"This is turning into a bloody side quest." Althea thought as she levitated a beast to her face.

Running away from the black market had been a waste of mana. There was no pursuit. Not even a single person had bothered to send their mana senses her way to see what had happened. If anything, they had gone into hiding.

Althea supposed it made sense. This was a bunch of criminals, not soldiers. There was more reason for them to hide than to investigate why someone had kidnapped one of their number.

The problem came when she went to Gramma's village to get the thief cured. Aasha had been wrong. Gramma did not, in fact, have the cure. But, of course, she knew where it could be. So it was up to Althea to go look for it. And kill them. That was what she was doing right now.

The only problem was, she was getting a bit…annoyed. Just when she thought she was done, things started to go awry. That was what she had come to expect from life on Earth, but somehow forgotten it while living here. The Diery county had just been so nice, where things were set, and she wasn't so lost.

The human cup had seemed so important just days ago, but now it was barely on her mind. What did occupy her thoughts was the Great Mother. The tree had been silent recently, and she hadn't detected any incursions into her mind, but that just worried her.

Why not? Had the tree discovered a way to get into her mind without her detecting it? Was that it? How much of her actions were being controlled? Or was the tree controlling other people in her vicinity?

There was no way for her to tell.

Shaking her head to free herself from her silly worries, she shot back towards the village, sure to not drop the beast. And it was slippery. The bloody thing seemed intent on slipping down from her fingers. Rushing past the forest without a care for how fast she was going, she basically crashed near Gramma's house. The ground couldn't harm her anyway.

"Please stop destroying my roads." Gramma said, popping her head out. Althea looked down at where the path had several cracks to it. How was this a road, though? What kind of road was so rocky?

Shrugging, she used her magic to straighten it, and then did the same for every road in the village. Now even cars could drive on it.

"I got the beast." she said.

"I can see that." Gramma said. "The thief is still where you left him."

Althea had expected it. The entire thing had only taken her an hour, after all, there was no reason to move him. Gramma approached her, taking a bit of the beast's blood in a container before walking back in. Althea wasn't sure what she should do with the rest of the supposedly rare beast’s corpse. Store it?

Well, actually, that wasn't such a bad idea. The spatial ring she had should even keep it fresh-ish. Not fresh enough to eat it, but perhaps she could use the blood again to cure someone of that poison.

Chucking the carcass into her spacial ring, she walked into the tent-like building. The earthen walls were porous enough that she found them unsafe. Earth magic was what kept them standing, not actual construction ability. The Solerian Empire wasn't this bad, but she had noticed the same issue. There were a lot of things where the people of this world used magic to waive problems away instead of science.

The thief gurgled as Gramma forced water with a few drops of the blood mixed down his throat. Althea wondered how the blood actually cured the poison. Was it something magical, or was it just that there was some sort of antidote in the beast's blood.

There were a lot of those thorns where she had found the beast, so it made sense that it had an antibody running through it. Heck, she was sure that it had been using the thorns' victims to satiate its hunger.

"This brat should wake up properly in a few minutes." Gramma said as the thief spluttered and began coughing up blood. Althea raised an eyebrow as she watched his body convulse, trying to forcefully eject the poison.

That was one fast antidote. A few minutes later, the convulsions stopped as the thief stopped puking blood out of himself, breathing heavily as he looked up.

"Where'd you stash the staff." Aasha said, holding a sword she had gotten from somewhere against the thief's throat. "Tell me now before I kill you."

The thief spluttered, unable to form words. Althea just watched it continue, not sure if she should interfere.

"What, cat got your tongue?" Aasha said, leaning close as she looked far too excited to maim the man.

A burst of mana flared from the thief, threatening to burn Aasha as Althea reacted near instantly. Mana churned, extinguishing the thief's fire, redirecting it towards himself instead. The thief screamed as fire burned him slightly.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Althea withdrew her mana, and decided that actually torturing the thief was not something she was interested in doing.

"Wha- you." the thief spluttered as he tried to respond.

"Do that next time, and I may decide that your screams are pleasurable!" Aasha threatened, sounding far too much like a kid playing pirate.

"Shut up, you bloody novice." the thief replied, venom and pain clear in his voice. There were first degree burns splattered across his body.

"I would be more polite, if I were you. That was not the limit of my powers." she commented, summoning venom of her own. Even if she was wincing internally at the thief's screams, she had a feeling that she shouldn't show it.

"I don't have your staff, respected Master." the thief replied. " I beg you, great madam-"

Althea sighed, somehow silencing his pleas. Now he was afraid? Where did his bravado from just seconds ago disappear to? Or was he just not scared of Aasha?

"Where’d you put it, huh?" Aasha asked, waving her sword again, though with much more hesitation than before. Even that girl could be put off by the thief's reactions. "Tell me, who'd you sell it to, you miserable miscreant?"

"As I am sure you are aware, great madam, there is an etiquette to deals that I cannot-" the thief said. Althea let fire swirl around her, the room growing hot enough that Aasha winced, stepping away from the flames that burned far too hot for her to handle. A normal human would probably have left the room already. Fire mana was collecting from every direction around her, adding to the heat far quicker than she had expected.

"Answer Aasha's questions if you do not want to find what kind of etiquette I follow." she threatened.

The thief opened his mouth. Althea cut him off.

"If the next word out of your mouth isn't a name, then you will find out just how hot this fire burns." she continued, levitating the fire closer to her, hovering it near his skin.

"Meghdrishyum! The Meghdrishyum bought it off me!" he screamed out, scrambling to run away from the fire. Oh dear, she had traumatized him, hadn't she? Oh, well. At least she had her answer. The question remained, though, what to do with him now.

Dealing with this Meghdrishyum people could come later, but she had to deal with the thief. Just letting him leave seemed bad, but killing him…felt like…well. Not wrong, but she was still hesitating. A part of her wanted to just kill him and be done with it, but another felt guilty just killing a human in cold blood.

Thievery was a crime, but it wasn't worth a death sentence. Aasha decided to take the choice from her. Swinging her sword into the thief's neck faster than both her and the thief could react, she cleaved his head off cleanly.

"Meghdrishyum is gonna be a problem." she pronounced, looking at the thief's body. To be honest, Althea was surprised that Aasha had managed to kill him in the first place. Even if she had been holding a sword against his neck, he was still a Journeyman. Then again, he had been pretty weakened by the ordeal. Perhaps his senses just weren't up to snuff.

"How powerful are they?" she asked, wondering if she should bring up Aasha killing the thief.

"I have no idea." the girl said, turning towards her. "Haven't heard of em before."

Althea cocked her head. " How do you know they are going to be a problem?"

"Cause I haven't heard of them. How do we deal with someone if I haven't heard of them before?"

Althea nodded. That was reasonable. "Perhaps we should look for somewhere we can acquire that information. Do you perhaps have knowledge of anyone that may be in possession of information regarding such groups?"

"Oh, I know one place this group hangs out for sure." Aasha replied.

Althea narrowed her eyes. "What place?"

"The black market."

Of course. The same one they had just extracted the thief from. If the thief had sold the staff there, someone had to know who these Meghdrishyum people were. There was just one problem.

How the fuck was she going to sneak into that place and buy information there?

sc

The first step to gathering information, as it turned out, was actually looking like you fit in. That meant discarding her dress of jewels and wearing something less glittery.

For the third time this week, she felt very grateful that she had helped Gramma with her difficulties. An argument could be made that she would not have lost the staff if she hadn't helped Grammar with her issues, but she decided to ignore that.

There was no point in fixating on what if's. On the contrary, it was time to start looking like she was someone that went around killing people. And like someone that didn't blast her presence to anyone that cared to listen.

Now that was turning out to be harder than she thought. After all, it involved not blasting her presence around. A thing that she had not quite mastered yet. Or knew how to do at all.

A mage's presence could be discovered by another mage by the suction effect they had on the surrounding mana. A cultivator's core kept itself in contact with as much mana as it could, allowing them to start fighting at a moment's notice. That ability had saved more lives than she could count.

But it also meant that she had a noticeable effect on the surrounding mana. The Martial artists had it easier, the amount of mana they could affect was miniscule compared to mages. The manuals just worked differently.

There were of course mages that pulled it off. The Marchioness of Bern had done it. But for the life of her, she did not know how to replicate it. And wasting months trying to invent it just didn't sound right to her. Even if the staff did justify the effort.

The ancient weapon of the Diery family and all that.

"Pull your presence in." Gramma insisted. "Leave the world alone as you sink within yourself, letting the world around you take over-"

Althea sighed as yet another attempt at disguising her presence failed. To be honest, she felt like this was an age problem. Even if she tried to act like she was a calm lady, she still couldn't calm herself enough to merge with the world and mana.

What teenager could?

Not to mention, this still wouldn't hide her completely, even if she succeeded. Althea had seen Gramma use the skill The suppression only hid ninety percent of her presence, the rest was still around. That might be enough for a martial artist, but she would be broadcasting her location either way.

The only difference would be that instead of a second sun, she was a bonfire. That was it. Even if it worked.

Huffing at the dilemma, she let herself fall back onto the grass, laying down as she gazed up at the stars.

What the heck was she supposed to do about this?