When Jiang Cha woke up and opened her eyes, all she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling... Why was someone wearing black stockings?

“?”

Her sluggish brain slowly booted up and produced a question mark. Confusion filled her brown eyes.

She'd lost all memory of her identity and past, but basic common sense was still deeply etched into her mind. And by any ordinary standard, waking up to find a pair of gorgeous legs in black stockings straddling your waist was not something a patient who'd lost their memory should expect to see.

Her gaze crept a little higher.

‘That sun is so white. No, wait—that ceiling is huge.’

Jiang Cha couldn't help thinking it. Her gaze lingered briefly on the woman's headlights, then continued upward, following her pale, swanlike neck to a face that was youthful yet hinted at mature allure.

The woman wore an unusual style of makeup. Her heavy black eyeshadow looked like a smoky eye, or perhaps a Witch's makeup. It was mysterious and alluring, with an exotic flair, while her vivid red lips struck straight at the heart like a flame.

‘Ooh, my strike zone just moved.’

The woman smiled faintly, touching a finger to her red lips. It looked like a temptation, or perhaps an invitation. But Jiang Cha simply gazed at her, as if she'd seen it all before, without the slightest hint of shyness.

“Um... who are you?”

A little surprised by her body's instinctive reaction, Jiang Cha nevertheless steadied herself and asked.

What does it feel like to hear your own voice for the first time when you're self-aware and have a basic understanding of the world? Honestly, it felt strange. Jiang Cha didn't feel the slightest connection to the voice. If she hadn't clearly felt her vocal cords vibrating and known the sound came from her, she might've thought someone was hiding somewhere she couldn't see, dubbing her.

But it was undeniably beautiful. There was a slight rasp to it, yet it already sounded pure and holy, like a devout nun singing a hymn.

“I'm your lover!”

The woman's voice was lovely too, like that of a Witch casting a spell over your heart. If Jiang Cha had to describe it, she'd say it was like a Venus flytrap: sweet nectar, deadly danger.

“Huh?”

Though she'd lost her memory, her body's instincts remained. Jiang Cha's mind felt almost unnaturally clear, and she could tell that this woman felt like a stranger—as if they'd never met before. It was strange. By ordinary standards, a patient who opened their eyes should see someone close to them, or a doctor or nurse. Definitely not some bizarre woman straddling them.

Freshly awake, Jiang Cha chose to trust her instincts and quietly raised her guard, though she kept her expression confused and uneasy.

“Then... who am I?”

She remembered her name, but that was all.

“You're Jiang Cha. You lost your memory in an accident and have been lying in bed for a week.”

‘A week? Have I really been lying here that long?’

The girl silently asked herself, trying to find an answer among the scraps of common knowledge left in her mind. Instead, she got two completely different answers.

One came from common sense: someone who'd been unconscious in bed for a week couldn't possibly be as strong as she felt—like she could punch three dragons to death.

The other came from her brain: that's right, you've been lying here for seven days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and thirty-four seconds.

“Then, may I ask your name?”

With so little information to go on, Jiang Cha could only try to get something useful out of the woman in front of her.

“Hehehe. Don't worry about those details for now. You've kept me waiting a whole week... my love.”

But the woman leaned down and pressed herself tightly against Jiang Cha. Warm breath spilled from her red lips onto the girl's own, and the whole room was instantly filled with the scent of hormones.

‘Correction: not hormones. The scent of smoke-type computer accessories.’

‘Huh?’

A mechanical voice suddenly rang out in her mind, startling Jiang Cha. But when she listened closely, she realized it was her own voice—only emotionless and synthetic, so different that hardly anyone would connect the two at first.

‘Based on the available information, the margin of error is less than 0.01 percent.’

‘So why do I have information about the scent of computer accessories?’

The exchange in her mind happened incredibly fast. In an instant, Jiang Cha understood what the voice was.

Simply put, she'd somehow awakened a superpower while unconscious. She could unconsciously gather information from her surroundings and integrate it with the information deep inside her brain.

The reason she'd been unconscious for a whole week was that Information Gathering had been so efficient that it used up too much processing power, causing her brain to automatically go into hibernation.

Otherwise, she should've only been unconscious for three days.

But now that she had this useful information, Jiang Cha had even more reason to be wary of the woman, whose breathing was growing more and more ragged.

Though, judging by her behavior so far...

‘Is she just horny?’

Newly reborn Jiang Cha clearly had no idea how to handle this situation, and for a moment she was at a loss.

Fortunately, someone appeared to break the stalemate.

“Helen! Get off our junior!”

A girl with medium-length black hair, about 160 centimeters tall and—judging by Jiang Cha's experience—definitely wearing fake breasts, kicked the door open. She grabbed the plump woman called Helen and hauled her to the floor like a little chick.

“Sinan, I was just trying to get closer to our new girl. I wasn't going to do anything else.”

Held up by Sinan, Helen skillfully hooked both legs around her waist. She shrugged helplessly.

“You don't need to be in bed to get closer to your junior, and you definitely don't need computer accessories!”

Sinan deftly fished a small pink bottle from Helen's clothes. A flash of blue light flickered over her, and she crushed it to pieces. Then she yanked Helen off herself, swung her around like a shot put, and let go with a fierce throw.

Jiang Cha stared in stunned silence as Sinan, a petite little girl, tossed Helen—a plump woman over 170 centimeters tall and weighing at least fifty kilos—out the window, sending her soaring high into the air.

Just—whoosh!—like that!

‘B-by ordinary standards, I must be dreaming.’

Thinking this, Jiang Cha relaxed and lay back down under the covers, even tucking herself in like a good girl.

‘Correction: after three rounds of enhancement, the brain is currently in excellent condition and has no need for sleep.’

The emotionless voice appeared again, mercilessly shattering Jiang Cha's fantasy.

“So I guess none of the people who become Witches are normal...”

Sinan looked at Jiang Cha, who'd calmly lain back down, and sighed helplessly, rubbing her forehead. Then she stepped forward and yanked the covers off.

“Get up, junior! This isn't a dream!”

Clutching the edge of the blanket, Jiang Cha was flung up into the air with it.

At that moment, Jiang Cha's mind went blank.

Just as she thought she was about to land on the back of her head and get another concussion, blue light burst from her body, illuminating the entire room, and her brain kicked into overdrive.

In an instant, she felt she could control every muscle in her body perfectly. The world before her eyes seemed to slip into bullet time, slowing to a crawl. Before she even adjusted her landing posture, she had time to hum a song to herself.

In that moment, Jiang Cha realized...

She'd already surpassed humanity.