The Extra's Rise - Chapter 241

Chapter 241: Extra Story – Emma (1) Chapter 241: Extra Story – Emma (1) “Gah, it’s cold!” Emma cried out as she stuck out her tongue, wiggling it dramatically in the air-conditioned chill of the mall’s food court.

“Brain freeze!” ‘Ice cream is cold,’ Arthur thought blankly as he looked at her, not understanding why she reacted with such theatrical dismay to one of the fundamental properties of frozen dairy.

It was like being surprised that gravity made things fall downward or that breathing was generally necessary for continued existence.

The shopping mall around them buzzed with weekend activity.

Teenagers clustered around phone shops, harried parents dragged reluctant children from store to store, and a janitor was having what appeared to be a deeply philosophical moment while contemplating a particularly stubborn piece of gum on the floor.

Emma’s eyes narrowed as she caught Arthur’s blank look.

Her spoon hovered halfway to her mouth, a small mountain of mint chocolate chip balanced precariously on its edge.

“Hey, where’s your compassion?” she asked as she leaned in close.

The tiny flecks of gold in her irises caught the fluorescent lighting, and Arthur noted, not for the first time, how unusual that eye color was.

Probably contacts-part of her disguise.

“I don’t have compassion for idi-…

people lacking in the cognitive department,” Arthur rebuked, catching himself just before the insult fully formed.

Not because he cared about her feelings, he told himself, but because being overtly rude wasn’t tactically sound when observing a subject.

Emma should have known better than to eat ice cream so quickly.

Either she was genuinely susceptible to brain freeze-unlikely for someone with her presumed training-or she was playing a role.

Arthur’s money was firmly on the latter.

“Stop trying to use fancy words to dodge what I am saying!” Emma huffed as she shoveled another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

She was wearing a school uniform that had been meticulously modified to appear casually disheveled, the kind of careful disorder that took far more effort than simply being neat.

‘…She isn’t faking,’ Arthur thought with a small jolt of surprise.

Emma’s habit of acting like a clueless girl seemed to have dropped mysteriously.

The programmed vapidity had faltered, revealing something more authentic underneath.

It was interesting.

He wanted to dissect her-metaphorically speaking, of course.

Mostly metaphorically.

Arthur’s eyes darted around the food court, his attention sharpened by years of advanced cognitive training.

There, by the fake potted plant-a man reading yesterday’s newspaper despite having the latest smartphone visible in his pocket.

And another near the escalators, whose casual glances their way came at suspiciously regular fifteen-second intervals.

“Let’s go, Emma,” he said as Emma tilted her head, a cascade of honey-blonde hair falling over one shoulder in what Arthur reluctantly admitted was an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Not that he cared about such things.

He grabbed her hand-noting the calluses that no regular academy student would have-and led her into a narrow passage between stores, where a sign promising “VINTAGE VIDEO GAMES: CARTRIDGES & CONSOLES!” flickered with actual neon rather than LEDs.

Arthur’s keen senses picked up the followers immediately-two men, moving with the practiced nonchalance of people who have been specifically trained to appear nonchalant, which paradoxically makes them stand out like combat boots at a swimming pool.

“Arthur, where are we going?” Emma asked, her voice pitched perfectly between confusion and intrigue.

“The movie theater is the other way, and you promised we could see ‘Love in the Time of Calculus.'” He hadn’t promised any such thing, which meant she was establishing cover.

Interesting.

“Change of plans,” he said, guiding her deeper into the service corridors where deliveries were made to the mall’s various shops.

The followers would have to reveal themselves more obviously to continue pursuit in the narrower space.

Arthur’s mind raced through seventeen different scenarios, calculating probabilities and outcomes.

The most efficient path forward was obvious: put Emma in controlled danger, force her to reveal her true capabilities, and end this tedious charade once and for all.

The service corridor led to a loading dock with an alarm system.

Perfect.

He could “accidentally” trigger the security alarm, causing the mall’s security team to respond.

Nothing that would cause real danger to someone with Emma’s training, but enough to force her hand.

His fingers moved toward the fire alarm, ready to pull it and create a controlled chaos.

A simple act, barely worth considering, but effective.

Then Emma smiled at him-not the practiced, symmetrical smile of her cover identity, but a slightly lopsided one that appeared when she thought he wasn’t looking.

A tiny imperfection in her careful performance.

Arthur’s hand froze midway to the alarm.

He thought of that smile.

He thought of the way she had laughed three weeks ago when he had accidentally told an actual joke.

He thought of how she always saved him the last chocolate bar in the vending machine even though her cover didn’t require such consistency.

“Arthur?

Is everything okay?” she asked, and he noted with clinical detachment that his pulse had quickened.

His rational mind immediately suggested taking a deep breath to regulate it.

He ignored the suggestion.

“Fine,” he said shortly, rerouting their path away from the loading dock.

“I thought I saw someone following us, but it was just a security guard on his rounds.” It wasn’t.

The operatives were still there, now joined by a third whose attempt at blending in was good but not good enough to fool Arthur’s perception, honed by years of observation and analysis.

The most logical course of action remained unchanged: expose Emma, end the game.

Yet for reasons his formidable intellect struggled to quantify, he couldn’t do it.

Not because it wouldn’t work-it would, with near certainty-but because…

Because her smile had added color to his world of grayscale logic and binary outcomes.

Because in a life of calculated movements and strategic decisions, she was the one variable he couldn’t quite solve.

And strangely, he found he didn’t want to.

“Let’s circle back through the food court,” he said instead.

“I know a way to lose them without making a scene.” Emma looked at him with genuine surprise, another crack in her cover.

“Them?” Arthur smiled thinly.

“The mall security.

They get suspicious when students linger in service corridors during school hours.” “Right,” she said, recovering quickly.

“Security guards.

Of course.” As they walked, Arthur catalogued, against his better judgment, the exact shade of her hair under the different lighting sections of the mall, the precise cadence of her steps, and the way she unconsciously adjusted her pace to match his.

Data points without tactical value, yet somehow more compelling than the strategic assessment of their pursuers.

What an inconvenient development, he thought.

Completely irrational.

And yet, as they emerged back into the colorful chaos of the mall, he found he didn’t mind it nearly as much as he should.

__________________________________________________________________________________ (Ignore below text) “Why are you doing this, Cecilia?” Rachel’s voice was calm-too calm-as she stood on the balcony, her arms crossed, watching the other girl closely.

The music from inside had changed to something slower, more melancholic, providing an apt soundtrack to their confrontation.

Cecilia tilted her head, the picture of innocent curiosity, though nothing about the princess had ever been truly innocent.

“Doing what?” she asked, her tone so light it could have floated away on the breeze, her fingers idly playing with a strand of golden hair.