Chapter 93: A voice from the past
The system activated, a cascade of warning diagnostics scrolling across her vision in angry neon pink.
> [CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING: MATERNAL STRESS DETECTED]
> Target: Species - Rabbit-Kin (Sub-Adult) Condition: Obstructed Labor / Internal Hemorrhage / Uterine Rupture
> Risk: 94% Fetal Vitals: Dropping rapidly (3 counts).
> Estimated Time to Total Mortality: 7 minutes.
"Help! Please!" The lead badger fell to his knees right in front of the Boar overseers, his hands shaking as he pointed toward the mountain ledge. "The word passed through the lower valley... They said the human female has the magic of life! They said the ’Ancient Sin’ gave her the power to heal anything! Help us. This female has been in labor for two days—the kits won’t come out, and the village shaman said she’s already dead!"
The surrounding Fox Tribe members scrambled backward, murmuring in hushed, terrified whispers. To them, a bad birth was a curse, a sign that the spirits wanted the mother gone.
They were at it again with their traditional thinking.
Hana stared down at the screen, her brow twitching. Great. A medical emergency in the middle of a foundation layout.
She had no emotional attachment to a random rabbit from the valley. Her clinical mind immediately began calculating the resource drain—opening a Tier 04 advanced trauma kit, using sterile energy supplies, and wasting time when the automated builders needed constant calibration.
If she ignored it, the rabbit would die in less than ten minutes, the badgers would slink back into the woods, and her construction schedule would remain completely on time. It was the most logical choice for her timeline.
She closed the system window notification. She wasn’t running a charity.
BZZZZT.
The screen didn’t just bring up a normal quest window this time. The entire interface turned a blinding, aggressive crimson, vibrating so violently in her vision that she nearly shifted back on her heels. What was this?
Why was the system acting up?
> [SYSTEM OVERRIDE: THE SURVIVORS OATH]
> Mandatory Core Objective Initialized.
> Warning: You are currently carrying a dragon lineage. The system will not tolerate the passive observation of maternal mortality while advanced Tier 04 medical technology is within a 50-meter radius.
> Penalty for Inaction: Immediate and permanent synchronization failure. Your own maternal status report will be frozen, and your balance will be penalized by -500,000 Karmic Points.
> Time remaining: 06:12.
Hana’s breath caught, her jaw locking into a hard, vicious line.
You absolute piece of garbage, she thought, her eyes flashing with a lethal rage directed entirely at the invisible system.
It wasn’t even giving her a choice, and wasn’t giving her a reward either. It was holding her own child’s health hostage and giving a minus five hundred thousand points deduction to force her hand.
She was vexed, but she could not do anything about it. She had to comply, even if there was no reward. The penalty was more than enough to force her to move.
"Caspian! Kulu!" Hana’s voice snapped across the clearing, entirely stripped of its earlier deadpan calm. It was a war command.
She gritted her teeth, and then a voice, from nowhere but sounded all too familiar, whispered in her ear, You need to be threatened to do good. Isn’t that very pitiful of you, sister? When will you have a heart?
Hana gasped, quickly turning her head, but there was no one. Yes, there couldn’t be anyone. That vicious Saintess was the only one who mocked her and called her sister in one sentence.
There was no way she would be here, then... What was that?
Kulu dropped from the sky like a stone, his massive red wings kicking up a cloud of dust as he landed right beside her boulder. Below, Caspian abandoned the log-cutter as he vaulted up the ridge in a single, powerful bound.
"Hana?" Caspian rumbled, sensing the sudden, terrifying shift in her aura. She was still taken aback, but she decided to shake it out of her mind for now.
"Clear the main hub locker." She said, bringing her attention back to her tablet. "Bring the blue-crossed container inside the den immediately," she ordered, her fingers flying across the tablet to force-initialize the sub-station’s automated surgical table.
She hopped down from the granite boulder, her tactical boots hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. "Kulu, pick up the stretcher. Try your best not to shake it while you move it to the den!"
The badgers tried to scramble away in fear as the falcon that seemed like a giant to them, smaller beastmen stepped forward, but Kulu ignored them completely.
He lifted the vine stretcher with absolute care, keeping the pregnant, struggling female perfectly level as he strode toward the dark cave entrance.
The crowd of beastmen—the foxes, the lurking leopards, and the boars—all pressed forward, their eyes wide with a mixture of horror and intense curiosity.
They had never seen a female survive once a shaman had made the verdict. To them, a bad birth was just a death sentence, and that was it. But this female, this human, looked like she knew what to do to save the female.
She was going to use the supplies she got from the cursed metal.
But they were genuinely curious if she was using this as an excuse to stain her hands with a double mortality.
Inside the cave, the sterile white fluorescent lights felt blindingly cold. Caspian slammed the heavy blue metal medical container onto the stone floor, his claws packing a heavy punch as they popped the pneumatic seals while Hana approached.
The automated med-kit hissed open, revealing rows of vacuum-sealed surgical steel instruments, synth-flesh coagulant sprays, and an electronic fetal monitor that immediately began to beep in a frantic, high-pitched rhythm as Hana hooked the leads around the rabbit-kin’s twitching belly.
But as the machinery hummed to life, the eerie, mocking voice from before continued to echo in the corners of Hana’s mind. You need to be threatened to do good... Sister...
Hana gripped the edge of the surgical table so hard her knuckles turned white. That voice... The perfect, widely adored woman from her past life who had treated the apocalypse like a stage for her own martyrdom, constantly lecturing Hana for her cold, survival-first pragmatism after she and their parents had first abandoned her.
She was black at heart but pretending to be pure and good in the face of others, exploiting their weakness under deceit and feeding them false hope just so they could be devout followers of her.
And those mindless devout followers, weak things, ganged up on her orders to ambush Hana.
Why am I hearing her now? Hana thought, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of her neck. Is the system picking up remnants of my old world, or is that bitch’s ghost somehow linked to this administrative AI?
She had so many questions now, but she feared she would not find enough answers.
"Hana?" Caspian whispered, his large hands hovering over the table. He could smell the sudden spike of adrenaline and sheer, unadulterated fury radiating from her aura, and it terrified him more than any beast in the forest. "She is bleeding through the furs. What do we do?"
