Machinery hummed around me. The gaming pod smelled of antiseptic, and my limbs were heavy after floating through the castle without a body.
A young man in a lab coat leaned over the rim. “Ms. Vance? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
I pressed both hands to my chest. My heart beat under unbroken skin. Serena’s dagger had left no wound.
“We are so, so sorry.” The staffer checked the display beside my head. “A catastrophic routing error sent you into an SSS-level survival test. You were supposed to enter the dating simulation you selected.”
“The Boss.” My throat hurt around the words. “Valerius wasn’t an NPC, was he?”
The man looked down. “He’s another player. A VIP. He was in a serious accident two years ago, and his consciousness became trapped in the game’s core architecture. The s
