"Huff...Huff...well, that's not what, huff...I expected..." Glenn gasped, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Sahro was next to him, in a much better condition, even though he was still carrying Liara under his dark robe. The lady was admirably silent, despite the pain of the wound in her ankle she had to endure. Glenn wanted to attribute that to her being a Black Heir, but he knew better than that.
"All of this is Diamanes' fault anyway..." Nelg grumbled. Glenn shook his head and straightened himself before glancing at his surroundings. They were hiding in another abandoned storage room, the building they were in seemingly filled with those. He sighed as he recalled what had happened just a few minutes ago.
Right after the damned door squeaked, the madwoman with a knife —who, let's not forget it— was busy skinning and helping herself to that poor man's organs, had stormed out of the room, catching them trying to sneak away. Without saying a word, she then tried to attack Glenn, who was the closest to her at that time. The young man had attempted to cast a spell with one hand while the other reached for his longsword, but between his Mana reserves being practically empty, and Sahro being much faster than him, he ended up doing nothing.
Sahro acted, and Sahro grabbed and tased her, knocking the killer out. So far, it was a surprisingly good ending, until every door in the corridor had opened, revealing a literal army of crazy women with knives.
'My future children will never believe me...' Glenn chuckled to himself, before gauging how much Mana he had gathered back up.
'...Let's forget any big spells, I probably can't even sustain a Silence Curse for more than a few minutes. Darn, I need to find a way to optimize my Mana recovery...There should be a way to store Mana, or decrease the cost of using it, right? Where's my twenty-percent discount on magic spells with a random jewel crown?' He complained mentally, squinting when he found much less dust than the room they had ended up in back when they came out of the portal/teleportation thing.
In fact, there was not a speck of dust at all.
Strange.
"We can't stay here forever," Sahro began while also observing their room, "...we lost them for now, but we're in their home ground."
Glenn winced, before unsheathing his longsword and adjusting his grip over the hilt.
"I can't agree more. The thing is, we're pretty much trapped..." muttered the young man as he approached the walls, feeling them to try and find a hidden lever.
"Sahro, try and check your side. And, uh, miss, if you have some way to help, it'd be great—" Glenn stopped talking as a frail arm came out from under the dark robe, pointing at an inconspicuous wall, and notably at a small shelf hanging off it. Sahro followed her silent guidance, bringing her to the shelf. She grabbed it and twisted it to the side, putting it in a vertical position.
Nothing happened.
Glenn blew raspberries and looked at the ceiling with a wry expression. He casually glanced at the door they had hurriedly fortified, by pushing a desk against it, wondering how many seconds it would take for these sickos to just blow through it. Suddenly, a creaking noise alerted him of something opening behind him. He swiftly turned around, watching with interest as a hidden trapdoor revealed itself in the ground, right under the shelf Liara twisted.
"Well, we just had to give it time. Thank you, Miss Liara!" Glenn grinned as he almost jumped in the hole, Sahro closely behind. The passageway was dark, but they could still see their way through, thanks to some small rays of light coming off the walls. Glenn gave a glance at one of the holes the light was from, his eyes widening when he accidentally watched an ungodly display of skill, and...flexibility.
'Huh. I never knew the human body could do—oh, how does this not hurt?' Diamanes said with a mix of awe and curiosity. Glenn averted his gaze away, a grimace on his face.
"Urgh, I'm pretty sure that guy should have been ninety or something..." The young man shivered, disgust deeply engraved on his face. Sahro glanced curiously at one of the holes, before shaking his head and pushing his friend forward. They continued through the passageway, arriving at a single stone door. Glenn tried pushing on it, to no avail. Liara's frail arm came out of Sahro's dark robe once again, pointing at a specific stone in the wall. Glenn touched it and turned back toward her.
"This one?"
Liara's hand turned to a thumb's up, making both Glenn and Sahro chuckle. They could already hear muffled music coming from behind the stone door, letting them wonder where in hell they were going to end up. The young man pushed the stone, and the door slid away, revealing yet another room.
'I'm curious as to what moved the stone door, if that was some kind of mechanism, or if it was magic. Maybe it was magic, and Liara had some kind of way of seeing through it. That would explain the silent pointing...' Glenn pondered as he carefully adventured himself in the new room. A violin was echoing in the room alongside a shaky song, the singer's voice filled with terror and tremolos. A thick scent of perfume was permeating the place, alongside a similarly foggy mist.
'Oh, drugs! It's been a while!' Diamanes remarked with a happy voice. Glenn blinked, trying to understand why in hell would the entity be happy about him being drugged, and he quickly gave up.
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"...Is it me, or does it feel kind of familiar?" Nelg remarked, the appearance of his armored self frowning deeply showing in Glenn's mind. The young man rubbed his chin and turned back toward Liara and Sahro, a finger on his mouth.
"...The fog is a drug. Be careful..." He whispered as he unsheathed his sword, ready to strike at a moment's notice. The singer's voice came from the center of the room, which was hidden behind wooden windscreens. The source of the smog also seemed to come from the room's center. Glenn pressed his lips together and sneaked a peek over one of the windscreens, quickly hiding back behind the windscreen.
There were seven individuals, six sitting and listening silently while the last one was hanging from the ceiling over a brazier. The last one was also the singer and musician.
"Incredible skills. Imagine having to play violin and sing all at the same time, while hanging upside down from the ceiling in a slow cooking session! This guy is a menace!" Nelg whistled, impressed. Diamanes agreed, the two earning a sneer from their host.
'Skills or not, if we don't do something, he's going to end up roasted. And sadly, we can't have that, because I know the fucking guy...' He sighed, before indicating a spot of the windscreen at Sahro, poking with his sword at it. The Black Heir slowly let Liara slip on the ground and unsheathed his sword, ready to strike. Coincidentally, the song had just ended, the singer's voice dying down as the embers of the brazier crackled.
Clap, clap.
"Well, you might have earned yourself another minute, bard. Maybe we'll feel generous and skin you only after slitting your throat, if you tell us the truth..." A grave voice declared, one of the six individuals watching the singer grill slowly.
"I—I've already told you the truth - cough!" the bard replied fearfully, spitting a splatter of blood into the fire. A deep sigh came from the deep-voiced man, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping against metal, probably from playing with a knife or something similar.
"Alright, then here's another chance for you. Sing that song of yours, the popular one..." The man trailed off and smacked his lips, struggling to find his words, "...the one with the demon or something..."
"The Demon's Grin, or the new version?" The bard tried, the man clapping joyfully, followed by grunts of approval from his colleagues.
"Yes, the new one! We all heard the other a thousand times, so give us something different, now! Come on, sing it to us, and we'll make it quick. That's...a little worse off compared to just tell us the truth, but since you don't want to do that..."
"Want to? I can't, because you don't believe me anyway!" sobbed the bard, amidst the chuckles of the group of Skinners. One of them spoke up, earning a raised eyebrow from Sahro and a silent chuckle from Glenn as they listened to the conversation, waiting for the best time to strike.
"Heh, even my boy heard of it! He said he wants to be like the one-armed swordsman, the Crazy Hero's subordinate... Haha, he told me that even though he was already practicing skinning on Tori. Young ones, ain't that right?"
They chuckled, the bard unable to stop himself from asking a new question.
"Who's—Who's Tori?"
The Skinner shrugged and leaned back in his seat.
"Oh, that's our seventh dog. These bastards breed fast..."
Silence took hold over the room until the bard's scream of pain broke it.
"Sing, you bastard! We're bored!"
"Argh...! Sniffle, I...Cough...Amid darkness and rain, rose—cough—rose a hero of old, a red witch, and a one-armed swordsman..."
Glenn glanced at Sahro as the poor bard began a new song, nodding slightly. Sahro nodded back, ready to have his sword meet a Skinner's brain.
'Three, two, one...' Glenn counted with his fingers raised and closed his fist, stabbing straight through the windscreen and piercing the heart of the closest Skinner. He didn't waste a second and pulled his sword back, using the momentum to slice through the windscreen and the nearest Skinner's head, decapitating him. Sahro had similarly killed two other Skinner, leaving out the last two to fight off. They rushed for their weapons but were too late to do so, as one was grabbed by Sahro's left, blue arm and shocked to death, while the other was pierced by the skillful throw of Glenn's longsword.
The two young men looked at each other, before dusting off their hands and confirming the death of every single of these bastards.
"I just have to say, this is working nicely on my side. On a positive note, even those dirty fucker's souls work...On a sadder one, it'll take a whole lot more to upgrade me." Nelg remarked at the moment, making his host remember the main and only way to enhance his longsword.
'I kind of forgot you fed on souls. Well, as long as it all works out...' Glenn shrugged and turned toward the sack—toward the bard hanging off the ceiling, cutting the robe tying him with a swift movement of his wrist. The bard fell to the ground, narrowly avoiding the brazier and stumbling to his feet. His pretty face was covered in bruises and dried blood, and his clothes were ripped here and there.
"Thank you—oh," The bard withheld his thanks when he recognized his saviors. Glenn wiped his blade off one of the Skinner's corpses, grinning as he stared at the bard.
"Well, well, if it isn't Sir Montana himself," said the young man as he patted the bard's shoulder. He sheathed his sword and checked the rest of the room out, finding a small bag of white leaves right next to the brazier.
"That's the source of the drug...It does look like...Ohhhh" Glenn looked at the bag with a closer look, nodding deeply in confirmation.
"Yep, that's Moon Grass. Welp, I have no idea what this shit is doing here, but I'm taking it back to Onnea's Church. Interesting, interesting..."
'Moon Grass practically means Thorn's Church. Does the Skinners have a deal with them? That wouldn't surprise me much, but it's still a little worrying..." Nelg wondered aloud in Glenn's mind as the latter took the leaves and fitted them in his dimensional pouch. The bard was still speechless from recognizing Glenn and Sahro and was lying on the ground with his jaw hanging low.
Glenn turned toward Montana, looking up and down at him.
"...Can you fight?"
Montana gulped, before heavily moving his head up and down. Glenn grinned and held his hand out for the bard to grab.
"Well, let's get out of here first, alright? Another hand is welcomed, even more against these sick bastards..."
The bard shook the hand and pulled himself up, muttering some thanks. Glenn chuckled, a hint of wickedness passing in his eyes.
"Oh, don't thank us yet. I still have some questions I need you to answer..."
Montana gulped a second time. Things could have gone worse for him.
He could be dead.
"...Of course..." He mumbled, before grabbing one of the dead guy's weapons, a pair of knives. Glenn glanced at the brazier and kicked it to the ground. The burning coal quickly propagated the fire to the wood planks making up the floor. Sahro had already taken Liara on his back once again, and was ready to leave.
Glenn moistened his lips as he watched the fire grow.
"Let's leave this place, then..."
'I sure hope that's going to be a good distraction and not the thing that will kill you...' Diamanes snorted as he looked at the fire through his host's eyes.
'It probably will. Or it won't. Whatever.'