BECOMING MID(NIGHT)

Chapter 76: Phase 62 - How Clever, Yet So Arrogant

I stayed paralyzed against the cold floorboards until the last echo of Mayo’s rhythmic footsteps died into the vacuum of the hallway. Velvet didn’t move immediately.

Her body remained a heavy, grounding weight against my back, but I felt her focus shift—a sharp, predatory narrowing of intent that the Share-Lock translated as a jagged spike of ice at the base of my skull.

"How clever," Velvet whispered, her voice devoid of its Starlet lilt.

"Yet so arrogant too."

She reached up, her fingers grazing the underside of the bed’s iron frame where her hand had been braced.

She pulled away a microscopic sliver of obsidian-colored tech.

It was pulsing with a rhythmic, violet light—a perfect, mocking match for the hair of the girl who had just walked out. It wasn’t a standard player bug; it was a sensory siphon, an Admin-spec device designed to bleed our real-time biometric deltas directly into the Trial’s master logs.

I glanced at the shattered remains of Velvet’s own device on the floor—a twisted mess of glass and scorched circuitry she had crushed earlier to sever her local telemetry from the Admin’s direct oversight. It was a necessary destruction, a forceful excision of the Admin’s eyes from her wrist, even if it left her technically "blind" to the standard UI.

"You’re still lamenting over the hardware I broke, aren’t you?"

She muttered, while I was looking at her.

"But it looks so expensive."

"It was just an expensive piece of junk, Midnight," She replied, her tone dry.

"Maybe I need it. Who knows."

"But since you’ve replaced its functionality with that laptop, I’ll withhold."

"At least, for now."

I turned my focus back to the list. It rendered in a stark, uncompromising format:

The list rendered in a stark, uncompromising format:

✔ PASSED COUPLES

4URmn_x × VelvetVice ⚠

Vortex_29 × Silent_Sakura

ShikiBlade × CrystalNami

CyberRonin × ReignKitsune

YoruSpecter × NovaHane

8thSamurai × StarryVoid

Z3nRaider × SnowTenshi

ShadowByte × ValkyrieAme

FireFrost × EclipseYoru

Phantom_07 × RadiantShika

SpiritTora × AkaiMoon

BurningKuro × QuantumKoi

ZenithRonin × FallenShika

RavenKami × Foxfire22

G3nsei × AetherNami

MistShroud × NightfallAoi

DestinySeiryu × ScarletYuki

StarlitShinobi × LunaKage

DarkPhoenix9 × EclipseNeko

5ilverZen × EchoTsukasa

VermilionRaijin × AeroTenshi

SpiralTora × HikariNova

BlazeFennec × Tempest88

ShinZero × AquaNova ⚠ subtle anomaly

CosmicBlitz × BloomHanami

❌ FAILED COUPLES (25)

0n1Ghost × xAmeNoHoshi

RiftKage × NeonRift

AzureWolf_ × Misaki9

Frostbite08 × MoonlitAme

ZeroSpecter × NekoPulse

SkyeKaze × VeilHikari

NovaOkami × QuantumNeko

Riftblade_ × StellarRin

KazeNoX × GhostInari

VoidArashi × HarukaX

vSkyWalker × SilentEclipse

Mystic_Kuro × TempestUmi

SnakeFang69 × KawaiiDoomer

xXReaperSimpXx × BlueBarrage

Yuuto_Pierce × ITisekaiIsTrash

MyConquestIsSea × LecCon234

ArtemisZero × CryoSoul

SonicTenshi × FlareWisp

StardustTenshi × Bakamono ⚠

ShadowByte × Delta_HZ ⚠

Phantom_07 × KurenaiMiko

RavenKami × NightfallAoi

G3nsei × ScarletYuki

ZenithRonin × EchoTsukasa

SpiritTora × BloomHanami

The warning sign flickered next to our names, a red pulse of instability.

However, there were a few others too.

I stared at the "Failed" list. Twenty-five couples.

Fifty people got eliminated because they couldn’t achieve a high enough synchronization or whatever the hell the "Libido" metric was measuring.

Which means that these failed couple were now separated from theirs.

And they were free to look for one. What a hell of a game this had been. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

"Look at those anomalies," Velvet said, her finger tracing the screen over the ’⚠’ symbols.

"We aren’t the only ones the system is struggling to categorize."

"The system isn’t just measuring success and failure, love."

I muttered, my mind racing as I looked at the names.

"It’s measuring compatibility as a weapon. They are looking for a specific type of resonance."

Velvet leaned back, her eyes fixed on the door where Mayo had just stood.

"I didn’t speak while she was in the room for a reason, my dear. I didn’t want the air to carry any information she could use. The Share-Lock was our only secure channel."

What the hell was that? Did you just call me ’my dear’?

I looked at her, realizing the tactical depth she had been operating at while I was just trying to keep my heart from exploding.

"You were withholding information on purpose."

"I was protecting our advantage," she said simply.

"And while I was ’suffocating’ you, as you so eloquently claimed it, I managed to plant a tracker on her boot."

How the fuck? When?

My jaw dropped.

"You... what?"

"When she stopped by the bed. I reached out just enough. She was too focused on the room’s biometric scan to notice a low-energy RFID tag adhering to her heel."

She tapped her temple.

"I can see her moving now. She’s heading toward the lower levels. The Admin sectors."

"You’re insane," I said, a mix of genuine respect and terror washing through me.

"Nope. I’m a detective," she corrected me, the Starlet mask returning as she stood up and straightened her jacket.

Okay, that’s lowkey funny.

"And currently, the detective has a lead. Mayo isn’t just another player, Midnight. She’s a legacy variable. If we want to know why we keep dying in these simulations, we follow the girl who doesn’t trigger the locks."

I closed the laptop and shoved it into my bag. My wrist was still cooling from the hardware reset, the faint smell of ozone lingering in the air.

"Twenty-five failures," I whispered, looking at the dead screen one last time.

Velvet didn’t respond with words.

Instead, the Share-Lock flared with a sudden, sharp clarity—a roadmap of the facility beginning to overlay my own vision, fed directly from her tracker’s data.

"Let’s move," she said.

"And Midnight? Try to keep up. I’d hate to have to drag you again."

I snorted, following her toward the door. The game was no longer about survival. It was about the hunt. And for the first time, I felt like we had more than a 1% chance.

The door hissed open. The hallway was empty, but the air felt charged, as if the very walls were waiting for us to make another mistake. We stepped out into the dark, the blue glow of my watch the only light in a world built on digital ghosts.

"By the way," I said, as we turned the corner. "Why ’Kyou-chan’?"

I felt her mental wall go up instantly.

"None of your business, hacker. My past is not that important."

I smiled. At least some things remained private.