I woke, disoriented, in the dark.

  The bedcovers felt strange. Rougher than usual. Since when did I have such scratchy sheets?

  The air smelt strange, too. I couldn’t smell the last wisps of last night’s dinner, or my body wash, or…

  Oh, of course. I wasn’t at home, was I?

  I sat up slowly. Physically, I felt fine, a testament to my Endurance stats, I supposed. But something felt horribly wrong, like my hands had been put on backwards, or my kidneys and my lungs had been switched.

  My hands seemed perfectly normal, and I assumed my kidneys and lungs were doing their jobs, otherwise I likely wouldn’t have been able to sit up and… well… be alive.

  So why…

  Sounds outside the room snagged the edge of my attention like clothing on thorns. The door opened and a lantern, followed by a servant, the servant I had spoken to who had swept the courtyard.

  She almost dropped the lantern.

  “She’s awake!” she called, backing hurriedly out of the room. The door slammed shut, followed by a click – a lock.

  I was locked in here.

  That was hardly a surprise. I was a slave, run away from the place that owned me. I could probably be executed without anyone batting an eye. I checked that Camael’s Cloak was still in my inventory.

  The lock clicked once more, the door opened, and this time, Wen Yong entered the room, bearing the lantern. He closed the door behind him.

  “Maria.”

  I almost responded with his real name, but forced myself to stay silent. He didn’t need to know all of my abilities.

  “We ended up here after all,” he sighed, sounding almost regretful. “I was hoping this wouldn’t have been the case.” He took a seat on a wooden chair near the door and considered me. “That was an interesting trick you played back there.”

  Say nothing.

  “What’s that Skill you used? I almost thought it was a lightning strike. Well, that’s what we’re telling the families of those five men you killed. You should have seen the looks on their families’ faces. I wonder how they’ll survive without their breadwinners. Poor things.”

  I swallowed, keeping my expression indifferent. “They’re NPCs.”

  “Are they?”

  “This is a game. Isn’t that why you killed Rohan?”

  Wen Yong stared impassively at me for a minute in complete silence. Then he broke it with a small laugh. “True, true. Maria, you’re colder than I realised. I underestimated you. I thought someone who played a Priest would be sympathetic. Perhaps my plan won’t work after all.”

  My hands curled in the rough blanket over my lap and legs.

  “Not going to ask? I’ll tell you anyway. Why don’t you just marry me and get out of this scenario?” He spread his hands, leaning back in the chair. “You should know by now that the game tasks aren’t necessarily set in stone – there are multiple ways to pass a scenario. So ditch that arrogant guy with the personality of a rock, and join up with me.” He frowned. “Unless you have some interest in him?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Do you? I don’t get it, why is everyone falling over themselves for him?” Wen Yong was muttering to himself now. “Is being handsome that important? He’s got such a shitty personality though… Should I be acting more like that?”

  “I won’t marry you.”

  “I didn’t mean literally -”

  “Whether it’s in a game, or real life, I would never want to marry you. I know you murdered Rohan, and you enjoyed it. And you’ve been trying to manipulate me, and everyone else, since the first time we met. There’s no way I’ll help you.”

  “Even if that means you’ll be stuck in here for who knows how long?”

  “No matter what.”

  He sighed again. “Maria, I just want to get out of here.”

  “So kill yourself. It’s just a game. You’ll be fine,” I said sarcastically.

  Casually, Wen Yong held out the lantern away from himself, and dropped it.

  The wood frame shattered, flame bursting suddenly on the dirt floor as the wooden stub that formed a candle caught the cloth lantern sides. Fire flared briefly, washing our faces with momentary heat, before dwindling rapidly to minute, smouldering embers.

  We sat in the darkness.

  “Everyone’s saying you’re bad luck, with those men who died chasing after you. They’re saying I shouldn’t marry you. But I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

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  I heard him stand and move to the door. Open, the weak light beyond framed him briefly. Closed again, I was left alone with the bitter scent of the burnt lantern.

  The room was small and sparse, with only a rudimentary bed and a bucket. I felt my way around the entire thing. The walls were made of wood, uninsulated, leaving splinters in my fingertips. It had to be night-time, since there was no light clawing through the gaps in the wood, but was it the same night? The next night? A new week entirely?

  I pried at the door, tried to jump up and find something, anything, with my fingers. After jumping unsuccessfully for some time, I heard a sound outside, at first so faint that I thought I imagined it, but growing increasingly closer.

  I backed a little towards the excuse for a bed, listening intently. Several sets of footsteps, quiet but distinct, and something else…

  Sobbing.

  Someone was crying, but muffled, as if their mouth was gagged. A thud, first on the ground, then against the door of the room I was trapped in.

  Suddenly, the crying resolved into words.

  “Please… Please let me go… I didn’t do anything…”

  Wolmae.

  She apparently received no response. Not one I could hear anyway. Instead she screamed suddenly. The shock bisected my chest, like a pair of hands tearing my arms away from their sockets.

  The scream subsided into gasps and coughs. “Please… Please stop… I’ll do anything… Please…”

  No response.

  Again, that scream. I hammered against the door. “STOP!”

  This time, I heard a response – a low, amused chuckle.

  Wolmae screamed a third time.

  I drew Camael’s Cloak from my Inventory and smashed my way through the door, almost falling over the prone form of Wolmae. She was curled on her side, panting and crying, her eyes covered with a blindfold, her figure picked out in golden outlines by the light of a lantern.

  The lantern-bearer, Wen Yong, had retreated from the door, looking surprised. I lunged for him.

  “Are you going to kill me, Maria?” He dodged my punch and I felt the temporary buff from the Cloak drop away. “Great idea. Get the Government to hunt you down and execute you.”

  “Leave Wolmae alone!”

  “Why do you care? She’s an NPC, remember?”

  “You’re torturing her. It doesn’t matter whether she’s real or not.”

  “Why? If she’s not real, there’s no consequences.”

  “Then why have you brought her here and made her scream so I can hear her?”

  Wen Yong considered the question like the thought had never occurred to him before. “Curiosity?”

  I raised my hands. Static crackled between them, and a glow that lit the expression on Wen Yong’s face, a calculated smile of pacification.

  “Maria… Do you really want to become a wanted criminal? How many times can you use that skill? Besides which, you’ve been unconscious for several days.”

  “How many?”

  “Hm… Not telling. Maybe if you help me out, I’ll help you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I guess that’s a ‘no’ then. Alright, I’ll just take Wolmae back then…”

  “And I’m supposed to just go back into my cell quietly?”

  “Either that or someone will have to explain how a relatively small woman was able to physically break down a solid wooden door. I probably should have mentioned, when I said earlier that you’re considered bad luck, there’s talk that you’re a witch or sorceress. Can you guess what they do to people who practice witchcraft?”

  I looked down at Wolmae. She was so still and silent that I thought that perhaps she had fainted. I still couldn’t see what it was that Wen Yong had done that hurt her so much.

  Hating myself with every step, I turned and walked back into my wooden prison.

  “You’ll have to go into the one next door, since you’ve destroyed the door on this one.” Wen Yong unlocked the neighbouring room. “Please, come in.”

  I stepped into a room that was essentially identical to the one I had just left.

  “I hope you’ll think about what I’ve said,” Wen Yong said pleasantly.

  I gave him the finger.

  “Very good.” He closed and locked the door.

  I sat on the musty bed, steeling my stomach against the smell, and swapped Camael’s Cloak into the inventory for the Encyclopaedia of Uriel. Luckily for me, the pages glowed faintly, so I was still able to read in the dark.

  [You can wait. You can marry. You cannot die.]

  You cannot die.

  In order to pass the scenario, I would have to either wait for Han Sung-hyuk or marry Wen Yong. Dying would not allow me to pass…

  Because I would really die?

  I returned the Encyclopaedia, and folded my bloodless hands.

  Dear God, I’m trapped here. Please help me.

  [Maria! God has seen fit to send you an animal companion to shoulder your burdens. Perhaps not literally… It’s a bit small…]

  [Don’t be too surprised!]

  [Stats for your companion are randomised.]

  Surprised? By what?

  An animal companion might be useful, depending on whether they were intelligent or dextrous or –

  Something crawled up my arm.

  Something small with many, hairy legs.

  I automatically swatted at it, my teeth on edge. “Get off me!”

  A cockroach. Disgusting. I’d had enough of those living in Hong Kong. Now there was one crawling around, invisible in the darkness. I hoped my animal companion was at least a cat who could hunt well.

  “Hello?” I couldn’t hear anything. Was the animal outside the room, unable to come in? Would they have to travel from somewhere to get to me?

  I tucked myself up in a tight ball on the bed, upright, ready at any moment to feel the whispery scratch of the cockroach on my skin again. I stayed in that position until morning.

  The faint grey light of morning brought a servant with rice and a thin bean sprout soup. She placed the food so close to the door that she knocked the bowl as she hastily closed it, splashing half of the meagre contents on the dirt floor. As the liquid began to soak into the ground, the large cockroach from the night rushed over to it.

  I dashed over, raising my foot to crush it –

  The cockroach raised itself from the ground using the food tray, lifted a fallen piece of bean sprout and waved it at me.

  Balanced on one foot, the other hanging uncertainly in mid-air over the sprout-twirling insect, I croaked, “Name?”

  [Character name: Sukju.]

  [HP: Infinite.]

  [Status: Happy.]

  Kill me.

  I backed to the wall and collapsed to the floor.

  I had a cockroach as an animal companion.

  The cockroach continued to merrily twirl the bean sprout.

  I was personally going to rip out the game devs’ toenails. They had given the cockroach a name. The old man at the bottom of the mountain in the second scenario didn’t even have a name!

  “S…” I swallowed down nausea. “Sukju?”

  The cockroach ran around in a little circle, then triumphantly lifted the bean sprout again.

  Fuck.

  I covered my face with my hands, and a few moments passed in this manner as I wondered what I had done wrong for the universe to hate me so much. When I raised my eyes, the cockroach was dragging itself over the dirt floor, leaving markings.

  At first, I couldn’t understand the geometric shapes. Then they resolved themselves into hangul, and like a picture loaded into a translation app, the words were suddenly readable to me.

  [Eat up!]

  Oh god, a cockroach is cheerfully telling me to eat breakfast.

  I slid sideways. “You… can eat that beansprout.”

  The cockroach gave the bean sprout one last twirl of what I could only imagine was joy and then began to eat it.

  Maybe it would be best for me to just die now.