“Are we about done with question time now?” 

 

Seles stood in her human form, eyes flitting between blonde girl and Peter, while the muscle-bound, bronze-skinned man stood patiently at the rear of the group, having done little but stare as the scene unfolded. 

 

“Y-yeah, I think so…” The girl had asked about twenty in a very short span of time once Peter had gotten finished screaming at Seles, and in the end, Seles had gotten tired of Peter attempting to play interpreter to her, choosing to transform and answer the girl herself. 

 

Her transformation had been the only thing that had made bronze man flinch whatsoever, but he’d remained silent ever since.

 

A sigh of relief from Seles. “Good. It’s probably better for you to rest your voice.” 

 

By now, the two prisoners knew about as much as Peter did about Seles and his situation, and while nothing about what was going on right now felt ‘simple’, being on the same page at least helped a bit. 

 

The same crazy, ridiculous page.

 

Peter flexed his left arm; the phantom sensations where his hand used to be weren’t dissimilar to routine numbness. The sight was still plenty shocking, however, and Peter hoped he wouldn’t have to get used to it.

 

The three of them had started walking halfway into the blonde prisoner’s line of questions, and put some distance between themselves and the manor, though they were still pretty deep inside Craggor’s Hill. Running would draw too much attention, so the four of them kept at a brisk walk.

 

They passed large houses and manors as they went, the nearest attached to a resplendent garden where a group of the wealthy took drink and festivities under vine-laden stone arches—the raspy arch of blonde girl’s voice was hardly doing much to make the four of them inconspicuous as they travelled, covered in grime and dirt and tawdry rags, a six and a half foot behemoth in the rear wearing almost nothing at all. 

 

It was an absolute wonder they hadn’t been noticed yet.

 

Peter had been about to snap at the still-chattering girl to ‘be quiet’ when he’d noticed a dark sheen enveloping all of them. Without being able to articulate it, he realised that this magic emanated from Seles, keeping the party both quieter than they should be and a blur to the eyes of others. 

 

“Is being able to detect your magic a part of our link?” Peter asked aloud, unbothered with secrecy. The four of them were running for their lives. He’d worry about what he should keep to himself later.

 

“No. You’ve just always had a natural affinity for detecting spells,” Seles said.

 

“No, I haven’t.”

 

“If you know that, why did you ask?”

 

“Because this is new and weird to me.”

 

Seles chuckled, hair swaying in its luminosity as they passed dancing women and jeering lords partying just over a nearby hedge. “Yes, this is my magic. I figured this would be easier than the loud one getting you all recaptured.”

 

“I’m not that loud!” Blonde girl responded, voice hitching. “I'm still getting adjusted to the whole 'Soulbound rescuer' thing, okay? Not to mention your talking cat, and—”

 

At the word ‘Soulbound’, a couple of people from over the hedge turned their heads, but none stared for too long.

 

Seles turned to the girl, peering down at her like she was a basket of rotten fruit. “You’re not contributing anything other than noise, noise I’d rather be without. Shut up, or I’ll send you back to the manor.”

 

“I… right, sorry.”

 

When Seles smiled, she bore fangs. 

 

Peter felt sorry for the girl being chewed out, but he refrained from starting a new argument, realising they did need to keep quiet. Then, the red evening sun parted from cloud and caught the shoulder of the girl’s leathers, revealing their weathered and tattered form, as well as the marks on her face and the difficulty with which she strode forwards.

 

Her body was clearly exhausted. They all were. 

 

When he closed his eyes, tried to distract himself from grim reality, he saw the face of his captor, the man he’d killed. The man whose soul he’d taken after tearing out his throat. 

 

It wasn’t an immediate thing. It didn’t make him jump. It was a concave of colours swirling into his mindscape over the course of several moments, a feeling he soon grew uncomfortable with.

 

Why did you have to attack me? Why were you so evil? I didn’t want any of this. 

 

He forced his eyes open, a stab of discomfort in his shoulder reminding him that he might need to deliver some of his soul energy to the Patriarch soon, as his body was hardly faring better than the girl’s right now. 

 

That was still something he needed to consider, needed to look at. Peter had gathered souls to use, but he still didn’t know just what he had or quite how it worked. Had he bought himself a lot of time by taking from his captor, or just a little? 

 

The four of them cleared the last of the manors and began down the dirt path leading to the bottom of the hill, outside earshot of others. Peter tuned back into his surroundings; it was more from Seles nudging him than from any real cognisance on his part. 

 

“What’s up?” he asked, trying to sound alert. 

 

“We’re almost clear of this place,” Seles said. “After that, I’m done babysitting you all. You need to get your head in the game.”

 

“What makes you think it isn’t?” 

 

“When you found me, your first priority seemed to be complaining about your missing hand. If it wasn’t for my spell of silence, your new friend here probably would’ve alerted someone by now. Not to mention you have zero clue who we could now be travelling with. I think it’s safe to assume you’re daydreaming.”

 

Peter sighed. He rubbed at his temples. “Alright, I hear you. I’ve hardly had an easy time today, okay? I feel exhausted, I’m in pain, I feel horrible. Sorry that I’m relying on you so much.”

 

“Don’t be sorry, do better. Get used to hard days if you want to survive.” 

 

Peter watched the twinkling souls dance in her hair as she spoke; they often distracted him. “How do you do it so easily?”

 

Seles raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been Soulbound a lot longer than you. A lot longer. I’d have thought that much was obvious.”

 

Peter considered just taking her answer and leaving it there, but he couldn’t help himself. “No… how do you take and use so many souls and be okay with it? Don’t you feel bad?”

 

Seles, for the briefest moment, stopped dead, as if she’d just come to face a vicious monster stood right in front of her.

 

She soon caught herself. “I already answered that. I’ve been Soulbound a lot longer than you.”

 

That’s really it?

 

Peter wasn’t satisfied. “That can’t be all there is to it. You don’t feel guilty for using other creatures the way you do?”

 

“No. No, I don’t feel bad, and you shouldn’t either. Souls are mana batteries. Consuming their energy only serves to release it to the atmosphere. If I was dead, I’d want to be useful. Wouldn’t you?”

 

Peter tried to answer, but Seles cut him off before he could. The next words she spoke were in his head.

 

“You need to wake up. While you’re sat around worrying about fairness and morality and whether or not you can justify consuming a soul, this world is TRYING TO KILL YOU.” 

 

As if to punctuate the point, she dissipated the spell that surrounded them, leaving the four of them exposed as they came to reach the edge of the village.

 

“You’re Soulbound now, like it or not, and if you want to live, if you want to NOT be captured and tortured and experimented on? You need to embrace that.”

 

With that, Seles transformed into a cat, taking off ahead at full speed. “Figure it out from here.”

 

And like that she was gone. His protector and lifeline left him to fend for himself.

 

No. He needed to get out of that mentality. Seles was right. If Peter clung to her to answer every question and solve every problem, he’d wind up dead the second she couldn’t intervene, and if she ever chose to truly leave him alone, second result same as the first.

 

“Where’s she going?” The girl asked, her voice like cracked marble, spinning and looking towards Peter. Bronze man continued to follow on dutifully behind them both.

 

“To scout ahead,” Peter lied, not wanting to alarm either of them. “We’ll be fine, we’re just about clear of this place. If we carry on straight ahead, we’ll arrive in Bellstrow in a couple of hours or so. I have a room there. It’s not really big enough for three people, but we’ll manage.”

 

“Right…” she nodded at his words, though the previous hyperactivity in her motions and jumpiness of her cadance had bled away, the excitement of escape and being faced with a talking, shapeshifting cat marred by a sudden, terrible exhaustion. The girl swayed like a drunkard as she walked, and it became increasingly clear with each passing moment that she was struggling just to keep standing.

 

As they finally passed the town limits, Peter called back to the bronze man. “Would you be okay carrying her, if she needs it?”

 

Before he could answer, blonde girl cut him off. “I don’t need carrying! Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Worry about yourself, you look terrible.”

 

Peter didn’t have a mirror to hand, but he could almost feel the lack of blood in his face when he paused to think about it—Peter resolved not to think about it.

 

“What’s your name?” He was looking straight ahead when he said it; it was open for either of them to answer.

 

“Mist,” the blonde girl answered, wobbling a little as she did. “I’m… I was down there for a while. Weeks, maybe more. Thanks for getting me out.”

 

She sounded softer than he’d once heard her until then. Peter nodded, gravity of that statement taking a while to set in. Even spending the minutes he had in that dungeon had been terrifying. He couldn’t imagine.

 

“I am Pelos,” the massive man answered, voice smoother than you’d expect of someone so huge, though it still carried a bassy undertone. “For your rescue, I wish to pledge myself into your service, and repay my debt to you however I might manage.”

 

Peter blinked twice, turning and staring at the chiselled individual, his face calm and unemotive. “I… you’re welcome. I don’t think I’m comfortable with you being in my service, though… can we just work together to get out of here, and then call it quits?”

 

“If those are the terms of your debt, then I accept.”

 

Why did he speak like that? Act like that? Is this man even human? He looked too… perfect to be human. His body was like that of Adonis. His eyes were a deep purple, and his ears appeared slightly pointed. Whatever he was, Peter had never seen one of him before, which made him all the more curious.

 

“Where are you from, Pelos?” It was Mist who’d said it, clearly thinking on the same lines as Peter.

 

“It is not for you to know,” Pelos answered, his face stony, tone neutral.  

 

“Guess that’s that.” Mist shrugged. “He was like that in the dungeon, too, before they put him to sleep. They couldn’t get anything out of him.”

 

Peter was a little perturbed by the prospect of travelling with an unknown and apparently secretive entity, but he supposed he’d been doing that all day. 

 

“You should conserve your energy,” Pelos said. “You’ve both sustained damage.”

 

“You do have opinions on things, then?” Mist retorted, glaring back at him. “I’m fine. I’ve dealt with worse, I’m not dead weight, and you’re not leaving me behind, okay? Let’s just keep moving.”

 

Peter flinched at the cageiness of her response, and an uneasy silence soon settled over the trio as they continued to leave Craggor’s Hill behind, marching in discordant steps on aching feet across a straight dirt path as the darkness of the woods encroached on either side.

 

Shadows blanketed their bodies and snapped at their heels, the sun cresting distant mountains as the skyline began to be blocked out by the shapes of ancient oaks towering above and all around them, stealing away the sky.

 

It was almost as if the trees themselves moved in the approaching twilight, which, if Peter understood correctly, was actually the case. It hadn’t been like this when he’d first arrived two years ago. 

 

Still, Seles was nowhere in sight. Peter trudged on, taking the silence as opportunity to pull up his system, something to distract from the aching of his feet, the tingles along his arms and shoulders, the chilling sterility of the scene before him, like a perfect picture that might change entirely whenever he dared blink.

 

As soon as he opened his system menu, wind tickling his ear, he was greeted by a whole list of notifications. The first one read: 

 

[You are due for advancement in your Barter skill. Would you like to advance now?]

 

Peter selected [yes]. There was still a small rush of excitement from hearing the rank up sound chime.

 

[Congratulations! You have advanced Barter to rank 6! Your ability to deduce favourable deals and recognise the boundaries of others has increased. Progress to level 6: 1%.]

 

It was interesting that [Barter]’s specifics didn’t seem to be governed by percentages. It was just one of the many skills he’d reached level 5 in months or more ago.

 

Peter rolled his shoulder, trying to disperse a light stabbing feeling near his spine to limited success. 

 

More noticeable as he continued to advance many of his previously capped skills to level 6 was that they all came out the other side at 1% progress to level 7. Even with a skill like [Athletics], which he surely used every day for years past when he’d been capped, didn’t immediately jump to level twenty or thirty. In fact, his system seemed to treat it as if anything he’d done between reaching level 5 in a skill and gaining a class simply hadn’t happened.

 

It was a shame, really, but Peter was still incredibly relieved that he could advance his skills now. He knew that being capped in terms of overall level was still a big impediment to him, but with powerful skills, he might be able to bridge that gap somewhat.

 

His thoughts regarding the matter were shattered by a new obstacle, this one in the literal sense.

 

A thick, thorned barrier had appeared on the dirt path before them, fashioned out of vines and branches. Peter never usually made deliveries this late—even when he fainted on the job, he was sure to get to the nearest town and hole up for the night in order to avoid problems just like this one.

 

The forest moved in the daytime. At night? It took control.

 

“How’d you get around this last time?” Mist asked, staring at the sharp thicket before her with unmasked distress. “Doesn’t look like a way through… did you walk around it?”

 

“It wasn’t there last time,” Peter answered, eyes scanning for a possible weak point in the eight foot wall of branches before them. “...Seles, you there?”

 

Nothing. Easy solution was too much to hope for.

 

He did have one idea, though. Summoning his grimoire, Peter searched for the page on teleportation he’d previously read, finding it and rescanning the page for all of the details. It was the same thought he'd had about saving Mist and Pelos in the dungeon, only now, he might have the souls needed to do it safely, assuming it worked. The listed payments for a single use of [Teleportation] included one nascent soul (or a hundred lesser souls), a half pound of dragon scales or more, or finally, two of the Soulbound’s fingernails.

 

Peter took this opportunity to check his soul credits, honestly unsure just what the man he’d killed had been worth. He’d wanted to wait until he was finally sat down to look it over, but now seemed a pretty necessary time to check.

 

[You have consumed 5 lesser souls as per the terms of your pact. You have 15 lesser soul credits and 6 nascent soul credits.]

 

Six? A human being is worth a LOT more than a couple of chickens. I wonder what level he was… It didn’t feel good to weigh the value of souls in his mind, but Peter knew it was a necessity right now, and if he wanted to get them all out of this predicament, that was easily worth one of his eight nascent souls to teleport them through.

 

“Hey, would you two come here?” Peter gestured to his new allies, but before either of them reached him, he heard a familiar, feline voice in his mind.

 

“Don’t bother. You won’t be able to bring them with you, and you’ll just waste two souls figuring it out.”

 

Peter gasped at the voice in his mind, searching around him. “Seles? Where are you?”

 

“Nearby. What you’re trying to do is pointless. Give up and find another way.”

 

“Well, that’s just wonderful.” Peter scowled in no particular direction. “Wanna help us, maybe? We’re hardly in a great situation here.” 

 

No answer. Just the two others looking at him like he was crazy again.

 

“Talking to your cat again?” Mist asked.

 

“...yeah. She hardly seems keen on helping us through this, either. I don’t know what you two wanna do from here.”

 

“There a reason for that?” Mist asked. “I think we could use the help.”

 

“She wants me to figure it out.”

 

“How’s that going?”

 

“Badly.”

 

“The forests become more active at night,” Pelos said, walking ahead of the other two and examining the blockade, placing a hand over it. His arm glowed a faint, yellowish green as he began to channel some kind of spell, but before he unleashed anything, he allowed the magic to dissipate. “It spans quite far. I could break through it if my magic hadn’t been sealed for so long.”

 

“You mean we need to find another way?” Mist asked, eyes narrowing as she stared out into the dark recesses of forest on each side of them. “It could be pretty dangerous… right?”

 

“Yeah, no shit.” Peter bit his lip; It didn’t help to consider the alternatives, none of them made any sense. But still… “This forest has all manner of monsters and bullshittery inside, if we go in there and lose our way, or wander too deep, then we might as well just consider ourselves dead.”

 

“We will have a higher chance of survival if we do not venture too deep inside. The strongest creatures aren’t fond of sunlight,” Pelos said. 

 

“Gee, that’s reassuring.” Mist chuckled. 

 

“My goal was not to reassure you. Would you like me to try to?”

 

“Alright,” Peter started, ignoring Pelos and trying to get a handle of the situation, “so we’re stuck wandering into the forest or we’re going back to Craggor’s Hill. Who’s up for a deathmarch?”

 

Mist looked at him tiredly. “Let’s go before something eats us.”

 

Pelos stepped forwards and marched ahead; as the three of them trudged through the fanged aperture of bushes and vines that led them away from the beaten path, the darkness consumed them entirely. 

 

The forest was ravenous. Peter only hoped he’d last longer than he did last time.

 

Eleven seconds later, he was somehow still alive.