I guess I never had a proper gimmick for this world.

See, I try to have some concrete goal to achieve before I leave. But my main goal here was to make sure Hotel would behave after I detached their soul from mine. Ho, and fixing my menu, that one's pretty important too.

Unfortunately, not only is my menu doing its own thing, but cutting Hotel has proven to be near impossible without some deep soul surgery. Deep soul surgery, core soul surgery--whatever you want to call it--is the equivalent of doing brain surgery on yourself, even if you're a very experience brain surgeon, you are probably going to faint in the middle of the operation.

Soul physiology is...weird, to say the least. Stats are very much an oversimplification of what's happening, the best way I can describe it is it's like a big slime blob composed of multiple interconnected organs, but the "skin" and "fat" are malleable, the organs? Not that much. If you mess with the organs then it becomes deep soul surgery, and you're changing the very core of your soul which could permanently scar you if not done properly. This is the impasse I'm at, I could theoretically let the UM do it for me since it can work even when I'm unconscious, but it's not really built for that.

"Miss Leave!" A boy knocks loudly on the bathroom door. "If you're going to spend that much time in here, at least wash your hair for once!"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM HAVING DEEP THOUGHTS!" I shout at the intrusive knockers. "Give me ten more minutes, and I'll be done."

The boy completely disregards my very reasonable demands and opens the door, making me lose my train of thoughts. What was I thinking about? Souls? That doesn't narrow it down at all, there's a lot to say about sou-

The boy interrupts my DEEP THINKING again as he hurriedly pushes me out of the room. "If you hog the bathroom again, I'll tell Luis!" the boy says as he...wait.

Waitwaitwaitwait.

"What did you say?" I ask the boy, not entirely sure if I've heard him right.

"I'll tell Luis, Dad, whatever!" He slams the bathroom door shut, leaving me flabbergasted on the other side.

I power walk my way to the kitchen, hoping to find one of the two adults to confirm my suspicions. I find Provoj drinking from a bottle of water, I don't wait for her to finish drinking before asking, "Hey, Provoj! What's your name?"

She chokes a little bit in surprise and wipes off the spilled water from of her lips after a few seconds of coughing, "M-my name? Didn't I tell you?"

"No, your real name, not your nickname."

"I-It's Amaris, is it really such a f-forgettable name?" She tilts her head in confusion. "Are...are you okay? Y-you've been acting...strange recently- N-not that I think you're weird it's just- you look uhm...nevermind."

So that's what was disabled, huh?

Name : N/A Nickname : Leave Sex : Female Sanity : DISABLED

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Soul Bloat : Acceptable

[STAT MENU] [INVENTORY] [CURRENT UNIVERSE DATA] [SKILL MENU]

[SOUL STATUS]

DIARY/NOTES

When they said they would disable a few key features of the UM, I didn't think it would disable the SANITY SYSTEM! It's basically the most important feature! It's the one thing keeping me in check! Why would it-

Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, slowly and deeply. Concentrate on your breathing until there's nothing else, panicking will not help, anger will not help, I just have to handle the situation like it is. First, I have to remember what the sanity system even DID. It blocked memories when times were tough, that I know. It also usually blocked names, sometimes it can bypass it if it's in a box or something, like with Trin.

What else? There was something else. I think it makes my body go on autopilot sometimes, I'm pretty sure that's what happened when I threw rocks for who knows how long. My body just worked without me thinking, and a lot of time would pass in a blink. There's probably a lot more that I'm forgetting, the UM was basically built with sanity first and everything else second. It's no exaggeration that disabling it changes nearly everything about the way it functions.

"Uhm..." Ama- Provoj looks at me with worried eyes. "Did I say something wrong? Y-you've been staring at me for a few minutes and-"

"It's nothing." I shake my head. "I just need some time alone."

"H-ha, I've been receiving some complaints that you stay in the bathroom for a- a little too long. So... I mean- If you need some time alone, maybe try your room? That's what it's for."

"I have a room?"

"Y..Yes? I'm pretty sure Luis gave you one."

Huh.

So I didn't have to sleep in the bathroom this entire time, good to know.

Provoj gives me quick directions to my room, baffled by the fact it took me a month to ask where my room was. In my defense, I was very busy. And I'm used to sleeping on the ground, so it didn't bother me that much.

When I do find my room and I open the door, I find Hotel and the blind girl on top of what I assume is my bed. Both of them turn their head to look at me, well, the girl probably isn't "looking" at me, but she still turned her head in my direction since I wasn't exactly quiet when I opened the door.

The room is rather plain, a creaky wooden bed with no blankets and a single closet next to one of the drab, gray walls.

I raise my finger, trying to think of something to say.

"Hey, who is your friend?" I ask Hotel, regretting the question immediately.

Hotel blinks a couple of times before answering, "Leilani."

"I...take-" I gulp, thankful that the girl is unable to see my discomfort. "Thanks for..." for some reason I can't find the right words, or maybe I do know the right words and I just don't want to say them. "Have fun with Hotel..." I grit my teeth, it feels like I'm going to puke. Some disgusting thing in my mouth keeps wriggling to block the next word, but eventually I manage to spit it out. "Leilani."

I close the door and walk as far away from my room as I can, it felt wrong, it felt dirty. SHe I hate names. I can't stand them, but I'm going to hear them a lot from now on, so I'll need to adapt, or at least tolerate them until I find another solution.

She probably hates me right now, or maybe she doesn't. I don't know, and it's driving me insane. It's as if everything I do and say is now under her scrutiny.

I originally made the UM when I was still young, but maybe I know better now, maybe I'm better now.

But if that's the case, why do I still feel like this?