Utopian System

"And how do you plan to stop me?" Zala laughed, but there was a touch of frustration in her voice. "This is my body now."

'For now.'

Zala tried to take a step again, but her leg refused to move. A growl of frustration escaped her lips.

"This is ridiculous!" she punched the wall with her fist. "LET ME END THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

'Not while I exist.'

"You're just residual consciousness, you don't exist anymore!" Zala began fighting for control, her erratic movements betraying her frustration. "You should have vanished already!"

'And yet,' Zara's voice was soft but relentless, 'here I am.'

Zala slumped against the wall, laughing without humor. "This body... is perfect for me... but a little girl is winning control from..."

The two consciousnesses remained silent, at a deadlock of opposing wills.

"This isn't over," Zala finally muttered.

'For the first time we agree on something.'

♢♢♢♢

Five days without water...

Elio's lips were cracked, his throat so dry that each breath was like swallowing sand. His muscles burned from the latest of constant attempts to break free.

The black shackles mocked him. No matter how much force he applied, no matter that his muscles tore again and again under superhuman effort, the armor regenerated them just so he could try again, an endless cycle of pain and frustration.

He had tried everything. Even attempting to tear off his own hand... but he couldn't, the shackles seemed to adjust perfectly no matter what. It was as if the black metal was alive, responding to every escape attempt.

His book floated before him, a constant taunt. Closed, inaccessible. He had only managed to glimpse Zala's statistics through the crystal when she was present.

But if he could open the book, if he could summon Emberg or his scorpion... would they be capable of cutting off his arm?

Thirst clouded his thoughts, making each idea seem simultaneously brilliant and stupid.

The sound of footsteps alerted him. Zala entered the chamber, her face contorted in a mask of frustration. Without a word, she made a sharp gesture.

The shackles dissolved like smoke.

Elio wasted no time. His fingers traced patterns in the air, generating water. The first swallow was like liquid life flowing down his throat.

He allowed himself no more. With a roar, he channeled all his power into an attack. The combination of elements he had perfected manifested in an explosion of pure energy.

Zala didn't even blink. The attack dissipated against her aura like a wave against a mountain.

"Statue," she said simply, her voice mixing boredom and something else.

Elio moved by instinct. If he could reach his book and enter the next challenge...

His fingers were centimeters away when the black metal came alive. It coiled around his limbs like living serpents, dragging him back to the wall with brutal force.

"DAMN GIRL!" Zala's roar made the walls tremble. "HOW DID YOU DO IT?!"

Elio blinked, understanding. It hadn't been Zala who freed him. It had been Zara, seizing some moment of control.

The realization that he had wasted his escape opportunity drinking a swallow of water fell on him like lead. If he had ignored his thirst, if he had gone straight for the book...

Zala approached, her face a mask of fury. Her hands rose to form a dagger of black metal, but trembled and stopped. She tried to manipulate the oxygen around his head, but her fingers refused to complete the pattern.

"LET ME KILL HIM!" she screamed into the air, her voice mixing rage and frustration. "The idiot is going to kill himself entering his book without a potion and we'll have to start everything from 0 looking for the new Von! I don't want to wait the full 1000 years!"

Elio watched, fascinated despite his situation, as Zala tried method after method to end his life... each attempt stopping halfway.

"This is ridiculous," she finally muttered, running a hand over her face.

But her hands kept trembling, unable to execute the final blow. Zara's body, even possessed by a being of almost divine power, absolutely refused to harm Elio.

♢♢♢♢

Boredom was Zala's most dangerous enemy.

After her long existence, moments of tedium were when her control weakened. And in those moments, Zara emerged.

"It makes no sense," Zala muttered, studying her own hands. "Your mind should be corrupted, fragmented... Why are you still so... intact?"

She rose abruptly. "It doesn't matter. I'll go see what your little friends are doing. Surely the idiots are already trying to reach level 20 again. Some might even want to try for 21 and steal the Von title..."

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "As if they could. First they need to control the second ring's deposits if they want to reach 21. And with double the monsters at that level..." She spun Elio's sword between her fingers. "Without this, they would need an astronomical mana investment to form a decent team that could reach the third ring."

Her eyes gleamed with a sudden idea. "Although... maybe someone will manage it in a few months. And if I can't kill Elio..." A cruel smile formed on her lips. "I can always wait for another to take the Von title. One this body won't have problems eliminating."

She headed toward the exit, but her legs stopped dead.

"Oh, come on!" she growled in frustration. "REALLY?! What does this have to do with your boyfriend?!"

The resistance in her muscles was unequivocal.

"FINE!" she roared, turning back toward where Elio remained chained. "If you're so worried about leaving him alone, I'll free him to enter the damn book! But know that I won't give him the sword! If he dies in there it'll be his problem, not mine!"

Zala locked the sword in a black metal box in another room and headed to the chamber.

♢♢♢♢

The black shackles dissolved once more, and Elio fell to his feet, his muscles protesting from the still insistent escape attempts. His book floated nearby, calling to him, but before he could reach it...

"Wait," the voice that came from Zala's lips was different, softer, more familiar. "The book is too dangerous without your sword."

Elio froze. That voice... sounded exactly like Zara. The cadence, the concern in the tone, everything was her.

"The statue," the voice continued. "Maybe it would be good to see the statue first."

His eyes moved between the book and the statue while his mind worked frantically. Was it really Zara? Or another of Zala's tricks?

"Elio," the voice insisted, and there was something in the way she pronounced his name that made his heart clench. "Trust me. The book without your sword... is suicide."

It was true. Without his sword, without his main weapon, a potion, and his magical power reduced, entering the book would be extremely dangerous. His current power was severely limited.

But trust?

"Please," the voice broke slightly, and that small moment of vulnerability was what finally convinced him. Zala could never imitate that feeling in Zara's voice.

Slowly, deliberately, Elio turned toward the statue. Each step was a conscious decision, each movement a declaration of faith.

'I trust you, Zara,' he thought as he extended his hand toward the stone figure. 'I always have.'

His fingers approached the statue's surface.