“Wait! I—I…” His voice fluttered like a moth against a window.

“Countdown starts. Ten—” Ling’s tone dropped like a pebble into a well.

At the word countdown, the soldier’s face curdled like sour milk, and his clenched teeth clicked, crack-crack, like hail on slate.

It felt like a game’s forked road in a storm: save the world or save one, except his world shrank to a single face.

“I…” The word stuck in his throat like a fishbone in dark water.

“Five—” Her next number snapped like a dry twig in winter wind.

“Huh?! Aren’t you supposed to say nine?!” His protest skittered like a startled crab on wet rock.

“Two—” The sound fell like a guillotine through fog.

“Wait, wait! I—I agree! I agree, alright?! Don’t hurt ‘Little Sweetie’!” His words tumbled like marbles spilling from a pouch.

Tsk… “Little Sweetie,” seriously… The nickname crawled under the skin like an ant line.

She hesitated two beats, then, true to her word, Ling pried her finger away like lifting a thorn from flesh, and kicked this so-called “Little Sweetie” aside like sweeping trash from a doorstep.

Her disgust showed plain as a fly on white rice, and if the hand that touched yours truly hadn’t been shielded by magic earlier, she’d have gone for a clean amputation like ice snapping on a river—maybe even unlock the “Power of the King (Aaaa!)” for the trouble.

“No more chatter. Now. Right now. Spill every secret you’ve got, and I’ll let you go; whether you go eat ice cream or go ‘wrestle,’ just don’t come back, and I won’t do a thing.”

“Really?” His doubt wavered like heat over a desert road.

Keeping your word is a good kid’s badge of honor; without it, you don’t deserve a merit patch, and Ling, a 21st‑century kid at heart, wore that badge like a sunrise on her chest. So she didn’t argue; she just shot him a glare sharp as a drawn blade, and he went quiet like a pond at dusk.

“Let him go, sis,” Alicia said, her voice warm as fresh tea. “Let him speak for himself; we shouldn’t be the kind to threaten others.”

To show a little good faith—or something that looked like it—Alicia released his arm like easing a bowstring, walked to Ling, lifted her onto her lap like cradling a cat, and sat down on the stone floor like settling under an old tree.

The soldier pushed himself up from the ground like a drowned man breaking the surface, rolled his sore shoulders like grinding millstones, and, knowing escape was smoke in a gale, started spilling everything he knew like beans clattering out of a torn sack.

…

“That’s all I’ve got. Now it’s your turn to keep your promise and let us walk, yeah?” His hope flickered like a candle in a draft.

Ling waved him off like shooing a sparrow from the eaves, and he bolted with a lecher’s grin like a dog who’d snatched a roast, scooped up his “Little Sweetie,” and ran; where to, Ling couldn’t care less, like clouds ignoring the ant trail below.

“Sis, what do you think?” Alicia’s eyes were pools holding the sky and a storm.

“What’s there to think? He’s a grunt—empty gourd, little water.” Her words fell like pebbles into a dry riverbed.

Yes, the intel was thin as morning mist; unlike those wish-fulfillment tales where any random captive coughs up state secrets, and Ling once more learned this other world wouldn’t bend to novel logic, like a mountain refusing to move for a paper map.

Still, it wasn’t nothing; as a patrol, he’d walked these halls like a fox on familiar trails, and he did know a few useful things.

For one, in this basement he’d only ever seen two patrollers—him and “Little Sweetie”—and they followed a masked man like reeds bowing in wind, because the man held the Queen’s token, cold and bright as a winter moon, and refusal wasn’t on the table.

Also, the man often pushed a cart of cages, iron boxes humming like beehives, with Beastfolk penned inside like storm-tossed birds.

The rest was chaff in the wind; Ling’s mind sifted it like wheat from husk and kept only those two kernels.

“Ling, what do we do now?” Alicia asked, voice trembling like a string plucked in rain.

“Emmm… by genre logic, we go beat the boss next, right? And no matter how you slice it, that guy’s the puppet master, shadow long as a pine at dusk.”

It was simple as a footprint in mud, and Alicia had traced it too; she just hunted for a speck of hope, a firefly in thick night—that the culprit wasn’t a thinking being. She hated believing such cruelty could sprout from a mind like hers, but Ling’s answer crushed that little light like a heel on glass.

“No need to mourn him,” Ling said, voice cool as a mountain stream. “Human nature’s a thicket—thorns and blossoms both. Think of him as a bug, and it stings less.”

From Ling, the line tasted ironic as bitter tea; when she first fell into this world, if someone had said that, the bug under the boot would’ve been her.

“You’re right,” Alicia breathed, a smile thin as dawn. “I’m the dramatic sister needing my little sister’s nudge. Alright! Enough talk—let’s go exterminate some bugs.”

As if a knot had loosened, Alicia lifted Ling off her lap and set her aside like placing a jade on silk, pushed herself up with one hand like a sprout breaking soil, and stretched with a catlike grace; she looked lively as a spark in tinder—if only those dark stress lines on her face would fade like mist in sunlight.

Can’t let it go after all? Ling sighed inside, like wind through hollow bamboo. Well… it’s Alicia, after all.

Alicia tried to bury her wrath like embers under ash, not wanting Ling to notice the heat, but Ling knew her rhythms like tides know the moon, and the disguise didn’t fool her for a heartbeat.

Besides, our goal is bug-removal, Ling thought, a smile thin as a blade; letting big sis vent a little fire will only make the cleanse burn cleaner.