“Mrorowowow-!” A ginger cat yowled as it stumbled on its bleeding claw and fell snout first into the torn snow. It stared wearily at the strange, hollow, footprints formed by the bizarre abnormality it had been fighting for so long. The MobGlitch turned its blurry, humanoid head and then ran off. Wearily, the tired feline slumped, its paws shaking, as its multi-colored blue and emerald eyes began to close…

“Damnit! I’m out of mana!”

A girl with flaming red hair suddenly woke up on her throne of bones. Her fists tightened and as she opened her emerald eyes, a trail of blood spilled out of the side of her rosy lips.

“I lost control of my familiar! Not good…not good at all! I won’t be able to connect again until I regain some mana…shoot!” Suzy panicked as she realized she could not follow the strange boy who had given her so much light in her darkness anymore. “What do I do! That boy attracts danger like honey draws in flies! Can I trust him to be okay on his own?”

She jumped off her throne of bones and paced around the sepulchre. Outside, the jumbled heaps of bones and incomplete skeletons rattled nervously, as a wave of blood-red mist shot through the forest.

“Crap! I didn’t mean to do that!”

Suzy hurriedly did her best to pull back in the source of her troubles.

This cursed domain…even when I’m out of mana it still won’t stop!”

When she managed to get the red mist to subside to a reasonable level, the bones stopped jumping and peace returned to the sepulchre. However, inside, Suzy was frantic. Hei…damnit, why do I feel such a need to protect him just because he said some nice things?

“UGH!” Suzy screamed in frustration. Just then, she remembered something! “My mirror! I can see what’s happening!”

The girl quickly laid back down on her throne and pulled out her silver hand-mirror from within the folds of her satin dress. Smoothing back her hair worriedly, she mentally willed it to show the one she sought. When the image of an oriental youth, conversing with two sisters in a snowy town appeared, Suzy breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whew…he’s okay. I was worried since Insolence released him from the void prism early. That little twerp probably did it on purpose since he knew I wouldn’t wake up in time! Good thing I got there before that abnormality arrived. Shoot, I need to file a report with the Monitors. I’ve never seen such a strange aberration before…” Suzy absentmindedly made some plans as she watched Hei get his power assessed. It was like a little girl watching her favorite drama. She cheered at times, groaned when bad things happened, and even punched her fist in the air whenever Hei killed something. “Get them! Yea, that’s right! Show them who’s boss!”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Suddenly the things being shown by the mirror were no longer so great. Suzy grew exceedingly uneasy when the party was trapped by the cave in.

“No…no no…my familiar still doesn’t have any mana, I can’t reconnect!” She continuously tried to contact the orange cat, but it was dead asleep outside Snowfall. Unable to leave the sepulchre without unleashing her red mist on the world, Suzy could only watch as the events in the mirror grew ever darker. Then…

*Puchi*

*Puchi*

“NO!!!!” Suzy screamed out loud as Hei’s eyes were stabbed. She gripped the mirror so hard it almost shattered. Her soft, frail form began to tremble uncontrollably. “No no no no no no! I still can’t connect! Why is this happening now! I’m so sorry, Hei!” She kept trying over and over, but all of her mana had been spent fighting the MobGlitch and now she was powerless as Hei crawled back down into the tunnels. “I gotta do something!” She chewed on her fingernails and tapped her bare foot on the throne. A human spine rattled from the force as she practically kicked it to pieces.

*Crunch*

*Crunch*

*Cru-*

“Come on…come on…get away!” She yelled hoarsely as the mirror showed Hei squirming his way down the Feral Goblin Dungeon. When the high-level caught up to him and dropped the broken bodies of the rest of the party beside Hei, her eyes began to grow misty. “N-u…nu nu nu nu!”

*BANG*

The human spine she was tapping her foot against exploded as the high-level’s foot came down on Hei’s head.

“Hu-?” She gasped as Hei rolled out of the way and the floor of the dungeon broke. “What the hell is happening? What kind of crappy System design is this?!” Then Suzy couldn’t speak anymore because Hei was falling. She winced each time he hit something on the way down, covering her eyes with her hands as he bounced off rock after jagged rock. “I can’t look!”

*Splash*

Suzy’s emerald eye peeked out from in-between her fingers as Hei landed in the river. She watched as he struggled for air, and finally grabbed onto a thick root hanging over the water. As he hauled himself up, she saw a golden tree in the background. It was massive, as big as a skyscraper, and luminescent with hundreds of strange fruits that hung from its branches. The tree glowed from within with an inner-light.

“T-That’s!” She started to say but gasped when the tree’s radiance fell upon Hei and illuminated his face. The twin empty pits where his eyes used to be caused the words to get stuck in her throat. “No...not like this…” She began to cry. “I’m sorry…I should be there with you! I could have saved you…!”

Hot tears burned down her cheeks, and her eyes stung, but thinking of how she had eyes, only reminded her of her failure. She tried once more to reconnect to her familiar. When it failed, she smashed a fist into her throne, breaking apart one of the ribcages which formed the back.

“Damn the System!” She shouted angrily. Forcing herself to stop gripping the mirror so hard, Suzy kept watching, searching for any signs of hope. “At least he got away…”

Then she heard the high-level’s voice.

“WAIT RIGHT THERE, RAT! YOU’RE DEAD!”

“Not good…!” Suzy’s eyes widened as she watched Hei stumble to his feet, clutching his broken collarbone. “Come on, Hei…COME ON! You can do it! Just keep running…no…NO NO NO!” She screamed as she saw what happened next. The horrible scenes and tortured cries from the mirror made her wish she was blind as well. But she couldn’t bear to tear her eyes away from the screen-

“No…you can’t be…”