He’d give it if I required sustenance? Did this man not eat?

  Cato, who I might’ve better called Long-legs instead of White-hair, was rapidly walking away from me. He was somehow making this whole waddling-on-snowshoes thing look really elegant, which seemed impossible.

  I trudged after him, struggling to keep up. I was 5’5”, in good ol’ freedom units, as the joke had been, and Cato was 6’3” or 6’4”,by my reckoning. Solidly in the “real tall” category of life. The wind was beginning to pick up again, causing snowflakes to dance against the top layer, making it almost look like we were walking through mist. I pulled the hood over my head.

  The entire way the man held and moved himself was odd. There was a certain practiced precision to it, the sort that implied staggering amounts of money. Or at least, in my time period, it would imply staggering amounts of money.

  But beyond “highly educated” and “nose permanently lodged in the sun’s taint,” I didn’t know anything about the man. If he’d come from money, how had he ended up here? The vague way that Cato had described this Resurrection Raid, I couldn’t imagine it was the sort of risk anyone with a lot to lose would be keen on signing up for.

  I was distracting myself. From my tits being nearly frozen off, and from the cramping emptiness of my stomach. I was thirsty, too. Though now that I thought about it, I was walking on snow. As I waddled after Cato in this big, great, frozen expanse, I reached down, scooped some of the snow, and shoved it in my mouth. I winced at the feeling of it against my teeth, but the water melting down my throat eased the rawness. I did it a few more times as we walked. My armor was getting chillier by the minute. This was, overall, definitely one of my most miserable experiences.

  But most of all, I was distracting myself from the inn collapsing into dust behind me, the Herald that was chasing us, and the fact I was apparently turning into a Herald. The black infection on my chest hadn’t hurt until I’d stripped. Doing that had been a surreal experience. Kudos to the man, though, he’d not given a hint of the leer. He’d looked more disgusted than anything else.

  That might just be because the man hated people. I had a strong suspicion that I was not special or unique in his disdain for me. He had the bearing of a guy who found the whole of the world to be irritating in the extreme.

  I was avoiding it again. I took a shaky breath. I wasn’t a coward. Stupid, sure, but all brave men were stupid.

  That infection hurt, now that I knew about it. Or, well, it made its presence known. It throbbed, like a second heart, and I resisted the urge to press down on the armor. Don’t touch it, White-hair had said. While I didn’t like this man whatsoever, when it came to survival, he clearly had a keen interest in it.

  Don’t believe it’ll kill you. That was also easier said than done. Cato had also said that if I just let him lie to me and stopped being stubborn about shit, it’d make that whole bit more manageable.

  Yeah. No way I was letting that happen. I trudged faster, managing to catch up with the man--more out of grit determination than any real energy.

  I looked up at him. He was decidedly not looking at me, head straight ahead, lips pressed together. I was kind of surprised he hadn’t already started talking. He liked talking, with how many words he spouted at me in a single sentence. Efficiency was clearly not a favorite virtue.

  “So, did you eat already?” I asked.

  Those gold eyes flicked down in my direction. His lip curled. The man perpetually looked like he was smelling the nastiest shits known to man. Man, my cat would’ve loved him. Orange Kitty had a soft spot for those who hated him, and a propensity to somehow miss his litterbox every single time. My heart panged, but I kicked the sadness in its sad-ribs.

  I waited, huffing to keep up with Cato’s stride, while the man took his sweet time to respond.

  “Yes, I partook of food earlier,” he said, curt. As he walked, he extended a hand, and then his brow furrowed. The glitchy light I’d seen him use regularly was back, though this time it flickered, and then vanished. His jaw tensed, and his eyes narrowed. He splayed his fingers. The glitch reappeared, then vanished. Blood slowly trailed out of one nostril.

  “That’s not…great?” I said.

  Cato sneered. “Wonderful observation--truly, the most perceptive woman of the era. No, it is not great. The Gli…the magic is declining to be compliant.”

  “Were you about to call it Glitch? It’s clearly a glitch.” I rubbed at my jaw. The wind was making it difficult to feel my skin.

  He shot me a look so sharp it could’ve cut. Then, he pulled an honest to god handkerchief out of his inner coat and dabbed at the skin below his nose with it, wiping the blood away. It was a very elaborate-looking handkerchief, starch-white, with fine, golden embroidery.

  Mother of God, two thousand years later, and they still had handkerchiefs. Then again, we were clearly in some sort of medieval knockoff. It probably would’ve been best not to read into it too much.

  “A Glitch? Truly odd phrasing on your part. Yes, I am attempting Glitchwork. Warlocks are one of the few classes in the game who can attempt to interact with it.” His response was unusually curt, and his nose was climbing into the air again.

  “Okay,” I said, and took a few deep breaths. The air fogged in front of me. Shit, was it cold. I had a feeling I was doomed to think that particular thought about a thousand times in the near future. “So, about that food--”

  “That is the furthest extent of your reply?” His nose was pointing back towards the earth, but this time it was so he could stare down it at me, glowering at me through spectacles.

  “…Yeah? Doesn’t mean anything to me.” My stomach twisted and growled.

  “It does not mean anything to you?” he said, “What--your memory cannot be so completely decayed. Are you so wholly without a knowledge that is as fundamental as the concept of the sun rising?”

  “I mean, I know what glitches are,” I said. “The computer can’t handle something, and it spazzes.” I wiggled my fingers for effect.

  Cato’s eyes did not quite bug out of his skull, but his head reared back like I’d slapped him. “What is Glitchlight, Paladin?” he demanded, “You talk of the archaic definition of the term, what Glitchlight was named after, not what it is.”

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  I pulled my cloak tighter and shrugged. My stomach gurgled again. Fuck, I was getting tired. Lack of energy from no food was getting to me.

  “Do not shrug at me,” Cato said, like the prickly cactus he was. It was a wonder I couldn’t see the thorns poking through his skin. “This--how are you so without…? Then again, you did not seem to recall the Resurrection Raid. Glitchlight is…” His mouth twisted into some feeling I couldn’t name. “Glitchlight is how the entirety of this is possible. It is the reason for the Countless Dead, the birth of the System, interspatial travel, the creation of soulcode, the base of the Resurrection Raid, and the very substance which Artificial Intelligences are made of.”

  “…Right.” I nodded. So, it was some futuristic stuff that had been invented long after my death that was probably responsible for me being in this game. Cool. I probably needed to know a lot about it, because Cato used it. However, it also wasn’t directly relevant to our problems right this moment, so it was a conversation that could happen later. “So, where are we going?”

  Cato opened his mouth, and it remained that way for a moment. I could see the little hamster wheels spinning behind those gold eyes of his. When he spoke, it was slow, instead of the usual, snapping rapid-fire. “There are several great Cities, but the most magnificent and perpetually doomed is the city of New Sins.”

  New Sins, huh? Wasn’t exactly filling me with confidence as to what I was going to find there.

  “Doomed?” I said, still huffing hard. “If it’s doomed, why are we going?”

  “Because the imbecile I am forced to travel with decided to duel a Herald, and had the unlucky grace of being spared, only so that she might turn into a Herald herself.”

  I perked up a bit, at that. “Wait, so there is something there that stops that?”

  Cato let out one of his harsh, snapping laughs. “Yes, though I would warn you against an excess of joy. The cure is neither simple nor easily obtained. It merely exists, and it challenges the desperate that are in need of it.”

  “We’ll get it,” I said, firm. Couldn’t allow myself to think otherwise--especially with this whole Conviction thing hanging over my head.

  “I shall leave the hoping to you,” the man said, flicking a hand at me in dismissal. “Such insistence on useless feeling is entirely within the realm of your disposition and class. I shall adhere to my technical precision.”

  I waved a hand back, attempting to get his flick just right. By the scathing glare I earned in return, it was either right on the money or entirely beneath his notice. Probably both, actually. “I don’t know why you’d want me to be hopeless. You keep lecturing on Conviction.”

  “I war between my need to keep you living and my comprehensive hatred of all that you represent,” he said flatly.

  Well. At least he was honest. “Cool! So, food. I don’t have bags.”

  “I remain plagued by your astute observations,” Cato said. “I have a bag, but I forewent packing food and provisions.”

  “…Why?”

  “There was supposed to be some manner of time to acquire them at that inn. It would have sold them to us, had we not dueled with Pinewolves, and by the time we had recovered, the Quest’s internal timer triggered.”

  “Wait.” I looked around us. We were in the depth of the wilderness. Far behind us was a forest, filled with tall pines and wolves of those self-same trees. In front of us lay only snow, and rolling hills, though I thought I saw some distant greenery. Miles and miles of tundra. “We have nothing?”

  “Repetition will not bring about the answer you seek,” Cato said in a tart, pissy manner. “Yes, we are utterly without provisions, in the middle of a frozen tundra.”

  “But you said…” I trailed off. “That glitch stuff. You were trying to make food. Why didn’t it work?”

  “You expect me to explain the intricacies of Glitchlight to a woman devoid of comprehension as to its nature not three minutes prior? Why should I bother wasting my time?”

  A gust of wind nearly blew my hood off, and I yanked it down. My stomach was getting louder with its complaints. Cato, somehow, looked entirely unaffected by what was happening, his hair whipping freely in the wind.

  “You like talking,” I said.

  “I like talking?” The man demanded. “And what little tidbit of your ever-so-lauded perception drew you to this particular conclusion?”

  “You say shit like that,” I pointed out. “Only someone who really likes words and his own voice talks like that.”

  “That, you uneducated wretch, is a sign of a impressive and vast vernacular. I am precise with my words--with my exact intent, connotation, and meaning. I do not speak only to hear the sound of my speech. I like words insomuch as they are the most efficient form of communication that man has access to.”

  I nodded. “Sure. So, why can’t you make food?”

  “I did not agree to enlighten you at any point during my correction of your ridiculous assumptions,” Cato hissed. He stalked faster.

  I waddled harder to keep up. “I mean, what else is there to do?”

  “Remain silent so I do not have to suffer your agitating voice, the repulsive manner of your speech, and the ridiculousness of your thoughts,” he said.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that I talk,” I pointed out.

  “Have you not yet grasped that I despise you? How can I make this more clear to you?”

  “No, I got that. But we’re stuck,” I said. “I don’t like you either, White-hair. But starving to death is boring business.” So yap, Yap-man. I left that part out. I’m sure he was going to blow a gasket at me calling him White-hair. Giving him an order and a new nickname would probably cause him to detonate, and then I’d really be shit out of luck.

  “You will cease this ridiculous business of calling me “White-hair”, or I will give into the desire to abandon you out here in the cruelties of the weather.”

  I nodded at him. Sure, buddy. If he could’ve done that, he would’ve done so already, I had no doubt.

  He was still talking, because despite his earlier denial, he was, in fact, a Yap-man. “Furthermore, do you approach everything in the entirety of your life with blase disregard?” he said. “Have you neither sense nor capacity to grasp the magnitude of what occurs?”

  I almost smiled. This felt familiar to me, in a way. I think I’d been accused of this before, by people I had once cared about. My smile dropped. It probably hadn’t been as fun a conversation, then.

  “I cried last night,” I pointed out.

  “About something ridiculous and undetermined--most that enter the Resurrection Raid are far better off than they were, compared to their miserable little hovels and piggish lives once spent sniffing for scraps. No doubt you were of that exact breed. Whatever you exchanged your soul for likely exalted the pathetic blood relations you left behind. There is nothing to mourn there. Yet when it comes to matters of survival, you cackle and act with a complete lack of care.”

  “I didn’t have a contract,” I said, flat. “Do you not have family?”

  He cocked an eyebrow and sniffed. “The inherent desire of a parent is a selfish continuation of themselves. Siblings are competition for resources. Both are enemies of a different kind.”

  Holy shit. That explained a lot. I opened my mouth, then closed it. “Wow,” I finally said. “Alrighty, then.”

  “It is irrelevant,” he said, shooting me a narrow-eyed glare. “In fact, it supports my conclusion that your priorities and approach are incoherent.”

  I sighed. “What’s the point?”

  Despite the depth of the cold wind, I saw that Cato’s skin was flushing with increasing wrath. “How entirely imprecise. What is the point of what? Sense or intelligence? The fact you must inquire reveals the depth of your lack.”

  “Getting upset,” I said. “Not gonna fix it, is it?”

  Cato didn’t respond to that, for a bit, which surprised me. The man always seemed to be quick-witted, if verbose about it. We trudged in silence for a little bit, struggling our way up a small hill. The wind was briefly blocked, at least.

  “I presume you have a level?” he asked.

  I blinked. “A what now?”