I pushed myself away from the panther and scanned the room, expecting the Saints to be in a similar state to the researchers.

But there wasn't any blood splatted on the walls or any of their organs exposed. The only thing different was the corner I'm sitting in is charred black with me as the center. "They're fine?"

My vision turned to the panther, who was anxiously pacing in front of me and was waiting for me to calm down. Why do I know that?

I stood up and watched as the panther's brilliant crimson eyes stared at me and took a tentative step closer.

My instincts weren't telling me that it was dangerous. If anything, it was telling me the opposite. I reached my hand out to it, and it got a bit closer to me.

I took a step closer and petted them, and they leaned into it. I relaxed and felt the weight in my lung shift around. "Oh, what the?"

I winced as something filled my mouth and out onto my shoulder. I turned over to a pink blob shivering. They were slightly larger than before, but it was definitely Elpis. "Elpis!?"

"You were in my lungs this whole time?!" Elpis spun slowly and formed itself around my neck, then stopped moving.

Elpis didn't seem hurt much to my relief, and the panther I was still petting was comforting, but my situation was still very bad.

I looked around one more time looking for Met, but I couldn't see them. "Met? Where did she go?"

The panther pulled away, walked over to Pulse, and pawed at her hoodie while they let out a deep growl.

I walked over to Pulse as well and lifted her hoodie to see Met struggling to put a bandage and gauze pad on her waist. The wound she was trying to cover seeped blood, and I could smell the strawberries from it. A part of me wanted to drink it, but it was a dull voice in the back of my head right now.

Between Pulse and Echo was the first aid I grabbed full of stuff I couldn't read. It was open with the bandages and pads spilled out. Why don't they have something themselves to help?

I took the bandage form Met and easily finished what she was doing, scaring the hell out of her. "Ah! You're awake already?"

I grimaced at her remark as I started checking for other injuries on Pulse, getting her blood on my hands in the process. "It felt like a while. How long was I out?"

"A little over 5 minutes." Met pointed out three more spots that should be treated and jumped out to get more but stopped when she saw the panther.

"... Is that an angel?" Met's question made me turn away from Pulse as I kept putting bandages on and stared at Met with a questioning look.

"Sorry, let's talk about that after helping my honey." She looked over and realized I was done already.

She took a deep for something she got ready. "Say my panel."

"My panel." I saw text scrolling past my face, loading something with it having difficulty with a skill and my race. A harsh scraping sounds grated at my mind as a panel molded itself from the text.

[Concept: Chimera] [LV 1] [Skills (4 Passive) (1 Cursed)]

[Hunger: 50%]

[HP: 80%] [Mana: 110%]

[Mana capacity: 3] [Magic force: 1]

[Defense: 1] [Strength: 1] [Agility: 1]

*Consumables*

(Skill P: 3) (Stat P: 8) (Shop P: 50)

(Tier 3 soul bond ticket)

The scraping sounds faded as I got excited reading, but my excitement died the moment my eyes looked at what it said I was.

"Oh... I'm a chimera." The words left my mouth flatly, but my hands trembled at what that could mean.

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"I've never heard of that before... but we need to get someone else moving before we talk about that, and I need to go into the spiel since you're a new Saint." Met groaned a bit as she turned over to Pulse. The window faded as I turned my attention to Met.

"Sure, but how are we going to do that? Wait, do they have any more of what they gave me?" I flinched as the panther nuzzled my side and sat down, leaning into me as I started rubbing their side.

"Echo does, but we can't get them. She has them in her inventory. We're probably going to need to hunt a few fractals to get shop points." She started rambling and pacing back and forth. My ear twitched, and I looked over to the door to see a blob of shadow creeping in.

"So if you... What are you doing?" I got up, and so did the panther. We walked over the shadow, slowly approaching the suit of armor with a glinting blade I could see it holding. They seemed easier to see now, and I wasn't clear on why.

"Just taking care of a bug." I preceded to stomp the shadow and wrench the blade out of the shadow. The shadow faded with the person trying to take a swing at me.

The panther bit the dude's arm and pinned him to the ground. His eyes seemed empty with no reaction to the pain of a panther biting their arm or fear that they've been caught. "What is wrong with this guy?"

My eyes saw a layer of oil covering the dagger and realized that this was probably the poison used to paralyze the Saints. "I wonder if you are immune to your own poison."

I sliced the dagger along his arm and held him down. I took the chance to see what he was wearing. It was just a black cloak, a tight shirt, and pants with a simple belt and scabbard. I kind of want that scabbard, but should I really take someone's belt... Who am I kidding? Why should I care about people who use poisoned weapons to attack Saints.

I could see them resist less and less after a minute until they just stopped. I let go of them and waited a few seconds to see if they were faking it, but with no movement, I took their belt and scabbard for myself. "Could you watch them for now?"

The panther nodded, and I turned back to Met while strapping my new scabbard over the top of my clothes. "So how many points do I need?"

Met let out an exasperated sigh and walked closer to me. "Well, the poison is too strong even for HighJack, so we'll need the H-sav, which is 50 shop points."

My eye twitched in annoyance when I heard the number was everything I earned through my brushes with death. "And where do I buy it?"

"You need to will it to show up or say open shop, and it will show up. Go ahead and try it." Met was rushing her explanation. My eyes wondered over to the assassin who got in.

"Open store." A large panel filled with icons I understood as categories of items such as crosses for health or weapons.

"Then just say what you're looking for or sort by categories." Met was staring at me as I navigated the shop, looking for the H-sav until I saw a syringe with the label of high strength anti venom or H-sav for short.

I touched the syringe, and it popped out with a detailed description of it and how to use it. A prompt popped up asking me if I wanted to buy it. Met was right about it, and it could be used four times as well.

I pressed yes, and it asked how I wanted it to be retrieved between my angel or from myself. I clicked myself and a circle appeared over my heart.

I pushed my hand through the circle and watched it go through it with no resistance despite my body being in the way. A something landed in the palm of my hand, so I grabbed it and pulled it out.

A small black leather case with an emblem of a bubbling beaker emblazoned on it was what I retrieved. I know this symbol... Damn memory.

"What did you just buy?" Met was horrified at what I just did. I popped the case open and saw a large syringe with three glass cylinders filled with a green liquid next to it.

"Isn't that obvious?" I carefully picked the syringe up with one hand and walked over to Echo. My other hand pushed her sleeve up to see her arm.

"You bought H-sav?" I just nodded as my eyes easily saw a vain, so I pressed the needle into it and injected her with the contents.

I pulled back to watch how Echo reacted to it, and so I waited... and waited... "It's not doing anything..."

"It usually takes half an hour for it to work. You're just strange." With that I moved on to Pulse then went over to the person behind the bar but I couldn't find a spot to give them the shot with all the leather he was wearing so found a cut and injected him there. His blood smells like pumpkin pie. This is so weird...

I had to take the armored one's gauntlet off for their shot, and after I was done, I absent mindedly brought my hand to my mouth and licked the back of it.

The taste of strawberries melted on my tongue, followed by a sugar rush that felt amazing, but the need to run accompanied it. "Uh, oh."

"What's wrong?!" I turned to Met as I paced around the room and felt a mix of embarrassment and regret building in my stomach.

I looked down to my hand, blood was dripping from it, and I remembered how I got some of Pulse's blood on them. "I... accidentally had some of Pulse's blood, and I feel like I downed a cup of sugar."

Met squinted at me and then sat next to Pulse unconcerned. "Why are you so scared of that? You didn't hurt her for it."

"I licked a tiny amount off my hand, and it affected me this much. What do you think would happen if I had even a cup of it?" Met widened her eyes, probably understanding what I was scared of.

The sugar rush started fading, and I had a thought. My panel popped up, and I saw the hunger percentage went down by 7. Is that good or bad? It's probably good, but why is my name not there.

"Set name as Marri?" The panel hummed before it changed to what I wanted.

[Race basis: Chimera] [LV 1] [Skills (4 Passive) (1 Cursed)]

[Hunger: 43%]

[HP: 81%] [Mana: 114%]

[Mana capacity: 3] [Magic force: 1]

[Defense: 1] [Strength: 1] [Agility: 1]

*Consumables*

(Skill P: 3) (Stat P: 8) (Shop P: 0)

(Tier 3 soul bond ticket)

"Mary? Did you remember your name?" Met smiled at me. I couldn't tell if she meant that smile, but I nodded.

"When the explosions happened, I had memory about my friend, and she called me my name." My face couldn't help but smile when I thought about her, especially since a memory came back.

Met didn't respond to my memory and just laid on Pulse as a silence fell over the room while we waited for the Saints to start moving again.