I’m still in disbelief that Raina would use Regina to spy on me, I mean that’s like a totally unfair move if you ask me. She knows that Regina doesn’t have the best opinion of me and she totally exploited that. I mean, Regina and I are not close, but our overall relationship nowadays is so much better than how it used to be when we first met. Yeah, that was probably one of the most stressful times of my life.

It was a Saturday, it’s been almost a month since I’ve been discharged from the hospital. During the time between being in the hospital and that day, the Valero’s have accomplished the paperwork for my adoption and I’ve become an official member of the Valero family.

Now, me and my mother’s home was not really that impressive, in fact it’s somewhat similar looking to most of the houses in the middle-to-lower class communities. So, you can be surprised when I first saw the Valero’s household, a literal mansion that is seriously almost as big as a supermall. My eyes almost fell to the ground by the sheer enormity of it, it’s like I can’t believe that I’ll be living in this place from now on.

As big as the place looks from the outside, I felt that traversing the insides of this place was a lot more daunting. Somehow, it seems a lot bigger on the inside than the outside. I was getting tired from touring around, so I decided to take a break and sit down on the chairs in the living room.

“Man, this house is really huge,” I mumbled.

While I was trying to rest my fatigue away, I came across a familiar face that walked in. If I’m not mistaken, It was the guy who was with Raina when I was saved from the burning rubble. That man carried me on his back, back to safety. I think his name was…

“Good day, Sir Rolo. I’m very glad to see you well,” he says.

“Ah, good day too… uh?”

“It’s Claris, sir.”

That’s right, it’s Claris the butler.

“I’m really glad to see you again… since I want to thank you personally for what you did for me that day. I’m eternally grateful to you and Raina for saving my life,” I bowed.

“I just simply followed the whims of Lady Raina, you need not bow your head for me, sir. But, I’m really happy we were able to find you in time,” he says.

“Please, accept my gratitude, regardless.”

“Wholeheartedly,” he smiled.

To think that this sweet old man was strong enough to carry me away from the flames.

Very confusing.

“Ah, by the way, Sir Rolo. I believe that there’s a letter for you in the mail and I’m here to deliver it to you,” Claris says.

“Oh, thank you.”

He handed me a neatly enveloped letter filled with a bunch of aesthetically pleasing designs and excused himself to leave. I guess a butler’s work is never done, but hopefully he gets enough rest when his duties end. Now, about that letter, when I looked at the envelope initially, there was no address or anything written on it. I don’t have a clue on who would’ve sent a letter for me, let alone know where I now live, but the curiosity on what it may contain was too enticing to pass up. I opened the envelope and it must’ve been a joke of some kind, since there was nothing written on the paper. There was no message, but it did look like the paper used was the Valero family’s own letterhead, so it must’ve been sent by someone from this house.

It was blank, save for the letters ‘RGN’ written in the middle of the paper.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

It wasn’t even in a large font, it was so miniscule that I almost missed it entirely.

It’s such a waste of paper, environmentalists would probably riot if they saw this.

Nevertheless, I wondered what RGN meant. In hindsight, it’s pretty clear that it means Regina. But at the time, I was completely stumped. I even found another three letters on the back of the paper, “VLR”. It’s written in tiny print at the bottom edge of it. Now, RGN VLR is clearly Regina Valero, but my dumb brain at the time decided that it was a code with each letter having a corresponding number.

R would be 18.

G would be 7.

N would be 14.

V would be 22.

L would be 12.

R would be... well, you know the deal.

I added those up and the sum was 91. Then I added that again, and it became 10. Then I did it again, now it’s just 1. I thought it meant that the answer was a room with the number 1 in its door, because it was sent from inside the house. Funny enough, I did find that room, after half an hour of roaming around this maze of a mansion.

There was a letter on the floor, and it was not amusing to read.

The letter reads, “It’s not an alphanumeric code. Stop overthinking it.”

Another wasted paper, I thought.

It took me some thinking, until it finally hit me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” I mumbled to myself, completely disappointed in myself.

I remembered that I was going to have two new siblings, the elder being Raina and the younger one being Regina Valero. The moment I put two in two together, I felt like the world’s biggest idiot for not seeing it a lot sooner. I sighed and looked at the new letter and there were some more words written in the back.

It read, “So, how did it feel to add all those numbers together? I figured you’d end up with the number 1 because a singular number seems like a plausible answer to a riddle like this, but it only seems like that to people as dense as you. Anyway, figure it out soon, I don’t like waiting around, Rolo~.”

Is she trying to pick a fight with me?

I just got here.

I immediately scrambled out of Room 1—which was actually the broom closet, go figure—and ran towards the one room that I hadn’t been to yet. The one room that everyone cautioned me into entering, because it was the secretive Regina’s room. After 3 flights of stairs and breath shortness, I was finally standing outside of her room.

I knocked on the door once, no answer.

I knocked twice, still no answer.

I knocked three additional times, and I was met with a slight chuckle inside.

That annoyed me, so I decided to barge in without knocking. And there she was, sitting on the floor with a sly smile on her face, staring up to me like a mischievous fox. I walked inside and the door suddenly closed behind me.

“It took you a while, did you perhaps end up in Room 1 first?” she asked.

“Not really. I just analyzed this code for a bit and took my time getting here.”

“Is that right?”

“It is.” It’s really not.

“You liar,” she smiled.

“Wha—?!”

Lying is not really my strongest suit, but was I really that transparent? No, there’s no way that anyone would think that I was lying. I said it in full confidence and it should’ve tricked her. And it’s also such an infinitesimal lie, that it should’ve been easily brushed off as a passing comment.

Am I really that predictable?

She chuckled and said, “Truly clueless, aren’t you?”

She’s reading me like a book.

“Enough chit-chat. Can you explain to me why you sent me this… coded letter? And why waste such a good sheet of A4 paper with those tiny fonts?!” I asked her.

“Why? Let me think…” she said while sarcastically gesturing me to come closer. She then said, “I guess, I just wanted to play with my new older brother, that’s all.”

“Huh? A game?”

“Exactly, a game!” she said like an excited child in a toy store. But her excitement quickly vanished and she told me, “So, do you want to play?”