Theora’s days soon became a sore mix of monotonous, strenuous, and busy. Weeks over weeks passed in a blur. They still didn’t know what caused the Afterthought issue or how to solve it, and she barely had time to deal with anything else.

“Hey, you alright?” Magda asked one morning.

“I’m alright, yes,” Theora responded, but her gaze was empty. 

Magda’s legs were much shorter than Theora’s, so she needed to jog to keep up. It made Theora feel bad, but she needed to hurry to get her daily quota in.

“You know, if it’s getting too much, we can—”

“It’s not too much,” Theora said. “I’m the one who can do this best. Maybe this all blows over soon. We just need to hope the other side runs out of resources first.”

Magda nodded, and shrugged. “Alright, fair. The mages managed to cleanse another crystal tonight, and we posted guards, as usual.”

Theora nodded.

High-level specialised mages were able to decrypt the curse from crystals. It took a large amount of resources to do so, but they were working hard. However, no matter how strongly the crystals were guarded afterwards, whatever was causing this issue managed to poison them again within a few days.

One time, they asked Theora to guard a cleansed crystal. She'd been standing in the hall all day, clearing it out as the other crystals were still producing just as before. However, in that same time, Theora’s presence was sorely missed everywhere else in town, and gains they had made throughout prior weeks were lost.

Yes, Theora could, if she decided to never sleep, guard a single hall that they could probably completely clear out of impurities, but one hall out of hundreds wasn’t enough, and Theora herself was useless during that time.

As such, she was asked to keep helping out in the way she had before, and no actual long-term solution was in sight.

“How are the evacuation plans going?” Theora asked as they stepped down the stairs to the next hall.

“It’ll soon be set. The moment things get dangerous, people who want to leave should be able to.”

The fact Magda left out was that there might not be enough space in the surrounding regions to shelter the entire population of the town.

 

“Hey Theora!” a small girl called out from a swing when they were moving to the next node on their way a few hours later, and Theora couldn’t help but feel her chest fill with warmth. She’d never seen her before.

By now, people were able to walk the streets again at relatively low risk, so everything had become a lot livelier. That was the main reason why Theora managed to peel herself out of bed every morning. Even though she couldn’t solve the problem, she could help alleviate the pain.

Some days, Theora would oversee training of recruits, although she didn’t feel like she could give a lot of insight. On others, she’d help out with emergency situations; when a strong Afterthought appeared somewhere that threatened to break confinement and headed to populated areas, she was called upon. However, most of the time, Theora just cleared hall after hall after hall until she returned home empty and exhausted at night.

Soon, Magda had relayed all relevant information for the day, and made off.

Most of Theora’s days went similarly — Magda or Rogue, sometimes others, would meet up with her regularly to feed her intel on potential hazards and new hotspots, and Theora herself would be on the move constantly between factories to subdue the stronger new creations. 

And thus, a few months passed.

 

“You mentioned you need a day off, right?” Magda said one morning.

“To take care of my side quest,” Theora confirmed with a nod. She was pacing through the main street in spring rain, on her way to the fourth node of the day. “But the way it looks, it’s going to have to wait. Mana fluctuations are strong lately, right? Their output has increased.”

“I spoke to Al and Bonney,” Magda announced, with a little proud smile on her face. Al and Bonney were other high-level guards Theora had briefly met before. “And they talked to a few others, and… We got you a free day!”

Theora blinked and turned her head to face Magda, slightly confused. “How? Why? Is everything going to be alright? The guards are all exhausted.”

“Yeah!” Magda grinned. “It’s fine! We got a lot of ’em willing to put in an extra shift for you. So it’s all good! But honestly…” She trailed off for a moment, and pulled a pained grimace. “Look, it’s just a side quest, right? I say just abandon it, and take a day off for real. You’ve done so much, you deserve it. Hell, you deserve a hundred years off by now.”

“At the very least, I need to talk to a scholar,” Theora mumbled. “I can’t just abandon the quest. There is a chance it’s important.” Most of her side quests were, after all.

Magda shrugged, slightly disappointed. “Alright, you do you. I’ll head back to the station now and ask if anyone has input on potential amendments for your afternoon route. Will keep you posted. See you!”

And with that, she ran away, and Theora continued clearing the Afterthoughts. 

Theora used [Obliterate] so often, it started to wear her down. 

It wasn’t a Skill she liked to use in the first place, but there were some additional issues. While it didn’t cost her stamina or mana or any other kinds of resources, and while it didn’t have a cooldown or similar usage restraints, it still caused her a unique kind of wear.

And, Theora didn’t like killing.

Afterthoughts were arguably not truly alive; and they posed a definite risk on the people around them, as well as on the fabric of reality itself, if they grew too strong. Still, they were similar to living beings to an extent that made Theora feel awful about having to end them. In addition, [Obliterate] posed a risk each time it was used, to snap a hole into the world if she wasn’t careful. Making use of this abomination of an ability hundreds or thousands of times each day filled Theora with a deep discomfort; a brooding anxiety and cognitive attrition. 

And then, after a full day of that, every day, Theora would find her way home, and used what little time remained to talk to Balinth and Hell, and of course, Dema.

Well, the others did most of the talking. Theora just sat by, eyes half closed. Dema would chat about whatever new book she was reading, and would get Balinth caught up in discussions about which characters should end up romancing each other. Balinth had a tendency to stand up for polycules and characters with self-chosen genders, while Dema advocated strongly for the types of relationships with the worst possible, most immoral dynamics. 

“Yeah, she gotta go with him! ’Cause he hates her and she killed his brother!”

“That would never work,” Balinth argued. “She should go with her clan sisters. How do you think it would end up? With both of them dead! He wouldn’t be able to get over it.”

“But she had no choice! That brother was bad!”

“I know but—”

“Hey,” Hell interjected, carrying Zeka in her arms. “She needs a change, but I’ve got to watch the kitchen so the pot won’t boil over.”

“Alright!” Dema cheered. “Want me to do the cooking or take her?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“Then gimme Zeka!” she yelled, holding out her arms.

Shortly after, Zeka started crying, because whenever Zeka was with Dema, Dema would help her walk by holding her hands and letting her run up and down the stairs to the apartment. “We’re gonna walk after! You’re just getting a change, then we can climb the stairs!” Dema tried to soothe her, but Zeka was still bad at understanding human speech.

She then turned into the happiest girl a few minutes later, when she finally got to exert herself. “Can’t believe she loves this so much,” Dema said, grinning. 

“Can’t believe you have so much energy to keep doing it with her,” Hell said. “My legs start hurting after three runs, and she just keeps going forever.”

When not running around with Zeka, Dema spent most of her time reading. She sometimes offered to help out with clearing the Afterthoughts as well, but Theora refused.

Dema’s abilities were all mana-based, since she was a blood mage with a secondary earth affinity. If she were to help out, it would gnaw away at her resources, possibly long-term. It was one thing for Theora to be exhausted and spent, because Theora could, if worse came to worst, simply will herself back to full strength, albeit at the cost of her own mental wellbeing. The same could not be said for Dema; if she ended up spending all, or even a lot of her mana, she’d be vulnerable.

Additionally, Dema had an amount of mana in her body that was so enormous it couldn’t be replenished in a reasonable amount of time even with the aid of the strongest crystals in town. Her Skills were just too expensive.

Theora didn’t trust the situation at all. Things were wrong here, in a variety of ways. It just didn’t add up. She couldn’t put it into clear words, but overall, she felt like they were in danger, in some abstract way.

Because ultimately, she knew that the System had never given up on killing Dema, and never would. So, Dema needed to remain strong and rested. Theora wouldn’t accept both of them to get tired out.

Still, Dema ended up helping out on some days, despite Theora’s wishes. She just loved fighting a lot, so going all-out every now and then made her happy. And ultimately, Dema did a much better job at it too. She had area-of-effect Skills that could clear an entire hall in one go, even though they were too draining to just keep being used non-stop.

But it still took pressure off the guards, so any apprehension they might have felt at having the Ancient Evil in their midst ended up dissipating over time. In addition, Dema fixed the walls Theora had messed up on her first day. Dema really was a blessing.

As such, these few months went by. Theora wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up. Despite that, she knew that she’d keep it up as long as it took.

Some people were disinclined to take the situation very seriously; after all, nobody had died so far. On the other hand, there was clearly something malicious about it; people had been hurt. Balinth still hadn’t fully recovered. She could walk again, yes, but not for longer distances, and the [Healers] were all busy patching up the guards. And such was the fate of quite a few people in town.

And what if this was all just setup? If whoever was responsible just waited for the town to be worn out to start swarming everything with Afterthoughts. Some of the evolving Afterthoughts were already getting close to strong enough to blow the town apart, just like that.

Theora sighed. She simply couldn’t find a different way forward — and also, it was fine, wasn’t it? The guards were exhausted and she was too, but at least the children could go out and play in the streets.

 

Brooding over these thoughts, Theora finally arrived at the magitech guild on her free day.

It was housed in a large building at the side of town, surrounded by a wide strap of greenery. Theora assumed that it was a safety precaution. If some magical item blew up, they probably didn’t want it to take several residential buildings with it. 

She walked the main path cutting through the grass, closing in on the large and colourful building, made up of large wooden beams with fancy brickwork in-between.

It was a rare bright day in Hallmark, the sun shining down on her as she arrived at the doubled entrance door.

With three clear knocks, she announced her arrival.