I blink at the message. The next words I was about to say die on my tongue.

“Oh, shoot, um, I’m about to disappear, but like I said, I’ll be back in twenty-four hours, so just sit tight, and try not to get yourself kille—”

The last thing I have time to see before the summoning teleports me away is a bewildered look on Simel’s face.

And then, in a flash, I’m gone.

My vision is black for all but a moment before I reappear, falling square on my ass in a room I’m very familiar with. O—w. It feels like my tailbone snapped, but I’m sure it was nothing.

“K—Kitty?” someone says—Virgil, I think. I look up to find her hurrying over to me, looking as worried as she sounds. “Are you okay?”

I leap to my feet, automatically sinking into a crouched, ready stance. But then I remember that I’m among human people and I slowly straighten out. It feels just as uncomfortable as ever, but I don’t have much of a choice. I turn to look at her. For a moment, the fact that I’ve only seen her so far gives me the light-hearted thought that maybe Arun went and died. Then I wouldn’t have to bother with his puppy-antics. On the other hand, if Arun was dead, then Virgil would be sad, and that wouldn’t be good either, so…

“You really are as agile as a cat, huh?” Arun says from the other side of the room. I look at him with a mixture of relief and annoyance. He smiles at me brightly. Eugh. “Say, that wouldn’t be from the stats and the levels, right? Or do you have some specific skill?”

I really don’t like the way his eyes are shining. I glance over at Virgil. She doesn’t seem to mind what he’s asking about in the least.

I don’t have time for this, though. I have my goal, and being the third wheel to these two isn’t part of it. “Okay yeah uh I’m gonna go shame you couldn’t convince more people good luck next time I guess also levels don’t do all that much honestly okay bye gotta go,” I say, and before either of them can respond, I toss myself out the door and into the hallway. Phew. Okay, time to make a run for it—

“Geez, he sure is quick to leave…”

I freeze in my step.

“Do you think he hates me?” Arun says quietly.

“No, he doesn’t hate you,” Virgil says back, her voice just as low. I’m only barely able to make out their words thanks to my enhanced hearing. “He just…” she heaves a sigh. “I think he just has trouble being close to people. Not just you.”

“Do you think he’ll be at the party tonight? I really want to show him what I can do with my lute.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “I mean, we’ve been practising the whole past attempt to join in on the music, so it’d be a shame if he wasn’t around to hear it.”

“I hope he’ll be there too, but some people just don’t like crowds.”

“Right. Of course…”

I draw away from the hell lobby room. But I can’t bring myself to fully run away. My head feels weird again.

…Why?

Why are they… what did they mean by that? That was…

I bite my lip. I shouldn’t have stopped. Eavesdropping never does you any good. It’s always bad. People don’t say nice things behind people’s backs. Only mean things. That’s how it is. And this wasn’t nice. But it wasn’t mean, either. I don’t know what it was.

I continue trudging through the hallway, my brow low and furrowed, barely even heaving towards any specific place. The hell lobby room is pretty far away from the main parts of the castle, so the hallways are mostly deserted, letting me grumble in peace.

…There’s going to be another party tonight? I mean, I assumed as much, but… I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they wanted to see me at such an event. It’s usually ‘yeah but I hope ho-jae doesn’t show up he’s really creepy’ and ‘lol yeah I bet he’d try to film us dancing or take upskirt pics or some gross shit like that’ and then I just wouldn’t show up. Simple. Easy. Predictable.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

This? Not so much.

But maybe they didn’t mean it in… that way. Maybe they knew I’d hear them and they wanted me too embarrassed to join in. Or they wanted me to stay longer so they could… could…

I feel myself frown. My brain feels way too cluttered. One moment I knew exactly what I was going to do, and now I’m just… Argh!

Grabbing hold of the nearest stone wall, I bash my face into it as hard as I can, feeling my nose crunch and my jaw snap in two like a wishing bone. Intoxicating WHITE pain flashes across my vision and my brain and for a single moment I don’t think about anything at all anymore. Then the moment passes and the muddy black thoughts rush back in, drowning my brain with horrible cruel uncertainty.

Ooo—kay, one bash didn’t do it; let’s go number two!

Bonk!

Ah, that didn’t do it either. Let’s see number three!

Crash! Bang! Smack! Crunch! Splat!

Concussion Resistance Lv. 7>

I pause my bashing to regard the message. Hmm. Not too bad! Alright, back to i—

“H—Ho-Jae?”

…Was that a real voice or did I just hallucinate? Let’s find out. My neck is kind of creaky right now, so I put both hands on either side of my head and turn it. Oh, hey, it’s Moleman! Since we’re good friends, I smile and wave at him. Hello, Moleman!

He hurries closer to me, lifting up his fancy WHITE robe to take longer steps. “Ho-Jae, what happened? Did someone attack you? You look horrible!”

And that’s somehow different from my regular state? Turning the rest of my body towards him, I wipe at my nose, which actually just dislodges the entire organ from my face. Though, since it’s honestly just cartilage and mush, there’s really not much of it. I stick it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. Oh, hey, Moleman is making the same face as Simel usually does! This is a perfect moment to make a few inquiries. “Hey, Moweman, whass ub wivv…”

Apparently, my lack of all front teeth was insulting enough for Moleman to point his middle finger at me, effectively flipping me off. Did I perhaps misjudge our relationshi—

A wave of gentle warmth roils over me before assaulting my nose and face, turning it to fire and giving me the genuine feeling of flaming hot coals being pressed to my face. I almost want to ask Moleman what he’s doing to me when the pain abruptly recedes, and in its place is a face that feels as soft and tender as an infant’s arse, my teeth all returned and my nose firm and perky like usual. I carefully touch a hand to my face. Wow, it’s all healed! That was fast.

“Are you feeling better?” Moleman asks. I nod at him. He gives a chuckle. “I’d be impressed you didn’t scream if it hadn’t been, well, you.”

Putting a hand to my jaw, I move it back and forth a little. Wow, it even merged my jawbone back together! Rubbing my chin, I squint at Moleman. I wonder what his current level is…?

“Hey, Moleman?” I say.

“What is it?”

I open my mouth but close it again. Some completely different little thought has suddenly nudged its way inside my head, and although it’s probably just me being paranoid, I look Moleman up and down with a heavy ounce of suspicion. All the way from his leather boots to his WHITE embroidered wizard’s tunic to the strange shiny headband he’s wearing. “How’d you get to me so fast?”

I hadn’t even been heading towards him all that fast, and then I got stuck, and then he appeared out of nowhere. Does that make sense? Kind of. But not totally.

He blinks at me. Then, his eyes widen. “Oh! That’s… Heh, now that I think about it, I really should have asked you about it before I just went ahead and…” Smiling meekly, he begins digging around in his pockets, eventually fishing out a little silver thing that looks sort of like a pocket watch, or one of those round make-up containers my sister used to have. He holds it out to me, and at the press of a small button on the side, the lid pops open, showing that it contains neither a watch nor powder, but rather a little compass. Apparently, according to this thing, I’m standing right to the north of Moleman! Interesting.

“This,” Moleman says, “is a silver compass. The name is a little deceitful, because it’s really not a compass at all.” Flipping it over, he shows me the lower bit. Pressing another tiny, invisible button, a small compartment on the back opens, which seems to contain a small vial of… something red? It’s encased in glass so I can’t smell it, but going by sight alone, it seems to be blood. How grisly. While holding it up, he opens a flap on his satchel and pulls out a little case. Having only one hand, it becomes a bit difficult for him to hold both, so I helpfully take hold of the silver compass. “Oh, thanks,” Moleman says.

Opening the case, he reveals it to contain six other small vials of blood, each helpfully labelled with a pair of initials, like ‘B’ or ‘P’. Removing the vial already in the compass, he replaces it with the one labelled ‘B’, putting the old vial in the slot labelled ‘K’.

And when he then closes the compartment and turns the compass back around, it’s no longer pointing at me. Weird…

“See? Now it points at Bach instead, so if you just follow the arrow, you’ll get to her eventually,” he says, smiling. Okay, so if I understood this right, it lets the user follow someone’s blood to get to the person? That’s metal!

…Wait a second.

“Yeah, uh, I got some of your blood after the meeting at the last conference. I went back to help clean it up, and then I thought, ‘what the heck?’ and I scooped up a little bit, just in case.” In case of what, exactly? To that, he says nothing. Probably because I didn’t vocalise my thoughts. Nevertheless, it’s not like it’s a bad thing if he can find me at any time. If anything, it levels the playing field between us. I can find him by scent, he can find me by using a blood-fuelled compass… Makes sense! “You aren’t mad, are you?”

Now it’s my turn to blink at him. “Huh? No, not at all! Really, if you ever need more blood, all you have to do is ask. I’ve got a ton. My bleeding protection is also, like, really high, so I can bleed buckets—no sweat.”

He makes that typical conflicted Simel-expression. “You know, it’s not actually very fun to see you hurt, right?”