As I finally got back to my room, I thought about my step mother and her actively trying to essentially ruin my life.
If I failed the exams I would lose the favor of my father completely and would probably get disowned from the Darhk family.
That must have been her plan all along, I was ashamed to call her my mother. I wondered why someone would be so cruel to me for no reason, I was never mean to her as a child and always gave her the utmost respect.
'Anything to ruin me and win my fathers approval i guess' I thought.
I had to be careful of who I let into my life from then onward, I hated myself for letting Noelle get involved in this.
I was better off alone and I was given a constant reminder once again.
Apart from Michael and Satoshi, I had to keep my circle as small as possible, not because I was a bad person, but in order to protect them.
I was confident in my own abilities, but when it came to protecting others, I wasn't so sure.
'I should think about something else, going on about what's happened won't help anything' I thought to myself.
I know I told her that I would speak to her after the exams but for her own safety, I wouldn't.
She could still prove to be useful once in a while, she was an Everglade anyway and it wouldn't be bad to have some sort of connection to them.
But in order for her safety, keeping her at arm's length was the best option. She wouldn't understand if I tried to explain to her and if I chose not to, I was just being a bad person.
We'd gotten lucky this time and if something like this happened again, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to guarantee her safety.
I thought about my new found henchmen in the criminals I'd double crossed.
I now had eyes and ears in the underworld and the black market, I hadn't made contact with them yet but awaited a report from them after they spoke to my stepmother.
If I played my cards right, these guys could become an indispensable asset in my empire. Every business needed to carry out some dirty work sooner or later and if I could just leave it to them it would save me a lot of trouble.
As I kept thinking and planning, I was jolted back to life from my imaginations by a system panel popping up.
'That's weird, the system never used to pop up like this before except there was danger or it was a quest, but those only came around in the right situations. I'm just in my room doing nothing so what's this about?' I thought to myself.
[Yes] [No]
'Huh, a question? What was going on?' I thought. The system had never reacted this way before, as usual I decided to play along.
"Yes I approve." I said.
I wasn't entirely confused by the question, I was just shocked that the system would send me a question.
I could understand where it was coming from and it was right to an extent, but our reasonings weren't alike.
Killing them wouldn't solve anything, In fact it would cause me more problems. Disposing the bodies, wiping the crime scene, there was no way I would do it so perfectly that I wouldn't leave traces behind.
After contemplating on my answer for a short while, I finally decided to respond.
"System, there were a lot of reasons why killing the criminals at that point in time would be detrimental to me and I'll explain shortly. First of all, I was alone in all this, disposing of the bodies would have been a lot of trouble for me, I wouldn't want to get anyone else involved in my dirty work.
Also, at the time I didn't know who it was who sent the men after me. Now that I know it's not my step mother, I remember how cunning she can be.
If the men didn't get back to her after a certain time, she would get curious and start digging for information and it wouldn't take her a long time to find out that they were dead, information spreads like wildfire they say.
Now I'm just about to begin to make large investments in business, I wouldn't want to cause a scandal or a murder case for myself in the future.
And also, I am not a killer, I'm clear on that." I said.
I'd been speaking for a while and when I had finally spoken to my heart's content I stopped.
I was surprised that the system could ask me a question, it felt like it was evolving and so was I.
I'd grown exponentially since my regression and I wondered if I could upgrade the system someday.
However, I had to put all these thoughts behind me as I remembered the issue at hand.
My exams were only a few days away and I was very much behind on studying.
Using render, I could perfectly remember the exam questions and had them in my possession.
All I needed to do was to memorize the answers to the questions and I was good to go.
'Let's get to work' I thought.