When he opened his eyes, he could see the faint sunlight reflecting off the ceiling.

The ceiling, like the rest of the room, was devoid of decorations that were popular at the time. 

The only unnecessary item in the entire room was a second bed, a monument to the days when Edmund shared the room with his original sister.

About a month after the player took over the original owner's sister's body, the duke declared that "a girl should sleep in a room suitable for a girl!"

From that moment forward, Elisha lives in the most luxurious room in the house, decorated with so much rose gold that it almost seems to be painted with it.

Xiao Xun looked around the room, astonished. "Seriously? Even when their 7-year-old son stuck a knife in his belly they didn't even bother to leave a servant to watch over him? To make sure, I don't know, he won't die?"

[According to the conversation when you were out, your little sister accidentally fell down the stairs. The servants were too worried about her to leave her alone.]

It's too much, a little too too much.

He asked a question he just assumed its answer up until this moment: "System, the one that was transferred to Elisha's body - she's from the world where the game was developed, right?"

[Unknown.]

He always presumed, based on the so much power that the mysterious transferred girl got so fast, that she knew the plot from the game. The classic user-transferred-to-his-favorite-game kind of cliche.

But... What if she was from other world then what he thought? What if she was a magician or hypnotist or any kind of unknown power?

Too risky, way too risky.

The fact he was already dead didn't mean that the worlds were harmless. He had already heard of quite a few cases where one of the workers was sealed in the mission world for several hundred years, or abused to death (he ignored the fact that he had done this to others quite a few times).

"System, What percentage of success do I need to maintain my position?" Although if he failed to complete a task according to the contract he would not be punished, but Xiao Xun doubted that he would be allowed to fail again and again without any kind of response from bureau.

[Ahhh... I'll figure it out. This contract is just so long, and there's this part in ancient runes...]

Xiao Xun took a deep breath. "You. Didn't. Read. The. Contract. Before. Letting. Me. Sign?"

[You didn't read before you signed!]

"Because you're supposed to read it! It's your goddamn job as my system!"

[I have a life, okey? There is this really cute second female protagonist system that was really impressed by this promotiom...]

"You let me sign some shady job offer that came out of nowhere, by the way, so you could put this in your freaking dating resume?!"

[I will figure it out; just stay calm. You're opening your wound again.]

Edmund's immature face was reddened with anger during this conversation, and the white silk shirt he was wearing was stained with more and more blood.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, still ignoring his stabbing wound. 

When he re-opened his gray eyes, they were as peaceful as before.

"System, what is the points-to-world currency ratio in this mission?"

[1 to 10,000]

"Perfect, let's leave."