Scythe cursed herself inwardly, she didn’t want to get all temperamental and shit. Fuck, this entire episode sucked!

Yet for all her protests she yearned to finally tell someone, anyone really, as long as they listened. Now that she started, some piece of her mind screamed at her to continue.

“When Vuthe first told me about her past I didn’t really know what to think…”, Scarlet said, her absent gaze on her food, “Her entire tale was a rollercoaster of ups and downs, to the point I didn’t know what to make of it. Part of me wanted to help her, part of me didn’t believe it. Yes, magic is real and all, but I couldn’t accept that such a nightmare world existed out there, all the people living there being treated that way. I’m starting to see a trend that I don’t like. I just hope for all the nightmares out there, there are good places too.”

Once more an awkward silence settled on them as they ate. It was only once they had nearly finished that Scythe spoke again.

“When we first came into the lowroads we met a bloke really into the old philosophy shit, like his entire fucking house was just full with old scripts, like literally server racks the size of an anti-infrantry turret. He had I don’t even fucking know how many petabytes of storage filled with all kinds of different philosophical texts, and he knew half of them by heart. Shit, even his fucking vid-shows and full dive programs were all philosophy, not even one fucking entertainment vid in his entire collection. He was a good man, even if a little weird. He once said to me that Tyranny is the rule, not the exception. At the time I wanted to refute him, to tell him he was wrong, but honestly, when I think back on how things were before we got there… Sure, earth isn’t that bad, not by a long shot, but even here politicians are corrupt as fuck, some more some less, but everyone has a little deal going somewhere”, she paused, took a deep sip from the glass she had been brought, before continuing, “I wanted so desperately tell him he was all wrong, but then again, was he really? Amnellium was a shithole so corrupt you could actually see the politicians getting gold injections on the holo-net, Earth may be better but it’s by far not without its fault, and I don’t even wanna know how things were in wherever the fuck Vuthe was. From what I could gather it wasn’t a trip through a fucking flowerfield.”

Vuthe laughed without mirth, “Oh, it wasn’t. The world was run by multiple kingdoms, and while each had their own little alliance going on and they were warring with each other as much as we were warring with them, they still had the time to enslave like sixty to seventy percent of the population to do things with I don’t even want to remember. The entire reason we took over that damned world is to rid it of those slavering bastards”, she shook her head before looking at Scythe, and she could see the weight of memories in those eyes, “I am inclined to agree with that statement. From what I can see Tyranny is indeed the rule, not the exception. Even earth went downhill, governments becoming more totalitarian in the past few decades and unrest steadily growing. Now they have ever growing monster waves to deal with and no way to really deal with those from what I understand, considering they can’t just nuke them and be done with it since they want to keep magic hidden. I was actually considering offering my help in that regard, since it would show good will and it would give my soldiers something to fight, even if it was just some lowly beast. My people aren’t used to long periods of peace and quiet, and while it was our goal to achieve from the get go we spent far too long on edge to just stop. Even I’m still feeling the itch, the worry nagging at me when things finally go wrong, every day I wake up and wait for the other shoe to drop.”

Scythe nodded silently, she could very much agree with that feeling.

“I’m not sure it would be a good idea to offer your help. Or at least not the government. Start somewhere neutral, to show them what you can do, before agreeing to anything with them. They’d try to strip you for parts if you didn’t and that won’t be a nice experience for anyone”, Scarlet said after a moment of thoughtful silence.

Scythe and Vuthe shared a glance before both turned to their sister.

“Where do I start then? With your organisation?”, Vuthe asked, and Scythe nodded silently.

Over the last few days Vuthe had started to fill her in on a few of the goings on, especially Scarlet’s position as the founder and CEO of the KISS, the Kamikatze International Security Service, a cringy name in Scythe eyes, but in the end, it didn’t really matter.

Scarlet nodded, “Yes. We are independent, and while we often work with the different Governments you wouldn’t need to bind yourself to any contract until you tested the waters. It would show them what you can do, and show you what you need to look out for. I have no doubt about your ability to deal with the monsters, but at the same time you need to show others that. The incident in Switzerland has some people talking in the upper echelons of the magic society, but you still haven’t publicly proven your ability. And while the magisters know that you are very powerful they still haven’t seen you in action.”

Vuthe thought about that for a moment. To Scythe it made sense, in the same political way she had no interest in participating, but at the same time she did like the idea of going on monster hunts, even if they were weak from what she could hear.

“I suppose…”, Vuthe said after a moment, before looking at her sister with a suspicious glance, “What do you get out of it? I know you want to help, but I can’t see you doing things entirely without benefit, no?”

Both Scythe and Scarlet had to laugh.

“That’s true. It’s simple honestly, if you accompany a few teams of mine I can send them out knowing that they won’t be mauled or even worse killed, and sleep a little more soundly knowing that you’ll be there to prevent any disasters.”

“I want in on the deal”, Scythe declared, “And the others too. I bet my ass that there are some more dangerous monsters to be found and we want in on it. Honestly, I don’t give much of a fuck about the humans and their need to keep Magic secret, but if it helps them I guess I won’t mind. Regardless, if there is a fight to be had, count me in.”

Saying she didn’t care at all about humans wasn’t strictly true, more that she only cared about those very close to her, of which she at the moment only counted her family. The rest could burn for all she cared, humans had shown themselves as some of the most dangerous people she knew, and during her time on that godforsaken metal ball she had lost any and all inclination to consider herself one.

Humanity was on its own as far as she was concerned, but she wasn’t quite at the point where she wanted to wipe them out. It was simply a matter of cold indifference.

Vuthe gazed at her for a moment, then nodded. Scarlet seemed less pleased about her comment, but that couldn’t and wouldn’t change her stance on the matter.

“I think it’s a good idea for you guys to join, however”, Vuthe started giving Scythe a stern look, “If you do you’ll be under the command of Calagrophy. From what I understand you have no idea how to effectively fight monsters, and while I don’t doubt you can deal with anything Earth can throw at us, it is a very good learning opportunity. Fighting monsters is a lot different than fighting humans, and you should know how to tackle them the right way for the future. With Earth magic rising the way it is, I don't doubt that eventually we have things on our level being born, and once that happens you can’t just jump at it and punch it until it dies. There is an art to monster hunting, and while I don’t have much in the way of experience, the others have spent close to five centuries as adventurers, they know how to tackle just about anything on Satien, and that was before they even started learning how to properly use their own racial gifts.”

It made sense in a way, although Scythe didn’t like it. Yet, she couldn’t refute that Vuthe was right, at least in some parts. Learning would be good, she was sure they’d be able to adapt some of the lessons to their usual fighting as well, and growing stronger was always nice.

Scarlet seemed still a little put off by Scythe’s earlier comment, but she didn’t comment on it and turned to Vuthe.

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“Adventurers? You mentioned it before when we were talking about your past, but you didn’t get into it much. I’m curious to hear more.”

Honestly, Scythe was curious too, this sounded much like the fantasy books she used to read every so often. She had never been too avid a reader, but once in a while, when a good book fell into her hands, she had enjoyed them. Although some of the ones that went really into how the world worked had been quite tedious.

Vuthe sighed, taking another sip of her whine, before she turned to Scarlet, “I of course don’t have all the details. We know a lot about each other's tales, but neither of us had ever explained it all in every detail, so I can only tell you some of the more grand adventures they talked about. There are a few though, like the one where they had to face off against a Lich. Now, remember when I said that any and all magic that tries to manipulate the Soul is forbidden? Many people who don’t know any better think that Liches are a product of Necromancy, and therefore are exempt from the ruling. That isn’t exactly true though, since it works with a real soul it falls under Death Magic and should be forbidden. There is a caveat however, a kind of false truth laid out probably by the gods or something, I’m not really sure. Many books about Necromancy talk about turning into a Lich, which is one of the few cases where the innate protection of the Soul doesn’t work, since it only pertains to shielding against outside forces. If you want to become a Lich, that limitation doesn’t work, since you are giving yourself free access to your own Soul, therefore it’s one of the very few Death Magic rituals not banned. Or rather, technically it is banned, as it is Death Magic, but nobody cares. In the same vein as gods don’t really care much about Necromancy to keep people from playing around with Death Magic, they allow Liches to prevent people from looking deeper. All that being said, Liches are incredibly powerful, especially in the art of Necromancy which kind of becomes their racial ability set. They should keep most of their original racial ability set, should it not contradict the inherent nature of Liches, but they also gain new ones, which is why they are so dangerous.”

Scythe listened attentively, she had no intentions of trying that out herself, she was more than happy being a badass dragon and the mention of gods didn’t exactly enamour her to the idea of playing around with that. Vuthe had told her before they were real and while she didn’t really want to talk about it, Scythe believed her, if only by the faint taint of divinity, or whatever else this god-like feeling in Vuthe was, she could feel. She had no interest whatsoever to mess with those, she had never been a believer and honestly her experiences in Amnellium made her even less so. If some god could have saved her with their vast power they hadn’t and that made them a neutral at best and a hostile at worst in her eyes.

“The most annoying thing about Liches is that they are nigh unkillable, considering that their body doesn’t contain the soul. It is locked in a phylactery, but that can take many forms. The one that Cal and the others had to deal with was a rather smart one. Of course, most Liches are smart, they need some intellect to dabble in the magic they work with, but most of the people who try and succeed have a very specific mindset and most don’t bother getting all smart with their phylacteries considering that most people can’t threaten them. Regardless, the one my friends were hunting seemed to have no phylactery whatsoever, they hunted it for a long time, killed it again and again, but they were never able to find it. It would return time and time again, killing more and more people to feed off of the magic. Unlike the traditionally depicted Liches they don’t feed on souls, since they are inviolable, but they can feet off of high magic sources. With organic magic being nigh uncontrollable and thus out of the question, the next best thing is living beings, as they are the best and easiest way to get a hold off of magic. The soul might control magic, but it doesn’t contain it. It is contained in the body, even if it is shielded by the soul. But that is only an issue if the person is alive, once you kill it and the soul leaves the body behind the magic is free for the taking, if only for a short period before it dissipates. And since it’s magic and not mana that they feast on you can’t trace it back easily, therefore trying to use that to locate the phylactery, which would be the target of the magic, was nigh impossible.”

Scarlet interrupted, a thoughtful frown on her face, “Hang on. I thought the body only holds the mana and magic is the motion of using mana to form spells or whatever other magical effect?”

“Yes and no. Even in beings not made of magic like dragons there is magic. It is that innate presence of magic, governed and controlled by the soul, that enables us to use it. But as I said, the moment the soul vanishes the magic dissipates therefore it wouldn’t be detectable. I mean, magic itself is very hard to detect in the first place, most people can only sense or see mana, but once you reach a certain threshold you can detect magic. There are some races who can naturally detect it, but that is beyond the scope of even dragons. I know that some Serpents can, for example Astral Serpents like Tizanta and Cluster, but even they can only detect magic respective to their own strengths, so in this example spatial magic, or in other words pocket dimensions and spatial constructs. And again, even then it is hard since these kinds of spells are already laden with mana and that mana overpowers pretty much everything else. There are precious few circumstances in which such a skill is necessary or even usable.”

“So, basically you can’t see the tree for the forest?”, Scythe cut in, “You’re being overloaded so hard that it’s impossible to notice the details?”

Vuthe nodded, “Exactly. Some of the few examples are Liches, one of their natural talents is sensing magic as it is their primary sustenance. I’ve heard some accounts of Liches living off of mana, but I doubt it. Powering the phylactery is very hard and mana just doesn’t have the necessary… aspects? Let’s call it aspects, mana doesn’t have the necessary aspects to do that. Anyways, while they feed on magic and not mana, their phylactery is still very easy to see with mana senses, as mana is both the fuel and the product of magic. So the Lich they were hunting hid his phylactery in a mana spring, a naturally occurring phenomena that produces huge amounts of mana of any given type. It’s like looking straight into the sun for any mana senses, and nobody would look there anyways since they are pretty much uninhabitable because of the mana radiation they have. Not to Liches though, they don’t have to worry about that as their bodies are immune to that amount of mana on accounts of not being alive and the phylactery is shielded against it by its nature. It took them ages to figure out and in the end Calagrophy just blew the whole thing up. Was quite the scare in the town near the mana spring.”

Scythe snorted, trying to imagine some random village being shaken by a massive explosion.

“All that being said, I think this tale shows quite well how much there is to monster hunting”, Vuthe said after a moment's thought, “The individual aspects are easy, Killing something is easy, blowing up a mana spring is easy enough, at least for people on our level, and knowledge of magic is always helpful. The question is how you combine those to achieve your goal. They killed the Lich multiple times, even though it was a dangerous and powerful foe, but with their inability to kill it permanently it was still a massive threat to everyone nearby. If you didn’t know anything about Liches it doesn’t matter how strong you are, summon a black hole to consume the body, blast the countryside to bits, if you don’t know that you need to find and destroy the phylactery to deal with it then you will fail.”

Once more there was silence, Scarlet nodding absently while lost in her thoughts after Vuthe’s tale, and Scythe contemplating what to say next, when she was suddenly ripped out of her reverie. Her senses were quite sharp, so she had learned to blur out the background noises, meaningless conversation she didn’t much care about and all the different sounds and smells a city produced.

But something had drawn her attention, an offhand comment from somewhere else in the eatery.

“...cking bitch. Plays all high and mighty, but she’s just as bad as the rest of them. Stupid humans, trying to oppress us. We should be the ones in power, not them.”

She would have dismissed it entirely if she hadn’t heard the scorn in that voice. She let her senses wonder and found the table it originated from.

Three men sat in the corner, all of them obviously non-human, although she had no clue what they actually were, were giving their table hateful glances, although they seemed to concentrate on Scarlet.

“Vuth”, Scythe began in Amnellal, “You should see this. Last table on the left, corner in the back, they seem to have a problem with Scarlet. Said something about stupid humans and them being oppressed, wanting to be in power and some bullshit like that.”

Vuthe nodded, but her gaze didn’t move. Scythe was just about to repeat herself, annoyed that Vuthe would ignore it, when she felt a presence flitter over her. She would have missed it entirely if it hadn’t been for the aura training lessons she had received from Vuthe, by now she was quite familiar with her aura.

And what she had felt just then was… concerning to say the least. Vuthe didn’t let her control slip, ever, not unless she wanted others to sense her, and what she had felt in that small moment of presence was… honestly kind of frightening. There was a scorching hatred there, some unquenchable rage.

“I see… For the moment I’ll have Shade follow them, see what they are up to. Keep your guard up, most people will just talk, but there is always someone who prefers the more direct approach”, Vuthe replied in the same language, before she turned to Scarlet, switching to english. “Alright, I think we should get going. I wanna explore the district a little before we head back.”

Scarlet looked at them both suspiciously but didn’t say anything. After a moment she nodded and waved over the waitress to pay.

Scythe kept her guard up, all senses on full alert. This might be nothing, just some random frustrated idiots working through their own issues, but she would not be so foolish to let her guard down. She would not lose everything just because she had been sloppy. Not again.