“Execution? Mole, you can’t seriously—”

“It’s the only logical decision, Rat,” Mole said, not even looking up from his work. Not even standing up to face Jarne. After a few seconds, since Jarne wasn’t replying, Mole signed and turned to look up at him. His eyes were deeply-set. He looked about as tired as Jarne felt. Or would have felt, if he hadn’t spent half the day knocked out. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

“No—no, there isn’t, but we aren’t done here!” Jarne slammed his hands onto the desk. “I will not allow you to send a dozen people to the gallows! It’s not—you and I both know it’s not moral! It’s not something you would—”

“I know,” Mole said, “that in the past, I have spoken against capital punishment. But times change. We have to change, too. The way this world works…” He sighed. “It’s not like back home. This place operates on different social rules.” He smiled sympathetically, like a manager trying to relate to their subordinate. “Even though I don’t like it, we have to follow the new rules, too. We have to fit the world around us. When in Rome…”

“Revolt against the Romans!” Jarne cried. “Throw out their outdated ways, teach them better ways of executing justice, tell them all about the faults in punitive justice! We’re civilized, so act like it!”

For an agonizingly long moment, Mole merely looked at him. Then, he said, very slowly, “Are you implying that the goblins’ culture is beneath ours?”

Jarne ground his teeth. “I’m saying,” he growled, “that this isn’t like you.”

“It’s not like me to change? I’m sorry, but that’s a pretty shallow viewpoint.”

“You can change, yes, of course, but your morals, at the very least…”

“My morals are the same,” Mole said, strangely indignant. “Maybe you’re the one who’s changed? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“I haven’t! I’m not…” He threw his hands up. “This isn’t going anywhere. I’m leaving. If I can’t change your mind about all of this…” He turned away and went for the door, pausing before he could exit fully. He turned to look at Mole. “At the very least, I hope you have them properly judged, and executed in a painless manner. Then I won’t speak so badly at the European Court of Justice hearing.”

Mole chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll do it well. I’ll even implement the donation system and let the convicts choose whether or not to have their hearts donated after their death! That’s nice, right?”

Something cold and slimy lurched in Jarne’s stomach as a sudden bout of nausea overcame him. “I—I have to go.”

“I’ll see you around. Good luck with the investigation! Remember, if you need his help, Kitty will gladly assist you anytime. Oh, and don’t forget that the preparation for the selective quarantine is tomorrow. I won’t attend because of the whole assassinating thing, so it’ll just be you and Kitty—and most of the guards, of course.”

“Oh. Yeah. Th—thanks. Say hi to him from me.”

“Why not do it yourself?”

There, like a shadow, just over Mole’s shoulder, stood Kitty. He hadn’t even noticed him. Not his cat-yellow eyes, not his apathetic expression, not his corpse-like complexion. None of it.

Dread welled up into his chest and without saying another word, Jarne left the office, slamming the door behind him. The cold hallway stretched before him. He couldn’t stop here. Kitty would know. He always knew. If he stayed there for too long, Kitty would mention it, and he’d have to talk to Mole again. So even though he felt like he was standing knee-deep in ocean-floor sea sludge, below thousands of feet of freezing sea water, he strode forward, one foot at a time, trying not to let himself drown.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Once he had exited the house, he found a bench to collapse onto.

Fuck. Fuck. Well, they were fucked. Or maybe he was fucked.

…No, that wasn’t right. They were all in this shit together.

—Not including Kitty. He could choke on a plague rat for all he cared.

But he, Mole, and Jazz were all completely fucked. At least, he and Jazz. Right now, Mole was… He…

Jarne put his face into his hands.

Maybe his best option was to cut their losses and leave Mole behind. He was too far gone. It had happened way too damn fast. Kitty just showed up, and then everything got worse, and Sully died, and Plus, and Mole became like this, and…

His breath hitched. Hang on. That was it, wasn’t it? Everything had been going fine, all of the plague stuff was getting better, and then that fucking asshole showed up, and the whole world was suddenly on fire. That couldn’t be a coincidence. But he couldn’t say how it all fit together, either. All he could imagine was that Plus, he… When that all happened…

Who’s to say that it was the raiders who hurt him? If he hadn’t gotten hurt, Kitty would have had to die for Mole. That was for sure. So, to avoid that, all he had to do was make sure someone else got hurt badly enough. And out of the available meat, who was chivalrous enough to run into danger simply to keep Kitty from massacring innocents?

…No, to Kitty, it probably didn’t matter who did it. Just that someone else got hurt. All things considered, everything turned out perfectly for him. He got to spend all day with his master, and there was one less party member to distract Mole from his obedient pet.

It was insidious. Downright genius.

A cat-eyed, stupid-looking face passed through Jarne’s mind.

…Was Kitty really capable of that? Morally, yes, but he was stupid enough to do the rushing-away thing with Mole, so a genius he was not. And he wasn’t exactly evil, either. Not like a human is, anyway. He was more… animal.

That made him far more dangerous.

Grumbling, Jarne stood up again. Couldn’t spend all day muttering. He had work to do, after all.

Fruitless, unhappy work that gave him nothing save for a growling stomach and a sense that if anyone should have died to save Mole, it should have been him. He was, after all, the least useful member. Even Kitty did more work than him. Surely, no one would notice if he went missing.

…No one except Jazz. Leaving her alone with Mole at this time… No, not even Jarne was that cowardly. Still, the day passed uneventfully, Jarne tried to ignore Mole’s giddy discussion of how seven of the eleven people to be executed had agreed to donate, and then he went to sleep. The next morning, going simply by the look on his face, Jarne knew for a fact that Mole had once more trained his insomnia resistance. And Jazz too, apparently. Was he the only normal one around anymore?

“Today’s the day!” Mole said cheerfully as he threw open the curtains to his office, forcing Jarne to wake up from his less-than-mediocre sleep. He still wasn’t used to sleeping in this place, but for lack of alternatives, this was all he could do. Mole smiled down at him. “Come on, sleepyhead! Aren’t you excited? According to a test I conducted earlier, checking the entire city should only take seven hours if you do it right. I’ve helpfully sectioned the city into seven equal parts, each of which will be fully quarantined while you work on it—meaning that everyone who lives there has to be at home.”

Jarne groggily emerged from his sleeping sack. “And if they aren’t…?”

Mole paused a second before chuckling. “Well, let’s just hope everyone decides to follow my instructions this time, yeah?” He pulled a map from his inventory. “Here it is. You’ll have one hour in each section, and I’ve marked them in that order… So, first one is this section, and then… You understand what I mean. As for how you’ll mark the sick houses, I’ve had a few workers make a couple barrels of bluefruit dye, which you can mark the doorposts with. Here’s a graph of how to mark them depending on the amount of sick people. For ease of things, you’ll also be closely followed by a parade of carts containing rations to be given to each house… But your only job is to mark the doorposts. So, to summarize, Kitty spots ‘em, you mark ‘em.” Smiling, Mole held out the rolled-up map to him. “Got it?”

Now, Jarne knew exactly what Mole had spent the entire night doing. Nevertheless, he took the map from Mole’s hand. “Yeah. Got it.” As he rose from his rest and got dressed, he couldn’t help but overhear Mole and Kitty as they talked.

“And you know what you’ll be doing?”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

“You remember what they smelled like?”

“Eugh. Not difficult. I wonder why they always have to smell so rancid…”

“If I had enough time and resources, I’d love to set up a public bath house… But that’s beside the point. Now, as I said before… Don’t take action. Just note them, send it to me, and I’ll tell you whether to go ahead with things or not.”

“Right. Got it.”

“Great!” He turned to Jarne. “Rat, are you ready?”

Jarne buttoned up the collar of his shirt, making sure not to button all the way up. “Yep, ready.”

Mole beamed. “Great! Well, no time like the present—the first time slot begins in twenty minutes, so get out there and quarantine some houses!”

Jarne took one look at Kitty. Was he imagining things, or could he hear a fly buzzing around in Kitty’s empty little skull?

Either way, he was certain today was going to be a long day.