The forest was deceptive. One moment it hummed with the frantic, scurrying noise of small prey, and the next, it would plunge into a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest.
I had been walking for hours, my boots crunching rhythmically against the undergrowth. My *Reverse Sloth* curse was a constant, buzzing reminder that I wasn't allowed to stagnate, but the forest seemed empty. No Grimm. No hunters. Just the faint, rhythmic wheeze of my own cooling fans and the distant, lonely sway of the trees.
Then, the forest shifted. Life returned with a sudden, overwhelming surge of sound. And with the life, the malice followed.
*Howl.*
The sound didn't come from one direction—it came from everywhere. I stopped, my muscles coiling as Sage flickered to life in my mind.
"Sage, status."
"Thirty contacts detected, Justice," Sage reported, his voice devoid of fear. "Beowolves. They have surrounded your position."
I took a breath. I triggered my Echolocation. A pulse of data erupted from me, mapping the jagged, three-dimensional geometry of the forest floor and the thirty hulking, heat-radiating shapes circling me. I had thirty seconds of clarity, followed by ten seconds of terrifying, absolute darkness.
I moved. My *Battle Instincts* took the wheel, smoothing my frantic, street-fighter movements into lethal efficiency. Hours passed in a blur of violence. My professional shirt—a stiff, formal garment I hadn't chosen—was a ruin of fabric soaked in black, tar-like Grimm essence. My joints ached, and my internal warnings were blaring, but the *Reverse Sloth* curse pushed me, demanding I never stop.
When the last of them finally dissolved into ash, I felt hollow. I needed to wash the soot and the viscous black tar from my skin. It felt like stone, hardening over my synthetic casing, restricting my movement.
[Four hours later]
The river water was biting, a sharp, icy contrast to the heat radiating from my overworked cooling systems. I knelt on the muddy bank, scrubbing at my sleeves. The fabric—stiff, professional, and completely out of place—was crusted with the dried, gritty residue of the battle. It felt like trying to scrub away hardened clay.
My hands trembled. Not from the cold, but from the lingering phantom sensation of the massacre. I wasn't just a machine; I was a girl dropped into a hellscape, expected to perform like a weapon. A wave of exhaustion washed over me. I wasn't just physically depleted; I felt a profound, aching loneliness.
"Sage," I whispered. "Do you ever... feel it? The silence? It feels like it's waiting for me to break."
"I detect elevated stress markers," Sage replied. "You are experiencing grief."
"Grief," I repeated, a bitter laugh escaping. "I'm a girl with no eyes, a broken arm, and a curse that won't let me sit down to cry about it. 'Grief' feels like a luxury."
Then, the ground trembled.
A roar, deep and visceral, tore through the stillness. Across the river, two massive, hulking shapes emerged.
"Sage," I said, my voice hardening, shedding the vulnerability. "Identify."
"Ursa," Sage replied. "Rank C. Tank-like, slow, but highly lethal."
I felt the *Reverse Sloth* curse buzzing in my marrow. I couldn't be sad. I couldn't be tired. I had to be motion.
I reached into my mental interface, feeling the 30 stat points sitting there like dormant embers.
"Sage," I commanded, my voice cold, mirroring the water at my feet. "Allocate the 30 points. Put 15 into Attack to pierce that hide, and 15 into Defense. If I'm going to be their entertainment, I'm going to make sure the performance costs them everything."
I tightened my gloves, the leather creaking. I didn't care about the reward anymore. I just wanted to hit something hard enough to drown out the silence.