Chapter 8: Running Was the Smart Choice
Chapter 8: Running Was the Smart Choice
"Is that the one who hit you?"
Liora’s voice was quiet and flat, the playful edge she’d carried since falling on my face gone completely. Below us, heavy boots scraped concrete.
"Pretty boy! I know you’re up there!"
Level 9. The bastard had brought someone capable of tracking the blood I’d left behind.
Apparently rejection makes some men philosophical and others homicidal. I have found the homicidal kind.
I didn’t answer her question. I didn’t need to; my silence was answer enough, and she was sharp enough to read it.
"How strong?"
"Level 9," I whispered. "Him. The other two are lower. One’s probably a tracker. The other..."
I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen them. But Liora’s ears were swivelling and her nose was twitching, cataloguing scents I couldn’t perceive.
"The tracker feels around Level 6," she said. "The third man is weaker. Perhaps Level 4." Her nose wrinkled. "The tracker carries something stained with your blood. They must have collected it from the shelter. The weaker one smells like cheap steel and cheaper confidence."
Three men. Approximately nine, six, and four. My summon was a Level 1 manifestation carrying twenty-one levels of survival experience.
The math is not encouraging.
I caught myself calculating anyway. Three against two. Liora had the experience, the instincts, the knife work that had killed the Crawler. If we ambushed them — if she took the tracker first, if I distracted the Level 4—
"I can surprise one," Liora said, as if reading my thoughts. "Possibly kill one."
"And the other two?"
"Kill us."
She said it without drama, the way you note that water is wet or that the apocalypse has terrible room service.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her she was underestimating herself, underestimating me. I wanted to march down those stairs and put my kitchen knife through the bastard’s throat and watch him understand that Level 1 did not mean helpless, that Charisma 100 did not mean available, that touching me without permission was the last mistake he would ever—
"We need to leave," Liora said.
"Fine."
"Now."
"I said fine."
I didn’t move. My hands were shaking, and not from fear — from rage, from the same hot bitter fury that had kept me awake all last night building revenge fantasies that made my bruised ribs ache.
Liora looked at me. Really looked, her amber eyes tracking from my clenched fists to my jaw to the pulse hammering in my throat.
"Wanting him dead," she said quietly, "is not the same as being ready to kill him."
I hated that she was right. Hated that my body was too weak to back up my anger. Hated that survival meant running from a man who had touched me like I was merchandise.
But I wasn’t Level 1 anymore. I was Level 2 — still pathetic, still starving, still one good punch from a hospital bed, but I had a summon now. A D-grade catgirl who had killed a monster with me. Who had asked permission before holding my hand. Who was currently watching me with something that might have been concern.
I can’t waste that.
"Get us out," I said. The words came out rough. "Without letting them see us."
The warning passed through the coordination link clearly: retreat, concealment, immediate survival. Liora still chose how to act on it.
Liora’s ears flicked. "Good choice."
"I hate it."
"Good choices usually feel that way."
❖ ❖ ❖
A small private window appeared in the corner of my vision as we moved.
[Host level update registered.]
[Manifestation synchronization completed.]
Liora Venn — Manifested Level: 1 → 2
Native Level: 21 — Sealed
[Attribute and energy ceilings increased.]
[Existing injuries unchanged.]
[New energy capacity: Unfilled.]
[Duration added: 10% of unanchored D-grade Level 1 duration — 01:30.]
[Remaining timer capped by current unanchored maximum.]
[Technique access updated: Softstep.]
Liora paused mid-step. Her ears swivelled and her tail curved into a slow question mark.
"Better," she murmured.
"What changed?"
She flexed her legs experimentally. The motion was subtle, but I saw the difference — her weight settled more naturally, her stance widened by a finger’s width, her balance sharpened.
"Your offensive level became slightly less offensive."
She had gone from Level 1 to Level 2. My levelling was synchronising with her manifestation. Every level I gained while she was here made her stronger, made her more capable, and made her more likely to keep me alive.
For the first time, I’m genuinely glad my class isn’t just a joke about my face.
Her timer flickered. The synchronization had bought only a minute and a half; it had not healed her or refilled anything she had spent.
[Manifestation Remaining: 40:51]
The synchronisation hadn’t reset it. She was still bleeding time.
She was already moving, crouching near the blood trail — my blood, dried brown on the hallway floor — and producing that third knife from somewhere I still couldn’t track. Two quick slashes cut a strip from my torn shirt. Stained, dark, perfect.
"Laundry chute," she whispered, pointing. "End of the hall. Drops to the basement. We make a false trail, then go up."
"The tracker will follow it?"
"Trackers follow the obvious. It’s what makes them trackers." She dragged the cloth strip along the floor, leaving a faint smear, then tossed it down the chute. "By the time he realizes the trail goes cold, we’ll be gone."
"And if he doesn’t fall for it?"
"Then we improvise." She was already scanning the ceiling. "Fire escape. The rusted one outside the stairwell window. It connects to the next building."
The rusted one. The one that looks like it would collapse if a pigeon landed on it too hard.
"That’s our escape route?"
"You have a better one?"
I didn’t.
She motioned me forward. "Step exactly where I step. Don’t touch the walls. Don’t look back. If you need to cough, swallow it. If you need to sneeze, I will be very disappointed in your survival instincts."
"Your faith in me is inspiring."
"If I had faith in you, I wouldn’t be telling you how to walk."
We moved. Liora’s Softstep wasn’t invisibility; it was subtler than that — a shift in how she placed her feet, how she distributed her weight, how she flowed through space without disturbing the dust or the debris or the scattered glass. My own steps were louder and clumsier, and every footfall seemed to echo. But I was Level 2 now, and my Agility was four. Not much, but enough to follow her lead. Enough to place my feet where she placed hers. Enough to keep my breathing controlled despite the ribs that still ached with every inhale.
At the stairwell I paused. Below us, the voices were closer.
"—blood trail goes up. Definitely this floor."
"Check the apartments. He’s weak. Probably hiding under a bed somewhere."
Weak. The word hit differently now. I was still weak — still the weakest combatant in any room I entered — but I wasn’t alone anymore.
I pulled the fire door closed, slowly and silently. The hinges didn’t creak because I’d oiled them three days ago in a paranoid frenzy. My past self had done something useful for once.
Liora raised an eyebrow.
"Preparation," I whispered.
"Surprisingly competent."
"I have moments."
"Make sure the next one involves not falling off the fire escape."
She pushed the window open and cold air rushed in. Beyond the rusted metal platform, the neighbouring building loomed — close enough to reach, far enough that a fall would be fatal.
Liora went first, light as a shadow, barely disturbing the grating, and reached the other side in seconds to land in a crouch on the opposite roof access. Then she turned and extended her hand.
I climbed onto the fire escape. The metal groaned.
Vitality 3. Agility 4. Both suppressed by creation flaws that make my body perform below its numbers. This is going to be humiliating.
I moved slowly, testing each step. The wind pulled at my torn shirt. The gap between the buildings looked wider from up here. My ribs screamed as I stretched to reach the next railing.
My foot slipped.
The rusted metal crumbled beneath my weight and my leg dropped through empty space. My backpack swung wildly. I grabbed the railing with one hand — Strength 4, not enough, my fingers already slipping—
Liora’s hand closed around my wrist.
Her manifested body was Level 2. She wasn’t strong enough to lift me effortlessly. Her arm shook. Her ears flattened. Her tail wrapped around the railing behind her for extra anchor.