"I want your body," Marion said with a straight face, looking directly at the restrained Adrian.

"..."

"Your reaction is quite boring," he continued, "I at least expected a bit of surprise or even shock, especially at the fact that I control strings instead of telekinesis like I originally said."

"Your name is Marion, your corrupted spirit is a spider," Adrian replied without a change in his blank expression, "I’m so surprised that you turned out to be a puppeteer."

The sarcasm in that sentence couldn’t be more evident.

Marion let out a laugh at that, one of genuine amusement.

"Fair enough," he said, nodding his head slightly, "I suppose I wasn’t particularly subtle."

He took a slow step forward, with his hands clasped behind his back as he looked at Adrian with fascination that he wasn’t trying to hide anymore.

"Still," he continued, "I’m curious. You knew, and you still let me come along."

"You said you had no reason to sabotage us," Adrian replied in an even tone, "though your plans turned out to be much different than I first thought."

"Semantics," Marion waved a hand dismissively.

"Is it?"

Marion smiled. "You’re remarkably calm for someone in your position."

"Would panicking help?"

"No," Marion admitted, "but it would be more entertaining."

He went silent, looking at Adrian, still impressed.

"What now?" Adrian asked.....again, having an idea of what was planned.

"You fought that thing for two hours even though you were completely outmatched, and with broken arm, broken ribs," Marion, instead of giving a reply, said, "yet you never gave up or stopped looking for a solution."

"Found one eventually," Adrian said.

"Your spirit found one," Marion corrected, reappearing in front of him, "but the distinction seems to matter to you, so I’ll leave it."

He stopped at a comfortable distance and looked at Adrian directly.

"I’ve been in this dungeon for five years," he said, and for just a moment the performance slipped, he now seemed completely honest, "three of those years I watched my body fail knowing exactly what I needed and having no way to get it."

"And then, as if an act of fate itself, I figured it out just a day before we met," he continued, the smile returning, "and as it turns out, you’re completely immune to the corruption in this place, and you possess a spirit unlike any I have ever seen, which makes you the perfect candidate for what I needed."

He spread his hands slightly, "so tell me dear butler, isn’t this just a sign from the goddess?"

"The goddess, huh?" Adrian muttered with an almost chuckle, but he couldn’t afford one right now.

"Yes," Marion said, smile not wavering, "but it might also be because, I work quickly when motivated and my efforts were rewarded."

"Ah, but don’t hate me though, this is the only solution to my problem."

"And the solution being," Adrian responded in the same even tone, "to take over someone else’s body."

"A very specific someone else’s body," Marion clarified, as if this were an important distinction, "yours specifically. Most bodies wouldn’t survive the transfer. The corruption in my spirit alone would destroy them within weeks."

He glanced down briefly at his chest, where the spider lay, "but yours won’t."

"It won’t," Marion repeated, "which makes this considerably less tragic than it sounds."

"For you."

"Well," he said with a nod, "yes, primarily for me."

Adrian was quiet for a moment, in truth, he was only trying to buy himself some time to recover a bit of mana, hence the reason he was engaging in dialogue with him.

"And how exactly do you intend to take over my body?" He asked again.

"It’s quite simple actually," Marion, seemingly having no clue, answered with enthusiasm, "our souls."

"You see," he continued explaining in a tone that showed that he was genuinely proud of discovering what he was about to explain, "a soul is simply mana given consciousness, and mana, at its core, can be manipulated."

"And with my strings, I can shape, pull and manipulate mana in anyway I desire," he added before grinning, "in the same way I’m restricting your mana recovery right now."

Adrian let out a sigh as he realized that the conversation had bought him nothing.

Marion had known exactly what he was doing and had let him talk anyway, out of genuine enjoyment, not oversight.

The strings had been suppressing his mana recovery from the moment they appeared and he hadn’t noticed because he’d been too focused on the conversation.

Which meant Marion had been three steps ahead the entire time and had simply chosen to be entertained.

"I see," Adrian muttered.

He had stuck a clone on Marion, but he had been forced to summon it back when faced with the Oroborus, though that hadn’t ended up changing the outcome one bit.

Still, despite Marion’s planning, there was one thing he missed.

"My Lady."

"What about her?" Marion curiously asked, since he was certain that Renelle was in a completely separate space in the dungeon.

"She’ll know," Adrian said simply.

"Know what exactly?" Marion asked, genuinely curious rather than dismissive, "that her butler has been replaced? Perhaps, eventually. But by then—"

"Immediately," Adrian interrupted, "not eventually, she’ll know immediately."

"You overestimate her perception," Marion said.

"No, you’re the one who underestimates her," Adrian said, "she knows every single thing about me, down to the way I breathe and she’ll immediately figure out that you’re not me and you will die at her hands."

"You have considerable faith in someone who—"

"She will freeze this dungeon from the inside out," Adrian cut him off again, "and then she will find whatever is left of you and do it again. She won’t stop, not until she recovers the real me."

Marion was silent for quite a while as he placed a hand on his chin before muttering, "then I’ll just have to deal with her also."

"But for now," he continued, the smile returning in full, strings pulling taut in every direction at once, "let’s deal with you first."

Adrian had known this was coming from the moment the mana suppression registered.

He had no mana to work with, one functional arm, ribs that were definitely broken and Noctis somewhere inside the Shadow Vault.

The pain was considerable.

Adrian had a high threshold for pain, especially at this point in time, but this was a different category entirely.

It felt as if his very soul was being ripped out of him...which was exactly what was happening.

Still,

He just gritted his teeth, but refused to let out a scream.

"How truly impressive," Marion muttered. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Adrian didn’t answer, not that he could. Instead, he was trying to keep himself conscious, which was getting harder and harder to do.

«Don’t fight it,» Noctis’ voice was suddenly heard in his head, «trust me.»

With that, Adrian stopped fighting it as he felt death getting closer.

The last thing he saw was Marion’s satisfied grin before he was swallowed by darkness, with one thought in his head.

’She’s going to be furious.’