Chapter 188: The Unintended Variable
Chapter 188: The Unintended Variable
’...’
Soren gulped inwardly, his heart beating wildly against his ribs at the sheer weight of his own assumptions. The air suddenly felt freezing, his chest tightening as the terrifying theory refused to leave his mind. Moreover, his mind continued to race, pushing the boundaries of the conspiracy even further.
If Darius had planned a flawless frame-up, the assassin’s role had to make sense. Soren tried to recall the chaos of their wedding night, digging through his memories of the brief, frantic encounter.
’He was weak for an assassin.’
It was an anomaly that had always lingered in the back of his mind. The masked figure had been almost easily overpowered and had fled almost immediately after Soren fought back. At the time, Soren had chalked it up to luck or the assassin’s cowardice, but looking at it now, a chillingly simple explanation emerged.
The assassin... might have just been an ordinary man.
That would explain the lack of overwhelming strength, the sloppy execution, and why he panicked so easily when the situation turned violent. But if an elite powerhouse like Darius wanted his daughter dead, he wouldn’t hire a clumsy amateur. Unless... the incompetence was completely intentional.
Soren froze as another detail surfaced from his memory.
’The build...’
Though the encounter was brief, he vaguely remembered the silhouette of the intruder. The height, the frame, the physical stature... It was remarkably similar to his own.
’W-Wait... Was that intentional too?!’
Soren fell completely silent, his own thoughts suddenly terrifying him. He stood paralyzed, staring at nothing as the sheer absurdity of the conclusion caught up with him.
’Or... did I overthink this?’
He pressed a hand against his forehead, trying to anchor himself. It was one thing to suspect his father-in-law of a cover-up, but accusing him of hiring a physically identical civilian to stage a botched assassination on his own daughter felt like the spiraling paranoia of a madman.
Even so, he still tried to rationalize it, grasping for a motive. If the build was intentional as well, what could the reason possibly be?
Perhaps it was meant to manipulate the forensics; an attacker with his exact height and stride length would leave behind physical footprints and structural scuff marks that perfectly matched Soren’s own dimensions. Or maybe it was to weaponize the room’s shadows, ensuring that if anyone caught a fleeting glimpse of the struggle, the silhouette alone would instantly point the finger at him.
’Urgh...’
Soren shook his head, pressing his palms against his temples to force himself to stop thinking. It was getting out of hand. Besides, a glaring flaw in his logic suddenly made him pause: the blade the assassin used had been coated in a lethal poison. If Darius truly wanted a domestic frame-up where Soren killed his wife out of malice or for whatever reason, using a Tier 5 toxin didn’t click with the rest of the theory. A knife or a simple strangulation would have made far more sense for a framed civilian.
"Hmm..."
He let out a slow breath and forced his gaze back toward the hospital bed, recalling his earlier conversation with the powerhouse.
’...Did he lie to me then?’
Did he fabricate an entire story about ’searching for a good husband’ and ’wishing her an ordinary life’ just to make Soren believe in him, keeping him compliant and completely under his thumb?
Soren’s eyes drifted back to his own hands, his fingers slowly curling into fists as a different, sharper realization sliced through the fog.
’Wait...’
’It... It is all because of me.’
More precisely, it was because of his awakening.
That single event changed everything. By shattering the expectations of what a normal human could do, Soren had completely derailed the timeline. He had broken the script Darius had meticulously written, forcing the man to adapt to a variable he never saw coming.
With the realization grounding him, Soren began analyzing the timeline again, looking at the puzzle from this new angle.
’Hmm...’
Perhaps Darius saw the hopeless curse or the incoming doom facing his daughter and had initially resolved to end it quickly and quietly. But when he awakened, defying all logic and predictions, the old man might have found a microscopic sliver of hope in the ruins of his original plan. He must have thought that this supposed nobody might actually possess the potential to change his daughter’s cruel fate.
It was the only explanation that bridged the gap between the initial assassination attempt and Darius’s current, watchful tolerance. A powerless husband was meant to be a dead end, but an awakened one was an asset. Instead of letting the plot reach its grim conclusion, Darius had chosen to hold his hand and let them live.
’And yesterday’s incident...’ Soren narrowed his eyes, the pieces further clicking into place. ’Perhaps... he was testing me, wanting to see if I was truly worth betting on. Or...’
He stopped, a sudden wave of dread washing over him.
’Did he... discover my real power?’
Soren froze. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck as the terrifying possibility took root. If Darius already knew about the Authority, his unique skills, or his true rapid growth, then everything, the tolerance, the warnings, the sudden shift in attitude, was a calculated move to exploit him. His greatest secret, the one thing that gave him an edge, might have been compromised from the very start.
The rising panic was cut short as a forgotten detail resurfaced.
’Right!’
He still hadn’t dismissed Darius’s status screen.
When he had activated Advanced Appraisal during their tense confrontation, he deliberately focused only on the man’s mental state. In a world where high-level individuals could sense when they were being scrutinized, staring too long or reading an entire profile in one go was a massive risk.
He had also skimmed that single line to avoid raising suspicion. Many rare individuals with abilities similar to his appraisal did exist, and he could not let Darius suspect he was one of them. If the old man caught on to the fact that he was being read, it would instantly expose Soren as a dangerous anomaly.
That’s why he couldn’t read it back then.
And after that, Ryan and Seria had arrived. In the rush to clear the table and greet them, he had simply swiped the translucent window out of his immediate line of sight, leaving it active in the background.
’Thank goodness.’