Over the next few months, Dema just led them from one area containing sedimentary rocks to the next. Theora had agreed to put the fetch quest on-halt for now, and spent a lot of her time catching up on what felt like years of sleep while Dema was searching.

For a very long time before that, Theora had barely rested. The months leading up to meeting the Devil of Truth had been stressful. Then, Dema had gotten injured, and Theora had barely slept during those 17 years either, out of fear of another attempt made by the System, and generally just because she needed to take care of the girl she’d hurt.

And then, Dema had come back awake.

Dema, who Theora had missed so much in those years, even though she was with her the entire time, had come all back, and they’d flirted with each other and gone on little adventures, and Theora had accepted her new Class, and gotten a bunch of new Class-related Skills to pad her sheet.

Even though that Class and its Skills apparently just existed to tease her, she still felt warm in [Stargazer]’s embrace. It was quirky and daring and weird, but it was a different kind of nonsensical compared to her glitched-out and broken self. 

Theora’s life had been long, and from what she could remember, her childhood hadn’t been bad. And yet, those last few months after Dema’s sickness had been special. A kind of gift, in a way. A true respite after a long time of despair. For a brief time since Dema’s recovery, Theora had experienced what she would confidently call the best time of her life.

And then, it all came crashing down.

For one, the time on her fetch quest was still ticking, relentlessly. And she knew that once it dwindled, things would become worse again. The System would use this break to conjure up some new threat; and even if it didn’t, Theora still knew what lay at the eventual end of their road.

And for another, Theora had received a new side quest that again reminded her of how wrong everything and the world was.

Right now, the two of them were walking through the ruins of a harbour city.

“Damn,” Dema murmured, and she really didn’t have more words for what they were seeing.

Freshly destroyed buildings everywhere.

Uprooted from the ground up, sprayed over their surroundings. Most of the houses had been made out of stone bricks, and it resulted in a hilly landscape of rubble and destruction.

A lot of people had evacuated in time, but the warnings had come too late to save all. The heroes who’d arrived in the aftermath had taken care of the dead and afforded them proper burials.

Rebuilding the city had apparently been deemed not worth it.

“Why’d you take us here, anyway?” Dema asked, kicking a brick away with her bare feet. “I wanna leave.”

“I needed to see it with my own eyes,” Theora answered.

“Why! This is just sad!”

“Sorry,” Theora murmured. Dema was right; at this point, this was nothing but a depressing sight, and all it did was remind her of her inevitable fate. 

She turned, and felt the stones and mortar crunch under her feet, together with all the belongings of those who’d lived here until a week ago.

“Where are we even going next? You’ve been kinda tight-lipped. Don’t leave me out!”

Theora really didn’t want to talk to her about it, because the last time they’d been on an extermination quest together, it hadn’t ended well for Dema at all.

Theora opened her quest menu.

 

[Side Quest: Kill Umbra, Ruler of the Seventh Sea.]

Time remaining: 2 days.

 

It had popped up a week ago. This kind of urgency in a side quest for her was rare. It meant that whatever she needed to dispatch was either very close-by, or impossible to be held off by other heroes in the vicinity.

Or both. 

Within the quest description, there was a self-updating map outlining a red route along the shore. It started at the point they were currently at, meandered a bit, and eventually ended in another harbour town in the south. One of the oldest towns Theora knew.

Two more days until Umbra would reach and destroy it.

Receiving an incredibly urgent and concrete quest like this pulled the hopelessness of Theora’s situation right back into her view. Yes, her Main Quest stretched over a much longer time period — a time period that was pretty much impossible for a human to comprehend — but in the end, all of it was just numbers. She was given a task, and then, she’d see it to its end, because otherwise, terrible things would happen.

“Hey, Dema?” Theora eventually asked with a very soft and almost broken voice. “Are you… Are you still scheming?”

“Huh! What’s that about!” Dema asked, swirled her head around and accidentally knocked her horn against a wooden beam sticking out from the ruins of the building they were walking by. “Ouch!”

“It’s just — you remember when we first met, right? When I came to end you, and explained that it was inevitable. But you said you still had something to scheme, so we postponed it.”

“Yeah!”

“So, are you still scheming?”

“Why,” she grinned. “You been thinking about killing me again?”

Theora blinked strongly. “No, I— Well, yes, I have, but…” She took a deep breath. “You are safe. I just want to know.”

Dema gave a confident shrug. “Of course! Still scheming, all the time. Don’t you worry about that, little rabbit!”

At that, Theora nodded a small and quick nod.

Raising her eyebrows, Dema fixed Theora in her gaze. “Huh, did you need reassurance?” She ducked under another beam and then proceeded to trip over a piece of table on the ground. “Dang it!”

Her movements still hadn’t fully recovered.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Theora said. “Even if your schemes may not bear fruit, it would keep me at ease to know that you’re still trying.”

Dema nodded and flashed a toothy smile. “Always,” she said, and her raspy tone was too serious to quite match her expression. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of plan I’m concocting! Can’t even tell you about it because you’d be so scared you’d stop it right away, dead in its tracks!”

Theora couldn’t help but smile. “Alright then. Thank you.”

“I still don’t know what makes you so sure, though!”

“Sure about what?”

“That you’re gonna kill me in the end.”

Theora averted her gaze, and suddenly felt that large, wet lump in her chest again. It was always there, but being reminded of it felt like being punched. “It’s… complicated.”

More importantly, it wasn’t a burden she really wanted to share. Since there was no way out, it was only depressing.

“Hey,” Dema said and stopped, staring into Theora’s eyes. “You ain’t gotta tell me, but… Whatever it is that you’re afraid of, I’m not gonna let it happen!” She tapped her temple. “Gonna devise a plan to stop it, whatever it is. You’re safe with me too!”

Theora felt like she had a rug pulled from under her feet. She almost choked up. For a moment, she just stared into Dema’s face. It was beaming with determination. “How— How can you be so confident?”

“Not confidence!” Dema cheered. “Just, like, the inevitable truth!”

Theora could no longer bear the gaze of those gleaming amber eyes, so she looked down on the messed up ground.

She knew that Dema was wrong. And yet, it still felt so endearing to hear. So soothing. As if she could just fall into Dema’s arms, and everything would be alright as long as she just had her. 

The quest notification was still floating in Theora’s vision, a small dot on the route pulsating as it slowly marched its way towards the next town.

These people needed her, and here she was, moping around like that. She bit her lip. Dema’s words had filled her with a hint of strength, a tiny speck of ‘maybe I can do this for now’.

Instead of worrying about the might-be’s of a far future, she should get her mind on what was directly to come.