Chapter 4: The Fools Who Desecrate Sacred Grounds

Chapter 4:
The Fools Who Desecrate Sacred Grounds

 

“ETERNA, YOU BETTER wake up! It’s almost dinner time, ya know!”

Eterna opened up her eyes at the sound of Ink’s voice from where she was sprawled out over her desk. She rubbed at her eyes and glanced over toward her bed, where Ink greeted her with a bright smile.

“G’morning!”

Even though she couldn’t see, she somehow could gauge the movements of those around her. Ink was dressed in a far-too-large shirt she’d borrowed from Flum, and her black hair stuck up at odd angles due to a severe case of bed head.

“Darn, looks like I fell asleep.”

“Yep! You were completely zonked out. Like, snoring

away. You even started mumbling things about your mom and dad while you were asleep.”

“Huh…” Eterna nodded in cool acknowledgment and let out a small sigh.

“That’s a pretty somber sigh. So you had parents too, huh?” Ink never knew her own parents. The question was posed in innocent curiosity.

“Well, I’m human. Of course I had parents. Granted, I don’t even know what they looked like.”

“Oh, really? I guess we’re similar that way.”

“In that respect, yes, our situations aren’t all that different. I had surrogate parents, too.”

“Were those the people in your dream?”

“Ever since I came here, I’ve dreamed about those days quite often. I used to live here decades ago, you know.”

“Now that you mention it, I heard you were squatting here when Flum first showed up.”

“I just came here to use this room. It was…familiar to me.”

“…Wait a second. Did you just say several decades ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Whoa! How old are you, Eterna?! Judging by your voice, I figured you were pretty close to Flum’s age!”

Ink wasn’t able to see what she looked like, though even if she could, that likely would have only compounded her confusion; Eterna both looked and sounded like she was in her mid- to late teens.

“I dunno. Honestly, I don’t know when I was born, but I figure I must be around sixty or so, give or take a few.”

“You’re an old lady!”

“Don’t say stuff like that, you’ll hurt my feelings.” Eterna might have come to terms with her long life span, but that didn’t mean she was keen on being called old.

“But if you’re that old, that must mean your parents already passed, right?”

“Well, one of the reasons I accepted the task of slaying the Demon Lord was to learn that for myself, actually. Before I set off, I stopped by the town where they last lived and paid my respects at their graves.”

“Well, I’m sure they’d be happy to know you’re doing well.”

“One can hope.”

Eterna closed her eyes. She could practically see Kindah and Claudia standing before her. It was unfortunate that she couldn’t see them in person, but the knowledge that they’d lived fulfilling lives brought her comfort.

“I still can’t believe you’re that old,” Ink marveled. “I wonder if I would’ve noticed if I could see you.”

“I doubt it. I only look a little older than you.”

“Really?? How can a normal human…”

Suddenly Flum’s voice called out from the first floor, cutting Ink off.

“Eteeeeerna! Dinnertime!”

“Aah, Flum’s calling.”

“I’ll be back with your dinner shortly, Ink.”

“Okay! Looking forward to it!” Ink grinned broadly as Eterna left.

The young girl was almost back to her normal self now, though Eterna still wanted to keep an eye on her a while longer. She left a small school of fish she’d sculpted from tap water floating in her wake as she headed downstairs. If anything happened to Ink, they would relay the message down the chain to Eterna.

The smell of tomato stew struck Eterna with hunger pangs that intensified as she stepped out into the hallway. She placed her hands on her sides to soothe her growling stomach as she started downstairs.

 

***

 

“That was great!” Flum beamed as she put her hands together in appreciation. Milkit and Eterna followed suit before Eterna headed upstairs with Ink’s plate, leaving Flum and Milkit behind to clean up.

The two worked perfectly in sync and made quick work of the dishes, Flum washing and Milkit drying, before stowing everything neatly. Flum thought absentmindedly about just how great it would be if she could draw out this carefree feeling forever, which invited her little voice of self-sabotage to crack open the reserve of gloom she’d built up, reminding her it wasn’t to be.

Milkit mumbled to herself. “Wouldn’t it be great if every day could be like today…”

The knowledge that they were both thinking the same thing at the exact same time warmed Flum’s heart. “I’ll do my best to make it happen.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Nope, you and I were on the same page, so that pretty much seals the deal. After I take care of this whole thing with the church, we can just live out our lives in comfort.”

The question of when that would be was another story entirely. Just thinking about the challenges she was up against made Flum’s head spin. But as long as a peaceful life lay on the other side, she knew she could push through.

“Will we still live in the capital when it’s all over?” Milkit asked.

“Well, I’ve gotten pretty used to this house. Though I would like to go visit my hometown sometime and make sure my friends and family know I’m alive.”

“It’d probably be best if I don’t accompany you, then. It’d be a bit awkward to have a slave with you.”

“Huh? I’m gonna introduce you to my parents. This wonderful girl here is an important partner of mine…or something like that.”

“Partner?” Milkit’s heart skipped a beat. The word carried nuances she had to unpack.

“I mean, you’re not my slave, and I feel like friend hardly cuts it. I guess I don’t really have the right word for what you are to me. I’m gonna have to think it over before I actually introduce you to them.”

“I…I think partner is a bit of an overstatement.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But things change, ya know? You just have to get used to it, I guess.”

“I suppose so. But speaking of meeting your parents, do…do you think I’ll have to take off my bandages?” Milkit set down a plate and absentmindedly tugged at them.

“I never really thought about that, actually.”

It would probably be best to show Milkit’s uncovered face to her parents, though Flum felt deeply bothered by the mere thought of anyone other than herself seeing Milkit’s face. She was happy to have it all to herself. The nighttime ritual carried a special meaning for them.

In the beginning, Flum intended to help Milkit get used to the feeling of having her face exposed and then bring her out into the open. But in reality, things had only gotten worse…or, rather, more complex. Now Flum had no desire to share the right to see Milkit’s face with anyone else.

But it did seem a bit impolite to keep her face covered up when Milkit met her parents. Flum’s mind ran around and around in circles over this problem.

“Well, I guess we’ll just deal with it when the time comes.”

She decided to put it off for another time. Milkit looked relieved to hear it.

“Yes, I suppose we still have time.”

“That’s right! Quite a long time, probably…”

The two girls laughed in an attempt to lighten the mood. Flum couldn’t help but be sheepishly aware how likely it was that her possessiveness would only have increased by the time the battle was finally over.

I’ll probably end up introducing her with the bandages on, at this rate…

 

***

 

It’s thanks to you that I can have dreams again.

This was the first time Milkit ever had such a vivid dream. In fact, it was more than just a dream—it was a memory, drawn up from her dark, grimy past. A past that her recent happiness had helped her forget.

That very happiness, however, made the darkness lying ahead of her all the more somber.

“Hey, don’t you forget. You were born to be sold, remember? You better give it your best and make me some money.”

Those were the first words Milkit could remember being spoken to her. She couldn’t have been more than three.

Her parents were deadbeats who’d sold Milkit off at the first opportunity. Shortly thereafter, she was purchased by a wealthy noblewoman who had lost her daughter to illness, and with her, her grip on reality. She’d purchased over a dozen children from the slave trader and treated them like servants while simultaneously showering them in love and affection as if they were her own. All of the children were given names and kept well fed. It was a glamorous lifestyle. Of course, the purchase and sale of children was already illegal at that time, so she acquired all of them through black-market channels.

This was when Milkit was first given her name.

Once the slaves the woman purchased reached the age of three—the same age her late daughter had died—she immediately lost all affection for them and sold them back to the slave trader. Babies were generally of little use as slaves; having someone who would raise the children to the age of three was quite convenient for the slaver. Shortly after Milkit was sold back, the woman’s activities reached the presses, and she was run out of the capital.

It was then that the slave trader said those words to her. She didn’t have a markedly strong response to them, other than the casual observation that this must be her lot in life.

After that, Milkit bounced back and forth between the slaver and several wealthy buyers.

“I hate it… This is all so scary…”

The words ran over and over in her head as she dreamed. The events of her past came back to her, playing back before her eyes.

“Please, no, I don’t want to go back there…”

She could not make the nightmare end.

Milkit survived the way insects did, wriggling out from underfoot and finding shelter in the dark. This became normal to her. She didn’t even consider her life particularly unfortunate, though the concept of happiness was also lost on her. Now that she did know about all these things, the memory of her old “normal” brought a scream of terror to her lips.

No matter how hard she fought it, the nightmare continued into the next chapter.

“Aah, yesss. Look at your delightful ribs, your collarbone. You don’t get it, though, do you? You’re still so small, I guess. But you know, you only really get ’em thin like this when they’re young.”

This was a man who derived pleasure from seeing his slaves gaunt and excessively thin.

“Yes, yes, just like that. Look at me with those cold, empty eyes. I love it! Glare at me, hate me for the pain I’m causing you!! Curse me, I love it!!”

Then the woman who got off on having lowly slaves talk down to her.

“God teaches us that we cannot put a price on human life! Thus, slaves who are bought and sold for money must not be human and are not granted His protection. Thus, I am unblemished by any pain I cause you, even if it results in your death!”

Then there was the church official fixated on harming children. Time and again, her buyers had possessed some manner of perverse ideology.

Milkit figured that her life was over after being purchased by the church official. However, due to her good fortune—or misfortune, depending on how one looked at it—the man’s misdeeds caught the press’s attention, so he tearfully sold off his slaves out of fear of being discovered before he laid a hand on her. She was around ten when she ended up back with the slave trader.

Alas, it wasn’t long before she found herself purchased by a new master—a woman named Satils Francois.

In Satils’ eyes, everything more beautiful than herself deserved to be destroyed. Milkit was almost certainly purchased for just that purpose.

“Just looking at your face fills me with such rage, you know. What’s a pathetic slave like you doing with a face like that, anyway?”

In the beginning she was satisfied with just belittling and whipping the girl—a fate far better than the ones suffered by the other slaves, if only because she didn’t actually intend to kill her. But then three other slaves living with Milkit all died in quick succession, and suddenly, Satils’ brutality came to an end. In fact, she started to treat Milkit with kindness. She lavished her with food which, unknown to her, had been laced with the mustardo toxin that scarred her face.

“What a pitiful creature, having to live with such a hideous face. And you were once so pretty, too! Kyahahaha!”

She laid it on heavily and often, cackling wildly with each repetition. However, this seemed to do wonders for Satils’ mood. Milkit remained fed, and in time, even received a bed of her own.

Meanwhile, Satils continued her brutal torture of the other slaves. She liked to lash them, lacerate their thighs, and kick them in the stomach while wearing high-heeled shoes. Many died vomiting blood and were disposed with the household trash. However, Satils treated Milkit like little more than a curiosity, a tool to be used to boost her own twisted ego.

“My, my, my. How awful it must be to have such a disgusting face, you poor thing. I wonder what could have caused this to happen?”

Despite the pleasure she took in torturing her slaves, the number she’d done on Milkit sated her urge to hurt her further…for a while. Around three years after she first bought Milkit, Satils finally tired of her and sold her back to the slave trader. Deprived of her good looks—her only selling point—Milkit was thrown into the cell to die.

“Aah, it’s finally over now.”

Milkit sensed, somehow, that the dark cell smelling of rotting flesh was a suitable place for her life to reach its end. Her heart barren, she waited for the appointed day.

Yet that day never came. All because she reached out and took that outstretched hand.

The dream should have ended there, but the nightmare seeded doubt and uncertainty in her mind. No matter how long she waited, her master never came. Instead, the slave trader finally arrived to begin his show. With no one there to save her, Milkit was left to the ravenous ghouls that fell from the ceiling, much like the other slaves had been.

“Why…why won’t it end? It didn’t happen like this! I…I didn’t… Stoooop!!”

Even with her memories of living a happy, peaceful life together with Flum firmly in place, the nightmare dragged her through every detail of being eaten alive. The slave trader sat there, enjoying the show from his front-row seat. When Milkit turned to look back, she spotted Satils sitting next to him, laughing raucously at the sight.

“I don’t want to die! I don’t want it all to end here! I…I have a reason to live!!”

 

***

 

Milkit’s eyes shot open.

“Was that all…a dream?”

The room was still dark, only faintly illuminated by the light of the moon. She rolled over onto her side and watched Flum’s chest rise and fall a short distance away in her own bed.

Not so long ago, she’d been numb to her lot in life. Now, even thinking about it was excruciating. The slave trader would never try to kill her again, nor would Satils ever be able to raise a hand against her or feed her poison. But knowing what she knew now, her past—regardless of whether any of it could happen again—was terrifying.

Milkit longed for the warm embrace of her master to help soothe her fears. If she just asked, she was certain that Flum would let her sleep in her bed. If she was just in Flum’s arms, she knew the nightmares would never come back.

“That’s…that’s a little too much.” Milkit chided herself for her spoiled attitude.

Her master might be incredibly generous and kind, but Milkit couldn’t take advantage of her like that. Flum was almost certainly exhausted from the battles she had to fight. It was Milkit’s job to try and ease her burden.

“Good night, Master.” Milkit shut her eyes once again, struggling to stay strong as the darkness came over her. In time, she settled into a dreamless sleep.

 

***

 

After an uneventful night, morning came as it usually did. Flum woke to faint birdsong in the distance. She was still half-asleep when sounds from downstairs broke into her awareness: the chopping of a knife against a cutting board and the sizzling of something in the frying pan.

These were the sounds of a normal life. Of tranquility. Of her. Now that she actually gave it some thought, these were the same sounds Flum heard her mother making every morning when she woke up back in her hometown.

She felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her as she propped herself up, stretched, and then hopped out of bed and made her way downstairs with a dramatic yawn.

“Good morning.” Milkit greeted her with a warm smile the moment she came into view.

“Mornin’.” This was the best Flum could manage at this hour, though it still elicited a laugh from Milkit.

Right as Flum was about to duck into the washroom, she turned and stepped in close to Milkit, their faces mere centimeters apart as she inspected her.

“I-Is there something on my face?”

“Did you have a hard time sleeping? You look exhausted.”

Flum was right. After waking up in the middle of the night, Milkit had a hard time getting a proper rest. She felt like her body was made of lead. But she wasn’t going to let it impact her daily routine.

“No, it’s fine.”

Flum eyed her suspiciously for a moment before deciding to accept her answer at face value. She turned and went back to the washroom. After scrubbing her face and fixing her hair, she returned to Milkit’s side.

“You’re up early today. Do you have a job lined up?”

“Nah, I just kinda woke up is all. Hey, you want me to cut this?”

“Yes, please. Oh, Master…”

“Yeah?”

Milkit reached out and pressed down some stray hairs that stuck up from the top of Flum’s head. “There we go.”

“Heh, I was still a little out of it when I did up my hair. Eterna would’ve had a field day with it if she saw me.”

“She’s always perfectly groomed.”

Every day, first thing in the morning, Eterna’s hair was immaculately done—probably thanks to the water magic that she used to set it all in place. Flum felt it gave her morning routine an unfair advantage.

“Once this is done cooking, I’m going to head outside to water the flowers,” Milkit said.

“Got it. You know, those flowers you’ve been growing really are beautiful.”

“They certainly are. Now that I’m a bit more comfortable with gardening, I was thinking about planting some other varieties next time.”

“I think that’s a great idea. Can I come along when you pick them out?”

“Of course!”

Flum continued helping out with breakfast as she settled on their next plan. “Great, we’ll go shopping on my next day off, then.”

Milkit’s face lit up as she began to think about where they would go next.

After finishing the fried eggs, Milkit slid them onto a plate and stepped out of the kitchen, leaving Flum to work on the salad alone. After chopping the vegetables and setting up four servings, Flum paused for a moment and listened.

She didn’t hear anything coming from outside.

She jogged to the door to have a look.

“Milkit?”

Milkit was nowhere in sight. Her watering can lay discarded on the ground. Maybe she was out getting water, or perhaps the neighbor had called her over to chat?

No, that definitely wasn’t it. Flum’s heightened senses picked up on an ominous sound.

“There are two people on the roof…”

She was enraged by her own carelessness.

“Dammit! I can’t believe I let this happen again!!”

Waiting for Milkit to come outside before kidnapping her was hardly the work of a novice. This could only mean that Milkit was the intended target, not Flum. She didn’t know who could have ordered this, but it’d only been a few days since Nekt abducted Milkit. She really should have been more aware of this possibility.

She bit her lip in frustration until it began to bleed.

Flum kicked hard off the ground, rocketing up onto the roof and landing on her knee. She jerked her head back and forth, spotting two shadowy figures escaping to the east.

She clenched her jaw and took off after the men, not even stopping to spare a moment’s hesitation when she reached the edge and sprang to the next roof. She bounded from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of Milkit’s captors.

“Scan!”

The burly man holding the unconscious Milkit was named Tryte Ransila. His strength and endurance were both over 2,000, and he had a combined stat value of around 8,000. The second man, Demiceliko Radius, was much lankier than his comrade and looked like he was enjoying bounding across rooftops. His agility was in the upper 2,000s, and he had high perception, which all made sense based on his movements. He, too, had a total stat value of around 8,000, though his endurance was only in the triple-digit range.

This put them both around A-Rank. They would be no pushovers, but Flum knew she was more than a match for them. The only problem she faced was in closing the distance.

Focusing her prana into her right foot, she leapt off the roof high into the air and clear over an entire house.

“Hey, I think she’s gettin’ closer!”

“Whoa, someone’s after us?? No one told me about that! This was s’posed to be a simple job!”

The two men began to worry as they saw the small girl gaining on them. If they cast Scan on her, they would find that all of her stats were at zero. They had heard the name Flum Apricot before, of course, but that didn’t explain why the girl pursuing them had the mark of a slave on her cheek. And if she wasn’t the legendary warrior, then why was this girl able to keep up with A-Rank adventurers like themselves?

“Heh, guess we don’t have any other choice. I’ll deal with her. You go on ahead, Tryte.”

“You sure you got this?”

“She’s just a little punk. Remember that chick Susy? She may have been an A-Rank too, but when push came to shove, she was begging for mercy. Girls ain’t no match for a real man when ya get down and dirty. Not in the streets anyway, if ya follow me. Gyahaha!”

“That was a long time ago. Didn’t we poison her?”

“Aah, yeah, her eyes were bloodshot and spasming. Good times, good times. Beats the hell out of runnin’ for the hag. Gah, I need a little excitement in my life! I got an itch in my soul! I need the hard shit!”

Demiceliko ran his hands erratically through his hair. “Is it really time for that right now? Anyway, just leave the girl to me. If you get into too much trouble, just run.”

They were working a job outside the guild’s oversight. Though the returns were higher, so was the risk.

“First, I’m gonna give her a quick warm-up test.” Demiceliko popped open the case hanging from his belt and pulled out two daggers coated with a thin liquid. “Hah!”

He spun around and threw the first before leaping backward and throwing the other. He still managed to maintain his original speed, even running in reverse.

The two daggers traced an arc through the air as they flew at Flum.

Demiceliko drew another dagger from the case. Even if she was able to dodge his initial attack, he planned to keep up the pressure. Flum made no attempt to alter her course. He sneered at her.

“Just gonna take it, huh? Once you’re paralyzed, I’m gonna use you like a doll, girly!”

Just as the tip of a dagger made contact with her side, Flum cast Reversion. The dagger flipped around and flew back at Demiceliko.

The second dagger found its mark and plunged deep into Flum’s right hand with a sickening squish. Despite having plowed straight through her hand, she felt little more than a faint pang run through her arm. Thanks to the belt’s enchantment nullifying poison, the liquid coating the dagger had no effect.

“So that’s what reversal does?? I knew it was a rare affinity, but I’ve never seen the like!”

Demiceliko dodged and dove to a nearby roof. Still in midair, he tossed another dagger her way.

Flum somersaulted through the air to dodge the incoming attack while yanking the dagger out from her hand and hurling it where she anticipated Demiceliko would land.

Her form left something to be desired, and she had little practice with such a maneuver, so she wasn’t able to get enough speed on the knife. It did catch him off guard by coming right toward his feet, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to go on the defense. Demiceliko drew a fifty-centimeter blade and knocked the dagger out of the air.

Now that he’d stopped moving, though, Flum had almost closed the gap between them. Demiceliko reached back and drew a short sword from its sheath at the small of his back as he prepared to take Flum on in close-quarters.

“I know most A-Rank adventurers out there, but I gotta say you’re a new one for me. And just a little girl, too…”

Flum wasn’t sure what he was trying to say, but he seemed to have a rather dim view of women. Ultimately, she really didn’t much care what he thought. All she was worried about was saving Milkit.

“This is for Milkit!!”

Flum summoned forth a pair of black gauntlets before drawing her Souleater from its pocket dimension. She had no real plan or strategy beyond cutting him down.

Demiceliko was taken by surprise at her impressive speed and leapt backward, barely evading Flum’s slash, which left only a deep cut in his shirt.

“You’re a waste of time. Totally lacking in all the places where it counts for a little love hole like yerself. Guess I’ll do ya a favor and teach you a little respect!” He leapt forward and chopped at her thigh with his longsword, leaving a light gash. Blood stained her torn pants. Demiceliko then sprang back just out of range again before Flum could take another swing. “Shadow Mist!”

A deep, black mist gathered in the air, blocking out much of Flum’s vision. She tried to fall back, but Demiceliko came lunging out of the darkness and chopped into her arm. He followed up with quick slashes to her side, cheek, leg, shoulder, and back, leaving shallow cuts in their wake.

“Whaddya think, huh? How does it feel to be lost in the darkness and surrounded by nothing but pain? Me, I love it! I’m having a great time! Feels almost as good as having my way with a corpse! Gyahahaha!!”

His fighting style involved blinding his victim and gradually piling up damage until they grew too slow and weak to avoid his coup de grace.

“You’re an idiot.”

Flum was unimpressed. Her injuries healed quickly, and she felt little in the way of pain. Even the mist was something she could deal with easily by letting loose her stored up prana.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

The shock wave unleashed by Prana Sphere, a Cavalier Arts technique, blew the mist away with ease.

“Wh-what the hell was that?!”

Looking over, she saw Demiceliko trying to escape to a nearby roof. Flum swung her sword and unleashed a Prana Shaker.

Demiceliko dropped on his stomach to avoid the arc of cutting force before springing back to his feet and preparing to throw another dagger. However, Flum wasn’t done with her assault quite yet.

“Come back…Reversion!”

Flum had used her reversal magic on her prana blade. Demiceliko turned around just in time to watch in horror as the force blade he’d just dodged reversed course and flew back toward him, lopping his legs off at the thigh.

“Wh-whaugh?!”

His legs remained on the roof while his torso tumbled to the ground below, where his head smacked into the pavement with a wet thud and a gasp. He thrashed his arms about in a desperate attempt to flee as Flum landed on the ground next to him, scraping her sword along the ground as she closed in. His panic did nothing to quiet her bloodlust.

“Hyah…haaah…gah, it hurts! I…don’t want it to hurt! I…need pleasure! Run…must run…!!”

He mouthed more garbled nonsense as he tried to drag himself along. Unfortunately, he was far too slow to outpace Flum’s casual walk. The world grew dark as he mustered what little energy he had and looked up at the young girl with the ice-cold stare.

“Where’s Milkit?”

The other man had long since disappeared, so Demiceliko was her last hope of getting the information she needed about where to find her.

“Please, let me live! I beg of you! There are so many women I haven’t violated, I can’t die yet!”

Flum simply repeated her question over and over until it became apparent he wasn’t willing to talk. Then she hacked his left arm off.

“Ngyaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!” Demiceliko let out an ear-piercing scream.

She shook the blood off her blade and asked again. “Where is Milkit?”

“Please spare me! I didn’t mean no harm. I just needed money, ya see! You misunderstand, I wasn’t actually havin’ fun or nothin’! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, lady! I was just doin’ what I was told—I’m really a good adventurer, ya know. Really, I am!”

He may have been the scum of the earth, but someone who climbed their way up to A-Rank was unlikely to give up any information about their employer.

“I really don’t want to do this, you know.”

It was true, she didn’t. She hated the pain, the suffering, and she hated inflicting the same on others. But if that’s what it took to save Milkit, then so be it. If she didn’t take action, there was no way this cruel and unfair world would come to her aid. Of that much Flum was certain.

She pressed the tip of her sword against the back of Demiceliko’s hand and pressed down until the blade cut cleanly through, bone and all.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!”

If he had enough energy to scream like that, Flum figured he wasn’t going to die any time soon, but it was starting to look doubtful he was going to give in, no matter what she did to him.

She focused on the hilt of her blade, running the power of her reversal magic through it and into his flesh.

“Rending Reversion!”

SNAP!

Demiceliko’s finger snapped as his thumbnail reversed in on itself, eliciting an ear-piercing scream from the man.

“Where did you take Milkit?”

He shook his head aggressively.

If he was going to die anyway, he might as well spit it out as far as Flum was concerned. Unless she was still going way too soft on him. He was an A-Rank, after all.

She reversed the rest of his fingernails as well, though that didn’t get her any closer to getting the information out of him. She’d need to use her power on another body part, then.

“Demolition Reversion!”

His thumb tore right off his hand with a stomach-churning squelch, and his mouth opened wide in agony. “Hnngg…gaaaaaaugh!!” Demiceliko tensed his muscles in an attempt to bear the pain.

“Where did you take Milkit?”

He shook his head again. This time, Flum blasted the rest of his fingers off as well.

“Waaaaaaauuuuugh!!”

She blew his hand apart for good measure. His screams were little more than an annoyance for Flum at this point. “Where did you take Milkit? Unless you tell me, you’re facing a fate worse than death.”

Flum knelt down in front of Demiceliko and began running her hand over his face. Eyes? Maybe his brain?

“You want me to do that?”

“N…nooooaaaaaaugh!!” Tears, mucus, and saliva poured out of his face. “Okay, okay. Fine, I’ll…I’ll tell you, just stop!”

He had no idea what she planned on doing if he kept silent, but it was clear she would make good on her threat. “It…it was Satils! She told…t-told us to bring her the bandaged slave!”

“That old hag? Hasn’t she done enough to Milkit?” The words came flying out of Flum’s mouth before she even had a chance to think. “So where did you take her?”

“A basement! There’s a place with a hidden room in the basement. You have to take a tunnel from a building with a green roof off to the southeast. The outside looks like a house, but it’s a fake. It’s just an entrance.”

“So that’s where I’ll find Milkit.” Flum stood up and took off toward the East District.

Demiceliko raised his hand and began to summon up all of his remaining magic. “Heh…heh, you dare turn your back on me, little girl? I’ll show you, wench! Shadow Cannon!”

A fist-sized ball of black energy launched toward Flum’s back.

“You just never learn…” Flum spun on her heel and slashed right through the ball of energy before continuing on into the man behind it, chopping him in two. Demiceliko died instantly.

With a wave of her hand, Flum’s blade disappeared, and she immediately took off running toward the East District.