Roman stood before the fresh-toiled earth marking Bella’s grave. He felt a curious numbness, the same one he always felt at funerals.

At such processions his mind would inevitably wander, his eyes drifting to observe the other mourners; a number of them would be crying, or hugging each other in shared grief, and Roman would wonder if he was a sociopath for feeling nothing similar to their unfiltered outbursts.

It was weird. He sometimes felt sad. Sometimes he even cried at tragic movies he watched alone. It wasn’t that he was fundamentally incapable of experiencing sadness--he just didn’t feel it when he should.

Surely, Roman would tell himself, a real sociopath wouldn’t concern himself with whether he or not he was one. But that wasn’t quite right, was it? They might at least be intellectually curious about the dysfunctional grinding of their own internal mechanisms. The notion seemed as trite as the idea that a crazy person wouldn’t know they’re crazy. They might not understand the precise circumstances of their insanity, but how could they not tell that their mental experience was being warped in some manner, that the logic of their world was devolving into heretofore unknown madness?

So he wondered if he was a sociopath, and he wondered if he was insane. He was probably at least a little bit of both, admittedly.

John stood at Roman’s side with his hands clasped behind his back, head bowed in respect. Mixie leaned against a nearby tree, seemingly unconcerned with the entire event. Roman doubted the ghoul would even think of delivering some sort of eulogy. And if he didn’t break the silence, no one would.

Roman scratched the side of his face. When he tried to speak, his voice came out as a croak. On the second try, it wasn’t too bad.

“Would have been nice for her to have lived out a normal life. She seemed okay. We butted heads a couple times. Everyone seems like a prick to their enemies and a good person to their friends. I kinda liked her even as an enemy, so she probably wasn’t too bad. I didn’t really know Isabella Hampton, but I know she sure as fuck didn’t do anything to deserve an early funeral attended by a few assholes.”

Mixie grunted but otherwise remained still.

“Lot of people are dead at this point,” Roman continued, feeling like he was just rambling incoherently. “Guess I’ll be following soon enough, once all my bullshit finally catches up to me. Bad luck, that we were young when the apocalypse finally arrived for mankind. A few decades ago, it could’ve been a nuclear winter. Few millennia ago, maybe the Aztecs couldn’t sacrifice enough babies and the rain gods flooded the earth as punishment, or whatever. Don’t think anyone would’ve expected it, but I guess it happened this way instead.

“Well, in the end, death comes for us all. Either existence ends, due to something or another, and that’s the terminus, point blank. Or I reckon infinity means that everything will happen at some point, including something capable of killing off even immortals. Either way, every story has an ending. Endings for some are beginnings for others.”

Roman cleared his throat and offered an awkward little bow at Bella’s grave before turning away. He thought he saw something in the canopy overhead, a dark blur that slid off his senses like shimmering oil. When he attempted to observe it with [ Hunter’s Eye ] it had vanished completely.

[ Your eulogy pleases the Reaper. +2 to Charisma, +1 to Perception. ]

Roman frowned at that. It had unsettling implications. Had that dark blur been some sort of shrouded figure lingering overhead? The Reaper, to his mind, meant a hooded figure with a scythe that harvested souls. He doubted the eldritch version was much more affable.

As Roman walked away, he reviewed the flood of system Text from the aftermath of his fight with Bella.

[ Title granted: Pyrrhic Annihilation [ I ]. +4 to base attributes. +2 to Node Points. Kill another Player in a fight to the death. ]

[ Title granted: Dream Ender. +5 to Will. A powerful consciousness had its Fated plans defied by your hand. ]

[ Title granted: Defiant Suitor. +3 to Charisma. All Patron offers must be at least Gold tier. The offered hands of twenty Watchers have been ignored. ]

[ Title granted: Party Bond (I). +1 to Charisma. You have entered a basic Party agreement with another sapient being. ]

Two new Watchers had sent him offers, though he refused to even acknowledge their names. Higher tiers meant better rewards, and more than likely, better traps.

He guiltily had expected more from the encounter, though at least the eldritch being behind Lady Lucia hadn’t added herself to his list of Nemeses. The rewarded experience was also a great benefit, significantly more than even the gashadokuro.

It was probably for the best for killing other people to not be too lucrative, even if they were possessed. The world was enough of a slaughterhouse already.

Officially entering a Party with Mixie had proven pretty uneventful. The keeper had sent the offer, a simple prompt detailing their agreement, and Roman had accepted without much thought. It added the [ Party: Mixie (Keeper of Greed) ] line to his profile screen, but otherwise inferred no telepathic communication or greater connection with the ghoul. Good--he’d prefer privacy in his own mind as much as possible.

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Roman had also acquired a few treasures from the exchange, including the horn. While it’d felt like desecrating the dead, he had harvested the Watcher shards from Bella’s corpse before the burial. At least it was an automatic process, with both shards disappearing from her palms and into his inventory.

He still refused to harvest the ‘organic fragments’ of the people he’d killed, even if it was some sort of currency. Mixie had called him foolish, but he found he didn’t care. He was pretty sure they were souls, and supposedly only the killer could harvest them at will.

The experience from killing Bella had raised him to level 7, and almost halfway to the next. Though he wasn’t the best at mental math, there seemed to be more than he expected, in fact. He’d reached (5488/12800). Not a huge difference, but noticeable.

“Why do I have more experience than I’m supposed to?” Roman said to John, who was walking slightly behind him. “I also randomly get attributes sometimes with these little cryptic messages. Not that I’m complaining, just curious.”

John nodded slowly. “I can’t see your information all that closely, so I haven’t noticed any obvious discrepancies, but that makes sense. Best I can think of, it’s probably related to your class. Chaos Disciples probably benefit from subverting fate and influencing events according to their desires. I don’t know what the exact source is, specifically. Could be anything from Sul’gurrath directing more power your way, to devouring fate itself.”

Roman reflected on that for a few moments and decided not to let his mind wander down that path too far. He plucked one of the Watcher shards from his satchel. It was a ruby sliver, glints of orange and blue dancing within, almost hypnotizing in their chaotic dance.

“What do I do with these, anyways?” he asked.

“A few options,” said John. “I’d mostly recommend trading it off, though Mixie would probably screw you on the deal. And, if you haven’t forgotten, you kind of turned the entire Store system against you. You could also implant it like Bella did, granting some power from the entity behind Lady Lucia.”

“Yeah, not putting this shit inside of me and having my mind taken over. Anything else?”

John thought for a moment. “Let me see that horn you looted.”

Roman set the Watcher shard back into his spatial satchel and retrieved the [ Corrupted Marid Horn ]. As far as he could tell, there was no particular use for it at this point--at least that the system’s Text offered when he examined it. [ Hunter’s Eye ] revealed a blinding aura of fiery energies, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. More interestingly, bronze chaos energy blazed within its depths as well, adding its own strange tinge to the myriad flames.

Maybe that Analyze Quirk would be his next choice after all.

“You’re able to infuse your mana into these sort of objects. I don’t know what that does exactly, but once you get your [ Chaos Touch ] ranked up high enough, you might be able to control it better to do what you want. Like sever the shard’s connection with its Progenitor, or alter what it offers you. Though maybe you’re best off not implanting random chaos shards into your body.”

Roman grimaced at the thought he was about to voice. “Do you think there’s, uh, any chance that Bella’s personality remains in there?”

“God, I hope not. Aren’t ghosts just the worst?” John jokingly punched at Roman’s arm--maybe the first time he had actually tried to physically touch him. The ethereal hand passed through as if he was no more than an illusion. Less than a wisp of drifting smoke.

Roman’s grimace deepened. They came upon his--no, Mixie’s pickup truck, now--and he clambered into the back, settling himself into an alcove of the gashadokuro’s crumpled skeleton. He shoved at the abomination’s corpse until he had a comfortable space to himself. After a while, he tore his gaze away from the horn in his hands--the treasure from killing another human.

It was a nice November day, the crisp cold refreshing against his face and chilling his breath. The sky was a clear blue-gray, beautiful in its muted glory, stretching out to the distant, calm horizon. He could almost pretend nothing was wrong, if it wasn’t for the yellowed rib jutting out next to his face.

He could’ve sat in the passenger seat, now that were just two corporeal bodies in their party, but he preferred a more panoramic view of their surroundings. The confines of the pickup would restrict his vision beyond what the windows and janky mirrors offered.

Mixie strolled up at a leisurely pace, a small smile crossing his face at the sight of his pickup truck. The ghoul climbed into the driver’s seat, and the vehicle sputtered to life.

Roman basked in the sunlight. The warmth of life. It soothed him, slowly restored the strange magics flowing within his spiritual vasculature.

He wasn't sure if leaving was the right choice for now. There was a lot of experience to be reaped from just the swarms of dryads on the periphery of the Chaos Gate. Level ten would prove a potent boost, offering skills even better than the previous ones he’d chosen.

Some small part of him wanted to risk the edges of the Chaos Gate again, though he needed to recover his energy fully before risking a deeper venture into the necrodrake’s territory. That ziggurat was a Nexus of Fate. He kind of liked the idea that he was growing through devouring fate. That he could alter Watcher shards. Those were fragments of their souls, after all. If he altered enough of them, would it weaken the entities trying to consume his entire galaxy for power? Could he wipe their existence out of reality itself, one bit at a time?

There were possibilities there, at least. A way forward.

But he’d only explored a small corner of this world so far. The smallest piece of the puzzle. He wanted to see what laid farther along--at least a little bit. Supermarkets, theaters, weapon stores. Loot for him to claim before other Players beat him to it.

He’d return here soon enough. Hopefully strong enough not to be thwarted at the very edges. To be forced to kill one of his companions for the sin of chasing after him.

The thought weighed heavy on him, but as the truck gathered momentum and the cool air whipped at his cheeks, he found himself smiling just a little bit.