"Hi! How's it going!" I shout excitedly. "Did you make progress? Did you miss me?"

"WHO THE FU-" She shouts in panic as she jumps out of her bed, her blanket dissipates into a black smoke and starts to congregate around her hands. "Have you heard of KNOCKING YOU SON OF A-" She stops herself from finishing her sentence and takes a deep breath. The black smoke that was around her hands is now going up her nose. After a few seconds, she exhales the smoke as it diffuses around the room.

It takes her a few more seconds to realize she's still in her underwear. The smog that is permeating the room seemingly notices that too and surrounds her, taking the form of the same blanket she was in.

"Sorry, just a tad jumpy. I'm pretty sure this door was locked too. How did you even get in?" she utters as she gets back into her bed.

"Would you have let me in if I knocked? I think it's faster that way." I answer, trying to justify my inability to care about personal space. "So! Did you make progress? On the menu?"

She turns her head back to the wall and presses what I assume are a few buttons on the menu. I can't see it clearly anymore. But I can get a general outline of it because I know what to look for. It'll be invisible to most people though.

"A menu? Is that what it's called? I guess that makes sense. I've always seen it more as a folder of some kind." She ponders for a few seconds. "Wait, what do you mean by 'progress'? Is there a deadline? Because I barely know how this thing works. Ho wait! Actually, I did figure out something!"

She gets out of her bed again while still wearing her blanket. She then walks to the other side of the room and picks something near the door. A metal box of some kind. She shakes the box a little and chirping sounds can be heard from it. Her blanket is about to fall off again, but it then wraps itself around her more tightly, as if it had a mind of its own.

"So, there were a few bugs in my house. So I killed one and then..." She pulls out something resembling a cockroach out of the box before quickly closing the box again. "I realized something happened when I squashed one of the vermin." She crushes the bug in her hand. A crunching noise can be heard as black blood drips out of her clenched fist. The blood evaporates into more black smoke when it reaches the ground. She then points towards her pink menu, I assume it's still pink anyway. I can't actually see what it looks like. Just that it's there.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"A bar gets filled up every time I kill something, I'm not sure what this means. But I figured, why don't I make a little farm of bugs and keep killing a few of them every day until the bar's filled? This is how you're supposed to use this, right?" she explains while pressing more buttons I can't see.

So she figured out experience already? That was fast. I probably shouldn't tell her how experience actually works. Or that this is actually a pretty inefficient way of getting it. Not THE most inefficient way, mind you, but making a bug farm? Especially ones kept in captivity like this? Won't net as much as wild ones.

I simply nod to her in approval, she doesn't need to know all of this. What matters is she did make progress.

I have to admit though, she's kind of rubbing me the wrong way. The way she speaks is...confusing. Remember when I described her as "pissed off". Yeah, despite how excited she seems right now, there's still some anger in there. And that anger seeps into every other emotion she has, positive or negative. But she IS our antagonist, so that's fitting.

"You know, I found it strange when someone asked me to kill someone else out of nowhere," she exclaims as she clasps her hands together. "Usually the mist gets pissed off when a murder happens, even if someone else orders you to. So I thought, if that girl is asking me to do something like that, then maybe she knows a way to bypass the mist! And then I realized! That folder, or menu as you call it."

Part of her blanket dissolves into smoke and throws itself into the wall. "It doesn't interact with smoke at all! It's not magic! This means I can bypass the authority of the mist entirely! I can rise through the ranks and finally fix everything". Her eye twitches in excitement as she stares at me, clearly expecting a response.

"Err, if I may ask, what are you going to do with all this power once you're done with the job?" I reply, avoiding her fiery gaze.

"Isn't it obvious? I'll change the way everything works! We're too-" She stops mid-sentence as she coughs a white substance. Her blanket dissipates, she coughs a little more as she covers her mouth with her hands, almost puking at this point. The white liquid evaporates into a white mist when it reaches the ground. She stops coughing after a few minutes.

She wipes her mouth and part of her half naked body of the white thing. "I'm fine, it happens sometimes. I'll get you, you piece of..." she mutters under her breath as another blanket forms around her, only for her to face-plant into the bed as she waves me away halfheartedly.

I'd make a joke about her being almost naked and being covered in white stuff. But the sex appeal is a little ruined by the origin of that white stuff. I really do hate the charisma stat...

Anyway, I'm sure she'll be fine. She's a tough girl, maybe a little too tough for our protagonist to handle, actually. Maybe I should give him a few pointers, or it's going to be a massacre when she gets to him. What could I do to make him on par with this girl's conviction, I wonder?