Another Me - Your number has been called!

> "Four Eyes": Bite down on the knife that's apparently right in front of your mouth.



You still can’t be an NPC! Even worse, it looks like the Symbolic Character Selection Screen has no new colourful silhouettes to show you this time, not even if you ask it very nicely to help you forget the uncomfortable connotations that the term “NPC” has taken on in the past (from your perspective) or the future (from the Symbolic Character Selection Screen’s perspective).

Wait, is the Symbolic Character Selection Screen sentient? Does it denote a metacontextual space where the narration is always addressing you, the reader, rather than you, the POV character? What makes someone an NPC, anyway? Is this all arbitrary?!

You decide to just get back to the narrative before “Four Eyes” eats the knife in the most painful sense of the phrase.

> Crotch kick evasion maneuver!

KAPHLAR: Whoa there, easy! Or do you WANT me to scorch your knee off?
EXASPERATED PARTNER: Oh, shut up!

>Say, wouldn't killing your customers hurt your profits in the long run? Word like that gets around. Rough them up a little and up the price, teach 'em a lesson they'll actually remember.



You go about doing your thing. Judging by the looks on these idiots’ faces, they don’t quite realise what your thing actually IS. The rich one doesn’t, anyway. He’s about to plead for his life, isn’t he?

SOFT BOY: W... Wait!

Score.

SOFT BOY: You... don’t really want to kill us, do you?
KAPHLAR: Ehh, put it this way: I don’t want the last few minutes to have been a waste of my precious time.
SOFT BOY: I mean! If you kill your customers, won’t that hurt your profits?
KAPHLAR: I meeean, word’s not exactly getting around if you’re dead, right~?
SOFT BOY: ... No, but... You’ll run out of customers. It’s... It’s unsustainable, right?
KAPHLAR: Oh gosh. I never thought of that.
KAPHLAR: So I guess I’ll just have to up the price before I go!
EXASPERATED PARTNER: Auuuugh!!

> And then get in even bigger trouble for having flashed you magic in public. (Seriously who even need it against two middle schoolers)

EXASPERATED PARTNER: I bet you’re proud of yourself.
KAPHLAR: Mmhmm~?
EXASPERATED PARTNER: I don’t know what you are -
KAPHLAR: Obviously.
EXASPERATED PARTNER: - but if we don’t usually see this happen, that must mean you’re not supposed to just use magic willy-nilly. But you did it. To scam someone, no less.
KAPHLAR: Sure did!
EXASPERATED PARTNER: We may not be able to go to the police... but you’re going to get into even bigger trouble, aren’t you?
KAPHLAR: ... Oh, I don’t know.

You are not. You’ve been doing this for years - sure, maybe you don’t pull out the magic card all the time, but even when you do, nothing’s happened. It’s not like there’s an omniscient magic police out there watching your every move, so this is a reliable, easy and fun way you get cash: you put a human on the spot, you scare the living shit out of them and you get what you want.

And truth be told, it’s fun to see just how much you can scare them sometimes.

KAPHLAR: How about I push my luck and see if I can burn this entire place down before someone catches me?

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

SpoilerShow

Hi, folks! Again, really sorry about how long this took. Regular updates should hopefully resume, for whatever passes as regular in this thread, haha.

I'd also like to note something that may help with suggestions from here on out: now that we've opened up quite the cast of characters who aren't always going to be in the same place, please don't feel like you have to stick to the current POV character! Feel free to go hog wild - even if it doesn't pay off immediately, you all have already influenced many things and I'm looking forward to seeing what else you'll influence in the future!

Again, thank you so much for reading!