No

“If you want a chance at saving anyone from those tanks, then I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” The sounds of birds chirping and sprinklers working faded out of John’s focus as Otrov spoke. His relaxed and tired demeanor stiffened as Otrov thumbed a seemingly empty spot on her waistline, before Otrov’s statement disarmed John in a way he wasn’t expecting. He didn’t have to use his abilities to see what she was doing. She fought with knives and illusions, so he assumed that she had her hand on one of those poisonous daggers.

His stomach did a flip at the idea of all of the people he saw in Springfield’s mana tanks dying because of something he failed to do and nearly knocked the Gamer off his feet again, but he restrained himself, barely, by focusing on other possible outcomes.

He didn’t want to go head first into a fight for someone else, kill another human being, and then turn around to find Otrov ready with a dagger to put into his back. If he killed Daniel, and she didn’t let the people in the mana tanks go… then he would have just added one more name to the impossibly long list of lives taken by the Cabal. Without a contract, he would have made the situation worse, not better. He wanted more than anything to just charge for the mana factory the Cabal had set up in Springfield and smash the tanks to pieces, but Otrov had mentioned that disconnecting the people inside incorrectly could potentially hurt the survivors more than it could help them. He wanted to do something so badly he could feel the need to move in like a strange kind of hunger, aching in a way that pushed him towards action.

Instead, he waited. It didn’t feel like something he was supposed to do, nor did he feel like the type of person to wait for something like this. It felt like he was ignoring something that his body needed to survive, but he managed… after he spent a few minutes practicing his breathing like a pregnant woman at yoga.

“No…” he told her finally, and watched as Otrov shrunk further into her battle stance. “I spoke with the members of the Frozen Flame. The person who you said was coming here is your boss, right? A Magus? I can stall and tell you to give me a contract all I want, but you’re on a time limit. You have to get this done now, because I imagine that your boss isn’t going to be happy with how your last mission went down.”

Otrov didn’t waste any time. As soon as John finished talking, she went right back to trying to convince him to do what she wanted, “We are all running out of time! If you don’t get this done, he-”

“He’ll get rid of you and then hire someone else to do the job you fucked up?” John cut in, and watched as Otrov flinched and jerked back at the sudden implication. Her brow furrowed almost immediately. She pressed her lips into a thin line as John took her reaction as confirmation before she finally spoke up loud enough to deny it.

“Fine,” Otrov growled, and John watched as the world seemed to blur around the two of them. He didn’t need a pop-up to tell him that he had been pulled into a barrier; by that point he felt like he had become intimately familiar with the strange little pocket realms. “Let me put this into perspective for you.”

You have been pulled into a trap barrier! You must defeat all enemies inside the trap barrier to escape!

“You’re right. The person coming is in charge of me and technically a ‘Magus.’ The Cabal ranking puts him above Philosophus, like me-” John stopped her for a moment to smile and scoff, but Otrov didn’t finish speaking. “-but he is not my boss!” she snapped, and John’s smile shrunk slightly. Somehow, even after facing down dragons and undead monsters, the Gamer found himself instinctively recoiling slightly when someone raised their voice. “Anthony is different from the rest of the Cabal! He found us- Saved us! If you think you’re going to be safe from him when he arrives, you’re wrong!

“Michel was the first one that Anthony found. The first to be saved. He wasn’t some freelance mage or psychotic, power-hungry necromancer when Anthony found him. Michel was a kid, hiding from a war torn country in a shack with a can of beans to keep him alive and a nest of rats for company. He raised Michel, and you killed him!” she growled, and the smile on John’s face disappeared. “Do not misunderstand me, John. My Magus raised all of us. He’s not coming here for me, the Rose, or the Flame!”

“He’s here for you.”

“If you want to survive this, John, then you need the Warden and the Frozen Flame.” John heard her continue talking after that, even understood her, but he stopped trying to listen as what she said sunk in. He didn’t feel shocked necessarily, but there was something about what she just said that brought out a physical reaction in him. His neck tensed and immediately began to ache like someone was pushing on it, driving a sharp point into a bunch of his muscles until they were sore and tense, and his heartbeat moved like it no longer belonged in his chest. He couldn’t tell if the organ was beating faster in his chest or if it was just stronger. It felt like it was hammering away. He could feel his pulse in his cheeks and his ears, pounding so loudly that it seemed to muffle and drown out the volume of everything else..

Thankfully, his train of thought didn’t stop working. Gamer’s Mind kept him focused, even when his body turned to try and make him walk away from her. Even with the new sense of urgency, John didn’t want to let her go without a contract. If an ultimatum didn’t work, then reasoning was his next step. It took him a while to get the words out, though. She was still talking, but what she was saying wasn’t important anymore. He got the gist of it already.

Someone in the Cabal felt like he had killed their son.

“Then making a contract really is the best thing we can do,” John told her, and watched as Otrov glared at him. He had to clear his throat when he spoke because of how frail his voice sounded, but it only took a moment for him to regain some composure. “If he’s coming for me, then the best thing for me to do would be to run, right? If I want to protect myself, that is. If you want me to help you instead, then what’s to stop me from turning away when something gets tough? I couldn’t do that with Michel, but I haven’t even started fighting Daniel yet.” This time, Otrov took a visible step towards John, her hands visibly tightening around the empty air at her belt and John felt even more sure of the idea that she had invisible daggers strapped to her waist... but he didn’t fall into the comfort of Arete’s fighting stance. He stayed relaxed for as long as possible. Otrov didn’t. “A contract benefits both of us… or…” He paused, as he pulled open one of his pop-ups and flicked through his character menu again. There was so much for him to deal with in his abilities, new rules and levels that he had gained since his last battle, but there was only one thing he needed right now.

The first thing he checked for was to see if he was in combat or not, and thankfully, it had not yet begun. He didn’t think his abilities would allow him to increase his stats or anything like that while he was in combat. Otrov was still listening, but there was no way for him to tell how long she would do that. Eventually, he sifted his way through a litany of screens until he stumbled across the Horrible Evolution screen he had unlocked once before. The tree that he had already spent a point in had expanded up to show a few more smaller options had spread out from the base of the skill tree so he could continue to grow further with the two evolution points he now had, but he wasn’t looking for something in the new information. He already knew what it was he wanted, and when he picked it, the icon of two golden glowing cat eyes lit up on his interface like someone had shined a light onto it. The Mental Rite that John had selected the first time flashed as he unlocked the Magical Rite alongside it, and then John closed the screen before he could accidentally spend the second Evolution point.

He dismissed his screens with a wave of his hands as something glassy seemed to pass over his vision, and the Gamer sighed. Observe wasn’t necessary for locating Otrov anymore. When John looked up, he found himself struggling briefly to look at the woman in front of him, like he might if he had been trying to stare through a foggy window, before he eventually realized that it was the image of Otrov herself that was foggy. His vision clarified as the illusion in front of him gradually began to fade, until it was mostly translucent, and John turned his head in every direction to try and find Alanah.

“...Or we can do this the hard way,” John said as he at last turned to his left, and watched as Otrov’s eyes widened as John finally began to stare straight at her.

Magical Rite, Horrible Evolution. Passive.
Magical Rite: This subject has evolved past the limits of humanity. Their soul has become a weapon and seeps out of their form in various ways like a dangerous, invisible aura. Standard effects that would normally hinder the user are now countered by this evolution. This unit can no longer be blinded, even by complete light or darkness. This unit cannot be fooled by illusions or spells that would hinder their eyesight in any way.