Akemi watched as one of the cowboys headed for the stables, the other remaining with the mask trader. A small crowd of concerned merchants had formed around them, alarm and confusion spreading throughout the marketplace. One thing was becoming abundantly clear—it was only a matter of time before the body was discovered, and Akemi became a walking target.

“But my shooooes,” she groaned, rubbing her temples.

Maybe I can still pull this off.

Turning around with renewed urgency, she scanned the room. Unlike the other rooms, this bedroom was neat and tidy, with no abandoned belongings strewn around on the ground. The only out of place thing was a book still lying on the bed sheets. Akemi approached it. The pages of the book were burnt, the outline of two hands singed into the paper like brands. The ashen imprint was fresh, still smelling of smoke.

Akemi picked up the book and turned it around. She immediately noticed the feeling of the spine—glossy scales, soft to the touch. They were colored a dark green. She flipped the book over. The cover was a painting of two lizards, one dressed in a butler’s uniform, the other in a princess’s gown. They were standing by a bed, embracing.

“Yup,” Akemi said, grimacing. “This is the one.”

You have acquired [The Lusty Lizard]

Warning: Inventory full! You are now Encumbered.

“Seriously?” she groaned. “How much can a book even weigh?”

She dragged Phepheroni’s knife from her inventory and it clattered to the ground. She felt a tad bit sentimental about losing it—that was a souvenir from her first kill, after all—but the thought of a nice pair of well-fitting shoes rid her of all doubt. She threw the Lusty Lizard into her inventory and began to retrace her footsteps, exiting the door, clicking it closed, and heading once again for the staircase.

As her hand found purchase on the railing, she abruptly stopped and crouched, noticing something odd happening in the atrium below. A woman had climbed on top of the bar. Not one of the waitresses or the bartenders, but a masked woman with black, reflective boots, gloves, and a face scarf that obscured everything but her eyes. Piercing, sea blue eyes.

Akemi swallowed. She looks just like the one the cobbler described. The one that stole his book.

In the woman’s right hand was none other than Bwog, the bard. She was holding him by the collar, and he was flailing like a fish on a line trying to get out of her grasp. The drunk heroes were laughing and jeering and clapping, tossing his lute around like a dodgeball from one person to the next.

“Aw yeah, make him dance!” one hero shouted.

“Make him eat his own lute, how about that!” another added, tearing a piece off the instrument and shucking it at the bard.

Bwog howled, desperately trying to get out of the woman’s grasp.

“Get down from my bartop this instant!” Agatha commanded, standing just below the masked woman, hands pressed to her hips. “Or I swear I’ll get Agnor himself over here.”

The masked woman remained silent, not giving Agatha the time of day. The innkeeper fumed.

“Bwog, stop your squirming,” the masked woman said after a moment, turning her head towards the goblin. “Don’t make me drop you.”

“But Py—”

“Shut it,” the woman warned. “Not here.”

The woman carefully raised her hand, opening her palm towards the tables of heroes. They were waiting in bated breath for her next move, staring at her like an awed pack of puppies.

“Thank you all for your suggestions,” she said. “But I’ll be taking none of them.”

She breathed in.

“Nocturne sends his regards. Now, burn.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Before Akemi could react, a giant torrent of flame erupted from the woman’s hand. Fire engulfed the heroes, tearing through wood and flesh. Agatha cried out. The waitresses shrieked, fleeing into the kitchens.

The perpetrator wasted no time in escaping. She bounded off the bartop and fled for the staircase, her hand still gripped around Bwog’s collar. She was faster than a jet plane, her movements liquid. She ascended the stairs three steps at a time, shooting right past Akemi and into the dormitory hallway.

But in that small, fleeting moment where they stood eye-to-eye—where the woman briefly noticed Akemi, acknowledged her with nothing but a glance—Akemi found herself unexpectedly completely dumbstruck. The woman’s eyes were like two icicles wrapped in black void. They were breathtaking. Almost supernatural.

Something inside Akemi tugged, her stomach tightening.

P. | Level 15 Accountant

Wait, an accountant?

Before Akemi could say anything to her, the woman named P dashed down the hallway and towards the room that Akemi had just searched. The staircase below her began to creak, and smokey fumes were rising up towards the ceiling. Utter bedlam consumed the first floor, as the surviving heroes fled for the front doorway. Most had been turned to ash on impact, and the few remaining stragglers were stuck behind burning pillars and smokey debris.

“My inn!”

A shriek like no other erupted from Agatha. The woman was frozen like a painting, just standing there in active, all-consuming mourning. Her waitresses were surrounding her, trying to urge her towards the doorway. The fire was creeping rapidly around the bar and towards the kitchens.

“Someone catch her,” Agatha wailed, pointing up towards where Akemi stood. Agatha made direct eye contact with her, and the innkeeper’s eyes widened comically. “There she is! She’s just standing there! By my foremothers, I’ll serve your roasted head on a stick!”

Akemi jumped, her mind finally catching up with reality. She began to sprint after the fleeing accountant, running towards the bedroom as the floorboards beneath her groaned. She could almost feel the eyes of Agatha’s ancestors follow her from the paintings.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, grimacing. “It wasn’t my idea!”

Smoke trailing behind her, she flew open the door to the last bedroom and came to a halt right by the open window. She looked outside, finding the marketplace crowded with burnt heroes. Their clothes had turned to ash, leaving them naked in the streets. Smoke was billowing out of the inn like a coal factory.

She whipped her head back and forth, but saw no sight of P. or Bwog.

Where did she go?

She didn’t have time to ponder. The fire was closing in, and she needed an escape route.

Her head pounded as she considered her options. Idea number one: she could fling herself out the window. Obvious caveat: the window was facing the market. They’d naturally assume she was the one who had started the fire, given that she and P were wearing the same exact disguise. Also, she was still on the hook for killing that eggplant guy. So, idea number two: she could turn back around and head for the main entrance. But… she’d have hell to pay with Agatha and her broom-wielding employees.

Think, Akemi. Think!

Pulling her head back in from the window, she frantically surveyed the room once more. Bingo—she noticed something that hadn’t been there minutes before. Shattered glass. It was strewn across the floorboards, and a shimmering pool of blue liquid had accumulated right below the window. A tiny cork was also floating in the liquid.

Is it a shattered potion bottle?

She placed her hand in the liquid and cupped some of it in her hand.

Potion of Invisibility (Greater)

Effect: Invisibility that lasts up to 45s.

A glimmer of hope lit up her chest. She could hear footsteps rocketing down the hallway—Agatha and her girls, with their forks and knives and broomsticks—were mere feet from her doorway. The innkeeper was howling like a wild animal, stomping her heavy leather boots on the floor. Her pack of worried women was striding reluctantly behind.

Akemi sighed. Under usual circumstances, she wasn’t one for drinking strange liquids off the floor. But these weren’t usual circumstances.

She poured the liquid into her mouth, licking the last of it off her fingertips. Not a moment later, the women burst through her door, magical broomsticks and knife tips pointed forward.

“Where is she?” Agatha sputtered. “Where’s the damn girl?”

Akemi’s breath caught in her throat as she looked down at her hands. They were no longer there. She saw nothing but the floorboards beneath. There wasn’t even a glimmering outline where her body used to be. She was completely invisible.

Oh my god, it worked.

“Check the closet!”

Akemi dodged to the side as one of the women ran beside her and opened the closet. Agatha began to rabidly search the room, smoke dribbling in as she thrust open drawers.

It’s now or never.

With the women preoccupied, Akemi took a shaky breath in and looked out of the window. The descent downwards wasn’t exactly small. It wouldn’t kill her—but it had a high chance of breaking a few bones. The idea flitted across her mind to use the Orb on Agatha and her helpers, take the XP, then run for the main entrance, but there was a high chance the fire downstairs had gotten too thick for her to wade through.

There’s no time. Escape first, kill later.

Trying not to think of the consequences, she pulled herself through the window and hung from the window sill. Smoke billowed beneath her, and she tried not to breathe it in, but she couldn’t help it. Her nervous lungs filled with hot tar; her esophagus burned. I can’t breathe. The searing pain caused her grip to loosen, and she lost her hold on the window sill. She plummeted fast and hard, landing in the hot, melting dirt with a crack.

Her flashing health bar was all she saw before everything went black.