Everyone shuffled uncomfortably into new positions.

  Jesse rubbed her face thoughtfully. “Unless anyone has anything else to say, it seems that we all have a task to kill ‘Hang Tuah’ –” Here she side-eyed Wen Yong and Angry_Birb. “- who I assume is being played by Peach.” She dropped her hand and looked over the gathered group, her eyes sharpening. “This is the same group as last scenario, wasn’t it?”

  We all exchanged looks and agreed with this assessment.

  I lay down on my back and began to hum to myself so that I wouldn’t have to think too much.

  “We’ll have to find Peach,” Jesse continued. I could feel her eyes on me now.

  “That's all very nice,” Angry_Birb snapped, “but if we don't kill her, we're going to die ourselves!”

  “We've proven over and over that we can change the storyline,” Jesse replied, coolly.

  Angry_Birb looked at his hands. It was hard to look at him neutrally, an unknown man packaged in the body of a small, red-haired woman. “It doesn’t always work,” he said quietly.

  “How so?”

  “That…” Angry_Birb curled in on himself. “It was… The scenario was called The Kidnapped Bride. Jihee, Sung… Han Sung-hyuk’s little sister, was playing the bride in question. Of course, we didn’t… She… We tried to hide her. It didn’t work. The enemies still found her, and because we changed the circumstances of the kidnapping…” His eyes darted towards Han Sung-hyuk, who had been standing in folded arm-silence.

  Jesse sighed heavily and rubbed her face again.

  Wen Yong raised his hands placatingly. “I think both of you have understandable points – We can always try changing the story first and if it doesn't work... Well…”

  I rolled onto my stomach to glare at him. “What are you up to, you manipulative little –”

  “I think he’s being reasonable,” Lee Wai Meng interrupted.

  “… for a murderer.”

  Wen Yong sighed. “As I tried to explain before, Maria, I had no choice.”

  “Liar.”

  “Does anyone know this story?” Jesse interrupted our bickering.

  She was answered by a lot of shuffling and shrugging. Lee Wai Meng began fiddling with his administrator window. “Um… The setting is… The Malacca Sultanate. Does anyone know what that is?”

  “Sultanate… Like in the Arabian Nights?” Wen Yong mused. “Are we in an Arabic country?”

  “Poppy would have known,” I said morosely.

  “Mik Tsaam, don’t you have that encyclopaedia?”

  I let out a drawn-out Ohhhhh and summoned the Encyclopaedia.

  “Oh yeah, it upgraded.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Uh… One, it’s Malaysia. Two, it’s probably the fifteenth century. Three, this Hang guy is supposed to be a really high-up military officer, and kind of important to the sultan. Oh, that’s four. Uh, and yeah, Peach is playing him.”

  “Tommy’s Malay,” Lee Wai Meng said. He looked alarmed when we all swung around to him. “What?”

  “Why are you bringing up Tommy?” I asked quietly. “Have you seen him? Is he in the game with us?”

  “Uh… I mean… I was just saying…” He suddenly looked nervous. Before I could interrogate him, Calvin had already laid a heavy hand on Lee Wai Meng’s shoulder.

  “Wai Meng, are you hiding something?”

  “No…”

  “Don’t try and be funny. This isn’t the time for that.”

  “I… I checked the user list.” He rubbed his neck nervously. “We’re the only ones left.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked quickly.

  “I mean… there are no other players.” He looked around at us all. “You all kind of knew, didn’t you? Last scenario, there were female characters playing brothers. And it’s all of us again.”

  “So where’s Tommy?”

  “Ma- Mik Tsaam…”

  “Where’s. Tommy.”

  “Did he even join the game?” Jesse suddenly enquired.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  This new thought threw me off. Calvin shook his head slowly. “I haven’t seen him. Has anyone seen him?”

  Lee Wai Meng also responded in the negative. Han Sung-hyuk raised an eyebrow.

  “Perhaps you could tell us about him,” Wen Yong suggested reasonably, cradling his mutated limb. “What does he look like? What’s his personality?”

  “He’s a similar height to me,” Calvin said.

  “A bit bigger build,” I added.

  “Longish black hair.”

  “He usually ties it back.”

  “Brown skin.”

  “A bit… shy.”

  “He’s a sweet guy.”

  “He likes to help people.”

  “He’s a bit of a people-pleaser, let’s be honest.”

  “Great eye for detail…”

  We trailed off awkwardly. The whole delivery was made without looking at each other, and this was the most words we’d overlapped in a long time, if not actually exchanged.

  Wen Yong made sounds of contemplation. “I'm not sure... and of course, he could have changed his appearance. You may have seen him without realising.”

  “Tommy would talk to us,” I said, harshly.

  He shrugged, unconcerned. “Yes, of course, you're right. He probably didn't join the game then.”

  His deception skill was levelling up with Gabriel’s Ring. Something about the way he had agreed with me made me suspicious.

  “Did you kill him too?” I asked.

  “Come on, Maria, that was one time!” he protested.

  “One time is enough!”

  “Fair,” he conceded.

  There was a slinking sound of steel being drawn. Han Sung-hyuk began unsheathing his sword, a silver-hilted weapon with a black blade that thrummed with an energy that made the small hairs on my neck rise.

  “One time is too much,” he said grimly.

  “Whoah, whoah, you're going to kill me again?” Wen Yong asked mildly, raising his hands.

  Han Sung-hyuk glowered, his sword almost completely drawn. For a few moments, he glared, motionless, at Wen Yong, who smiled awkwardly in response.

  He sheathed the sword and stepped back with a grunt.

  “What was it like, dying?” I asked.

  Jesse raised her eyebrows and made a choking noise.

  “Wow, Mik Tsaam,” said Lee Wai Meng. “You can’t just ask someone what dying was like.”

  “I did, though.”

  “The dying wasn't so bad” Wen Yong said quietly. It almost seemed as though he had wanted to talk about the experience. “It happened so quickly. It was the coming back to life and realising I had died that was... Well, I've had better days.”

  A metallic whisper. Han Sung-hyuk began to draw his sword again.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Wen Yong yelped, his affable mask slipping. “You’re a summoner, you damned poser, stop pulling out a sword!”

  “Shut up,” Han Sung-hyuk advised him.

  Wen Yong sneered. “I've seen your streams - you think you're some cool manhwa hero or something. Those guys have skills to back it up. You're just a rich kid trying to aura farm.”

  This time, Han Sung-hyuk didn’t sheathe his sword. He swung it down at Wen Yong’s head with terrifying force.

  The sword met a dagger and went flying off course, Han Sung-hyuk almost stumbling as Jesse deflected his slash.

  “Don't get provoked,” she sighed.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “you have a black belt in karate.”

  “Aikido and kendo, actually. I used to train little kids for a bit too. You've got to be prepared for them to do the craziest shit at any moment.”

  Wen Yong laughed. “She called you a child!”

  Recovering himself, Han Sung-hyuk straightened and raised his humming sword again. “Don’t stop me!”

  Jesse let her dagger dangle in her fingers, shrugging. “Then I won't.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, Han Sung-hyuk engaged in a staring competition that the other competitor didn’t seem particularly invested in.

  He sheathed his sword.

  Jesse had already turned to the group, considering everyone carefully. “Calvin, Han Sung-hyuk, the two of you should look for Peach.”

  “I want to go!” I yelled from where I was rolling on the floor.

  “You need to rest,” Jesse said.

  “No, I don’t,” I replied petulantly.

  Jesse crouched down and stared directly into my eyes, making me flinch and look away evasively. She said quietly, seriously, “Why are you covered in blood, Mik Tsaam? Those looked like new robes too.”

  “I had an accident.”

  “Hell of an accident. Are you not going to get changed into your other robes?”

  “Don’t wanna.” I felt a perverse amusement in acting like a child.

  Jesse straightened and looked to Calvin. “Have you still got that hoodie?”

  He extracted a bright red item of clothing from his inventory, a small hoodie could not possibly fit him. He awkwardly held it out to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Remember Peach was Red Riding Hood? This is the red hood. Calvin was holding it while she was putting on the wolfskin, but they got transported back to the lobby while that was happening, so he just put it in his inventory.” Jesse looked at Calvin to confirm. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “I don't want to stay near him,” I grumbled, indicating at Wen Yong with my chin.

  With the sincerest of voices, Wen Yong asked, “You’d rather go with Han Sung-hyuk, would you? He might have a great face card, but there’s more to a person than that.”

  “Why are you making this decision, anyway?” the man with the great face card asked Jesse.

  She waved her hand casually. “I apologise if I upset anyone. I judged it the best outcome.”

  “How?” Han Sung-hyuk asked.

  With a sigh, Jesse explained to us all, “Wen Yong and Han Sung-hyuk shouldn't be together, and I don't think Wen Yong should be trusted to look for Peach, so Han Sung-hyuk is in the search party. Someone who is close to Peach should be in that party too, but Mik Tsaam... I want to talk to you. And I also want to stay and keep an eye on these two... so you're here and Calvin is going.”

  “What about me?” Lee Wai Meng pointed at himself.

  “Calvin will kill you if you go with him,” Jesse pointed out.

  “Ah.”

  Wen Yong stretched, wincing and patting his wing-arm “Wow. It took so long to just work that out.”

  “Perhaps,” Jesse said, “if you hadn't killed one of their friends and attempted to manipulated Mik Tsaam, it wouldn't have taken so long”

  “I just want to survive. Is that wrong?” Wen Yong rubbed the bent feathers gently.

  “Survive?” Jesse smiled, but it wasn’t the usual warm expression that made me think of early summer sunlight through tree canopies. It was cold and grim and relentless. “Sure. Survive like an animal. Do you think you could return to normal society afterwards?”

  Wen Yong smiled bleakly in return. “There's no guarantee there is an afterwards.”

  “Then you’ve already given up.”

  “Get off your moral high horse. We’ll all die here if we don’t try everything.”

  “So why haven’t you tried everything?” I asked, propping my chin on my hands. “You have the Golden Water you stole off Rohan, don’t you? Why are you parading around with that stupid broken wing?”

  It was a stab in the dark, but I had to be right. Wen Yong always insisted that he had a reason for killing Rohan, that it was self-defence, that Rohan had come for him. It sounded plausible, except Rohan was the kind of person who, although he could be a chuunibyou, also whole-heartedly ascribed to a kind of hero’s code of honour.

  If Rohan attacked first, there would have been some reason for it. That reason was unknown.

  But what if… it were the other way around? If Wen Yong attacked…

  I had no choice.

  (Rohan had no choice.)

  He attacked me. I don’t know why, I… I tried to ask him but he didn’t say anything.

  (Wen Yong attacked him. Rohan didn’t know why… He tried to ask, but Wen Yong didn’t say anything.)

  The Golden Water was enough of a reason.

  “You killed him for the water,” I said. “You might as well use it, you bastard.”