Love was panting when she let loose yet another volley of arrows onto her former colleagues. It wasn't the ideal scenario that she had trained for, but she knew she had to push on lest they all die a horrible death. And there were more pressing things to worry about than being murdered by the Emperor's lackeys. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Love merely blinked the building annoyance away as she fired off a trio of light-tipped arrows at Lady Static. The girl kept apologizing for things that were completely out f her control, and it annoyed the archer to no end that the Prime kept attacking them anyway. Why bother apologizing if she was going to continue heckling their group despite her apparent misgivings? Another bout of lightning threatened to strike the APC, only for Love to intercept them with her own blasts of light.

The concept of stress was something that I had to contend with back in the old world. Proper sanity management was a very important thing for me. The fact that I explicitly skipped classes simply for mental reasons was a big part of how and why it deteriorated in the first place. I suppose that short-term gains really suck for the long-term viability of actually passing my exams, but it still worked out, I guess. I mean, I just knew that I was only an allowance away from buying pesticide and killing myself back when I was still in med school. Still, the amount of shit that I had gone through had molded me into someone that panics first, then thinks clearly later. It circles back into itself every once in a while, but in general, I can cycle through emotions fast enough that I could somehow get myself out of the horrible holes I dug myself into. Unfortunately, now wasn't the right time for me to be useless

Right... That's over and done with... Dressing the last of Love's injuries, Lace and I finally let ourselves sag into our seats as exhaustion tried to overtake us. And while Lace was easily more capable of going for more, I was already on my last legs even before I participated in this shit. My already tired body was absolutely raring to fall apart like a house of cards; my chest tightening with such an alarming degree that I almost think I was about to have a heart attack. Well, at least it wasn't caused by Essence exhaustion this time. If it happens at all. "Thank you, Lace, Lady Crimson." I could only pant as I watched Love stand up from her prone position. With her back wrapped in sturdier bandages than before, the fact that she moved like it was nothing was infuriating my doctor senses. Already, the former Prime was raring to go out and return

Exhaustion. Tiredness. The primal force to simply not go on and give up... To be quite honest, I didn't really think I was the type of person to just drop everything and say 'fuck it, just kill me now' back when I was a kid. I sincerely thought I was capable of doing what my parents told me to do. Be a good girl, get good grades, maybe even get a scholarship in a good university, be successful. Then again, I was probably capable of doing it if I didn't just roll over at the first insurmountable obstacle that caused my self-confidence to come crashing down. It was stupid, I know, but I guess getting gaslit by everybody you knew that you were hot shit had dire consequences when the world suddenly hits you with a reality check so massive that you almost killed yourself. Heh... Perseverance was the one thing I lacked. Maybe I had it with games, but real life wasn't something you could just fail in with an unlimited number of times. Fail

Grigori gave me a small glance as he made sure to position himself near the back of the vehicle. With everybody- wait... I seriously forgot to get someone to be on coal duty, didn't I... "Shit!" Ducking my head back under the hatch, I turned my gaze to the two unoccupied members of the party. I didn't really care which of the two wanted to do it. What mattered was that someone got in there and began shoveling before we literally ran out of steam. "Ruby! Phillipe! I need one of you to get in the coal chamber!" I yelled out. "I don't care who, just that someone be there and do it!" "But-" I didn't bother hearing another one of Phillipe's protests as I returned to the more important job of being a lookout. All around us, the people were honest-to-god screaming and gasping at us as we moved forw