// Mission

The first enemy Cho Jae-Hwa ever saw in this unknown place was the slime. A little blue blob of mucous substance, expressionless and only held by a small red sphere that seemed to be the center of its body.

It squirmed around the several bricks that formed the cold floor of the corridors she sat on, slowly dragging itself to the feet of the seemingly paralyzed beastgirl. Jae-Hwa's legs trembled with fear, it was now evident that her life was nearing the end as long as she was inside this place, but even then she wanted to help, only the pain seemed to be too great to act.

"Please, help me..." It was starting to digest her cloth piece by piece, as if leaving only her savory meat and bones to the end.

Jae-Hwa's legs trembled as she steadily stood up, it created a vibration that made it feel like no limbs belonged to her. Her mind had darkened to a state where she no longer was seeing her surroundings — as she squinted her eyes progressively her headache became stronger, the voices in her mind became morbid and her will to keep going was slowly dying off.

The only thing her vision could gaze at was the red fluffy tail that swayed left and right with fear, acting as a beacon of hope to the slight chance that she would be able to touch it at the end of it. Once again she says her words to materialize the status panel, looking at the health she had remaining.

HEALTH: 87/100

The fluffy sensation was merely a farce, a way to cope with her current situation and create an excuse to act or else her body would not be able obey her. "As long as I can move... I still have enough health to expend, so all I need to do is move!" With a strong step forward, Jae-Hwa stumbles, feeling the burning of her scrapped knee unprotected by her bare legs.

One more step of either blind courage or idiocracy, this time starting a run towards the wobbly enemy. Compared to before, the corridor feels infinite, as if something is pushing her movement like a treadmill, only there was no such thing. "Get away from the fluff!" Jae-Hwa plants her left foot on the ground, attempting to obtain as much stability as she could until her kick lands on the red orb of the slime. It was small enough to even surprise Cho Jae-Hwa herself that she managed to hit it.

The ball of mucus gets thrown to the left wall with enough force for a *crack* to echo around her surroundings. Losing her balance, Jae-Hwa falls heavily to the ground right next to the mysterious girl as a panel appears before her eyes.

—ENEMY———————————————

ENEMY NAME: SLIME

ENEMY HEALTH: 15/20

Dismissing this information as it quickly vanishes, she turns to the almost half-naked beastgirl that now covered both her eyes with a scarred right arm.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being so useless. I'm sorry for being so weak, mother." She whispered, loud enough for her savior to listen to.

"H-Hey now, no need for such things... are you alright?"

With tears in the corners of the her barely-covered golden eyes, she grabs hold of Jae-Hwa's hand, griping it tightly with amazing strength. "Not yet, that slime is not dead yet!"

Well, I know that much, but it seems to be quiet for now. In actuality, the monster is intimidated enough to not attack for some time, perhaps using whatever intelligence it contains to make up a strategy. "Leave it for now, I am more worried about you." She stated as one of her hands slowly rubbed her still trembling legs and the other infiltrated itself on the the red hair, nearing the ears that had become droopy with sadness.

"I don't matter, as long as the monsters continue to live, my life will never matter. Because I was weak, my friends died. I wasn't able to protect any of them, so please just leave me."

Jae-Hwo knew that voice. Quiet and losing hope, she was almost sure that if she were to move the hands from the little girl's eyes, they would be pratically dead, progressively losing hope. She was like that once, in the darkest of her times when none seemed to care about her, not even ask about her well-being.

Turning her body to be on top of the little girl's, a smile is brought upon her mouth, fake even, but that much would be enough for the current situation. "I cannot do that. It would be a shame to lose a beauty like yourself. I'm Cho Jae-Hwa, you are?"

"Marni." It was in a tiny voice, she could barely hear it, but finally, finally she was able to perfectly look at her golden gems for eyes, accompanied by the tiniest smile that filled her with hope and a slight sense of obssession.

Now that's done, I need to deal with that slime. As her thoughts were being organized, a droplet of sweat fell down her forehead as several mushy slaps resonated inside the walls. With a nervous grin, Jae-Hwa looked behind their laying bodies, a giggle or two being the only reaction she could muster as now there were two slimes bouncing on the walls and floor instead of just one. "You're kidding me, right?"

Marni glanced through her arm, pupils constricting and eyes widening while struggling to move around. "H-Here." Only fear stood in the girl's eyes, but she still had the courage in her to present a worn-down knife that even now contained some sharpness to its blade. "Kill them with this. Please, hurry! Before it's too late! With just your fists, it will be impossible!"

"E-Even if you tell me that, I never tried to kill anything. I can't just do it like that."

The little beastgirl pushed it onto her hands, a slight blue glow like the ones illuminating the area appear in her pupils and her body stiffens, almost performing creaking sounds if it was possible with her bones.

"If you want to keep on living, you have no other choice." 

Seconds after she had given her knife, a status panel appeared in front of Jae-Hwo's eyes, now being updated with her current information.

—STATUS——————————————

PLAYER NAME: CHO JAE-HWA // LEVEL: 0

BLESSING: none

TITLE: none

HEALTH: 85/100

DAMAGE: 9 (+4) // DEFENSE: 10 // ENERGY: 20/20

WEAPON: Damaged Knife

ARMOR: Simple Uniform

SKILLS: Sword Against Strength (5E)

CREDITS: 0

—NEW SKILL—————————————

Skill NAME: Sword Against Strength

Energy Required: 5 Energy

Description: Obtain more strength for a short time, dealing more damage against your enemy.

Effects: +5 Damage for 1 Minute

Be it the way Marni's words sound or the fact that she was basically forcing someone who never once held a weapon in her life to kill, her actions seemed to be controlled to some extent, forcing herself and others to rush a task in order to achieve something.

Jae-Hwa looked with concern to her new weapon, her hand trembling as she pictured the actions she must take. Be it as it may, controlled or not, Marni had some harsh truth in her words and sooner or later there would come a time where she would need to fight. In this situation where life or death mattered, all she could do was swing her blade.

Looking once again to her behind, one of the slimes bounced to a wall without wasting time, using the momentum and its body as a trampoline to hit her upper body. This time it hits her right shoulder, the next enemy follows it from below and clings itself to her leg, sending a burning sensation all over her body.

Concerned, Jae-Hwa looks at her remaining health, widening her eyes with surprise and fear, a little amount of rage mixed within.

HEALTH: 72/100

More than a fourth of her health had gone by and with time it seemed to be decreasing little by little as it kept clinging to her. Once again her hands trembled, the more she wanted to run away, the more her fingers trembled, ready to drop her knife, however she was not able to afford such thing or else she would be long gone. Although they were unable to communicate, she knew that the slimes wouldn't stop just because of that.

"Stop munching on me, you damn monster!" Holding her knife on top of the blue blob's head, if even such thing existed, Jae-Hwa thrusts downward with all her strength, again and again, avoiding herself and repeating the movements in an almost lunatic state, erasing all the surroundings from her perspective and only focusing on her current target.

Moments after, the small mucous monster melts most of its body and crawls away from her leg, two status windows appearing this time.

—ENEMY———————————————

ENEMY NAME: SLIME

ENEMY HEALTH: 9/20

—ENEMY———————————————

ENEMY NAME: SLIME

ENEMY HEALTH: 15/20

There is no other choice. I need to do this, no matter how hard it becomes. Tears run down her eyes along with several droplets of sweat from her forehead. It has been quite some time since she moved so much, after all.

Just this knife alone won't do much against two of them, they can easily knock me out if they want to. Upon thinking, she remembered the notice she had received earlier with informations about a new skill she had obtained. Although five more damage did not seem to be much, it would be enough for this situation, especially considering she did not encounter herself in a place of many choices.

"Sword against Strength!" She yelled the words, echoing in the enclosed space. A few awkward seconds pass and nothing seemed to happen, no notice panel, no sound besides herself and her enemies, nothing. As the slime with higher health jumps once again, this time aiming to her head, Jae-Hwa stretches her arms, pointing the tip of her blade to the enemy's round red orb and a surge of strength fills her spirit.

Time seemed to slow down, the movements of her enemy seemed predictable and her breath became shallow. Orange steam seemed to come out of her skin, even her weapon seemed to have a faint orange glow as it pierced most of the monster's orb. Her long white hair swayed with invisible wind as she performed her attack, the lightness of her feet gave her a strange feeling enough to almost defy gravity.

DAMAGE: 14 (+9)

ENEMY HEALTH: 4/20

"So this is a skill. I just needed to attack first to activate it!" Amidst her fascination, both slimes attempted to attack her, both aiming for her chest in hopes of causing greater damage. With her gaze fixated, her hand carries the inexistent wind itself, dimnishing their speed slightly. From the left side of her body, Cho Jae-Hwa inhales deeply, her eyes becoming tinted with a deep orange light as she swipes to the other corner of the corridor as fast as she possibly can manage with her frail-looking limbs.

One strike seemed to be enough to finish the rest of both slimes' health, completely desintegrating the orb in the center of their bodies. These beings contract and explode into multiple particles of dust and light of different colors, leaving a tiny vial that contained some of their secretions. A random gust of wind that felt out of place brings Jae-Hwa to normal after making her knife stuck between some of the bricks in the wall.

—CONGRATULATIONS————————

+ 10 EXP

DROPPED ITEM: Slime Mucus

"I guess even items need to exist, no matter how unreasonable it is." She muttered while analysing the small vial that soon desintegrates without notice. Surprised, she turns to Marni, who is now seated, looking at her with a gentle smile.

"It went to your inventory. It automatically goes there upon picking it up."

"Huh, how useful... Wait! That's not the problem here!" Now that she was no longer feeling the pressure of life, every emotion came to her about what should not have happened. "What happened to you? You suddenly went all strange and—"

"But you wouldn't have saved us otherwise." A certain sense of disgust dawned on her, something Jae-Hwa had never felt when she heard those words.

"And you think that makes it okay to force someone to kill!? I was a normal nobody with a peaceful life until today, you think what I did was easy!?" A huge headache made Jae-Hwa grunt with pain and rage, almost bursting a vein if it such an easy thing to do.

"It sure looked like it. You did it somehow, did you not?"

"That's called adrenaline, survival instinct, whatever! Of course I wouldn't want to die, but you could have been nicer about it!"

The beastgirl fills her expressions with sadness, turning her beastial features droopy, apologizing to her savior. "My apologies... more than you, I didn't want to die, even though I deserve it."

With a sigh she presses the front of her forehead, as if to remove the mental pain she had, attempting to not place her anger on the child.

"I... will let it slide for now. As long as you don't attempt to do it again." The little girl nods at this answer, swaying her tail left-to-right slowly. The girl looked no more than thirteen years old, to Jae-Hwa she was only able to see her younger sister that still resided in their parent's home, but an uneasy feeling made her want to part ways as soon as possible.

Maybe saving her was a mistake, after all. But then I would maybe not have the courage to fight if something like this happened. She thought to herself just before asking Marni the reason to be here, attacked by a slime that with her grip strength, she would surely be able to easily beat.

"I joined with some friends in our settlement to go hunt." She starts to vent, hiding her face with her own fluffy tail.

"We heard that there is this gigantic creature that guards a gate to 'Freedom' or whatever that is. We were somewhat strong, so we thought that if we were able to defeat it then maybe we would be able to get out of this slime-filled prison, but..."

She makes a slight pause to catch her breath and clean little tears that made her sobs reverberate through the many cracks on the bricks.

"When we got there, it was not what we thought. As soon as we entered its room, Rodric— one of my friends and our group's healer died... as soon as he put his foot inside of the room, he just vanished. Then his twin, our other frontline besides me was swarmed by a bunch of strange attacks and disappeared in a flash. Next was supposed to be me, I was already seeing the lights, but Martha used her magic to get me out of there... I was still hit but survived, meanwhile all of them are dead because I just stood there like the useless idiot that I am!"

Jae-Hwa attempted to frantically stop her crying, patting her head and singing tiny lullabies.

"Is... there any way I can help? Maybe I can still find Martha." Marni pushes her away from her embrance, with disgust for herself in her eyes.

"It's impossible. I don't remember where that monster was, not even how it looked like. Not only that, but little by little I am forgetting more about my life. Can you believe someone who doesn't even remember their own mother's face?"

Jae-Hwa could not imagine how it felt, not even a bit of it she was able to feel, not like she had any experience with something like that. However, the pain in her face was something one could not unsee. The tears have long dried and became bags of despair in her eyes, the golden in them seemed to fade, even an aura of despair seemed to loom around her.

Jae-Hwa did not have a path to walk yet, even if she wanted to go alone, she did not know what there was to do or even where to go, but with a goal it would become somewhat easier and surely she could avoid the hours without end of looking at a blank space.

She was still angry at Marni, obviously it is not something one can just evade from their hearts, but she would have more demerits being a stray than just looking for whatever remained of her friends. She swallows her emotions, her fear and feelings of weakness about herself, keeping only the fact that this was her new reality. There was no game, the system seemed to be only something that was created for quality-of-life improvement.

"I will help you, just tell me what I have to do for now. In exchange, you will teach me what I need to survive. Deal?"

"I don't know if I will be of much help, but if you are that willing." Marni presents her hand, as if to ask for help to get up. Instinctively, Jae-Hwa does her wishes and takes the opportunity to feel the greateness of her fluffy ears.

"I believe it will be easier for you if it becomes a quest, at least you will be able to keep track on things." As she finishes her words, her fingers start to tap on invisible spaces, possibly on her status panel. Moments after a new notice panel appears in front of Jae-Hwa.

—MAIN QUEST————————————

QUEST NAME: Forgotten Bonds

DESCRIPTION: Marni is slowly losing her memories, perhaps soon she will lose every single one of them. She does not want to forget, however there is no clues on how to stop her memories from leaving. Perhaps if you defeated the beast that did this to her, you would be able to stop it... maybe.

OBJECTIVE(S): Find information about the giant beast.

This much will not help me finding it, but as long as she helps me become strong, it should be enough. While Marni's eyes are still filled with slight despair and sadness, she slowly moves to the front of a giant crack at the end of the wall.

"Originally I meant to flee from here, but the slime stopped me... and I panicked. If you go back and continue north, you will find a settlement. I will wait there for you."

"Can't I go with you?"

"Even for you it might be too small and if the guards find someone they do not know through there, then they might attack you instinctively."

Finally the little beast girl runs away inside the crack, leaving Cho Jae-Hwa alone in the dead-end corridor. Tracing back her steps, only now she noticed that besides the room she was in, there were a thousand more, maybe even more than that to the west and east. There were also fewer people now sleeping and some were even starting to wake up. Amidst all this, she could not stop wondering about who Marni was.

She had that strange reaction to force me to fight, not only that but she was way stronger than me. I even searched around in the panels and I didn't find a way to add new quests, only check them... Just who is she?

—CURRENT STATS——————————

PLAYER NAME: CHO JAE-HWA // LEVEL: 0

BLESSING: none

TITLE: none

HEALTH: 67/100

DAMAGE: 9 (+4) // DEFENSE: 10 // ENERGY: 15/20

WEAPON: Damaged Knife

ARMOR: Simple Uniform

SKILLS: Sword Against Strength (5E)

CREDITS: 0