“Is that what this is about?” Alex couldn’t stop the disappointment from creeping into his voice.

  “Were you expecting something else?” Darcy asked, raising an eyebrow. “You just attacked me for no reason. What else could my reaction possibly be?”

  Alex swallowed, forcing himself to meet her eyes.

  “But… I’d really rather not die,” he said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt. “I know I crossed a line. I know I scared you. But killing me doesn’t fix that.”

  “You tried to hurt me,” she shook her head. “In my shop. My safe space. Apologies don’t undo that.”

  “I didn’t hurt you though,” Alex said quickly. “I stopped myself. I’m standing here right now because I want to make this right.”

  “No.” Darcy didn’t listen.

  Alex clenched his jaw. He wanted to get angry, to leave, to rage against the unfairness of it all… but he couldn’t. Darcy had said it herself: She wanted him to die. Who was he to argue against that. Still, he tried one last time.

  “I don’t want to die,” he said again, more quietly. “I can make it up to you. I’ll pay. I’ll leave the city. I’ll swear an oath. Anything but this.”

  Darcy reached into a cupboard and drew out a dagger.

  It was about as simplistic as one got. A straight, double edged blade about eight inches long, a simple pommel wrapped in leather, and not even a cross guard. She held it loosely, without threat or flourish.

  “No,” she said. “This is the only way I’m willing to forgive you.”

  Alex stared at the implement of his demise for a moment.

  Part of him knew, distantly, that this was wrong. That there were other options he should be pushing for, other arguments he should be making. But Darcy had said her piece, and the finality in her voice was clear.

  “…Alright,” he said at last. “Just, please do it quickly.”

  Darcy didn’t need to be asked twice.

  She stepped forward and drove the dagger into his chest, directly piercing his heart.

  The pain was immediate and overwhelming, a sharp, brutal impact that stole the air from his lungs. Alex staggered back, his shoulder hitting the tiled wall hard before his legs gave out. He slid down to the floor, blood already pouring from the wound, soaking into his clothes and spreading across the tiles beneath him.

  ‘Woah, it’s almost like that time with the spider.’ He thought. ‘Though obviously a massive spear of wood through the chest is worse than a little dagger.’

  The pain quickly dulled, replaced by a deep, crawling sensation as flesh pulled itself together. Muscle knitted. Skin sealed. The wound closed, leaving behind only torn fabric and sticky blood as evidence it had ever been there at all.

  Alex grinned back up at the green haired elf. “Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you, I’m kind of tough to kill.”

  Darcy did not share his amusement.

  “You… I just stabbed you in the heart!” She said, wide-eyed.

  “Yep.” Alex nodded.

  “Then how…?”

  “I told you.” He smirked. “I’m hard to kill.”

  She paused, then her expression hardened. “No matter. I refuse to believe you can keep healing forever.”

  She stepped forward and stabbed him again.

  This time, Alex cried out, the sound ripping free before he could stop it. The blade tore out of him, pain flaring white-hot, blood spilling anew across the floor. He clenched his teeth and rode it out, fingers digging uselessly into the tile as his body went through the motions once more.

  The bleeding slowed.

  The wound closed.

  She stabbed him again.

  And again.

  It seemed that Darcy had taken his regeneration as a challenge, and she was determined to exhaust it. Alex wondered why she didn’t just try stabbing him in the brain or cutting off his head, but he chose not to mention it. He was hoping that she would get tired of stabbing and let him live after all.

  Soon enough, she stopped stabbing.

  Darcy straightened slowly, eyes flicking between Alex and the dagger in her hand, as if making sure that she had indeed stabbed him. The shock on her face was real now, stripped of anger and certainty. For a brief moment, Alex thought—hoped—that this might be where it ended.

  Then she shook her head.

  “Unfortunately, that only means that you need to die all the more.” She said regretfully. “You have shown that you can get rid of my influence incredibly quickly when not in my presence, and with how difficult you are to put down… Having you as a potential enemy is too risky.”

  She stepped forward and resumed stabbing, and his energy drained to heal himself.

  Darcy had no way to explain the man before her.

  Overpowering the passive enchantments of her store was something most people with any level of strength could do. Doing it as fast as he did was more uncommon, but still very plausible; all it required was some knowledge on spiritual magic. However, this… seemingly endless source of healing… She was certain that she had never seen anything like it in all eighty years of her life.

  The man coughed out a mouthful of blood, then struggled to sit up as the gash in his chest slowly crawled shut.

  “Are you healing slower?” Darcy frowned.

  “Yeah.” The man ground out with gritted teeth. “Despite what it looks like, I’m not actually immortal. If I take enough dam-”

  Darcy stabbed him again with renewed enthusiasm, relieved that he could indeed die.

  As she stabbed away, her mind wandered. She was extremely relieved that she’d chosen to do this in the bathroom, since the drain in the floor allowed most of the blood to drain away. And just how much blood it was. Darcy was certain that the man had spilled several human’s worth of the fluid by now, and yet every time she stabbed, more gushed out.

  ‘Is he regenerating it as fast as he’s losing it?’ She wondered.

  Thunk.

  ‘Hm?’ Darcy looked down, surprised by the unexpected noise.

  The unkillable man looked up at her, a savage grin on his face. “Hey, bitch. You should’ve gone for the head.”

  The blade of the dagger had embedded itself in his forearm, caught between the bones. He wrenched the arm to the side, ripping the dagger out of her grasp, and clenched his other fist.

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

  “What the-” She called forth her mana, but then she saw the man blur, and her vision went black.

  ‘In retrospect, this was definitely a stupid decision.’ Alex acknowledged as he staggered upright, refusing to take his eyes off the unconscious elf.

  He glanced fearfully at the dagger laying on the bloody floor, the blade glistening in the light.

  It was pure arrogance on his part to expect an unknown application of his mana to outright dispel a direct spell by someone who actually knew what they were doing. It was just that the seeming omnipotence of his magic up to this point had rendered him complacent—and he had almost paid dearly for it.

  His face scrunched up as another wave of agonising pain rippled out from the void in his stomach. He cursed its existence for the tenth time, while simultaneously thanking it for once. After all, it had just saved his life.

  Alex would have loved to say that he had broken out of the elf’s mind control through his incredible willpower, or that the threat of death had awakened his potential and saved him. Unfortunately, the truth was that he would have died a mind-fucked idiot if not for his hunger.

  The repeated stabbings from dear Darcy drained him of more and more energy, in turn strengthening the void in his core. When it reached a certain level, Alex realised that his thinking had changed, and he was no longer under the spell. His working theory was that the hunger was magical just as much as it was physical, and it straight up sucked all the mana out of his body—including the foreign mana in his head.

  “Well, time to deal with you.” He said to the unconscious woman, though his eyes kept drifting to her jugular. ‘She did stab me a bunch of times, so this can be considered payback.’

  He licked his lips and approached her.

  ‘Ugh, my head.’ Darcy slowly came back to herself. ‘What happened?’

  The first thing she noticed was the pain. A dull, spreading ache across her skull, sharp enough behind her eyes that it made her stomach churn. The second was the position she was in—on the floor, cheek pressed against something cold and hard, her arms wrenched awkwardly behind her back.

  She tried to move.

  Bindings bit into her wrists.

  Darcy sucked in a breath, pain shooting up her right wrist. She hissed softly, instinctively trying to twist her hands to see what was wrong, only to be reminded immediately that she couldn’t. She summoned forth her mana and started chanting, before a powerful hand gripped the back of her neck.

  “Don’t,” a voice said from behind her.

  She froze.

  “Try to use magic,” he continued calmly, “and I’ll rip out your spine before you can say Abra Cadabra.”

  Darcy swallowed. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick, and her head still swimming badly enough that it took a moment to piece together what had happened. ‘Right, I got knocked out, after he somehow overpowered my spell.’

  She shifted slightly, testing the ropes instead. They held fast.

  “…How did you free yourself?” she asked eventually, her voice hoarse.

  “You think I’ll tell you?”

  Darcy closed her eyes for a moment and forced herself to breathe slowly. Panic would not help her here. Magic was out of the question—she wasn’t stupid. While she wasn’t sure if his threat of ripping out her spine was real, the man had at least shown that he could snap her neck with ease. Between that and the pain in her wrist, she was in no position to fight back even if she wanted to.

  “Here’s how this is going to go,” he didn’t give her time to think. “I’m going to ask you to do some things, you’re going to listen, and then you’re going to do them. And you’re not going to try anything clever, because as much as I want to, I’d still prefer not to kill you.”

  Darcy let out a shaky breath. “Fine. What do you want? I’ll have you know that I’d rather die than sell myself.”

  The man laughed. A short, humourless sound. “I think you’re overestimating yourself. Why would I ask for that in this situation? Don’t worry. I just need to borrow some things from your store.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  Darcy exhaled, long and slow, and let her head rest back against the floor. The fight drained out of her all at once, replaced by a cold acceptance. She waited for him to speak.

  “Two things,” he said finally. “First, the soul strengthening tonic.”

  For a moment, Darcy was confused, then she remembered.

  “Oh,” she laughed. “That.”

  The hand around her neck tightened. Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind her.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  Darcy winced, then forced herself to calm down. “That tonic doesn’t exist,” she said. “I made it up.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “You what?”

  “I lied,” she said. “There’s no such thing as a soul restoration tonic. Or at least I don’t have one. I’m sure it exists somewhere out there, but a small store like this definitely won’t have it. I gave it an absurd price because I didn’t want you digging further.”

  She felt the man shift behind her.

  “Fine,” he said. “Then we replace it with something else.”

  Darcy waited.

  “I want money,” he said.

  She frowned despite herself. “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, since you’re the one who mentioned the sum in the first place…” She could feel the man grinning even behind her back. “Ten gold.”

  “You mother-” She had to hold back to not curse him out. “Where would I get that kind of wealth? You think I’m made of money?”

  “You run a small business. You’re telling me your savings don’t even amount to 10 gold?” The man’s incredulous voice came from behind her.

  “It’s an alchemy store.” She snapped in irritation. “The vast majority of my wealth is in various potions and ingredients, not money.”

  And the truth was, she wasn’t even lying. The total liquid assets she had available to her right now barely reached ten gold, but she was of course unwilling to part with all of it.

  So, the two of them bargained.

  In the end, they settled on five gold. Still a lot of money, but not enough that she was willing to fight for it. The man also seemed satisfied with the amount, though it was hard to judge without seeing his face.

  “Great. I am now going to untie your hands.” The man said. “Once again, please don’t try anything, since I really don’t want to have to kill you.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She groused out.

  The man kept a firm grip on her neck, while a second hand held her arm. With a heave, he lifted her off the ground and placed her on her feet. Next, the bindings on her wrists were sliced apart, finally freeing her.

  Darcy gasped as blood rushed back into her hands, biting and painful. She cradled her right wrist against her chest as she inspected it. A row of strange puncture marks oozed blood from the limb, though fortunately it wasn’t much.

  “Let’s go.” The man’s grip on her neck didn’t waver. “Where do you keep your money?”

  Deciding not to question her strange injury, she let him push her forward.

  “Downstairs,” she said. “In a safe behind the counter.”

  “Cool. Let’s go then.” To her disappointment, he wasn’t wary about entering the shop. “And before you get too excited, I do have a way to protect myself against the shop’s passive mind fuckery, so don’t try anything.”

  Darcy swallowed. “…I know.”

  He guided her—not gently—down the stairs and into the shop. The door behind the counter was unlocked, then she opened the small vault hidden beneath it. She counted out the coins into a pouch and passed it back without comment.

  They left together.

  By the time they reached the inn, her neck ached almost as badly as her wrist. The people they had passed on the street had given them several alarmed looks, and some had run off—hopefully to call the guard—but no one stepped forward to interfere. If Darcy had to guess, it would be because of the blood soaking both her and the man’s clothes.

  “Hi Sophie!” The man’s voice suddenly became cheerful as they entered the inn. “Don’t mind me, I’m just doing some adventurer stuff. It’s not what it looks like.”

  “Alex, you…” The plump woman manning the counter stifled a startled yelp and stared at them in shock. As Darcy was deciding whether to cry for help, the man—Alex, apparently—pushed her up the stairs.

  “Don’t get any funny ideas.” He muttered into her ear. “Sure, if the guards come, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do, but you’re the one with the brainwashing shop. If you don’t want to disappear for a long, long time, I recommend you help me out.”

  “Before she could formulate a response, he pushed into one of the inn’s rooms.

  Two men were inside.

  One was elderly. He sat hunched over by a window, a white, unkempt beard obscuring the lower half of his face.

  The other was… probably her patient. He was far too pale, his skin stretched tight over his face in a way that suggested long illness or severe blood loss. One sleeve of his shirt lay empty and folded against his side, the arm it should have contained gone.

  His eyes were open, but unfocused. Glassy. They tracked movement only vaguely, as if whatever awareness lay behind them was distant or dulled. As soon as they entered, the eyes snapped to Alex standing behind her, and didn’t drift in the slightest.

  The old man turned to greet them and almost jumped out of his skin. “Holy-! Alex, what happened?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you later.” She felt him wave a hand, then refocus on her. “There’s your patient. Fix him, or at least tell us what’s wrong with him.”

  Darcy swallowed.

  This was an opportunity.

  The thought came unbidden, sharp and tempting. If this man was already damaged—already weakened—then taking control of his mind would be trivial. And once she had him, she would have leverage. A hostage. A shield. A way out.

  Her heart began to race.

  “Let me get closer,” she said carefully. “I need to examine him properly.”

  Alex hesitated for only a moment before pushing her forward. “Slowly.”

  Darcy approached the bed, her movements stiff, conscious of his grip and the way he was watching her. She placed one hand lightly on the man’s forehead, cool beneath her fingers, and closed her eyes.

  She reached out.

  First, toward the mind.

  Her breath caught.

  Darcy jerked her hand back as if she’d been burned, stumbling away from the bed with a sharp gasp. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest, a cold dread spreading through her limbs.

  “No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”

  Alex’s hand tightened painfully at her neck. “What?”

  She stared at the man on the bed, her mind racing, scrambling to find an explanation that made sense. A damaged soul. A sealed one. Some exotic curse. Anything.

  But she knew better.

  She’d felt the difference.

  “Whatever that thing on the bed is,” she said slowly, trying to back away, “It doesn’t have a mind. And it doesn’t have a soul.”