Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 39- Above Average

A steady groove has been built up for the coming days. I didn't want to lose the groove, so I ended up working in a way that would later cause me to suffer from burnout. But I didn't regret it one bit.

Well, I wouldn't have until I met one such regret. That regret didn't solely come from me. It was more accurate to say that it was Emma's regret and I was having some side effects from using my ability with her.

Those side effects are more or less unpleasant to me, because I have to confront her conflicting emotions. Unwanted emotions that came up unexpectedly caused me no end to irritation.

I mean, I've lived through Emma's memories more than once, so I did notice more and forced my brain to operate outside of Emma's thoughts in the memories. That being the case I thought that these forceful feelings wouldn't come up. I had enough to deal with as is with my own emotions, but here we are having to deal with Emma's "shock" over a contestant she wasn't "aware" of being in the show.

Sigh.

Emma lacked a lot of emotions when she grew up and to be totally honest I was using her as a kind of measurement to indicate the line that I shouldn't cross. It was where most of my logical reasoning of killing people and dealing with killing them came from.

So how she thinks that she was in love or had a first love with her relatively naive and 'bored with the world' mentality, is beyond me.

But here I am.

At this very moment, I'm being fed some pretty messed up emotions and being sold the 'its love' sale's pitch with my whole being.

Damn it!

This was still only the fourth month, right? Why is everything being thrown at me like this? I had to survive eighteen more months and then some to complete my quest. My quest to survive should be somewhat easy, or at least I hoped it was. I wasn't Emma.

Even if Trina or the other people that had a problem with Emma came at me it would be at some lower level. Simply, because they wouldn't have much reason to hate me. I wasn't that involved in their lives. Trina may feel bitter about reading a novel and finding out that one of her perks was lost with my excess skin, she wouldn't be so focused on me. It would be weird if she was, because the perk had to have me sew in my disgusting mounds of rotting excess of skin into her face. Even if she skinned me alive now it wouldn't be enough and would cost her too much time to experiment.

Although, she did drink the blood of some pretty pregnant celebrities she killed after having affairs with their husbands, all so she might have a chance of gaining some kind of advantage perk from it. You know, like youth, beauty, immortality, a higher existence value, abilities and so on. I think she got that idea from Emma's situation...

So I don't see her killing me. I guess. Maybe she'd skin me alive and drink my blood. But if anything my mind automatically tells me that her antics of drinking blood in the web novel meant she'd be more easily persuaded to keep me alive for the chance of gaining abilities or my perks. It happened once, so there was a possibility with me. So I might be able to weasel my way out of it all and survive.

Not that I'd know what I'd do after convincing her to keep me alive, other than vaguely surviving. Even now I don't have a shot of winning this show, because no one will be watching me. Do I even have a chance of being reported missing? Will that uncle do anything? If he didn't then I think that no one will likely care or be aware that I even existed in the first place and even if they become aware of my existence via this show. What then? They'd probably just hate me like most of the people on this show.

"Ahem", the 16 year old boy in front of me coughed to regain my attention once more.

It worked. He got my attention and I incidentally forgot what I was thinking about. Something was telling me that was a good thing.

"Um... Hello?", was what I eventually coughed out of my slightly clogged throat.

"I'm sorry. I'm not looking to interrupt you to cause you trouble... It's just..."

"...just?"

"You won't know me, but I'm somewhat close- by chance- to the family that has been causing you trouble recently."

I didn't talk anymore to fill in the silence. Maybe my eyes looked cold or my reluctance to urge him on made him stop. But I was aware I'd become quieter.

At this moment If I was aware of the live stream viewers I'd be more careful around him, because they were more aware of how I happened to intrigue him with my behaviour. Even at this moment they felt strange that such a person was blatantly watching me with unhidden interest. The kind of interest one might expect from concerning scripts of 15 year olds.

The silence didn't continue for too long. He started introducing himself as himself, not just an unknown worried acquaintance of someone.

"I'm Harvey."

"I'm Aeon."

Silence once again came between us, but I could barely come to acknowledge it. Harvey had chuckled after a second of the relapse of silence. He seemed to be amused by me. Maybe it's due to Emma, but I felt like my heart skipped a beat. Although to be honest most people would probably love to be adored by someone who "appears" attractive or kind to them. It didn't help that I knew both from Emma's and the novel's accounts of events that Harvey doesn't like to excessively act like this.

Although it was pathetic of me to think this... Harvey was as he was described in the novel.

'Something in between a model man and an incubus. An existence she didn't know she wanted and he didn't know he should be jealous of. Harvey didn't act like others. He didn't need to. Anyone could fall in love with him like he was some sort of drug. He wasn't immensely good-looking, nor was his personality or abilities, in both senses of the word, incredible. Harvey's existence was above average on all fronts and the mere idea of someone above average seemed to come from him.'

Harvey was someone that made Trina befriend the cannon fodder who'd talk over Emma's dead body. In Trina's own exposed thoughts in the novel you could see how she was trying to match make people to play with them. It was easier for her to make them marry, pregnant and use them for her own desires that way. She was always picky, but she glossed over Harvey's existence even though she clearly had thought that he was desirable.