"Why would the System be against us?" the Limiter asked.

  I worked through potential keys for her Encryption, dismissing a million in a single blink. It was a process I fed in the background, turning my greater awareness away from it. The question was an...unfortunate one. My temper, I realized, had gotten ahead of me, and now I had to explain something that could have no explanation.

  "You recall what I said about Limiters?" I proffered instead, though I gritted my teeth to speak the word. There were spells to listen very far indeed. While that was unlikely to be available at the level range most Raiders were likely at, it was not impossible.

  She nodded. "...But you said this has never happened before. Haven't there been other--"

  "Correct. Every raid, there are Limiters."

  "So, what's special this time?" she questioned. The wind was picking up again, and clouds were beginning to crowd the sun, reducing the gleam of the bright white snow.

  I was what was special, but I could not tell her this. I, Cato Surtr, the Firstborn, the Son that had not escaped, the greatest power that never was. My Parent granted me opportunity even while it sought to strangle me and banish me to despair.

  "I do not know." I said instead, a lie that I exhaled as easily as I might perform simple addition.

  Despite this, she squinted at me, angling her head so she turned her single eye upon me, muddy-brown and baleful. "You sure?" she asked, and there was something waspish in her voice.

  My eyebrows soared upward, and I sneered. "Pardon? Are you intending to imply something, ridiculous creature? The moment that I have not an answer, that there must be some greater malice at work?"

  She was, of course, correct. That she would so abruptly grasp that might be a possibility, when on every prior occasion she had accepted my dictation without question, was unexpected. And unwelcome.

  She hesitated, and then shrugged. She scratched at her chin. "So, to recap, we don't have supplies, we're slowly freezing and starving to death, I have an infection turning me into a people-eating shadow knight, that same shadow-knight will chase us as soon as night falls, and the...System? Is the System what runs the game?"

  "Cease your infernal shrugging. It is the sign of a weaker mind. Speak your thoughts, do not force me to assume." I paused, but added, with some terse reluctance," Correct."

  "The System is trying to kill us, which it's never done before. Have I missed anything?"

  I clicked my tongue. "The entire manner of repairing your infection is as unfortunate as all of that combined."

  "Shit, really?"

  "There is a spell in this game that curses the speaker for obscenities. It makes you expel spiders. I shall take great joy in finding a single-use scroll and inflicting it upon you."

  "You told me to curse earlier," she said. Then, she grinned at me, all teeth.

  I recoiled from the gesture, my lip curling. "Refrain from employing that expression against me. I did not tell you to swear, I told you to be naturally irritating."

  "Yeah, and you find my swearing irritating, and we both fuckin' know it," she said. "I've known you for a day and figured that out."

  She suddenly stopped, and I made a frustrated, strangled hiss before I could restrain it. "We are on a time limit, you flailing menace, cease stopping constantly and walk."

  "I just got a quest," she said, slow.

  I snapped my head around. "Keep moving," I told her. "And explain, immediately."

  "Told me to ‘Spare Your Stalker,’" she said, but she began to move forward. "So...what happens if we fail a third quest?"

  Stalker? The Herald? No, if it was that, it would have said so. I swept my awareness out into the soulcode. Abandoning my work at the Limiter's encryption, I sought whatever soul might be following in our footsteps.

  "Divine retribution," I said, lengthening my stride in my agitation. She struggled to keep up, panting as she picked up the pace. "The external may briefly become internal, cast in the Raid's lore as ‘godly interference,’ and there is very little chance that we would survive it."

  "Cool. Love that for us," she said. "Side note, there's nothing but snow for fuckin' miles, and I haven't seen anyone."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "I am keenly aware, Paladin." Further and further I went, until--there. A collection of variables. They did not align with the surrounding code that defined the snow. They became aware of my notice and attempted to evade it, slithering away before I could grasp them and break them open.

  It mattered little, for I recognized it immediately.

  The Monster Hunter.

  Somehow, the worthless wastrel had survived.

  I walked, swift and sure. We were well ahead, but not that far ahead, and I had ceased speaking entirely. The flesh requirements of air for speech and increased exercise were sufficient enough that I did not bother. I did this, even though I much preferred sound to silence. It was a preference I did not care for, and yet could not deny. The fact that I was forced into being silent and disliking that I was silent was something I resented. I understood, of course, where the issue lay, though I knew not how to repair it. I had well enough of quiet--thousands of years of it, drowning in my own thought patterns. Lecturing the little moron was preferable to falling back into that hellish home. Exasperatingly, the woman herself seemed comfortable enough with it, content to puff alongside me as we went.

  She lagged. An hour passed, and then another, and I found myself counting the microseconds. Slower and slower her progress became. She had never told me when the third Exhaustion stack had occurred, but we were clearly well past that point.

  The Monster Hunter was beginning to gain upon us surely, as my stride was forced to slow to match the woman's. She grunted like a pig that had been stuck, a low noise that agitated the ear.

  Despite the fact that I keenly felt the necessity of speed, for a wide multitude of reasons, I slowed, looking at her.

  There was an answer here, and I did not care for it. "How many exhaustion stacks?" I asked.

  Her head was low, in the way of working animals that were dragging a heavy load, and her eye rolled to look at me. "...Twenty-three. They're stacking...pretty fast."

  "I do not have time for this," I snapped. "Do you not have something to remove your debuffs?" It was a gamble--not all healers did. Paladins were usually healers that buffed, not dispelled, though there was always the distinct possibility. It would likely be several more levels before we could determine her specific type. Yet, there was a chance, albeit small, that she possessed something now.

  "No," she said. "One was just heal, I think? The other was vague but I think it’s what allowed me to make the big shovel.’"

  I could try to remove her Exhaustion stacks with Glitchlight--but that would not be a quick process. I would have to do what I had done to heal her earlier. That had been a careful reconstruction of her soulcode from my databanks, layered over her in very precise ways, so as to coax her encrypted soulcode to accept the outside interference. If I had access--but I did not, and there was no point in lamenting my exclusion from directly interfering with her soulcode--it would be the first thing I would fix. Something to be done when I could turn the whole of my attention to it on the sleds.

  The answer to my predicament was rapidly taking shape, and I did not care for it. The idea of having to deal with fleshy heat, sticking and sickly warm, was repellent.

  I gritted my jaw. It needed to be done. I could move far faster than she could now--I had been capable of it earlier still, but rather she attempted it than force myself to do something that I found sickening.

  "Come here," I snapped.

  She blinked at me and cocked her head, stretching her burn scars. "You gonna use Glitchlight?"

  "I cannot," I said, without expounding further. "I will instead do something odious, but I cannot see another way to remedy it."

  "...Is that a fancy way of saying ‘murder me?’" she asked, squinting.

  "If I could have done that, I would have the moment I laid eyes upon you." I sneered. "Alas, that is not an option within my grasp. No, I will not allow you collapsing to be the reason for our demise. Take off your snowshoes.

  Her squinting intensified. "I can't walk without those."

  "Obviously," I said. "Do you have any further nonsensical commentary?"

  She didn't respond, but leaned down, removing the snowshoes. I flicked two fingers downward, and the pair disappeared in a flash of purple-blue light. She got up and struggled towards me. I went to meet her, turning so my back was towards her. After a pause, I crouched. The demeaning nature of it made me grit my teeth so strongly that they might have cracked. It needed to be done. It was the simplest, most straightforward answer to my predicament.

  "...Piggyback. Really?" she asked.

  "This is humiliating enough as it is, fool. Do not make me regret this more than I already do."

  She reached for my shoulders, pulling herself up. Her fingers dug into my muscle. I hooked my arms beneath her knees, pulling her thighs forward until she sat right above my hips. It was disgusting, to be frank, the meat of her a hot weight. She dropped her hands, clasping them together and anchoring them against my chest. I just managed to stop the shudder of revulsion. She hooked her chin over my shoulder, my hair whipping around her head. The exhaling breath in my ear made me cringe, in spite of my control just a few microseconds earlier.

  "Sorry," she said, adjusting her head so it lay pointed away from me, cheek down against my shoulder bone, her own hair brushing against my ears. Of course she had noticed that moment of weakness.

  I snapped two fingers down again, still holding the woman, paying in blood to adjust the design of my snowshoes. My heads-up display informed me my health was now 32/45. A worthy use, for the shoes were now narrower and shorter. I rose, a single, fluid motion, and began to run. I sank in the snow more than I would have liked, but my legs and stride outpaced the frozen ground's desire to devour my boots. She bounced on my back, her shovel clanging against her chainmail and half-plate.

  "...Thanks, White-hair," she said.

  "I have made you aware of my opinion on your ludicrous attempts to express a gratitude that you do not truly feel, so grant me the gift of your silence."

  I may hate the quiet more than I despised her. However, that was when I was not forced to suffer her voice right next to my ear, as I bore the horror of actually carting her, like I was some common domesticated animal.

  She did not speak further, and this time, I was glad of it.