Unholy Player

Chapter 505: A Word Too Dangerous to Say

But how am I supposed to appraise them? Dalin wondered.

Her eyes went to the nearest STF soldier. Instinct took her to his gear first. Plates, straps, and metal edges, all catching her attention immediately.

She could assign value to every piece of equipment he wore, but what about his worth as a person? They weren’t slaves being sold in a market in the end.

"Stop thinking about money and build your own point system," Adyr said, seeing her dilemma. He offered his perspective and continued. "Set a potential value from 1 to 10 based on your own standards. Then give each person a number according to the potential you see in them. Not their price."

"Okay," Dalin said.

This time, she didn’t linger on the equipment. She studied the soldier himself. His face. The sharpness of his features. His hands. His stance. The rhythm of his breathing. She watched for tiny tells that most people missed.

Confident? A coward beneath the surface? A family father or a loyal brother? Someone content living under another’s command, or someone with ambition, dreaming of reaching commander level one day?

She tried to understand everything about him just by watching. In her mind, she built a profile, sorting him into categories the way she would sort cargo.

This kind of thinking process wasn’t new for Dalin, in fact. She just hadn’t realized until now that she had been doing it her whole life.

Growing up in a powerful, wealthy family, appraising people and checking their worth had come naturally to her. She had always watched her grandfather and parents do the same thing, then picked up the habit herself.

It was only now that, with Adyr pointing it out, she realized it could be a talent not only meant for objects and monetary value but also something more.

"2 out of 10," she said out loud at last, giving her evaluation of the soldier.

Upon hearing the score, the soldier’s previously disciplined, unshakable posture faltered for a fraction of a second, stung by how low the assessment was.

Adyr laughed and asked, "Why is that?"

When he looked at the soldier, he understood why the number was so low based on his own observations. Still, he wanted to hear Dalin’s reasoning. The framework she was using.

The soldier looked interested too. His gaze shifted toward her, waiting for her explanation, as if searching for some justification to protect his sense of worth.

"Because he recently got married and now has a newborn. That alone keeps him anchored in the Beyond. Those kinds of attachments always place limits on a person. These attachments make his decisions cautious, and they will continue to do so in the future. He’ll avoid risks that could cost him his life or his position, and that hesitation will block his future."

The soldier looked stunned. He didn’t understand how Dalin knew his private life, especially about the newborn. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his close friends here.

Being an elite soldier meant having a mentality as strong as steel. Speaking about private lives, or anything that could make their minds vulnerable during deployment in this new world, was completely forbidden. It was a rule drilled into every STF member with hellish training.

Dalin caught the look he gave her, the way he stared as if she had read his mind with some Spark skill. It made her laugh in amusement. "Don’t worry. I didn’t read your mind. I just read your files a little."

She had, in fact, read every available file for every soldier around her. With her position as a Player and her strong background, it hadn’t been difficult to get her hands on them, though the ethics of her actions were questionable.

But she wasn’t concerned about ethics in a world like this. In the end, knowing your allies was as important as knowing your enemies. Especially when one mistake could get people killed.

"What about the others?" Adyr asked with interest. He found her ability to appraise people genuinely engaging, as if he were watching a tool reveal a new function.

Dalin didn’t refuse. She went through everyone one by one, giving each a number.

The highest number she gave was to the company captain. A middle-aged woman with hard, unwavering features, the kind of face that looked carved by years of pressure.

Even that was only 5.

Finally, her gaze turned to Adyr. It carried the same focused observation she had given to the rest. "And your value is..."

She took her time. She sorted every piece of information she had gathered until now into files in her mind. She linked them together, compared them, and reached a final result like solving a math problem.

She weighed not just what he was, but what he could become, then said, "It’s 9," very confidently, like she had already checked the answer twice.

"And where did you take 1 point away?" Adyr’s curiosity showed. He wanted to hear her evaluation of him. The one place she believed he fell short.

Even if Adyr couldn’t get a full score, either she was stingy with her scoring, or there was truly a serious flaw that made her take 1 point away.

It was the latter. "You are too calm for your own sake."

As soon as the words left Dalin’s lips, her expression changed, as if she already regretted saying them.

But Adyr’s interest only increased as he spoke with the same calm he had. "Is that supposed to be a disadvantage?"

Dalin looked like she would rather not answer or go any deeper, but when she looked into Adyr’s eyes, calm and pulling like a crimson sea shifting beneath the surface, she forced herself to respond.

"For you, it is." She sighed. "You almost lost your family, but I’ve never seen you raise your voice in anger. You made enemies as strong as someone riding a dragon, and you dealt with a scientist who calls himself mad, yet I’ve never seen you panic."

Her voice dropped a little as she continued.

"You gave a new territory to humans. You made it possible for them to build a new place they can call a second home, but I’ve never heard you go high and mighty, praising yourself. You made people call you a hero, a king, and a ruler, but I’ve never seen these accomplishments inflate your ego."

She lowered her head and fell silent for a moment. Even the soldiers in the cabin seemed to hold their breath, careful not to interrupt her.

"You are always so calm, not showing the emotions that should be shown, or only showing the ones you want people to see. It’s like no matter what happens in front of you—success, failure, or loss—you react with the same calmness, like..."

She stopped herself, unable to finish her words.

The word she was thinking of felt dangerous. She felt that saying the word out loud would lead to something irreversible.

And this time, Adyr didn’t force her to finish. He just laughed it off. "I get it."

He felt it too. He didn’t want to hear that word either.