About an hour remained till the damage on Ren’s soul became irreversible. The damage to his lungs was significant, however. He was wheezing and coughing up blood, shivering from high fever with his baby teeth chattering. Yet, neither he, nor his mother woke up.

F7 was annoyed with the hacker, yet they couldn’t do much about it. It’s been a while since they were this upset, in fact they couldn’t remember the last time they were this emotional. The hacker – whoever they may be – managed to get under their skin. It wasn’t pleasant to be toyed with by somebody else and be powerless to stop it.

It never occurred to them to ask for help though. They didn’t have anyone they were close with in the organization, and F7 wasn’t going to turn to their boss. He would tell them to solve it by themselves anyway and besides there was also the matter of F7’s pride.

F7 took a deep breath. Then another. They have already notified HQ, so it was only a matter of time before they caught the hacker. What F7 had to do now, was to ensure Ren’s survival. The well-being of an entire solar-system of people were counting on the success of their mission, they couldn’t fail. It was with those tax-payers’ money that provided the means to F7’s organization to function after all. They couldn’t let those folks down.

I must raise Ren to be powerful.

For the time being the chatroom was still functioning, so F7 kept sending ‘wake up’ messages to his sleeping mind. But they knew that wasn’t going to be enough. They had to figure out something new. An option, the system didn’t offer.

Waking Ren up didn’t work, giving him a skill was denied and euthanasia was blocked. The mushrooms were overrunning everything, Ren was sick and his mother was still snoring without knowing anything.

Yes, his mother… Hm? Wait a minute… There is that option too. Though, it’s against the rules, if I don’t take it too far, I could still say it’s according to regulations, I mean this is an emergency and all…

F7 ended the live transmission of data and quickly got to work.

Erin was sleeping soundly, when it suddenly hit her. Fear. No, it would be more accurate to call it terror. The feeling grabbed her heart with ice-cold hands of dread, penetrating her mind with horrifying images of her daughter suffering.

The demigod panted labored breaths as she tossed and turned in her sleep. Her nightmare caused cold sweat to perspire on her fair skin. The claws on her hand extended as she tore into the mattress and ground her teeth. A terrible feeling came over her and she whimpered in her sleep.

She dreamed that her little daughter, whom she hasn’t even named yet, was dying. She felt her pain from her fever, she felt the itchy, burning sensation in her heaving chest and the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. She felt as her spirit became less and less bright, becoming part of the cold, dark emptiness of death. She felt her disappearing, coming undone until she was nothing, becoming nonexistent.

Erin desperately tried to reach her daughter, yet was unable to do so. No matter how far she ran, she couldn’t catch her. It was as if the distance between them couldn’t be closed no matter how hard she tried. Panic rose within her, as she tried to scream, only to find that no sound came out of her throat. Tears burned her eyes blurring her sight, and sadness, grief and helplessness choked her.

And then she woke up with a start, huffing.

Oh, it was just a dream… She thought relieved. A mushroom was growing out of her mouth, taking root on her tongue. She gagged, and spat it out angrily. The intense glow of mushrooms stabbed into her eyes making her squint as she teared up. But still the dream was so vivid and frightening and painful, she had to check on her child.

She turned to her side, to confirm her daughter's state. She couldn’t see her, as she was covered with the fallen, mushroom-covered canopy. She gently removed the material and…

Her heart almost stopped. She pinched her cheek, wondering if maybe she hadn’t woke up after all.

It hurt. She was awake. And her child was dying for real.

She was covered in mushrooms. They were blooming out every surface and orifice of her tiny body. Blood trickled down her chin onto her belly and forelegs as she laid on her side wheezing.

Erin hugged her child to her chest, and gathered her mana to get rid of the mushrooms. She concentrated the magical energy into the tip of the claw of her index finger, writing complicated glowing glyphs in the air. Her hand blurred from the incredible speed of the motion. She was done within seconds, and when she willed it to activate, the spell expanded and purged all the mushrooms and spores from their home and the body of her daughter. It wasn't necessairy to include herself, she was immune to the ill effects of these nasty plants, despite that single one sprouting from her tongue earlier. The air now felt lighter and cleaner, not as heavy and suffocating as before.

Darkness took over the room, but it didn’t matter. Erin was able to see in pitch black darkness as if it was daylight.

It wasn’t over yet, however. Erin felt the scorching temperature of her daughter who coughed up a large clump of blood as if she was trying to throw up her lungs. She quickly took her into her alchemy laboratory, in order to find and apply medicine to stop her internal bleeding.

While Erin was an excellent mage – perhaps the most powerful one on the continent – she had no affinity for healing, so she had to rely on the alchemical arts to help her daughter. She carefully gathered, measured and prepared the ingredients, mixed them, and extracted the resulting concoction into a glass vial and closed it with a cork. She then used her Transformation ability to turn the cork into a nipple. She put it in her child’s panting mouth and after some coaxing, her little girl's instincts kicked in and started to suckle on it. The medicine, thick and a bit slimy, steadily trickled down her throat. The effect was almost immediate. Soon her breathing started to stabilize, and her daughter seemed to be more at ease. The medicine also helped bringing down her fever.

Erin cradled the little one on her chest, and gently rubbed the fur on her cute, fuzzy belly. Her daughter moved one of her front paws in her sleep, to hold onto her finger. She felt her strong will to live.

On that night, in that moment, Erin had an epiphany. The name of her newborn came to her, shining brightly in her mind. The name of a survivor.