< Snow Has Entered The First State >

  “I don’t want neither of you to die. Mister Huntsman… held on for as long as he could… And you, Red… are standing like you aren’t at death’s door. Then there’s me. Me. Tch…”

  The girl dug her fingers into her palms, breaking the dam. Blood sputtered over her diary and drowned it. When it was fully submerged, the diary flickered to a blood-stained page that granted her a revelation.

  The words written on that page glowed with a faint golden hue.

  “Page 709… Weak point of The Huntsman. Red!”

  “YEAH!?”

  “AIM FOR HIS WAIST!”

  Red didn’t hesitate. She stared down the crossbow of The Huntsman and pulled the trigger.

  *KABOOM!*

  The recoil shredded her only working arm. The rod was driven deeper into her, hollowing her chest out even further.

  “Kagh–!

  < [The Poisoned Oath] >

  < “I pulled the trigger expecting your head to burst like an apple.” >

  < “I saw a piece of the mother I lost in you.” >

  The bullet pierced through the center of the rod, splitting it down through the middle as it spiraled towards the heart of The Huntsman. The world moved in slow motion. His death was imminent.

  < “My lament.” >

  Yet strangely, he continued to speak, as though unaffected by the passage of time.

  < “My sorrow…” >

  The rods split into seven perfect pieces, and they were scattered into the forest around them.

  < “Was only as boundless as I allowed it to be. I drowned in a sea of wallowing, believing that there was a use in struggling.” >

  The Huntsman | HP : 0

  < “I met that Witch.” >

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  The bullet passed through his body, creating a small cavity. Then, his body warped inwards. Rotting organs, flesh, brambles, blood – they were all sucked into a singularity that devoured everything it touched. Eventually, his body was split into two parts.

  < “I joined an Association.” >

  His upper body went flying towards them. He splattered before Snow, his backbones fully exposed to reveal his withered head which was kept within his ribcage.

  < “I took the job to protect a non-name village.” >

  “Mister… Huntsman…?”

  Snow reached for what was left of him. She dug through his carcass, peeling back his malleable bones and brambles until she could reach to touch his head.

  < “So that the tides of the sea would move me along.” >

  < “But I met that girl.” >

  “Mister…”

  She held his head up. The head that was little more than a skull with a scrap of flesh and hair.

  Yet his voice was spoken as though he was full of life.

  His previously conceded intonation turned to one of relief.

  < “And I realized that like me, she was being moved by a flow unbeholden to ourselves.” >

  “I’m sorry… Mister…”

  < “Don’t cry, Snow.” >

  < “I was bound to pay the price of my failures.” >

  < “But I…” >

  “Th… Theron…”

  That was the Huntsman’s real name.

  Though Theron was nothing but a skull and patches of flesh, Red could not help but to imagine that he was smiling.

  < “Was happy for the first time in decades living in that village.” >

  < “Snow…” >

  < “Cherish Red.” >

  “Theron… No… no…!”

  His body, perhaps due to a mechanism of the Corrupted Zone, was reduced to a black goop. What remained of him were the clothes of his back, the golden apple that served as his head, the great axe, and his lower half.

  Snow whimpered, trying to scoop disappearing goo with her bare hands. They kept slipping through her fingers as tears tumbled down her cheeks.

  “Ah… Ahh… Theron… Theron… Come back… You were… talking… Just a second ago…”

  He’s gone, you know…

  Red couldn’t comprehend what Snow was going through. She had never lost anyone important to her before, after all. But seeing Snow in such a despaired state made her wish she comfort her.

  It was impossible. Her body was damaged beyond repair.

  Red | HP: 32

  She would be dying, with or without Snow’s intervention.

  There was no possible way to save her.

  … It was like that too, wasn’t it? Twice now I’ve been in the exact same predicament.

  Rockie nuzzled beside her, licking at her wounds with a prehensile tongue.

  “Brrr…”

  “You’re… the last… thing I want worrying about me…”

  “Brrr.”

  The Steel Bug sadly whined. Its beady eyes shimmered with moisture.

  < Rockie Grey Has Entered The First State >

  Red’s brows raised. She was surprised. She never thought that even Rockie could feel emotions.

  A dumb, stupid Rock Bug was all she ever thought of it.

  But like Three Paw, they always kept coming back to her, showing unnatural affection…

  … to a girl who kept trying to push them away.

  “I’ll never understand it until it happens in front of me too, I guess. It’s too late for that now.”

  Red didn’t concede to death, but in her heart she knew that her time was up. They were in a Corrupted Zone. Snow had already removed as many wounds she could from her. Neither did she have any Mana to spare.

  She tried to reach up and pat Rockie, only to realize that her arm was gone. That realization was her last train of thought as darkness encroached into her vision. Footsteps rapidly approached.

  A sobbing Snow was the last thing she saw.

  Her time was up.

  Wouldn’t it be nice… if I could stay just a little longer…

  I… don’t want to be alone again.

  Please…

  If there’s another star I can wish upon again…

  … then please, let me keep on living…

  Red | HP : 0

  And as the darkness engulfed her, and as her senses faded into oblivion, she heard a voice speak to her.

  * * *

  “Emotions empower our items.”

  This voice belonged to Snow.

  But it was different.

  The usually gentle and motherly cadence was nowhere to be heard.

  Granted, that had rapidly declined during their eleven-day march through the Forest of Everlasting Envy.

  But here, in the utter silence of the void, it had reached a crescendo.

  “Although if such delicate threads, which dictate whether we cry, or sing, were to be the only material used to weave the essence of ourselves, then it would be arbitrary for us to understand the Corrupted and the unexplained.”

  Red didn’t understand a word.

  But what she recognized was a level of undeniable authority.

  “Oh? Little Steel Bug. Gaze upon the corpus of your handler. Her form returns without the interference of a Healer. Nay, even the use of a Nascent Pool cannot replicate flesh at this pace.”

  The technical words that Snow whispered drowned out as her hearing slowly faded.

  “I shouldn’t indulge in what Snow has yet to claim. Though from the scent alone–

  –your blood is beyond exquisite little Red.”

  * * *

  //////// < CAUTION > ////////

  < You Have Accumulated 2 Nemesis Tokens Against the Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns >

  13 Chapters ahead over on the

  Discord! We have cute Vengeful Red emotes!