Faux screamed until her throat burned, and she rampaged across the Necropolis. Innumerable healing spells obliterated the undead. An hour later, trembling from an emotional drought, she forced herself to stop and breathe. Having Walter in her ownership was like finding a canteen in an agonizingly dry desert, and losing him was like watching it poured out on the sand. If she didn't stop, then her thirst might drive her to madness.

"Wait," she told herself, "Think. Let your MP recover, because you'll need it to make sure that fucker is dead this time."

As her MP refilled, so, too, did her mental stability. Mana was the ultimate value of her self-actualization. With it, she cast healing magic, and with healing magic, she survived the horrors. Previously, her mana was a gift, something she accumulated on the journey with a [Player]. After being betrayed and stripped of it, she regained it, point by point, on her own. A [Player] would never hurt her again. No one could. She could heal anything.

The Duke of the Rotting Garden wouldn't take Walter out of the city, but Faux could not grasp the nosferatu's motivation. He stated he wanted revenge, but men were liars, even eunuchs. She ignored the politics and decided to approach the problem from the heart of the matter. The Duke's nature was vicious, as both a man and a monster, and he would take Walter where it disturbed her the most.

Once she knew where Walter was taken, she knew what the Duke wanted with him. She stomped her foot, gnashed her teeth, and pulled her own hair. Curses spilled freely from her mouth. She whispered, "That fucker!" over and over, as she sprinted to the clock tower.

All the doors and windows of the building were enchanted except one, the front door. The Duke of the Rotting Garden, true to his nature, created a boss-fight room. She grinned so wide her cheeks hurt. "How ironic."

The scent of death lingered.

The Cult of the Circle used the clocktower as a site of ritual sacrifice. Though bodies were promptly discarded, the ritual prescribed the splashing of blood. It seeped, dried, and rotted in every crack and every pore of the building's foundation and walls. Decay permeated the air, a thicker fragrance than the open Necropolis. The premeditated evil history of this building far outweighed the natural evil of the city.

In the center of the room, Faux's eyes landed on the torture rack, the very same she nearly died on. She willfully forgot her history as a vain barmaid, confident in her charisma, surviving by conversation. The Duke of the Rotting Garden fiddled with the chains, feigning curiosity, merely an act to draw her attention. His behavior was unnecessary.

Beyond the Duke, seated on a chair, was Walter. He lounged like an exhausted king, with his head down. Mounted on the wall behind Walter was the blackened mirror.

"You showed him? I fucking hate you," she managed to breathe out. It felt like an invisible clawed hand dug into her chest. "You're going to die slowly. You'll beg for it, I promise."

"You can't kill, which fakes life." The Duke acted surprised at her arrival and bowed. "Excuse the mess, Miss Faux. We haven't had time to scrub away the scabs."

"I'll be killing you and taking Walter, now," Faux said, stroking her healer's staff with her thumb. "If you let me cut off your arms and legs, and bark like a dog, I might keep you as a pet. The same goes for you, Walter. I won't cut off your limbs, but if you crawl around like a good boy, you can avoid the pain. For a little while."

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"And how," Walter said, lifting his head, "do you plan to do any of that?"

Faux's blood chilled when she met his eyes, never once did she feel this hopeless. The abyss that filled her soul when Ouroboros invaded her didn't feel this bottomless.

He continued, "You have 760 HP, he has 16,382. I figured out how HP works, it's a percentage of your natural health. If someone stabbed you in the heart, then you'd lose 100 of your HP, leaving 660 behind. Every 100 acts like a '1UP.' The magic shields you from death and reverts your injury to something non-lethal. But, compare your values to his. Do you think you could kill Kieran 164 times before you succumbed? Your healing spells might injure him, but you'll run out of MP before you finish the job. You're a joke."

He didn't see her, he saw a thing. She was a character controlled by tapped letter-command again, [Players] were too far above [Heroes] to speak full words. The quivering of her lower stomach terrified her, masochism driven by terror. Even his calm assessment of their numbers was identical to before. Her [Player] altered her appearance and changed her character settings as if configuring a toy. She was a toy.

He said, 'You're a joke.' I'm not just a toy, I'm not worth playing with.

Because of this, she knew he told the truth.

"No," she shook her head to deny the situation, "No fucking way. This is impossible. If he really was a boss monster, then he'd have gone and crushed Camp Wolf long ago!"

"I see," the Duke said, "the cleverness of your name, 'Fake,' you're just pretending. I'm not just a random encounter, I'm a [Boss]. I stay in place and wait for a challenger's arrival. So, I have to ask, why did you come here?"

She didn't answer. When she turned to run, the door was sealed by enchantment, and she recoiled off the air as if she ran into a wall.

"A [Hero] does not freely stroll in and out of a boss room, without one or the other dying. Running away is not a choice." The Duke of the Rotting Garden raised his finger as if he had a great idea. "You can symbolically die instead, and I'll let you go. Get on all fours and bark, or I'll put you on the table and bleed you."

No matter how much Faux's eyes watered, her throat parched.

Letting gravity pull her onto her hands-and-knees took more effort than standing, but, even though the moments dragged on, she managed the position.

"Bark," she said. Her voice sounded like a choke.

"Pitiful. A bit louder, if you please."

Faux dragged in a ragged breath. "Bark!"

"Once more, for clarity's sake."

She barked properly. Her fingers curled on the stone floor, and one of her fingernails broke.

"There's a good girl," The Duke petted her. "But, dogs are impolite animals and should be kept outside. What do you think, my lord? What is your opinion about keeping noisy animals in the house?"

Walter shrugged. "I don't even know her. I don't care." His head slumped, and he resumed staring at the floor.

"It seems the master of the manor is not adopting pets and is in a foul mood. My apologies, I was sure he'd leash you. We understand you're disappointed, but no hard feelings." The Duke of the Rotting Garden's fingers curled in her hair, and as he explained, as cooly as a butler to an unwanted visitor, he dragged the limp Faux towards the door. "Perhaps you're not his flavor of decadence? At any rate, begone, little beast. Do not return."

The nosferatu tossed Faux out.

When she stopped rolling, her exposed skin was scraped. Out of habit, she cast a healing spell, but she stopped herself halfway.

What's the point? A healer without someone to heal, a character without someone controlling them. I was humiliated and discarded again. It's the reason I was created. I'm trash, just kill me, and don’t let me respawn.