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How did I get experience points when I wasn't the one who killed all of them. I think I killed 2 in total, but that's all… did I seriously get experience points from the other girls.

"That was really weird," Mia speaks up first.

We were currently back inside our base, at the stone meeting table. School had already passed with us not talking much with each other throughout the day.

The air around us was heavy as we still didn't know what happened back there. Mia, of course, kept bringing up that we just tasted the feeling of the full hivemind, but it was honestly hard to believe that.

Hiveminds are much tamer than what we just experienced. Normally, a hivemind allows the user to share their thoughts and influence each other's feelings, which partly happened… but is a hivemind seriously supposed to fuse our personalities?

If we stayed in that state any longer, we would've all become one person sharing 12 bodies.

"Maybe not using our powers was a bad idea," Nell says.

"No, it was good to find out about this earlier rather than later. The fusing of our personalities and the effect of the hivemind wouldn't have stopped if we didn't deem the dead guards well… dead," I say.

"I guess," Nell responds.

"Hmmm…" Ethel was pondering about something while glaring at Mia.

"What?" Mia asked, feeling the glare directed at her.

"Are you sure you don't know much about this?" Ethel asks.

"Yeah… I stole it, and we don't really have any sources on it. If we do, it's just on the nature of the monster, not the actual jelly that is inside of its body," Mia replies.

"Maybe you should've asked your parents first, dumbass,"

"Nah, even though I'm first in line for inheritance, you don't get to learn about this until you are the head of your family. The previous head passes down the knowledge, and I think it's connected to the underlings that do things for us in the shadows…."

"Then how did you find out about it?" I ask Mia.

"I have hyperthymesia,"

"Hyper what now?" Clio blurts out.

"Hyperthymesia, it's an extremely rare condition where you remember everything from when you were able to think on your own. You know how you don't remember much about your very young childhood. Well, hyperthymesia prevents you from forgetting," Charna says.

"I guess that's a pretty close explanation… I hate the condition since there are things I'd prefer not to remember from my childhood… the rest of my family doesn't know, so you girls are the first ones I'm telling about this," Mia says.

"So, how is this connected to the jellyfish?" I ask.

"*sigh*..."

It seems Mia had a hard time just opening her mouth.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Ethel says.

"O-... okay," Mia replies.

Wait, wait, wait… isn't this where you're supposed to say, "Nah, it's fine…." and tell us about your story?

"OKAY! Let's stop trying to delve deeper since Mia is clearly struggling to say it. Lucy, if you could, maybe you could try something later," Electra whispers to me.

"You know I can hear you," Mia says.

"Ah, really?" Electra says, shrugging it off.

It seems she did that intentionally… what an idiot.

"Since we're moving on… the next topic would probably be who we're attacking next," Celestine says.

"Aren't we obviously going for another Write family member?" I ask.

"I'm trying to say which family member are we going after next?" Celestine corrects her previous statement.

Mia takes a deep breath before speaking.

"I-I think we should continue wiping out the smaller members. If we can make the main family lose its arms and legs, it will be much easier taking the entire family down later,"

"I think that's a good idea for now. After the news spreads and they hopefully include the markings that we left… some people might try to reach out to us, and of course, we'll accept them unless they have beliefs that go against ours," Celestine says.

"Stop making it sound like we're a cult," I say.

"I mean, we are a cult, and if tattoos make us a cult, then the Porter family is one giant cult,"

"What do you mean?"

"The tattoo that Clio has is the marking of the next inheritor of the Porter family,"

"Huh, but you don't have it. How does she have it?"

"Cause she was the original first in line for inheritance,"

Some girls present were shocked while some already expected it. I mean, I who researches and browses on the internet a lot doesn't know about this tradition, so it only makes sense for other families not to be aware of this.

I glanced at Clio, and her usual cheery expression was completely wiped off her face.

"Can I explain?" Celestine asks Clio.

"Do what you want,"

Woah, it's like she's a completely different person.

"*sigh*... So as I just said, Clio WAS the first in line for inheritance, but she didn't like how pinned down she was. She had no freedom, and she saw how everybody else in the family got to do what they want, so she became jealous.

She started rebelling from her personal lessons and meetings. This caused her reputation to plummet inside the Porter family. The news eventually traveled outside the Porter family, and disgusting rumors spread about the Porter family.

This caused the Porter family's reputation to plummet as well, forcing them to take Clio one step down from first in the line of inheritance. If they could, they would've moved her down even farther or maybe even banished her from the family, but since she was a 1 in a 100.000 kid, they couldn't get rid of her that easily.

Clio also realized the consequences of her stupid actions, eventually regretting it. But before she could amend or atone for them, she was moved down one step from her first in line for inheritance… replacing my spot of second in line for inheritance," Celestine explains.

"Freedom, huh?" Astra says, staring off into space.

It wasn't just Astra who was being weird but all of the other young mistresses around me. It seems they longed for freedom like they were a princess from a fairy tale.

"Is that why all of you accepted my offer?" I ask the rest of Tolf, quickly snapping them out of their daze.

All of them nod their heads in agreement.

It seems they didn't just want a chance at getting their hands on the underworld but also to escape from their usual stuck-up and pressured lives.

"What the hell is this? Some fairy tale where you're waiting for your prince to save you? Deal with your own shit, and if you can't, you can ask the members from Tolf. I don't know what all of you have been through, but I think I get the gist of why all the young masters and mistresses are so corrupted… it's your family's fault, huh… psh, " I jump out of my chair and walk down the hallway.

…

(Back in the meeting room)

"How do we do that, though? We can't go against our families… I mean, they're the ones who raised us, and even if we did, there's no way we can win…." Celestine says.

"It seems everybody has a lot of secrets… but I guess we all had one common goal at the same time. Lucy is pretty lucky that she's not tied down to a family," Amanda says.

"She's not tied down to a family, and yet she has probably suffered more than us… We're probably just acting like spoiled brats right now in her eyes…." Mia says.

The air in the meeting room was heavy.

"Shit... We really need to change..."