The window appeared exactly as Evelyn remembered it.
Clean lines. Pale blue light. Perfectly arranged information.
Not a single indication that the person reading it had spent the last several days being hunted, kidnapped, tortured, and killed.
Evelyn stared at the familiar interface.
For a moment, she considered dismissing it.
Then she drew her knees closer to her chest and began reading.
StatusNameEvelyn HollowayAge21ClassNovice ScholarLevel1[BASE ATTRIBUTES]STR6AGI8INT12WIS11END9[SKILLS]Undying (Unique — Minor Evolution I)Ember Lv. 2Piercing Resistance Lv. 1Thermal Resistance Lv. 2Toxin Resistance Lv. 1Lightning Resistance Lv. 1
Evelyn read the list.
Then she read it again.
She hadn't looked at her full status since Northstar. The numbers were different now, although she couldn't remember every value she'd started with.
Her Endurance had increased.
Her Agility, too.
And there was the evolution.
Undying.
Minor Evolution I.
She focused on the skill.
UndyingClassificationUnique SkillEvolutionMinor Evolution IUpon death, the user's body will reconstruct itself, restoring the user to a living state.Reconstruction duration varies according to the extent of physical destruction.Equipment and external possessions are not restored.Evolution I EffectAll base attributes increased by 1.
Evelyn stared at the description.
There it was.
A neat little explanation of something that had ruined her life.
[i]Upon death.[/i]
Two words.
As though dying were an ordinary inconvenience.
As though there were nothing particularly noteworthy about the pain, the terror, or the moment when everything stopped.
She remembered the poison.
The way her body had convulsed against the restraints.
She remembered trying to scream and finding that she couldn't breathe.
Then the electricity.
Then the fire.
Her fingers tightened around her knees.
She forced herself to look at the window again.
All base attributes increased by one.
A reward for dying three times in rapid succession.
She wondered whether the System had any idea what those words actually meant.
Three times.
Three separate deaths.
Three times she'd been strapped down and killed because Catherine Reed wanted answers.
And now she was stronger.
Apparently.
Evelyn looked down at her injured wrist.
The skin was still red and blistered. It hurt whenever she moved it.
She didn't feel stronger.
She felt exhausted.
Hungry.
Frightened.
And increasingly unsure whether she could ever close her eyes without seeing that laboratory again.
She dismissed the skill description.
The status window remained.
[b]Level: 1[/b]
That caught her attention.
After everything, she was still Level 1.
She'd survived attacks by legendary adventurers. She'd escaped one of the most powerful guilds in Britain. She'd died five times.
And her class hadn't advanced at all.
Of course it hadn't.
Dying wasn't the same as earning experience.
Her resistance skills had developed because of what happened to her body. Her attributes had changed because Undying had evolved.
But she hadn't actually done anything that would advance her class.
Not in the way the System measured it.
She was still a Novice Scholar.
A first-level student with a handful of resistance skills and an extremely unpleasant talent for returning from the dead.
Evelyn rubbed her forehead.
She'd once been proud of receiving the Scholar class.
Not because it was rare or particularly impressive, but because it suited her.
She liked studying.
She liked understanding people.
She'd imagined a perfectly ordinary future involving university, a career, perhaps a small flat of her own.
Nothing extraordinary.
Certainly nothing involving magical torture chambers.
She looked at her skills again.
[b]Piercing Resistance Lv. 1[/b]
Daniel.
[b]Thermal Resistance Lv. 2[/b]
Idris.
Catherine.
[b]Toxin Resistance Lv. 1[/b]
The injection.
[b]Lightning Resistance Lv. 1[/b]
The examination table.
[b]Ember Lv. 2[/b]
A skill she'd acquired from being burned alive.
Then strengthened by being burned alive again.
She could remember the exact moment she'd discovered it.
A tiny flame appearing above her fingers.
She'd been so frightened that even something useful had seemed threatening.
And later, she'd used that same flame to burn through the restraint holding her wrist.
She looked at the injury.
It had worked.
She'd escaped.
That should have meant something.
For a moment, it did.
Then she remembered the dead guard whose boots she was wearing.
The explosion.
The bodies in the corridor.
The people who hadn't been able to escape.
Her stomach tightened.
She hadn't killed them.
She knew that.
But she'd walked past them.
Taken what she needed.
And kept going.
She looked down at the black boots.
She didn't even know the guard's name.
Perhaps he'd had a family.
Perhaps someone was waiting for him to come home.
Evelyn swallowed.
She'd taken his boots without thinking very much about it.
At the time, she'd needed shoes.
That had been enough.
Would she have done the same thing a week ago?
Probably not.
She would have called for help.
Tried to find someone.
Done something.
But a week ago, she hadn't known what it felt like to die.
Five times.
She stared at the boots for a long moment.
Then slowly looked away.
***
The World Quest was still there.
She hadn't opened it, but she could feel its presence at the edge of her awareness.
The same way she could feel the other System interfaces waiting to be called.
She'd tried to ignore it.
That hadn't worked.
Evelyn took a breath.
"World Quest."
The familiar notification appeared.
World QuestKILL EVELYN HOLLOWAYObjectivePermanently eliminate Evelyn Holloway.Rewards:- 100,000 Gold- Legendary Equipment Set- Additional Reward???StatusActive
She stared at her own name.
The words hadn't changed.
Not even after five deaths.
Not even after the System had watched her die and return again and again.
[i]Permanently eliminate.[/i]
She focused on the phrase.
It was such a strange choice of words.
Why not simply kill?
Why specify permanently?
Did the System know she couldn't stay dead?
Of course it did.
It had given her Undying.
Or at least it had recognized the skill when it appeared.
But if the System knew about Undying, why create a quest that required her permanent death?
Was there a way to kill her that she hadn't discovered?
The thought sent a cold sensation through her stomach.
She'd been assuming that Undying meant exactly what it said.
That she'd always come back.
But she hadn't tested every possible way of dying.
She didn't want to.
She never wanted to test another one.
What if the wrong kind of attack could destroy her permanently?
What if someone found a way to prevent her resurrection?
What if Catherine had been right to keep experimenting?
Evelyn recoiled from the thought.
No. Catherine hadn't been right.
Whatever the answers were, they didn't justify what she'd done.
But the questions remained.
Why her?
Why had the System chosen Evelyn Holloway?
She was nobody.
A university student.
Twenty-one years old.
She'd never killed anyone.
Never committed a serious crime.
Never even been involved in anything remotely important.
She wasn't a powerful adventurer.
She wasn't the leader of a guild.
She wasn't some dangerous criminal who needed to be stopped.
She was Evelyn.
She liked coffee.
She occasionally forgot to return library books on time.
She'd once spent an entire weekend avoiding an essay because she couldn't decide how to begin the introduction.
None of that seemed like a reasonable justification for a global execution order.
And yet the System had issued one.
To everyone.
Every adventurer.
Every person capable of accepting a quest.
A reward large enough to change someone's life.
Legendary equipment.
Something else the System wouldn't even identify.
All for killing her.
Evelyn stared at the window.
"What did I do?"
Her voice sounded small in the empty shed.
The System offered no response.
She swallowed.
"What did I do to deserve this?"
Nothing.
Just the same words.
[b]KILL EVELYN HOLLOWAY[/b]
She wanted to scream at it.
Demand an explanation.
Demand that it tell her what she'd done wrong.
But she knew how the System worked.
It didn't answer questions simply because someone was upset.
It provided information according to its rules.
And those rules had always been reliable.
The System wasn't known for inventing quests without reason.
There were always conditions.
Objectives.
Rewards.
Consequences.
People had spent decades studying its mechanics, and while there were still mysteries, the basic structure was understood.
The System didn't simply wake up one morning and decide to ruin someone's life.
At least, nobody had ever proved that it did.
So there had to be a reason.
Evelyn looked down at her hands.
What if she'd done something without realizing it?
What if there was something about her that made her dangerous?
She'd always thought she knew herself.
But she'd also thought Daniel Mercer was her friend.
She'd thought Catherine Reed was going to help her.
Apparently, her judgment wasn't as reliable as she'd believed.
The thought hurt more than she expected.
She'd spent years studying psychology.
Human behaviour.
Motivation.
The way people made decisions.
And she'd failed to recognize what was happening right in front of her.
Daniel had smiled at her.
Spoken gently.
Promised to help.
Then he'd stabbed her.
Catherine had offered food.
Clean clothes.
A place to rest.
Then she'd ordered her killed.
Repeatedly.
Evelyn closed her eyes.
[i]How did I not see it?[/i]
She knew the answer, at least intellectually.
People weren't mind readers.
Trust wasn't stupidity.
Knowing about manipulation didn't make someone immune to it.
She could have explained all of that to someone else.
But explaining it to herself was different.
Because she'd trusted them.
And they'd hurt her.
And now the System was telling the entire world that killing her was worth a fortune.
Perhaps she really was missing something.
Perhaps there was something wrong with her.
Something she couldn't see.
She opened her eyes.
The quest window floated patiently in front of her.
What if it wasn't about something she'd done?
What if it was about something she would do?
The thought came quietly.
And stayed.
The System could predict things.
Sometimes.
Certain quests involved future events. Some warned of dungeon outbreaks before they occurred. Others appeared when conditions were about to change.
Nobody fully understood how far its awareness extended.
What if the World Quest was a warning?
What if she was going to become dangerous?
Evelyn felt sick.
She looked at her injured wrist.
At the spear lying beside her.
At the boots she'd taken from a dead man.
She'd already started doing things she would never have considered before.
Not terrible things.
Not yet.
But different things.
Things that would have frightened her a week ago.
What if that was how it started?
A stolen pair of boots.
A little less hesitation.
A little less guilt.
And then?
She didn't know.
That frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
For several minutes, she sat without moving.
Then she dismissed the World Quest.
The window vanished.
Her name disappeared.
But the question remained.
[i]What if they're right about me?[/i]
***
Her stomach growled.
Evelyn looked down.
The sound seemed absurdly loud in the quiet shed.
She pressed a hand against her abdomen.
She was starving.
Not merely hungry.
Her body felt weak, and she'd begun noticing a faint dizziness whenever she stood too quickly.
She needed food.
Real food.
And water.
The stream she'd found yesterday had helped, but she couldn't keep drinking from random water sources and hoping for the best.
She needed supplies.
A bottle.
Something to carry water in.
Perhaps a way to purify it.
She looked around the shed.
Empty shelves.
A rusted bucket.
Broken furniture.
Nothing useful.
She could search the surrounding area, but she doubted an abandoned forestry shed would suddenly produce a convenient supply of food.
She needed to find people.
The thought made her stomach tighten.
People were dangerous.
People had tried to kill her.
People had chased her through Manchester.
People had dragged her into a laboratory.
But people also had food.
Shops.
Houses.
Clean water.
Clothes.
She couldn't survive in the forest indefinitely.
Not like this.
She looked down at herself.
The borrowed navy shirt was dirty and torn in places. Her grey trousers were stained with mud, and the oversized black boots looked ridiculous beneath them.
She didn't have a coat.
She didn't have a bag.
She didn't even have a phone.
Her hair was tangled, her face was scratched, and there was still dried blood near her hairline.
Anyone who saw her would immediately know something was wrong.
And with her name attached to the most famous quest in the world, something wrong could be enough to attract attention.
She needed different clothes.
Preferably something ordinary.
Something that wouldn't make people look twice.
She glanced at the spear.
That wasn't helping either.
A young woman wandering into a village carrying a weapon was hardly inconspicuous.
She couldn't simply walk into a shop and buy what she needed.
She had no money.
Even if she did, there was the problem of being recognized.
She might be able to hide her face.
Find a quiet place.
Avoid crowded streets.
But sooner or later, someone would ask questions.
Someone would want to know who she was.
And then?
She'd seen what happened when people recognized her.
Evelyn rubbed her forehead.
There had to be another way.
She considered approaching a house.
Asking for help.
Explaining that she'd been attacked.
Perhaps someone would give her food.
Perhaps they'd let her use a phone.
Perhaps—
She stopped.
Daniel had offered to help.
Catherine had offered to help.
She stared at the floor.
No. Not again.
She couldn't afford to trust another stranger simply because they seemed kind.
Not when the reward for betraying her was worth more than most people earned in a lifetime.
She needed to get what she needed without giving anyone a reason to look closely at her.
Which left an unpleasant possibility.
Stealing.
Evelyn sat very still.
She'd never seriously considered stealing before.
Not because she was some extraordinary example of moral virtue.
It simply hadn't been necessary.
If she needed food, she bought it.
If she couldn't afford something, she went without.
That was how things worked.
At least, that was how they'd worked before the World Quest.
Now she had nothing.
No money.
No phone.
No safe place to go.
And the entire world had been given an incentive to murder her.
She looked at the empty shelves.
Was she really going to worry about stealing food?
After everything?
The thought came with an uncomfortable sense of clarity.
She'd been stabbed.
Burned alive.
Poisoned.
Electrocuted.
Burned again.
She'd watched people die around her.
She'd taken a dead man's boots because she needed them.
And now she was hesitating over the possibility of stealing a sandwich.
Something about that seemed almost ridiculous.
She didn't like it.
She didn't like how easily she could imagine doing it.
A week ago, the thought would have made her uncomfortable.
Now the discomfort was still there, but it seemed smaller.
Distant.
As though the things she'd experienced had changed the scale by which she judged everything else.
She wasn't suddenly convinced that stealing was acceptable.
She knew it was wrong.
Someone would lose something because of her.
Someone might have to pay for what she took.
But she was hungry.
And she wanted to live.
Evelyn looked at her injured wrist.
The burn still hurt.
A reminder that she wasn't invulnerable.
It didn't stop fear.
It didn't stop her from suffering.
It only made sure she survived long enough to experience those things again.
She didn't want to die.
Not once more.
Not if she could help it.
And if surviving meant taking something that didn't belong to her?
She would have to live with that.
The realization settled heavily in her chest.
She wasn't proud of it.
But she didn't dismiss it either.
***
Evelyn remained in the shed for another hour.
She tried to think.
Not about the World Quest.
Not about Catherine.
Not about the deaths.
About practical things.
Things she could actually do something about.
She needed a plan.
A proper one.
Not simply running until her legs gave out.
She looked around for something to write on.
There was nothing.
No paper.
No pen.
Of course.
She'd once carried three pens in her university bag because she was terrified of arriving at a lecture without one.
Now she couldn't even write a shopping list.
She leaned her head back against the wall.
[i]Fine.[/i]
She'd remember it.
First, food.
And water.
Those were immediate problems.
She couldn't think clearly when she was starving, and she couldn't keep relying on streams.
Second, clothes.
Something clean.
Something ordinary.
Preferably shoes that actually fit.
Third, shelter.
The shed was better than sleeping outside, but it wasn't safe enough to stay in for long.
Someone could find it.
Someone could follow her tracks.
Someone could simply stumble across it by accident.
She needed somewhere she could hide without constantly expecting the door to open.
And after that?
She hesitated.
Survive.
That was the obvious answer.
But survive how?
For a day?
A week?
A month?
She couldn't spend the rest of her life stealing food and sleeping in abandoned buildings.
She couldn't go back to university.
Couldn't return home.
Couldn't visit her friends.
Couldn't even contact Lucy without worrying that someone might trace the call.
Everything she'd planned for her future had disappeared.
She'd been studying for a degree.
Thinking about exams.
Wondering whether she'd be able to find work after graduation.
Now she was sitting in a rotting shed, trying to decide whether breaking into someone's kitchen would be a reasonable survival strategy.
Evelyn stared at the wall.
Her throat tightened.
She missed her life.
Not the exciting parts.
There hadn't been many exciting parts.
She missed the boring things.
Sitting in lectures.
Complaining about assignments.
Watching terrible television with Lucy.
Going to the supermarket without worrying that someone might recognize her and try to collect a bounty.
She missed being able to make plans that extended beyond the next meal.
For a moment, she let herself imagine going home.
Walking through the front door.
Hearing her mother's voice.
Telling everyone that it was over.
That everything was fine.
Then the image dissolved.
Because it wasn't over.
And nothing was fine.
She rubbed her eyes.
She couldn't think about that now.
Food.
Water.
Clothes.
Shelter.
Those were problems she could solve.
Or at least try to solve.
The rest would have to wait.
But there was one more thing.
One question she couldn't simply ignore forever.
Why?
Why had the System chosen her?
Why did it want her dead?
What had she done?
Or what was she going to do?
Evelyn stared at the empty space where the World Quest window had been.
She wanted an answer.
Not because she thought an answer would necessarily make things better.
It might make them worse.
Much worse.
But she couldn't live with the uncertainty forever.
She needed to know.
Even if the truth was something she wouldn't like.
Even if it meant discovering something terrible about herself.
She drew a slow breath.
Then another.
Food first.
Answers later.
That was the plan.
Not a particularly impressive one.
But it was hers.
For the first time since the World Quest appeared, nobody else was telling her what to do.
No Daniel.
No Catherine.
No guards.
No guild.
Just Evelyn.
And a list of problems that might actually be possible to solve.
She wasn't sure whether that should have made her feel better.
It didn't.
Not yet.
But it was something.
***
By late morning, Evelyn had made her decision.
She couldn't stay in the shed.
The longer she waited, the weaker she'd become.
She needed to find somewhere inhabited.
A village.
A farm.
A roadside shop.
Anything.
Somewhere with food and water.
She stood carefully.
Her legs were stiff, and her injured wrist throbbed as she moved.
She checked the shed one last time.
There was nothing worth taking.
Nothing except the spear she'd brought with her.
She picked it up.
The weapon felt heavy in her hand.
She still had no idea how to use it properly.
But she wasn't willing to leave herself completely defenseless.
Not anymore.
She moved toward the door.
Then stopped.
The boots.
She looked down at them.
Black.
Heavy.
Far too large.
Stolen from a dead man.
She'd never stolen anything important in her life.
Now she was wearing stolen boots, carrying a stolen weapon, and planning to steal food.
Evelyn stood there for a moment.
A small, humourless smile touched her lips.
"Well."
Her voice sounded rough.
"I suppose I've already started."
The smile disappeared.
She moved the broken chair away from the door.
Morning sunlight spilled through the opening.
Beyond it, the forest looked almost peaceful.
Birds moved between the branches. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, water flowed over stones.
It would have been beautiful under different circumstances.
Evelyn stepped outside.
She listened.
No engines.
No voices.
No searchlights.
Nothing that suggested anyone was nearby.
She tightened her grip on the spear.
Food.
Water.
Clothes.
Somewhere safe.
And eventually, answers.
She looked back at the shed.
For one brief moment, she considered staying.
Just a little longer.
Where it was quiet.
Where nobody knew she existed.
But hiding wasn't the same as surviving.
And she couldn't keep waiting for someone else to decide what happened to her.
Evelyn turned away.
She didn't know where the nearest village was.
She didn't know how far she'd have to walk.
She didn't know whether she'd find food before the hunger became unbearable.
But she knew she couldn't remain where she was.
So she started walking.
And if she had to steal to survive?
She would.
Even if she hated herself for it.