Tanya breathed a contented sigh as she walked towards the bulletin board of quests. Yesterday's quest had been simple and easy – help escort a few families that wanted to move to a nearby town called Hora that supposedly had a few monsters kicking around.
While the normal expectation would be that they, as their hired adventurers, would fight off any monsters, there had been nothing. All four of them had just helped carry supplies instead, and Tanya was starting to wonder just how bad not having any monsters around might be.
They'd made it back, those three had bathed together while Tanya collected their meager reward, and she had taken her own bath alone before retiring for the night.
Today, she was deciding on their next quest. Chris had begged off helping out by claiming she had some other work she needed to do, and all of them had given her a hearty goodbye.
There wasn't much; the last of the Durian quests – including the ones to exorcise the spirit– were gone, besides the one with the Griffon and the Manticore. She sighed as she saw that nothing new had been added.
She could work at the Blacksmith's, but he was contemplating shutting down shop until the Demon King's General left. Without monsters to slay, the only work he had was to fix broken farming equipment and other smaller jobs. He wasn't even willing to pay her anymore thanks to how little business was coming in, although he assured her he wouldn't get rid of all of her things.
Of course, without anything to do, she could go help the Succubi set up… their newest venture. She had already given them her and Viktoriya's last 100,000 Eris from the Tranquility Girl quests, to help them get started. They claimed that they didn't need anymore help, but she was sure they were just trying to be polite.
Just as she was about to go back to their table and admit that they should just disband for the day, Luna waved to her. Tanya smirked as she walked forward. Hopefully, she and the other guild staff had found another Tranquility Girl Viktoriya could kill.
"Hello Luna," she said. Luna smiled sweetly at her, and Tanya only grinned more.
If she was desperate enough to put energy into looking happy, instead of only using her permanent smile, then this would probably be good.
"Greeting, Tanya!"
She opened her mouth, as if to continue, and she just sighed instead. Tanya blinked in surprise as she adopted a much more frank look. "Uh…"
Tanya resisted the urge to wonder if she'd been struck with illness and was hallucinating, or if she was just dreaming, but she could have sworn that Luna's sigh was forlorn.
"Thank you for taking the community service. I don't think I ever… properly thanked you for that."
Tanya tilted her head. "Is it really that big a problem?"
She hung her head down, and Tanya managed to work down the urge to let her mouth hang open into simply staring wide eyed. "Are you kidding? We don't have any adventurers on staff to force them to, and they always have an argument ready about how 'they're important to the defense of the town' and how locking them up might impact the ability to defend it."
"Well, what about the army?" Tanya asked. Luna shot her a very piercing stare, but Tanya managed not to fidget.
She sighed again. "If you mean the Guards or the Knights, all of the best of them are fighting or dead by this point, which leaves all the poorly trained reserves to guard relatively unimportant towns like Axel. They'd actually hurt us more than help, considering they'd probably wind up as Zombies or other undead if they tried to fight."
Tanya tried to get a word in, but Luna sighed once more and gave her one of the most genuine smiles Tanya had seen. There was clearly some lingering frustration hidden behind it, but it seemed she was better. "Again, thank you for actually doing what an adventurer is supposed to do. Now…"
"I couldn't help but notice that none of the quests are to your liking. Perhaps you would like to take on a new one we're issuing?" she asked.
Tanya nodded, and Luna pulled up a piece of paper. "Yesterday, a noble I've never seen came in and loudly declared that he wanted some adventurers. When asked why, he said he was relocating the pauper's cemetery," she explained, pointing to the plans she had laid out.
Tanya nodded in understanding, thinking that she should steal that idea for the Succubi's newest venture. If they hadn't already done it, she would direct them to make the cemetery more accessible to the town's Priests.
Maybe she would pay them to give rights to the town's poor. It would only increase the Succubi's newest, more open identity's reputation, after all.
She didn't like the idea of paying a Church, of course, but she couldn't exorcise the undead herself. Her Heal simply didn't have belief behind it.
She grinned to herself. If she wanted to, she could always use her Lurk skill and Optical Decoy spells to steal her money back from them. It wasn't moral in the slightest, but they were part of a religion. She was sure they'd done worse.
Luna continued on when Tanya nodded. "He took two of them, but none of them have come back. We'd like you three to investigate the graveyard for them. Losing such a nice looking noble would be disastrous."
Tanya gazed at Luna for a moment, wondering if she was more interested in the noble and his looks than the missing adventurers, but she nodded regardless. This quest didn't seem like it would be too hard.
She skipped over to the quiet pair of them, brandishing the piece of paper. "We've got work to do! I'll explain on the way out!"
And, as they left and headed towards the gates, she did, giving her personal comments about Luna's possible infatuation to Viktoriya in Germanian. Darkness looked put out to not be included, so Tanya explained in this country's language.
Instead of laughing, she acted like that was normal. "Luna's twenty-something at this point. People will begin to pass her by because she isn't young, and she'll have to work at the guild forever."
Tanya shrugged. "Our homeland doesn't consider someone an adult until much later than the age of fourteen, so I guess it's expected that there would be differences in how we interpret that."
Darkness stared at her with a raised eyebrow. "Why? How far away is it that you've got something like that? Even the remnant states of Norse aren't like that."
Tanya kept her unhappiness at the topic rise to the surface, but it seemed that she wouldn't get a chance to talk yet. "And another thing. Why are you an Adventurer, and how did you survive in a war with that job? You know you're both lucky to have survived so long with a trash job like that."
As they presented their Adventurer's Cards and weapons to the Guards, who waved them through after a cursory glance, Tanya shot a look at Viktoriya, who looked just as lost as she did, though Darkness probably wouldn't pick up on the slightest movement of her eyebrows or the way her pace picked up ever so slightly.
She opened her mouth, and then she closed it again. She couldn't use her own abilities as examples – Darkness hadn't heard of them, and even if she wasn't a Mage, she had demonstrated her intellect enough that she probably knew the basics of what magic could and couldn't do.
"Well, maybe the job isn't actually all that bad," she offered. Darkness's skeptical look told Tanya exactly how much merit she gave that idea.
Tanya sighed and decided she would at least try. It would take her focus off of that pesky question about where they had come from. "Look… if you combine a Crusader's defensive skills – I wouldn't know what they are, since you seem intent on increasing your resistance to every kind of damage – a Thief's Lurk skill, and Basic magic, like Create Earth and Wind Breath, you could create a bodyguard that could remain unseen, take a hit for their charge, and create a smokescreen to cover their retreat."
Tanya grinned in thought. "You create a better job that way. And I'm not alone in this. Viktoriya is just as strong as I am and has nearly all the same spells. I'm obviously doing something right, and so is she."
Darkness just shook her head. "If someone could do all that stuff you mentioned, then they could probably just take the Bodyguard. It might be advanced, but doing that would boost your skills and stats."
Tanya watched as Darkness continued to talk. "And, if taking those skills is about doing everything yourself because you can't get any teammates-"
Twitch.
"-then you should have given up the job when you got me and Chris! You're obviously suited to being a Priest-"
Twitch.
"-with your Heal and those odd buffing spells. Viktoriya would be the Archmage, Chris would be the Thief, and I would be the Crusader. We'd cover each other's weaknesses and help us focus on growing our strengths."
Tanya resisted the urge to punt the girl over a nearby hill – Tanya could do it, sure, but the Crusader would love every second of it – but she sighed and gave it a moment of thought.
Not her idea to become a Priest – never happening, she wouldn't ever give in to him – but the idea of people becoming something of a single machine.
She hadn't ever considered it. There had been a limited amount of 'teamwork' in coordinating the various companies and platoons of the 203rd, but there had been nothing like this.
Trying to stick together in a four man team in her last world, leaving one portion of their spells to each soldier, would have been suicide – Active Barrier spells couldn't do their job and cover more than one person; four Flight spells at once, on four different mages was impossible for all but Tanya and the Bloody Valkyrie; and presenting four targets together like that would have made them a much bigger target – but she wasn't in the Empire anymore.
Tanya glared at the ground. She just wasn't used to not fighting in the air. Attempting to apply everything you know about one doctrine of fighting to another resulted in either laughably pathetic attempts at fighting – Dacia's soldiers grouping themselves together might have worked on a cavalry charge, not on Aerial mages…
She sighed. Or, doing so would result in needlessly limited fighting styles. Everyone in the Empire thought Aerial mages should fly like planes and obey physics to an extent, but she'd shown them that creativity with your Flight spells allowed you to dart around and hack every theory of flying to pieces.
Tanya conceded a nod to Darkness. "I suppose you're right that I haven't been thinking in the right way about working together as a small team."
Darkness's face lit up for a second, and Viktoriya's seemed to grow concerned, but Tanya shook her head decisively. "We won't be changing our jobs, however. We're used to working like this, and changing that would be devastating to our productivity."
Darkness sighed tiredly while Viktoriya nodded, and they remained silent, for a moment, simply walking and taking in the scenery.
Then, Viktoriya began to speak to Tanya quietly. "Tanya… shouldn't we be thinking about the future as well?"
She turned to her, stuffing her latest ideas into a corner of her head and looking at her. "How so?"
"Well, you did say we might be switching sides if we need to. We don't really know much about the other side, though. Shouldn't we start trying to figure out what they could offer us, or if we should even join them? What if they wouldn't ever accept… humans, or something, and we were tricked?"
Tanya supposed that she was right. "You have a point. Thank you, Viktoriya…"
Tanya trailed off, too deep in thought to notice Viktoriya looking away with a light blush. Tanya turned to her rigid former adjutant. "How about you figure out what this side thinks of the Demon King, while I go and interview the undead at that castle?"
Viktoriya raised an eyebrow. "Is that wise? Couldn't you-"
Tanya waved away her concern. "If he's a threat, I'll just make a quick getaway. I…"
Tanya finally realized what Viktoriya was getting at, and she grit her teeth. "I won't be taken by surprise. I'll get back safely. I promise."
Viktoriya still looked concerned, and Tanya fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. She was still nervous, even though Tanya had given her word?
Eventually, she nodded, and not a moment too soon. The hilltop the graveyard was on was beginning to come into view, and Tanya quickly whispered to Viktoriya. She recommended that Viktoriya keep Darkness from investigating anywhere near the castle, just in case she caught sight of Tanya. Unless, of course, she seemed like she would keep it a secret.
Darkness suddenly interrupted their planning. "What are you two talking about?"
Both of them didn't flinch at the question – Viktoriya's poker face was legendary and Tanya's was nearly as good – and Tanya gave her one of her practiced reassuring smiles. "Oh, we were just talking about that noble who wanted to relocate the cemetery, and how I wanted to tell this charity I know about of it."
Darkness looked rather intrigued. "Charity? Like some sort of church?"
Twitch.
Tanya shook her head, ignoring the faint twinge of anger she felt. "No, nothing like that. I haven't discussed everything with them, but they want to provide jobs, housing, and food to the poor, and education to orphans and children."
Darkness looked intrigued, but Viktoriya piped up. "It's interesting, but education was mandatory and state-run where we come from."
Darkness looked surprised at that. "The only education that happens here is done by nobles and hired tutors…"
Tanya interjected before they could continue. "Speaking of the charity, I promised to help them and forgot. You two finish the quest!"
With that, she began to run back towards the town, leaving both of them to their discussion. Hopefully, they'd find something to track down tomorrow, or maybe they'd even finish it.
Tanya did want to finish the quest, but Viktoriya was right that she should begin to ask about the other side. Tanya wanted assurances if she could join them when they were about to deal the deathblow to Belzerg, and this would be a good litmus test.
Was this General open to negotiation, or would he see the person that assaulted his castle and fly into a rage? Did the Demon King keep rational people in his employ, or was he a cliche that wanted nothing but to spread death and destruction?
-OxOxO-
Chris stared at them, open-mouthed shock clear on her face.
"What do you mean, you're leaving!?" she shouted. Currently in one of the side streets of Axel, they place they were in had boxes strewn about and few other people that only paused to stare at them for a moment before walking away. She thought it was the ideal place to begin handing out the relics.
"Exactly what we said, Chris. We don't think we can win against Degurechaff. She has guns, our weapons aren't anywhere near as powerful anymore, and she could end anyone of our lives in an instant, or just shoot us in a leg to prolong the pain," said their spokesperson, Aya.
In her hands was her relic. Behind her, Shizuka and Takashi stood, Shizuka with her wand and Takashi with a staff that none of them had seen before. Chris was fuming – they didn't want to fight Tanya, even after she had given them their greatly-less-overpowered items back.
She tried to smile at them. "But she needs to be stopped; we can't let someone so dangerous to walk around-"
Aya cut her off. "We don't care; she can do whatever she wants, as long as she doesn't try and kill us. She didn't kill us, and for that, we are thankful. You all can get yourselves killed fighting a war veteran if you want."
Chris felt her face heat up in anger, but she paid it no mind. "So you'll let her do what she wants, spiting the Gods and trying to destroy everything?"
Takashi shook his head. "She hasn't done anything like that. She's not a paragon of virtue by any means, but she isn't trying to massacre the human race or something."
Kei stepped forward. "Stop! We need to be united in this, and I'm ordering you-"
Shizuka stepped forward, speaking softly. "We said we'd follow you as long as our goals aligned. They don't anymore, so we are leaving."
Kei deflated, but Chris continued to try to get them to stop, but none of them paid her any heed, walking out of the alley with their weapons in hand. The other four who remained all consoled her. "Don't worry, Chris; we'll help you take her down," said Jin.
Kei motioned towards the pile of relics. "Yeah, we've got enough here so that some of us can have two relics! There's no way we can lose!"
The other nodded, and Chris conceded that they did have a point. She had dragged up every relic she could find in that lake, gathering ten total. Even if three of them had just wandered away, the remaining seven depowered relics could be split between the five of them.
That was another thing: two of the Reincarnates weren't there.
Evan and Saki had taken the quest put out by that kind looking noble who wanted to move the pauper's cemetery, and neither of them were back yet. It was worrying, but they'd divide up their relics until they came back.
Chris shook her head and stared at the group of determined adventurers. "You're right! We'll use our power to weaken and destroy her!"
They began to divide up the relics, and Chris wondered how much longer it would take. The Atheist would likely move on from Axel if more Reincarnates weren't arriving.
-OxOxO-
Darkness talked idly with Viktoriya about the charity Tanya had mentioned. The ideas they had about helping people seemed radical, but none of them sounded particularly bad. She'd need to talk Tanya, as well as whoever owned it.
Darkness liked her lips as another silence overtook them. Chris's words about Viktoriya's possible motivations were still rattling around in the back of her head, and without Tanya there…
"Hey… where are you two from? It must be far away if it has its own language." Darkness saw something flash across her face for a moment before it became pensive, while Darkness stared.
Her age and features told Darkness that she could be some sort of nanny or servant, and she always acted subservient to Tanya, following behind her and almost never being seen without her.
However, they seemed to be more than master and servant, as if they were good friends. Darkness couldn't wrap her head around it, and her fear that Chris's theory was correct was growing stronger.
Viktoriya smiled. Tanya had told her to distract the Crusader from heading towards the castle Verdia was holed up in, and Tanya did say she had spilled a few secrets to the people running the charity.
"Well, she spent her… early life in Japan," she began, only to pause in her explanation at Darkness's gasp.
"The same country that all of the Hero Candidates with outrageous powers and Divine Relics come from?" she asked. Viktoriya shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose so."
Darkness nodded to herself. A noble who might also possess one of those relics would be on par with the power of the royalty. She suddenly understood why Tanya had been so assured of her ability to be successful despite her horrible job.
"Then she spent over ten years in the Empire, fighting its enemies," she continued.
"What kind of enemies?" Darkness asked. Viktoriya made a pained face.
Darkness sighed internally. "I won't pry if you don't want me to."
Or, she wouldn't yet.
The woman thanked Darkness, relieved that she wouldn't have to lie. Tanya had told her to weave in as much truth she could into what she said, and lying too much would only get Viktoriya confused. She'd be more likely to slip up.
Having to say they fought monsters wasn't true; they might have fought dozens of people and communists, but only… one of them could be considered a true monster instead of simply being monstrous.
After that, Darkness continued to contemplate Tanya's past, and Viktoriya let her stay quiet. They soon arrived at the graveyard, and found…
Nothing.
No noble, no adventurers. Just empty graves, displaced dirt, and practically dead trees and grass that lined the hill the cemetery was situated on.
Viktoriya stood watch while Darkness surveyed the graveyard, trying to find something. The only thing they found that was out of place were a couple dozen empty graves. Some areas had more holes than others, but neither of them could find anything of note besides how a large number of bodies were just… gone.
"Nothing… they might have finished and gone to their new location…" Darkness mused as she looked at the annotated map of Axel. The noble had wanted to move the graveyard away from where it was to a more suitable location.
The map said that the land near the Kowloon Hydra's lake was barren, and that moving the graveyard there would mean undead would rise less since it would snatch up as much mana as it could get. The notes made by the noble also claimed that they could just toss strong undead into the lake, where they would be drained of their power by the Hydra.
It was possible this could allow it to rise earlier than its predicted ten year resting period, but it wasn't like they could do anything about that thing anyway.
"Alright. It seems that there's nothing here. We might as well head towards the-"
Darkness stopped suddenly as she caught sight of something. In the muddy, displaced dirt were deep grooves, reminiscent of a cart's tracks. She looked up, following them around the graveyard, and quickly found that they trailed off down the hill, away from the direction of the Kowloon Hydra's lake.
"Viktoriya, look! Tracks!" she shouted. Darkness heard a nervous laugh from behind her, but paid it next to no mind. They had found a clue.
But that begged the question: why were they going that way?
"What do you think Viktoriya?"
She shook her head, still unsure of how to try somewhere else, instead of going towards the tracks. They were pointed towards the north of Axel, where Viktoriya knew the Dullahan's castle was.
"What?"
"There's tracks. Why would the cart be travelling that way?"
Viktoriya shrugged, coming up with an easy excuse. "Could bandits have mistaken them for wealthy and undefended targets?" she suggested.
Darkness turned to her, suspicion shining in her eyes. "Bandits? That would be an odd sight… I suppose that some adventurers might turn to crime with the lack of quests, but the guild usually supports adventurers if they really need the money that badly…"
Viktoriya winced at her blunder, and she shakily suggested they go check the supposed spot of the new graveyards.
"What? Shouldn't we try following them first?"
Viktoriya crossed her arms. "These tracks aren't going to disappear," she said, praying that they would despite her declaration. "We should go check the new site, in case someone is there that can explain why they aren't there."
Darkness agreed with her verbally, privately thinking that maybe Chris was right about Viktoriya being suspicious after all.
They walked there without as much as a word passing between them.
-OxOxO-
Nearly imperceptibly, Tanya's eye twitched. She was sure that stupid
As opposed to the first time she'd been there, her Observation spells told her more than nothing this time. She still couldn't see the undead, but she could see that there was a single living being inside.
Additionally, they told her that, unlike the last time she'd left the castle, body parts and craters left by her Explosive Vaporization were no longer around, likely covered by freshly dug earth.
Tanya sighed, wondering how to go about this. She had attempted to wipe out the Dullahan's forces the last time she had been there, in her self-questioning stupor. Just flying in and announcing herself seemed like a surefire way to get herself immediately attacked.
She'd try knocking, then. She didn't have time to puzzle out what the Dullahan might accept as an apology gift, so her words and good intentions would have to suffice until she figured out what might be suitable.
As she flew from where she had been resting on the last forested hill between the castle and the road towards it, she noted that the hole she'd blown in the side of the mountain had started the weather away, except for a small indentation in the center. She winced; she'd apologize for that as well, and for the room she had probably hit.
As she sped towards the castle's gates, she saw that there was something going on in the courtyard of the castle, and that undead could now be seen patrolling the walls of the castle.
She sighed. He'd found more corpses; she could hope that he had found them in the wilderness, but the sudden disappearance of a noble and two adventurers in relation to a graveyard meant that he had most definitely had something to do with her current quest.
She landed, silently reinforced her arm, and knocked on the gate. Three resounding bangs sounded, and Tanya was sure that no one couldn't have heard the sound.
She waited, for a moment, and then a rasping shout echoed over the walls. "Who goes there?"
Tanya shouted back. "An Adventurer! I-" she hissed as the contract sent coursing pain through her torso.
The contract reminded Tanya suddenly why she had wanted Viktoriya to come with her originally. Sighing angrily, she grit her teeth and amended her statement.
"One in my position might desire to speak to the Dullahan amiably." She tried to raise her voice, but the lingering pain made it come out as more of a struggling statement.
Tanya was sure that it would take a few minutes for them to get permission to come in, and in that time, she would recover and figure out a proper apology for her accidental attack on-
"Go away. The master is busy and wouldn't entertain you regardless."
Tanya stared angrily at the door, opening her mouth to argue. She glared up at where she heard the voice come from, but nothing responded.
Then she shook her head. She wouldn't get anything done by talking to this underling; she would need to go to the top. Flying over the walls was out, but she had seen a much better entrance…
-OxOxO-
She decided to announce her ire with an overpowered Artillery Shot. She quickly activated Lurk and her Flight spells, and then, after taking a few seconds to finish the spell, she shot one towards her last hole.
The entire hill seemed to shake, and Tanya flew towards the new hole. A minute of searching found the remains of the depression in the middle of the hill she'd spotted last time.
Most of what was probably an underground storage room was gone, leaving only a door and the very narrow, spiraling stairway beyond it. She frowned.
Going inside of a building – somewhere she hadn't exactly spent a lot of time fighting – wasn't entirely smart, considering her powers, but she did need to find out more about the Demon King's army and goals.
Everyone said awful things about him and his army: they wanted to kill every human being, their leader was pedophiliac and homosexual, and he wanted to crush everyone underfoot.
Unfortunately, she couldn't exactly trust the opinions of the general populace; propaganda was a powerful thing, and she didn't doubt that some of the wilder claims about the being were false.
No one would willingly follow a leader like that…
She bit down on her teeth and fought to forget her memories of a person as bad as every allegation against him – round glasses and more red cloth than she ever wanted to be near streaked behind her eyes – she went over her words, waiting for pain.
When none of it came, she tentatively decided that gathering intelligence didn't conflict with her obligation to oppose the Demon King, though the clenching in her chest felt very… uncomfortable, even if it wasn't painful.
She drifted upwards, rounding the spiraling staircase and coming to a blank wall. She deactivated her spells and began to search for some sort of switch, since a doorknob or handle were both absent from the blank wall in front of her. Just as she found a small button on the wall that looked tempting, the wall opened on its own.
She immediately began to throw up a weak Active Barrier and studied the figure in front of her, glaring. Then, slowly, she began to lessen her glare.
A hulking figure blocked her view: dressed plate armor, only portions of his arms and torso lacked the heavy, dark metal. It was as close to black as it could be while also retaining its shiny luster, and crystalline portions of it shone bright blue, hinting at some sort of magical power.
What wasn't heavily armored were covered in a mesh like the bodysuit Darkness wore underneath her own armor that was even darker.
Her gaze drifted up to where its head would be, and then drifted down to a spot under its arm, where its head actually rested. Tanya couldn't make out any of its face, but considering the head was detached from the body, it probably didn't look very good.
Of course, the bright, shining red light and the heavy breathing the head was exuding might also have something to do with the dark shadows that seemed to cling to him.
A cape drifted down from his shoulders, shaking slightly, like the rest of its body. The rest of her glare faded.
It managed to stutter out two furious words that were tinged with hints of respect and worry. "Why… who…"
Deciding to stave of the thing's anger, she held out a hand in this world's universally accepted sign of greeting. "I'd like to learn about the Demon King's army, please!"
As Tanya breathed a sigh of relief that the contract wasn't burning through her, the palpable anger drained away in an instant.
"…Huh?"
Tanya gave him her most genuine smile. "You heard me! I haven't been able to find much in Axel, so I wanted to learn more from you."
He didn't seem to have picked up on her sincerity, since he seemed more annoyed with a shake of the hand holding his head. "Run back to your father, little noble girl. I don't have time to play games, and you haven't even brought your companions…"
Tanya's eye twitched, and she sighed angrily. "One: I am an orphan. Two: I am sixteen. Three: I am not leaving."
Now, Tanya felt pity coming from the towering figure, and she fought to not lash out. She didn't want pity for her underdeveloped body; she wanted something different.
"…I'm sorry about your family," he managed to grind out, and Tanya blinked as he continued to stare at her hand.
It seemed he felt sorry about more than just the disconnect between how she looked and how old she was. Tanya tried not to let her surprise show.
Both stood there, her hand outstretched in greeting and the other's hand holding his head.
He seemed to survey her, for a moment, until he came to a decision and shook her hand.
He sighed. "Very well. I have been bored. If you can entertain me, I'll consider talking to you."
Tanya followed behind eagerly. She hadn't really wanted a fight, but if he was willing to trade vital information for something that simple, she'd gladly play the part of an entertainer!
They walked through the castle, and Tanya marveled at the wealth she saw. It wasn't extremely opulent, and there wasn't any gold or tons of mysterious artifacts, but what was there was well taken care of.
"One in my position would say you've done a great job refurbishing a castle that's been abandoned for years," she complimented, wincing at the questioning look he sent her. Her wording made it sound like she wouldn't.
"But you wouldn't?"
She shrugged helplessly. "One in my position might not be able to do something… direct like that, and they'd want to discuss that."
He gave her one last look of questioning, but she said nothing more. Then he began to grouse. "Not like you did anything to help this place in the looks department. You've shot Detonation magic at my home twice now; nobles would execute a commoner for daring to set foot on their land, much less shooting magic at it."
Tanya shrugged, thankful that he had picked up how she had to speak so fast.
As they walked through the place, the Dullahan asked her about her lack of fear of the undead eyeing her hungrily. She simply shrugged.
"I've faced worse."
A bunch of half-dead corpses had nothing on her. She could likely hack any of them to pieces, and while popular media in her first life told her that bullets might not be all that effective on Zombies, even they needed bodies.
Tanya could burn them to a crisp in any number of ways, and if she was ever overwhelmed, she could fly above them.
He scoffed, throwing a glance at her rifle. "Unless you think that odd… spear on your back can cleave through bone, you won't have any luck."
"It can."
The girl stayed silent after that, and Verdia was conflicted about the brat who had dared to come to his fortress three times, and who had the gall to not assault his castle properly, trying to skip all of his minions.
"Have a lot of experience cleaving through the undead?" he asked.
"Sure," she lied emphatically. She might not have a lot of experience fighting undead, sure, but every one of them she had seen so far were formerly people. She had quite a lot of experience fighting them.
Both were silent after that, simply walking towards the courtyard. Verdia was barely containing his questions – like how the hell she'd managed to get a gun, of all things – but he could be patient.
As they got to the courtyard, Verdia mused that Ragcraft would be happy to have another corpse for their eventual invasion if she died, and he hoped that this Reincarnate had what it took to survive.
Tanya's nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of the courtyard. It had been easily ignored when they were inside the castle, but it was unbearable here: the stench of death.
It was like… well, not an old friend. It was more like a weird family relative nobody liked and who they put up with anyway because it was polite.
She shook her head. Smelling it now was still a slight shock, however, with how little death she had witnessed in her two months here. Comparatively.
Dozens of bodies, all of them arrayed throughout the open area of dirt. Dozens more undead were arrayed around them. She turned slowly to Verdia, who shrugged just as flippantly as Tanya had during their discussion.
"We need more soldiers, and their bodies were in the pauper's cemetery. No one cared about them."
"Wiz did," Tanya said quietly. The Dullahan perked up. "You know Wiz?"
Tanya nodded and raised an eyebrow. "Do all of you undead have some sort of club, then?"
He pointed at one of the better dressed Undead Knights, motioning him towards the center of the courtyard. "No, but the Demon King's Generals all know of each other, even if some of us have yet to meet in person."
Tanya watched the Undead Knight walk towards the Dullahan, when his words caught up with Tanya. Before she could rationalize what the Dullahan had revealed about Wiz, a grinding sound reached her ears. She turned to see the Dullahan had drawn a circle on the ground. He backed away and pointed towards it.
She tried to play off the surprise she felt at discovering Wiz's apparent side-job as one of Belzerg's enemies. "So, how are we doing this? I think a fight to the death would be a bit improbable…"
He chuckled. "Oh no. You claimed to be so strong: let's see you take out a few of my knights!"
Suddenly, a dark shadow extended from under the Dullahan, and three more knights rose up from the ground, joining the one that opposed Tanya.
She filed away a reminder to ask him about how to do that later, or if there was another variant of that. Summoning allies, undead or not, seemed like a very good ability to have, if it meant more bodies between her and her enemies.
He stepped out of the circle, and Tanya debated about how much she should show. She wasn't exactly confident in her ability to finish them off just by using her 'spear,' but revealing how much magic she could do might push the interest she was hoping the Dullahan would have on her into dangerous, 'you-are-now-my-sworn-mortal-enemy' territory.
Then, his voice rang out from the sidelines. "You may use any of your tricks, Mage."
She frowned as she grabbed her rifle from her back, gathering mana in the Type 97 that hung from her neck. "Fine; I'll show you what I can do!" she shouted, knowing full well that she would hold back a bit, as she always did.
Verdia leaned forward, eyes figuratively glued to her rifle. Was it the real deal?
The two undead in the front began to charge her, one wielding a mace and the other wielding a sword. The other two, both holding melee weapons of their own, hung back, probably wishing to take her down while she tired herself out against their friends.
She waited until both were close to her; until she could almost taste the disappointment the Dullahan felt at her being a showboat; until she could smell their repulsive breaths.
Then she watched, smirking, as both of their overhead swings struck the ground directly in front of her.
She turned her head to the Dullahan. "Are you sure you want them to fight me? It seems like they've rotted a bit too much to be good fighters." From what she could see, he was just as confused as his minions.
Both of them rushed her again, swinging their weapons around their bodies widely.
Unheard by any of them, the sounds of her whispered "Reinforcement spell: Agility," exited her mouth a second time, and she leisurely dodge both of their attacks, assuming her earlier position and deactivating the spell.
Again, she reveled in the confused tilt of their blackened, stretched skulls. She turned to Verdia again, raising an eyebrow and letting how much she was trying not to smirk show.
He seemed upset for some reason she couldn't possibly fathom.
"Hit her!" he shouted.
Both of them spread out, surrounding her. She just sighed, and whispered, "Reinforcement spell: Strength" and "Reinforcement spell: Agility" as both tried to sandwich her.
She twisted around and ducked, allowing them both to nearly hit each other and blocking the slightly more accurate sword-wielder's blow.
Still, she appeared the epitome of calm as both struggled to strike her. Verdia seemed stupefied, and Tanya decided, if he wanted entertainment, she would have to hit back too.
She jumped out from between them, slicing through the head of the sword-wielder and shooting a single shot through the head of the other. She smirked as they collapsed-
Only, they didn't. One was missing a chunk of it head and helmet, and the other did have a hole through its head, but both were still attempting to attack her.
She blinked in confusion. Both seemed relatively okay.
She backed away again, but the one with the sword anticipated it and jumped forward, forcing Tanya to deflect his blow the body of her rifle. She glared as her thoughts, once again, focused on her first life's popular media regarding reanimated corpses.
They were undead, which meant she would have to get more destructive or more creative if she wanted to knock them out. Slicing off limbs wouldn't kill or incapacitate them all that much.
She dodged back from the mace-wielding knight blow and focused on the sword-wielder. They were missing part of their head and still functioning fine, and so she sighed.
She jumped back from both of them, and while they tried to chase after her, she didn't give them much of a chance.
"Napalm!"
In an instant, the entirety of the area in front of her was drowned in flames. She waited, for a moment, and then cut off the spell to see the results.
She smiled as the last of the magical flame petered out without mana to fuel it. Instead of two magically reanimated corpses, there was only charred earth and some pieces of twisted metal where they had once been.
She turned to the other two, scratching her head. "Sorry about your friends. Maybe you should avenge them?"
They immediately turned to Verdia. "Hell no!" cried one, while the other was shaking its head emphatically. Tanya blinked owlishly.
Verdia, whose attention had been totally focused on her, spun towards them. His body thrusted his head towards them. "The Hell do you mean, 'Hell no'!? You don't get to refuse orders!"
They simply stared at him blankly. One stepped out of the circle, and the other followed him. Tanya gave the Dullahan a skeptical look – what kind of General couldn't control his subordinates? – and he sighed and shook his head. "Fine. I will fight you."
She gulped and began to assess him more completely. He was now wielding a sword that looked similar to Mitsurugi's in size – where had he been keeping that? – and his head was exuding that menacing red light again.. The other undead behind him, standing above corpses menacingly, turned to look. Presumably, they were interested in what might occur.
Tanya shook her head and lowered her rifle. "Hey, I came here to talk. If you want to fight, I'm afraid I'll need to leave," she warned and winced in pain. The contract clearly wanted her to fight as well.
Verdia cursed under his breath. He wanted a good fight; he'd had nothing to do, with only his minions and Ragcraft around. Reading, doing his job, and keeping things tidy were nice, but he wanted a good fight.
More importantly, if this girl had a gun that worked…
Well, guns weren't exactly honorable or noble, but they were very good at what they did. Either side could decimate the other if they got ahold of it, and he wanted to know how much damage it could do to his armor.
Verdia pointed his longsword and prepared to make a speech, when both of them were interrupted.
"What are you doing, Verdia!?"
A figure emerged from the small door at the side of the large gate Tanya had knocked at. Both turned, and Tanya presumed that this was the single living being in the castle. Blond, curling hair that managed to reach his shoulders, sharp blue eyes, and aristocratic clothing, he seemed to exude snobbishness.
Tanya was unimpressed, but the Dullahan – named Verdia, apparently – seemed rather embarrassed. "Err… this adventurer assaulted the castle, and I was just about to duel her."
The blond human looked rather unimpressed, shaking his head. "No. Just kill her and get rid of her; we don't need weak distractions," he snarled, throwing a token glance at Tanya.
The Dullahan, looking slightly apologetic, corrected himself. "Actually, she said she wishes to learn about the Demon King's army. I was testing her, and-"
Now, the man turned to her, an eyebrow raised.
She nodded slowly, and the man began berating Verdia again. "Why are you fighting her!? We're not exactly inundated with useful pawns, much less humans!"
Tanya felt odd being compared to a pawn – verbally, at least. She was sure that Being X considered her that much – not that she cared what he thought – and the General Staff was probably nice enough to consider her a knight, but the General Staff never said it, at least.
Smiling, he gestured towards the door Tanya and Verdia had come through. "Please go inside, and ask for directions to the study. We'll be with you in a moment."
Tanya smiled and cursed him internally for barring her from whatever interesting conversation they were about to have.
The last glimpse she got of them was of Verdia and the man about to argue, both of them attempting to appear taller than they were. She asked the doorman – who seemed to lack a rather large chunk of his chest – for directions, and, after a few minutes of walking through the place, she found it. She sat down on one of the couches.
Neither of them showed up, however. She was left waiting for five, then ten minutes, and she sighed, stood up, and began to peruse the books in the study.
Despite everyone's insistence that an undead like Verdia must be turning the castle into some sort of hell, it didn't seem like he was particularly evil. He wasn't massacring Axel, even though he probably could if she didn't fight him, with how comparably weak everyone was.
She began to scan some of the books on the wall. Most of them seemed to be the fare of this world: books about monsters, the royal family, Hero Candidates, various towns, Shakespeare, philosophy…
Wait. She went back through the list, forehead wrinkled. Shakespeare?
She looked back across the tomes she'd been surveying, and found that a book titled 'The collective works of William Shakespeare, Volume 1' sat on the shelf, looking innocent and completely out of place.
She stared at it for a moment, and then shrugged her shoulders. Someone had managed to bring a copy of that with them, apparently, or they had just copied his name. This world continued to surprise her.
She grinned. This world also gave her good ideas. She didn't know where she'd find a book to sell to the world as her own, but she'd make a lot of money if she did.
Or, if nothing else, she'd get a bit of money. All of it, however, would be worth it, since she wasn't having to put in hundreds of hours writing something.
Suddenly, the door behind her burst open, and Tanya hurried to sit back down. Both Verdia and the human looked quite cross with each other, but they seemed to have worked out some bargain.
Verdia crashed into the couch opposite of her own, while the human surveyed a selection of scrolls. He pulled one out, and laid it down on the table.
Ragcraft cleared his throat. "As is standard, a non-disclosure contract is-"
Verdia swiped away the piece of paper Tanya had begun to survey. "Unnecessary. Seeing as this is not a standard meeting, using the standard material would be folly. We'll discuss such things afterward."
The human bristled at the break in procedure, and Tanya raised an eyebrow. From what the human had said, they didn't get many people offering to join them; that they had a standard procedure seemed a bit odd if that were the case.
Verdia didn't seem to be willing to budge, however, and the human looked nervous. Finally, the stalemate was broken, and the human sat in the third seat perpendicular to Tanya's and Verdia's, giving off one last huff of annoyance.
"Fine. You seem intent on dictating this meeting, so I'll let you."
The Dullahan seemed quite happy with himself, if the chuckle coming from his helmet was anything to go by. He set his head down on the table, and placed a hand on his chest plate.
"As you are no doubt aware, I am Verdia: The Demon King's Dullahan, and one of the eight Generals under his employ," he said in a grandiose fashion, sinking lightly into the seat opposite of her and staring at her intently.
Tanya didn't feel all that scared by the stare. She'd had worse in both of her last two lives. "I am Tanya von Degurechaff, Adventurer of Axel," she said simply, deciding that he probably wouldn't care all that much about her titles.
She turned her head to the human, who, at the Dullahan's prompting, muttered, "I am Ragcraft, and I think this is a waste of time."
Verdia shook his head. "No. As you said, we need resources, and slaughtering all of Axel for corpses is out of the question."
Tanya perked up. "Why?"
He turned his head to her, the tilt of his wrist conveying amusement. "Well, aren't you rather cavalier about the lives of your fellows…"
She shrugged. "I'm just curious. You probably could, and any reason that you haven't is probably something I should know about," she said.
The Dullahan sighed. "A treaty we made with a powerful individual means that we can't attack any non-combatants, which means… most of the town."
Tanya's curious expression became quite a bit more fixed. They didn't like the destruction of non-combatants, huh…?
Tanya kept her memories of what she'd done at Arenne buried deep within her mind. She had a feeling whoever had made this kind of contract would not appreciate what she had done, even if she had followed the letter of the law.
Verdia cleared his throat, and Tanya fought the urge to giggle at what was clearly a reflexive action, considering he didn't have a throat. "Now, I would normally be much too busy attempting to get undead to rise, but you have intrigued me, Hero Candidate."
Tanya froze, and Ragcraft shot out of his seat. "How-"
Verdia cut off his question. "I am an undead. More than that, I am a high leveled undead, and I have abilities that aid in the occasional hunger I feel for the living."
Both of his listeners said nothing. "Your soul can't lie about its origin; you've been blessed by the Gods."
She gave him a single nod – he could think of them as gods if he wanted – and the human next to her began to speak up. "But she looks nothing like one! If anything, she's some sort of noble that's closely related to the noble family. They have all sorts of Divine Relics kicking around in their treasury."
Verdia shook his head resolutely, not an ounce of a tremor present. "No. I know a Hero Candidate when I see one."
Then Verdia stood, taking a scroll from the wall. He laid it out on the table, and moved his head so that it was staring intently at Ragcraft. He huffed, but he produced a quill from within his clothing.
Verdia took it, and began to write rapidly. Tanya hadn't been prepared for her secret to be figured out so easily, but she was honestly more shocked to see what Verdia writing.
She couldn't read it yet, since they were sitting opposite of each other, but she could recognize the characters' shapes easily enough.
They were Japanese.
She looked up, but the voice from the head that had been placed on the table interrupted her thoughts. "Here. This is just a preliminary contract; I'm no good at these things, and you could probably figure out a way to get out of it if you wanted."
He turned the paper upside down, and edged it across the table for Tanya to read. She picked over each word, looking for ways to get out of it. What she read confirmed the question she had been about to ask.
Verdia was, without a doubt, a Reincarnate, just like the ten people she'd deprived of their weapons. Just like that sword wielder she'd talked to during her first days in Axel. Just like herself and Viktoriya.
Well, not like her and Viktoriya; he was like all of the others, though. This contract proved it.
It asked that she keep her knowledge of her weapon and its capabilities a secret. It asked that she not introduce electricity, any weapons invented after the industrial revolution, guns, tanks, planes, or anything that could massively aid either side to anyone she thought my try and reproduce it.
Besides that, she saw no reason she should comply. She looked at the Dullahan again, and she saw that Verdia was rapidly writing on another piece of paper. He passed it to her, and she scanned it, nodding as she went through what she would get.
As long as she didn't leak any of the more important information she was given, she'd get some history on Belzerg, information on each of the Demon King's Generals, and told a direction to look if she wanted to learn more. She looked up as she read the last paragraph, to see that Verdia had picked up his head again and was grasping it.
"You're giving me pretty permanent information for such a small promise. I could even fight you," she pointed out. Ragcraft, who had been staring at the first page of the contract in confusion, suddenly screeched.
"What does she mean, 'she can fight you?' Just make a clause that says we can renegotiate it when we want, summon her to a location, and then kill her when she comes with a simple and effective trap!"
Both of the room's other occupants looked at Ragcraft, one an annoyed sideways glance and the other an amused grin that reached her eyes.
Verdia sighed. "Yes, it is temporary, but I am purposefully leaving holes for you to exploit. You said you wanted to learn, and I assume if you've come this far with the other contract you're under, you're considering a change of sides."
It wasn't phrased as a question, but Tanya nodded regardless.
Verdia pointed to the pieces of paper in her hands with the quill, tilting his head a bit. "If you do want to do something listed on that piece of paper, you'll restrain yourself from doing something that might sour relations, as long as you might change sides."
Tanya looked down again, and admitted that he was probably right. She wasn't sure what situation would force her into needing to go to the Demon King and give up the promise of a free wish, but she was sure it could happen.
Like if Belzerg was about to collapse, or if Being X did something… rash.
She eyed the pen in his outstretched hand as he offered it to her.
A few strokes later, and Tanya sighed. Kicking the decision as to whether she would switch sides down the line wasn't exactly smart, but she needed more information. Plus, she wanted to at least consult Viktoriya on which way she wanted to go.
Just… deciding without her felt a bit… distasteful, especially since Tanya couldn't order Viktoriya to follow her if she didn't want to. Tanya would have to get her input if she wanted to keep Viktoriya around, which she did.
She couldn't see his face, but the way he straightened out, it seemed he was relieved. "Fine. You may explore the castle while I assemble the information the contract outlines."
She stood, eyeing the angry Ragcraft and the tired Verdia one last time. She then turned on her heel and left the room, quickly walking through the castle.
She frowned. The smell of rotting bodies and the undead was beginning to remind her a bit too much of the war in her last life and what had brought her to Dresdun and fighting the Bloody Valkyrie and-
She distracted herself by pushing the doors in front of her open, and came to the courtyard, and grimaced as she looked at the dozens of undead. She saw one of the Dullahan's armored knights standing above a group of them, shouting, screaming, and generally attempting to be intimidating.
That intimidation was reduced from only mildly off-putting to completely ineffective when Tanya watched them bend down and begin to shout at a partially decomposed body.
Morbidly curious as to why they were shouting at a body, she walked over. She loudly cleared her throat, and the knight swiveled around, staring down at her.
Their furious gaze weakened as they realized who she was. "Oh, it's just you. Curious, I suppose?"
Tanya nodded, and he gestured to the bodies lazily. "We've been told to try and encourage the undead to rise. While our presence can help weak undead to rise, Verdia claims that more effective forces can be raised. He isn't entirely sure how, but he told us to… experiment."
Tanya nodded idly. She tore her gaze away from the corpses, looking at the knight. She was hesitant to help them, but Verdia had mentioned that, if she was logical, she would try and build a cordial relationship with the side she might decide to join. This probably counted.
"Well, undead are created because they have grudges, right? Have you been appealing to what they might still resent others for?"
The knight's contorted skull twisted around towards her, and Tanya began to explain. "Well, if you want to appeal to people, their backgrounds definitely determine what their grudges will be. A peasant and an adventurer will be angry about different things."
She gazed across the small group of bodies this knight was attempting to cajole into rising. "There seems to be a mix of people here, based on what's left of their clothing. Sort everyone into groups, and then appeal to what they might have been angry about."
The knight still seemed a bit confused, but he seemed to be enthusiastic, if his orders to the rest of the knights and zombies standing around were anything to go by.
Mostly, they just sorted everyone based on what was left of their clothing, but Tanya blanched when more than a few of them opened up the bodies to poke around in their stomachs, to look at their diet.
They didn't lack creativity like Tanya had thought a bunch of corpses would.
Soon, the activity stopped, and three main groups had formed. Former adventurers, peasants, and the poor. A fourth pile was in the corner, with people that were too rotted for anything to be determined.
Tanya muttered "Wind Breath," and sighed happily and the smells assaulting her nostrils drifted away from her on a gust of magically created air.
The knight she had been talking to, identifiable form all of the other knights by how he was slightly less decayed, stalked over to her, less mad than before. "Would you speak to them? We're not exactly made to speak eloquently."
She looked at him skeptically, but they gestured to their uncovered throat. Tanya winced sympathetically as she saw the rotting flesh and assumed that his vocal cords weren't in any better condition than his rotting exterior was.
She walked towards the pile of the poor; she had been poor during her years at that orphanage, and pinning the blame for their grudge on greedy nobles and the Eris Cult, which literally prided itself on Luck and money, would be startlingly easy.
She cleared her throat, and gestured towards the grouping. Over forty bodies were laid out, lined up in a large square formation.
"The poor and destitute. You have languished in that graveyard, waiting for your Cult to purify you, to send you up to heaven. Despite your poverty, you hoped that they would do this, as is their duty."
She began to pace in front of the group of bodies, feeling rather self-conscious to not be able to gauge if her audience was receptive to her speech.
She was coming up with this on the fly, and she could edit what she was going to say next just as fast. Knowing how to change the way she worded things relied on feedback, and she didn't have any.
"They have forsaken you. Forgotten you. Decided that you were too poor to bother with, and that you would be better served as target practice for their Priests. Do not feel as if you have failed, however; your poverty, your inability to pay for your souls' release, was their fault."
She stopped, staring out into the distance. "Yes! The clergy, the Cults: they taxed you, demanded too much from the people least able to pay. You wept, begged that you be allowed to continue to try and pay them back later."
At least, Tanya hoped they did. She didn't know what the tax codes were like in this world.
Maybe Darkness would know? She seemed to know a lot about that sort of thing.
"They ignored you. The clergy decided you weren't worth the effort to care about personally."
She paused for a moment, turning around again and gazing at the undead who had arrayed behind her. All of them weren't moving at all; she couldn't even hear the ragged moaning that the zombies let out.
"And your 'protectors?' Where were the nobles? Where was the King?"
A smaller pause, and then she began shouting. "Ignoring you! Pursuing a war they haven't been able to win since your conception! Or even helping the clergy rob you with their taxes!"
"Rise!" she shouted, staring intently at the bodies and hoping that she wasn't just spouting hot air. "Do you care about yourself? Do you care about the people you left behind? Do you desire to save them from the very same poverty that claimed you?"
"Rise! See the clergy, see the nobles, and see the king. Remember every slight done to you because they desired your wealth!"
"Rise! Take revenge on the people and the nation that decided that those unable to afford their help should just be forgotten once they died! Remind them that you exist! That, even in death, you and your fellows should be taken care of!"
She finished, panting lightly. She might have been annoyed at how much her words resembled the communist rhetoric of the proletariat's rise against the bourgeoisie, but even she knew how effective they were at motivating the oppressed into fighting for their country, however misguided their attempts at making a competent or healthy economic system turned out to be.
She waited a moment, waiting for as much as a twitch from the bodies. A rustle of rotting cloth. A gurgle of undead flesh. Even the flicker of an eyelid.
Then, she saw it. One by one, bodies began to do as she hoped. They twitched and, slowly, began to rise from the ground, lurching about slightly, but standing all the same.
She turned around and found that her vision of the clapping crowd of undead she heard was obscured by metal. She looked to her right, and found herself staring into the lightly shining eyes of Verdia.
"Thank you, Degurechaff."
Without another word, he placed a large leather bag into her arms, and brought his head as close to her own as he could without touching his helmet to her face. "A book on the history of Belzerg, as well as a number of papers with information on each of the Demon Generals. I bid you good day, Reincarnate."
He whispered the last word, and Tanya tried to give him a smile. It probably looked more panicked than she – probably – felt, but she didn't really mind.
The profound interest shining in his finally visible features made her very wary. If she wasn't careful, she might be conscripted into becoming a professional orator.
-OxOxO-
Tanya strolled back to Axel, wondering if she would be able to make a quick stop at the Succubi's shop before she left. Or maybe Wiz's shop.
Both groups definitely knew a thing or two about the Demon Generals. Or, they probably knew more than she did.
If they could confirm some of the information she had been given, Tanya would at least have a bit of peace of mind.
As she rounded the corner of the path out of the forest that surrounded Verdia's castle, she bumped into someone. Tanya was sent backwards from crashing into the tough surface, and she landed on her backside.
Quickly, she shot up, words of apology at the tip of her tongue. Then she froze as she registered the identity of the person she had crashed into.
Darkness.
Tanya's mouth puckered slightly, and she looked behind the Crusader to see that Viktoriya looked very nervous, if the way her eyes were shifting rapidly between the two of them was to be believed.
Darkness spoke first. "'Helping out a charity,' huh? I can't believe I fell for that…"
Tanya shrugged and gave her best attempt at a reassuring smile. The Crusader's listless gaze didn't seem to appreciate it.
"Cheer up, Darkness! I was just… taking care of another Tranquility Girl!" she said. Darkness looked inquisitive, and Tanya began to explain.
"The guild told me there was another one around here that they wanted taken care of. I just did that. I didn't think you could take it, so I asked Viktoriya to make sure you didn't interrupt me."
Darkness nodded slowly, and Tanya gave a sigh of relief. With that, she began to march towards town. Viktoriya followed, and Darkness soon caught up to them. "Hey, I could have watched, at least. I'm not sure that you two are telling the truth about them being evil, but I wouldn't have interfered."
Tanya rolled her eyes. "Yes, you would have. You would have jumped in front of me and tried to stop the quest and to play it off as your 'solemn duty as a Crusader to protect the innocent,' when in actuality you would just be hoping that I'd have to force you to leave her alone and manhandle you a bit," she said with a negligent wave of her hand.
Darkness let out a grunt, and Tanya shook her head. She turned her head to Darkness, who was catching back up again. "Anyway, what were you two doing out here?"
Tanya watched as Darkness's face lit up, and saw Viktoriya stiffen from the corner of her eye.
"Right! We investigated the graveyard, and found…" she trailed off, and Tanya looked at her questioningly.
Darkness flicked her eyes towards the back of Viktoriya. She'd made them go all the way to the lake, look around for hours, and only then start travelling over here.
Darkness wasn't the smartest noble around, but it was impossible to ignore the seed of doubt that Chris had directed her towards.
She's told her that Viktoriya was suspicious. She hadn't believed her completely, but the girl had taken time to distract her from finding out more about this quest.
If Tanya was to be believed, she'd done it to keep her away from this area, where a Tranquility Girl was supposed to be.
Darkness's forehead creased. Why would one of those be around here? No monsters or adventurers would dare tread so close to one of the Demon King's Generals without being desperate, and it didn't seem like there was much water around here regardless.
She tried to sound casual. "We found some tracks from a cart that lead to this road from the graveyard. We were about to see where they led."
Tanya nodded. "We'll report it to the guild, and ask them what we should do. Following them seems logical, but if we were to head towards Verdia's castle, we might get killed," she explained calmly.
Darkness nodded, and Tanya spun back around, smiling at Viktoriya. She sighed tiredly, and Tanya asked what was wrong in their language.
"Oh, it was tiring to try and keep her away from your dealings. But I managed. How did your talks with Verdia go, anyway?"
"Everything is good so far. The Dullahan's contract was very interesting and rewarding, I'll have to show you-"
Tanya's sentence was abruptly cut off by something slamming into Viktoriya. Tanya paused, for a moment, to watch as she slammed into the ground.
Tanya heard something crack loudly.
Tanya watched as Darkness rose to her knees, holding Viktoriya in a bear hug. She struggled for a moment but then she cried out as Darkness squeezed.
Her gun was already in her hands, trained on Darkness's head. The Eris Cultist was smirking, still squeezing Viktoriya. "I'd put down your staff, Tanya. Your master might not survive the pressure," she said, a light blush touching her cheeks as Viktoriya struggled violently.
The urge to activate her reinforcement spells and violently mutilate the person daring to touch Viktoriya faded, and she lowered her gun. "Darkness. What the hell do you think you're doing!?"
She smirked. "I'm getting answers. Something happened to you, and this person was the beginning of it. Now, throw away that weapon."
Tanya grit her teeth, but an idea came to her, and she smirked. Making an effort to look concerned, she began to build up mana.
Finally, she snarled, and tossed it away, slowly holding up her hands. "Fine. I'm unarmed, and – SLEEP!"
Darkness had let her guard down, and was totally unprepared. Both women sank the rest of the way to the ground, flush against the ground.
Tanya lunged towards Viktoriya, and pulled her away from Darkness. A moment of indecision followed, where she wondered how hurt she was, until she lightly hit herself in the head. She didn't need to know, really.
"Heal."
She poured mana into the spell, and watched as her pained expression faded into one of contentment. Tanya sighed happily, and then set her on the grass near the road. A burst of Flight magic sent Tanya towards her rifle, and she was standing over Viktoriya, gun in hand, a moment later.
The sound of ringing steel sounded behind her, and Tanya turned around, anger stretched across her face and directed towards the panting Crusader.
"I'll ask again, Darkness. What's the big idea?"
She glared at the still-sleeping Viktoriya. "She's the problem. Or, your conversation was. I don't understand your language, but," she said as she grinned triumphantly, "I recognized a few words. You said 'Verdia' and 'Dullahan,' so obviously, you've made contact with the General in the castle."
-OxOxO-
A/N 1: And there we have it! Darkness has gotten too suspicious, and the problem of language gets addressed.
As I pointed out in an earlier Author's Note, the usage of NEET by everyone makes no sense, if no one has an education system besides the nobility and the Crimson Demons.
Obviously, the Reincarnates introduced it. The language evolved, with the sounds that the Reincarnates know spells 'NEET' changing into an insult directed at the generally lazy.
Verdia is a name, and the Dullahan was a figure of Irish myth long before it was popularized in fantasy media. Both would stand out a lot to someone trying to listen in on a conversation they can't understand.
Anyway, Tanya gets headed towards simply switching sides and washing her hands of Being X behind the safety of the barrier, and we get more backstory behind Verdia.
A/N 2: Responses to Reviews on here:
Mechamorph: Thank you very much for the ideas. In the backlog, Kazuma and Tanya have met, and trying to write him is… interesting, to say the least.
I haven't exactly figured out what to do with Chris in the long run, though a frank talk with Kazuma might convince her.
Also, it's funny that you should mention Lucifer… but saying anything more would be spoiling it.
TerraBull: Although Viktoriya doesn't have her power anymore – Tanya had to save her life as it was removed, remember? – chapter 13 reveals what it was right before their fight with the Reincarnates.
Final-Fan: This website is… limited compared to AO3, where there is a more complete description in the tags. The main focuses of the story are Romance and Humor, but if I could include more here, Hurt/Comfort, Adventure, and Angst would be the next ones up. Actually… I might change the Romance to Hurt/Comfort, at least until they realize their affection for each other.
Also, they don't lose all of their power. In the sixth KonoSuba LN – remember the body-switcher? – they don't lose all of their power, even if their original owner is dead. They aren't nearly as powerful, obviously, but they have a bit left. That's also how Visha still remembers to make the Type 97.
leon solitario: I assume you're asking about the Circlet not helping her during her initial kidnapping, and to that… she isn't exactly used to it, and she knew that the Type 95 will focus her mind and help her stave of spells, even if that focus becomes fixated on maiming others and praising god.
Sketch-yTimes: It's fine, no problem.
vanhellsing9000: Eris will be forced to give up for a time – I won't say by who. As for Wiz… I'll be straight up and say she's much more interested in pursuing her dream of running a successful store. Still hasn't happened yet.
cj1of4: Megumin isn't in Axel yet, she doesn't get there until Kazuma does, which won't be happening for a while.