Despite all her anger and seething indignation, Livien nonetheless recognised what she needed to do now. She simply had no choice—either she'd act right now, or Nemira would die and lose the experience points she'd accumulated.

  Pulling one bloodied rabbit carcass after another from her inventory, she mentally praised herself for showing such foresight. After all, during the night, thoroughly exhausted after the long hunt, she'd seriously considered simply tossing the harvested carcasses into the ring without troubling herself to skin them.

  But then, turning over various scenarios in her head, she'd imagined a situation where she might urgently, immediately need to restore her health—and then every second would count. That very thought had made her not grow lazy and properly process all the carcasses in advance, whilst she still had time and strength.

  Her powerful jaws worked like a merciless meat grinder, methodically pulverising raw flesh—though in fact that's precisely what it was: a real living meat grinder made of flesh. With each bite Livien adapted better to the process, and soon even learnt to chew the largest bones, turning them into fragments that could be swallowed. The crunch of bones echoed in her ears, but she paid it no attention—only one thing mattered: replenishing her lost health.

  Her entire face was covered in a thick crust of long-dried blood, down which still trickled slow streams of fresh, warm blood from her latest victim. She couldn't see herself from the outside and didn't even imagine how she looked at this moment, otherwise she'd certainly have been horrified by her truly monstrous appearance. But right now, questions of appearance were the last thing worth worrying about.

  When Vaaro's spell effect finally expired, her health bar plummeted again, dropping into the dangerous red zone. However, she still had two untouched carcasses in reserve, so she didn't worry too much about it. Livien merely worked her bloodied jaws even faster, hurrying to recover.

  Having finished all the available food, Livien suddenly felt her stomach begin rebelling against such a quantity of consumed food. A wave of nausea rose from somewhere deep in her belly, making her swallow, fighting the urge.

  A reddish icon flared in the corner of her vision, and a new event appeared in her journal.

  [You are overfed. Duration: 6 hours.]

  Focusing on the icon, she expanded the additional information. Reading through it, she understood that now her vigour wouldn't regenerate naturally, as absolutely all her body's energy would go exclusively towards digesting the enormous quantity of consumed meat and bones.

  Estimating in her mind the approximate distance to the village and comparing it with her current vigour reserve, the girl calmed down slightly. Judging by everything, her vigour points should suffice with margin to safely reach her destination.

  "Or crawl there..." Nemira mentally corrected herself with bitter irony when she finally paid close attention to the other negative effects that had been hanging on her all this time.

  [Severe injury to right leg. Duration: until complete restoration of limb functionality or character death. Use of damaged limb impossible until healing or death.]

  Absolutely the same applied to her left leg—an identical debuff with the same merciless conditions.

  Livien tried to raise herself, leaning on her arms, but the moment she slightly moved her thigh, sharp, piercing pain flashed like lightning through her entire body. Her teeth clenched of their own accord, cutting off the escaping groan, whilst her vision darkened for a moment.

  "Bloody hell..."

  She froze, breathing heavily through her nose, and tried again—this time as carefully as possible, literally millimetre by millimetre. The result proved the same: the moment the bones in the damaged joints shifted even slightly, pain crashed down with renewed force.

  Nemira with difficulty sat back down on the cold earth and stared at the cloud-covered sky.

  "Right. Calm down. Think."

  Walking she definitely couldn't manage—that became obvious immediately. Crawling also seemed a dubious undertaking, considering that every movement of her legs turned into torture. Only one option remained—drag herself on her arms, hauling useless limbs behind.

  The girl lay down on her stomach again, trying not to engage her legs, and braced her palms against the earth. Arm muscles tensed, lifting her heavy body above the surface. The first few centimetres came relatively easily, but then her right leg slightly twisted, catching on a stone, and Nemira was literally contorted by the wave of pain that crashed over her.

  "Bitch! Bitch, bitch, bitch!"

  She froze, pressing her forehead into the earth, until the waves of agony gradually receded to a bearable level. Her fingers dug into the ground, leaving deep furrows.

  "Right, enough hysterics! It'll only get worse if I don't move."

  The girl tried again, this time controlling every millimetre of her body's movement. Her arms pulled her torso forward, her legs dragged helplessly behind, leaving two parallel strips in the earth.

  One metre.

  Two.

  Five.

  Each movement came through pain and effort of will. Vigour slowly but surely melted—her body spent energy without restoring it.

  Livien stopped to rest, turning onto her back. Her chest heaved rapidly and irregularly, whilst her throat had dried as though she'd swallowed scorching sand. Sweat streamed down her face, mixing with caked blood and dirt.

  Ahead, through gaps between bushes, could be seen a barely visible path—judging by direction, it led to the village. About twenty metres remained to it, no more. But after the ten metres already covered, this distance seemed an entire eternity.

  "Get up. Come on, get up and keep crawling!"

  She turned over again, ignoring the protests of her ravaged body, and continued her torturous journey. Her hands grabbed anything—roots, stones, clumps of grass. Her legs dragged helplessly behind, sometimes catching obstacles and provoking new flashes of pain.

  Fifteen metres.

  Ten.

  Five.

  Finally her palm touched the packed earth of the path. Nemira exhaled and allowed herself to fall face down, simply to lie and breathe.

  The moment she began giving in to self-pity and allowed her body to relax on the dusty path, a system message materialised right before her eyes—a semi-transparent panel unfolded across her entire view, blocking the surrounding world of stones, bushes and packed road.

  [Attention! You have accepted the global quest: 'The Final Game'...]

  Livien reread every word of the system notification once, then a second time, then a third—and still couldn't make herself believe what she saw before her eyes. Letters formed into sentences, sentences into meaning, but this meaning seemed so unreal, so monstrous, that her mind stubbornly refused to accept it.

  "Thirty years..." The girl's whisper dissolved in the air.

  Deciding to check whether this was a system glitch, a hallucination from blood loss and pain, she tried to leave the game. First she mentally reached for the menu in the corner of her vision—but where the exit icon had always hung, now gaped emptiness. Then she tried mental and vocal commands: "Exit," "Leave game," "Disconnect," "Break connection"—nothing. The system was silent, as though it had gone deaf. As though it simply didn't exist.

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  Panic began rising from somewhere deep in her chest, flooding her consciousness in a cold wave.

  Thoughts in her head darted about like beasts cornered.

  "What evil?"

  "Thirty years?"

  "Did Ilira herself pull this off, or is this NovaTech's doing?"

  "What am I supposed to do now?"

  "What about Lucien? Are Grandad and Nana also stuck in the game?"

  "Will I never see them again?"

  "Stop! Pull yourself together, you fool! Think! Think already!" Having checked herself with a sharp cry, Livien by effort of will forced herself to stop the useless hysteria, to take the panicked racing of thoughts under control. Enough worrying. Time to engage her brain and begin analysing the received information soberly, systematically, rather than simply drowning in a flood of emotions like some helpless girl from the lower floors.

  But Livien's reflections were suddenly interrupted by someone's presence.

  "Who's there? Answer immediately, or you'll get an arrow straight down your throat!" The voice that sounded from the thickets nearby seemed vaguely familiar to the girl, though she felt no complete certainty of this.

  "It's Nemira! I'm here! Don't shoot!" Responding to the threat seemed the most sensible decision in the current situation. Only one sentient being in Seratis knew her game name—the priest Tavarek—but identifying herself still seemed right. Dying now, after everything she'd been through, she categorically didn't want—it would be too stupid and offensive.

  "Nemira?" An orc woman appearing like a ghost from the bush thickets swept the girl with an assessing gaze in which surprise and concern mingled. A massive figure stepped from the shadows, holding a bow ready to shoot. "Ah, it's you, child..."

  Livien instantly recognised her—this was that very orc woman with the battle-axe who'd given her useful advice before her first hunt for rabbits.

  "Hello!" The troll woman lying on the ground impulsively tried to raise her hand in a greeting gesture, but immediately grimaced painfully when sharp pain pierced her tormented body as a reminder of the wounds received. The attempt to move proved an extremely bad idea.

  "Did Kosh'daran mangle you like this? Where is it now, by the way? And most importantly—how did you even manage to survive after meeting that creature?" The orc woman gripping the drawn bow suddenly stirred, as though remembering something extremely important.

  Her gaze darted across the surroundings, seeking signs of monstrous presence. Of course—she hadn't been sent on reconnaissance for nothing. She was the village's chief huntress, and precisely she had been tasked with finding out what had happened to the monster that should have come to the settlement but never appeared.

  "What? What koshdrn? It was a gru..." The girl had to interrupt her attempts to orient herself in the situation for a moment and open her event journal to precisely recall the correct name of the beast that had attacked her. "Grun'jak that slashed me up..."

  The orc woman lowered her bow, but wariness didn't leave her face. Her gaze slid across Nemira's mangled legs, lingered on the layer of caked blood covering the troll woman's entire body, then returned to her face.

  "Grun'jak? One such creature can tear you in half, yet you're alive. How?"

  "A blood caster helped me..." She didn't want to go into details of what had happened.

  The archer frowned, digesting what she'd heard. Her fingers on the bowstring relaxed slightly.

  "Vaaro? That gloomy troll actually helped you?" The orc woman crouched nearby, examining the girl more closely. "So there was no Kosh'daran at all..."

  "Vaaro? You know him? And what's this koshdarn?" Livien rushed out.

  "Kosh-Da-Ran! Kosh'daran. Old Veremi came running to the village a couple of hours ago, all trembling, shouting that she'd seen a monster the size of a house. Said it was moving straight towards us." The orc woman shook her head, and the intricate scars on her face twisted into a grimace. "Must have confused an ordinary beast with a real monster from fright. A grun'jak—a dangerous creature, but not deadly to the settlement. And we were already preparing to die as an entire village."

  Nemira tried to raise herself on her elbows, but her body refused to obey. Her arms trembled from the strain.

  "Fine. None of that matters now." She removed her bow to her back and extended her hand to the girl. "My name's Banarka, by the way. Chief huntress of the village."

  "Nemira." The troll woman tried to grasp the extended palm, but her fingers slipped—too slick with sweat.

  Banarka didn't stand on ceremony. She crouched, caught Livien under her arms and with one sharp movement lifted her to her feet. Or rather, tried to stand her. The troll woman's legs buckled like ropes, and sharp pain shot through her thighs like lightning.

  "Easy, easy! Hold on!"

  Nemira clenched her teeth, holding back a scream. The world lurched, and only the orc woman's strong arms kept her from falling.

  "Can't stand?" The huntress already knew the answer but still asked.

  "My legs... broken."

  "I see." The orc woman, without asking permission, hoisted her onto her shoulders like a sack. The troll woman proved heavy—even for her—but Banarka merely bent her knees slightly under the weight. "Tavarek will patch you up, they'll be better than before. He's a master at such things."

  Livien groaned when her broken legs hung limply. Each step of the orc woman resonated with a new wave of pain, but there was nowhere to go.

  "Hold on, child. The village isn't far."

  "Thank you..."

  "Don't mention it. I was ordered to find a monster, and I found one." Banarka smirked, quickening her pace. "Only you're not quite what they expected to see..."

  The road to the temple stretched for forty agonising minutes, each of which seemed an eternity to Livien. Banarka walked with an even, measured stride, trying not to jostle the injured too much, but completely avoiding jolts proved impossible. Each time the huntress stepped over a root or stone, pain pierced the troll woman's crippled legs, making her clench her teeth until they crunched.

  The village met them warily at first, but learning from the orc woman that the catastrophe was cancelled, armed residents surrounded Banarka in a tight ring, showering her with questions.

  "There was no Kosh'daran!" The orc woman shouted over the hubbub, pushing through the crowd. "Veremi mistook an ordinary grun'jak for a monster from fright. Everything's fine!"

  Relieved sighs rolled through those gathered. Some laughed, some began cursing the old woman for the false alarm. Livien through the veil of pain caught only fragments of conversations.

  Only after asking the huntress three times did the residents begin calming down and finally notice that she was carrying a wounded girl on her shoulder. A new wave of questions and short answers, after which everyone parted, letting Banarka pass to the temple.

  The latter headed straight for the entrance, but at the doors they were stopped by a hunched figure.

  "Tavarek is conducting a ritual." Veremi, that very instigator of the morning turmoil, stood leaning against the temple wall. "He won't come out for some time yet."

  "What are you on about? How would you know?" The irritated Banarka snapped.

  "I've been walking this earth longer than you have, girl," Veremi's voice sounded with hoarse didacticism. "And in all these years I've learnt one simple truth: when a priest locks the temple doors from inside, it means a sacred ritual has begun. And once it's begun—no one and nothing can interrupt it until the priest himself comes out!"

  "The girl's legs are broken!" Banarka drew her brows together even more. "She's bleeding!"

  "I see." The herbalist swept Nemira with an assessing gaze, lingering on the crippled limbs. "But Tavarek won't interrupt a sacred ritual even for someone dying. Those are the rules."

  The orc woman cursed through her teeth.

  "Bring her to me." Veremi turned, leaning on her staff. "I'll give her pain-relieving potion until the priest is free. At least she won't be writhing in pain."

  The herbalist's house rose almost in the very centre of the village, standing out amongst the surrounding buildings. It was a squat but solid stone structure with straight corners and even walls—perhaps the only building in the entire area that didn't have the round shape traditional for local dwellings.

  The grey stone from which the walls were built seemed ancient, covered with the patina of time and spots of green moss in places where moisture lingered after rains. The roof, covered with dried reed, cast thick shadow on the threshold. Above the entrance, tied to a beam, hung bundles of dried herbs—the girl didn't recognise a single plant.

  Inside it smelt of earth, smoke and something bittersweet, distantly reminiscent of wormwood. Along the walls stretched shelves crammed with clay pots, vials with murky liquids and bunches of dried roots. A hearth in the corner smouldered, above it hung a soot-blackened cauldron from which rose barely visible steam.

  The old woman was brewing a calming infusion for the elderly and children sheltering in her spacious cellar. There she stored the most valuable ingredients and finished products.

  Banarka carried Livien to a narrow bed by the far wall and carefully lowered her onto it. The hard mattress stuffed with straw crunched under the troll woman's weight. No pillows, only coarse fabric reeking of smoke and herbs.

  The girl groaned when her damaged legs touched the bedding. Pain flared with renewed force, making her press her back into the hard surface and squeeze her eyes shut.

  "Lie still." Veremi was already bustling by the shelves, retrieving some vials. "I'll give you something for the pain now."

  Livien opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. Between the beams could be seen bunches of dried grass tied with ropes. Light seeped through cracks in the walls in thin strips, picking out from the semi-darkness the outlines of plants hung everywhere.

  Veremi's wrinkled fingers brought to her lips a rough clay cup filled with warm liquid of indefinite colour—either murky green or dirty brown. The smell struck her nostrils sharply—bitter, with an admixture of something spicy that burnt the mucous membrane even at a distance. Livien grimaced but obediently took a sip. The taste proved even worse than the smell—acrid filth spread across her tongue, making her gag. But she forced herself to swallow, then another sip, and another, until the cup was empty.

  Leaning back on the hard mattress, the girl felt the last crumbs of strength finally leaving her exhausted body. Her eyelids filled with leaden heaviness. Her arms slipped limply from her chest, falling to her sides. In the corner of her clouded vision blinked the vigour scale—a pitiful five points out of one hundred and seventy-five. The red bar barely glimmered.

  Consciousness swam, thoughts tangled as though someone had stirred them with a rough spoon. The girl knew that game characters didn't require sleep, but prolonged stay in critically low vigour levels inevitably led to loss of consciousness.

  And now, lying on this creaking bed in the old herbalist's house reeking of smoke and unknown concoctions, she felt this very faint covering her completely. The world blurred at the edges, sounds receded, turning into dull droning. Even the pain in her crippled legs retreated, becoming distant and almost abstract.

  "Vaaro..." The last conscious thought flashed through her clouded mind. "You can't be him. Where is your teacher, Vaaro?..."