Chapter 18

-Many Years Ago-

One day in class, Remon was quietly reading at her desk, completely absorbed in her book until suddenly, someone slammed their hands on her desk and snatched the book from her. Remon flinched, startled, her focus broken.

“Give it back,” she said firmly.

The student grinning, ignored her. They flipped through the pages carelessly.

“You actually read this stuff?” they mocked, waving the book above their head like a trophy.

“Give it back. It’s not mine.”

“Aaand?” they raised an eyebrow.

“If it gets damaged, I’ll have to pay for it,” Remon added, her tone sharper now.

And then without warning, they tore a few pages right out of the book.

Remon froze for a split second… and then launched forward.

A clean punch landed square on the classmate’s face. They collapsed to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of their mouth. The entire classroom gasped. Screams echoed. Chairs scraped. Students backed away in panic.

When the teacher burst into the room, all they saw was Remon standing there, fists clenched and trembling, the other student lying on the floor, bleeding. The torn book lay between them like shattered glass.

“REMON!” the teacher roared. “TO THE OFFICE. NOW!”

Her parents were called immediately.

Remon explained what happened—but it didn’t matter.

“Well? Why didn’t you hold back?”

“I—”

“If only you could control your emotions, this never would’ve happened!”

“I…”

“You’re expelled.”

Her parents pleaded with the school, but the teachers wouldn’t budge. They insisted Remon’s lack of emotional control was dangerous, that next time, someone could get seriously hurt.

Her parents, disappointed and frustrated, decided to let Remon live alone—to “learn emotional control,” they said. From then on, she lived by herself in a small apartment. They still sent her a monthly allowance, but she handled everything else on her own.

This new school? It was her chance to prove she could change.

In her first year, Remon started dabbling in computer science—specifically hacking. At first, it was for a petty revenge: she hacked her old classmate’s account and deleted it. It felt good. A little too good. She spiraled from there, hacking small accounts, pulling pranks like deleting posts on her previous school’s official page.

But then, one day, she got an email.

From an anonymous sender.

“Stop.”

That was all it said.

Remon froze. Someone had noticed. Someone was watching.

She stopped for a few weeks, too scared to continue.

But as time passed, she began to see potential. Not in revenge, but in business.

She opened a low-key service offering hacking help, but only for people with ethical reasons, like recovering their own locked accounts or fixing security issues. No illegal stuff. She was too paranoid to risk that.

Over time, her little service grew. People trusted her. She started earning more than she needed. With her own income plus the monthly money from her parents, she could buy whatever she wanted.

She was alone but she was capable. In her solitude, she was building something more than just skill. She was building control.

-Back to Present Day-

“Oooh… so, did your classmate end up in the hospital though?” Mallory asked, her eyes wide.

“Nah. Well—I mean, yes, but it wasn’t serious,” Remon replied casually.

Mallory stared at her in disbelief. It was hard to imagine the quiet, composed person in front of her having such a violent past. Remon rarely talked about herself, this glimpse into her history felt like a secret she wasn’t supposed to know.

“…Anyway,” Remon said, turning back toward her computer screen, fingers already tapping away, “I’ll continue finding the culprit.”

“…Okay, so… about Malvine—” Mallory started.

“Mallory,” Remon cut in, her voice calm but firm, “you should pretend you know nothing whenever you’re around him, okay? I need you to interact with him more. Try to find out who he really is and whether he knew Rein. Like, closely.”

Mallory nodded, listening carefully.

“So yeah, whenever he comes to you, just act natural. Don’t make it weird.”

“Got it.”

Remon leaned back slightly, her eyes still scanning the screen. “Alright. Go home. And don’t let him find out you’ve been coming here often.”

“Oh also,” Remon paused, “I recommend that you to write down your feelings if you want. But don’t let him see it, okay?”

“Okay. Got it. See you tomorrow, Remon!”

“Mhm,” Remon murmured, already half-lost in whatever data she was sorting through.

Mallory grabbed her bag and slipped out the door, her heart pounding—not from fear, but from the quiet weight of everything she’d just learned.

-Next Day-

Remon stepped out from the swirling portal, coming back to her usual room. They had decided to continue tomorrow. For now, Remon had a different plan—she wanted to investigate an author named Dave.

Sitting at her desk, her fingers danced across the keyboard, pulling up Dave's account. She quickly typed out a direct message:

Remon: hi, sorry to bother. I wanted to ask something. Do you by any chance know the author named ‘Rein’?

While waiting for a response, her eyes flicked over to the second monitor where Malvine’s house was displayed through his CCTV cameras. He was sitting casually, eating while watching YouTube videos—nothing out of the ordinary.

A notification popped up. Dave replied.

Dave: No, why?

Remon straightened up, fingers flying over the keyboard. She needed to keep him engaged before he went offline.

Remon: well, I heard he plagiarized your book.

There was a pause, longer than before. Then, finally:

Dave: Oh? How come I never heard of it? Can I see which one it is?

Remon quickly sent him Rein’s profile along with the writings that were being accused of copying his work. The screen stayed still for a while, and Remon assumed Dave was reading the material carefully. Finally, a notification appeared again.

Dave: Hmm, his writing is different from mine. Maybe he’s inspired by my work, which I don’t mind at all. But I don’t think he plagiarized my work. Our stories might share the same concept, but the overall plot is completely different. Thank you for telling me, I never heard of this.

Remon: no problem.

Dave: Should I make a short clarification? I feel bad for him, but it’s been two years already.

Remon: up to you.

Dave: Alright, I think I will make a clarification post.

Remon: oh, does that mean you were completely unaware of this situation before? not a single person mentioned this to you?

Dave: Yes... I’m sorry, but this is the first time I’ve heard of this matter.

Remon: that means you don’t know him either, right?

Dave: Yes.

Remon: but do you know the accounts that commented on his post? the ones accusing him?

Dave: Oh, which ones?

Remon sent him a link to the specific post where Rein was accused and included a screenshot of the comments.

Dave: No, I don’t recognize any of those accounts. You know we authors can see who’s reading our stories, right? I just checked. None of these accounts are my readers.

Dave: Strange...

Remon: alright, thank you so much.

Remon’s eyes flicked back to her screen as she watched Dave post a public clarification, explaining that the accusations against Rein were baseless. He kindly asked his readers to be more considerate and understanding towards other authors.

But despite the clarification, Remon still felt a nagging suspicion. To be absolutely sure, she decided to dig deeper. She began tracking the IP addresses from the accuser's posts, matching them against Dave's usual online activity. What she found was definitive. Dave's IP and other digital information were completely different. More than that, Dave's online presence was predictable. He always posted from the same location, usually during evening hours, a routine that never wavered. Remon knew this because, aside from spying on Malvine, she’d also been keeping tabs on Dave. One by one, every suspicion she had was debunked, making Dave fall deeper into the non-culprit basket.

Now it was 100% clear that Dave was not behind the accusations, Remon’s attention shifted back to Malvine. But things got even stranger. When she cross-referenced the accuser's IP, device fingerprinting, IMEI numbers, and other digital markers against Malvine’s, nothing matched. None of it was tied to Malvine in any way.

By the end of the day, the accuser's identity remained the biggest mystery, lurking just outside her grasp.