My Amnesiac Nemesis

Chapter 4 "Hey, wifey~"

Perhaps it was due to some subconscious instinct or maybe a simple gut feeling, but 001 blinked at the woman and said, "I’ll give you money, lots and lots of money. Will you take me away, please?"

Harper paused. She indeed doesn't have much she particularly likes, but she did love money. So, she turned back, squatted down in front of 001.

001 understood her intention and placed his hand on Harper's shoulder, trying to stand up by himself. However, he misread the situation. Suddenly, he felt his body become weightless—he was effortlessly lifted up, feeling like a doll as she slung him over her shoulder.

001: ???

He struggled slightly, attempting to regain some semblance of adult dignity.

Harper coldly said, "Stop moving. If you move again, I'll leave you here."

001, already exhausted to his limit, closed his eyes and promptly passed out on Harper’s back.

Harper had to put in quite a bit of effort to drag such a tall man back to her shabby little apartment.

It looked like 001 was severely injured—though not to the point of death, there was a risk of permanent damage. Luckily, she still had some healing serum for test subjects in her safe. The side effects? Well, they weren’t too severe, but not trivial either. Whatever. She didn’t care about whatever side effects or aftereffects it might cause. Harper didn’t mind at all.

She gave the unconscious 001 an injection. The needle pierced his skin, and the cold liquid slowly entered his bloodstream, coursing through his body.

She watched as the liquid was pushed bit by bit into 001's system, her gaze drifting off for a moment.

Once, during the countless days and nights they spent as test subjects, they’d had the same needles piercing their skin. The restraints on the operating table would tighten with every struggle, and then a sudden, searing pain would shoot through their spines, plunging them into an instant of hell. Even their screams would be choked in their throats, leaving nothing but the glaring red in their eyes, as if they were nothing more than meat on a chopping block.

There was a slight resistance at her fingertips; the syringe was fully emptied. Harper snapped back to reality, casually tossing the syringe into the trash bin, feeling a sudden wave of irritation.

She wasn’t one for nostalgia. Picking up 001 was just an insurance policy for her bank balance. After all, that odd-looking octahedron was only a suspected token, and whether it could cash out money was still uncertain. Although it looked like a piece of junk, its black-market price was outrageously high.

With that in mind, she opened her antique laptop, purchased from the flea market, and logged into the black-market website. In this era, humans had no privacy. Every Smart Interface was monitored by the "Data Stream" S-rank talent’s Sky Eye system. Even with a fake identity, it was easy to be traced.

These old-era laptops were like aphids nibbling at the veins of a giant tree—just a bit safer than a Smart Interface, but only by a tiny margin.

Her inbox had no new messages. Harper pondered for a moment before sending an email to her mysterious employer: "I have the token."

Like a stone sinking into the depths, the message was met with silence.

She glanced at the down payment already in her account, then looked at the chat history with the philanthropist. There were less than five days until the agreed trade for "Little Snake." She hesitated for a few minutes between "Looks like I’ll need to scam a few more deposits" and "Maybe the boss passed out from shock hearing the trade failed and hasn’t woken up yet," when suddenly, she heard a "boom" from the bedroom.

Turning her head, she saw the disc-shaped robot vacuum, which was supposed to be charging in the bedroom, rushing out and crashing into the table leg with a bang. It then backed up, spun 360 degrees, and continued ramming forward.

Harper sighed, “What an artificial i***t!!”

She kicked the robot vacuum out of the way and returned to the bedroom. The bed was empty, the sheets a mess. On the floor near the charging port, by the window, crouched a humanoid figure with tousled light blonde hair, sparks of electricity dancing over his body.

Harper stood at the doorway for a moment, then called out, “Hey——”

The figure turned his head at her voice, his blonde hair, tangled and messy, lost in the occasional electric sparks. His expression was as confused as a newborn puppy’s.

“Who are you?” he asked. “And who am I?”

“Step away from the charging port, stop charging,” Harper responded, unfazed. Memory loss was a common side effect of the serum—one of the milder ones. “Even though my homeowner doesn’t charge me for utilities, I still can’t let you use it for free.”

001 hesitated for a moment, glancing around as if lost, then tentatively asked, “Then… where should I go?”

Harper’s expression remained unchanged.

001 let go, his spiky hair falling messily over his face, hiding his puzzled and dazed expression.

S-rank talent—Sovereign's Touch. It can strip and seize any ability of any level, ignoring all conditions, with a 20% success rate and a 1-hour cooldown. It can then grant the stolen ability to anyone (including himself) with a 50% success rate, and the effect lasts until the next ability transfer.

Harper guessed that this guy was currently using some sort of electricity-related plundered talent, which was why he chased away the robot vacuum and hogged the charging port as soon as he woke up.

She circled around the bed and squatted in front of 001. “How much do you remember?”

001 shook his head, brushing the hair away from his eyes to reveal his forehead. He quietly stared at the purple-haired girl in front of him, muttering, “Purple grapes…”

Harper: ???

“Purple grapes…” He gradually shook off the confusion from just waking up, stopped his nonsense, and started looking around, thinking, “Where is this? Who are you? How did I end up here?” He suddenly noticed he was wearing a cute, but not to his taste, bunny onesie.

And the other set was on the person across from him. Her purple hair hung down like a waterfall, her bright eyes quietly observing him. 001 turned to look at his reflection in the full-length window. The glass showed a broad-shouldered man with a narrow waist, his long golden hair cascading like silk. His bunny onesie wasn’t fully buttoned, revealing hints of well-defined abs. “Not bad, we make a good pair!” he thought.

As if regaining the confidence lost along with his memory, he turned to Harper and confidently said, “Hey, wifey~ I’m hungry. Do we have anything to eat at home?”

Harper: ???