They went. However, with a situation as odd as theirs, Emil had no choice but to dig further. “So, just to clarify… You’ve been watching me for two weeks?”

“I was trying to work up the courage,” Kitty admitted.

Emil chuckled at his friend’s absurdity, and also at his own paranoia. “I guess we both were, then.” Silence fell again. It wasn’t quite awkward, but it couldn’t be fully comfortable when they still had so much to say to each other. “What else have you been up to?” he asked, if only to fill the silence. “I could tell you weren’t watching me all the time. Did you stay with someone?”

“Not really,” Kitty said. Even as Emil looked directly at him, he still felt as though he wasn’t really looking at anyone. Thankfully, the road ahead of them presented him with a good alternative. Emil motioned for Kitty to continue. “I’ve been spending most of my time training a skill, staying in no-longer-inhabited houses, checking out the place… Normal stuff.”

“A skill?”

Kitty lit up, turning to Emil with excitement. “Yeah! I wanted to tell you about it since I got it following the whole ordeal with the Evil Claw Pirates, but I forgot because of all the, you know…” The thought was almost enough to fully smother Kitty’s newfound energy, but an encouraging nod from Emil was able to rejuvenate it. “It’s another sovereign skill! From the god of cruelty, this time!”

“Another one?” Emil chuckled in disbelief. “How many do you have by now?”

Brought off track, it took a second or so before Kitty regained his train of thought. Bringing up his hands, he began counting his fingers, mumbling the names of skills new and old as he did, ending it by looking back up and saying, “Seven, I think?” Shaking his head, Kitty quickly returned to the matter of the latest skill. “This one is the strangest, though. See, it’s both kind of useless to me and also potentially the most broken of them.”

Emil stepped out of an alley before Kitty, pausing to let Kitty catch up with him before heading down a larger street. “How do you mean?”

“Well, see, it lets me heal anyone fully. And I mean fully,” Kitty enunciated. Then, clearing his throat, he threw himself into an explanation, using a tone of voice Emil seldom heard from him. “The way it works is that… Well, first, you grab yourself a goblin, preferably a sick one, and then you grab another one. They can both be sick, but if they’re too sick it becomes hard to get the heart without making things difficult.”

Emil felt himself make a face. ‘The… heart?’

“So, then, what you do is that you incapacitate them both, because even if they’re moments from death, they’ll still get completely healed. Or, that is, the one you choose to heal gets healed—the other one gets dead. That’s the first step, by the way—picking the unfortunate survivor. From what I’ve seen, almost everyone has some kind of infection or disability or deformity, so even if someone’s in peak health, it still works, technically. Don’t ask me how, I’m not clear on that. But, okay, so, once you have your victim chosen, you take the other goblin, and stab—” his left hand shot out to punctuate the word, “grab the heart,” his fingers clenched around an invisible organ, “pull it out,” he drew his hand to his chest, “cut off the veins and such,” snip-snip went his right hand, “and then, still holding the heart, you open up the other guys chest,” he slit his claws through the air, “pull out the old heart and toss it,” he mockingly pretended to throw something over his shoulder, “and now, you have a five-second window to stick in the new heart.” Gesturing boldly, Kitty pretended to stick the invisible heart in his left hand into the hypothetical chest beneath him. “And if you did everything right, this guy,” Kitty nudged at the open air wherein his transplant took place, “survives!” A wide, toothy grin split across Kitty’s face. “See? Cool, right?”

Dread churned in the pit of Emil’s stomach. He felt his abdomen spasm and the stench of bile rose to the back of his throat. Recalling the advice Plus gave him, Emil hurriedly pulled a small bottle of water from his inventory, quickly downing it. Now, if he puked, it wouldn’t be so acidic—at least, that’s what Plus said. He gulped down the final traces in his mouth.

In front of him, mere inches away, Kitty frowned at him with concern. “Are you okay, Moleman? Did you eat something bad at that fancy dining party? It did look pretty gross…”

“Are you the heart-ripper?”

Kitty blinked at him. “The what?”

“This—this skill… Have you been using it on people? Now? In this city, in these past two weeks?”

The way Kitty looked at him made Emil feel as though he was the stupid one here. “Well, yeah, of course. The skill description was really vague. It didn’t even mention that you had to hold the heart to be used in your left hand, and that the person you took it from could, at most, be dead as of five seconds past, and that the same rule was true for the person to be healed. Pretty critical stuff, but does the god of cruelty mention it? No! Ugh, some of these gods are really—”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Emil grabbed Kitty’s shoulders. He felt himself trembling, only barely being able to look his friend in the eye, a million questions running through his mind and none of them finding the relief of being asked. He tried to take a deep breath, only to find it staggering and shallow.

So close, yet so far away, Kitty’s face scrunched up in even deeper concern. “Moleman, are you sure you’re okay? You look very pale. Have you been eating well?”

Something hard and heavy melted inside Emil’s chest. A calm realization passed over his mind. Kitty was his friend. Kitty had been following him for two weeks now. He knew that Emil was working hard to cure the drake pox. He had seen the many patients Emil had watched slip out of life. He saw Emil’s pain, and this… This must have been his attempt at helping. The logic slotted into place, and Emil found himself reluctantly smiling.

“Th—this is a very kind offer, but I… I can’t let you use this skill on the patients. It’s a miracle cure, I know, but using someone’s life to save another is a horrible cruelty.”

Kitty blinked at him. “What—” But then, his eyes quickly widened, and he turned away, his face dark with shame. “...Okay. I won’t. I just…” He turned back to him, eyes hopeful. “Not even if both parties agree to it?”

Emil clenched his jaw. “I… I don’t know. I need to think about it. Until then, though…” He gritted his teeth. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. And—and don’t use it any more. Can you do that for me, Kitty?”

Kitty nodded at him. “Yeah, of course.” He tried a smile. “I know how it works now, so there’s no reason for me to practice it further anyway.”

Trying not to think too hard about it, Emil said, “Thank you. That’s good.” He released his hold on Kitty’s shoulders, and they continued walking. They would be home soon, anyway. As Emil glanced at his companion—or, more specifically, at the prominent brand on his chest—he recalled the fact that Kitty was, at the moment, wanted by both Acheron and affiliated kingdoms, alongside the Server Alliance itself. He cringed at the thought. “Hey, uh, Kitty?”

Kitty turned to look at him. “Hm?”

“We’ll be at the mayor’s estate soon, and if the porter sees you, he’s sure to recognize the brand. Would you mind wearing something? Aside from the hide, that is.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” A look of enlightenment struck Kitty’s face and he shoved his hand into open air with a grin, pulling a massive fur coat out of his inventory. Without waiting for Emil to understand what he was looking at, Kitty draped it across his shoulders, buttoning it to hide his chest and the better part of his legs, too. The now well-dressed man grinned at him. “Well? What do you think?”

“It’s… Is that leopard?” He didn’t actually need to ask. It was obviously a leopard, though with the way it had been crafted, he could only really tell it by the print. It was the kind of coat Emil could imagine seeing on a fancy old lady bringing her A-game to the Saturday book club. It if hadn’t been for the fact that the arms, collar, lapel and hem were perfectly sized for Kitty’s unusual shape, he would have assumed that his dear friend had robbed some noble woman and rendered her naked. “Wow.”

“Here, touch it!” Kitty said, holding up his sleeve. Emil let his fingers touch the hairs. It was as soft as that of a living beast. “And I made it a~ll myself! Not the hide, though. I can’t grow hair like this, but… But I’m the one who tanned it and cut it and sewed it! Sure, I was following Father Moonlight’s design, but I adjusted it myself.”

Emil whistled. “Very impressive.” He smiled at Kitty. “Shall we see if the porter accepts it or not?”

As it turned out, the porter did indeed accept Emil’s strange new friend. Of course, even if he hadn’t, Kitty would have been able to get in somehow. They headed for the west wing, where Emil and his party had all been granted separate, equally fancy rooms. Compared to the way some of his party members had decorated their quarters, Emil’s remained almost the exact same as it had been when he was granted it, with the sole addition being a vase sat atop his desk; or, more specifically, the bouquet of flowers held in it—the flowers being a gift from one of his patients. Aside from that, the room was only remarkable in the obnoxious gaudiness of the furniture and ornaments. Everything from the desk to the bookcases to the bed itself had been carved from a type of wood so expensive Emil couldn’t even recall the name.

Kitty took it in with open-mouthed awe as he hung his fur on the coat rack. “Whoa, now that’s fancy.” He stepped over to the bed, running his hands along the shimmering overcover. “Is that silk? Or, I guess, fantasy-silk-equivalent?”

“Spidersilk,” Emil explained tiredly. “From some man-sized spider they specifically trained to produce large quantities of silk. It’s disgusting.”

“It’s scaly,” Kitty breathed.

Emil perked a brow. “It’s what?”

“It’s—never mind, not important.” Shaking his head, Kitty made no pretence of patience, leaping right on top of the terrifyingly plush covers to sit with his legs crossed. “So,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “How’s about some of that grub you promised?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get it,” Emil said, pulling up the shop. Desserts, meat, fruits, nuts… “What are you feeling?”

“Hmmm… How about…” Kitty lit up into a grin. “—Princess cake?”

Emil gave him a look. “Princess cake? On top of my bed?”

“Alright, alright, something else, I guess. In that case…” Humming, he stroked his chin, only for his nostrils to abruptly flare as he began sniffing, almost like a dog, turning towards the street-facing window. “Ah, your friends are here.”

“They are?”

“Yeah. Ursula, Rat, and… whatever the other two were called.”

“You mean Plus and Jazz?”

Kitty frowned. “Weird names, but yeah. They’ll be here in… Maybe five minutes or so.” He leaned down, resting his chin in his hand. “Will you want to talk to them?”

Emil hesitated. “I… suppose I will.” There was a lot to talk to them about, primarily the elephant sitting on top of his bed. On the other hand… “Will you be okay?”

“Me?” Scoffing, Kitty waved his hand in the air. “I’ll be fine!” The smile that found itself on Kitty’s lips felt strangely mature. “Don’t worry about that. You go talk to them, and I’ll be here when you get back.” He chuckled. “And no funny business from either of us. Capiche?”

“...Capiche,” Emil replied. Before leaving, though, he bought a few bananas, a small pouch of assorted nuts and half a dried drake leg for his friend. Although he suddenly couldn’t imagine Kitty going back on his words, Emil still wanted to leave him with something to do. Once he’d warned Kitty not to make too much of a mess atop his bed, Emil went to the door, opened it, and stood in the doorframe for a second, looking back at Kitty. Kitty smiled at him. Smiling back, Emil closed the door behind him, exiting into the dark, quiet hallway.

…When did Kitty get so mature?