Once Roman bound the unconscious teenager to a tree, he settled down against his own oak and waited. John had confirmed that the enchanted ropes should restrain her as long as her hands remained adequately restricted.
Roman had noticed a chunk of flesh missing from her right bicep, evidence of teeth marks visible around the edges of her torn sleeve. Between that and the trauma from smashing into the ground, he wasn’t too worried about the possibility of a round two. He considered holding on to the butter knife, but he wasn’t sure what her power could do, so he threw it as far as he could manage--which, given the circumstances, wasn’t very far. A cursory patdown hadn’t revealed any hidden weapons or talismans, though anyone with the ability to conjure flames from nothingness was a danger by themselves.
Five minutes passed. Mixie stood to Roman’s right, John on his left, and in his mental fugue he imagined them as a devil and an angel on his shoulders. A ridiculous little chuckle burned his throat.
In that brief period his body seemed to have regenerated somewhat on its own. The gentle night breeze stung his skin, and breathing was still torture, but he was either growing more used to it or his body healed at a remarkable rate. He’d mostly suffered superficial burns and an inhalation injury, but even those would have incapacitated the average person for days. If he could reach such superhuman levels in a few hours, what would this world look like in a few weeks with lunatics punching holes in mountains?
“Ah,” said Roman, noticing Mixie glancing at him with what might have been the faintest hint of concern. “Almost. Forgot. Thanks.”
Mixie frowned for several seconds, brow wrinkled in confusion, before finally responding. “For what?”
John spoke to the shopkeeper with a begrudging amount of respect in his voice for the first time, “Probably for shielding him when she first attacked, and the rope.”
Roman found that his body had even less energy than he thought. Too weak to respond, he pointed at John to confirm his words were right. Merely lifting his arm felt like a struggle against the heavens. Sitting down had been a mistake; there was no getting up at this point.
Mixie crossed his arms and stared off into space. “The woman attacked me as well. It is in my interests to see her defeated. It has also presented me with an opportunity myself, if I wish to pursue it. Rest for a while, Mister Miller. I shall stand guard for now.”
No, thought Roman. Though the shopkeeper seemed a degree less frigid, he didn’t want to risk falling asleep in this dark forest. He doubted John could intervene in the physical world much, if at all. I’ll just rest my eyes for a second.
Bold white text danced across the darkness of his eyelids. Notifications from the fight, he imagined. He told himself to read them, but as soon as he attempted to focus on the words, they turned into a hazy blur. His head slipped to the side and finally he succumbed to the dangerous lull of sleep.
His dreams were strange, disjointed things. Fragments of horror, half-forgotten visages from the past, the familiar nightmare scenario that he was in a fight but his punches may as well have been jelly as his opponent laughed them off.
His eyes snapped open in a panic as the first warm beam of sunlight struck his body. His heart pounded in his chest, and he leapt to his feet so quickly that his newfound strength made him stumble.
How could it already be morning? But there was no mistaking the soft light filtering down through the canopy.
Mixie stood in the same place as he had before, arms folded across his chest.
Then Roman remembered the captive. Fortunately she was still tied to the tree. Her eyes blearily opened, regarding him with a sort of hostile terror that made him feel like a carrion golem himself. He’d probably given that exact same look to the abomination Oscar Martinez Garcia had transformed into. It was rather offensive, honestly.
Roman glanced down at himself--spattered in gore, skin raw and inflamed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, pleased to note only a mild tickle in his throat while speaking. “The system cursed me with low Charisma due to an earlier misunderstanding. You’re probably going to naturally see me as an enemy. Doesn’t have to be that way.”
The young woman spit in his direction, refusing to respond.
Mixie grunted into his hand. “You are delightfully mistaken on how Charisma functions, Mister Miller. You have a more fundamental issue. No charm, on top of being a filthy, stinking offal-pile.”
Roman considered that perhaps Mixie was not warming up to him as much as he deluded himself into believing. And why was he trying to convince the captive of anything, anyways? Was he really showing weakness because of the most tenuous possible similarity to his little sister? She’d blasted him with the equivalent of a flamethrower; he was fortunate the skill must have been too low of a rank to melt him within a second.
“Why’d you attack me?” he growled.
To his surprise, she chose to respond. Her voice trembled slightly, but she made an effort to project her disdain. “My…guide says you’re a Player, even if you look more like a monster. It was nighttime. Dark. You’re huge, and traveling with that thing.” She jutted her chin out at Mixie. “Thought I’d get you before you got me.”
Roman resisted the urge to pat his face to see if he had sprouted any tentacles while sleeping. How the fuck do I look like a monster?
He shook his head and refocused. “What’s your story?”
She hauled against the ropes binding her tight against the tree. “Why don’t you let me out first? Big guy like you, scared of a little girl?”
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“Scared of another survivor.”
Something about those words calmed her down. She set her jaw and stared intently at a nearby patch of earth. “When all this first happened I was helping close up the restaurant. I got those messages and…everything changed. Everyone else became these horrible, broken monsters. They captured me and one of the last customers, another woman that hadn’t been turned.”
Her words trailed off.
Roman was unsure what to make of the young woman. Mixie and John urged him to kill her, as if it was a simple thing to walk up to this helpless young woman and execute her in cold blood. Indecision gripped him, so he stood there, waiting for her to continue.
She started up again, her voice low and shaking. “They tied us both up--kind of like this, right now. I was a line cook, so I knew everyone else in that kitchen, but…not the things they had become. I watched them filet her like a--like a fish, while she was still alive. A bit at a time, eating her, preparing each portion differently.
“I knew they’d move on to me next, even though they were taking their time. I just laid there on the table. Couldn’t do a thing. Then something called a Watcher offered me Patronage. The chance to escape. So I took it. Cut myself free and ran for it while they were all focused on that poor lady.”
Roman noted she didn’t mention one of them biting a chunk out of her arm, though he didn’t blame her for skimping on some of the extraneous details. Arms crossed, he glanced back in the direction of the restaurant. Now that the sun had begun to rise, he could make out slivers of the distant parking lot.
He made his decision. She drew back at his approach, eyes widening as he crouched until they were eye level.
“I’m going to let you go, against my better instincts,” he said. “If you’re deceiving me, or if you attack me, there are no second chances. Any sudden movements and you’re dead. Remember we’re both survivors, and this isn’t a zero-sum game.”
The last part was at least something of a lie, but it couldn’t hurt to make the claim. She remained silent, focusing on him with an intense expression he couldn’t quite decipher.
Roman circled around the tree and untied her. Once the knots around her hands were loosened, she flexed and rotated them, sighing with relief.
Roman prepared to reach out and turn her head into mush if she made the slightest hostile movement. She might have a bit more Agility than him, but [ Flash Step ] negated that if she tried to outrun him. The bronze soul energy circulating through his body seemed to be replenishing itself at a noticeable rate. Perhaps due to the sunlight? In that case, the same thing was probably happening to the young woman.
To his relief, she remained seated. She looked lost in thought.
“I still think this is a mistake,” said John.
Roman shrugged. “Noted.” To the young woman, he said, “My name’s Roman. Roman Miller.”
She swallowed. “Isabella. I go by Bella.”
He took a step back at the name. All of the sudden he felt disconnected from the world, disassociated, as if he had just realized he was dreaming, or caught in a hallucination. In a panic he activated his [ Hunter’s Eye ] as if it could pierce the illusion he had found himself in. But no, everything looked normal, even if he felt like a ship adrift at sea.
His little sister’s name had been Isabella, too, though she went by a slightly different nickname. That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Had the system engineered this encounter? But it couldn’t change another person’s name, their entire history, just to fuck with him, right? Maybe she wasn’t even another Player. If the system could corrupt people into monsters, it must have the ability to make a monster look like a person. So many questions.
The sudden urge to kill her made him shake his head to clear his thoughts. Is this who I am? he asked himself. Would I react like this?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Bella mumbled.
Roman walked over to his two companions, hands on his hips, head turned to keep an eye on Bella. Pretend everything is normal. This is all fine. He felt like a lousy actor, stumbling through a play no one had seen the need to provide a script for.
“I have an idea,” he said to Mixie. “What would happen if I destroyed your gas station from the outside, Mixie?”
Mixie lifted his flail arm so quickly the spiked ball whipped right in front of Roman’s face. Roman refused to flinch, though the near miss made him suppress the desire to rip the shopkeeper’s head off.
“Do not even think of destroying my Store,” Mixie threatened.
“It’s a fucking hypothetical,” Roman growled. His fingers itched. Some mad part of him wanted to kill everyone here, including John if he could manage it, and set off on his own path. This little party of misfits felt much more like a burden.
Mixie lowered his arm. “I do not know what that is.”
Roman took a deep breath, re-centering himself. At least the feeling of disassociation was beginning to abate, though he wondered if he was merely settling back into a comfortable illusion. “If we blow that Applebees up, will it kill the bastards inside?”
“Maybe,” John chimed in. He almost sounded offended that the question hadn’t been directed at him. “The interior of a system-altered building is usually different. Sometimes too large, or too small, or leading to a completely different place than you’d expect. But they’re still physically occupying that space, even if the space is distorted.”
Mixie neither confirmed or denied his words.
“Let’s go,” Roman said to Bella. “You in front. We’re going to deal with these cannibal motherfuckers first, then we’ll figure things out from there.”
He followed her back out of the forest, remaining within arm’s reach behind. While she did have a slight limp, she seemed less injured than he expected. Her Endurance must have been boosted, maybe a Title or a result of her Patronage. He reminded himself not to drop his guard around her.
The rising sun painted the horizon in shades of peach and blushing rose. After the long night, the sight of it soothed his soul. As they walked, he finally considered the text from the aftermath of their fight.
[ Title granted: Pyrrhic Victory. +2 to all base attributes. +2 Node Points. ]
[ Watcher Doraku of the Chipped Blade extends its Patronage to Player Roman Miller. Accept? ]
There was another he suspected was newer:
[ New side quest available: Best Served Cold. Fellow Players throughout the world are being systematically culled. Destroy three hostile locations and permanently end their operations. Reward: +1 starting Quirk, variable rewards based upon the difficulty and extent of the locations. 0/3. ]
He nodded to himself. Not bad, and he already intended on fulfilling one of the requirements of the quest anyways.
“I see what you mean about the system cursing you,” said Bella, her voice strained as she attempted to sound lighthearted. Trying to distract herself as she approached the slaughterhouse she had fled last night. “I got a Title for losing. My next two base attributes and Node Points will be taken away. Paying taxes sucks, man.”
Roman grunted in response. The system gave, and the system took away. Definitely a zero-sum game. She probably knew that since she must have a guide, but he decided to keep the details of this particular example to himself.
As they entered the parking lot, he considered the best course of action to annihilate this Applebee’s with what he had on hand.
“Can you just torch the whole thing to the ground?” he asked Bella.
She turned her palms upward, the red sigils glowing slightly. Roman tensed, but she made no movement to attack him. “Maybe? Using it against you took a lot out of me, and it wasn’t a huge flame or anything. Don’t think it’d be enough to set the whole place on fire.”
Mixie cleared his throat, a disgusting, phlegmy utterance. “For you, young lady, I have quite the offer.”