CHAPTER 98: ALL ACCORDING TO VICTORIA

"Well, will you look at that... Tristan Gale." Victoria laughed, her silver hair glinting like molten moonlight against the midnight sky, eyes gleaming crimson with predatory amusement.

"Overseer of the Fifth Division of the Hidden Hands, am I correct?" she continued, flicking her hair over her shoulder with theatrical flair, her voice honeyed with sarcasm.

In the original game, she was the very definition of a Mary Sue—beautiful, powerful, confident to a fault, and magnetic enough that even her enemies often ended up joining her side. A character everyone loved, feared, or wanted.

And within that vessel stood Suzuki—a lifelong introvert, a reader rather than a fighter. And yet, thanks to her encyclopedic memory of the novel, she had become the strongest force in this entire world.

The masked man—Tristan Gale—visibly flinched. His arcane barrier, which had protected him from the crimson blast just moments ago, now trembled. The glow around it dimmed ever so slightly.

"H-How do you know that?!" he snapped, his voice cracking with disbelief. His gloved hands gripped the deck of enchanted cards tight, knuckles paling.

Victoria smirked, raising a single finger to her lips.

"That’s a secret~," she sang mockingly, a cat playing with her food.

"You bastard, I’ll kill you!" Tristan roared, yanking a bishop card from his deck. The card’s edges pulsed with heat.

"Incineration!"

A fiery diagonal slash shot out, ricocheting off walls and tearing across the pavement like molten whips, each impact leaving glowing scorch marks in its wake.

But Victoria didn’t move. She simply extended her arm, her smile deepening.

"Time to test out this new skill I just unlocked," she announced, her voice brimming with excitement.

"Devour!"

From her arm surged a shadowy dragon, its serpentine body composed of pure darkness laced with streaks of violet. Its eyes shimmered like amethysts in a void.

The dragon opened its maw and devoured the flames whole. The bishop card Tristan had activated disintegrated the instant its magic was consumed. The dragon shrank back into Victoria’s palm and vanished as if it had never existed.

"God, I really am a Mary Sue..." Victoria muttered, watching the dragon finish its meal. "But it’s so fun."

Tristan froze.

"I need to retreat..." he muttered, fumbling in desperation. He snatched a horse card from his deck.

But Victoria was already ahead.

Her own bishop card glowed in her hand, light gathering like a miniature sun.

"Have a taste of your own medicine!" she yelled.

The magic pulsed. This blast was no copy—it was enhanced. Sharper. Deadlier.

"In—cinerate Max!"

This time, the flame surged forward not as a scattershot attack, but as a homing strike—curving, accelerating, chasing its prey with relentless intent.

Tristan panicked, dropping the horse card with shaking fingers. He fumbled for another—no, two—a rook and a king.

"Castle!" he barked.

In an instant, a towering wall erupted in front of him. It resembled stone, but its makeup was purely magical—defensive but fragile. The incinerating fire slammed into it, hissing like a beast denied its meal.

Behind the barrier, Tristan breathed raggedly, reaching for another card.

"This is my chance..." he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

He pulled another horse card, lifting it with trembling hands.

"Galloping Wi—!"

But the sentence was never finished.

The wall exploded into shrapnel and dust. Flaming rubble scattered like broken toys.

And standing in its wake—smiling with fierce satisfaction—was Victoria.

"Goodnight!" she declared, flicking her wrist sideways.

"Dominus Motum!"

A radiant rune appeared in the air—etched with ten intricate, overlapping inscriptions. The moment it activated, the space around Tristan bent.

The air itself rejected his footing. Reality twisted.

"T-Ten!?" Tristan’s eyes widened in horror. But before he could react, the spell seized him. His body jerked violently, flung like a ragdoll through the air.

He crashed into the side of a nearby building with a sickening crunch, vanishing into a rising cloud of dust and debris. For a moment, all was still—then a faint, broken groan emerged from the rubble, proof he was alive, if only just. As his body struck the wall, his shimmering barrier faltered... then shattered completely.

The crimson blast began to stir again.

But Victoria was already moving.

"Devour!" she shouted once more.

The draconic shadow erupted from her palm again, this time faster, more voracious. It lunged toward the floating Queen Card, its mouth wide open.

The dragon snapped its jaws shut with a final crunch, and the Queen Card winked out of existence like a dying star.

Smoke hung heavy in the air. Chunks of glowing rubble smoldered on either side of the street. Glass crunched beneath her boots as Victoria stepped forward, her shadow stretching long in the dim light.

Silence pressed in—total, unnatural. The kind that follows a god’s judgment.

Victoria exhaled slowly.

"Didn’t expect the Hidden Hands to show up so early," she murmured, eyes narrowing. "In the novel, they weren’t supposed to act until three days after the Trial of Pairs arc..."

That discrepancy nagged at her—more than it should have. Was it just the butterfly effect of her presence here? Or something more deliberate? Another player? An unexpected trigger?

She didn’t like not knowing. She had planned for every possible route. This wasn’t one of them.

And if one thread had already unraveled, how many others had quietly snapped without her noticing? This world was no longer following its original blueprint.

Marcus wouldn’t know—he barely remembered half the lore. To him, this world was a half-faded memory of a childhood game.

But Suzuki—Victoria—had devoured the source material. Page by page. Chapter by Chapter. She remembered every name, every side story, every foreshadowed plot twist.

She was the classic transmigrated protagonist—the over-prepared, overpowered variable the story never accounted for.

And then, she turned her gaze back toward the street... and paused.

A necrotic wall—veined with electrical current—still flickered weakly.

Behind it, she saw a girl trembling with exhaustion.

A bloodied swordswoman on her knees.

And then—him.

Marcus.

Her eyes widened, recognition dawning.

"Huh...? Marcus?" she whispered, stunned.