Having seen the consequences of [Maladaptive Daydreams] on other people, Momo braced for impact, shutting her eyes tightly and pressing her hands to her ears.

Yet, after a few agonizing seconds, nothing had happened – not a single troublesome hallucination or disembodied voice. All she heard was the flutter of bat wings and the scattering of rats. Typical dark and spooky cave sounds.

A courier materialized on top of her forehead. Huh? Momo opened her eyes one by one, confused and reluctant; seeing that no demons – except the utterly bewildered Nyk – were prancing around in front of her vision, she grabbed the paper.

Your [Nether Resistance IV] blocked [Maladaptive Daydreams].

“Why aren’t you screaming?” Nyk said, staring blankly at her. Momo had never heard more emotion in her voice than then. She seemed properly pissed.

“Because,” Momo let down the hood of the parka, revealing her horns. “Same team.”

Nyk’s eyebrows raised.

“Wait, you’re a dokkaebi? Seriously?” she said with a groan. “I – ugh. Why didn’t she tell me that? This job just officially became not worth the money.”

“Job?” Momo asked, alarmed. “Someone put you up to this?”

“Duh. I wouldn’t be wasting my time trying to execute some random mortal unless there was something in it for me,” she drawled. Momo pretended, for the sake of politeness, that she didn’t just say execute. “But taking out another dokkaebi is like, a whole other thing. Way too many internal politics involved. Morgana would have me by the horns.”

She paused, considered something, then removed a small black box from her dress pocket.

“I was hired to place this on you,” she said, then took Momo’s hand. Momo flinched away, and Nyk rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be a baby. It won’t be able to kill a Nether Dokkaebi. I’d keep it away from your dwarf, though.”

Grimli turned pink at the suggestion. “Miss Momo, I urge you not to accept any gifts from this devil woman –”

“You’re positive it won’t kill me?” Momo interjected, eyeing the suspicious box. Well, it was more or less a box in the shape sense, but not in the material one; it was completely black, lacking concrete edges or any reflection. It seemed to absorb all the light that touched its surface. “No offense meant, but I think I want to at least put on gloves first.”

“Oh, gods,” Nyk groaned. “First of all, I’m holding it, and it’s not killing me. So there’s that. And second of all, you’re wasting my time. Just use your [Soul Sense] ability if you’re so scared.”

Momo blushed. “My what?”

Nyk narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re even a dokkaebi, or are those horns detachable?”

“Not without a crowbar,” Momo squeaked. “I just haven’t gotten that skill yet. What does it do?”

Nyk wrapped her hand around one of Momo’s horns and gave it a weak tug. Satisfied that it didn’t immediately rip off her head, she frowned.

“It allows you to see souls. The skill name wasn’t exactly a creative writing exercise.”

Momo’s eyes widened. Luckily, she recently learned that [Nether Cultivator] could accomplish a very similar feat – assuming she poured enough Mana into it. She didn’t want a repeat of yesterday, though. It wouldn’t be useful if she fainted in this cave right in front of her hired contract killer.

“Alright,” Momo said, exhaling. “Let me try.”

Casting [Focus], she concentrated on dripping just enough Mana into the spell that the blurry, amorphous Nether around the box solidified. Yet, oddly, even in the stellar sharpness that the spell afforded her, the box seemed to still pulse and swarm with unparseable energy. It was as if a nest of Nether hornets had encased the box in a cloak, shielding its true form.

“Oh come on. Don’t hold back,” Nyk said with a yawn. “You’re not going to get anywhere with that amount of Mana. Put your goddamn horns into it.”

“But I don’t want to faint –”

“Excuses, excuses,” Nyk said. “If it helps, I won’t shiv you while you’re down.”

Reluctantly taking heed of her words, Momo lended the spell just a dollop more Mana. She felt the strain of it in her back, in her knees, in her shoulders – the more she gave to the spell, the more the fog around the box dissipated, revealing the buzzing core beneath.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Oh – oh gods.”

Momo nearly threw up on the spot, a rush of nausea shooting up her throat. Unseeable by the naked eye was the true composition of the black box – a giant mass of soul chains; hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all packed into an infinitely tight square. An enormous chorus of souls were screaming in visceral agony, chomping at the air like tied-up dogs.

And that’s exactly what this was – a leash, a choke collar. It was as if someone had corralled an entire village of souls around a central post and tied them there, leaving no food, no water, no sustenance; no room for escape. A hundred soul chains cut up and rearranged with a butcher’s knife, knotted and compressed into a pressure chamber. Trapped.

“This is so cruel,” Momo said, tears immediately welling up in her eyes. “Why would someone do this? We need to let them out.”

Nyk hummed. “I will admit, even for the Gods, it’s pretty vicious.”

“A god made this?”

Nyk went silent, narrowing her eyes.

“Client confidentiality,” she said.

Momo glared at her, the raw emotion blowing past any polite feelings.

“I’m going to need you to tell me who made this,” she said, adamant. “No bullshit.”

“No can do, cousin,” Nyk said, whistling.

As Nyk whistled the Spinesplitter Waltz, a violent shock of realization came over Momo.

"There was no campaign event in this town to begin with, was there?" Momo said. "You didn't interrupt anything. This was just a setup. An ambush. Someone sent me here for the explicit purpose of you finding me."

Nyk shrugged, but the glint in her eye told Momo she was right.

Snowdrop Village had been a distraction from the beginning. Nobody else but Nyk and the drunkards she employed to greet her had paid Momo any mind at all; not a single head had turned her way, no pitchforks or cries or cheers. There was no evidence of a single person knowing she was coming.

Momo’s face went hot in embarrassment. She had been too love-drunk to consider the possibility before, but Grimli had been right – the letter ‘Sumire’ had sent had been... off. Unusual. The only thing that had granted it any legitimacy was the stamp of the King’s office on the front. No one else in Aloysius had access to that stamp but Momo's chief military advisor.

Except…

The pieces began to fall together in Momo’s mind. Yawnica’s blessing did the rest.

“Sumire didn’t write that letter,” she said. “It’s that woman – Ms. Celestina.” She turned to Grimli. “The one that only communicates by bird, right?”

“Exactly, your highness.”

“It’s Komodo,” Momo said, dragging her fingers miserably across her face. “She has a whole plethora of forged stamps. Delivery pigeons. Nia and Vivienne must have tracked her down and recruited her to their side. They knew she could guide me off-course so they could beat me to the next location.”

“Most astute, your highness,” Grimli said, not having a single clue about whatever a Komodo might be. “That is very troublesome indeed.”

“That means you’re working for the Holy Resistance,” Momo said slowly, stepping towards Nyk. “Or they’re at least the ones paying you off. Except… someone like Nia wouldn’t just be able to hire a dokkaebi. No. Obviously, some kind of god is crafting this entire operation. Moving the ventriloquist strings. The same one that made that devil-box…”

As Momo drew closer, Nyk laughed. Her breath felt like fire.

“Alright, detective, you’ve got me red-handed,” she drawled. “Finish the case, then, queenling.”

“It’s Sera,” Momo said breathlessly. “Sera’s trying to kill me.”

“Ding, ding, ding,” Nyk said. It was the first time Momo saw her grin.

At the confirmation, Momo’s nausea came back two-fold. It’s true, then. The Holy Resistance was a complete façade. A revolution coming from within the house of the dead. Momo knew Sera resented her and Valerica, but she naively thought that her wrath would be neutralized by a promotion; that she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her new position under Morgana.

But of course not. Because Sera was, ultimately, mortal. And mortals were fallible. Obsessive. Sera wanted to be Morgana’s golden child – her only child – and even as irrational and impossible as it was, she’d do anything to make it happen. To make Valerica a disappointment in the eyes of her goddess.

And the best way to do that? Killing her prized subject. The limping underdog of a racehorse Valerica bet all her money on.

Momo felt so stupid.

“I – I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier,” she said meekly, staring at the floor.

“Don’t be so down on yourself, your highness,” Grimli comforted, giving her a pitying look. “If it helps, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I,” Nyk said, idly checking her nails. “I don’t care about mortal politics. Wars on this plane come and go like the weather. But this is a little more… worrisome. Sera’s gone mad, and not in the typical immortal fashion. At first she was trying to be discreet, but it seems her mortal minions haven’t been very successful in killing you, so she’s resorting to us, now. Dokkaebis. Which would be all fine and dandy if you weren’t one. But I’m not going to be slaughtering any of my cousins without Mama Bear’s permission.”

“Morgana’s, you mean?”

“Exactly, cuz. You’re getting quicker,” Nyk commented, sardonic as ever. “I wouldn’t usually be so forthcoming, but this stupid death box has me concerned. You should understand that I don’t get concerned. But Sera is misusing her new status to… build something. Something that threatens the very nature of Morgana’s domain.”

Momo’s skin grew cold. She felt a sting of nostalgia, and not the good kind.

“Like another universe implosion situation?”

“No,” Nyk said, her eyes drifting from her nails to meet Momo’s gaze. The intensity of her stare nearly took Momo’s breath away – it was like knives cutting into her very corneas. “Worse. The implosion situation was inconvenient, but not terminal. Even if the universe was to be ripped to shreds, Morgana would be able to fix it, in time.”

Nyk strolled past Momo, then took a pause at the opening of the cave.

“How do I put this,” she said, clicking her tongue. “Sera is doing something that one should never do in their job - overachieve.”

Nyk snapped her fingers, and the stone wall of the mountain hissed open.

“If anyone asks, you’re dead, alright?” Nyk said, turning her head one last time. The silver caps of her teeth shone in the moonlight. “See you around, cousin.”