Chapter 182: Chapter 181 [???]

South of Vasia existed a tiny hamlet. It was deep enough in the forest that, by all accounts, it was invisible for anyone who didn’t know of its existence. Only one road connected it to the capital of the kingdom, no other road led to or from the place. an inexperienced onlooker might have dismissed the hamlet as nothing more but another tiny conglomeration of huts, just like every other budding seed of civilized existence in otherwise feral infested lands. It had only a dozen houses, some farmland, a watchtower, and a radio beacon.

But the longer one observed, the clearer it would become that the nameless hamlet was anything but ordinary.

The hunters that guarded the hamlet carried themselves with the discipline of knights, the farms were tended by maidens that would have been more commonly seen in specialized guilds, even the radio tower itself was connected to an electricity generating facility that was far more powerful than what such a hamlet would ever need. If one possessed the proper senses, it was possible to detect the elemental magic that had seeped into the soil, the earth, tainting it and betraying the nature of something underground.

But even if one possessed the ability to see underground, it would have only raised further suspicions rather than revealed the truth. All the individual would have been able to see would have been barriers upon barriers, obscuring detection of anything and everything underneath the hamlet. The best one could have guessed would have been at the size of the area being protected.

Something larger than the hamlet itself, deep underneath.

In the end, the only way to truly and innocuously reveal what occurred within the depths of the hamlet would have been to pay close attention to the singular tradesmen that would enter the hamlet once a month. His cart would be loaded with mundane things, food, leather, wood. And on his pocket there would be a single white and red sphere, containing a Mimica, a maiden capable of creating spaces to safely store objects into.

And hidden within this maiden’s storage space would be chock full of a singular item. An item crucial for the continuous existence of the kingdom, a reason why there were many other such sites spread across the territory, tucked out of sight, secret.

Today was the day a tradesman would come to gather the cargo and take it to the next secure location, a transactional if tense affair. He was not flanked by his maidens as he made his way into the hamlet. They were royal knights pretending to be his own. Or so it would have normally been that way.

Under the watchful eye of the two fake royal knights in disguise, he walked towards the smallest building within the village.

“Stay calm, nothing will happen.” The taller of the maidens purred, shadows flickering across her form, her striped tail hidden under the guard cloak.

The man nodded, stepping into the shop and towards the counter. A friendly maiden greeted him with a smile. “I’ve… come to buy the usual.” Fishing into his pocket, he brought out a pokeball and the royal seal.

The maiden nodded, taking the pokeball and putting a different one in place. “Have a nice day, sir.”

“S-Sure.” He turned around and left the shop, gulping as he glanced at his two escorts. “I… it’s done.”

“Good. Now, we wait.”

While the human gathered the other items for his trip back to the capital, the maiden within the shop walked to the back, opening a small panel behind the door in the storeroom. The panel had a hole, round and of the exact size of a pokeball. Taking the one the merchant had left on the counter, she dropped it down the chute.

The device traveled a hundred meters straight downwards and landed softly at the end.

Nana startled at the sound. She sat up straight as she reached for the pokeball. Was this it? She prayed it to be so, or all of this would have been for nothing. She walked out of the room, pocketing the white and red sphere. Marble corridors dimly lit by soft orange light illuminated the way. On her way to her destination, she passed over a walkway that oversaw one of the larger work areas in the underground facility.

Underneath her forty maidens sat in front of wooden tables. They were paired in groups of two, a Minimouse for every Enchantress. Blank empty eyes worked on the task at hand with single-minded focus, carefully taking the synthetic leather and slowly remaking them, inscribing the enchantments onto every inch without a single error or mistake. Seated in the center of the room was the cause for the impossible concentration each maiden showed, a psychic, her power pulsating through the room like waves washing on the shore.

The maidens, once exhausted, would step out of the room and remember nothing of the work they had done, the details of the magic or the weaving of the magical tool. They would become people once more and exist, breathe, play, enjoy. Only so long as they never stepped out of the facility.

The only way out of the facility, to the outside world, was through the proving. If you worked hard enough, fulfilled your goals, and did not misbehave, you could get out once you had gathered enough points. But it was a lie, Nana had learnt so. Any maiden that left the facility would have their mind fived, all memories erased.

She quickly shoved down that horrible thought, hurrying across the walkway to the other side. Everyone ignored the mousy maiden as she moved through the corridors, she was an errand girl, her skill in manufacturing had been wanting, but they’d found use for her in assisting in the things others needed.

“Halt.”

The command from the guards made Nana’s feet freeze in place. She glanced from one to the other, and then back. “I bring the new Mimica.”

“Oh, that was today wasn’t it.” The armor-wearing maiden slumped her shoulders, sighing.

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No more was said, no more was needed, the door opened and Nana hurried inside, walking into the containment center. It didn’t take her long to reach where the Mimicas lived, a series of plain and empty reinforced rooms. Each room was occupied by a feral Mimica, the ghostly maiden would possess the coffer within the room and, when presented with enchanted collars, would store them. The feral would remain in the room until her cargo capacity reached its limit, at which point she would be returned to her pokeball and sent to the capital. Only once back at the capital would they be bonded and broken out of the feral state.

It was a failsafe to guarantee none could get their hands on the enchanted collars, for a feral Mimica would never allow their storage space to be opened. And killing them would only make the storage space to implode, its contents spewing out highly damaged, for the enchanted collars, it would be irreparable. Each room was a box without doors or windows, merely slots in the concrete.

Nana put the pokeball into the only spherical slot and pushed the door, the device released its contents inside the concrete room. But this pokeball did not have a Mimica in it.

Nervously, she waited for the shadow to step through the rock solid wall as if it were no more than smoke. Ruby red eyes looked down at Nana and every fiber of her being withered under the power of the Vampire. “Where.”

Not a question, a command.

Nana whispered words, the direction to the destination she’d been instructed to provide, and the Vampire melted into the shadows, gone as if she’d never been there. The mouse waited for several seconds before she moved again, taking the now empty pokeball and making her way back to the room she’d been occupying while waiting for it. Again, unobstructed, unseen, invisible to the guards and wardens of this place of suffering.

She sat back on the wooden stool, it was still warm. With her hands on her knees, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine what she’d do once she was out of there. She knew very little of the outside aside from the conversations from the knights, there was something called chocolate that was supposedly the best food out there. Food had always been one of her few pleasures, that felt like something she would want to at least try once.

What would it taste like? Chocolate could melt so perhaps something like cheese?

Shouts could be heard outside, her hands clenched into fists. “It’s going to be alright.”

Gulping, she nodded to herself. Everything would be alright. The alarm wasn’t going off, so that meant everything was going as it she’d been told it would. She nodded again, lips curling slightly. The silence that had followed the screams was worse than the screams, everything in the back of her mind was sounding alarms, that she was in danger.

The ground shook around her right as shadows curled and bloated, the vampire emerged. She held three spheres. Two were pokeballs, much like the one Nana was holding, the third was also a sphere, but it was black, made out of something that felt wrong to Nana’s senses.

The curse of Eve, that which forced a human to become a maiden.

“As agreed.” The Vampire offered the pokeball she’d been holding.

Nana hesitated as she reached for it. “Will… will I go outside?”

“I will take you to my Mistress’ domain.” The maiden’s eyes gleamed with power. “There, you will be rewarded for the help you’ve provided. An offer to continue helping us, and freedom.”

Nana nodded, touching the pokeball and feeling the world vanish around her.

The vampire glanced at the occupied pokeball and placed it on the chute next to the empty one, placing the cursed also occupied black sphere next to it. She glanced at the remaining pokeball, hers. She placed it last, and chanted a small simple delayed spell for movement, casting it upon all four before recalling herself.

The room was left empty.

All four spheres began to move up the chute and back to the surface.

The shopkeeper was waiting for them in the end. She headed to the back of the shop, bringing a basket of apples and placing three of the spheres at the bottom. Then, she allowed herself to be captured on the fourth. Her world vanished into darkness, her now occupied pokeball tumbling into the basket. Several minutes passed and the taller of the false knights entered the shop, taking the basket with all four occupied spheres, and walked outside to load it onto the merchant’s cart.

An hour later, the merchant and his cart walked out of the hamlet, flanked by the guards.

Six hours later, the guards would attempt to rotate with those on the lower levels and discover the communications had been cut off, and the tunnel collapsed. Alarms were raised and a hunting party sent to find the merchant.

But the only thing they would find of the man would be his bloody remains right next to those of a dead Mimica, the surrounding area littered with torn enchanted collars. The magic saturation from the destroyed magical items saturating the area and obscuring whatever spell had been used to hide the thief’s trail.

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