“I’m sorry, what?” Ezra said.

Filamenta sighed. “The System is trying to kill me. Well, put me to sleep forever. Same difference.”

“No, no, I get that part. I was hoping you could, you know, shed a little more light on the subject? Maybe explain why it’s trying to kill you?”

Filamenta shrugged her spider arms into the air. “No clue. I honestly couldn’t tell you. The only thing I’ve picked up is that it sees me as some sort of virus, I think.”

Ezra’s mind flashed back to when he first entered this world. He’d gotten an alert complaining of external interference. Could it be that it saw Filamenta in much the same way? As some kind of external interference that needs to be booted from the world?

“That’s my best guess,” Filamenta said.

“But why? Why would it think that? I mean… they’re called Spirit Weapons for a reason, right? Isn’t it normal for them to wake up like you?”

“I woke up a bit earlier than usual,” Filamenta said. “As shown by the fact that none of your fellow Otherworlders are talking to the air.”

Ezra stood up and paced back and forth.

“How much time do we have?” Ezra said.

“I think I’ll be able to last until the System disconnects.”

A little over a month to rescue Filamenta. Ezra wasn’t exactly comfortable with those numbers.

Ezra reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I wanted to confirm it for myself before worrying you.”

Ezra ground his teeth together.

“You can’t leave me out of these things, Filamenta,” he said. “Every second counts. All that time spent goofing around was time I could’ve spent searching for some kind of solution.”

Filamenta turned silent at his rebuke. Ezra pulled back his rage and stuffed it away in the back of his mind. There were more important things to deal with—like saving Filamenta’s life.

“Did you find any solutions? Anything we could use?” he said.

“I searched that Sen boy’s library,” she said. “I couldn’t find anything practical. Granted, I haven’t even gotten through half the library, so that’s why I decided it was time to inform you.”

“Wait, wait—you said practical. That means there are impractical solutions.”

Filamenta clammed up.

“Don’t hide information from me, Filamenta. I’m trying to help you,” Ezra said.

She breathed out unsteadily.

“I…” she said. “I theorize that the Dark Seal might be able to save me. After all, the System is what’s trying to kill me, so if I’m cut off from the System…”

“Then you won’t be killed. I get it.” He paused. “Wait, does that mean that if my System disconnects because I don’t select a class, then you’ll be safe?”

Filamenta stiffened.

“Possibly,” she said. “But Ezra, you’d be cutting yourself off from the only way to grow stronger. You’d save my life, but you’d handicap your growth forever. Besides that, there’s no guarantee that I’d… make it.”

“So that only leaves the Dark Seal.”

“No!”

A snowflake hit the edge of the window.

“Ezra,” she said. “The Dark Seal will corrupt you. It’ll destroy you and turn you into a monster. My life isn’t worth your sanity. We must avoid that option at all costs.”

Ezra walked over to the window and tapped his fingers against the window sill. He needed more information.

“You could just let me die.” Filamenta’s voice seemed steady, but there was a slight quiver at her last word. “It wouldn’t even be death. I’d just be going to sleep. I’m not afraid.”

A foreign feeling rushed over his head from Filamenta. He felt like vomiting and his head turned light. Ezra’s heart pounded in his chest and he squeezed the windowsill with his hands.

Not afraid?

Bull. Shit.

“We’re finding a solution,” Ezra said. “A real one. Not one where you die.”

“Ezra… the only thing I found in the library was information related to Dark Seals. We won’t be able to use that—“

“We don’t necessarily have to use the Dark Seal normally. Maybe if we find out how it works, we’ll be able to disable the demonic part and just make it so that it disconnects me from the System safely.”

Filamenta sighed. “That’s a long shot, Ezra.”

Stolen story; please report.

“But it’s something. I’m not going to give you up without a fight.”

The snow fell outside, white dust sweeping through the air. Ezra opened up the window. He had to check out this library that Filamenta had found.

“Ezra,” her voice whispered. “Thank you.”

----------------------------------------

Ezra failed to find anything of real value in Sen’s library. It was all just… broad informational strokes. It didn’t mention in detail how the magic of the Dark Seal worked, or if there was something similar to a Dark Seal that could be used safely.

He didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. After a few hours, Filamenta vanished back to Spirit form and beside his heart after only a few hours of research.

She was tired. She’d only get more tired the longer this went on. Part of that was because she’d been researching on her own, but part of it was this bizarre curse.

The next morning, he was greeted by a message.

[Please select your class immediately! If you don’t select it within the next 37 days, the system will be forced to disconnect to prevent your death!]

The number had irritated Ezra before due to the risk of it reducing his power, but he was certain he’d find some trick to get a class-up. Even if the System disconnected from him, he was sure that he’d figure out some way to continue growing. All he would need to figure out was how to bypass the System.

Would it take a while? Probably. But he had time.

Now those 37 days suddenly felt like a doomsday clock. Sure, maybe Filamenta would make it past that date… but was he willing to take that risk?

No, he wasn’t.

Filamenta had been with him since the beginning. He owed her his life several times over. He owed his abilities to her, he wouldn’t let her die.

The next morning, he’d shown up to the town square and shoveled out the snow alongside the rest of the villagers. The Otherworlders eventually showed up and he trained them as best he could.

This, even though he hadn’t slept a wink. Thank god for high Constitution.

Once that was done, he headed over to the guild hall.

Sen looked up, then widened his eyes.

“Sir One-Eye,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“I need all the information you have on Dark Seals.”

Sen blinked. “Um, what?”

“You heard me.”

“May I ask… why?”

Ezra was about to respond with a snippy retort when he paused. Would it be so bad if Sen knew some of the details? Ezra wouldn’t mention Filamenta, but there were parts he could explain.

“I’ve been trying to class up,” Ezra said. “But I keep getting a message stating that a Dark Seal is required to do so.”

Sen furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s unusual. I see your problem.”

“Of course, I don’t plan to use a Dark Seal. I just think that it would be useful if I understood what was happening to me and see if there’s a safe alternative that would allow me to class up.”

Sen nodded. “Makes sense. I’ll collect everything in the guild library and let you peruse it. I’ll also send in an information request to headquarters if that would help?”

“Information request?”

“Oh, you’ve never taken one out before?” he said. “As a B-rank, you’re entitled to some of the information contained at headquarters. You can borrow a limited number of books to aid you. All you need to do is sign off on it, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ezra agreed and Sen pulled out a paper form. He wrote down several things in the papers and then passed them to Ezra. Ezra read over it to make sure he wasn’t agreeing to sell his soul or something then put his signature down.

“You’ll need to stamp it with your card,” Sen said.

Ezra blinked, then pulled out his silver card. As soon as he did so, it started to glow and a blue attachment appeared on the back of the card. Ezra pressed the etchment into the paper. When he pulled his card back, it revealed a stamp on the paper.

“Perfect. I’ll send this off,” Sen said.

He pulled the paper and walked over to a box with a thin slit at the top. He passed the paper in and the machine seemed to consume the paper like a… like a fax machine.

Oh god.

Their communication magic was just a fax machine.

Sen looked back and grinned.

“Impressive, right? Even small guild branches get access to advanced magic like this. We can send as many as 2 sheets of information a week!”

Ezra sighed. The technology of this place was just all sorts of screwed up.

“It should take a week or two for the information to come in,” Sen said. “I went ahead and applied for the fastest delivery since I figured that’s what you needed.”

With everything settled, Sen retrieved the books, which formed several stacks. Ezra made himself comfortable in the guild hall and selected one of the books. Conducting research this way was much simpler than resorting to breaking and entering.

Sen had looked a little irritated at Ezra commandeering the floor, but just shrugged and didn’t say anything.

Filamenta woke up after an hour of Ezra’s studying. He could feel her mind shoot emotions at the edge of his consciousness

“What are you doing?” she said from beside his heart.

Ezra explained everything he’d done. By the end of it, Filamenta had a weary tone in her voice.

“And you still haven’t slept?” she said.

That was the part she was concerned about?

“I’ll be fine,” Ezra said. “I should make it two more days before I collapse. Hopefully, I’ll have read through everything by then.”

“Do you even hear yourself right now?”

Ezra frowned. “What?”

“Ezra, you need rest. This isn’t sustainable.”

On the contrary, he’d done cram nights several times back in school. This was no different.

Except for the fact that if he failed, he wouldn’t fail a test, he’d lose his partner.

No pressure.

“You don’t need to go this far,” Filamenta said.

“Yes I do.” Ezra flipped the page he was on.

“Why?”

“Because.”

She scoffed and appeared as a spider to his right. Somehow, she managed to push open one of the books on the floor.

“I might as well make it a bit easier on you and help out,” she said.

Most of the information on the System was useless speculation, not really anything concrete. Nobody described any way of interacting with the system directly or making changes… which made sense, cause that was a distinctly Demon-Lord-esque ability.

The few things he found that even mentioned the potential for System editing simply said that it was a terrible idea—not just because of the Demon Lord stuff, but also because the System was there for a reason.

People used to do magic without the System. More often than not, they died from being unable to integrate their growing power safely. They’d make a mistake while doing so and then explode.

This also led to the theories about the System’s origin. Was the System created by a wizard who was tired of watching his friends die? Was it made by someone similar to the Demon Lord who sought to fight heaven? Or was it made by one of the gods, having mercy on their poor creations?

None of that information was directly relevant to Ezra, of course, but it was vaguely interesting.

He researched through that night as well.

[Please select your class immediately! If you don’t select it within the next 36 days, the system will be forced to disconnect to prevent your death!]

The sun rose. Ezra continued researching. Charles had been forced to come in and ask if he’d train the Otherworlders.

Ezra did so, then went back to researching.

He fell asleep on the guild hall floor. A day passed.

[Please select your class immediately! If you don’t select it within the next 35 days, the system will be forced to disconnect to prevent your death!]

Charles tapped on his shoulder. “Uh, One-Eye? We’ve got to get going.”

Ezra blinked his eyes awake. He pushed himself up and looked at where he was sleeping. Books were scattered over the floor along with papers and theories.

Ezra thought it looked pretty controlled, all things considered.

Sen waved him off.