As the team was going down in the hellish shaft of molten magma, Hoomaikai, back at the carriage, with her real body, was trying to convince anyone she saw to go into the dark unknown wood to help bring back the prey Tsuki was hunting; to help her friend that was in danger. Obviously, no one listened to her. Even if she looked pitiful, walking with a long stick, held by her lone arm, that still put pressure on her broken leg that was dragging behind, most people disliked her: a self-centered rich girl who was now trying to get people killed. Even if that was far from the truth, it was the perception of the tired and scared survivors.

“Please! My friend needs help! I found her with my summons and she’s currently hunting for food for everyone!” said Hoomaikai who had to lean on a tree after losing her balance. Still, no one listened to her and were starting to group up menacingly around her.

“If she’s able to hunt, why does she need our help?”, “To go inside that forest of all things?! Didn’t you hear about the knight who had his limbs all twisted after stepping on a flower?!”, “Then use your summons to help her yourself!”, “Don’t listen to her! Her friend is dead and she’s just unable to take it.” So and so on were spouted out from the tired survivors who were about to get violent with the girl, which only annoyed them. Maybe, if Hoomaikai had been able to reach the front of the pack, she might have found people ready to help her. But her lame leg didn’t allow her to go too far from the cart carrying the wounded.

“I’m not lying! She’s following a dying beast who is just too big for her to carry. Her efforts are all going to go to waste if no one helps her move it all!”

Instead of talking with the girl, the survivor dismissed what she said and strangely began insulting her. The forest they were in was able to wrap the mind of the weak. As such, those who were tired and stressed were more likely to be manipulated and do things they would have never done. Their minds were as bendable as hot iron which a skilled blacksmith of this forest was now making use of.

But as this unknown entity watched over his craft from the shadow, a man embraced by wind came to the girl’s rescue. He lifted Hoomaikai just moments before she was about to fall as his long orange hair brushed over the girl’s face. His eyes protected by long fan-like eyelashes were piercing the treetops as if trying to find a needle in a haystack. Not able to find the one he was looking for, his gaze returned to the girl in his arms just in time to be slapped by her. The girl simply feared the touch of others; this man was no exception.

Hoomaikai was dropped to the ground after leaving a red imprint on the stranger’s delicate angular face. This interaction didn’t really bother him as he simply smiled at the disabled girl and showed teeth as white as snow, which creeped Hoomaikai as they were too perfect. “I overheard your friend was in need of help and wanted to inquire about it. Is it fine if I ask a few things about this strange situation?” he said, with a voice that was at the border of being androgynous.

Hoomaikai felt as if everything this man did was expertly thought out to annoy her. From the way he talked which was all too grandiose to the way he moved his body as if he wanted to mesmerize people, he was someone the girl already despised, even if this was irrational and more instinctive. The worse affront was that he dared touch her without any prior warning, instantly crushing the boundary she so desperately wanted with others. “Who even are you!?” she seethed out.

“Ho my, excuse my rudeness, first touching a princess such as yourself—” he said but was interrupted as violent lightning struck just by his side.

“Who-are-you?! If you’re only here to mess around, then I’ll make sure you can’t give anyone that fake smile of yours anymore,” Hoomaikai had already dealt with enough people like this man. She knew just by looking at him that he was up to no good.

The man in turn didn’t stop smiling, finding the situation amusing, which pissed the girl more. “The name’s Luk. I can muster a rescue team for your friend but at a cost.”

❀

“Hmm, Tsuki?” Asked a small snake Hoomaikai was controlling.

“Yes, Pirarara?” responded Tsuki who crouched in front of the snake made from lightning.

“…” Hoomaikai was stunned at the name the girl called her while the cat walking on two legs let out a snicker. “W-What? Did you already forget my name!?”

“Your snake’s name: Pirarara. It might be a good idea to have names for them. Otherwise, we can only call them by their patterns.”

“They’re literally all the same! What patterns do they even have? Is the heat messing with you?”

“All the same? … Anyway, what did you want?” said Tsuki shyly after needing to be told the snakes all looked the same. There was nothing she could do about this since she truly believed there were differences between each of them…

“Right…So, I think I found people who are ready to come and escort you back.”

“Really! How many? How strong? How long will they take? How……”

Hoomaikai was bombarded with so many questions that she forgot most of them. “Whu?—”

“Do they have weapons? Do they have tools? What is their composition? Do they look like good people? What…..”

“Stop! I don’t know! I don’t I don’t! They left already on some kind of mounts I never saw before. Between four to eight people, I think.”

Tsuki hearing this had a big smile on her face as she understood that it was safer with others than alone – even if those people had bad intentions, they were better than ravenous beasts, or so was what Tsuki hoped.

The group kept descending into this burning hellscape for a long time and before they noticed it, they had been moving for an hour. They couldn’t even see the sky anymore as for the bottom, even if they dropped nearby rocks down the hole, no sound returned to them. This hole, as strange as it was, was around 30 kilometers deep (about 18.6 miles). The creature at the bottom made it especially deep in the hope to weaken anyone who was after it.

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“Should we go back?” asked Vergeltung who was starting to worry that the hole would never end.

“No!” responded Tsuki. “I have some jerky and a few apples if we get hungry.” She couldn’t consider leaving after coming this far and also desperately wanted to hunt the beast so as to not get on the bad side of the people coming for her.

What Tsuki wasn’t thinking about, too lost in her fantasy of being a hero that feeds the needy who will gladly follow her lead, was the simple strength required to create such a place. She only thought about gathering more and more people to dress them in the best armor available, to make the best warriors, and to conquer the whole world until she can find a way to save Alice…At least, it was only a simple fantasy of a little girl…

At the corner of her eye, Tsuki noticed the little snake she called Pirarara looking intensely at Vergeltung. In her eyes, it looked like melting stars. “Hungry?” she asked, wondering why Hoomaikai was acting like this.

“Huh? What?”

“My adjutant isn’t food.”

“What is wrong with you!” complained the snake. “I was just wondering if Varita…vergita…if this CAT was doing some kind of cosplay…wearing a trench coat with that big hat of all things.”

“I-am-not,” cut Vergeltung mad that someone dared called his mighty dress that all detectives ought to wear a simple cosplay or whatever that word meant. “This coat is the best available! It has as many pockets as you have fingers and can keep everything hidden even from the most experienced guards. An indispensable friend when uncovering the most corrupt hooligan who managed to squeeze into a position of power! AND THAT HAT! Do you ha—”

“--Yuck, he’s even talking like that worthless detective,” interrupted Hoomaikai who let out a long sigh. “You could have cosplayed as the claw saint or something. There are so many characters more interesting than that drunk detective. The only good thing about that story was its end where the villain sacrificed himself for the detective! It was such a hot scene that the grandma in our dorm had to ban it. But that didn’t stop the four girls next door…”

Vergeltung looked worried about what the snake said. His head chilled as he remembered the little innocent question he tried to push out of the way when he found Tsuki in the strange market: what was he doing just before? One moment before being in the market, his memory dictated that he was coming back to his house which was followed by emptiness. At the time, he wondered what had just happened, but seeing a suspicious girl shoving random items in her pockets awakened his detective instinct and moved on. “Character, villain, scene, ban it! What are you insinuating?!”

“What? You know, ‘The Three Whiskers of Town Farishta’. There’s a festival in two months celebrating 200 years of publication…How come you don’t know about it? You even got Fi riding the plush of the villain in that detective side-story!”

Tsuki was the first to say something as the cat was frozen in place, unable to process what he had heard. He knew there was something strange with his existence, but him being a simple character in a story, no, it was impossible. “Say Maikai, what about Cyclogo, I found him in an alleyway,” she said after showing the small plush of the one-eyed cat.

“HA! That’s the main character’s childhood friend who turned evil after getting trapped in the palace of mirrors! I hated that one! She acted all cute at the start and became a prick after ‘feeling lonely’.”

“Did the detective have a family?”

“God! I forgot about this part. He dared call himself a detective when he couldn’t even find them. Like, you know, how did he even manage to go to the bathroom without seeing them? The author just brushed it off under the rug.”

“No, shut up!” screamed Vergeltung. “You will not reduce me to a mere character! I have though!”

“Huh?” Hoomaikai didn’t expect such a strong reaction and momentarily panicked. “It-it’s just what I think, right? You don’t have to be mad if I don’t like your favorite character.”

Upon Vergeltung pulling his burning rod, Fi, who was floating lazily around, put herself between the cat and the snake. “What’s wrong with being a character in a story? That’s how Fi was created.”

The puzzled look of the floating spirit managed to somewhat calm the cat who simply couldn’t accept his past being written by someone unknown. But the way Fi flat-out said she was created almost felt wrong. Not in the sense that she was lying, but more like someone doing something impossible or forbidden. He thought there was no way anyone could be created otherwise, how could they prove they really existed? “What is that about being created? Just, what is going on anymore?”

“Fi’s predecessor created a legend: that the next ice spirit would protect the other elements. They then killed themselves, forcing this legend to take form. And so was born the second, the third, the fourth, and finally Fi. Fi is a legend the four spirits before Fi created to save those they loved. They are Fi’s parents and Fi’s creators. Is there something wrong with that?” she said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Following this, the team tried to uncover more of the small spirit’s past, but she kept her mouth shut as if not even hearing them. For Vergeltung, an odd change came to him. That name, as strange as it was, and even if he didn’t like it, wasn’t something that ever existed in his past. If he was really to be a simple character someone made for an unknown reason, this name proved he wasn’t bound to the author. Also, it wasn’t something he wanted to accept, even if it was plausible, and it could explain the hole in his memory and the absurd situation of not finding his loved ones, there was nothing that could explain how he came to be. Maybe he was just drunk and woke up in the market next to Tsuki, but the ball of unease simply stuck to him like a cancer growing bigger…

After all, Vergeltung, or more precisely the catactive who appeared for no reason in the strange market, was truly a simple character from a story made by an old fae who lived by the sea. The author sculpted blocks of wood that could be used to print strips showing the adventure of three small cats. The blocks were sold and recreated around the world until many knew of the story and as it was published for many generations, it became elevated to a divine entity. Because of that, the cats that appeared in this long-running story began to manifest in the real world just like Vergeltung or the one-eyed cat.

But as Fi was created from a legend and Vergeltung from a story, the creature waiting at the bottom of the hole was created from a nightmare. It forms many and always shifting, slightly permuted in the environment, and caused the stairs the groups were using to melt. Even Fi, who floated in the air, was pulled by a strange power that she didn’t react to, just letting herself be taken in the dark abyss beneath.

Tsuki instinctively pulled her glaive and tried to stab it in the wall, but the slags falling from above struck her hand and forced her to let go. The snakes of Hoomaikai weren’t affected that much as they could only be destroyed by being crushed, and not from falling from too high. For Vergeltung, he used his cat-like reflex to jump from slag to slag until he couldn't anymore when his surroundings were filled with only a waterfall of lava, and he was also forced down the pit.

The team was freefalling in the hellish hole where deformed faces imprinted in the wall vomited river of magma. The pit was slowly shifting into a sort of mausoleum where the dead were coming back alive to display their disgust for the living. As Tsuki was trying to avoid crashing into a wall, a hand suddenly extended from the forehead of a child which she cleaved before it could impale her.

The monster at the bottom realized the intruder didn’t intend to leave and took things into its own hands…