Aurelie felt like laughing. Who would’ve thought that she, an assassin, actually preached being peaceful! She had saved dozens of lives today, and the knowledge made her giddy with happiness. She was practically skipping as she walked back to Lejus with the army. When they reached the Lejus Village Hall, she began to head up to her room to shower and change. She smelled like blood and the dungeon, a rancid combination.
“Wait, Aurelie.” Farn sounded serious and his face was grave when Aurelie looked back. “I think I deserve an explanation, as does Mellana.”
Aurelie nodded. “I think everybody does. I never told anyone the full plan just in case, and no one was aware of any of the major players in my plan. So, I’ll tell you guys everything at the feast, ‘kay?”
Farn and, behind him, his parents nodded, and everyone dispersed.
~~~~~~~
Gradas stared at his old home, rage boiling within him. They couldn’t do this to him. He was the best! His gaze redirected itself to Lejus Village. The faint haze of a giant fire and faint echoes of noises and laughter made their way over to where he was standing, hundreds of meters away. He growled low in his throat.
‘Today, I retreated. But tomorrow is another day, and I will have my revenge for this disgrace.’
He walked away, thinking of how easy it was to kill a second stage Master.
~~~~~~~
The noise was deafening, and things were only going to get louder, seeing as how the villagers from Meir had yet to show up. The instant they had marched back into the village, all the villagers began preparing for this feast. Whoever could cook cooked, whoever could gather supplies and ingredients gathered them, whoever had tables and chairs put them outside, and the carpenters made new ones when all of the tables had been filled. Even the children had been put to work, the older ones gathering berries and the younger ones passing messages from one half of the village to the other. The village was a hive of activity, the only ones not working were the elderly and the soldiers. Whoever was free came to listen to the tale of the battle, and when the truth was told, Aurelie became something of a celebrity. Wherever she went, someone was always offering her something, patting her on the back, or trying to suck up to her. It was to the point that she once had to hide on the roof of the Village Hall for over an hour to get away from it all.
Now, people were quite a bit calmer, and quite a bit drunk, so her presence no longer caused a mob of people crowd around her to thank her for what she had done. Still, just to be sure, she slunk around, concealing most of her presence. People would be able to see her, but only if they looked for her. Otherwise she was just one of the crowd.
The tables were loaded with food, none of it familiar. So Aurelie took a little bit of everything and sat down in an out of the way seat and began to eat. She took a little bite of everything and soon came to a realization.
It all tasted horrible.
She looked around. Everyone else who was eating was complimenting the food, saying it tasted really good. Meaning that it was probably tasty. Meaning she was the only one who thought it wasn't. She thought back. Everything she had eaten had tasted pretty bad, but she had thought that it was just regular food that no one liked, the Sorainellan equivalent of green beans or spinach. She quickly got up and went to find Farn.
"Did you add anything special to the snake stew we ate?" She asked him abruptly.
"No... why?" He asked.
"Because this," She gestured at the plate she still held, "tastes terrible."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"It tasted fine when I ate it. You should eat it anyway. It clears out any blockage in your cultivation path." Farn told her.
"Wait, are you saying... this food is healthy? How dare you try to give healthy food to eat! And how dare you eat it! Traitor of teens everywhere!" Aurelie yelled. She took her food seriously.
"Huh? I don't understand... what would you eat then?" Farn asked.
"Um... Junk food. You know, food that isn't good for you but tastes amazing?"
"Why would someone eat that? I have never heard of such a thing." Farn replied, frowning.
"Ha, nice one Farn." Aurelie said, grinning nervously.
"But I didn't say a joke." Farn replied.
Aurelie felt the world closing in on her, the words 'no junk food' pressing down on her like a thousand tons of weight. No more pizza, or burgers, or fries, or chips. No more soda, or cookies, or brownies, or ice cream. NO MORE DOUGHNUTS!
She fell to her knees, screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!" with such anguish that Luke Skywalker himself would give her accolades. Farn just looked at her with a strange look on his face.
Finally, she ran out of air, and knelt there gasping. Having have gotten the drama out of her system, she thought, 'I'm sorry, Z, Uncle Chase. I'll probably starve before I get home.'
Then she remembered that the snake stew she had had when she first came was halfway decent. She quickly came to a conclusion. The simpler the food, the better it tasted to her.
'Well,' she thought to herself, 'I guess I won't have to indulge in any fancy dining while I'm here.'
Getting up, she began to wander around aimlessly, until a messenger boy, one of the village children, told her to go to the Village Hall. Apparently, the the new Head of Meir Village had come, along with his commanders. Aurelie stretched and started to walk towards her destination.
In the end, they all ended up in the study. Mellana, her parents, Farn, his parents and uncle, and the four most powerful people in Meir Village, and the leader of the street kids all faced Aurelie as she cleared her throat.
“I have no idea where to start, so just ask me questions and I’ll answer them.”
“Tell us your entire plan.” Eronie demanded.
“Okay, well my original plan was to spread rumors about Gradas, use his actions to further criticize him, and chip away at any support he may have had. Then, when everyone hated him and he was isolated, I would kill him and make it look like either an accident or like a mob had descended on him and killed him. I hadn’t decided yet.” Everyone in the room felt the hairs on the back of their necks rise. Not only at her words and the cold, bloody calculations that she had described, but also at the fact that she said them with such a casually cheerful tone that it felt as though she were saying something mundane. Not only that, but the look on her face was her usual smile. It was as though she were saying ‘Just this much isn’t enough to have me bring out that smile’. The only indication that she was saying something scary was a cold glint in her eyes.
“That plan changed when I met Mr. Dansel, of course. The second I realized that he was a ninth level Grandmaster and a good person, I decided to go with the mutiny plan. Have everyone turn against Gradas, then have Dansel take his place.”
“What made you think that I was a good person?” Dansel asked.
“Well I realized that after about twenty minutes of tailing you, but I tailed you all day just to make sure. You have a lot of openings, you know. I had thirty five opportunities to kill you in those twenty minutes alone. The only reason I held off was because I didn’t want to do it in a way that would make it look like Lejus did it.”
“You were tailing me with the intent of killing me?” Dansel asked in disbelief. He had never noticed anything wrong, and that was frightening in more ways than one.
Aurelie shrugged. “If you weren’t, then Meir would be at too much of an advantage. Your death would even the battlefield slightly. Anyways, I just approached anyone who was sympathetic to a change in leadership, including you guys,” she gestured at Dansel’s commanders, “and gave them a list of people who could not be told, making it clear that it was their heads on the line if they didn’t listen to me. And so they told their friends, who told their friends, and it eventually ended up with what happened on the battlefield today. I approached the street kids, and convinced them to temporarily migrate to Meir and collect information, and, later, to steal and forge the Enchantment Scrolls. I got myself captured so as to give him something else to focus on, and loosen the security of the scrolls, making the kids’ jobs easier. And… yeah, that’s pretty much it. Any questions?”