PoV: Vincent Frill - Knives
Finally.
It’s been so long, but it finally happens. There’s a grin on my face, and I can’t hide it, not even with [Fake]. It’s too good a feeling.
My knife stabs into the bitch’s stomach. Ion. I watch as the healer folds in. There’s no gasp of pain, no exhilarating moment of hopelessness. It pisses me off. The way that, despite everything, the fucker’s still looking at me with those empty, glassy eyes. The same way I’d look at an ant.
I am not an ant.
[Betrayal] powers my movements now. It’s weakened, and imperfect, but it activated. The idiot tried to heal me, and the conditions finally clicked into place. Someone was willingly performing a kind action towards me, and I would exploit it.
[Class up! Traitor (II) 3 > 4]
[Level Up! 41 > 42]
More power floods into me. I’m strong. Strong enough to get out of this shithole soon. My [Mark] explodes, and the knife I shoved into Snow’s gut does the same, sending sharp bits of shrapnel flying out. A sadistic smile on my face grows wider.
[Betrayal 11 > 12]
My highest level skill increases once more. I can feel the strength in my arms. The wheelchair girl and bartender just look at me, as the wounds on my body snap shut. I look at the dying bastard in front of me for a moment. “Hey, bitch,” I say. “This is why you shouldn’t mess with me.”
The oil-slick looking mana from my skill still covers the fragmented knife. The hilt slips out and tumbles to the floor, and a torrent of blood pours out of Snow. For a moment, I watch as blood streams steadily down. Then, that thing moves.
Somehow, Snow stands up from the chair. Somehow, the fucker’s eyes turn to me, head still raised.
Then, I hear a heartbeat.
My skin tingles with a warning. Mana pours out from that monster in a torrent. A wild, insane amount of mana. More than thrice as much as I have, total. My eyes widen, for a moment.
“That hurt,” Snow says. “I didn’t like that.”
The shadow that once covered half of Snow’s face suddenly moves. It slithers, crawls into the wound, and then, one by one, pieces of glistening metal tumble out. I blink. Then, there’s another tingle, and I step backwards.
Suddenly, Snow is holding a knife, stepping towards me. It’s grey-blue, slithering with runes on it, and feels terrifying. Just the weapon holds my entire mana pool. My eyes flicker upwards, only to be met by an expressionless face.
More and more mana gathers around the terrifying bitch. “How?!” I demand. “How are you still standing?”
A skill hits me, the same one that stunned me back on Earth. The thing that makes me feel all heavy. Not even [Slither] can avoid it, because I can’t cast slither. When the skill tries to manifest, it just… crumbles apart. The weakness hits me like a hammerblow, and I stagger backwards.
The knife nicks me. A shallow cut on my arm, but it laces fire up my veins. My passive effects crack. [Fake] fades, exposing a sliver of hidden emotion. A sneer on my face. The illusion is broken. I feel that targeting skill land on me, in the same way that my own [Mark] latches onto others.
But worst of all? The strength of [Betrayal] fades a little. I take another step back.
Blood and metal drips from Snow’s stomach, the darkness writing as if burrowing into them. And despite that, the monster just takes another step towards me.
“Traitor, huh? The class suits you.” The words come out so calmly it sends a shiver up my spine.
Why is that fucker still alive? What the fuck? I disembowelled them! That’s not something a human just shrugs off! “You… fucking monster!”
At that, Snow scoffs. “Heard that before, you can’t do anything better?” Another slow, lumbering step. Despite the fear creeping up my spine, there’s nothing to be afraid of. The steps come slowly, staggering. The stabs, too, aren’t particularly fast or strong.
I can easily evade them-
My feet grow heavier still. More mana pumps out of them, into that damn skill, and I stagger from the sudden weakness. Another stab lands, digging into my shoulder, and I feel more mana ravage my skills. The lies I’ve so carefully crafted break. My fake profile shatters. The enhancements on me fizzle and fail. I scream from the pain, but the weakness redoubles.
Gritting my teeth, I decide to escape. Another [Mark] on Snow-
It shatters.
Somehow, all of a sudden, that bitch can spot my marks. Rage tears at my insides. My epitaph, [Relentless Stalker], should have made that impossible to spot, damn it! I’ll just make do. I’ll make do.
Activating [Slither] and [Disengage] at the same time, I take a single step to disappear, only to run into a wall of threads.
The door is barred. I look at the girl in the wheelchair, and she’s glaring at me. What the hell? More blood pours from Snow and finally, the monster staggers, leaning against a table. I feel the lapse in the mana, in Ion’s focus, and I reactivate my skills, rushing for a window. A dozen threads grab at me, cutting into my limbs, but slip off.
I notice the way the bartender looks at me, with a faint amusement in his eyes as I leap at the window. A wooden hand grabs my head and smashes it into the ground. My nose cracks and blood pools from it. “Fuck,” I grind out. “God fucking damn piece of shit!”
Another knife flashes. I know the wheelchair girl. My epitaph sings, and some of my knowledge of her disappears, powering my strike against her damn puppet. Metal rings against metal, and I forget who she is, but that’s okay.
Her puppet collapses with its strings cut, and I leap out of the window. Glass splinters dig into my shoulder but fail to pierce my strengthened skin. I run.
[Job Up! Escape Artist 3 > 4]
My fake identity reassembles itself as I pour mana into the skill. It pisses me off. It pisses me off so bad. But I run.
Somehow, even when almost alone, that monster still overwhelmed me. And string-girl, too! What the fuck were Snow’s skills at? What the hell kind of class did they have?! I grit my teeth as I sprint through the streets, vanishing into the crowds. I disappear off their radar. But I’d be back, damn it. I’d murder that whole group, one by one. If Snow was too strong for now, then I’d just kill everyone else in that miserable party first.
Let’s see how those bitches like it when their friends start dying.
- - -
PoV: Amelie Ehrenherz - Spider
Snow is bleeding.
Kuro, the tamed shadow-parasite, is picking shrapnel from the open wound. Bits of the exploded knife that burrowed their way into Snow’s guts. Somehow, my travelling companion simply sits on a chair while getting metal torn out from within.
“How are you not fainting from the pain?” I ask.
Snow turns to me with a grimace. “Because I’ll bleed out if I faint.”
I shake my head, shocked, weaving more threads from my mana. It’s a skill from my job, [Weaving], and it’s fairly simple in nature. Meant for making fabric or thread. In this case, I create the semi-ethereal strings that I use on my puppets. Whenever a new bit of the knife is removed, I sew Snow’s insides back together.
The stitches are made from just mana, so they’ll fade and erode over time, disappearing entirely. They’ll mess with Snow’s skills while they’re in place - or they would, if I didn’t surrender control over their maintenance to our healer. It only takes the mage a few seconds to take over the ability once I allow it, a little like passing a baton.
“Thanks,” Snow says. “I owe you.”
“No, you do not,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “You are a buffoon. A thoroughly moronic fool. You owe me nothing. I am sorry I could not stop him.”
Snow replies with a shake of the head. “It’s alright. We’ll get him when the time comes.”
“You don’t sound particularly bothered about this,” I note.
“Eh,” Snow says. “It hurts. I’ll get revenge. But, well. No lasting damage done, y’know?”
I blink. “Your guts are almost pooling out of your stomach.”
“Lucky, then, that I have a barrier keeping them in,” Snow says with a faint smile.
“You’re a moron,” I say, shaking my head, threading more string through those mangled guts as Kuro pulls out the last few splinters of metal. Then the blob of inky darkness splatters out of the wound and starts to eat all the blood that splattered onto Snow’s clothes and the ground.
Snow just smiles faintly. “You’re a silly girl, Amelie.”
Somehow, coming from Snow, it doesn’t sound offensive. They look at me with a tiny curl of the lips and the same empty eyes as usual. I smile back. Somehow, despite everything, I feel with them I can make it through this whole tower thing.
Somehow, with Snow, Opal and the rest… it feels like I can go as high as I wanna go.
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