The streets of Grimguard were oddly desolate as Akemi prowled towards the stables. The uneven cobbles below her feet felt cold from the lack of foot traffic; the usual hawkers and vendors were absent, and without their constant spitting, the air was fresh instead of humid. Everything had an atypical crispness, a chill in the air. It felt abandoned.

And the truth was, it had been. All the activity that usually congregated around Grimguard Square had floated, like an angry cloud, towards the Manor. She could see the townspeople’s heads in the far distance. Mops of unkempt hair topped with makeshift helmets. Signs of protest being carried alongside swords and daggers.

Taxes. The bane of political existence in every universe. Grimguard was no exception.

Akemi: I’ll be there soon. Have you fed the horses?

Bamo: Of course I have. What do you take me for, an amateur?

Akemi took a turn, and her turnshoes clicked, clicked, down the narrow alleyway, the sound echoing off the tall rock walls. She was minutes from the stables now, but her mind was still turning around Nocturne’s parting words to her and Pyre.

“I’m going to be gone for a while. While I am, Dread will be in charge of things, and Pyre, you will be Dread’s deputy. That means accounting for headcount, inventory, active contracts, poisons and weaponry, the like. That will be your quest for the month.”

He turned to her.

“And Akemi. I have something special arranged for you. Something I think you’re going to like.”

Something she’d like—unsurprisingly, he meant murder.

She brought up her quest panel, and re-read it once more.

New Quest Acquired! Tying up Loose Ends

Requirements:

* Dispose of target: Ruie Vokasha.

Probably an amusing use of time. But not my priority.

Against all odds, her plan had worked. She had bought herself precious time. Time she intended to spend heading straight to the fjord, while Nocturne headed in the complete opposite direction.

It felt odd not having Pyre at her side anymore—in the same way that it might feel odd to peel off a mosquito that’s been sucking your blood for days—but she brushed the feeling off quickly. This was her moment, and she intended to seize it. She wasn’t some hero; there would be no amicable sharing of the spoils.

She circled the corner again and her shoes grazed grass. An expansive field grew out ahead of her, miles and miles of dewy green. In its center, a stable; Bamo was squatting at the front of his horse, feeding it grain out of his hand anxiously.

Akemi snickered.

That’s what I thought. Amateur.

—

“Where are we headed?” Bamo said. The horses' hooves clopped along the dirt road, headed North. That was the only instruction she’d given so far. “The path is going to diverge soon.”

Using the map Kobe had given her, she was able to roughly chart a course toward the fjord, even if many of the paths had changed over the decades. She handed the annotated map to Bamo, who then studied it, his tongue sticking out as he brought it impossibly close to his face. His eyelashes were effectively caressing the paper.

“Bamo,” she said, amused. “I have a question.”

“What?” he said, turning his neck back, annoyed by the intrusion.

An inconsistency had been bothering her for days now. Something she noticed at the palace.

“If you chimeras have such bad eyesight, why are you so obsessed with appearances? The perfume I get, but what’s with all the mirrors? The Viscount had dozens of them in his room.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Bamo paused, staring ahead contemplatively.

“How do I put this…” he said. “Mirrors sound good.”

Akemi squinted. “They… what?”

“It’s hard to describe to a human,” he said, face trained forward. The evergreen trees dipped by them, the carriage’s wheels delicately trampled over pebbles. “But mirrors sound like water to us. The difference is pretty much impossible to tell. So by filling a room with mirrors, you’re essentially swimming in the sound of your own voice. Every syllable is reflecting back to you in a straight line. My personal hell, but a narcissistic bat’s dream.”

“Huh,” Akemi said, perching her chin on her hand. “So the Viscount must be full of himself.”

“Unbelievably full of himself.” He sighed. “Anyway, as for the clothing, we can hear that too. Each material makes a different sound when brushing against skin. Ruffles are quiet and pleasant, cloth is tranquil but busy, plated armor is loud and oppressive. There’s a reason we only ever dress ourselves in the same type of workwear.”

He raised the tapered edge of his soft cape.

“Even though it offers less protection against weaponry, it’s much less distracting. Wearing heavy armor all day would render a chimera useless.”

Akemi hummed. That was interesting. Their hearing was as much a superpower as it was a fatal flaw. Death by overstimulation, that was a new strategy to be filed away.

“Good to know,” she said. “So next time I need to torture a chimera, I’ll just dress him up in some heavy metal, is that right?”

A pause of recognition seemed to strike Bamo.

“I shouldn’t have told you all that, should I?”

Akemi grinned, relaxing back into the plush cushion of her seat.

“Nope.”

As they ventured on, the cart trembled beneath her, a pleasurable up, down, up, down. Before she knew it, it had soothed her to sleep.

—

The city of Dresden was a pit of fog. Bamo woke her simply because the horses couldn’t go any farther in the conditions—they were knee high in mist, unable to see their hooves.

She had seen this city on Kobe’s map. It had been marked hero-owned, so, consequently, she had intended to bypass it and continue onto the next neutral village. But it seemed that wasn’t going to happen. Not only was the mist thick, but the horses were tired, in need of a rest. Bamo, too, was exhausted; the chimera’s head kept bobbing in and out of sleep.

A crossroads appeared in her mind: either infiltrate the village and see if there were any heroes worth picking off, or camp on the outskirts of the city. They could sleep in the back of the carriage, the curtains drawn. And it was foggy enough that their presence wouldn’t be obvious.

Still—the thought of racking up some more experience did tempt her. If she didn’t have a bigger prize waiting for her at the fjord, she would have easily picked option A. She leaned towards high risk, high reward wherever possible; it was simply more fun. Unfortunately, this reward didn’t seem to fit the risk, so Akemi waved Bamo toward the field.

“I’ll keep watch while you take a nap,” she said once they were a comfortable distance from the village’s exterior. Due to the fog, she couldn’t really tell what the place actually looked like. She could see a vague outline of city walls, but that was it.

“Thank god,” Bamo said, exhausted.

He raised his arms and yawned as he thrust open the backseat of the cabin and body flopped inside. Akemi noticed the way that he slept with his head hanging off the seat cushion, his legs in the air—some sort of intuitive, species-innate attempt to keep himself upside down.

While Bamo snored in the trunk, Akemi sat outside in the slick grass, a tarp underneath her.

This is nice. Peaceful. A good opportunity to take inventory.

She placed her hands together, forming a triangle, and summoned her Orb. The crimson sphere burst to life in front of her. The hornets nibbled angrily at the air, swarming in a circle. With so much constant, breakneck chaos plaguing her since she arrived, she hadn’t really had a chance to observe her abilities intently. Especially her most important one.

It’s roughly the height from my waist to my neck. So, like—forty centimeters by forty centimeters.

While the sphere looked crimson red from the outside, it didn’t actually contain any sort of colorful magic. It simply gave the illusion of it. The demonic insects were so thickly packed, their bloodshot bodies gave off the impression of a magical orb. In many ways, that was the orb’s most devious facet; enemies expected that they could brace for some sort of blunt impact, but the insects didn’t just pack a single punch: they devoured limitlessly.

It was hard to believe that this was a level one skill.

If only I knew how to level it up. The potential is insane.

She laid down on the tarp, propping her chin up with her hands. She stared at the fang-toothed insects for several minutes, watching as they hungrily ate at the fog, until the idea came to her.

She wasn’t the only otherworlder around, after all.

Akemi: Hey Py-Py.

Akemi: I hope your boring new office clerk job, er, mission, is treating you well. Make sure to get some fresh air outside once in a while. Don’t want to come back to your sun-starved body rotting away in the backrooms.

Akemi: If you’ve got a minute—wait, who am I kidding, you’re doing administrative work, you have nothing better to do—I have a question for you.

A grin swept over her face as Pyre responded immediately.

She’s definitely bored.

Pyre: Don’t call me that.

Pyre: Also, I will have you know I am in charge of overseeing guild-critical functions.

A beat.

Pyre: Ugh, whatever. What do you want?