Thirty seconds had passed. That should be enough time.

I got up to leave the room.

"Hey, Ellie," Novi said.

"Yes, Novi?"

"I think you forgot about something," she replied.

"And what's that?"

"It will be better for you if you don't know. Just… try to be strong, okay?" she said, incredibly ominously.

"Are you trying to creep me out? Because it's working."

She hugged my leg, now she was really worrying me.

Fuck, what was I missing here? We had the cult that Sam was about to deal with. Then that's it, right? After that, we're out of here?

"Why tell me then?"

"Because I might be wrong, but if I'm not, then you'll play it off as a joke instead of dwelling on it."

Oh, it's really bad then, shit.

I hurried towards the door.

Throwing it open with the same force Sam normally did, I finally saw what Sam was talking about when he said he could handle it.

No wonder he didn't want to tell me what his Role's ability was.

It was so cool, he obviously didn't want to brag.

In the centre of the room, Sam stood in the centre of a ritual circle that looked like it had been burned into the ground. The rest of the room was covered in gore. It looked like someone had shoved three people into a blender, then thrown their meat slop all over the floor, walls, and damn even the ceiling.

Sam was in some kind of trance, staring at the ceiling as their eyes burned blood red. Which was probably why he didn't want to use this earlier. If someone had stayed in their room, they'd be fucked. It was a good thing I'm the only one here.

I wasn't salty he took all the Eidos from the kills. Definitely not salty at all.

"I'm calling in my favour," a voice came from beside me.

My flinch caused me to actually jump in surprise. My head slammed into the ceiling from a single twitch of my enhanced musculature.

I could have sworn everyone else was dead except me and Sam… wait a moment, what did they say?

I turned to look at the bird guy from earlier. I had completely forgotten he existed. His name was Zahir, I think.

"Wha—" I started.

"Ensure my survival by killing him," the doctor replied.

Fuck! How did I forget! It's like the idea of him had just slipped out of my mind. He had a stealth-related Class, right?

Using a construct of Winter, I surrounded the memory of him and froze it in place. I wouldn't be forgetting him again anytime soon.

"My Role won't allow me to—Oh come on," I felt myself being dragged forwards towards Sam. "Why! Can't you ask for anything else?"

"Nope, I can't win with him, but you and I can win together, that's all that matters."

"How do you know that?! Ask for anything else, please, I need him alive!" I was going to give one of Novi's bodies to him. I wanted a scout who could check out Fateswatch for me.

I didn't think I would get any more broadcasts from Nyxie, but that didn't mean other people wouldn't. There was a real chance she could turn the entire population of the city against me just by making it clear she was annoyed by my existence.

"Let's just say I called in a favour," Zahir replied. There were probably people with investigatory Roles that could read Sam's Role. Maybe even mine.

Damn, that was a cool line.

As I advanced unwillingly towards Sam, I felt something wrong in the air. The taste of blood filled my mouth, nearly causing me to retch. The room was already bad enough, coated in blood, now it smelled like I was bathing in it.

"Why couldn't you remind me about the bird earlier?" I asked Novi over our mental connection.

[It wouldn't have done you any good now, would it? He would have just asked you to protect him at all costs. At least we survive like this.]

"But Sam's important!" I pleaded. "You couldn't kill him before he asked?"

[For one, he wasn't there before he asked. I'm fairly certain his Class is more complex than we gave him credit for. Not to mention, we can only attack in defense of Sam. It seems he knows that.]

I pouted as I walked up to Sam, only to stop when something sliced one of my eyes open.

Oh, it was a radius thing. He needed everyone to be in the same spot. That made more sense than my earlier explanation.

"Why couldn't we try to do something like kill the angel?" I pleaded.

He didn't even deign to respond. Obviously, I knew that was a stupid idea too, but I didn't want to kill Sam.

Even if they wore meat-sacks around, that didn't mean they were worthy of death. It was just an extremely poor fashion choice. I didn't fault him for that.

Sam blinked. Their trance seemed to be coming to an end.

With a sigh, I began condensing a thin line of Winter Mana. I couldn't step any closer without being turned into soup, so I'd have to get creative. I should be able to reach from back here

…

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Wait.

Sam always said the bodies they wore were technically alive. All the bird said was that I had to kill 'him'. He never specified who 'him' was.

Couldn't I just kill the body to get around the—

The part of my mind that had been forced to follow the favour rebelled against the idea of interpreting the meaning in bad faith. I felt the flow of Mana into the construct aimed at Sam redouble against my will. I was supposed to ensure his survival somehow with the kill, which technically wouldn't be done if I let Sam live.

But that wasn't right, I was supposed to be the one in Control of myself. Not some external entity. The one who dictated how I interpreted repayment was myself.

As if on instinct, another part of my mind rose up in resistance against the first. Blocking it off with Winter Mana and reasserting my own Authority over my own mind.

Whatever mechanism was used to enforce the Roles wasn't happy about that fact and started a calculated assault. At first, it tried breaking through every single Winter barrier at once, then, as my own defenses started proving to be too much, it switched to probing attacks, faints, and focusing on whatever weak spots it could find.

Eventually, two-thirds of my soul had been completely quarantined, and the Winter construct I had been creating began collapsing.

The failure to perform the favour to any degree allowed the Role's power to start gaining ground again.

Sam finally snapped out of it and turned to look at me.

I swung the blade of Winter and cut their head off.

The favour collapsed inside of me, spent on forcing me to kill the body Sam was inhabiting.

I turned to where the bird was standing, but they were gone.

Backing up slowly, I lightly kicked Sam's old head and they fell out of it onto the ground. They turned to look up at me, clearly confused.

"Sorry, some Role bullshit. I need you to let me know if—"

A bright flash of light cut me off. The angel was here already? I hadn't even heard the chime go off yet.

"Alright, you folks are done here, it seems! Congratulations on surviving! Please take care to complete your daily tasks in the future so this doesn't happen again," she said.

But what about Zahir?

"How? There should still be someone alive, and Sam's objective was to kill everyone, right?"

The cherub gave me an odd look, "If you want me to kill you, then just ask. You don't have to make things up."

What?! Which part of that was wrong?

Did Sam lie about their objective? Where did the bird go? What's going on?

I didn't want to risk being killed just for asking a question, so I kept my mouth shut.

Fucking angels are the worst. No way a demon would be this prickly, or at least not the kind I've met so far.

"If that's all, then I'll be sending you off now. Unless you'd like to try and squeeze me?" Just completely insufferable. I continued channeling Winter through my system, ensuring whatever the hell it was trying to do to my mind didn't happen.

Sam wiggled on the ground, trying to get closer to it.

"Send your doll body with Sam and make sure they get a new body," I sent to Novi, making sure they picked up the green blob that was Sam's actual body, which continued trying to reach towards the angel. Novi's insect body grabbed onto my leg.

With a nod to me, they vanished as the teleport took effect. An instant later, I was off as well.

When the teleport finished, I realized I didn't recognize my surroundings at all.

Picking up Novi's body, I slung her over my shoulder, picked a direction, and started walking.

Novi's POV

I appeared in what seemed to be a deserted alleyway and let out a sigh of relief.

I knew that Zahir had lied about his Class, but I didn't know to what extent. I was fairly certain it had something to do with existence itself. Only by cataloguing memories with Winter did I realize the one storing the memory of him had been fraying at the edges, as if damaged by some kind of external force. I couldn't even remember what he looked like when I realized he was probably the doctor.

My Strand didn't allow me nearly as much control over myself as Ellie's did.

Nor did I predict Ellie would be able to overcome the compulsion wrought by the favour. Now that it was all said and done, I wondered if my decision to keep it from her until the last minute was the right one.

I knew she wouldn't hold it against me, but that didn't really matter. She wouldn't hold anything against me unless I did something really egregious. I needed to hold myself to a higher standard to make sure Ellie didn't let me get away with hurting her.

Clutching Sam tight to my chest, I whispered to them, "We need to find you a body. Can you tell me where we are and what the best way to do that would be?"

Sam shook.

I let out a sigh, "Can you speak with me in any way? Maybe by drawing words in the air using Mana?"

They looked genuinely shocked at the idea and began scribbling something in the air in front of me.

"wE NED to GTe oT Of hEer,' Sam drew in the air with strands of Kinetic Mana. The translator seemed to genuinely struggle with interpreting their writing, and it took a moment to snap into place. Despite the translation's best efforts, the text still appeared to be completely screwed up.

I didn't know why I expected better.

Flowing Winter over my body, I allowed my presence to fade from the world. Pulling on my version of the Strand that Ellie received, my outer appearance turned into flakes of snow drifting through the air. It was nowhere near as good as what Zahir could do, but it would have to work.

With a dash, I hopped from wall to wall on my way up to the top of the alleyway.

Just in time, too, as a group of humans armed to the teeth came barreling through. Led by a woman who exuded a dangerous aura. I could taste rust and ash in the air as she drew close.

"Got yourself into some trouble, huh?" I whispered to Sam as I watched them pass from the top of the roof. They wouldn't be able to detect us, not with my Strand [Aspect of White Silence], which was entirely focused on fading into the background and remaining unnoticed.

They only just passed through now, despite how long we'd been gone. But Sam indicated they knew they were coming.

Was the world frozen while the Daily Quest failure event happened?

No, that didn't quite make sense. Ellie couldn't be frozen in time by the system. Maybe it was the other way around, the 'games' as Ledger called them, were sped up, and the rest of the world continued at regular speed.

I passed the information on to Ellie, received a brief acknowledgement in response, then began running across rooftops. I was fairly certain we were in one of the shadier parts of town, which suited my purposes just fine.

I hoped this was Fateswatch, but it didn't have quite the same vibe that Ellie and I had expected it to. Mostly because it was a lot more cheerful than the image Ledger used as an example, which looked like it could have been pulled out of a Stephen King novel—specifically, one of the darker ones where almost nobody survives until the end.

This was more like a town in the Czech countryside in the late 1800s. A bit of rustic charm, people flocking the streets, checking out various market stalls where vendors hawked their goods. Ninety-nine percent of people

"Any idea where a good body for you would be?" I asked.

Sam pointed one of their stubby arms off into the distance.

Looking in that direction, my face fell.

"Other than trying to get you an imp's body." Sam had pointed directly at what appeared to be a massive manor in the centre of town. It was still under construction, but it obviously housed somebody important.

I couldn't think of anyone more important than Kaelzar's minions.

Sam pouted and insistently pointed toward the manor.

I let out a sigh, "Fine, but only because Ellie feels bad about cutting your head off. She really didn't want to. Someone forced her hand. You wouldn't happen to remember a bird person named Zahir that was there with us?" I could feel her simmering guilt about betraying her friend over our connection. Not that she would ever admit to feeling that way out loud.

All I received was a shrug in response.

That's what I expected.

As I ran, I observed the city. There were far more people here than we could have ever imagined. I think Ledger mentioned there were thirty thousand people in the initial wave of beta testers. However, this might be more of a statement about density than actual population size.

The buildings were at least ten stories tall, lined up on each side of the road.

Falling into my element, I allowed [Winter's Step], my version of [Argent Flow], to activate. Buildings blurred past me as the city hall grew closer in the distance.

I was going to get Sam the best body I could find. Even if I had to cut through a horde of imps for them. I owed them at least that much.

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