“We’ve run out of rations, but I’ve been going into dead houses and eating all the corpses and transforming them into rats, so I was thinking I could distribute those? Would that be fine?”

“Sure.”

“A lot of people have connected me to the nobles disappearing, is it okay if I take care of those, too? But like, in a more public fashion, so people know not to mess with the government.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve sniffed out a bunch of people planning on storming one of the gates, and I want to keep this from being a problem in the future, so could I just, like… Kill them, and then pile their corpses against the gates? That way, people won’t be able to escape without going through a bunch of dead bodies. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Alright, so I’ve been distributing them for a while now, and I’m starting to run out of rats. I was going to assume it’d be fine, but I just want to get your input on it. Is it okay if I do a few more rounds? To slow the spread, I could even, like, pull a cart behind me, go pick up bodies, convert them to rats… I might have to distribute them raw on account of the time strain. I’m mainly asking because I think, if I do this, people will catch on, and they might not want to eat the rats. Considering that it came from, you know, the dead bodies of their friends and family.”

“Then let them die.”

“You’re starting to get a bit bad. I’ll be amputating your leg. That way, you can still work. Isn’t that nice?”

“That’s nice.”

The shadow ate his left leg.

The darkness crept closer.

“Hey, Mole. How are you? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I just wanted to let you know that, heh, yeah, I made it out! I totally escaped this whole situation. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. Jazz wanted to, but, you know… Yeah. You know me. I always make it out of these situations, don’t I? Heh, remember when we all went into that ante-purgatory trial stuff, and I almost got eaten by a spider? I got stuck in the webs, but then you came rushing to my side, and you got me out of it, but then you didn’t know where to put me, so I almost fell to my death instead? Yeah, that was crazy! But I always survived. I’ll keep doing that, so you don’t need to worry. I’m fine.”

The shadow returned.

“I really suck at this. Keeping contact with people is horrible. Honestly, and I know you won’t like hearing this, but I’ve seriously given up on trying to manage everyone. Besides, basically nobody is in any state to work. I guess Mitt’s the only real exception there, but that’s because Cruelty preliminarily made her his apostle, which makes her immune to the dragon plague. Which is nice, sure, but the way she looks at me sometimes… Makes me nervous. I think, once this is all over, I’ll send her away just so I won’t have to look at her. But, right now, she’s the only person who can tend to you. So, it’s a necessary sin, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Right. Anyways, your other leg needs to come off. That’s okay, right?”

“It’s okay.”

“Good. Great. I never expected anything different from someone like you, Moleman.”

The shadow ate his right leg.

The darkness crept closer.

“H—hi, Mole, it’s… Sorry, I just… It’s a bit hard to see you like this. But Rat told me you’d make it, so I guess this is… It’s a necessary loss, maybe? I’m not sure. Sully was always the more medically learnt of us, you know… I was just the healer because I didn’t know what else to be. I wanted to be a cool mage, like you are, but I… I didn’t have the guts. Fighting things makes my legs shake. But you never teased me. Not even once. And I… To me, that meant the world. But you never seemed to see it as anything strange. Teasing people wasn’t in your nature. Still isn’t. But I… I—I don’t… I’m not sure what’s happening to you anymore. I’m scared, Mole. Because you are still Mole, aren’t you? If not… Who are you?”

The shadow returned.

“Hoo, boy. Another riot. I don’t understand how people keep having the strength to riot when they’re basically walking corpses, the lot of them. The guards weren’t any help. When I showed up, they actually turned on me, me! Yeah, despite me being your stand-in and trusted representative, they went against me. So, as unfortunate as it was, I had to do away with them. The latest captain of the guards tried to beg for their lives to be spared, but I personally counted that as a form of going against you, which is technically treason, so I had to do away with him, too. It’s all for a good cause, of course. By the way, I’m not asking people if they want to donate or not anymore. My thought process is, if they’ve already been so callous and cruel as to break the laws and go against you, they have forfeited their rights to life, and also their right to their own body. So, I can use it as necessary. I hope that’s okay with you, Moleman.”

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“It’s okay with me.”

“That’s perfect. Love hearing it. Now, which arm do you want amputated? One needs to go, but I’m not sure which you’d prefer. You’ve been using the left one as your primary hand for three years now, but your right hand is your actual dominant hand. So, which will it be?”

“Whichever… works best.”

“Right. Great. I don’t know if I said this before, but I think that in times like these, we can’t afford to waste any flesh. So, your limbs will be going to the rat-making project. That’s no issue, is it?”

“No issue.”

“Excellent. In that case, I’ll go with your left arm. Guess you won’t be able to play the lute for a while, huh, Moleman?”

The shadow ate his left arm.

The darkness crept closer.

“I’m not disappointed, Mole. This wasn’t your fault. You put your faith and your trust into the wrong person. Please… when this is all over, don’t hate him. Don’t hate yourself for trusting him. He was your friend. Maybe he still is. We may not always have seen eye-to-eye on everything regarding him, but I have never doubted your sense of morals. You always did what you thought was right. I admired that in you. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you until now… Maybe I was prideful. You seemed to look up to me, and I didn’t want to shatter that. Before all this, I used to be a truck mechanic. I told you that, but you didn’t seem to understand why I was ashamed of telling you. I thought, then, that I’d dropped my big secret. I’m not some mystical adult, with everything figured out. I’m only in my early thirties. I don’t know anything. But you made me feel like an adult. A real one. One who could guide you towards a better future. But… I don’t think I can guide you anymore. This is as far as my help goes. From now on, you’re on your own. That’s what it means to become an adult—I just hope you keep a firm grip on your morals. Lord knows plenty of adults forget that one at home.”

The shadow returned.

“Hey, Moleman.”

“Hey.”

“There’s only your right arm left.”

“Right.”

“After this, a month will have passed. It’s almost May.”

“Almost.”

“Rat won’t be in his stasis anymore. I asked Mitt, and there’s no freezing him again. This is it. One arm, and in a week or so, Rat won’t be around. So, I’m thinking… We need to get out of here. I can’t let you stay here. This city… it’s beyond saving, you know? There’s nothing left to save. So, my thought process is… Because, just because we run away doesn’t mean we need to fail. When I first came here, I had a pretty good idea for how to fix this. See, we only need to solve the plague situation, right? There’s no need to actually save anyone. If we look at this as a sort of patient-zero situation… We just need to keep the plague from spreading. Which we can do, by doing away with everyone. I’ve thought about this for a while now. I know how to…”

He sat up. He lifted his blackened arm and pointed it at the shadow. A recently learned, higher-tier spell flashed through his mind. The codex formed around his wrist, converting the tawny divinity rushing from his heart into a specific form, a specific spell, pointed right at that horrible shadow.

Divinity surged within him. His heart rushed, skipping one beat, two, what little blood he had left speeding to deliver enough divinity to execute the spell.

It wasn’t enough.

His hand exploded.

“Wh—wh—what the heck—”

He slumped back down.

“What the heck was that, Moleman?! What were you even trying to… I mean, if this was an attempt to make my work on your right arm easier, then I’ll remind you that one hand—which you now currently lack—is equal to one rat, which can feed a goblin for a day. Doing that could have led to someone’s death. Is that what you want? I’m really disappointed in you, Moleman. But, I mean… What’s done is done, I guess. I’ll just keep doing my work, despite you making things harder. Because, yeah. I hadn’t gotten to that point, but yes, I was going to amputate your right arm. Or were you that excited to get rid of it? Sometimes, I really can’t understand your thought process, Moleman. By the way, with this, you’ll have one week left to live. Anyways…”

The shadow ate his arm.

The darkness overtook him.

In the darkness, a silhouette approached him, her face burning with rage.

“So. Now you know how it feels, Mole. Being mute, unable to scream out in terror because of how horribly unfair this world is. Or maybe it’s just your dear Kitty. Do you regret it now? Letting such a blight on the world live? I always knew it’d come to this. Ever since I first saw him, I knew he wasn’t human. But I thought better of you. I looked at you, and I thought, ‘Now there’s a guy who’ll make it far!’ Not that I was right about that, either. You’re as bad as he is. No… You’re worse. Have you ever thought about that? Or maybe that’s what you want. You want to be just as bad as he is, because then when you die, nobody will have to mourn you. You’ll go down in history as another horrible hoeksak, and Kitty won’t have to mourn you. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Such a lovely fantasy. A pretty delusion that Kitty won’t let you make into a reality. You realize that, right? There’s no way you haven’t caught on by now. He’s not going to let you die. If he could choose between you and the world, he’d choose you. Even if he had to kill the world himself. Because he doesn’t give a shit about the world. The world made him feel nothing but bad, so he feels justified in making the world feel bad, too. But you’re different. You made him feel good. Like he was a good person.”

The silhouette sneered.

“So, he wants to change that. If he can make you condemn him… Tell him that he’s a bad person… That he doesn’t deserve to feel good… Then, he’ll finally let you go. Then he can kill you without feeling guilty. Because you’ll confirm in him the one fact he holds above all the rest—that he’s a bad person, undeserving of love.”

She moved closer. Hanging over him. Looming, grinning.

“You know what to do, then. You want to die, Mole? You want to finally be free from this suffering? You want to escape this monster you made?”

Her face was right above him. A ceiling of darkness.

“Tell him the truth.

“Then, you’ll be free.”

Emil drew in a rasping, weak breath. In, and out. In, and out.

“...Okay.”