A few hours later, Theora was woken up by Dema’s voice sing-songing a hearty “Good morning, little rabbit!” but she didn’t immediately open her eyes. Even moving her eyelids was too tiring.

“Look what I found!” Dema continued, but Theora didn’t budge, each of her limbs feeling way too heavy.

“If you ain’t gonna wake up, I’ll put it on your face.” In that gleeful threat, the grin on her face was perceivable through just her voice.

“Already awake,” Theora murmured, lids still closed like iron curtains.

“I don’t think you are!”

“I’m pretty sure I am.”

After a few more seconds, Dema let out a mock sullen hum. “Why, you brought this on yourself, then,” she pouted, and Theora could hear her shuffle in motion. A moment later, a few soft prickles appeared on her skin. On her cheek, on her lip, on her forehead. They spanned almost half her face. Something had been placed on her, and it moved.

Six legs, big body. A large beetle of sorts, it must have been. Slowly, it crawled across her skin, even placing a little leg on her closed eyelid. It was quite heavy.

“Don’t use animals as toys,” Theora chastised, but despite saying that, she enjoyed its touch.

“Damn, I was hoping you were gonna jump or something. Aren’t humans queasy about this stuff? You ain’t icked out? Not scared?”

“Scared of what? It’s just a bug.” It was probably even a very cute bug.

“Huh…” Dema trailed off in her hum, appearing to be lost in thought for a moment.

With her grin still shining through her voice, she then said, “So’s that what you think of me too? A lil’ bug you’ve no reason to be scared of?” That question wasn’t intoned as a reproach at all. Just curiosity.

“You are not a bug,” Theora said. “And bugs are just as precious as anything else. Don’t toy with them.”

Dema’s body shuffled again, maybe in a shrug. “Little thing crawled on my hand on its own. And on your face too. Why, it probably likes you.”

Eventually, the bug took off and flew away. Theora opened her eyes, and saw Dema’s teasing face.

“We’re gonna reach the village later, so I didn’t wanna have you sleep in,” she explained. “Am a little excited for it, not gonna lie. I got a bunch of things I wanna do there. So, let’s hurry up!”

Theora was close to drifting away again, but she mustered her strength, steeled her mind and eventually got up, subjected to Dema’s exaggerated cheering.

“You did it! I’m so proud of you. Off we go!”

“I’m going,” Theora claimed, but kept Dema in her gaze. “Weren’t you supposed to follow me? It feels like you are ordering me around.”

“Maybe you don’t mind being ordered around.”

Theora gave her a blank look. “How would you possibly come to that conclusion? I just complained,” she replied. Somehow, she was surprised at herself for even arguing this point at all.

Because she really didn’t mind.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Dema grinned. “You know I’m gonna forget these things if you don’t put them in writing!”

The rain had stopped by now and it was a relatively nice day. The sun shone from an unclouded sky, but their breath was still visible as it puffed into the cold. Dema undid her cloak and hung it over her shoulder, stretching her arms out and aiming her face upwards to absorb as much light on her skin as possible.

Meanwhile, Theora’s thoughts were bleak. She, somehow, in her tired state of mind, had managed to delude herself into thinking “Just a few more hours.” Just a few more hours until she’d fulfilled Dema’s wish. Just a few more hours, and she’d finally be rid of this tiresome existence. Just a few more hours, and she’d never have to see another System prompt again. In the far back of her mind, she knew that none of it was true, and if she hadn’t been so frustrated and tired and anxious, she would have realised that.

Dema’s joyful rambles barely pierced the cloak of her subconscious. She was vaguely aware that someone was talking to her, but didn’t listen. Not that anything Dema ever said was truly important, she just loved to talk, and most of the time, Theora was fine hearing it all. The cadence of Dema’s words was nice, it was an alto pitched voice with gentle rasp, soothing just for its sound, even without listening to the content.

Just a few more hours, she thought again, and finally, to some degree, the phrase struck her as odd.

How was it possible that she both looked forward to and dreaded the result of this day? A truly impossible state of mind, and the worst part was, she wasn’t even the victim in all this.

Dema was.

And yet, all of Theora’s thoughts were centred on herself. She took a deep breath, and held it a few seconds. Dema was what mattered here. Dema would get to have a nice day, maybe even complete some of the schemes she had devised. Theora needed to stop her selfish thoughts, and instead contemplate whether there was something she could do for Dema. Not that she had any inspiration on what that could possibly be, and not that the girl seemed to have any need for it. But still, it was better than brooding over useless thoughts.

And with that, the town came into view, after a curve in the path around a mountain.

The moment it did, Theora felt a little relief. Dema’s big day. Time to be there for her. Time to do her best. Time to be nice and supportive to the best of her ability, even if that ability wasn’t very high.

And immediately, a System message popped up.

[Current Main Quest: Kill the Ancient Evil.]

Maybe it was her exhaustion. Her feeling of bottomless emptiness. The anxiety mixed with the happiness for Dema. Or maybe it was all of this together.

Theora finally snapped.

The entire soup of conflicting thoughts in her brain brewed a cocktail that somehow managed to dissolve all her self-restraint, which just a few hours at night she had already only barely managed to sustain. She pulled her sword in a wild reflex, splitting the air in a line of azure light, pink particles bursting out from it.

[Obliterate].

And thus, the System message in front of her was slashed in half. It fizzled out in glitching flashes, gone just like that, with a pitiful buzz only Theora could hear.

“Huh? The hell?” Dema let out, jolting up. All the System prompts and messages in her personal frame of mind were likely disintegrating in front of her that very moment.

For the second time ever since its birth so very long ago, the System shut down.