“Bleeeeeeeh-“
“There there…”
With the high priest killed, Mia brought down the wall and readied herself to help her sister. To her surprise, Ria had already finished off the remaining four and not leaving any of them alive, their bodies littered the floor.
Unfortunately, Ria apparently couldn’t fully handle it, and had began barfing the moment she relaxed upon seeing her sister coming out victorious on her end.
“I-*urp*- I thought it w-would be like-bleeeeeeh- *hic* killing monsters.” Tears in her eyes, Ria attempted to compose herself, finding some comfort in Mia’s back pats “It wasn’t *urp* wasn’t the same. Smells… oh no-“ She barfed, losing herself again.
Mia sighed, not seeing the big deal but comforting her sister nonetheless “There there~ sit off to the side, kay?” Mia pushed her away from the bodies, throwing fire on her sister’s barf and the remaining bodies to clean them up. She then made a hard ball of snow “use this, cool off.” She presented it to her sister when she sat down.
“T-thanks.” She took the ball, holding it to her forehead “…feels cool~” she leaned back, getting lost in the feelings of relief.
“Good.” Mia left her, going over to the pile of items she had gathered from the bodies and had sorted them into rushed piles of 3 groups, she started with the one that worried her the most.
The most concerning pile of the three… the slave collar pile.
They looked like the one Mia had on her, the ones they used in the village, which offered some small silver lining that they were not using higher powered ones ‘still cheeping out?’ she shook her head, not wanting to begin to understand their thinking but the second pile forced her to.
The second pile, a small treasure trove of small equipment ranging from weapons to armors… it was the size that worried her, some of that armor looked small enough to fit her, a small child, and those combined with the slave collars…Mia had a good guess why more powerful collars were not being used.
“Haaah…why are they even here…” To her knowledge, they should still be attacking the beast territory, granted she didn’t KNOW everything they did in the original timeline, but did they really have enough to split like this? Also, Lexon was very mixed in the races here with a lot of humans… she was shocked they were even allowed to operate…
The words of the priest rung in her head, she was warning about a national incident and the church wouldn’t stand for it, could that be why? They had something over them?
She pinched the bridge of her nose, politics were not her forte, only having a brief insight into them with her short time with the princess …blech…
Then came the third pile, the “what the heck even is any of this crap?” pile. The money was obvious, 200 silver exactly, but the rest?
She picked up a glass cylinder filled to the brim with green liquid, in the center a pink mass was floating around “Gross.” It reminded her of the cylinders they had back at the camp, only this one was smaller and not filled with brown and red liquid. She placed it on the ground, planning to burn it later, and picked threw a variety of jewelry.
“What’s all that?”
Mia jumped, looking up to her sister standing over her “…Jewelry” she leaned back towards the small pile of 5 necklaces, their chains just starting to get tangled up together“might be magic, might be cursed.”
“Ah, how can you tell?” Ria picked one up, marveling at its shine. She started to put it on, before Mia stopped her.
“Can’t” Mia grabbed ahold of her sister’s arm “Need appraisal, dangerous.” She leaped up and grabbed the necklace from her, shoving it and the rest into her inventory.
Ria puffed up her cheeks “Come on~ can’t you like, put one on and see what it does? If its cursed you can just turn back time, no problem.”
[You two are definitely sisters.]
“…tried that, once.” Mia scowled “works but if curse is really bad, you’d have to kill me so I can reset.”
“Never mind.” Ria instantly changed the subject, not willing in the slightest to harm her sister, she pointed to a staff “What about that?”
Mia picked it up, it looked familiar “Hm, think someone had something like this before.” She tossed it around, inspecting it from every angle “might be bad news.”
“It has an empty space in the slot.” Ria pointed out the circular space.
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Mia turned it around, prodding at the hole “something can be inserted?” she glanced around at the pile, then remembered the cylinder “Ah, that.” She reached towards the cylinder, stopping as all the hair on her body stood up, now recognizing where she had seen the staff “uh… just remembered something…”
“Oh?” Ria watched Mia shakingly put the staff on the floor and nudged it away from herself “Mia?” she then slowly stood up, nudging the staff away and next to the cylinder.
“very dangerous.” Mia scooted away from it “Can cause mini huge explosions, spreads toxic, don’t touch.” She backed away from it, now unsure what to even do with the combo.
“Toxic? Oh! That thi- ok.” Ria joined her sister, getting far away from the staff “What do we do with it?”
“Don’t know. Burn it?”
“Wouldn’t that just set it off? We can’t just leave it here Mia, what if someone uses it?”
“But I don’t wanna touch it!” Mia pouted, having that…mini nuke? In her pocket, she would never be able to rest easy again! “Doing this.” Mia formed her ice weapons again, shifting them into a shovel shape, then scooting the two items away from them, carefully scooting them to the edge of a dungeon hole, and throwing them inside “there, taken care of.”
“…” Ria sighed, but not wanting to deal with it either, turned her attention back to Mia “and the rest?”
“Papers, tablets, rocks…” Mia kicked a few things out of the way in the pile, it really was just a collection of the odd “…trinkets.”
“Papers?” Ria knelt down and picked up some of the paper, reading through it “not much here…crew manifest, shore party leave… lot of letters.” Ria shrugged, handing the stack to Mia “Keep these and a collar, the guild has to know what is going on.”
Mia grabbed the stack, shoving them into her stuffed inventory “Don’t need collar.” She said, pointing off into the direction the church members came from “We are going to see more soon.”
Ria raised her eyebrow “What do you mean?”
She motioned to the pile of small armor and weapons “think they captured some kids, going to rescue.”
“Oh, I’m in.” Ria smirked, scowling at the corpses “feel sick for even feeling anything over these bastards.” She cracked her knuckles “Ready?”
Mia nodded, then worryingly shifted her eyes towards her status.
= = =
Name: Mia
Status: None Age: 8
Race: Fox Beastman
LVL: 74 Points: 250
HP: 1,468/2,010
MP: 5,429/7,200
Str: 201 Con: 200
Dex: 1,000 Int: 2,175
Mnd: 360
= = =
She had gained five levels from that fight… she was getting closer to evolution than she’d like, but five levels? That lady must have been pretty high. She was fine on health, and she’d have to be careful on mana, not too many uses of slow, each cast taking around one thousand. She’d have about six casts left depending on her regeneration.
She started dumping points into mind, following her sister as she did so. They ran towards the direction they came from, leading back towards the entrance.
* * *
“Nooo!” “Leave him alone!” “Do not resist!” “Gaia will put your tainted soul to rest.”
“Two kids.” Ria yelled, dashing forward towards the group. Five church members huddling over 2 beastmen kids, with one gold trimmed robe member a close distance away.
“Get the five.” Mia formed her weapons, two swords at the ready as Ria didn’t waste any time, dashing forward and decapitating one of the members and slashing off the arm of the other that held the kid.
“My arm!” “Priest?!” “What are these-“ “The guild?!”
Ria grabbed the kids in the confusion, dashing away “Mia!”
“Mn!” once they were out of the way, Mia sent her swords flying, splitting into four daggers, each landing in the skulls of the remaining members, Mia making four more next to her.
“…Who?” The high priest stepped towards his allies, a wall of ice blocking his path “…Do you know wh-“ He leaped back, drawing a sword and parrying a flying dagger “Y-“ he ducked “Ga-“ he parried “Thi- STOP THIS INSOLENCE!” he then rose his hands, blocking a spray of fire.
Mia wasted no time, commanding the daggers to her side, where they combined into swords, then combined again and formed a giant claymore that began spinning. She stopped her flames, and while slowing time she launched the spinning claymore, it spiraling like a buzzsaw towards the priest who swiped the fire away, screaming in slowed time.
His eyes widened as he realized what was coming towards him at unbelievable speeds, he raised his sword but only got halfway as the claymore cleaved into his side, digging past his shoulder and lodging itself halfway to his stomach.
Time returned to normal as Mia raised her hand, snapping her fingers. The sword burst into flames, consuming the man “…three levels.” Mia sighed, she didn’t want to give that gold-robed bastard a chance to do anything, especially with the other kids involved.
The priests inventory dropped, Mia quickly scanning it. It noticeably lacked a staff and fewer slave collars “…dammit.” Mia didn’t know if he just had less than the others, or if he had used them… she hoped the former. This was decently close to the entrance.
Mia lowered her ice wall, rushing over to Ria and the kids, pausing briefly as something caught her eye next to the 5 burnt church members, another body, a human child with several slash wounds “…tch.” She tore her sight away from it, approaching her sister. “Anything?”
Ria had the two kids in an embrace, the two crying over what had just happened. Ria shook her head “Not really…they separated from a larger group to get more slimes to themselves when they attacked.” She nodded off in a direction “That way, they didn’t see any other people in white robes.”
Mia looked back at the corpses “Groups of 6, one high priest.” She looked back at her sister “How many?”
“That we can expect? Don’t know.” She patted the kids on the back “Run to the exit, tell them what is going on, ok?”
“…ok…” the bigger of the two kids grabbed the younger’s hand, looking at their fallen friend one last time before running off.
“Were too next?” Ria asked, standing up while shaking the blood off her weapon.
“Have to be hiding somewhere “ Mia pointed at the slave collars within view “Had less, keeping kids somewhere.”
“Yeah, doubt they can get back to town with a bunch of kids on a slave collar using the boat.” Ria looked around, trying to find any clue where they might be hiding, but the concrete landscape offered little when it came to clues.
“Dungeon? Maybe?” Mia motioned to the holes in the ground and the buildings.
“Hope not, that would make this worse.” The two were stuck, but they glanced towards each other, nodding in unspoken agreement.
“” Kill them till we find them.””
The two spoke in unison, breaking out into a sprint while keeping an eye out for anything out of place or more children to save.