I stared at the club swinging for my head.

I stared for about ten seconds before identifying exactly what it was.

“Argh!” I screamed. I stumbled backwards and bumped into the Sheriff’s chest before falling to the ground. My hand slipped on something slick on the ground as I tried to scramble away, but I paid it no mind. I was more interested in surviving.

It was only after a few seconds that I realized that the demon didn’t actually seem to be interested in hurting me.

Though my heart was still pounding wildly in my chest, I couldn’t help but feel a little curious at what the demon was doing. It was simply frozen in place, with its weapon mere inches away from where my head had been a second ago. I knew that demons had an alien thought process, relative to any of the Races that inhabited the world, but they were easy to predict in their desire to destroy life.

“What the hell?” I muttered to myself. I looked to the Sheriff, as if to ask for an explanation.

“What the hell?” I repeated.

The Sheriff’s arm was outstretched towards the spot where I’d been. Diving towards it even. His entire body was somehow balanced on his toes, looking more like he was floating than anything else.

I don’t think it was appropriate for me to do, but I poked him in the shoulder, to see if he would fall.

He didn’t.

I looked around and saw the rest of the world similarly frozen in place. A few feet away, Bran was leaning against a wall, stuck in a pose where he was trying to wipe the residual vomit from his lips. He seemed to be unaware of what was going on, even though I could see some of the braver villagers frozen in gasps of horror, with half of them looking at the demon that was about to attack me, and the rest looking at Ryuji fighting further in the distance.

“Am I dead?” I wasn’t sure why I said that out loud. Maybe I would hope someone would respond and prove me wrong.

No one did.

I looked again at the silhouette of the demon attacking me. It was difficult to decipher from this angle, but it looked like the shadowy weapon it was holding was a malicious looking axe. I couldn’t tell how sharp it was, nor how heavy something like a weapon made purely of Aether would be, but I knew it was probably more than dangerous enough to kill me if I touched it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

So why was I still alive? What was going on?

“Am I dead?” I asked again.

Again, nobody responded.

I sighed. It felt strange. It felt like I should probably be having a stronger reaction to seeing my entire village inexplicably frozen in time right before my near death, but I just felt too drained to do anything but sigh. I was about to put my face in my hands, just to see if any tears would come out, but I finally noticed what I’d slipped in during my initial scramble away from the demon.

I scrunched my face with disgust and walked a few feet over to wipe my hand on Bran’s shirt, returning his vomit to him.

I felt bad about it immediately after, but finally being able to release some of my pent-up frustration was such a good feeling that I didn’t care. Sorry Bran.

It was difficult not to assume that I was dead. There wasn’t much of anything else this could be. Didn’t a lot of people say that time seems to slow down when you’re about to die? Well, those stories all came from people who’d clearly survived their near death experiences, so maybe actually dying made it so time stopped altogether.

But it all felt too real.

I tried not to look at the other obvious answer. It was a reasonable thing for me to assume that Ryuji had somehow caused all of this to happen, but somehow, the thought that Ryuji had the power to freeze time so easily was more terrifying than the possibility that I was dead.

I looked anyways.

Ryuji was frozen in place too.

I blinked a few times, not sure if my eyes were working properly. I rubbed them too, wincing when I realized that my hands were still sticky with Bran’s vomit. I ignored it in favour of confirming whether my eyes were working properly or not.

They were, but before I could start to hyperventilate, I noticed the blue panel floating in front of Ryuji’s face. It was translucent enough for me to see the strange symbols shining through from the other side. Even with the message backwards, I could still somehow understand what it meant.

Tutorial: Valiant White Knight

By partying with your love interest, you unlocked the skill [Valiant White Knight]! Under certain conditions, this skill allows the [HERO] to rush to the side of their bonded party members, protecting them from certain death.

Whenever a bonded party member shouts [Save me] the [HERO] may activate this ability to instantly teleport to the party member’s side.

MP cost: 0

Cooldown: 30 days

I felt my mind go blank. There was just a bit too much to process in that one panel that I couldn’t help but sit down to press my face into my hands. I didn’t even care about Bran’s vomit at this point.

No tears came out, no matter how much I wanted them to.

Love interest? Party member?

I had no idea where to even begin.

So I didn’t.

I went home.