I was caught in a dark morass, weighed down by a depressive gloom and unwilling to move. Though there really wasn’t much I could do as an infant.

  The wet nurse came and fed me in the middle of the night. When she pulled me off her breast, I stayed limp and silent. She panicked, her hands quickly checking me all over. She held a finger under my nose, and after a long moment, let out a sigh of relief.

  "Always trouble, this one," she muttered wearily. I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy.

  She left me still and silent in the darkness.

  A while later, a teenage girl in a black and white maid’s uniform entered. She had blonde hair tied back neatly from a youthful, girlish face, and she smelled nice, like fresh spring rain rather than the wet nurse’s overly floral perfume.

  After wiping me down and changing my diaper, she tried to cheer me up, poking my bare stomach and making silly faces.

  “Aww… Little lady Josephine, won't you give me a nice little smile?” she cooed.

  I wasn't in the mood, but I appreciated the attempt. I willed my lips to smile, but they wouldn't obey, managing only a weak, trembling quiver.

  She shook her head at me, gently smiling. “Alright beautiful, let’s put you back to bed then.”

  I was left staring at the ceiling again.

  Morning light spilled through the high windows, splashing the fresco above with bright lines of reflected glass. It was too far for my infant eyes to make out the details, but I could see the expanse of a lively green field covered with dots of flowery colors.

  This is my life now, and I have to live through it.

  I was the one dancing at the festival with my crush, the one who Papa snuck bread to, who cried over lost love. Those weren't scripted events in the game. They were mine. Both the joy and grief, no matter how faded they became.

  I was the one watching as the morning red cascaded over the fields, enjoying… la sérénité des champs à l'aube.

  It didn’t matter if my new life was preordained as well. There was nothing I could do but live it.

  As Josephine, as Joan… and as Steve.

  I will live it to the fullest as a villainess, as a general… and as a gamer.

  Advienne que pourra.

  I will take on all that comes.

  Open status!

  The ethereal, blue-lit screen materialized in the air above me, filled with numbers and labels.

  My eyes immediately went to the [Dark Binding] but I forced my focus away—there was nothing I could do about that future. Before I got sidetracked by that last night, a message had appeared about rewards from a... [Dark Gift]?

  I couldn't see it listed anywhere, so I assumed it was some kind of effect from the [Dark Ritual]. Maybe it altered my stats somehow? Hopefully nothing bad… But the constant repetition of ‘dark’ did not bode well.

  Scanning over my character info, the biggest change was that I’d been given a class, Sorcerer, and a SubClass of Dark, whatever that meant. Focusing on each revealed the following.

  Again, this was all super vague. There was nothing specific like how I can gain spells. and what did specialization even mean?

  What about HP or mana progression, and do I get any bonuses in my stats or attributes?

  I noticed [Magic], [Mental] and [Grace] were higher. That might be from my new class or the [Dark Gift], but it was impossible to tell, and focusing on the stats didn’t show any more detail.

  It also looked like I got ten points in [Willpower], [Intelligence], and [Charisma] as well. But those were Attributes on Joan's side of the screen. A new class for Josephine shouldn't affect those, right?

  Again, it was impossible to tell for sure.

  Wait a minute... something's not right. I focused on the [Willpower] display, and the details popped up.

  I had missed it in the despair of last night, but my new 10 [Willpower] wasn't just a straight increase. It was a combination of +5 to the base attribute, and a corresponding -5 reduction in the [Sync Penalty]. That had to be how the 'character-progression-based decay' worked. For every point my base attribute increased, the penalty would decrease by one.

  Doesn't that mean I get double growth while this penalty is active?

  But that wasn't even the most important part.

  My base [Willpower]... it was over 100!

  Even after all this time, there were still bits and pieces of the time I’d spent scouring the forums for a way around the attribute cap.

  Did the merge do this? It seemed a likely culprit.

  My level cap for Divine Knight is gone as well. The xp now showed numbers instead of just ‘MAX’. But the experience for the level seemed exorbitant. On the other hand, the XP needed for the next level of Sorcerer was only 200.

  If I level up as Sorcerer, will I get attribute points as well? Two hundred XP shouldn’t be that hard, right?

  After looking through the rest of my info, I moved down to the new [Skill] section. Focusing on the [Dark Spells I] revealed a single spell.

  Again with the vagueness, but at least I can see the mana cost.

  What about just the normal, [Spells I]?

  I would have facepalmed if I had functional arms. This seemed like a combat spell, and in combat, the specifics mattered.

  How long is a 'short time'? Are dazzled targets stunned, or just debilitated? All these could mean life and death in the heat of battle, even a second's delay could get you killed.

  It didn’t seem like a good idea to try [Dazzle] out on anyone here to figure out the details. If it really was a combat spell, I ran the risk of aggroing the entire household.

  Starting combat as a swaddled infant seemed like a very bad idea.

  There was only one thing left to try, especially in my current, helpless state.

  I tried to activate the spell the same way I had always called upon my Divine Knight abilities: by forming a clear image of it in my mind. I focused not on the words, but on the idea of my fingers reaching through the shadows.

  The name of the spell coalesced in the air before me.

  [Shadow Fingers]

  But then the text jiggled, as if it bumped, and a message appeared in its place.

  Shadow Fingers: Please choose a target.

  Right, I need a shadow.

  I turned my head sideways and found one cast by the bedpost, a long, dark line running up the wall near a lit candle. It was morning and they still left it burning.

  The waste of nobles.

  I could almost hear Maman's voice chiding me from one of my first lives as Joan, yelling at me to stop throwing money out the window—jeter l'argent par les fenêtres.

  The memory of my initial confusion at the then-unfamiliar idiom brought a strange, soft gurgle to my lips—the uncontrolled giggle of a baby.

  I hope she didn’t suffer much, hearing about my death.

  No… I hope each loop ended at my death. The thought of her having to bear the news over and over... was far too cruel.

  I pushed back the thought. I’d already decided to move forward.

  Peering intently at the long, thin shadow cast by the bedpost, I formed the mental image of the spell once more.

  [Shadow Fingers]

  My fingers felt something. Not the soft wool of the blanket, but more coarse and hard.

  It was the wall!

  Dark, writhing finger-shaped blobs rose out of the shadow, feeling their way across the stone. They were connected to my actual fingers, a strange, disembodied extension of my own hand. But my own newborn fingers barely obeyed me, going left when I willed them right, and clenching when I tried to spread them apart.

  It was unsettling, watching the black, tarantula-like hand skitter away from the clean line of the shadow. At the same time, I could feel everything it touched through my own fingers: the rough, grainy texture of the stone wall; the cold, pointed tip of the wrought iron candle holder; and the smooth, waxy surface of the candle itself.

  The glowing flame was just out of reach. I stretched, pushing my hand more in the direction of the shadow. A black, nebulous arm rose from that shadow, pushing the shadow-hand up higher.

  I made a clumsy, swiping motion at the flame and missed. I tried once, twice, and three more times before the flailing shadowy appendages caught the flame and the entire top of the candle.

  Success!

  Clack!

  Something solid hit the wood floor and then rolled away. But my attention was diverted by a blue light blinking incessantly at the corner of my vision: a thin, empty, blue bar with an "M:" label beside it.

  A mana bar.

  The spell’s mana cost had a duration component!

  I had been so focused on putting out the candle that I lost track of how long I had it up.

  Wooziness washed over me as the edges of my vision receded. A message popped up.

  A few small, weighty objects hit my stomach and tumbled away, but before I could look for them, I lost consciousness.