He looked the same as before, other than his change in attire. The same indifferent eyes glanced at me, then drifted away to survey the crowd. The girl at his side clutched his arm, looking at me suspiciously. I was surprised at this intimate display, then remembered their real names. Were they related in real life?

  “Your health…” I floundered. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to let anyone know I could see some of their details. “You don’t look very well.”

  “This scenario’s complicated,” Jesse said gravely. “There’s all kinds of scheming going on. The princess has been poisoned several times. We’ve practically used up all of our healing items to keep her alive. The prince has been attacked a couple of times too.”

  “I’m a priest, so I have some basic healing abilities,” I offered. “I can restore some HP of party members.”

  “Nice!” Jesse clapped her hands together. “Everyone! Let’s form a party and get some HP back! Birb only has limited Heals as well.”

  Now that she mentioned it… I scanned the information of the other players. Angry_Birb, a small girl with bright red hair, was a Healer class. None of them were at full health, although Jesse and Han Sung-hyuk were still on 9HP.

  The man himself looked reluctant. Several of the other players, including Angry_Birb, eyed me warily.

  What the hell is their problem?

  Jesse nudged Han Sung-hyuk. “Come on, your little sis needs all the help she can get.”

  I had to admire Jesse’s confidence, elbowing the cold prince with such familiarity. The expressions that the rest of the group turned on her were harder for me to read. Was it because my Intelligence stat had tanked?

  “Fine.” With that one word from Han Sung-hyuk, the unfriendly expressions became ones of grudging acceptance.

  I instantly cast Heal, watching with satisfaction as every party member regained 2HP. I handed Han Jihee a bottle of water too.

  “I can Heal 5HP,” Angry_Birb grumbled.

  “But only to one player at a time,” Jesse pointed out cheerfully. “Right. What’s next? The prince and the heroine have now met… So…” She looked awkwardly between Han Sung-hyuk and I. “You fall in love, or something?”

  I tried not to laugh. Han Sung-hyuk scowled. Several of the party members looked scandalised.

  “I think in this version, it’s enough that the prince decides to marry me,” I said. “This isn’t exactly Cinderella after all.”

  “True…” Jesse’s expression cleared. “Then you have to lose your shoe as you try to get home, right?”

  “That’s right… Although I think there’s something else first…”

  Was it truly good luck, or bad luck? From the sea of faces surrounding us, two people came into focus as I looked past the party.

  In her rich, deep purple winter robes, Poppy resembled a lovely flower. Flakes of snow settled on her dark hair. It was a pity that she had drawn the Stepsister role.

  Han Sung-hyuk and Jesse turned to see who I was looking at.

  “Is that the Stepsister? She’s hot,” Jesse said flippantly. Han Sung-hyuk made an indeterminate noise through his nose.

  “That means that’s the Stepmother next to her. Shouldn’t you be running, Maria?”

  Madam Jin’s eyes bored into me. It didn’t seem like she had fully recognised me yet, but I couldn’t just stand there. I moved a little to the side so that I was hidden behind Han Sung-hyuk.

  “I’m going. See you all later.”

  “I’ll take you part of the way,” Jesse offered.

  “What?”

  “I’ve got high Dexterity. It’ll be quicker if I take you. She definitely won’t be able to catch up.”

  “That… No, it’s okay. I can…”

  “They’re coming,” observed one of the guards. GaoShou, I think they were called.

  Jesse held her hand out to me. “Let’s go.”

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  Han Sung-hyuk, his sister on his arm, turned and began to stroll up the street, towards Poppy and Madam Jin.

  I took Jesse’s hand.

  How high were her Dexterity stats? I felt like a feather in her arms as she weaved effortlessly through the crowd. Gone was that odd uneven gait; the woman moved like flowing water until the number of people began to thin, the lights fading behind us, and she finally deposited me on the road out of town.

  “That was… really, really fast. How high is your Dexterity?”

  “I’m at eight points,” Jesse declared, with her usual grin.

  “Is it really a good idea to just give away information like that…?”

  “Why not?” Jesse placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “This might be a game, but there’s no requirement to beat others, right? We can clear these scenarios as a team. And I think we should. Isn’t it better for more people to pass each time?”

  “We just don’t know if everyone is as altruistic as that,” I pointed out. “What if they use that information against you?”

  “Then that’s that.” Jesse shrugged. “I’m prepared for it.” She glanced back the way she had come. “I’d better get back. And you’d better hurry home.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “Good to see you again, Maria. I’m looking forward to seeing you again soon.”

  She waved goodbye and was gone before I could even blink.

  “Wait… Which direction is the house?” I looked around. Aside from the town, all I could see in every direction was farmland.

  I removed Camael’s Cloak, and swapped my outfit back to my original attire.

  “Ah! The shoe!” I looked at my feet.

  There was only one shoe.

  Did Jesse take the other one? With dexterity like that, shouldn’t she be a thief at this point?

  I looked around again, then held out my hand. “Uriel’s Encyclopaedia.”

  The item appeared in my hand and I opened it haphazardly.

  I stared at the words. With the level up, the Encyclopaedia was now providing me with two sentences of information. But what was this? Find Poppy?

  I supposed that returning to the town and finding Poppy would lead me home, but it would also bring me directly to Madam Jin, and who knew what kind of outcome that would lead to. It didn’t exactly match with the storyline either.

  Perhaps the Encyclopaedia would now provide alternate options, no matter how unrealistic they were. But that seemed to be pointless… Why would the Encyclopaedia be programmed this way?

  Still, the more I stared at the words, the less sense they made. I couldn’t keep standing still. I returned the Encyclopaedia to my Inventory, along with the cloak, and began to run.

  “Why is he so hot, dammit?” Poppy complained, although she kept her voice hushed. We sat together on the bedroll in my tiny room. I had managed to get home just before Poppy and Madam Jin returned, pretending to have hidden and gone to sleep after the beating I had experienced earlier.

  Once she had removed her finery, Poppy crept to my room to talk.

  Although we were the only women in our friend group, Poppy and I had never been particularly close. Our interests were too different. So it was an odd but sweet experience to sit next to her on my bed, quietly talking like two girls at a sleepover while the adults had fallen asleep. It made me think of Tommy and the long hours we would spend talking into the night.

  I hope he’s okay.

  “‘Hot’? I suppose.”

  “Why are you always so disinterested when it comes to things like this? Seriously! Have you even looked at his face? His arms? That muscle and vein definition…”

  “Even Jesse has muscle and vein definition. So what?”

  “Jesse?”

  “That woman who helped you in the first scenario, remember? The one playing a guard who helped me escape just now?”

  “Oh. Excellent Ruthless Woods. Right.”

  “Why was she wet in the first scenario, anyway? When I was leaving I saw you both standing by the side of the road and she seemed… damp.”

  “Oh, she found this for me.” She fumbled in a pouch by her side and pulled out a small stone. It was smooth and had a hole through the middle of it.

  “What is it?”

  “A hagstone. She said they occur naturally in water. If you look through it, you can see past deceptions.”

  So the mystery of why Jesse had been wet was solved. I examined the hagstone.

  “She’s kind of crazy. She jumped straight into the water.”

  “I think she’s kind of cool. She’s like a ‘big sister’ or ‘prince’ type in those dramas you always watch, right?”

  “Oh, the types that all the girls get weirdly excited over? I guess. But this is real life, not a drama. Girls like that won’t ever get a boyfriend.”

  Yeah, this is why we weren’t close friends. I changed the subject. “Do you know why this scenario’s called Catskin?”

  “Oh, Catskin is another variation on the story. In that version, the heroine hides her beauty under a big cloak of furs, so she looks like a weird animal.”

  “A cloak of fur, huh? Well, I only got a cloak of feathers, so I guess that version of the story isn’t an option.”

  “The Ye Xian story has a cloak of kingfisher feathers. I thought I saw you wearing something like that. Can I see it?”

  I drew it from my Inventory. Poppy held it up, admiring the sea-green feathers. “That’s so pretty! What do you think? Does it suit me?”

  She draped it over her shoulders and twirled. It did suit her, very much.

  I held out my hands. “It does. Can I have it back now?”

  “Oh… Okay. That was quick. Oh, it gives a strength boost? So it’s an Item, not just limited to this scenario? That’s nice.”

  I hated that I felt so anxious to have the cloak back, but as soon as Poppy returned it to me, I made it disappear into my Inventory with a sigh of relief, followed by an instant sense of shame. “Sorry, Poppy. Um… I think maybe… You know what my mum was like? She was always taking my things when I was little. I guess it made me kind of sensitive. I’m sorry.”

  “I get it.” She shrugged carelessly. “Well, tomorrow the prince has to look for you. He’ll send out a decree about the shoe, but Madam Jin will prevent you from going.”

  “The whole shoe thing is weird,” I said. “Surely more than one person has the same size feet. I mean, the two of us have the same shoe size.”

  “It’s fairytale magic,” Poppy sighed, shaking out her hair. “I’m sure it’ll just fit you and no-one else. And then the prince will marry you and we can escape this damn scenario. God, it’s so much longer than the first two.”

  I had to agree. Were the scenarios going to keep getting longer and longer? Was that how the developers planned to increase the difficulty of each scenario?

  “What did Madam Jin say?”

  “She wasn’t sure it was you. Every now and then she would ask me if I thought it was you, but I said I didn’t know.”

  “Thanks.” I squeezed her hand. “Go and rest, Bou Bei. Nothing’s going to happen until tomorrow anyway.”

  She returned the gesture. “Mik Tsaam…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Madam Jin… she’s so much like my real mother. It’s scary.”

  “Luckily this is just a game. She’s not real, and once we beat this scenario, you won’t have to see her again. Well, you won’t have to see Madam Jin again.”

  Poppy shivered. “She wants me to do everything I can to get ahead in life, just like Mama.”

  “You’ll be fine. We’ll just follow the story and get out of here.”

  The candle had burnt low. Poppy’s dark eyes reached out to me through the shadows for a moment, before she dropped them. “Okay.”

  “Good night, Poppy.”

  “Night, Mik Tsaam.”

  She left the room.

  I summoned the Encyclopaedia again. There was nothing new, of course. I had already used it once in the scenario and couldn’t use it again.

  ‘Find Poppy.’ Not ‘Find Jun-li.’ Find Poppy.

  Why? And did my conversation with Poppy now count as ‘finding’ her?

  The candle guttered, and went out, and I could no longer see anything in the darkness.