“What? Ugh, Get off me!” The stalker snarled, voice raised in surprise.

Something hit Yuki’s head, hard and painful. She lost grip on the man’s trousers, her teeth slipping free from its mark. She tasted blood and wasn’t sure if it was from her bite or from being punched in the head. She fell to the side, crashing into the nearby furniture. The sound broke the calm in the silent manor.

The stalker — now Yuki remembered his name, Ferdinand — walked closer, a hand massaging the spot at his waist where she’d bitten him.

Yuki couldn’t move; her head spun.

Ferdinand kicked Yuki in the guts, and she passed out.

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Yuki awoke gasping for air. Her head hurt, her arms hurt, her whole everything hurt. She moved one arm, and a spike of pain made her give up on that idea. She moved the other arm, and the pain was tolerable this time. She pushed herself from the floor and inspected her body. Her arm bent in ways that weren’t possible, which explained the pain. With her good hand, she touched her mouth. A gash divided her lips in two, and she missed a few teeth. Breathing hurt, broken ribs probably. It all felt so very surreal like it was happening to someone else. Even the pain felt distant.

She willed the system to show the notification.

Your passion [Hate] the stalker overwhelms your Willpower.

You failed an Endurance check.

What the fuck was that? The system could interfere with her mind? That was bullshit. Yuki summoned her status landing page. It was red all around. Chest, abdomen, left arm, head. Her legs and right arm were the only parts that didn’t hurt. She cast her gaze about. She was still in the foyer.

The room was a mess. The door lay ajar. Near the entrance, crumbled and bloodied, was the heavy-set guard she had seen when Boris had brought her here. The smell of decaying flesh also came from the entrance.

A wheezing, gurgling sound caught Yuki’s attention. She looked in the direction, and the pit in her stomach grew.

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Jenny lay sprawled on the ground, a dagger sticking out of her stomach. The gurgling, wheezing sound came from the woman’s breathing. Yuki got up hissing in pain, then approached. She slipped on the blood pooling on the floor and fell. A strangled cry of pain escaped her mouth. An agonizing eternity later, Yuki was back on her feet, and next to Jenny. Somehow, the girl was still awake, with tears dripping.

Jenny’s eyes hurt Yuki the most. The bright, vivid sapphire was gone, replaced with dead, despairing shades of indigo. In them, Yuki saw unrealized ambition, unfulfilled love, and bitterness at meeting her end.

Yuki looked away. She was afraid that if she kept looking, she might just give up as well. She looked at her mana points, considering her options. Any choice she made here was problematic. If she helped, she would put herself into greater danger. The [Restoration] spell took forever to work. Worse, she wasn’t sure how long [Shapechange] would still last. What would happen when it ran out? Would it cancel the restoration and waste her efforts?

The rabbit-turned girl shook her head. She already knew her answer; the manor was quiet as a grave, and she had to try, at least. In a way, she owed her life to Jenny. She doubted the girl was supposed to keep the ‘rabbit’ as a pet, not with all the pains Jenny went to keep Yuki hidden.

Yuki closed her eyes and took deep, slow breaths. She braced for the pain, then jarred her broken arm back into place. The agony was exquisite. She whimpered, cried, and sobbed. Yuki was pretty sure she was full-on ugly crying right now, snot running down her nose, but she didn’t have the time to stop.

When she finally regained her faculties again, two notifications greeted her.

Pain overwhelms your Endurance.

You succeeded a Willpower check.

“About right,” she muttered. Yuki then blocked everything out. She ignored the pain, ignored the rising fear, and the voice in the back of her head yelling at her to escape. She ignored the dying girl before her and concentrated on the magic she wanted to cast. It was hard; moving a broken arm and chanting with broken teeth wasn’t a pleasant experience, but somehow, it worked.

Yuki pressed her good hand over Jenny’s abdomen near the knife. The scent of her magic spread in the room, flowing out from her core. A new system notification blinked in existence.

[Regeneration] failed.

Target magic essence has been usurped.

The spell faltered, and Yuki balked. After the system unlocked, among all the sorcery knowledge implanted in her head, there was a small nugget she didn’t touch or even think about. Magic was a scarce resource. A spell, shaped to be usable, took a lot of power. Yuki’s system interpreted her power like magic points because that is how she understood things. But Yuki was way above the norm in magic capacity when compared to the ordinary person. For the average caster, with ten magic points, casting modified spells was taxing, with magic points regenerating at one per day.

That small nugget of knowledge was a way to regenerate magic power by consuming someone else’s. Blood magic, in short. That was a line Yuki didn’t want to cross. It was a slippery slope. Run out of power to enslave this person? Easy, sacrifice this other person, and problem solved. Clearly, the stalker didn’t have any such moral considerations.

Yuki glanced at the dying girl in front of her. She was surprised Jenny was still alive. Yuki could think of one other way to try and save Jenny: in for a penny, in for a pound.