Bark glared at me and then at Killa. "We need to leave now." His voice was low, almost threatening.

Killa glared back. "Why? Rina needs to eat. And you need to recover. The potion helped, but you still need two, maybe three, days to heal completely."

Bark grabbed Killa’s wrists. "Don’t you see?" He pointed to me with a third arm. "With a power like hers, we don’t need to worry about that. If I could get her nanites and system, I’ll be unstoppable. I’ll be able to leave this infernal prison. I will be free."

The desperation in his voice tugged at my heart. He doesn’t want to be here? Hey Orange, is it possible to do that? Give him the same system I have? A blue box appeared.

No. We are mapped to the host. A new host is not possible.

"Sorry, but I’ve been told it’s not possible." I placed a hand on Bark’s shoulder.

"Why?" His voice trembled.

Why? Can you tell me, Orange? There was no response for almost a minute until a tiny blue box showed up. The words that filled it didn’t surprise me.

Insufficient data.

"I don’t know, Bark. I don’t know how this works." I could see the hope shatter in his eyes. "I didn’t ask for this. The nanites just did it. I didn’t even know what is possible."

"But… but…" Bark’s voice turned to a whimper as he stepped back and grabbed his head.

Killa put a hand on his shoulder. "Bark, calm down. We’ll figure this out. There’s got to be an explanation."

"Gary," Bark mumbled, his whole demeanor shifted. "Gary will have the answers. He’ll know what to do."

He didn’t wait for us to say anything and started trying to lift the bars. They didn’t move. He started yelling and pulling harder. The bars still didn’t move. "Killa, eat these bars. Get us out of here."

Killa shook her head. "No. Not until you calm down. This isn’t like you. Why are you so obsessed with Rina’s nanites?"

Bark started pacing by the door. "Killa, there have only been four who reached the top of the Soul Nexus. Those four had to have something special, something like Rina’s nanites. They had to. The Nexus wants us to fail. It gave us a system to instill enough hope to get us to try, but it’s not enough. It never was. Otherwise, more would have reached the top." He held up his arms to us. "We have to change the game. And Rina is the key, my key."

I put my hand on the wall, hoping I had another way to leave the room. "That’s an odd way to phrase that. I want to reach the top as much as you, and I’ll help you. I’ll need your help. It’s obvious that I’ll not make it on my own."

Killa stepped in between Bark and me. "You don’t know what her system can do. You’re just making assumptions. Maybe our teaming up is enough to change our odds, just like you suggested before. So what if Rina’s different? That’s a good thing. But if she says that it won’t work, I trust her."

"Do you trust her more than me?" Bark growled.

Killa straightened her back. "I never said that. You’re being unreasonable. What’s gotten into you?"

Bark stomped his foot. "We need to act now."

"It can wait. We will talk to Gary. We will find the answers to your questions. And more importantly, we’ll climb the Nexus together." Killa marched up to Bark, who stared her down. "But we will do it after we take care of ourselves. We have all the time we need. There’s no need to rush and get ourselves into trouble we can’t handle."

Bark continued to stare at Killa. Killa stretched her body to stare at Bark in the eye. I didn’t know what to do. The shaylip seemed to vibrate more the longer they stared at each other.

Bark slumped back. "Fine. We’ll leave after we eat." He didn’t bother hiding his disdain.

Killa returned to her normal proportions and crossed her arms. "Remember, we have to survive the trip to see Gary. Going half-prepared, wounded, and blind will only get us killed. And that’s exactly what we don’t want to happen."

Layith returned with a grand flourish while holding several bags. "I’m back." The excitement on his face died when he saw the mood in our cell. "What did I miss?"

"Just let us out," Bark said while glaring at me.

What did I do?

Layith shrugged and placed the bags on the table. Wasn’t there two of them when they left? "You promise not to run? I still need to talk to Rina." He walked over to the side of the door. "I still need to know about that man and what came out of him."

I shivered. "Came out? What are you talking about?"

Killa raised her hand to stop me. "Not until you start eating." She turned to Layith. "We’ll talk over the food."

Layith sighed. "Some days I’m not paid enough for this." He looked like he pulled a lever, and the bars rose, letting us out. "Don’t make me chase you. It’s been a long week."

I waited until Bark and Killa went through first. Layith walked to the table first and started sorting the food out. After the other three had taken their seats around the table, I made my way towards it. Something about Bark felt off, and I sat as far away from him as possible.

"Now, you only told me to get food for six people. But you didn’t specify what you liked, so I picked up a bit of everything."

I shook my head. "I’ll just eat it all. Don’t worry. From what I’ve tried in this city, I doubt it will taste bad."

Layith slowly turned his head towards me as he finished putting all the clay bowls on the table and dropped the bag on the table. "You eat it all? I guessed that the extra two were for the slime." He narrowed his eyes at me. "How are you going to eat all this?"

I pursed my lips. "I just can." Guilt ran through me as I looked at my two companions. "Sorry, I didn’t think about food for you two."

Bark waved his hand. "I don’t care. A fingernail from Killa should be enough for me."

Killa smiled. "And I’ll just eat the bowls when you’re done with them."

Layith shook his head. "You three are nuts." He sat down and rested his head on an arm as he watched me grab the first bowl. "A human girl who can eat as much as a small dragon, a shaylip who willingly eats parts of a slime, and a slime. And the slime is the most normal of the bunch." Is eating parts from a slime that odd?

Layith’s flippant comment felt like a slap across my face. It only hurt more after realizing he was right. Wait. What is he talking about, small dragons? Are there really dragons? If he mentioned them, then there are dragons.

I opened the first bowl, and a wave of steam and a wonderful spiced aroma rose to greet me. Drool instantly started filling my mouth. I looked around for something to eat with. Layith casually tossed a wooden spoon my way. I gave him a smile and dug right in. There was some kind of spiced white meat that tasted a lot like chicken and crispy lentils, all covered in a thick, tangy sauce. The food in this world is amazing. This beats fast food every day of the week. Is this what real people eat on Earth? I shoveled bite after bite, barely taking the time to chew my food.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

As I ate, a smile crept across Layith’s face. "So you were really hungry, after all. After seeing you go to town on that first bowl, I think I can believe you’ll eat all of it."

Dude, imagine being the one who is eating all the food. I opened my second bowl and dug in as ravenously as the first bowl. It was a thick stew full of vegetables and shredded meat. There wasn’t as much spice, as it all tasted meaty.

Layith cleared his throat. "So, about that guy who tried to kill you... Why did he do it?"

I paused with the spoon in my mouth. The energy bar on the side of my vision was slowly filling up. After finishing the bite, much slower than I had been up to that point, I took a deep breath. "He was ordered to kill me."

"Ordered?" Layith raised an eyebrow but didn’t move otherwise. "Why you? What’s so important about you?"

I stared at the half-finished bowl of food. "Because I’ve been told my existence is a crime. Someone created me. They created my soul, yet they apparently left out a part. I don’t know what part, and I don’t know what it all means. I just know that he killed me once, then somehow followed me here to finish the job."

"If you died once, how did you get here?" Killa asked. "Wasn’t there an afterlife?"

I chuckled at the memory of the old man in the tearoom. "I thought I did go to an afterlife. It wasn’t a question I thought to ask. There was a guy who called himself Mr. Black. But I don’t think that was who he really was. I don’t really know much about him, really."

Bark drummed his fingers on the table. "But that doesn’t answer the question. You died, yet you are alive now. Are you sure you really died?"

"I did. A bullet to my brain." There was no feeling in my voice. My emotions felt detached as I thought about how I had died. I knew where the blocked-out memory was. It was there, like an obvious hole that promised me a horrifying experience should I dive into it. My mind couldn’t handle that memory and repressed it. But I know I repressed it. Shouldn’t that be impossible? It doesn’t work that way, right?

Layith hummed. "Yeah, that’ll kill most everything. But what was that black thing that came out of him?"

I shivered and looked up at him. "What? What black thing?"

Everyone looked at Layith, confused. "It was a shadow-like creature that tried to attack you. But it just phased through you. Afterwards, it tried to attack me, but it couldn’t touch me. It was odd."

"What happened to it?" Killa leaned forward in her seat. "Where did it go?"

Layith raised his hand and leaned back in his chair. "It sort of just got pulled away into nothing. If that makes sense." He relaxed. "Look, I don’t really know how to describe what I saw. It was kind of hard to believe, really. I don’t know what to make of it."

"It sounds like something possessed the human," Killa muttered as she stared at the table while holding her chin. "And it also may have tried to possess Layith here."

Bark mimicked her. "I didn’t think something like that could happen this low in the Soul Nexus."

"Are you telling me that person was being controlled?" I slammed my hand on the table. "I killed an innocent person?"

Killa waved her hand. "I don’t think they were innocent. But he was simply a vessel for whatever possessed him. You did what you had to to survive. The person he was was likely long gone."

"You seem to know a lot about what this shadow is." Bark turned to face the slime woman. "Care to educate the rest of us?"

Layith held up a hand. "Also, could you tell us why it survived its host’s death? I thought the Nexus devoured all souls who died here. Why didn’t it get taken with the man’s soul?"

The Nexus "devours" souls? If I die, my soul will be eaten? Why didn’t Mr. Black tell me that? Why didn’t anyone tell me that? I dropped the spoon and grabbed my head with both hands. What the man said makes more sense now. If I die here, I don’t get a second chance!

"I don’t know about how all that works," Killa started. "But something like this creature was only a myth in my world. If I had to throw a guess out there, I would say that the man’s soul was devoured by the creature. And since we didn’t kill it, it will try to find a new host."

"He’ll come back?" I asked in a weak voice.

Killa sighed. "Unfortunately, if I’m right, yeah. He’ll be back."

"I have a question." Layith turned to me. "If a bullet killed you, how did you not have any injuries when I found you? How did the bullets not harm you?"

I poked at a hole in my shirt and jacket. "Because they did harm me. Ever since the nanites attached themselves to me, I can heal really fast. There are a lot of tiny robots in my body that heal me. It just costs me a lot of energy to do it. The more severe the wound, the more energy it requires to heal me. That’s why I eat so much."

Layith bobbed his head. "That makes sense. I imagine when you poop, it’ll not be pleasant."

I blushed, then I froze. Uh, I haven’t done any of that since I ate that large meal. And I don’t feel the urge to. Why?

We break down everything the host’s body doesn’t consume. There is no waste. All impurities are also converted into energy.

So, I don’t have to use the bathroom again? I blinked at the message from Orange. That is both convenient and freaky. I almost hate to ask, but is there a way I can generate energy without eating? A series of blue boxes flashed in front of me.

Bio-photosynthetic skin: shard cost varies per limb’s surface area. Example: Head: 747,000 shards. Insufficient funds. Not recommended for the host’s current energy consumption rate.

Is Orange giving me a warning? That’s new. That name sounds a lot like photosynthesis, like what plants do. I’m not interested in becoming like a plant.

Electromagnetic generator: 27,705,000 shards. Insufficient funds.

Somehow, the science on this one doesn’t make sense to me. Based on the price, it’s probably worth it. But having an entire generator inside me is pretty insane.

Bioenergy converter: 38,110,000 shards. Insufficient funds.

What is bioenergy? What am I converting? It has a higher price than the generator. Does that mean it’s better, more accessible? But it seems that I can’t get any more information until I purchase the augment.

Molecular fusion reactor: 210,999,001 shards. Insufficient funds. Lethal to the host in the host’s current configuration.

Uh… no. Just… no. I don’t want to see any more. Especially if I can't afford them. They're getting more ridiculous and expensive. The last seven boxes disappeared. Actually, let’s just see what this stupid system is capable of. What’s the last one again?

Collapsing star core: 42,999,999,999,999 shards. Insufficient funds. Lethal to the host in the host’s current configuration. Also, it would cause the complete destruction of the Soul Nexus simultaneously.

At least it’s not forty-three trillion.

I shook my head and tried to ignore the fact that I could, with a one-time purchase, kill myself and everyone in the Soul Nexus while also destroying it. My takeaway from the whole flurry of messages was that the nanites were limitless. That means I’m limitless.

"Rina?" Layith looked at me, worried. "Sorry, was that a bad joke?"

I put up a wry smile. "No. It’s just that I learned something pretty insane. But it’s fine. I have enough to worry about." Yep. I’m going insane.

Layith leaned against the table. "So, where did these nanites of yours even come from? I’ve never heard of anything like them before."

I grabbed the spoon from the table. "I saw some of those bottles of liquid metal in Cushin’s cellar. They got destroyed in the fight with the rat creature, and they got absorbed into my body. As I told Bark, I don't really know why any of this all works or happened."

Layith gave me another nod. I started eating again. I can’t let this food go to waste now. Especially since I won’t waste a single piece.

I suppressed a laugh as the three stared at me while I ate. They didn’t say anything else. It was nice and quiet. Now I just have to get over the fact that I have to climb this stupid place while a murderous, soul-stealing body snatcher hunts me down relentlessly. But if every time I kill him, he gives me a bunch of shards, it might be worth it.