Chapter 168: Chapter-168

“No, YOU’RE missing the point.” Elara’s voice stayed level, but something cold entered it. “You gave me a new life. Fine. I didn’t ask for it, but I’m using it. You want me to ’live like a normal human’? I’m not normal. I will never BE normal. I don’t process emotions. I don’t form attachments the way you apparently expect. I analyze, I calculate, I optimize. That’s how I survived twenty-nine years in a cutthroat industry. That’s how I’m surviving palace politics in a world where my own sisters want me dead. And you’re complaining that I’m not doing it with enough ’feelings’?”

“’I’m complaining that you’re acting like a MONK!’” The voice rose. “’You don’t eat unless someone forces you. You don’t sleep unless you collapse. You work yourself to exhaustion and then keep working. You treat your own body like it’s expendable equipment instead of the GIFT I GAVE YOU!’”

“It IS expendable equipment! Everything is!” Elara’s hands clenched. “This body, this life, this entire world—it’s all temporary. Entropy guarantees that. So yes, I use it efficiently while it lasts, but I don’t waste energy pretending it’s sacred or special or worth preserving beyond its utility function.”

“’And if you die?’”

“Then I die. What’s the issue?”

The white space went utterly silent.

When the voice spoke again, it was very quiet. Very controlled.

“’So. Do you want to die, or do you want to live?’”

Elara met the question head-on. “I have a counter-question. Who said I want to die?”

“’Your actions say it. Your complete disregard for—’”

“No.” Elara cut her off. “Disregard for self-preservation is not the same as desire for death. I don’t WANT to die. I simply don’t fear it enough to let that fear control my decisions. There’s a difference.”

“’Is there?’”

“Yes. If someone wants to kill me, I’ll fight back—because I have goals to accomplish and death would be inefficient. But I’m not going to waste time being AFRAID of death. Fear is useless. It impairs judgment. It makes people hesitate. I’ve seen what happens when people let fear drive their choices—they make mistakes, they fail, they die anyway but slower and more painfully.”

“’So you admit you don’t value your life.’”

“I didn’t say that.” Elara’s tone sharpened. “I value my life exactly as much as it’s worth—as a tool for accomplishing objectives. No more, no less. If you wanted me to treasure it like some precious gift, you should have given it to someone capable of that emotional response. You gave it to me instead. So you get efficiency, not gratitude.”

The silence stretched.

Elara waited, still examining her fingernails. The same way she’d wait through tense board meetings when investors were deciding whether to pull funding. Patient. Clinical. Unbothered by the emotional temperature of the room.

Finally, the voice spoke again—slower now, more thoughtful.

“’You really don’t understand what I’m asking, do you?’”

“Apparently not. Please clarify.”

“’I’m not asking you to feel things you can’t feel. I know you’re alexithymic. I know emotions are processed differently in your neural architecture.’” A pause. “’But even you must have SOME reason to keep existing. Some goal. Some purpose beyond just… functioning until you stop.’”

Elara considered this.

Did she?

In her first life, the answer had been clear: build the company. Prove she was more than a damaged orphan. Become indispensable so no one could abandon her. Simple motivations, even if she’d never felt them as ’emotions’.

In this life?

“I have several objectives,” she said finally. “Survive palace politics. Establish independent revenue streams. Prevent my sisters from killing me or destabilizing the empire. Advance magical research. Improve conditions for beast-clan populations. Standard strategic goals.”

“’And when you accomplish all of those?’”

“I’ll establish new objectives.”

“’And then?’”

“Additional objectives.”

“’Forever?’”

“Until I die. Yes. That’s how existence works. You set goals, accomplish them, set new goals. The cycle continues until termination. I don’t see the problem.”

The voice made a sound that might have been a sigh. Or possibly a laugh. Hard to tell.

“’You’re exhausting,’” it said. “’You know that?’”

“I’ve been told.”

“’I give you life, magic, political power, loyal knights, a chance to change an entire world’s social structure—and you treat it all like items on a checklist.’”

“Because that’s what they are.”

“’They’re GIFTS!’”

“They’re resources. Gifts imply emotional obligation and expectation of reciprocal sentiment. Resources simply exist to be utilized.”

Another pause.

“’What if I told you,’” the voice said carefully, “’that one of those ’resources’ genuinely cares whether you live or die? Not because of enchantment. Not because of duty. Just because.’”

Elara’s expression didn’t change. “I’d say that’s their operational error, not my responsibility.”

“’Even if watching you nearly die caused them significant distress?’”

“Distress is an inefficient emotional response. They should optimize their attachment patterns.”

“’ELARA.’”

“What?” Elara looked up at the white sky. “You’re asking me to care about whether other people care about me. That’s two levels of emotional processing I’m not equipped for. I can recognize THAT they care. I can factor that into my strategic calculations. But asking me to FEEL something about their feelings? That’s not how my brain works. You should know that. You’re supposedly the one who put me in this body.”

The voice was quiet for a long moment.

The white space seemed to breathe—not literally, but the quality of silence shifted, like the pause before a judge delivers a verdict.

“’Let me ask you something,’” the voice said, musical tone taking on an edge. “’Do you know what happens to people who treat life as disposable?’”

Elara’s expression remained neutral. “Statistically? They tend to die younger than those who don’t. Standard risk-assessment failure.”

“’Wrong.’” The word cracked through the space like a whip. “’I’m not talking about THEIR deaths. I’m talking about what comes AFTER.’”

“After death is beyond my data set. I died once, woke up here. Sample size of one isn’t statistically significant.”

“’Then let me expand your sample size.’”

The voice shifted—still musical, still feminine, but now carrying weight that made the white space feel suddenly smaller. Heavier. Like the air before a thunderstorm.

“’You think existence is just: born, live, die, repeat? Simple cycle? Efficient progression through incarnations?’” A laugh, but not amused anymore. “’Child, you have NO idea how wrong you are.’”

Elara tilted her head slightly. “Enlighten me.”

“’Oh, I will. But first—answer me honestly. In your first life, did you ever wonder what happened to Richard? Your mentor who murdered you?’”

The name landed without impact. Elara processed it clinically. “No. He was alive when I died. What he did afterward is irrelevant to my current objectives.”

“’Irrelevant,’” the voice repeated slowly. “’He KILLED you. Betrayed you. Used you for twelve years and then disposed of you like garbage. And you don’t even WONDER what justice looks like for that?’”

“Justice is a human construct designed to maintain social order. It doesn’t actually exist as a universal constant.”

“’Doesn’t it?’”

The white space rippled.

Elara felt the shift before she saw it—temperature dropping, the featureless void suddenly pressing in from all sides. The solid nothing beneath her feet began to feel less solid.

“’You want data?’” the voice asked quietly. “’You want evidence? Fine. Let me show you what happens when humans forget that life is SACRED.’”

The whiteness fractured.

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