“What’s wrong?”
“Phew… forget it. Giving a large amount of monster power to me is like giving pearls to swine.”
“Hmm? No. You seem to be improving your control over the monster power, so your power level will rise soon.”
“Hmpf!”
Merlin tried to belatedly give an explanation, but Miho stomped her feet on the ground, turned, and walked away. Though she seemed angry, Merlin shot towards her.
“Ack! Damn it! Too cute!”
“Ack? Ack! Let me go!!”
Merlin bear-hugged Miho as they rolled on the ground. Of course, Miho fought tooth-and-nail to escape Merlin’s grasp, but his strength was beyond that of a normal human’s. Merlin could easily play-wrestle a gorilla or rip off a raging bull’s head with his bare hands, so unless Miho used her monster magic powers, she wouldn’t be able to escape. Fortunately, Merlin had full control over his strength; if he didn’t, he would have crushed Miho.
“Stop!”
Crack.
Miho wasn’t a normal fox. Even among the foxes, she was known as an accomplished and talented monster magic power practitioner. When her golden eyes filled with a red hue, Merlin’s body was suddenly paralyzed. Miho was utilizing Magic Eye, a monster magic ability that disabled anyone who looked into the caster’s eyes.
“Heavy…”
Now that Merlin’s body was stiffened, Miho was able to push away and escape from his clutches. She made an exasperated expression.
“Ah, really! Why are you always ambushing me?”
Merlin was frozen in place with his arms around his torso in a hugging stance. Since he was staring at the ground, Miho used a telekinesis spell to flip him on his back.
Ting!
Miho then circulated her monster power and focused it on her eyes. Her gold-colored eyes soon became scarlet red.
“Don’t hug me. Don’t ambush me.”
She was giving an order. It was a powerful hypnosis type spell done through her Magic Eyes. Although it wouldn’t make the other being a puppet, it was powerful enough to root them in place. If her monster power had not been increased through the One-horned Fire Snake’s blood, Miho wouldn’t have been able to cast such a powerful spell.
“Also…”
Once a hypnosis spell was put in place, it was difficult to call back. Since this was the case, Miho decided to implement an order that she had already considered prior to their meeting.
“Y-you can brush my head. Only my head. You only want to pet my head…”
Miho used a considerable amount of monster power on the spell. Since Merlin was a mage and a martial artist, he had a high level of resistance power. Most mid-rank or above hypnosis spells would overcome his resistance and affect him; however, if the hypnosis forced him to do something that he was unwilling to do, Merlin’s current level of resistance power was enough to block external hypnosis attacks. Since Miho was using a considerable amount of monster power and was focusing on the task, it seemed that her hypnosis spell would take hold. However…
“Ack! Damn it! Too cute!”
“H-How did you… ack?!”
As Miho screamed bloody murder, Merlin clutched Miho once more and rolled on the ground with her. Miho’s hypnosis spell had no effect on Merlin. However, this was to be expected, not because Merlin was great, but because Merlin was a user.
All the users in DIO, not just Merlin, were protected by a psychological magic system that was widely known in the universe as the pinnacle of psychological defense systems, the Marduk System. The system was so robust that Miho’s simple spell had no chance of breaking through it.
The developers and administrators of DIO had implemented the Marduk System so that users wouldn’t have their psyches stolen by transcendent beings. The only beings able to bypass the system with a spell were gods. Thus, any lesser being wouldn’t be able to break through the Marduk System. Even if Merlin was bedridden and unmoving for an entire year, no person or thing would be able to hijack his mind. Even if Heavenly Flower tried something in earnest, she would fail; thus Miho, a six-tailed fox, had no chance of breaking through.
“Stop!”
Crack.
However, once Miho screamed out, Merlin’s body stiffened up again. It was the same Magic Eye ability that she had used earlier. Though users were gifted with a seemingly unbreakable psyche protection system, every other aspect of their mind wasn’t protected with such insurmountable resistance. Even the ‘developers’, who had designed and created the users’ physical bodies, thought that the implementation of the Marduk System on the users’ entire minds was overkill.
“Phew. What the hell is going on? My hypnosis spell isn’t working at all. But his body is fully paralyzed, it doesn’t seem like he resisted my spell…”
Just to make sure, Miho kept her eyes on Merlin to maintain the effects of the paralysis. Merlin was unable to resist. The forced hypnosis was easily deflected because he was a user, but with just his abilities and skills, Merlin couldn’t resist Miho’s Magic Eye.
Ting.
However, at that moment, something unexpected happened. Merlin’s black pupils started changing color. As if ink was dropped onto a piece of paper, Merlin’s eyes turned a deep shade of red. Soon, Miho felt a sensation that she was all too familiar with.
“T-this can’t be. No way.”
Before she could fully voice her disbelief, Miho’s body became rigid. Then, Merlin spoke.
“Imbuing one’s eyes with magic power instead of internal energy… interesting. Based on whether magic power or internal energy goes into the eye, the whole mechanism of the eye changes. Enhanced Eyesight is focused on receiving, taking light in and making one’s vision sharper, but this form of eye seems to be more about sending something out, right?”
/You have acquired the Magic Eye skill!/
Circulating his magic power, Merlin started imbuing magic power into every part of his eye. He had learned all about the human pupil in high school through textbooks and instructions, which allowed him to infuse his pupils with internal energy to get Enhanced Eyesight; therefore, Merlin was taking the same approach, but this time around, imbuing his pupils with magic power. Thus, he easily acquired the Magic Eye skill.
“Ugh… ah!”
“Hmm, it was undone…? Ah… I guess this is like a computer program. If one can understand the structure of the program, one can undo the effects of the program.”
“How do you know how to use the Red Monster’s Magic Eye…”
“Wait, wait. Can you make my body rigid once more?”
Miho was about to scream in frustration, but Merlin’s eyes were already glowing red. If she wasn’t careful about resisting, she’d fall under his spell once more. Moreover, Miho was different from Merlin in that she didn’t have the Marduk System to protect her psyche, so she might fall into real danger. Miho would have been safer if Merlin was a practiced Magic Eye user, but Merlin was just in a beginner phase, so his magic power was unevenly being shot out from his eyes.
Ting!
Miho’s eyes started to shine, and soon, both of their bodies became rigid. It was a battle of magic ability with a single spell. Since this wasn’t a physical battle, any onlooker would have seen two beings staring intently at each other.
“My skill rank is increasing like crazy, probably because it’s just the beginning. I’ll probably get to rank five in no time.”
Surprisingly, the winner of the battle was Merlin. Like a hacker or code cracker, he took apart the working process of the Magic Eye, understood how everything worked, and then dismantled the spell by scattering Miho’s monster power, the source of her Magic Eye. The result of his win was that he was now able to freely move his body while Miho was still frozen solid.
“You… how?”
“How did I release myself from your spell? This skill, oh yes, Magic Eye… anyway, in terms of using the mechanics of Magic Eye, I’m at a much higher rank. If you used Magic Eye on any other being, or some other form of psychological attack, you would have succeeded, as you’re probably more practiced in the process.”
“My rank is higher… but I lost to you?”
“Yeah. Magic Eyes specializes in sending out a specific type of power, but you focus too much on the amount of power being sent out. If you set a few traps here and there in the path of your Magic Eye, I would have had a tougher time reaching the source, which is you. That’s why you lost.”
“That…”
Miho was so surprised by Merlin’s explanation that she couldn’t finish her thought. Among the monsters, those who could use the Magic Eye were very few. Thus, other than her master Red Monster, Miho had not had any occasion to battle with another being with Magic Eye. Even so, she had been practicing and training in Magic Eye for a while. How did she lose to a human being who had just picked it up? She had been born with the properties that made her an excellent practitioner of the Magic Eye… did it make sense that she lost to such a newcomer?
“Ack!”
“Hmm? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, my time’s up. Dang, I didn’t think twelve days had already passed. Why is time flying so fast?”
“…?”
Merlin mumbled a bunch of words that Miho couldn’t understand, and along with a chiming sound, a clock materialized in front of him. He saw that he had been logged into DIO for twelve DIO days. According to the twelve times acceleration that DIO had, twelve DIO days meant that Merlin had spent twenty-four hours in real life. The game’s automatic forced logout rule would soon be enforced.
“Hey, I’m going to go somewhere for a moment. It might take a while, but I’ll be back in about four days.”
“Going somewhere suddenly? What’s going on?”
“I’m out of groceries…”
DIO’s grand opening was already half a month ago. He was living an enriched and interesting in-game life, but his real life was falling into shambles. His store of rice had already become completely empty three days ago, and his other foodstuffs were nearly all gone. Since he only consumed without replenishing his supplies of food, this scenario was inevitable.
/You are in the process of logging out. You will be immobile for 25 seconds. You are open to attack from enemies, so please log off in a safe area. If you are in an unsafe area, cancel the log off and take appropriate actions. 25, 24, 23…/
A round cylindrical light fell on Merlin. Though the light was only something that users could normally see, monsters that were sensitive to spiritual energy could sense the light’s presence.
“What… is this? Something is around you…”
“Remember, I won’t be back for at least three days. I’ll be leaving the island as soon as I get back, so don’t wait for me.”
“Huh? No, wait…”
Poof!
At that moment, Merlin suddenly vanished. Once the logout countdown reached zero, a user vanished with a certain level of invulnerability. Of course, an extremely forceful strike could potentially still bypass this.
“He’s… gone? It’s not a teleportation spell, the dimensional stability levels are too stable… he really just disappeared without a trace…”
After seeing something so unbelievable and unexplainable, Miho tried to make sense of it. Merlin didn’t fly off somewhere, he had just vanished without leaving any trace. This went beyond any magic spell. An Absolute-level spell, like Complete Annihilation, might come close, but a human being doing such an unspeakable spell didn’t make sense.
“It’s surprising, no?”
“Ms. Heavenly Flower?”
While Miho was confused, Heavenly Flower had moved to her side. Heavenly Flower’s eyes were narrowed and sharp; it was the same kind of eyes that she had when she fought against the One-horned Fire Snake.
“I was surprised when I first saw it as well, because that level of spell didn’t match that guy’s power level.”
“Do you know what type of spell he used?”
“No.”
It was a firm no. Since Heavenly Flower was the most accomplished monster magic practitioner amongst the monsters, her answer was surprising.
“If I recall correctly, that guy first made his appearance in the Phantom Monster Magic Islands when he landed on the northern island, Blue Forest Island. He landed there even though the Phantom Monster Magic Islands’ main island was set at the most northern part… Miho, where do you think that guy came from?”
“Uhm, from the main continent, no? There are a lot of humans there.”
It was an obvious answer. It was common knowledge that monsters resided in the northern islands while humans lived on the main continent. However, Heavenly Flower shook her head.
“I thought that as well, but that guy didn’t even know that humans resided on the main continent. Moreover, he knows nothing about us monsters. Since we have constant contact with the humans on the main continent, it doesn’t make sense that he knows nothing about us.”
Since Merlin wasn’t very careful with what he said, Heavenly Flower was able to tease out a tremendous amount of information regarding Merlin’s worldview from his every word. Based on her assessment, Merlin was a different type of human compared to those on the main continent. Every main continent human had an [Affiliation] and some basic knowledge of this ‘world’, but Merlin didn’t possess any of those things. If he had been in closed door training all his life, Heavenly Flower may have accepted why he was so different from other humans, but Merlin liked to move around, so much so that it was hard to make him stay in place for any set period of time.
“Then what does Miss think? Outside of the main continent, there’s no other place where humans reside.”
“Not exactly. There might be a place that we don’t know of.”
“Somewhere we don’t know?”
“Yeah. If he crossed over from the Sea of Chaos in the north, then it might make sense.”
Hearing Heavenly Flower’s words, Miho’s eyes grew wide.
“But that’s the end of the world.”
“No one truly knows that. The only information we have about the Sea of Chaos is that it’s a dangerous area. Outside of that, we don’t have any other concrete information. We call it the end of the world because we’re unable to cross it. There might be a larger world beyond the Sea of Chaos.”
It was incredible that Heavenly Flower had thought so far. Her ability to think this far proved that she had somewhat overcome the limitations that were placed on the monsters and NPCs below the Noisy Belt. She had reached a state of Awakening. Other monsters wouldn’t even have thought of coming up with such conjectures.
“Then, what will you do?”
“I could ask Merlin all the questions I have… but I don’t feel like doing that. Utilizing everything that I have, I’m planning to cross the Sea of Chaos…”
It was incredible how Heavenly Flower was able to free herself from the restrictions and limitations of the system. Her mental powers and wisdom were tremendous. However, she had taken things a step too far…
“What’s wrong?”
“Phew… forget it. Giving a large amount of monster power to me is like giving pearls to swine.”
“Hmm? No. You seem to be improving your control over the monster power, so your power level will rise soon.”
“Hmpf!”
Merlin tried to belatedly give an explanation, but Miho stomped her feet on the ground, turned, and walked away. Though she seemed angry, Merlin shot towards her.
“Ack! Damn it! Too cute!”
“Ack? Ack! Let me go!!”
Merlin bear-hugged Miho as they rolled on the ground. Of course, Miho fought tooth-and-nail to escape Merlin’s grasp, but his strength was beyond that of a normal human’s. Merlin could easily play-wrestle a gorilla or rip off a raging bull’s head with his bare hands, so unless Miho used her monster magic powers, she wouldn’t be able to escape. Fortunately, Merlin had full control over his strength; if he didn’t, he would have crushed Miho.
“Stop!”
Crack.
Miho wasn’t a normal fox. Even among the foxes, she was known as an accomplished and talented monster magic power practitioner. When her golden eyes filled with a red hue, Merlin’s body was suddenly paralyzed. Miho was utilizing Magic Eye, a monster magic ability that disabled anyone who looked into the caster’s eyes.
“Heavy…”
Now that Merlin’s body was stiffened, Miho was able to push away and escape from his clutches. She made an exasperated expression.
“Ah, really! Why are you always ambushing me?”
Merlin was frozen in place with his arms around his torso in a hugging stance. Since he was staring at the ground, Miho used a telekinesis spell to flip him on his back.
Ting!
Miho then circulated her monster power and focused it on her eyes. Her gold-colored eyes soon became scarlet red.
“Don’t hug me. Don’t ambush me.”
She was giving an order. It was a powerful hypnosis type spell done through her Magic Eyes. Although it wouldn’t make the other being a puppet, it was powerful enough to root them in place. If her monster power had not been increased through the One-horned Fire Snake’s blood, Miho wouldn’t have been able to cast such a powerful spell.
“Also…”
Once a hypnosis spell was put in place, it was difficult to call back. Since this was the case, Miho decided to implement an order that she had already considered prior to their meeting.
“Y-you can brush my head. Only my head. You only want to pet my head…”
Miho used a considerable amount of monster power on the spell. Since Merlin was a mage and a martial artist, he had a high level of resistance power. Most mid-rank or above hypnosis spells would overcome his resistance and affect him; however, if the hypnosis forced him to do something that he was unwilling to do, Merlin’s current level of resistance power was enough to block external hypnosis attacks. Since Miho was using a considerable amount of monster power and was focusing on the task, it seemed that her hypnosis spell would take hold. However…
“Ack! Damn it! Too cute!”
“H-How did you… ack?!”
As Miho screamed bloody murder, Merlin clutched Miho once more and rolled on the ground with her. Miho’s hypnosis spell had no effect on Merlin. However, this was to be expected, not because Merlin was great, but because Merlin was a user.
All the users in DIO, not just Merlin, were protected by a psychological magic system that was widely known in the universe as the pinnacle of psychological defense systems, the Marduk System. The system was so robust that Miho’s simple spell had no chance of breaking through it.
The developers and administrators of DIO had implemented the Marduk System so that users wouldn’t have their psyches stolen by transcendent beings. The only beings able to bypass the system with a spell were gods. Thus, any lesser being wouldn’t be able to break through the Marduk System. Even if Merlin was bedridden and unmoving for an entire year, no person or thing would be able to hijack his mind. Even if Heavenly Flower tried something in earnest, she would fail; thus Miho, a six-tailed fox, had no chance of breaking through.
“Stop!”
Crack.
However, once Miho screamed out, Merlin’s body stiffened up again. It was the same Magic Eye ability that she had used earlier. Though users were gifted with a seemingly unbreakable psyche protection system, every other aspect of their mind wasn’t protected with such insurmountable resistance. Even the ‘developers’, who had designed and created the users’ physical bodies, thought that the implementation of the Marduk System on the users’ entire minds was overkill.
“Phew. What the hell is going on? My hypnosis spell isn’t working at all. But his body is fully paralyzed, it doesn’t seem like he resisted my spell…”
Just to make sure, Miho kept her eyes on Merlin to maintain the effects of the paralysis. Merlin was unable to resist. The forced hypnosis was easily deflected because he was a user, but with just his abilities and skills, Merlin couldn’t resist Miho’s Magic Eye.
Ting.
However, at that moment, something unexpected happened. Merlin’s black pupils started changing color. As if ink was dropped onto a piece of paper, Merlin’s eyes turned a deep shade of red. Soon, Miho felt a sensation that she was all too familiar with.
“T-this can’t be. No way.”
Before she could fully voice her disbelief, Miho’s body became rigid. Then, Merlin spoke.
“Imbuing one’s eyes with magic power instead of internal energy… interesting. Based on whether magic power or internal energy goes into the eye, the whole mechanism of the eye changes. Enhanced Eyesight is focused on receiving, taking light in and making one’s vision sharper, but this form of eye seems to be more about sending something out, right?”
/You have acquired the Magic Eye skill!/
Circulating his magic power, Merlin started imbuing magic power into every part of his eye. He had learned all about the human pupil in high school through textbooks and instructions, which allowed him to infuse his pupils with internal energy to get Enhanced Eyesight; therefore, Merlin was taking the same approach, but this time around, imbuing his pupils with magic power. Thus, he easily acquired the Magic Eye skill.
“Ugh… ah!”
“Hmm, it was undone…? Ah… I guess this is like a computer program. If one can understand the structure of the program, one can undo the effects of the program.”
“How do you know how to use the Red Monster’s Magic Eye…”
“Wait, wait. Can you make my body rigid once more?”
Miho was about to scream in frustration, but Merlin’s eyes were already glowing red. If she wasn’t careful about resisting, she’d fall under his spell once more. Moreover, Miho was different from Merlin in that she didn’t have the Marduk System to protect her psyche, so she might fall into real danger. Miho would have been safer if Merlin was a practiced Magic Eye user, but Merlin was just in a beginner phase, so his magic power was unevenly being shot out from his eyes.
Ting!
Miho’s eyes started to shine, and soon, both of their bodies became rigid. It was a battle of magic ability with a single spell. Since this wasn’t a physical battle, any onlooker would have seen two beings staring intently at each other.
“My skill rank is increasing like crazy, probably because it’s just the beginning. I’ll probably get to rank five in no time.”
Surprisingly, the winner of the battle was Merlin. Like a hacker or code cracker, he took apart the working process of the Magic Eye, understood how everything worked, and then dismantled the spell by scattering Miho’s monster power, the source of her Magic Eye. The result of his win was that he was now able to freely move his body while Miho was still frozen solid.
“You… how?”
“How did I release myself from your spell? This skill, oh yes, Magic Eye… anyway, in terms of using the mechanics of Magic Eye, I’m at a much higher rank. If you used Magic Eye on any other being, or some other form of psychological attack, you would have succeeded, as you’re probably more practiced in the process.”
“My rank is higher… but I lost to you?”
“Yeah. Magic Eyes specializes in sending out a specific type of power, but you focus too much on the amount of power being sent out. If you set a few traps here and there in the path of your Magic Eye, I would have had a tougher time reaching the source, which is you. That’s why you lost.”
“That…”
Miho was so surprised by Merlin’s explanation that she couldn’t finish her thought. Among the monsters, those who could use the Magic Eye were very few. Thus, other than her master Red Monster, Miho had not had any occasion to battle with another being with Magic Eye. Even so, she had been practicing and training in Magic Eye for a while. How did she lose to a human being who had just picked it up? She had been born with the properties that made her an excellent practitioner of the Magic Eye… did it make sense that she lost to such a newcomer?
“Ack!”
“Hmm? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, my time’s up. Dang, I didn’t think twelve days had already passed. Why is time flying so fast?”
“…?”
Merlin mumbled a bunch of words that Miho couldn’t understand, and along with a chiming sound, a clock materialized in front of him. He saw that he had been logged into DIO for twelve DIO days. According to the twelve times acceleration that DIO had, twelve DIO days meant that Merlin had spent twenty-four hours in real life. The game’s automatic forced logout rule would soon be enforced.
“Hey, I’m going to go somewhere for a moment. It might take a while, but I’ll be back in about four days.”
“Going somewhere suddenly? What’s going on?”
“I’m out of groceries…”
DIO’s grand opening was already half a month ago. He was living an enriched and interesting in-game life, but his real life was falling into shambles. His store of rice had already become completely empty three days ago, and his other foodstuffs were nearly all gone. Since he only consumed without replenishing his supplies of food, this scenario was inevitable.
/You are in the process of logging out. You will be immobile for 25 seconds. You are open to attack from enemies, so please log off in a safe area. If you are in an unsafe area, cancel the log off and take appropriate actions. 25, 24, 23…/
A round cylindrical light fell on Merlin. Though the light was only something that users could normally see, monsters that were sensitive to spiritual energy could sense the light’s presence.
“What… is this? Something is around you…”
“Remember, I won’t be back for at least three days. I’ll be leaving the island as soon as I get back, so don’t wait for me.”
“Huh? No, wait…”
Poof!
At that moment, Merlin suddenly vanished. Once the logout countdown reached zero, a user vanished with a certain level of invulnerability. Of course, an extremely forceful strike could potentially still bypass this.
“He’s… gone? It’s not a teleportation spell, the dimensional stability levels are too stable… he really just disappeared without a trace…”
After seeing something so unbelievable and unexplainable, Miho tried to make sense of it. Merlin didn’t fly off somewhere, he had just vanished without leaving any trace. This went beyond any magic spell. An Absolute-level spell, like Complete Annihilation, might come close, but a human being doing such an unspeakable spell didn’t make sense.
“It’s surprising, no?”
“Ms. Heavenly Flower?”
While Miho was confused, Heavenly Flower had moved to her side. Heavenly Flower’s eyes were narrowed and sharp; it was the same kind of eyes that she had when she fought against the One-horned Fire Snake.
“I was surprised when I first saw it as well, because that level of spell didn’t match that guy’s power level.”
“Do you know what type of spell he used?”
“No.”
It was a firm no. Since Heavenly Flower was the most accomplished monster magic practitioner amongst the monsters, her answer was surprising.
“If I recall correctly, that guy first made his appearance in the Phantom Monster Magic Islands when he landed on the northern island, Blue Forest Island. He landed there even though the Phantom Monster Magic Islands’ main island was set at the most northern part… Miho, where do you think that guy came from?”
“Uhm, from the main continent, no? There are a lot of humans there.”
It was an obvious answer. It was common knowledge that monsters resided in the northern islands while humans lived on the main continent. However, Heavenly Flower shook her head.
“I thought that as well, but that guy didn’t even know that humans resided on the main continent. Moreover, he knows nothing about us monsters. Since we have constant contact with the humans on the main continent, it doesn’t make sense that he knows nothing about us.”
Since Merlin wasn’t very careful with what he said, Heavenly Flower was able to tease out a tremendous amount of information regarding Merlin’s worldview from his every word. Based on her assessment, Merlin was a different type of human compared to those on the main continent. Every main continent human had an [Affiliation] and some basic knowledge of this ‘world’, but Merlin didn’t possess any of those things. If he had been in closed door training all his life, Heavenly Flower may have accepted why he was so different from other humans, but Merlin liked to move around, so much so that it was hard to make him stay in place for any set period of time.
“Then what does Miss think? Outside of the main continent, there’s no other place where humans reside.”
“Not exactly. There might be a place that we don’t know of.”
“Somewhere we don’t know?”
“Yeah. If he crossed over from the Sea of Chaos in the north, then it might make sense.”
Hearing Heavenly Flower’s words, Miho’s eyes grew wide.
“But that’s the end of the world.”
“No one truly knows that. The only information we have about the Sea of Chaos is that it’s a dangerous area. Outside of that, we don’t have any other concrete information. We call it the end of the world because we’re unable to cross it. There might be a larger world beyond the Sea of Chaos.”
It was incredible that Heavenly Flower had thought so far. Her ability to think this far proved that she had somewhat overcome the limitations that were placed on the monsters and NPCs below the Noisy Belt. She had reached a state of Awakening. Other monsters wouldn’t even have thought of coming up with such conjectures.
“Then, what will you do?”
“I could ask Merlin all the questions I have… but I don’t feel like doing that. Utilizing everything that I have, I’m planning to cross the Sea of Chaos…”
It was incredible how Heavenly Flower was able to free herself from the restrictions and limitations of the system. Her mental powers and wisdom were tremendous. However, she had taken things a step too far…
