After the first two places they visited, Esperanza’s group visited another six human villages and towns, going counter-clockwise around the mountain range’s periphery. Each time they sent in different groups, in combinations that would still make sense in case some of the locals happened to meet each other and talked about them, yet also kept things different each time, partly to match the cover stories the more experienced spies had been using all these years.
What they discovered was that the first village they went to was a bit of an exception, where the people had nice lives and those who had power over them were good people in general. Sights like what they had seen in the town they visited where the nobles treated those below them like they were worth nothing was more common, sadly.
For the riskier villages where there were risks of running afoul of the local nobility or clergy or whoever was in power, it was usually Kurt and Leo who went there. They were young, strong men, and since they displayed themselves as third tier [Hunters] instead of [Merchants] like Murad and Mora, people knew that if pushed, they might fight back harder than they would have liked.
Even with such precautions though, the siblings had some scars on their backs from unfortunate run-ups with such types in the past. They were less capable of fighting back at that time since the skill they used to hide their presence also weakened them, so they just played it off as being too nice to hit back… yet. Fortunately those who picked on them got the message and went off soon after.
After all, bullies generally disliked dealing with people who fought back.
As such, it was more common to send the siblings – sometimes together with Resitia, sometimes with Iryl, sometimes both – to the more troublesome spots. Esperanza would keep watch of the situation from afar. While she wanted to go herself, it was not worth it to risk exposing themselves on the off chance that some asshole decided they wanted a closer look at her.
In four of the six places they visited – interestingly enough, all of them were pretty close to the mountain range and thus quite far from the bigger human cities – there was some sort of local bully who pretty much held the reins of power in the village or town. In one, it was the village chief and his family that often flaunted their authority, mostly due to the backing of their brother who was a fourth tier [Hunter].
It was authority backed up by simple brute force as even if the other villagers disagreed, they simply had no power to fight back.
Amusingly enough, when Kurt, Leo, Resitia, and Iryl visited the village, the son of the village chief tried to get handsy with Resitia, and she responded by directly breaking the offending arm in an almost casual motion. Naturally, one thing led to another, and in the end the youth’s uncle, the fourth tier [Hunter] got involved, for injuring his nephew meant going against his authority and he could not tolerate that.
Of course, Resitia just showed him exactly what she thought about his “reign” over the village by way of a thorough beatdown that more than likely left the man a cripple, if he even lived through his injuries. While she was still in the mid third tier, her stats were far higher than the man’s already since his classes had very poor rarities.
They left the village shortly after, but Resitia also noticed how a mob had formed, with most of the other adult villagers gathered together. She thought they would accost them on their way out, but the villagers had not bothered them in the least. Some of them even said words of gratitude or thanked them on their way out.
Only then had she noticed that the mob was moving towards where she had left the beaten up brother of the village chief, likely in preparation for lynching the man while he was down. The village chief and his family would likely get caught up in the mess as well given how they had been abusing their power, but that was none of her business.
Just some people getting their just desserts.
In another village, the clergy basically acted like they owned the place, while the locals were driven to a fearful obedience by threats of going against god’s will and the like. The group that went there actually had less problems, however, as the clergy was not stupid enough to act out while there were outsiders around. They didn’t want word of their behavior to spread, clearly. As such, the group that went to the village just left them be as well.
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There was no need for them to attract attention to themselves, after all.
At another small town, where Murad and More once again brought Esperanza, Iryl, and Resitia with them – though not Tiara, interestingly enough – as they went into the town. The reason for that was made clear soon enough, as they watched a scene from afar where a richly dressed young man was pulling away a crying woman and forcefully pushed her into his carriage before he drove off.
Apparently, the local noble landlord – a minor baronet of little significance – was one that doted greatly on his only son. As a natural result, said son grew up a spoiled, entitled brat that lived a life of debauchery and excess. He often preyed on the pretty young women of the village, even ones who were already married, and there was nothing the villagers could do about it.
After all, the nobleman had his own retinue of men at arms, while the villagers had very few people who had any sort of combat-related classes.
The sight actually disgusted Esperanza to the point where she decided to do something herself. She knew that if the world would be destroyed, then all these people would die, probably by her hand directly or indirectly. However, if what she did could allow them to live their lives somewhat more happily until then, then that alone would make the act worthwhile in her opinion.
Rather than let the others take any risks – not that there was much of a risk, given their power, but having more people would mean they would be easier to notice – Esperanza went to the noble’s place later that night. With her ability to shapeshift it was trivial to sneak in unnoticed, and with [Gauze of Oblivion] active people wouldn’t notice her even if they stared right at her anyway.
The jaunt in the noble’s manor also happened to be the last bit the skill needed before it hit max level and evolved, apparently, as it turned into a new skill called [Veil of Entropy]. It retained the effects of the original skill, while also making her able to expand the area affected. When she tested it out the “veil” expanded to encompass a sphere of roughly seven feet radius around her, and everything in that range would be unnoticed by those outside.
Between her skill and shapeshifting, Esperanza easily made her way to the private chambers of the noble’s family. Unfortunately, however, she came too late for the young woman she was dragged away earlier. The woman must have resisted, as the young nobleman who dragged her away had bruise and claw marks on his face, but apparently her resistance angered him enough to kill her, as Esperanza saw the scene where a couple men – likely the house’s retinue of men at arms – carried away her body.
One of the men even joked that the woman was “still warm” and that maybe they could have a bit of fun with her before they buried her somewhere in the woods.
They never had the chance to act out on their depredations, however, as Esperanza lashed out with two tentacle-like limbs that wrapped around their necks and strangled them on the spot. She then snuck into the room of the young nobleman and caught him just as he was about to go to bed, clearly unrepentant about what he had just done.
So she also strangled him to death, but slowly.
With that done, she then left and searched the place until she found the older nobles, the parents of the spoiled young man she just killed. She gave them the same treatment as well, and left their bodies on their bed. Then she did the same to the rest of the men at arms, who from the chatter she heard along the way were clearly all too aware of their masters’ proclivities and were even regularly complicit in them.
When everyone was dead, she then set the whole mansion on fire to help obfuscate her actions a bit. That way hopefully someone would just think that an angry villager has had enough and burnt the place while the people inside were unable to escape the inferno.
People often panicked when surrounded by fire after all. Just to sell the illusion a bit further, Esperanza had dragged most of the men at arms’ corpses to the perimeter of the mansion, to make it look like they tried to escape but were caught by the flames. Or at least that was what she hoped people would infer from the position of the bones they discovered.
The inferno made for a good crematorium, and while the fire likely didn’t burn hot enough to turn a person’s bones to ashes, it would scour their flesh clean off their bones and blacken the bones that remained, at the very least. That would make it nearly impossible to tell that they had been killed prior to the fire, which further helped.
When Murad and Mora looked at Esperanza the next day, it was with no small sense of wonderment. They had been spies for decades after all, and seen all sorts of things, as well as having gone through some indignities themselves to keep up their facade. To see someone that dared to do something about the things that had always bothered them was quite a revelation for them.
The villagers were naturally abuzz with conversations about the fire that engulfed the baronet’s mansion the previous night. Fortunately the mansion itself was situated a short distance away from the town proper, at the top of a hill where the noble’s family could enjoy a scenic view of the surrounding area, so the fire had not spread elsewhere.
Some of the townspeople rejoiced and cheered at the death of the noble and his family after some of the more inquisitive ones went to check on them and found only rubble and burnt bones left behind. Many of the cheering townspeople shed tears at the same time, some falling to their knees in prayer. Esperanza happened to catch some of what they muttered thanks to her sharp hearing, and noticed that they prayed for some loved ones to find peace in the afterlife as the ones who had defiled and murdered her had received their much-needed comeuppance.
Apparently cases like what she saw yesterday wasn’t the only one, or even a rarity, which made her more glad that she had taken the time to strangle the bastard of a nobleson slowly.
Amidst the excitement and chaos surrounding the mansion’s burning, Esperanza’s group quietly slipped out of town. They weren’t the only ones either, as a few other traveling merchants or other travelers decided to do the same. Everyone knew that it was better not to linger around a place where such a thing happened, in case suspicion fell on them as the outsider.
It was as they say, better safe than sorry. The other merchants and travelers that Esperanza’s group happened to run into echoed that sentiment, and sighed that while it was a good thing that such an abusive noble was gone, those above them might not take kindly to it. Apparently whole villages had been purged in the past over similar cases.