My throat tightened when I heard Kat's scream.
"Kat!?" I yelled. Saizo called out her name as well. She didn't answer. We heard a yell from her. It didn't sound as scared as her scream before, and we could hear her repeatedly grunting. Then there was silence. It caused me to go on edge. I decided to call out again.
"Are you there, Kat?" I said quietly.
I could hear her sigh and my body just relaxed and I felt a weird sense of fatigue in me, even though my stamina was still quite full.
"I'm okay," Kat said in a near-whisper, "the Head Pastor's gone now. Fully gone."
Gone, I thought, does that mean she killed the woman? How?
"Are you safe?" Saizo asked her as I checked my map and realised that she had silently updated the POI. I started to make my way over there.
"Yeah, I don't see any serious enemies near me anymore," Kat said. Her voice was still quiet. She must be in shock after killing someone — something that destroyed life as she knew it.
I realised she was like me now, though I still had Kei as my family who was waiting for me. A part of me just wanted to leave the Tower now, make my way back to Shinobu City and meet up with Kei for the Hunting Games. Yet, something deep within me reminded me that I still had a goal to accomplish with this Quest. I looked at my Quests Window and looked at the progress of my Secret Quest.
[LEFT ARM OF THE ████████████ SECRET QUEST
BLOOD SACRIFICE STATUS TILL COMPLETION: 68%]
The System had already accepted Mobito to be my last blood sacrifice, but I couldn't just go up to him and kill him with Saizo right then and there, could I? Saizo would be against it, and I didn't want to scare Kat anymore. She had witnessed what happened when I sacrificed Nato and saw something horrific when I blacked out. How was I supposed to complete this secret quest?
The Point of Interest that Kat showed me was quite close and I reached it without any complications. It was another Spawner. I accepted the command to disassemble the Spawner and waited.
"Ryuu," Saizo said over the System.
I sighed. He heard me fight the zombified Nato and I didn't know how to act around him anymore.
"Yes," I said bluntly.
"I heard what you said to Nato before," Saizo said. His voice was trembling slightly as if he was trying to keep his emotions under control.
I wondered when he was going to bring that up.
"Okay."
"Did you have anything to do with Aoi's death?" the man asked candidly.
The Spawner finished dismantling and a Window with the message: [TURN COMPLETED] popped up in front of me. Another small Window, this time with [TURN FOUR] appeared and Kat updated my map with another POI to head towards.
"Yes," I said in a flat voice, "I found out the truth about what she was like, and she tried to kill me, so I had to fight back."
"The truth about her—?"
"I found hidden letters from Kei that explained how she used the orphanage to sell child slaves."
I could hear a soft gasp from Kat. Saizo cursed under his breath again, this time it was laced with knowing disappointment.
"That woman, I swear…" Saizo mumbled, "I thought she had changed her ways. Every time I visited her, she promised that she had changed. That she had moved away from her more illegal activities to making money—"
"And yet, you were there the night my parents were killed, weren't you?" I stopped him. My jaw tightened and I ground my teeth as I waited for his response.
You could feel the tension as it hung over all three of us who were communicating with each other. Saizo refused to answer, and just as I was about to prod, a warning Window popped up again about the destabilisation of the task. I growled as I swiped the Window away.
"You were there, and you knew that Nato's attack with his great sword caused nerve damage in my arm that disabled me," I confronted him in a louder voice.
There was another pause, which made me stop in my tracks and hang my head in shame. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, but it didn't help, so I had to rest against a half-destroyed wall.
"Why won't you answer?" I whispered.
"I…" Saizo's voice was almost as quiet as mine, "I didn't know."
We could hear Kat gasp again as she listened to our serious conversation.
"I didn't know that Aoi wanted to kill…your parents," Saizo explained.
"You followed them to my house, for a shakedown? How then could you say that Obaa— Aoi had changed her ways?" I doubled down as I started to make my way to the spot Kat showed on our maps.
"Even if you didn't know about the kill order, you were still happy to let Mobito and Nato terrorise my parents," I concluded.
Saizo didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. The silence hung over us once more.
"I know that I owe you my life Saizo. You were the one who stopped Nato from killing me all those years ago, weren't you?"
He stayed silent.
"I'll never forget what you did for me," I paused, "and what you didn't do. So, I hope you understand me clearly when I say that I deserve justice for what happened."
"Ryuu—" Saizo started, but he was cut off when a new Warning Window popped up in front of all of us.
[WARNING!
DUE TO (~MA{{LIE….
STABILITY OF QUEST PARAMETERS HAVE REACHED A CRITICAL LOW]
I could hear a guttural scream somewhere to my left as I jumped up from the wall that I rested on. The Warning Window was a shocking dark-red colour and flashed to ensure that all of us Users saw the message. I swiped it away before it came back automatically and blocked almost all my vision.
I tried to move it to my peripheral so I could watch my surroundings, and thankfully that worked.
"Kat," I called out cautiously. I didn't want to be too loud just in case there was an enemy near me, "I just heard a weird scream. Can you use your 'Detect' skill to see what's happening around me?"
"Hang on," she called out, "I can't remove the Warning Window."
"Just put it to the side, don't try and close it completely," I advised, "can you please hurry?"
I took a few steps away from where I thought I heard the scream. I couldn't see more than ten metres ahead of me because of the low light and since there were no actual sources of light other than the black-blue, almost moonlight that came from nowhere but everywhere unnaturally, my anxiety started to rise as I waited for Kat.
"Kat?" I whimpered.
"I— I don't know what's happening," her voice, also quivering from anxiety, said, "I can see two POIs close to you. One of them seems to be on top of the other."
I heard her gasp, "one of them disappeared!"
"Where are they? Show me on the map!" I hissed in panic.
"The last one is approaching you now, quickly! I don't know what to do!" Kat cried out.
"Hang on!" I hissed again, "I think I heard something."
That's what I said, but in truth, I wasn't so sure. I stayed silent and was extremely grateful that Saizo and Kat also stayed quiet as I tried to focus on any out-of-the-ordinary noises around me.
Then I heard it. A soft crunching as rubble and dirt are stepped on. Something was making its way to me.
There was a delay in the rhythm of the steps, and I heard something that made a low whistle through the air.
Suddenly, through the darkness beyond what I could see, an object arced through the air and landed on the ground in front of me about nine metres away, just within my sight. It bounced with a sickening, squelching sound twice before it rolled to a stop about three metres away from me.
I slowly leant forward to try and get a better look at the object. It was somewhat spherical — no, it was like an oval, and there was something dark and looked like it was all tangled up on over half of the object. I realised that the tangled-up things were strands of hair and as I continued to get closer, I realised that the object that was thrown was a severed head.
I felt bile come up my throat as I struggled to not vomit. I could hear the steps get closer and closer as I tried to see whose head it was. The flesh was slightly discoloured, that much was obvious even in the low light. A zombie?
As I quickly and quietly went around the head to try and find the face of the poor soul, the steps continued in their calm, slow rhythm. Whatever was coming was not in a rush.
I finally found where the face was, and I realised that it was the face of Mirou. One of the Churchgoers that followed Head Pastor Maru. He must have died in Task One and was brought back by the System as the Party's opponent in this Task.
A small Window popped up and notified me that the enemy's Watchtower had been destroyed. Was Mirou their Watchtower?
"You don't have to worry," called out an old, gruff voice from the void, and a chill ran down my spine when he continued, "I'm not here to harm you."