The morning was wet and muggy like a Japanese summer. Slivers of noncommittal sunlight streamed through the bars of her jail-cell window; hot, sticky heat broiled the room like a convection oven. Akemi awoke begrudgingly, her bones aching; cradled in her arms was the thing—the pika, so the System called it—with its fire-lit tail tucked under itself, quietly steaming.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep with the creature. It was simply that the thing would not leave her alone; it squeaked incessantly, nuzzled at her wounds, despite all of Akemi’s futile attempts to shoo it away. The thing was small enough to fit through the bars of the cell, but it unfortunately was not capable of picking locks—rendering it useless, at least by Akemi’s standards—but it was too cute and too simple of mind to just kill.
Akemi had a vague, 'grew up on a farm'-inspired no-animals rule when it came to coldblooded murder.
In fact, she had developed, in the few days since landing on this planet, a certain code of conduct when it came to manslaughter. Namely—that the objects of the slaughter had to be men. Not necessarily men in the gendered sense, per se, but any sentient being that possessed a mouth large enough to gab and gossip and torment and all those other uniquely irritating human activities. Actually, that wasn’t specific enough. Her rule was thus: if the thing in question could have reasonably graduated high school, it was at risk of being stabbed by her.
She raised the little creature above her head. Its tail swooped down, dancing along her torso like a smoking match. “Eep,” it said, then again. “Eep?” Akemi looked at the pika in its beady little red, unblinking eyes, judging its intelligence. She scowled. Unfortunately, she deduced that it could not have made it past second grade. It possessed none of the faculties to do addition, or write cursive. It was tragically safe.
A door slammed mightily from down the hallway. In its wake, two heavy boots began thumping, with slow, thunderous footsteps, towards her. A male voice—low and hoarse like it had been smoked to death by cigarettes—came bellowing down the way.
“Can’t believe they got me waking up at the ass crack of dawn for some little girl,” the man said, his silhouette draping across the opposite wall. Akemi studied it in milliseconds—heavy armor, helmet with two horns, big old greataxe, firm metal boots. The type of garb that suited a man named Brutus. It was so absurdly on-brand that she was sure his full title was something like Brutus the Brutal. Brutus the Executioner. The type of guy who stood behind the lithe, flamboyant villain, and tried to intimidate you with his eyes alone.
Brutus soon enough came to face her. “The accountant,” he spat. She begrudgingly raised her body to meet his, not that it really mattered—he towered over her like a giant to a sheep. “Hope you slept well. I hear the floor is a lot less comfortable in hell.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
Brutus | Level 25 Holy Harbinger
Level 25. That was higher than the knight—Andreas—she had chloroformed. Definitely not someone she wanted to mess with in combat. Fortunately, she had expected a pretty high level number, so she wasn’t shocked, but this did cause her to pivot her plans.
In the undreaming time before she fell asleep, blinking up at yellow shadows dancing along on the ceiling, she had planned out two distinct routes of escape.
Firstly, there was the plan of subdue. Go straight for this Brutus with a dose of chloroform after he let her out of the cell. This plan seemed impractical now simply because of the man’s startling height. It would be difficult for her to reach his mouth on a good day; even less now, with her aching bones and eyebrow-raising bruises. She’d have to jump up like a little kid reaching for a jar of cookies on the top shelf, and everybody knows how that always ends.
The second plan—and now, the imminent one—was the ever-favorable strategy of play along. Not her preferred route, as she was a big proponent of the direct approach, but the one unfortunately required by her dismal low-level. She let Brutus open the doors of the cage and guide her out like a herded animal. The pika trailed behind her, unbeknownst to Brutus, as it was too small and short to blink in the radar of his peripheral vision.
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“It’s good news and bad news for you, little lady,” Brutus began to gab. He was looking straight ahead—not even checking to see if Akemi was following. There were no exits except for the one past him, so it appeared that it didn’t matter. “Your chloroform didn't kill old, heart-addled Andreas like the rest of the idiot-heads on the force thought it would. Just whisked him away to a pleasant little nap. And gave his lady a real fright. Oh dear.”
It made Akemi laugh a little to hear such a ginormous, threatening man say oh dear.
“So that’s funny to you?” he asked, craning his neck backwards. “Because here’s the bad news. You did still kill that sorry son of a lamb Michael, or Mikael, or whatever his name was—I never bother learning the juniors’ names, half of them end up like him, or worse.” Akemi wondered what was worse than being killed, according to Brutus. “So your head is still on the chopping block. Manslaughter. Murder. Terrible crime. But a wonderful opportunity for Agnor.”
“He’s going to kill me for experience, I presume?”
Brutus laughed. “We aren’t villains. ‘Course not. That’s not how heroes get experience.”
This gave Akemi pause. She had just assumed the System worked both ways. Villains killed heroes for experience; heroes killed villains. It just made sense in her mind—a perfectly even distribution. But, looking back at her history in Kodra so far, it didn’t quite add up. Volo and his buddies hadn’t killed the villains they trapped. They took them to a holy chamber for some kind of ceremony. One that went unfinished, thanks to Nocturne.
“How do they, then? Get experience.”
“Is this some kind of mind game? Shouldn’t you know that?”
“No,” she said plainly. “I’m just new around here. Haven’t hit the books yet.”
He laughed again.
“You’re funny. If you weren’t guilty of murdering someone, I’d take you out for a beer,” he said. They had reached the end of the hallway, and were now facing a door that led upstairs—towards the sunlight. The door required three separate keys to unlock. Brutus had a hard time fitting each key in their respective slots, his giant knuckles fumbling the required maneuvers. “Ugh, these stupid keys… We never have any prisoners here anyway, don’t see why we’d need three whole keys to trap a bunch of dust.”
“But aren’t villains everywhere these days?” she pushed the subject. He seemed like the type who liked to talk. “Why do you never have any prisoners?”
“Well that’s where you’re wrong, girlie-oh. Villains aren’t anywhere but six feet under,” he answered gruffly. “Runic Duke made sure of that.”
Click. He finally got the third key in. He made a happy snorting sound, then pushed the door open. Realizing finally that he should probably keep a better eye on her, he devised a rather demeaning plan of tying a rope from his wrist to hers, like two toddlers who had misbehaved and now had to wear one of those we like eachother outfits. She was confident she could snap the rope if she tried, but the safeguard acted moreso an alarm bell that she was trying to escape. Akemi didn’t feel like taking her chances with Brutus’s greataxe.
“Then why is everyone so far up Agnor’s ass then?” she pressed, her noted lack of Charisma shining. “Where I’m from, if someone is going to call themselves a hero, they might as well pretend they’re doing more than raking in the tax money. I keep hearing about how he’s protecting the village, but I watched an inn burn and a man die all without him even gracing the public with his presence. Color me unimpressed.”
She wasn’t sure if that comment was going to get her punched or flatout killed, but pleasantly, it coerced neither. Instead, Brutus laughed. Really laughed. So much so that his arms shook, nearly throwing her body off-kilter due to the rope between them. He held the railing of the staircase for support and looked at her with endeared eyes.
“Oh dear. Where I’m from, they like to say something about villains—that they’re the most honest people you’ll meet. I always thought it was a stupid phrase. Now I’m seeing the point.”
Akemi covered her eyes as they emerged into the broad light of day. She saw the still-burnt facade of the inn in the distance; they were somewhere in the west of town, best she could tell, at the very edge, where the fence lay. There was a house here, one that looked different than the rest. It was plastered in little offerings—gold coins, wreaths, velvets, red flowers—with a straw roof, and no windows. The door was badly damaged and slightly ajar.
“Agnor’s Rest,” Brutus said, gesturing with his free hand towards the house.
“This?” she said incredulously. “This is Agnor’s Rest? This looks like some kind of witch’s hut.”
Brutus laughed again, then tugged her up towards the door. Akemi had the faint sense, once she’d crossed onto the threshold of the porch, of being watched. It was an itch at the back of her neck; a chilling feeling. The wood beneath her creaked uneasily, almost whining.
“Agnor will see you now,” Brutus said, and pushed the door open.