Chapter 1: The Scoundrel Laughs On

Chapter 1:
The Scoundrel Laughs On

 

MERE DAYS SINCE Flum was first able to look at Milkit face-to-face, the bond between the two girls continued to grow stronger and stronger.

After an evening out shopping, they walked side by side, chatting about their earlier excursion as they made their way through the darkening streets to head home for dinner. Passersby shot scornful glances toward the two slaves, but neither of them cared much about it anymore.

“So Marinn watched Pyle fall into the hole and said ‘you know, it serves ya right to dive in a hole like that outta embarrassment.’”

Milkit snickered. “That must have been tough to hear.”

“I bet, but to be fair, it was totally Pyle’s fault, right? I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, too.”

“It sounds like you were pretty good friends with Marinn and Pyle, Master.”

“You could say that. Like I said, we were pretty much together since birth. One of these days I’d like you to meet them, Milkit. I’m sure you guys would get along great.”

“I’m sure any friend of Master’s must be a lovely person.”

Flum smiled broadly at this. She had been telling Milkit about her hometown of Patolia, getting lost in the excitement of all the stories from her childhood days. “Aaah, sorry, Milkit, I kinda took over the conversation there.”

“Not at all, Master. I love hearing about your stories.”

“Oh?”

“Of course! I want to know everything I can about you.” Milkit’s cheeks flushed pink under the amber glow of the setting sun.

Flum’s heart skipped a beat at the sight. Milkit was so beautiful, even with the bandages back around her face. She felt her own cheeks begin to burn and quickly averted her gaze. Milkit cocked her head to the side, curious as to why Flum had jerked her head away so suddenly.

“A-anyway, I’m really looking forward to dinner tonight!” Flum stammered.

“I’ll work extra hard on it, since Sara’s coming over.”

“Oh, Milkit, anything you make is absolutely a treat. I’m sure Sara will wolf it right down and love you for it.”

Flum meant every word, too. Though Milkit was embarrassed by the praise, she was clearly happy to hear it.

The two girls walked cheerfully down the relatively empty road connecting the Central and West Districts, content to simply enjoy each other’s company for now. Alas, their contentment was short-lived, as the loud sounds of argument erupted from around the next corner.

“Hey, lemme go!!”

“You’re from the church, aren’t ya? Why don’t you be a good little girl and come with me!”

Flum’s shoulders dropped as she let out a heavy sigh. She’d hoped for at least a brief moment of peace and quiet, despite the West District’s relatively dangerous reputation. “Hang on, Milkit. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting, Master.”

Flum set down her bags and took off after the voices. Just as she suspected, she found two large men closing in on a young girl.

“Why’re ya cowering like that, huh? Scared of a couple of big guys like us?” they jeered at the girl. Flum guessed by their vicious demeanors that they were part of Dein Phineas’s crew. He was something of an unofficial leader out in these parts.

Flum summoned a glowing black blade nearly as tall as she was—the Epic-class Souleater—from the parallel dimension where it waited to be called upon, and held it at the ready. Under normal circumstances, the curse placed on the sword would drastically reduce the stats of its wielder…and melt their flesh right off their bones. Her “Reversal” ability, however, transformed these curses into boons.

“Hey,” she said. “Any chance I can convince you guys to cut it out and leave?”

“Well, I’ll be, if it ain’t Flum Apricot. What’re you doin’ here, girly? Coming to stick your nose where it don’t belong again?”

“You’re the ones who keep showing up uninvited!”

In the short time since Flum became an adventurer based out of the West District, she’d had more than her fair share of Dein and his crew trying to sabotage her—preemptively taking down monsters she’d been hired to hunt, setting traps for her, drawing out monsters to attack her, and more. She’d finally had a day free of them, and now here they were, accusing her of butting in? Ridiculous.

“Ugh, talking to guys like you is a waste of time. Listen, just let the girl go if you don’t want to get hurt.”

“Heh. Have it your way.” Much to her surprise, the men let go of the girl and walked away.

“Well, that was weird…”

Though taken aback by how easily the encounter ended, Flum had more important things to think about. She quickly turned her attention to the girl, kneeling to offer her a hand. “Are you okay?”

Only then did she notice that the young girl’s face was bandaged up. Not unlike Milkit’s, though this girl’s bandages completely covered her eyes, almost certainly obscuring her vision as a result. She must be afflicted by something, too.

“Thank you, ma’am.” The girl reached out, grasping at thin air for a moment before finally catching hold of Flum’s hand.

“The West District is pretty dangerous, y’know. You shouldn’t walk around alone out here.”

“I know.”

“Then what’re you doing out here?? Anyway, that’s beside the point. You probably don’t even know where you are right now, with your eyes like that.”

The girl responded with a firm nod. Flum had an increasingly bad feeling about this, but she couldn’t just leave the poor girl alone to get attacked again, so she gently took her hand and led her back to Milkit.

“Is that the girl they were attacking?” Milkit asked.

“Yup. Hey, uh, what’s your name?”

“Ink, Ink Wreathcraft.”

Flum immediately followed up by casting Scan on the girl. After her recent encounter with the ogre, she couldn’t be too careful.

 

Ink Wreathcraft

Affinity: Water

Strength: 18

Magic: 43

Endurance: 28

Agility: 23

Perception: 49

 

Wreathcraft—the name had a dignified ring to it that was at odds with her appearance.

“I… I feel like someone’s staring at me. Did you cast Scan on me?” Ink was surprisingly perceptive.

“Sorry. I was just kinda curious.” Flum wasn’t sure why she was apologizing.

“Why would you do that, you pervert?!” Ink, on the other hand, didn’t seem too keen on the idea of people looking at her stats. Her bandaged appearance made it easy to assume the girl was weak, but it was quickly becoming apparent she was anything but.

“You probably already heard my name from Dein’s thugs, but I’m Flum. And this here is…”

“My name’s Milkit. I’m Master’s slave.”

“Slave? You mean, like, in the kinky kinda way?”

“Whoa, no, nothing like that!!”

“Master never bought me. Rather, she took me on. I had nowhere else to go.”

“Huh, I guess Flum here must be a really nice person.”

“She most certainly is.”

Flum’s cheeks flushed at the sudden praise.

Now that the introductions were out of the way, it was time to get this girl back to wherever she needed to be. Ink looked as young as Sara, and blind to boot. Flum was definitely not about to leave her alone. “Hey, Ink. Where do you live? If you can’t make it back on your own, I’m more than happy to take you.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Really, I’ve lost my memory. I don’t know.”

“Did you run away?”

“I told you, I have amnesia!!”

“Your parents must be worried sick about you.”

“I don’t have any parents!”

Flum had hit an impasse. Milkit pouted and then asked, “Were you staying with relatives? Or an orphanage?”

Ink shook her head vigorously, sending her ponytail flapping about.

“Then where are you from?”

“Dunno. I don’t remember anything.”

Flum let out a sigh of exasperation. Either this girl really was a blank slate or she just didn’t want to say.

“Why don’t we take her back to our place for a bit?” Milkit suggested. “She looks tired.”

“Don’t exactly have a lotta options. How does that sound, Ink?”

“Great!” The young girl nodded excitedly, almost as if she’d been waiting for them to suggest that. Though slightly annoyed with herself for falling for the girl’s ruse, Flum took Ink’s hand and led her back to their home.

 

***

 

The moment they walked through the door, Ink mumbled something in a deadpan voice about how sleepy she was. To be fair, she did look ready to pass out right where she stood. Assuming she’d only run away the day before, it was unlikely she’d had a wink of sleep on the lawless streets of the West District.

“Welcome back. Whoa, who’s the kid?”

“Hi, Eterna. We ran across some of Dein’s goons trying to rough her up on the way back.”

“Then take her back home.”

“Apparently, she doesn’t know where that is. I decided to bring her back here for now so she could get some rest. I’ll put her in our room.” Flum took the younger girl’s hand, intending to lead her upstairs to her bedroom.

“Hold up,” Eterna said. “Let’s get her some water before you put her to bed. Oh, and why don’t you put her in my room instead?”

“Your bedroom?”

“Yeah, there’s something I want to check on.”

“Got it.”

Flum directed Ink to Eterna’s room and sat her on the bed. A moment later, Eterna arrived in the room with a cup of water, which Ink quickly gulped down before curling up on her side. She was asleep in mere minutes.

Milkit looked down at the girl’s sleeping form. “She must’ve been exhausted.”

Staying up all night on the run, lost and alone in the West District, was no small feat for a child. The three looked at the snoozing girl for a moment before Eterna finally reached out and began to undo the bandages around Ink’s eyes.

“Should you really be doing that?”

“You saved her, didn’t you? I figured we can at least do this much. Anyway, take a closer look at this, Flum.”

At Eterna’s urging, Flum leaned in for a closer look at Ink’s face. She saw thread, clear as day, stitching the girl’s eyelids shut.

“Wh-whoa! What’s that??”

“That looks painful…”

Flum and Milkit were both taken aback at the bizarre sight. Even if she were blind, there was no logical reason to sew her eyes shut.

“Her eyes were probably removed,” Eterna said.

“R-removed? Do you think she was sick?”

“Hm…no. There’d be no reason to sew her eyelids shut if she were just sick. Honestly, this looks like the work of a very disturbed individual. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say there was some sort of ritual involved. At any rate, something’s not quite right with this girl.”

Flum had already figured Ink was in trouble, but what Eterna was saying was something else entirely. Milkit spoke up next. “Do you think the church has anything to do with this?”

Flum nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. A ritual… It has to have some kind of religious significance, right?”

It had been just a few short days ago, on their way to harvest medicinal herbs in the town of Anichidey, that Flum and Sara had battled an ogre with a bizarre spiral carved into its face. The creature had been horrifyingly faster and stronger than a normal ogre. The girls had also found an abandoned underground facility that had once been operated by the church of Origin—followers of the Divine Creator.

There was still a lot they didn’t know about that place, let alone the experiments conducted there. Flum couldn’t rule out the possibility that the church was conducting further tests at their cathedral in the capital, too.

Eterna spoke up, breaking the tension. “We don’t know that for sure. She may have been held for ransom or something. There’s just not enough here to definitely prove that this is the church’s doing.”

“You’re right… I guess for now, we just need to keep her safe, right?”

“I think that’s the best approach. But Flum, you should think long and hard before you get yourself involved in yet another problem.”

Flum offered up a dry laugh. “Too late for that. My life became one long series of problems the moment Origin called on me to join the other heroes.”

And yet, she felt like a heavy weight had settled on her shoulders.

 

***

 

“I’m heeeeere!”

Sara showed up for dinner right on schedule. The delicious aroma wafting from the house had clearly put her in high spirits, though her face tensed up the moment she entered the room. “I-Is that Eterna Rinebow? The legendary hero, Eterna Rinebow? What are you doing here?!”

Her shock was understandable. It had to be surprising to see a famous person kicking back at a friend’s house, though Flum couldn’t help but feel chagrined that she hadn’t elicited the same reaction when she first met Sara. Sure, she’d had the mark of a slave on her cheek, but Sara hadn’t even recognized her as a member of the same band of heroes.

“What am I doing here? I live here.”

Eterna gave Sara a brief overview of how she’d left the party because they weren’t getting along and moved into a squat she’d been eyeing for years. Sara didn’t look like she was entirely following, but it was enough to sate her curiosity. Her practical outlook made her quick to accept things for what they were.

Taking back control of the conversation, Flum asked Sara to take a look at Ink, hoping to confirm some connection to the church. Unfortunately, it was to no avail.

“Huh. Never seen her before,” Sara said.

Ah, well. All Flum could do was sigh as she looked back down at the sleeping girl. Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. It never was.

 

***

 

Sara jabbered on cheerfully as Milkit finished laying out the smorgasbord she’d prepared. Flum and Sara’s stomachs growled in unison at the delightful aromas mingling in the air. They both looked around nervously, hoping no one heard them, and finally took their seats. Once everyone was seated, they all put their hands together and said a quick blessing.

Sara was the first to dig right in, taking a large helping of harpusy, a cream stew filled with greens grown near the capital. The greens gave it a nice, satisfying crunch before melding together with the smooth white sauce. She mumbled excitedly around a large mouthful of food. Though the words were unintelligible, their meaning was clear: she loved it.

Flum, on the other hand, went right for the main course at the center of the table: sautéed genofish. Milkit had basted it in a rich marinade that shone through the skin along the grill-marks; the steam rose off it in spice-scented plumes. The genofish was a D-Rank fish monster that could grow up to around two meters in length. The one they bought at the market today was a mere 50 centimeters long but still quite a sight to behold.

Using her knife and fork, Flum carved up the fish and passed a plate out to everyone at the table before bringing a forkful of the grilled meat to her mouth.

“Woow! Thish ish great!” she gushed excitedly, if muffledly, around the mouthful of food.

The message got through loud and clear to Milkit. “Thank you, Master.”

To be on the safe side, she’d also prepared a meat and vegetable stir-fry, soup made with genofish stock, freshly baked bread—the list went on.

“That was absolutely divine.” Even Eterna, a woman of few compliments, had to praise Milkit’s efforts after making her way through each delectable course. Milkit beamed at the abundant praise the meal received.

Flum scooted in close and lifted a fork of genofish meat toward Milkit’s lips. “Say ‘aah.’”

“M-master, I can feed myself. Please don’t bother yourself.”

“Right, and here you are just smiling away while we eat. Now open wide!”

“Aaaaah…” Never one to disobey the will of her Master, Milkit finally opened her mouth and took a bite of the fish. It was delicious, but the fact of Flum feeding her so occupied her brain that she hardly tasted a thing.

“Well, they sure are friendly,” said Sara.

“It’s pretty much always like that nowadays,” said Eterna.

“Aww, I’m jealous. Hey, Milkit, I’ve been meaning to ask something. Why do you still wear bandages over your face? Weren’t you cured?”

“She said she’ll only show her face to Flum.”

“They sure are…close.”

“Right? Annoyingly so.”

Eterna was more than a little exasperated by the billing and cooing she had to witness, but it was worth it to finally see Flum happy. The poor girl had never looked this content on their travels together.

 

***

 

After dinner, it was time for Flum and Sara to trade notes. Milkit brought them some tea before heading off to go clear the table and do the dishes. They both offered to help out, but she stubbornly refused, insisting that this was her job.

“I can’t be of much help to your investigation,” she said, “so at least let me do this.”

Flum couldn’t say much to that.

Sara went first, looking dejected. “I’ve been hunting for information on the facility since we got back, but I got nothin’.”

“What about those documents you mentioned? The ones that said where we could find the kialahri?”

“I think one of the Central District priests accidentally left those out. The next time I went looking for them, they’d disappeared along with a buncha other stuff in the same vein. I remember a couple of places on the map, but that’s about it.”

“In other words, the clergy know at least something about this.”

“I’d say so. Or…at least I think so. I’m just a nun in training, y’know? Don’t exactly have free run of the place. There are whole areas of the cathedral I haven’t been in, but I was thinking…maybe a hero might be granted access?”

“Even if I were, they’d be keeping a close eye on me. There’s gotta be something else we can do. Maybe we have a shot with the churches in the East and West districts?”

“Hmm. I’m pretty tight with two knights stationed in the West District, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“There’s a big orphanage there. There are a lot of abandoned kids out in the West District; y’know what it’s like here. I’ve been there a few times myself, but kids are curious, and they go everywhere. It’d be hard to keep a big secret facility all hush-hush down there.”

That made sense to Flum. Sure, the church could disappear a kid who stumbled on something covert, but that risked drawing attention in its own right. “How about the East District, then?”

“That’s the rich side of town. It’s even less likely they’d risk bringing danger over there than the West District. Honestly, I figured they’d be set up someplace remote, like what we saw back in Anichidey.”

“You’re probably right. We could spend forever searching the capital and never find anything. We don’t even know if they’re still continuing their research at this point…” The facility where they encountered the spiral ogre had been closed for at least a dozen-odd years.

Eterna, however, was unconvinced. “The kingdom has been experimenting on people for far longer than you two know. I think it’s likely that the experiments continue somewhere here in the capital.”

“Oh?”

“They were already happening when I was born, at least.”

No one in the room had any idea how long ago that was. Perhaps Eterna wasn’t aware that none of them knew her real age.

“Even if there are no active research labs, there should at least be some defunct ones to find,” Eterna said. “I think it makes the most sense to scour the capital before you expand your search.”

“Aw’right,” said Sara, “I’ll check out the churches in the East and West districts, then. I’ll ask about Ink at the orphanage while I’m there.”

“Sounds good,” said Flum. “I’ll look into places outside the church. Thanks for your help, Sara. I’m really sorry for asking all these favors of you.”

“No problem. Besides, it’s my holy duty to expose any corruption in the church!”

Sara didn’t want to believe that the church of Origin—the people who’d taken her in and cared for her since she was only two years old—could be committing such heinous acts. But after the horror and death she’d seen at the Anichidey research lab, she had to know the truth. It was the church that had taught her never to turn a blind eye to true evil, after all.

“By the way, Flum, whatever happened with Dein? He’s not out for revenge or anything after Anichidey, is he?”

“He probably is.”

“I guess he would be, huh? He’s too big a hypocrite to consider he brought it on himself.”

Besides which, Flum had killed two of his men. She didn’t regret it in the slightest, but she knew Dein wasn’t going to take their deaths lying down. He and his crew had already redoubled their efforts to make her life difficult.

“I keep telling you to let me help you take those thugs out,” said Eterna.

“You’re already helping by keeping Milkit safe, Eterna.”

“I’m just sitting around the house…”

“That’s more than enough.”

Flum’s greatest fear was that they would take seek revenge by hurting Milkit. Dein almost certainly knew she was the most important thing in the world to Flum, and she had a sickening certainty that, one way or another, he’d try to get his hands on her.

“Well, I wanna help out, too,” Sara declared. “Just let me know what I can do, ’kay?”

“Thanks, Sara, I really appreciate it.”

With the serious discussion out of the way, the three moved on to lighter topics. Milkit joined them soon after, and they carried on like that for several hours. It was only when Sara began to yawn loudly that they decided to call it a night. She was still a growing preteen girl, even if it was easy to forget that fact.

Flum offered to escort Sara back to her home in the Central District church.

 

***

 

Elsewhere in the West District, Dein and his lackeys were tying one on in the guild’s bar when a somber-looking man walked up and sat across from a rather tipsy Dein.

“What’s with you?” Dein demanded. “Drink up!”

The man offered up his crystal glass and watched as Dein poured a dark liquid into it. “Sorry, Dein.”

“Hah? What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“Earlier today we grabbed a girl who seemed like she might have something to do with the church. Y’know, to use her like we planned. But then that Flum girl showed up and ruined everything before we could drag her off.”

The smile immediately faded from Dein’s lips. “I see. That girl really likes to stick her nose where it don’t belong, huh?”

He knocked his drink back, draining it in a single gulp, then let out a loud burp and slammed his glass down on the table with such force that the man sitting across from him immediately tensed up. “Ah, sorry ’bout that. Didn’t mean to scare you. Now hey, listen, don’t let that get you down, huh? It’s not like I explicitly asked you to do this for me. No one’s gonna get mad at you missing out ’cause of something completely unanticipated.”

“…Thanks, Dein.”

For all his faults, Dein made sure his men were rewarded as long as they had something to show for their efforts. He mercilessly expelled anyone he deemed useless, but it took a lot for him to reach that point. Those who showed promise, meanwhile, became part of his inner circle.

Though many called Dein a coward, his enemies had a peculiar habit of vanishing for good. He had excellent resources for a man who lived among rogues—probably because he was the first son of the noble Phineas family. Unfortunately for Dein, that family fell to wrack and ruin when he was just a boy. With his parents dead and nowhere left to go, he grew up on the streets, scraping to get by. His parents’ failings and the throes of poverty taught Dein a very important lesson: strength wasn’t about one’s individual might or even financial standing. No, true strength was found in your personal connections.

He would never forget that violence and money were the two levers of power that operated every human being. A person’s emotions only mattered insofar as they could be used by someone skillful enough to manipulate them.

“He’s one scary guy…” people would say about him, “but if I could just get into his good graces, there’d be no greater ally.” Cultivating this persona had allowed Dein to expand his influence until he became a driving force in the West District.

“Still,” Dein said to the man sitting across from him, “if you don’t fix this little problem soon, it’s gonna make me look bad. She killed two of my guys, y’know? I can’t have that.”

The blood debt Flum owed him for Anichidey wasn’t just personal. If he wanted to maintain his hold on the West District, he had to prove he could smack down any who opposed him.

“Why don’t we just pull all the lads together and make a night of it?” the man proposed.

“You’re getting warmer,” Dein said, “but I’m not too keen on just overpowering her. I wanna do this with some flair.”

“How are we going do that?”

Dein grabbed a stick of jerky and began to wave it around like a conductor’s baton. His lips curled up into a sinister smile. “First we go for her heart. Then, when she’s at her weakest, bam! In for the kill.”