“YOU DID WHAT?!” Asiel screamed, grabbing me by the ear.

  “I adopted a girl from slavery,” I repeated, scrabbling for my ear.

  “Start from the beginning,” she groaned.

  The elf girl lay on a bed in Asiel’s room—a large five-bed apartment she’d been renting out for her meeting. The apartment was the largest in the city, and by a wide margin. Apparently Asiel was, among other things, stupidly wealthy.

  I started. “So I heard some shouting—”

  She groaned, filling the rest in herself. “And you went right after her, did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then you gave him all your money so that you’d get this girl freed, is that right?”

  I nodded, face flush in embarrassment.

  “Idiot,” Asiel hissed. “You just let a greedy man turn a two thousand percent profit. He’ll buy more slaves tomorrow and the industry is just going to keep on going.”

  I cleared my throat. “Couldn’t you do something about it? You’re strong enough.”

  “Actually, I’m not,” Asiel snapped. “Every day the NPCs respawn and go through another day’s labor. Even if I obliterated this entire town it would reappear the next day. The only way to keep an Npcs from respawning is to keep it alive and busy. As far as I can tell, there’s an infinite number of slave Npcs.

  I sighed. “They just seem so sad.”

  “They’re coded to be,” Asiel grunted. “The best thing you can do is ignore them and focus on the living breathing human beings in front of you.”

  “So, can you help her?”

  She grabbed the elf girl’s lifeless arms, fidgeting with the bands clasped around them. Asiel let out a snort. “This is a pretty strong spell for the starter area.”

  “Spell?” I asked.

  “Ability,” Asiel said. “Same thing, really. Spells are just more sinister in nature. If you start coughing blood, it’s probably a spell.”

  She pressed her hands on either side of her cuffs, then pushed. There was a sparking—almost acidic flair of mana and the metal split in half, clanking against the floor.

  Asiel grabbed the pieces, then squeezed until the metal. “That slaver placed spells of weakness, fever, and poison into those cuffs. He probably meant to get her killed, so she’d respawn back at his place. Not a bad business model, if you don’t have much issue with pesky things like morals.”

  Asiel brushed the elf girl’s blond hair out of the way, focusing her attention on a massive silver band around her neck. “That’s going to be a lot more of an issue.”

  “Why?”

  She frowned, glancing from the corner of her eye. “There are spells on this one, but it’s the collar itself that's the issue. One this tight would keep the girl from swallowing much and must make speaking nightmarishly painful. Thanks to the spells, if I wanted to break it, I’d have to kill her first.”

  The blood drained from my face. “She’s stuck with that?”

  Asiel scoffed. “You just have to break the spells before the collar, Grind.”

  Cold light swelled into the room, like rushing water, crackling around Asiel's hands. The band first shuddered, catching fire. The fire sizzled out, leaving behind a pattern of washing heat that rippled through, melting the silver into a harmless puddle across the girl’s neck.

  Immediately, the elf girl started breathing deeper, and the color returned to her otherwise pale face.

  Still, I could see hints of scarring from her neck, and there were deep rivets in the skin around her wrists.

  “Can you heal her?” I asked.

  Asiel frowned. “It’s an NPC. Those scars will reappear at the end of the day. It’s just not worth the mana.”

  “But—”

  “Look, Grind,” Asiel cut me off, with a sigh. “I know you care a lot about all this right now, but once you get more experienced, you’ll realize that there are some things—and some people—you just have to let go.”

  I slumped, nodding slowly. “But what am I supposed to do?” I glanced back at the girl, and she seemed to be doing a lot better, in Asiel’s presence. “Maybe she could stay with you, for a little while? I have a dungeon thing—”

  Asiel scoffed. “You take care of her. I’m organizing a party to fight the final boss of this entire game. I believe that takes precedence.”

  “Final boss?”

  She’d said something like that earlier.

  “I forgot to ask, how strong is it? The final boss, I mean.”

  She grinned. “Nobody knows. It doesn’t even have a name, really, so we just call it the Darkest Lord.”

  I blinked. “Why?”

  “No, no, you’re missing the joke, ” she said, smile dropping.. “You see, it's clever because it’s like a ‘Dark Lord’—which is a term for stereotypical faceless bosses—but because it's the ultimate stereotypical faceless boss we’ve started calling it—”

  I blinked.

  She huffed. “Whatever. The point is I’m going to be very busy for the next week.”

  “But I can’t take this elf girl anywhere,” I groaned. “I’m also busy.”

  “Did you accept the quest?” Asiel snapped.

  I sighed.

  She nodded. “Then that girl is your problem.”

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

  “But—”

  “No buts. I couldn’t take her even if I wanted to. She’s forced by the game to be by your side at all times. That's how companion Npc’s work. You made this mess and you’re going to clean it up.” She shrugged. “I don’t care what happens to the girl, really. I’m glad she’s somewhere safer but there’s nothing either of us can do about the current state of things, so there’s no point getting emotional about it.”

  “But I don’t even know what to do for the quest,” I whined.

  “Please,” Asiel said, rolling her eyes. “Figure it out.” She got out of her seat, jabbing a thumb toward the door.

  “I’ve got to go. Try not to burn the place down, alright?”

  Before I had the time to ask questions, the door was shut and I was alone with the sick girl utterly at a loss for the kind of mess I’d gotten myself into.

  Without much else to do, I knelt on the floor, pressing a hand against her forehead.

  It was colder now, perhaps too cold, though that could just be an elf’s natural temperature.

  Still, I didn’t feel like taking chances, so I collected piles of the blankets from nearby beds, and the closet, carefully draping them over the girl until she was buried in a three-foot mound of quality wool and silk.

  Actually, was that too many blankets?

  I took a couple off, until there were just six or seven.

  Underneath the pile, the elf girl seemed more relaxed, with steady, stable breathing.

  I was a hopeless case, wasn’t I?

  My gaze directed to the scars on her wrists.

  To call it a scar didn’t really do it justice. Her skin was raw and tender, from chafing against the chains. The skin around it was slightly discolored, with deeper surface damage from years past. The texture of the skin itself was jagged and bumpy, like sandpaper, dotted by occasional scars up where there’d been infection or swelling.

  Why’d I even bother with this?

  The elf girl wasn’t real. She was an illusion of the game, and illusion or not, I didn’t know her.

  All I really cared about was getting stronger. That was the whole point of the game, after all, and it was a process I genuinely enjoyed.

  The girl shivered, so I laid another couple blankets over.

  “I really hope I’m doing this right.”

  She burst into a spasm of twitching and pushing, clawing and pushing at the bed. It only lasted a moment, however, before she snapped back to stillness.

  “Nightmares, huh?” I asked.

  Why were these elves so different?

  The pointy ears were an elf signature, but the dense claws at the end of each finger?

  Are the elves here monsters, or more like the NPC humans?

  She looked relatively human, other than the ghostly pale skin and the ears. Were the other monsters like her? The goblins I'd fought hadn’t seemed particularly complex.

  They just ran, shouted, and attacked, in that order.

  Could any monster pick up human tendencies, or was it a skill reserved to a select few? Or was that just for quests?

  I groaned, massaging my forehead. “Enough of that. Come on Grind, Think. There’s a girl who hasn’t been outside in years. What does she need more than anything?”

  Food. Food, clothes, water, and shelter. Those were the basic things any living thing needed and more so for a little girl.

  I wandered around Asiel’s apartment, eventually stumbling into the kitchen, clean enough that I realized she’d never used it. Which was a shame too, since the kitchen was nice. It had black counters with cupboards, an old but function oven, and a microwave—

  Where is there a microwave in a medieval kitchen?

  Frowning, I checked it, cracking the door open, then shutting it.

  The microwave chimed, arrogantly proud of itself.

  There weren’t microwaves in medieval times were there?

  I squinted, opening and closing the door again.

  The microwave chimed.

  This is a world with magic and elves and dungeons that can smile and then proceed to beat the snot outta you, so a microwave shouldn’t have been that much of a shock. All part of the game.

  Even so, I couldn’t help but notice that the microwave wasn’t even plugged into anything, leaving the little cord dangling in the air.

  “This place is weird,” I muttered, checking the fridge, respectably medieval, as it wasn’t much more than an insulated cupboard.

  It was also totally empty.

  “Asiel doesn't get the groceries that often, does she?” I asked.

  In a cupboard, there were a couple loaves of bread, likely leftovers from the last owner, and Asiel kept a small bucket of apples, so at least that should be something, and there was working water too, which the girl would definitely need.

  I bundled three loaves and an apple into a towel, carrying her lunch into the bedroom.

  She stared back at me.

  “Oh!” I said, jolting.

  The elf girl stiffened.

  Idiot! Try not to give the poor girl a heart attack, would you?

  I knelt on the floor, pushing the bag of food toward her. “Hey. I’m Grind. I’m a friend.”

  Her gaze fluttered around the room, before locking back onto me.

  I smiled wide, stepping backward. “Would you like some food?”

  She shook her head, sinking back into the blankets. They really were quality blankets and the girl couldn't help but be distracted. She started kneading them with her palms, feeling the texture.

  “I got you some blankets,” I stated. “You seemed cold.”

  Her eyes flicked toward me, then back to the blankets

  Right.

  She’s scared, in a place she doesn’t recognize.

  I dimmed my smile from sociopathic friendly to warm and sincere.

  “This is the house of a friend of mine,” I said, doing my best to speak softly. “You’re safe here.”

  She shivered, blinking feverishly, pulling the blankets up to her head.

  “Elf girl?” I asked.

  She tugged the sheets over her face, and went still.

  “Getting some sleep?” I asked.

  She gave the slightest hint of nodding, and didn’t move after that.

  A bright blue notification appeared, hovering beside me.

  ~Companion of {GRIND}~

  {Unnamed}

  [10 Hp 0 Str]

  Unnamed? She’s gotta have some sort of name, doesn’t she?

  Doesn’t she?

  My hands tightened into white knuckled fists.

  I was going to get stronger.

  And then I was going to save every slave, in every place in every city forever, infinite or not, no matter how many deaths it took.

  With that, I slumped against the bed frame, arms crossed.

  It felt good to say that, but how exactly was I going to do it?

  I summoned my stats window.

  {GRIND}

  Level 4

  Rank “Uncommon”

  [ 10 Hp 5 Str]

  [ 30% AtkSp 1 Mana 3 Dur]

  So far, I was making decent progress, but the longer I spent doing nothing, the longer people suffered.

  Maybe I should start working out? Would that give me more stats?

  But that logic only worked for the tutorial, right?

  I groaned, massaging my face.

  Asiel had been right. To beat an enemy was one thing, but this entire game ran on a system of death, and that would be much harder to beat than anything I couldn’t fight.

  Still, getting the elf girl back home would be a step in the right direction.

  I glanced up at the bed.

  The blankets were bunched up and deflated, empty. The bed was empty.