“What’s that mean?” Lucas asked. “Am I going to have to report this kill as glitchy so that someone reviews the conversation?” He didn’t know how he could help Liu, but he definitely didn’t want her to have to go through dealing with this jerk again.

“No,” Liu quickly stated, turning to Lucas and shaking her head. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t want this to be an issue. I just got this job less than a year ago, and if I’m known as a sexual harassment victim”—she frowned—“that’s all people will ever know me as. No one will give me any respect, and a year later, I’ll probably get fired for the first thing they can pin on me. I wouldn’t be the first. There’s no point. Let me just have my win today. Let me be satisfied knowing that at least I, specifically, won’t have to deal with that creep again in this world since any new avatar that’s generated for him will be shifted to a different island. It’s fairly standard whenever GMs are killed, and they lose their characters.”

Lucas nodded. He didn’t understand her at all, though. He’d have wanted the cruelest and absolute vengeance no matter the cost. That said, he knew that it wasn’t his place to say or do anything, and he had to respect her choice. “Well, are you going to be okay?” he asked. Despite the upbeat, “let me have my win” tone, she didn’t exactly look happy. Relieved, perhaps, but definitely not happy. All he could do was be there for her, the same way she had been there for him.

Since he didn’t know how to solve her work problems, he did the only useful thing he could think of: he walked up to her and hugged her. He could feel her clenching tightly into the hug, and he responded in kind. Even after a few minutes, she only squeezed him harder, as if to say “No, you’re not going anywhere yet.”

They heard a loud “ahem” from the door, and Lucas turned to see Bonnie, Nick, Viola, and Katie sitting at the entrance to the boss room. He wasn’t sure when they had arrived, but there they were with him, standing in the middle of a mess that looked like a warzone.

“Yeah, sorry. Wanted to announce our presence earlier, but you two looked like you were having a moment,” Nick explained. “We were kiting the guards around, and then they suddenly just . . . well, let us through. It was weird.”