Alira was thinking. Which, for starters, was a good thing. An individual’s basic functions would begin to slow down at the third threshold of Corruption, and by the fourth threshold, at eighty percent, they would no longer be capable of thought. At least that was what various studies on Corruption pointed out.

  Nothing else mattered as long as her soul wasn’t corrupted. As long as it wasn’t ‘Game Over’ at a hundred percent.

  It almost feels like I’m in some kind of time loop story where the main character didn’t have to care about dying at all.

  Except Alira technically couldn’t die, hanging at the edge of death by a thread. So long as her soul was undamaged, she could walk away even after death caught her again and again.

  She likely had ‘died’ more than a couple of times in the lake before she got here—wherever here was. But one thing was for sure: this wasn’t Earth because she didn’t stay dead. All the ‘deaths’ were either cleanly handled by Cion or had been transferred to a few other men who ‘deal with them’ if he couldn’t keep up.

  She tried not to think about it, which wasn’t so easy when all she had to herself were wandering thoughts. She promptly shifted most of her attention to the current situation. Most likely, she was in a coma. The last time she’d used Xia’s flames to its minimum, she was out for half a day. This time, she’d basically abused it without a care.

  So, this’s just my subconscious?

  Amid her ceaseless thoughts, the faint noise she thought was just a fragment of her imagination gradually got louder until it caught her attention.

  Beep. Beep. B-Beep.

  A beeping noise that occasionally skipped a few beats. It sounded like those machines and monitors found in a hospital. As the noise got clearer, Alira also noticed herself regaining her sense of smell. A crisp, clean scent of disinfectants and chemicals. Also reminiscent of hospitals.

  Did I actually die? Alira couldn’t help questioning the familiarity creeping up her senses. No, it can’t be. The duke’s Bind wasn’t broken yet, and he had more than enough people to keep her alive, to her dismay.

  Death wasn’t her plan, at least not when she was in the lake. Alira winced at her thought, or rather, she imagined herself wincing. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t ready to leave Staywes just yet. Not before she had made up to Raine for all the messes he would be left behind, thanks to her screwing up the original plot for her own selfish reasons.

  It was one thing if she left before she changed anything. No one could point at her and claim that she had the responsibility to save Staywes—if anyone did, they were self-serving hypocrite whom she couldn't care less about. Things weren’t so ideal anymore now that she had shoved around too many things on her way out. Now, she was responsible for fixing them up before she left.

  Alira focused on the two senses she had. As her focus got sharper, the emptiness around her loosened. Softened. Regaining her positional and physical awareness, she could tell that she was lying down with something beneath her. There was something rougher on her, more specifically on her forehead, though the touch itself was gentler. It lasted for only a moment.

  Overlapping with the beeping noise in the background, Alira heard a few mumbled words she couldn’t make out. The voice made her feel strange. The beeping noise got faster, and she could hear her own heartbeat racing it. She gathered all her strength to crack her eyes open, but it wasn’t enough.

  She made out a blurry figure in white for a second before her eyes shut again. Having overstrained herself, she slipped away once again, losing even her thoughts.

  +++

  Alira jerked awake.

  Shit. Why didn’t the alarm ring?! I’m going to be late to lecture.

  She opened her eyes and found herself in a pitch-black room, which wasn’t entirely strange. She always made sure her room had not a flicker of light to ensure a good night’s sleep.

  She reached for her phone that should be on the desk right beside her bed. She managed to lift a finger when a bone-deep pain spread through every inch of her body.

  Pain?

  Oh, right...I’m not on Earth.

  Memories of the test and her insane decision to boil herself alive to catch a stupid deer rushed back to her.

  That was something.

  So, she was most likely back in the Academy’s clinic. Alira hoped it wouldn’t become a weekly thing. Though it was weird how the clinic was completely dark. Did they keep the windows shut to not disturb her? It was dead silent too.

  Something wasn’t quite right.

  Strength slowly returned to her limbs, though the ache didn’t really go away. Her nerves were on fire, and her muscles twisted into tight knots as she pushed herself up.

  Alira felt around to find out that she wasn’t on a soft hospital bed. Instead, some rough strings cushioned beneath her. Straw? That reminded her of the fuzzy last minutes before she blacked out. It seemed she managed to form a contract with the Loch somehow. Did it take her to wherever this was?

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Hey—” Alira begun only to cut herself short with a groan. It felt like nails were scraping their way out of her throat instead of air. What scared her more was the fact that she couldn't hear her own voice at all.

  “Ah?” She tried again. No sound. Nothing. It wasn’t that this place was quiet, but rather that she couldn’t hear anything.

  How could that be? She had expected the exhaustion and aching, but definitely not going deaf. If something was wrong with her ears, it was obviously physical damage that the Bind should have already taken care of.

  She stumbled, reaching her hand around before she caught a handful of something soft on her side. It rumbled, deep vibrations seeping into her palm along with rhythmic beats of its heart. She felt it around and confirmed that it was the Loch.

  Alira turned, glancing around in all directions. At one point, she sensed soft rays of light flashing before her. Sense, not sight. Fuck me. It seemed her vision was gone as well. If not being able to see or hear wasn’t bad enough, she had no clue where the Loch had brought her to.

  “Hey, where are we?” Alira asked.

  She felt the Loch barked out a reply. Not like she would have been able to understand the familiar even if she could hear it. Only those known as Archivists were able to communicate with Spirits and Spirits Familiars, as far as she knew from the novel.

  { Awake? }

  Alira jumped as Xia’s voice sounded out of nowhere, shattering the noiseless stillness of her world.

  “Yes!” Alira said with a bit too much enthusiasm that her dry throat couldn’t handle, ending up in a coughing fit. Xia was just a voice inside her head, so it made sense that she could still ‘hear’ him regardless.

  { Good. I’m going to sleep. }

  “W-Wait,” Alira hurriedly managed out as she was coughing. Once he went to sleep, Xia would keep the connection cut off until he woke up in a couple of hours. “What time is it?”

  { Hm? It should be about three hours past noon on your side. Anything else? }

  Alira frowned. He wasn’t usually like this—eager to leave when she was still willing to talk to him.

  “I can’t see. I can’t hear either,” Alira said, her eyes narrowed. “Do you know anything about it?”

  { No. That sucks. On the bright side, the harmonization rate had gone up to 44%. That’s a neat number, don’t you think so? Four is the representative number of death. }

  “What? Don’t lie to me,” Alira spat the moment she heard the number. She hadn’t even registered it to be surprised. Her brain just automatically jolted it down as nonsense without a thought. It took Raine two books before he got as close to the second stage. By the time he left the Academy after three years of studies, the number was still hovering just below fifty.

  { Why won’t you trust me? Have I ever lied to you, little tabby? }

  “None that I know of, but there are still a lot of things even I don’t know about,” Alira said. “I just...find it hard to believe. It’s not supposed to go up that fast. That’s not how the artifact works as I know it.”

  Xia hummed.

  { It just means we’re quite harmonious, no? }

  Alira sighed. From his tone, she understood that he was back in his teasing mood. Anything he’d say from now on wouldn’t be useful anymore. She had to figure it out herself. Only after she figured out herself first, or whatever was wrong with her current stage.

  “Hey,” Alira turned to the medium-sized plush toy she had been fondling. “Take us back to the forest.”

  While she couldn’t understand the Loch, it could, as all Spirits did, understand her perfectly. So when it got up to slam its hoof against the ground, she knew it meant it.

  “Behave. I didn’t burn your home down, did I?” Alira patted down its body. “But you should now know that I could. At. Any. Time.” She wasn’t trying to threaten it, only stating it as a matter of fact. A fact that she, in fact, had the upper hand in their contract.

  “Can I ride you?” Alira asked. “As you can tell, I’m not very capable right now. Of course, this is only temporary.”

  At least I hope so.

  The Loch didn’t slam its feet again, so Alira took it as a green light, swinging her feet up to hop onto it. Despite her best efforts to eat well and sleep well, she was still carrying the effects of being inside the hybrid slave dungeon, most likely from the moment the ‘Alira’ as a character in this world was born. So she shouldn’t put too much strain on the relatively smaller beast’s spine.

  The Loch took off the moment she settled in. It walked toward the light she could vaguely sense. Then, it leaped, forcing Alira to hold onto it. A dewy breeze brushed her face the next moment, and she knew they were in Vesper Reign forest.

  “Take me to the nearest person. I’m sure people are looking for me everywhere,” Alira said, stroking the Loch’s neck. It stood still in a spot after having carried out her request and nothing more. A rumble came from its neck beneath her palm.

  “I’m exhausted. Is it too much to ask you to carry me there?” She asked, hugging it tighter despite her question.

  The Loch stayed unmoved for a while before she sensed it blowing air in a way that could be interpreted as a sigh. What a grumpy little fellow. Understandably so. Alira herself was still very pissed off about Lady Goddess and would definitely try to pull the Goddess’s hair in a cat fight the next time they met, if they ever did.

  It walked for some time and just as Alira was about to doze off on its warm, somehow comfortable back, it came to an abrupt stop. She opened her mouth to question when a careful hand reached for her.

  The Loch wasn’t reacting negatively to them, so the person wasn’t showing any ill intention on the surface. As her Spirit Familiar, it wouldn’t benefit from her getting harmed. At least before it could revoke their contract. In some ways, it felt like she was doing to it what the duke had done to her. Alira pushed the thought away. She would like to think she didn’t care about it at all, but since she couldn’t do that, it was best not to think at all.

  Alira didn’t sense any danger either. Trusting her guts, she got off the Loch to follow the person back to the Academy. As much as she found riding the beast enjoyable, she still had an image to keep—or at least not worsen it.

  She simply told the person to take her back to the Academy. A few other people joined them, one of them grabbing her rather roughly out of nowhere. Then, upon seeing her surprise at their sudden touch, they became much gentler. The number of heated eyes on her increased as they walked toward where she assumed was the Academy’s clinic.

  It was nerve-wracking to not be aware of everything around her, yet at the same time, liberating. She was free from whatever they were throwing at her.

  Weirdly, the most at peace Alira had been on Staywes was at her weakest state.