Adler sprinted out of the storage room. Though his vision was still blurry, Orel could see his spirit wavering on his face. The conflict on his face as his curly brows struggled to keep still was blatantly obvious.

"I will not let this become my Florian," he said, walking toward the meetup point. His movements stopped as his gaze returned to Orel. "I will not leave you to squirm your way out of my grasp."

Orel felt his heart stop. There was no escape. He turned himself on his stomach and desperately shuffled his legs to push himself forward. Adler followed with hasty steps, ready to deliver a deadly blow.

"Please do not disgrace yourself and your comrades any further." He pressed his foot against his back and watched his legs race against the floor. "What a sickening display, but what am I to judge a rat for its survival instinct?"

There was something off about Orel, but Adler could not tell what. The way he used his legs bothered him, but there was no time to waste. He prepared to deliver a punch to the back of Orel's neck that would end it all. As the smallest show of mercy, he ensured it would be a swift and sure death. There was no hesitation. At least, until he saw a sparkle underneath Orel. That was it. He was not using his left hand. The crawling was just a distraction from him casting his spell.

But Adler was not afraid. His Divina Machina was still active. With it, he should have enough speed to react to any threat. The futile attempt made no difference in the end. Or so he thought. A sudden surge of warmth tickled down his back. He turned and saw a mighty fireball coming his way.

"Begone." He stretched his arm toward it.

The fireball disappeared into his hand and disappeared, leaving only a whiff of hot air around. Adler remained unfazed, though his hand was not covered in a frosty layer of moisture. He was not concerned about it or had no time to worry about the pain, for another thing appeared behind the fireball. Ándras stood in the middle of the corridor with a large hole in his chest, his eyes blank like a dead fish.

"What is with all these people not dying when they are supposed to? Submit to your fate and perish." He said, bursting toward him. "If the heart is not enough, then off with your head!"

In that burst, it finally came to him. That fireball was not from the spell, though he could not know. It would have been the first time the spell had made something out of mana. His mind had been accelerated to the point he could think all of it before reaching Ándras. His instincts worked even faster—so fast that he could already feel something trying to surprise him from the sidelines. With a swift turn of his head, his usually cold eyes filled with perplexion, forcing them to open up to full display.

The sword was back in motion, but now with two arms attached to it. These slimy, chromatic hands swung around without joints like loose gelatin. Behind them was the person Adler had forced himself to forget. A sly smile from the darkness brought time-sapping memories into his mind. Even with his emotions robbing him of precious time, Adler dodged the strike, though barely. He was not as lucky with the next one. With no bones in the way, the hands could bend the wrists over themselves to turn the blade back on him. The tip managed to stab him in the leg, slowing down his movements.

"And I thought you would escape again, Slip." Adler tried to buy time as his wound healed. "Or did you want to save these people?"

"Yeah, that wasn't part of my job description." Slip's hands swirled back into the storage room. "Then I remembered I'm self-employed."

"You have not changed at all. You already died because of that bad attitude of yours; why make history repeat itself?"

"And you? Still hurting, yet still working. Is it that easy to follow orders? Does it feel good to pretend to be a mindless machine? Beep boop, I am Cooper Bot 3000. Objective: Repressing minorities for Big Daddy Government." Slip mimicked an autotune.

"Big talk from a living slime that bit the hand that fed only to play dead for ten years."

"We're both failures, Cooper. That's why they put us in AMMO, right? They mutilated us as if they got paid for it. Well, they probably got it, but that's beside the point."

"Not everyone can be saved," Adler said under his breath.

"Did you hear that?" Slip looked around with worry in his eyes. "Someone is about to start an evil monologue."

"Enough with the jokes!"

"I'm not the one about to give some grand reason for their evil worldviews."

"You just don't understand. Even if it's one percent, even if it's those scum, it's still better than us wasting time helping everyone. There is only that much progress to thin out, but if you gather it all for a select few, they will be able to progress with unrivaled speed and efficiency. Think about what they would be able to do without all those distractions."

"Cooper, Money can't change people and magic is no different. Neither can cure impotence. You are shooting yourself in the foot, assuming you haven't already replaced it."

"It is a selfless sacrifice. Not everyone is willing to do it, so I am here!" Adler burst into the room.

He made sure to be prepared, not to be surprised again. Yet he failed. A tall man stood in the middle of the room, wrapped in black and turquoise wraps.

"Long time no see, protege," The white mask bearing the likeness of a noble hawk nodded.

Adler went for a strike. His fist went through the stomach and out the other side.

"How low can you go? Respect the dead, you fool!" Adler gritted his teeth, only to notice something wrong. There was no impact.

A large hole in the man's torso closed like molten plastic as he gripped Adler's arm and flailed him from the room.

Slip followed him under the guise, leaning down his head to fit through the door. With only a dark military jacket and a pair of rugged trousers covering the long body wrapped in colorful bandages, the man looked like he had just escaped the morgue.

"Oh, so that's where you draw the line? Random people? Don't care. Sensei? Oh no! How many lives is Old Adler exactly worth?"

"I would have slaughtered the slums for him," Adler huffed, bouncing off the wall.

"Don't take me wrong. I respected him too. He gave me hope that someone like me could survive this cruel world. Dog eat dog or cruel eat cruel. Gruel? No, wait."

"I have only one question before I end you. I remember how your spell works. Where did you get a hold of his body?"

"Don't ask me. Seance doesn't keep tabs on that, and neither do I. I did eat a lot of things in my experiments. Who knows? Maybe I took a nibble at him at some point."

Adler had to admit that he didn't know enough about him. For that, he had to remind himself of what he could remember. Slip, or experiment number 2561, was constructed by now-dead professor Eugen Orideus from MIB's science wing as an attempt to make an artificial soldier capable of infiltrating enemy ranks. Much of the process is still unknown. While enchanted servants were nothing new, they had their limitations with complex tasks and availability All that was released through rumors and leaks was that Orideus deployed psychomancers to put a blank soul into a mana-conducting metal alloy body—a controversial decision his peers highly criticized for him. Even though the experiment seemed like a success, Orideus' career ended quite soon after. For reasons he could never manage to explain, he could not repeat the experiment successfully, no matter how many times they tried. Ultimately, his research was stopped, and the project was deemed a failure. What once seemed like a revolutionary accomplishment was deemed a deviant and sent to AMMO to research how the body could replicate mystic mutations. After being discharged from the program, Slip was put on the list of potential Talon agents due to his talents in infiltration and adaptive capabilities.

As it came to him, Slip dropped between the floor and the bottom of the doorway.

"Sorry, but I'm going to drop out now. No way I would try to take you on a fight," he said, slipping between the spaces like a piece of paper.

Adler couldn't make the connection fast enough. He knew Slip could copy the spell of a body, but it hadn't occurred to him yet how easy it was to escape. He tried to strike Slip's head in, yet it only crushed the doorframe.

"Damn it. I never thought I would see Backroom in action again." He sighed. "Where do you get the energy to spout all that nonsense? You would have been a better agent than me if you put that effort into taking out targets—such a waste of potential. There was one point in there I could agree on. It is a cruel world."

He released Divina Machina with a long sigh and some stretches. "No need to keep this up. The aching is already setting in. I must finish this before it gets any worse."

A dragging sound reached his ears. Adler's head turned toward the hallway, and he found that the bodies were gone. A trail of blood led to the edge of the wall and floor, where Orel's legs still hung out. Adler sprunted toward it, yet his aching legs slowed him down. The legs slipped into the space just before his hands could reach them. That was because he wasn't targeting them. His hand needed only a small touch—a quick tap on Slip's skin.

"Still serious about saving others? Then be prepared to suffer the cost."

Slip could no longer hide in the endless corridor as it collapsed upon itself. While he never meant to hide in it, the sudden change forced him to escape quickly. Unlike a Plane Shifter plane, the liminal space of Backdoor exists only when the spell is activated and disappears once it is dismissed. If someone were inside the space at that time, they would be spat out from the nearest door to their location. There was not enough time. He pushed the three bodies further down the corridor and prepared himself.

He fell out into a dangerously familiar hallway. A step behind him confirmed it.

"Cooper, what a coincidence." He cracked a nervous smile.

"This is getting tiresome," Adler said, cracking his neck. "Let's settle this once and for all. Man against man."

Slip assimilated the mask into his mass, revealing his sour expression. "If you have any respect left to give, then don't call me man. I don't want to associate with you people."

For the first time, Adler laughed at something Slip said. As cold as the autumn wind, the cackle echoed through the halls without any constraints. "A construct talking down to man? Never in my life would I have expected to hear such a thing!" The smile receded between the hand concealing his lips. "Fine then. Let that be my last courtesy to you."

As his form started to morph again, Slip put on a somber smile. "Thanks, Cooper."

Aston and Martin continued their terrified sprint along the hallways with heavy rummaging following them shortly behind, or that was until a moment ago.

"Is she still following us?" Martin asked without looking back.

"Go ahead and check!" Aston rushed ahead.

The two spotted a four-way intersection in the hallway. They glanced at each other and nodded in unison to split up. They turned the corner and hugged the wall. It was then they realized they went for the same side.

"You idiot!" They yelled at each other.

"You were on the right!" Martin said.

"That would have been too obvious!"

"Well, you surprised me!"

"Wait," Aston looked around.

"Don't you dare to shut me up!"

"Not that, you brushlip! I am trying to listen for footsteps!"

Martin took a moment to listen. "Now that you mention it. Did we manage to lose her?"

The two peeked from the corner and saw nothing there.

"Huh, would you look at that?" He was pleasantly surprised.

"And that!" Aston pointed toward a stairway heading up. "We can get back to the higher floor and meet up with the others!"

Martin brushed his mustache in thought. "But should we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Since we are already caught, maybe we should instead seek the mage responsible for this spell."

"Weren't those three supposed to do that? We would just get in the way."

"The best way we can help everyone is to disable the spell."

"Wait, what if that woman went after Emil and Hortensia instead?" Aston realized.

"Since we are already caught, there is no good reason to pursue us," Martin theorized.

"The game will be over before we can find the gamemaster!" Aston hyperventilated. "We need to go after her!" He looked back to the hallway.

Martin thought that behind all of Aston's logic and reasoning was the noncredible source of fear, but he found himself having misjudged him. A fear of death does not automatically make someone passive, but active towards survival. Even if the answer includes danger, he can look past it as the most logical action for preventing his demise.

"What are you grinning for?" Aston asked and walked back.

"Nothing. Let's go," Martin wiped the smirk off and followed him.

"Where are you going?" A young voice asked behind them.

The two froze like deer to a headlight. Neither dared to look behind them, yet had to muster the strength. Someone walked from the hallway opposite the stairs. A small pale girl lifted her goggles to her forehead and squinted her tired eyes.

Aston sighed in relief. "What are you doing here little girl?"

"Excuse you?" Her orange brows contorted.

Martin looked down and saw that despite her size, she was wearing the yellow-sleeved white robes of an alchemist.

"Wait, Aston." He butted in. "You work here, am I correct?"

"Finally, a man of knowledge. Perona Rotwood." She lifted the ends of her lab coat with self-congratulatory smugness. "Haven't seen you here before. Transfers?"

"That's right!" Martin lied as boldly as he could.

"Working on a cross-academy research project," Aston hastily added.

"Ooh! What are you researching? Mana conduction? Regeneration? Meta-magic properties? Come on, tell me!" Perona's eyes lit up with sparkles.

"Um..." Aston struggled to answer.

"Secret!" Martin nodded furiously along.

"Aw, man. Should have guessed," She kicked the floor. "By the way, did something happen here? I went for a lunch break and everything is flashing red."

The memory of what they did to the lab flashed in their minds.

"Who knows?" They shrugged.

"Well, whatever it is, it's not going to stop me from completing my experiments," Perona stretched her slender hands. "Are you coming?"

"No, we were actually..." Aston moved his eyes toward Martin.

Recognizing the silent plea, Martin worked overtime to come up with a passing explanation.

"Getting our lab coats!" He felt proudly shuffled his mustaches.

"Oh, I got some spares in my lab that might fit you," Perona pointed her thumb to the hallway they came from.

"Um, thank you for the offer but..." Martin struggled for his life but came out short-handed for ideas.

"No need to be shy! We got to show some hospitality!" Perona tugged their sleeves and pulled them along.

Trapped in the grasp of awkward social interactions, the two followed her in silent mourning. Soon they were in full lab gear, from round plastic goggles to blue shoe covers. While Martin's whiskers hid easily behind his facemask, Aston's long beard poked underneath like a sore thumb.

"Good luck with the experiments!" Perona waved them off.

The two glanced at each other with no words.

"It kind of fits you," Aston noted.

Martin glanced at him with silent contempt and walked off.

The two wobbled off with the rustling sound of their plastic shoe covers filling the halls. They had no time to waste, yet they could not run because the covers were too slippery. The only reason they did not take the equipment off was from respect and partly, though mostly because they didn't want to risk it if they came across Perona later on. With that in mind, they marched on slowly yet surely to find Anita before she could find their friends.