NOVEL NEXT Chapter 53: She Looked Cute
Nikola's boots sank into the dewy grass outside of the dungeon, the pixels that made up her form fitting together like a 3D puzzle. She watched her hand piece itself back together, stitching into the shape she knew her hand to be, all five fingers on each hand complete with the dried blood stuck beneath her nails.
Luke was there, but the others weren't. She could see a faint glint of gold in the distance ducking behind the city's wall. The wolf had probably left even sooner.
There was a fresh trail of footprints in the wet, malleable grass where Phoenix had traversed, but the grass was bent in many other areas as well, all 334 sets of feet having made their mark on the world - 330 of those sets, the final mark they would ever make.
"Hey," Luke said as he rose up from the tree trunk he had been sitting on, "looks like we were the only two to decide to assign our stats now. Shame we didn't get to say bye."
"We know their usernames," Nikola stated with a shrug.
"Yeah," Luke agreed, "guess we could just message them. But we have more important things to be doing right now."
Nikola anticipated his meaning and started back toward the city, much as Phoenix had done already. "Do you think they will look upon us favourably if we meet again?"
"Phoenix said he'd try to get us an in with his party leader. I think that's as favourable as it gets in this place."
She rose and lowered her head slowly; in a Killing Game, allowing somebody onto one's team was essentially trusting that somebody with their life.
"Let us return to the Copper Citadel. I am anxious to check on Angelica and review our winnings and the menus I promised to look through in full." The former NPC quickened her pace, the singed ends of her shirt dress swaying with every step. She imagined she had to look crazy; covered in blood, her hair burnt at the ends, her clothes stiff with dried gore, holes in her dress where the quills had poked through.
But they had won, looks aside. Over 334 people, they were the ones who had survived. If more of them had cooperated with each other, guided their peers through each puzzle, more of them would be alive now. And yet, they had only seen each other as prey. Maybe there was a lesson in that somewhere.
Nikola recognized that she was definitely feeling the guilt emotion. It clawed at the underside of her breastbone, seeking her attention and focus, but she didn't allow herself to succumb to it. Whenever she blinked, she could see the pattern Giga's and Kata's blood splatter had left on the wall, fanning upward and outward.
Not succumbing, she reminded herself.
"I'm going to rake my eyes over our new armour about 330 times when we get back to the inn," Luke offered. Once for each person they had outlasted.
Nikola noticed the number and her lips turned upward. Needlessly cruel. She liked it. It reminded her that she liked to be needlessly cruel and was someone who reveled in violence and blood. She had never known how to feel about her innate bloodlust, but right now it felt good, familiar, right.
The Butcher kept a careful eye on her surroundings, hyper-aware that they were carrying cargo she didn't want to lose. Before she knew it, they were opening up the door to their room at the inn. Violet had barely moved from the place she had been in when they left, and Angelica hadn't moved at all, her arm splayed above her head in the same arc it had been in when she'd tucked her in.
She was re-reminded in that moment how gaunt the former prisoner was, her face partially sunken, her skin clinging to the outline of her skull.
"Hey," Luke said to Violet, whose hair was matted against the side of her face when she turned to see him. Her eyes were bloodshot, indicating to her that she had been crying.
"Hello there," the lavender-tinted archer replied, combing her long hair with her fingers, "welcome back. I'm sorry I couldn't go with you - I was thinking about it and it was pretty useless of me, and I--" Her eyes began to fill with wetness again, cresting against the edges of her lower lids and threatening to spill over.
"It's cool," Luke assured her, placing a hand on her delicate shoulder, "somebody needed to stay and babysit Angelica."
Nikola claimed one of the beds that had belonged to Luke's party members for herself. She pulled the bed sheet and blanket up so the bed was free of wrinkles, and then folded it open so it was ready to receive her. The sky outside was darkening to a blackened crimson.
"Does anybody need the shower?" Violet asked, looking to Nikola in particular, her eyes hanging on the burnt edges of her outfit.
"Shower? Perhaps you mean bathe?" Nikola quirked a dark brow. She didn't know of any nearby rivers.
"No, I mean shower," Violet replied, standing and padding softly over to the doorway on the left side of their room. She pushed the door open, a playground of wonder and tiny tiles sitting on the other end. Nikola walked uncertainly into the washroom and placed her fingers over her mouth in a bizarre combination of confusion and excitement.
A peculiar silver knob sat beneath a metallic neck, and a basin was beneath both, with a drain at the bottom. She knew what a drain was, so maybe the metallic neck had water in it? And the basin was made of some kind of ceramic rather than the usual wood.
"Please demonstrate what you mean by 'shower'," Nikola requested, stepping aside. Even the tiles beneath her feet were foreign to her.
"You don't know what a s-- oh, right. You're from a Medieval Village, aren't you? You've never used any of the things from this city..." Violet trailed off sadly, looking over Nikola's crusty outfit and the hair that matched it. "Would you let me help you shower and cut your hair? I know a thing or two about hair maintenance." The archer ran her fingers through her hair, which was shinier than silk and glittered in the light from the light bulbs.
The Butcher recoiled instinctively. Being naked around another person? Letting another person put something sharp near her body? But as her icy blues took in how little buildup there was on the girl's skin, how smooth she looked, she began to nod creakily, uncertainly. "I will allow this, but if you move to use your scissors against me--"
"I wouldn't do that. Nikola, girl, I didn't even go to the dungeon with you. I'm not interested in killing anyone right now, just a nice shower and some self-care so we can be our best people-killing selves tomorrow. And look hot doing it."
Nikola caught a glance of herself in the mirror. Her once-white shirt dress was stained brown and auburn with dried blood, and she had seen mops that looked more put-together than she did right now. She succumbed to the idea of being showered with a rigid nod. "Alright."
The Butcher peeled off her layers of clothing, undid her boots, and gawked at the stream of water that spurted from the wall when Violet turned the funny-looking knob. "So this controls whether the water is on, and you turn it left or right to make it hot or cold," she explained while taking off her own armour, "and you just step underneath whenever you're ready."
Nikola couldn't help but stare. This may have been the first time she had ever seen another person naked. NPCs rarely removed their clothes near each other, and there was no bath house in her village. Violet's anatomy differed from hers in several notable ways; her thighs were more padded, and so was her chest.
When she stepped into the basin, a cascade of new experiences followed. Violet wet her hair with the long, bendy snake and then used thin scissors to clip off the singed ends of her hair. Then, she took out what Nikola could only describe as a very smelly potion and poured some into her hair. The substance bubbled heartily when agitated, and so did many of the others she used. She scrubbed at her with a sponge, mushing the potion into her pores.
"I'm sorry if I weirded you out earlier with all my crying," Violet started, her voice high-pitched from her nervousness, "I just, uhh-- everything came rushing back to me with such clarity, and it hurt to remember my life outside of here. The body you're seeing now isn't how I look in real life. In real life, I have sores all over me and I'm in pain every single day of my life. I broke all the mirrors I owned because I just hated seeing myself and I keep feeling phantom pains all over even though I never felt them before I chose to remembe-- oh, I'm sorry. I'm being a burden again. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry and I'll be much more useful from now on, I promise."
"You have been tremendously useful to me since I returned," Nikola decided, hoping that her words elicited the Cheering Up emotion.
Violet washed her own long, light purple hair and slicked conditioner through it like she had Nikola's. When they emerged from the shower they were both squeaky clean, and smelled of the strawberry mint products provided by the inn.
Nikola went to reach for the clothes she had been wearing, and the sullen archer reached out and gently tapped her hand away from them. "You just got clean. You should really get into something that's also clean - I have a set of [Silken Pajamas] you can borrow. There are hearts on it." She purred the last sentence out, as if to entice her.
The Butcher took the bait happily, and when she put the Silken Pajamas on, puffy and a little long in the torso, she even thought she looked cute.