The hooded figure stared down at him.
She raised her arm, fixing the gun's sight to Asher's chest.
"You smell like wolf..."
The woman twitched forward, scrutinizing him with a stare much too wide for sanity. A circular, lamp-like eye scanned his body in an instant.
Asher stammered as the gun's barrel coldly stared him down.
"I-I'm not with it! I came here for a 'mission'!"
He bet his life on the fact that, for whatever reason, the Abnormality would know the System's 'Punishment Missions', just like the wolf did.
And she did.
The woman scoffed and lowered her arm, allowing Asher a better glance at her features.
A fluttering red cloak covered her body, leaving only hints of what lied beneath.
Her body was bound by several leather belts horizontally tied around her skin, with their silver buckles lined in the middle, in a straight line from between her collarbones running downward.
Not a single bit of skin was visible under the thick weave of leather, but the belts were all so tightly wrapped that it almost appeared as if she was wearing a form-fitting bodysuit.
Looked uncomfortable, to say the least.
But what was most striking to Asher was the woman's face, or at least, what he could make out of it.
The left side of her face was indiscernible under her unnaturally fluttering hood, blocking all visibility.
But Asher shivered as his gaze shifted right.
A single, crazed eye stared down at him, silently analyzing his pitiable form. The eye's crimson pinpoint-like pupil matched the color of the woman's cloak.
Covering her mouth was a mask made entirely of plucked wolf's teeth, melding into a terrifying, shark-like visage of vengeance, obscuring her mouth completely in favor of a contemptful snarl of teeth.
Everything else of her face, including even her skin and other features, were entirely wreathed in impenetrable black shadow.
"Enough staring?" The woman's voice was coarse and rasping, deepened with a maturity of age that Asher could not match.
"Y-Yeah." In comparison, Asher's voice was like a pitiful animal's squeak.
She pulled her hand back into the folds of her cloak. The sound of machinery whirred as the gun reloaded.
With a start, Asher realized that the gun he saw in [Nostalgic Room] was exactly the same as the one that was hidden under the woman's cloak.
'So, I was her in that dream?'
The woman dug her heel into the ground, turning around without a word. She began to walk away, as if he didn't even exist.
"Ehm, e-excuse me? Is something wrong?"
Asher stammered as he matched the woman's languid pace-
With a blur, the cloaked figure swung her strange, bladed weapon in a wide circular arc. Its blade rotated on its joint out to reach his neck.
Asher coughed as the ferrous stench of blood touched his nose.
"U-Uhm-!"
"Don't waste your life with small-talk, weakling."
She taunted him with a piercing stare and a rumbling growl beneath her cloak.
Asher couldn't really argue with her assessment of him. Seeing how a single shot from that gun decimated what took the bear an hour to destroy in an instant, he could confidently say that he was nowhere near her match.
With a flick of the wrist, the weapon transformed to an easier to carry form, disappearing into the folds of her cloak yet again.
Now he knew why the System gave him such an overpowered skill.
Because it wasn't overpowered at all. Asher had a sneaking suspicion that even with the skill the System gave him, he still wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with that terrifying wolf.
So for now, he had to try and convince this creature in front of it, who exuded a presence near identical to the wolf, that he was somehow worth keeping alive until the end of the mission.
"Are you 'Little Red Riding..." He checked the System's prompt incredulously, "Hooded Mercenary?'"
God, what a freakish combination of phrases.
The woman shot a glance back, but she didn't spare the energy to speak.
Asher shut his mouth as she quickened her pace to a sprint, just barely slow enough for him to follow, but not enough to give leeway for conversation.
Considering how she easily covered a few miles within a second in her mad dash toward the wolf, Asher decided to accept this new brutal pace.
The woman could have disappeared from his view at any whim of hers, but for some reason she let him follow her closely.
Asher narrowed his eyes, his concentration completely focused on the fluttering crimson cloak ahead of him.
The forest blurred as he pumped his legs.
...
"Huff... Cough-"
Asher tried to breathe, gagging instead as he found his throat completely dry.
The crimson hooded figure looked behind her as she slowed down a hair.
"Only this much and you're already tired? How could you possibly be of any help to me?"
She dug her heels into the ground, grinding to a stop.
"Um, I have a few skills..." Asher's voice died down as the woman's arm flashed out of her cloak in a silencing gesture.
"Explain inside. We're here."
'Here' was a small, homely clearing. A dainty wood cabin rested in the middle, built from the trees cut from the clearing.
A strangely peaceful place for something like-
The Abnormality glanced back at him with a baleful eye, guessing his thoughts.
"You going to come inside or what?"
The sky and moon had returned to normal long ago. Now that there was no wolf's presence, the Abnormality acted surprisingly normal.
Still panting somewhat, Asher found himself entering a thin wooden doorway.
The inside was sparse in decoration. The living room only contained a table, a few chairs, and a rough, stone-enclosed fireplace.
"Sit."
He complied, sitting on one of the chairs to rest his body and mind after such quick series of events.
Closing his eyes, Asher allowed his mind to drift for a moment-
"Don't," she growled, "lower your guard."
His eyes snapped open, but it didn't seem like those words were a threat. The woman had her back facing away from him, striking a flint and steel to light the fireplace.
"Good. Now wait."
As the fireplace trembled with smoke, the woman disappeared into a room further down the hall. The sound of rubber-soled boots on floorboard echoed across the cabin as he sat there.
In a few seconds, she reappeared with two cups of water in her hand.
She placed the cups on the table, sitting down opposite of him.
"...?"
Asher hesitatingly grabbed a cup, unsure what was going on.
"Stop wasting my time. Talk."
The eye under the cloak stared at him, bored.
"A-Ah, right! I'm Asher! What's your name?"
Asher shrunk under the deafening silence that followed. The Abnormality studied his expression, and the mask of canine teeth on her face seemed to grimace in disdain.
"Um... So, do I call you 'Hooded Mercenary'? 'Little Red Riding Hood'?"
He couldn't imagine that she would like to be called 'Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary', so he truncated the phrase into the two most logical parts.
Finally, she opened her mouth.
"'Little Red'."
Asher sighed in relief as the unbearable silence lifted.
Little Red raised her cup to her mask, allowing water to trickle through the tiny gaps between the teeth of her mask into her mouth.
"That's a nice, shortened version... Wait, can I ask you a question first?"
Seeing as there was no reaction, he continued.
"How come both you and that wolf know-"
He cut off as Little Red's eyes widened once again. A manic howl rumbled in the woman's throat.
The smell of blood saturated the air as the stifling aura of undirected rage took his breath away.
"Krrrgh... Wolf - Wolf! Damned! WOLF!!"
Little Red shot up from her seat, her spine arching with inhuman fervor as she roared toward the sky, a horrifying concoction of emotions flowing from her.
Rage that stoked the fireplace's flames to the ceiling.
Malice that darkened the room to pitch black.
Pain that turned the water in Asher's cup into blood.
"Ha... Ha..." And all that remained was a pitiful wheeze, more scared than anything else.
As Little Red's single eye deformed with insanity, her pupils bouncing and twitching to every detail of his body as if searching for a threat, Asher felt an odd sense of pity in his heart.
The woman slowly calmed down, clutching her chest as she gasped, a terrible wheezing noise that stirred dust around her.
She sat down after catching her breath, continuing as if nothing happened.
"Yes... I know of 'It'. Lends out our souls and powers to little misfits who don't deserve them."
Asher was reasonably sure she aimed those words at him. And that 'our' she spoke of must be the other Abnormalities. How interesting.
Asher continued the conversation as naturally as he could, pretending that the outburst from earlier did not exist.
"O-Okay, sure. But, how do you know the System? Did you find it somewhere? Or was it the other way around?"
Little Red blinked, pondering about it for a moment.
Static filled Asher's vision before he could hear the answer. A glaring red prompt blinked in front of him.
[Host's authority is insufficient to listen to the response. Searching for temporary solution...]
[Seal complete. Rewind...]
The curtain of static parted, and the same scene in front of him took place once again.
"Yes... I know of 'It'. Lends out souls and powers to little misfits who don't deserve them."
A strange 'reset'.
But, how do you know the System?
"-!" Asher's hand shot to his mouth as no words escaped it.
How do you-
How-
Nothing came out.
[Cease.]
And something lost its patience.
'...'
Asher gulped as he processed what just happened.
[Insufficient authority.]
[Increase authority by achieving the status 'Us, We' with more Synchronizations, or by reaching condition 'Seed of Light'.]
[Synchronizations that have achieved authority status: Scorched Girl]
['Seed of Light' germination status: Unknown.]
Asher barely had time to read the prompts before Little Red's stare froze his body.
"Now," the woman growled, leaning closer, "Why did It give me such a weakling? You... No, you won't do at all."
The disdain in her voice was obvious.
Predicting what he would say next, Little Red slashed her hand through the air as soon as his mouth twitched open to defend himself.
"Skills, skills. I know. How many times has it loaned you our power? Six? Seven?"
"...Five?" Asher counted in his head, landing at that number of punishment missions he had completed after a moment of thought.
The woman scoffed.
"Not even double digits, hah! I bet even you can't think of any way to help me."
The way Asher shied away in embarrassment confirmed it.
But before the woman could dig into Asher's incompetence, a glint surfaced in his eyes.
"Actually, the System gave me a skill to use this mission! When I activate it, it'll give me..." Asher stopped as Little Red snapped to attention, casting away her disdainful look in exchange for something brighter.
"Two hundred Fortitude and Insight."
Asher's voice contained a note of finality, as he was confident that the skill the System gave him would convince her.
*SLAM*
Instead, he felt his head smash through the mahogany table.
Little Red gripped his skull in a single hand, slashing his face across the shards before pulling him out of the wooden debris.
"I hate that smug tone... Especially when I got my hopes up for a useless trash like you!" She snarled.
Asher stuttered incoherently as he gagged out the splinters in his tongue. He sensed himself rise into the air, carried by the hand gripping his hair.
The smell of blood effused into the air. Little Red's cloak corrupted into a darker, coarser crimson.
What exactly went wrong? Wasn't that skill supposed to level the playing field?
Without another word, Little Red clawed open the door, flinging him out with a vicious throw.
The woman panted with anger, watching as the body skipped along the ground. Finally, the ruined pile of flesh dug into the dirt, nearly a kilometer away from her cabin.
As she slammed the door behind her, she let out a frenzied exhale.
She got her hopes up again.
Two hundred added to a mere double-digits kid?
Utter trash.
And he was so brazen, even being so smug and confident about it.
...How was that supposed to help, when her Fortitude was nearly a thousand?
And how was that supposed to help, when that 'wolf'-
"Give me a break- Give me someone that actually has a chance!"
She glared upward, her piercing stare passing through the ceiling.
[No.]
The woman sighed.
All that was left was to clean up this mess in front of her.