The Sinner Hunting System

"...You."

Elena stared at him.

Seeing her hovering in the doorway like a startled deer, Raphael raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and sighed.

"If you’re this scared, I’ll get you a gun in a few days. So you’re not walking around anxious the whole time. Children’s version, probably, less chance of accidental discharge."

Elena made a sound.

"Children’s version? Excuse me? Who exactly do you think you’re looking down at?"

Something in the phrasing did exactly what he’d intended it to do. She shoved the door fully open, huffed once, and walked out with the energy of someone proving a point.

"Who’s scared? Not me. What did you make? Let’s eat."

She marched straight to the table without looking at him, radiating *see how unbothered I am.*

Raphael watched her and shook his head slightly.

"Too easy. One comment and she walks right into it. That psychological profile would not survive the first round of selection."

Then he caught himself and paused.

’Why am I evaluating a civilian girl using operational criteria?’

He thought about it for a moment.

Superbia. That’ll be the sin affinity.

Elena’s footsteps slowed. She shot him a look, then her attention was completely taken over by the table.

The oat porridge was fragrant, the nuts added after cooking so they’d stayed crisp, the temperature sitting at exactly the point where the first spoonful wouldn’t burn.

Fruit arranged along the edges. The waffles beside it were soft and still steaming, stacked in a small tower with maple syrup running into the grid lines and pooling at the corners. A cup of coffee alongside everything.

All of it in one serving, clearly for her alone.

"You made all this? From scratch? I don’t buy premade things, so that was all fresh?"

"I had time. Your kitchen has proper tools and plenty of ingredients."

Raphael answered briefly and returned to his own meal. Elena looked at his plate and went quiet for a moment.

"What’s the white thing?" she asked.

"Poached chicken breast."

"And the egg liquid, did you forget to cook it?"

"No. That’s how I drink it. Raw egg."

"And those tablets, aren’t those my vitamin supplements? You’re eating those for breakfast?"

"I also need vitamins."

His expression said: this is simply what I do.

Elena looked at him with genuine incomprehension.

"You eat like this normally? No offense, but my family’s dog eats better than this."

Raphael worked efficiently through two large pieces of poached chicken without looking up.

"Not always. I usually add protein powder, creatine, amino acids, some vitamins. Kind of like seasoning, really."

Elena swallowed.

"Doesn’t that make you... sad? Don’t you feel like life has nothing to look forward to?"

He picked up a vitamin tablet and dropped it in his mouth.

"Why would it? Lower body fat, stronger muscles, better physique. What’s there to be sad about?"

Elena experienced, in this moment, a vivid and tangible sense of exactly how wide the gap between two people’s values could be.

She lowered her head and started eating her own breakfast.

The oat porridge was lightly sweet, the nuts still crunchy, the temperature perfect, warm without burning, settling into the stomach gently.

The waffles were soft and thick, the maple syrup rich and fragrant, the coffee following with a clean bitterness that cut through the sweetness exactly right.

Across the table, the person who had made all of this was tipping back a full cup of raw egg and swallowing it in one go, the way a normal person drinks water.

’This is what happens when muscles take over the brain’, Elena thought. This is what that looks like.

She quietly decided to postpone her next gym visit indefinitely.

Breakfast proceeded in its strange atmosphere.

"By the way," Raphael said. "Pharmacy first, once we’re out."

"Okay."

---

"You’re sure you want to buy this."

In the pharmacy, Raphael looked at the item Elena was holding with a specific expression. If he was remembering correctly, this was a veterinary product.

The purpose was suppressing reproductive instinct in animals.

Elena was completely serious.

"If I eliminate the possibility from the root, I can let you walk around the apartment without handcuffs and actually feel safe about it."

The young pharmacist, who had been listening to this conversation while pretending not to, adjusted his glasses and felt something shift quietly in his understanding of the world.

"Miss, I’m sorry to interrupt, but this medication is for animals. For a human it would... it’s not that it has no effect, but..."

Ethically unusual. Potentially qualifying as intentional bodily harm under the law.

Raphael, whose Physical Resistance was now at Lv3, did not think this product posed any realistic threat to his continued functioning.

Speaking frankly, his body could currently process agricultural chemicals without notable consequences.

The only things that absorbed normally at this point were things his system didn’t classify as damage, vitamins, for instance.

"I don’t mind. If it makes you feel safer."

The things people get up to these days, the pharmacist thought, maintaining a professional smile with practiced effort.

---

Elena watched Raphael swallow the tablet with evident satisfaction and decided the bodyguard arrangement was officially in effect.

They left together, Elena in front, Raphael a few paces behind and to the side, close enough to watch, far enough not to look like they were together.

Elena moved through the street with performance-quality casualness, stopping at windows, asking prices, handling merchandise with great attention.

"Excuse me, how much is this? What’s the material? Men’s clothing?

Yes, for a, um, male friend of mine. Is it loose? Good for... fighting, I mean, for exercising?"

She had apparently forgotten entirely what they were here for and was shopping.

Raphael kept pace, watching the crowd around her.

Then he felt it. A gaze, the specific quality of one, directional, focused, the kind that Elena had described.

He looked toward it. The street was busy. Too many people moving in too many directions to identify a source.

But the texture of it was right.

That gaze also noticed Raphael, and the clothes he was wearing.

He saw the hoodie. The thought connected itself. Unisex cut, but Elena’s worn it. He recognized it on her. That’s specific enough to be disturbing.

Raphael sensed a hint of jealousy in the gaze directed at him.

He held position and waited. They covered the shopping district for the rest of the afternoon, the sun making its way down to the horizon, and the sensation didn’t return.

They walked home.

There was a letter in the door.

Elena picked it up, puzzled, and opened it. Her mouth twitched.

"Someone is following you. Black hair, blue eyes. I saw him buy the same hoodie as you, which is a women’s hoodie, by the way. He has been watching you and following you. Be careful of this creep.

To the beautiful Ms. Elena Silva, from an ordinary admirer who looks upon you with great fondness."

P.S. Please be careful.