Chapter 297: Chapter 281.5 – Violence Is Always the Answer

Chapter 281.5 - Violence Is Always the Answer

A woman in a full suit of armour breathed a sigh of relief as she removed her visored helmet. Her dirty blonde hair flopped out of the rusty bucket with a squelch; the once flowing locks were drenched with sweat, forming large clumps that stuck tightly to her skin. Only three weeks had passed since winter gave way to spring; summer was still a long way’s off, and it was supposed to be cold inside her metal death trap. And yet, the iron suit was searing out, literally steaming, thanks to the three hours she had spent fighting inside of it.

Taking a careful look around with her field of view expanded, she quickly determined that all of her challengers were dead. It was an overdue conclusion; her arms were heavy, her blade was dulled, and the metal plates that adorned her body were bent and broken. Force of will had been the only thing that kept her standing. And with all the cultists gone, that too was quick to fade. She fell onto her back; the metal ground uncomfortably against her skin, but she ignored the irritation and closed her eyes.

For a moment, she was tempted to fall asleep, but she knew better than to allow a lapse of consciousness in the midst of the enemy’s domain. Worse yet, she was lying in a sea of blood, drawn from the fifty-odd corpses that littered the yard. If she continued to remain still, the iron decorating her person was sure to rust and degrade—an expense that the adventurer could hardly afford to pay. Though certainly in bad shape, her armour was not so heavily damaged that it was unsalvageable. She could very well take it to the local smith and have him hammer it back into shape. It was already her tenth time repairing the shabby suit. She was due for a new set, but such a purchase was sure to run her a full week’s worth of cash, and with all her debtors soon to knock, she was too tight on money to afford the expense.

More importantly, to sit still was to forgo her earned loot. All three of her companions had gone on ahead—some gentlemen they were—while she remained as a distraction. In the meantime, they would loot and pillage, claiming all the false temple’s riches from the hands of the dead. On paper, there were no issues to be raised. They were to split the profits four ways, with each member of the party taking only their fair share. Reality, however, was not so kind. It was standard practice to secretly pocket the most valuable items without contributing their worth to the communal pool.

The unspoken rule was not the issue in and of itself, but rather that she would miss out if she sat still. The sword in her hands stemmed from the same source; she had claimed it for herself following a trek into the depths of a previously unknown dungeon. And her allies had said nothing, even knowing that it was enchanted.

After recalling the potential value of a good find, the woman forced herself up with a groan and placed her helmet back atop her head. The bucket was certainly somewhat uncomfortable, but she didn’t quite feel right without it. Hildegarde’s race was uncommon in the Vel’khanese domain, and she was always made self-conscious when the others stared at her peculiar features. Confidence was another key factor; perhaps because she had grown up in Vel’achkan, a rural town much further out at sea, she always found her own appearance somewhat strange and unsightly. 

There was hair almost all over her body, with much of it serving no purpose. In fact, she only ever noticed it when she leapt into the water, where it blatantly slowed her down. As much as she hated it, she knew that the relative lack of in-water ability was a given. Her species was poorly adapted to life at sea; she could only hold her breath for an hour at a time, and the salty ocean currents always stung her eyes. Her limb count was limited to four. If they were all the same length, she could have at least swam like a jellyfish, but two of them were uncooperative and much longer than the others. The general design of her extremities was too sleek to aid her in the water, and her fins—or feet as they were technically defined—were barely of any help when she paddled.

Most damning of all were her ascensions. Her technical specifications adapted well to her needs, but the system refused to change her shape. She was always just human. A curse her late mother had shared.

Shaking her head free of the dark thought, Hildegarde—Hilda for short—pushed open the temple’s double doors and made her way inside. There were corpses strewn all over, common cultists dead in the pews, and a priest with a fancy gold-rimmed hat impaled upon the altar. It almost looked like a scene out of hell. The people present were typical members of the Vel’khanese populace, scyphs, lizardmen, kelpfins to name a few, but they were people that had walked the wrong path.

The state itself had put a bounty upon their heads, marking them for death for the generous price of twenty silver coins. Because there were so many of them, nearly a hundred by the initial estimate, it meant that each was worth no more than a few days’ labour. Truly a miserable existence.

Stepping over a dozen corpses, Hildegarde made her way underground and wandered around the temple’s depths. For the most part, she found nothing but bodies and empty rooms. Bedrooms, dining halls, and so on and so forth. But at the very far end of the building, she happened upon a large vault, where she found her companions already present and deflated. The golem that was their rogue was sitting on a rock with his head cradled in his hands, their werebear mage was fiddling with his staff, and their winged scout was practically plastered to the door.

“Why the hell is Jeremy the one messing with the lock?” The human’s voice was distorted by the tin can, just as it always was.

“Gromp gave up,” said the tawny owl. “I doubt I’m getting it anywhere, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.”

He taped an explosive to the mechanism—the same kind he normally stuck on his arrows—and after lazily gesturing for everyone to back away, damaged their eardrums in a massive detonation. The size of the explosion had made it seem like a success at first, but the giant door remained without a scratch.

“Damn, that’s tough,” grumbled the flier. “I just wasted a whole silver’s worth of clay, and it still didn’t work.”

“I told you so,” said Hammer, the mage. He pulled his fingers out of his beary ears and pressed a paw to the rusted steel. “We should just report it. If we’re lucky, they might even have whoever opens it split a piece of what’s inside.”

“You think anyone would actually give us a cut? Keep dreaming kid,” muttered the two-pound owl. “We’re better off hiring a locksmith and bringing him out here ourselves.”

“By your logic, the locksmith could just pretend he doesn’t know how to open it, and hire someone else to bring him here later. Or worse, he could head over himself,” said Hammer.

“Both of you, shut up,” said Hildegarde. “Arguing isn’t going to help, and we clearly don’t have any way of opening it, so let’s just head back and decide what to do later.”

The ranger looked ready to scream another objection, but the rogue lightly tapped him on the shoulder and made his way out of the room. With the tides turned three against one, he could only bitch and moan as he followed them back to town.

The fort that the cultists had taken over was only a few hours out from the capital. Getting on their mounts—horses as opposed to the usual turberi—they dashed through the woods and made it through the capital’s gates just as the sky turned orange. The owl’s incessant hooting aside, the trip was largely uneventful from start to end.

A few weeks prior, they would have split up and reconvened the next morning. But with the conditions as they were, the adventurers wordlessly proceeded together as soon as they stabled their horses. Their destination was one of the newest shops in town, known affectionately among its clientele as the MACC.

Hilda was still somewhat skeptical of the business and its practices. No one seemed to know where it had come from—it had suddenly sprung up one day with a number of professional services already available. She suspected foul play, that it was likely run by some gang or other, but she didn’t dare bring up the theory in public. There was no telling how the organisation’s executives would react if she hit the nail on the head.

Still, in spite of her concerns, she was not against the use of its services. Though somewhat rustic and frankly overly traditional, the food was always good and the portions were generous, perhaps even abnormally so for the price. The other services were of a fair quality as well, or at least that was the word on the street. Hilda herself had only tried their potions, which were cut precisely at the efficacy described.

When they arrived at the tavern-cum-hospital, the party found it just as crowded as ever. They didn’t have to wait outside, as they sometimes would on its busiest days, but finding a seat was a struggle. The only empty table was in the far back, where it often proved difficult to grab the chef’s attention. Still, a table was a table, and they were soon gathered around it.

Drinks were served immediately, thrown across the room with just enough force to come to a sliding stop in front of each guest. They were freezing cold, courtesy of the icy mugs in which they were served. Only hot drinks were provided in more standard containers, but no sane person would ask for such a blasphemous accompaniment to their evening meal.

“Damn, that hits the spot.” Jeremy rapidly flapped his wings as the liquid fire flowed into his tiny body. There was hardly any way to tell the man apart from a non-sentient animal. Brainpower aside, the talons on his wings were the only real differentiators. It was precisely they that allowed him to effectively wield his weapons.

“You’d think they’d need more security if they serve something this strong on the regular,” said Hammer. He wasn’t quite as expressive as the birdbrain, but his fuzzy bear ears were twitching in bliss.

Hilda had to agree with the assessment. She still wasn’t sure exactly what the drink was, but it was much more potent than the ale and mead on the tap at most other locations. It burned the back of her throat as it went down, a sensation she had quickly learned to enjoy.

“I realise now that I have not seen any of this establishment’s customers behaving in a way that may be described as violent or otherwise inappropriate in a public space,” said Gromp, as he took a sip. As a golem, a literal living rock, it was difficult to determine if the liquor had any effect, but drunk or not, he and nearly every other member of his species would rattle off so many words that any inebriated fool would be put to shame. “What is more curious is that they would lack the vital role in an establishment that contains such a number of attractive young ladies given the propensity of a drunken adventurer to incorrectly consider the consequences of an attempted violation.”

“Which one of the girls would you rate the highest?” asked the owl. “For me, it’s gotta be the catgirl. I’d polish my talons for her any day of the week.”

“The white-haired girl is objectively more attractive if we are to consider their faces but her lack of enthusiasm leaves some to be desired,” said the clumped dirt.

“Eugh.” The owl shuddered. “I don’t know man, reptiles are a bit too far off the deep end for me.” He ruffled his feathers, loosely rearranging them as he turned to the mage. “How ‘bout you, kid?”

“H-huh? M-me?” His face reddened immediately. The werebear had been with the party for three years already, but he was still unused to their teasing.

“Yeah. Don’t be shy, tell us which one you think is hottest.”

Hilda rolled her eyes. She had been content sitting around while the two older men let the alcohol do the talking, but she drew the line at involving the youth.“Stop corru—”

“T-the doctor.”

But she was cut off by the boy himself, outright silenced by his uninhibited claim.

“Damn kid, you’ve got some weird tastes,” said Jeremy.

“S-she’s not weird! She has really pretty eyes! C-can you imagine what it’d be like to lick them?”

“Fuck this. I’m out.” Hildegarde emptied her mug and stood up from her seat. “Have him give me the usual.” She slammed the frozen container onto the table and marched straight for the bulletin. Despite having replaced the job board—at least for adventuring and mercenary work—the MACC didn’t list quite as many assignments. Those that were present, however, had the tendency to be either better paying or of greater interest. The cult extermination had been one such task. Hilda had grabbed it off the list just the previous night, after realising in a drunken stupor that it was a rewarding, government-issued job. It had certainly been tough, and they hadn’t been allowed to take it until they had been vetted by the staff, but their bank accounts would very soon be swimming in cash.

She scanned the board carefully again, and while she was unable to find anything particularly rewarding, she did end up with her eyes on a fairly promising request.

It was a simple escort job; they were to take a merchant to Vel’rulm and back. The particular path to be traversed demanded a high wage for its guards, given the time of year. With the coming of spring always entered the season for cultists. Driven mad by all the time spent cooped up in their homes, the particularly desolate and downtrodden would often emerge as the snowstorms faded and profess the new beliefs that had offered salvation in their darkest times.

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The cultist-to-population ratio was generally quite low, with only a select few individuals converting each year, but it had gradually seen a steady uptick over the course of the previous queen’s rule. While she had good intentions, the monarch’s lack of political skill left her blind to the embezzlement of her funds. Much of the money intended for the poor was stolen instead by the local magistrates, pocketed directly without so much as a need for a forged paper trail.

The previous year had been the worst of all; too many of the nation’s resources had been funnelled into military affairs, with much of the cash coming from reserves typically drawn upon for financial aid. Left with minimal food and no husbands on which to vent their frustrations, lonely housewives across the nation had found themselves with little choice but to sign up with whatever organisations were willing to fulfill their most basic needs.

Though she knew that guarding a caravan was effectively akin to damning the poor, Hilda reached for the request regardless—many adventurers doubled as bandits to begin with and she frankly cared little for the social ramifications—only to have it snatched out from beneath her.

When she looked down, her face already twisted in annoyance, she found a particularly tiny krana that stood at only a third her height. The midget was geared like a ranger. She had a shortbow mounted on each of her four arms and a large crossbow strapped to her back. Her whole body was covered from head to toe in projectile weapons, bombs ready to be ignited and thrown at whatever unfortunate creature happened to find itself in her way.

“I’ll be taking that,” she said, in a particularly whiny voice. The monkey ranger’s face was completely red, no doubt evidence that she had drunk far too much for her liver to handle.

“Drop it, midget,” snarled Hildegarde. She was already in a sour mood. She didn’t have the time or mental bandwidth for another pint-sized problem. “I had my eyes on that, and you know it.”

“Then you shoulda grabbed it when you had the chance,” said the chimp. She dangled the paper in front of her, holding it as high up as she could. Hilda immediately moved to snatch it from her grasp, but the monkey was faster, pulling it out of reach right as her fingers threatened to graze it. “Too slow! Try harder next time.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Hilda drew the sword on her waist and pointed right between her eyes. “Give it back, or I pry it from your corpse.”

“Hah! My corpse?” the monkey scoffed, ooing and aahing as she danced around her. “Good luck with that one. A rust bucket like you ain’t ever getting the better of me.”

“You think so?”

The warrior stepped forward and swung her blade without warning. It was aimed at the simian's neck, delivered with the full intent to kill. But with her frame so small, the tiny ranger was able to duck under it without issue. She dodged the kick that followed as well, laughing as she backflipped onto a nearby pole.

“Get the fuck back here, you little shit!”

“Hah! Looks like you’re all talk after all,” she said, with a toothy grin. “Must be humiliating, huh? Getting your ass run around by a shrimp like me.”

“Fuck you!”

Already half seething, the human dug her feet into the ground, raised her sword in a two-handed grip, and lowered her stance. She cast the one spell she knew and prepared to kick off, but a chill ran up her spine right as the lightning crackled at her feet and scarred the polished, wooden floor.

Spinning around, she found herself face to face with two of the MACC’s receptionists. The silver-haired lady had a perfectly neutral face, while the foxgirl hiding behind her was half panicked. Though it certainly made for a curious sight, her attempt at stealth was laughably ineffective. She stood a full head above her coworker, with her ears poking even higher. Though she couldn’t quite hear the fox’s whispers, it was clear from the way that she was holding the other girl back that she was pleading for her not to get involved.

“If you want to fight, do it outside,” said the bolder receptionist. “Or in the gym.”

“Just try and make me.” The furry gremlin responded with a cackle. Her obnoxious laugh lasted for all of three seconds before she found herself pinned to the wall with a hand against her throat.

The monkey’s eyes opened wide in fear, no doubt in part because of the tightening grip. She struggled against it, punching and kicking, but the silver-haired receptionist effortlessly kept her exactly where she was.

“Claire! What the heck!” shouted the fox lady. “Lia’s gonna throw a fit. You’re supposed to throw them out gently! Not crack the wall!”

“This is gentle.”

“Yeah. right! She’s literally gonna die if you don’t let go in the next like five seconds!”

“She is?” The lady named Claire briefly turned her eyes back on the gremlin, who was not only unconscious, but foaming blood at the mouth. “Oh. Oops.” She loosened her grip and set her down on the floor, where she lay twitching with her eyes rolled back into her head.

When Hilda realised that the girl’s eyes had moved to her, she immediately sheathed her sword and raised her hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get carried away.”

Claire examined her for a few brief moments, her eyes focusing primarily on the fresh stains on her armour. “Come to the desk.”

The human’s first instinct was to turn around and run, but she couldn’t. Not only did she not have the confidence to outrun the receptionist, who had moved quickly enough to appear as a blur, but she was also afraid that they would remember her face. Her cozy career in Vel’khagan hung in the balance. There would always still be a few idle tasks she could find on the job board, but most of the monster hunting and adventuring work was already MACC-exclusive.

Her head hung, she slowly followed after the reptile-like creature whilst shooting pleading glances at the members of her party. The rogue was the only one to spot her, but even then, he immediately averted his gaze, leaving her to the penalty at the end of her journey.

She gulped as she arrived at the desk, her eyes flitting around nervously as she awaited her sentence. The receptionist, however, appeared to have other plans. She slowly sorted through a pile of papers without a word, leaving the human to sit tight, her worries compounding with every tick of the clock.

“Hildegarde,” she said, eventually, as she settled on a specific file.

Hilda’s breath was stuck in her throat. Her blood ran cold and her whole body tensed up as she slowly turned to meet the receptionist’s gaze. “H-how do you know my name?” she asked, nervously. Her mind was racing. With the way the conversation was going, she was sure to find herself removed and banned. “I-I mean, sorry. It won’t ever happen again. I shouldn’t have let her taunting get the better of me.”

The receptionist slowly shook her head. “This isn’t about that.”

“I-it isn’t?”

“How many cultists were there?”

The human cocked a brow. Her mind didn’t catch up until she lowered her eyes and recognized the document as the request she had taken off the board the previous night. With a shake of the head, she cleared her head and recalled the most relevant facts.

“Almost but not quite a hundred in all. We slew most of them, including a priestly fellow, but a few stragglers escaped” She looked around briefly, lowering her voice and leaning in as she shope again. “Err… actually we found a vault as well, but we couldn’t get it to open,” she said. “We had our rogue try his hand at it, and threw some bombs too when that failed, but nothing.”

“I see.” Claire scribbled down a few notes with the pen in her hand whilst placing a series of coins on the counter with her tail. “We can arrange for it to be cracked open in the morning, and have that double as the inspection that will confirm its completion,” she said, as she continued to write. “Would you like to take the caravan request as well? You should have enough time. It isn’t leaving for another three days”

Hildegarde eyed the woman curiously. “Is that okay? Didn't I just cause a bit of undue trouble? I thought for sure that I would be penalised.”

“It’s not a big deal. Happens all the time,” said Claire, with a shrug. “How early will you be there? For the vault.”

Hilda lightly tapped her fingers on the desk. “I was thinking we’d leave at around ten and get there around noon.”

“Okay,” said the silver-haired receptionist. “We’ll have someone ready. Be here at ten.”

A sigh of relief held in her throat, the human filled out the paperwork and quickly returned to her seat. She had not expected the MACC to be so generous or forgiving, with all the rumours as they were.

The next morning, Hildegarde’s party would be surprised to find the receptionist herself accompanying them on the trip. Through that encounter, and the subsequent vault break, the human and her companions would engrave a universal truth straight into their hearts: if the question was doors, then violence was always the answer.

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