The next morning found Yunyun stalking her prey. Adventurers started early, and so did those that hunted them.
Headhunted them. For her party.
At any rate, she had posted a flier on the bulletin board informing everyone she was interested in forming a new party. She almost added she was interested in joining an existing one, but…trying to insert herself into an existing party and fit in with the group…
No, no. Better to be starting fresh with everyone. That seemed a lot less scar…fairer! Much fairer.
There had been a few people who'd looked at her advertisement, but no takers yet. She made sure to smile at anyone who showed interest and kept a bowl of vegetable sticks with a mug of ale at her table for her guest, and a plate of wheat crackers for Ink, at all times.
Her own mug had been drained once already, while the other was still untouched aside from the time the waitress came by to refresh it. But that was ok. She had hunted and fished the woods around her village before, if not as often as Megumin, and knew that patience was a virtue no matter how good your bait was.
She was intently repositioning white napkin that the covered bowl of vegetable sticks sat on so it was precisely in the center of the table when she heard someone clear their throat. Head jerking up in surprise, she found a pair of a bit older adventurers standing across from her.
Seeing they had her attention, the girl chirped "Hi! I'm Talitha and this is my brother Len! Are you still looking for members?"
They didn't look particularly related, but that wasn't uncommon or her business really. Len was black haired and blue eyed, middling height, and slender, with light armor that would probably suit a Thief or other knife fighter class. Meanwhile Talitha was on the shorter side, around Yunyun's height, somewhere between dark blonde and light brown haired, with eyes to match, and wore a mace at her belt over a set of canvas trousers and blue vest.
"Y-yes! Yes I am! Please," Yunyun sputtered to a halt, realizing she had only one tankard for her two guests. "S-sorry, I'll order another…"
"It's fine, we'll get the other. I'll take you up on the vegetable sticks though," Len said as the pair sat across from the flustered wizard. Thumping the side of the bowl to stun them, he quickly lifted the lid and popped one in his mouth.
"You must be new, we haven't seen that flier before," Talitha said, taking a carrot stick of her own.
"I-I am, I came from Arcanretia," Yunyun agreed softly. "I just registered yesterday."
"You came from Arcanretia!" Talitha exclaimed, leaning forward eagerly. "I've wanted to see it for so long, was it really as beautiful as they say?!"
"Yes, it really was! I took the lakeside tour while I was there…" This. This was exactly what she wanted out of coming to Axel. People to have fun conversations with, sharing their days, and maybe killing monsters for cash sometimes. As Yunyun happily recounted her time in the Water City the three had a lovely time, with her prospective partymates hanging on every word. Once she finished, the other tankard had arrived and Talitha sighed regretfully.
"Oh I wish I could've been there. But we should probably compare cards."
"No, t-the toads w-won't kill themselves," Yunyun reluctantly agreed, hating to bring the conversation to a close. She pulled out her adventurer's card and the others followed suit. As they exchanged cards she gave a little gasp, and couldn't believe her luck! Talitha really was a priestess! If wizards were rare, adventurer clerics were even more so. Less than a third of the parties in town had one, universally Erisites as far as she'd seen, though she didn't seem to dress like one…
"Ok, wow. Those stats are the real deal," Len noted as the pair examined Yunyun's card in turn. "I think we can handle a few toads."
They went to the counter to pick up the standing quest for just that, then made their way out the front doors.
As the trio headed for the gates Len turned to Yunyun. "Since you came through Arcanretia, of course you accepted Aqua as your goddess? I'm sure you signed up while you were there! How could you not after witnessing her holy city's majesty?!" he continued, voice brimming with passion.
Talitha crowded close on her other side, Yunyun's head whiplashing from one to the other. "My brother in Aqua tells no lies! If you didn't, I have a signup form right here!" She begged. "I'm way behind on my quota!"
This…this might be bad. The Axis Cult was the biggest, most active group of monster hunters in Belzerg, it was true, and they had to learn somewhere. But having heard the things coming out of their preachers' mouths…
She sidled away, but Talitha moved with her, still pressing the form into Yunyun's chest with a pleading look while Len continued his recitation of his goddess' greatness.
Ink, meanwhile, chose that moment to prove he was a very good bird.
With a great flapping of wings and indignant cawing he took flight from Yunyun's shoulder, forcing Talitha to duck to avoid getting a faceful of beak and feathers. Then, once airborne he circled once and fluttered down the street and around a corner.
"Oh no, s-sorry I'll be right back! Ink, wait!" Yunyun cried, giving chase after her wayward familiar before her party mates could react.
Once around the corner she found him immediately, perched atop a fencepost smugly grooming his feathers.
Yunyun regarded him bemusedly. "T-thanks. They were being very pushy."
For a moment, she considered bailing out on the quest but…they had been the only takers so far. And it probably wouldn't look good to turn back on her very first quest, no matter how irritating her party mates got…
She stealthily peeked around the corner for a moment, a skill she'd gotten quite a bit of experience with over the years. Talitha was still clutching her recruiting form as Len fidgeted. They also seemed to be bickering while they waited for her to come back, judging by them pointedly looking away from each other as they spoke.
"C-come on. T-they're annoying, b-but probably harmless. And I d-do at least want to see how quests work and get paid today," she decided, holding out one arm for the raven to hop onto.
Ink complied, and with that moment to recover they rejoined the newly revealed Axis cultists with a bit more wariness than they'd left with.
"S-sorry. Ink can b-be touchy about people getting too close. L-let's get going," she advised as they walked up.
Whether due to Ink's gimlet gaze, or an uncharacteristic ability to learn from experience, the two didn't try another recruiting pitch on the way out of town. Though alternating extolling Aqua's many virtues might've been more annoying.
—-
Giant toads are not hard to find, given their size and often bright colors. On the other hand, a creature able to swallow pigs or even calves at one gulp doesn't have much need for stealth.
Soon enough, they found a lone one with the next nearest some distance away.
"Ok, usual rules? Len up front, I'll be in the middle, and Talitha behind?" Yunyun asked quietly, watching their prey intently from behind a clump of shrubs.
"Sounds good. May Lady Aqua watch over our efforts! Blessing!" their priestess chanted, and a handful of sparkles rained down on the other two.
They shifted around, Len moving off to one side a bit so Yunyun had a clear shot, and she in turn let fly. "Fireball!"
Having seen Advanced Magic in action all her life, Yunyun had expected the toad to be killed in one shot. Instead, bearing a blackened and smoking spot over its ribs, an extremely upset toad bounded closer, each landing shaking the ground as it came.
Eyes widening in shock, Yunyun hastily chanted "Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Wind Blade!" in quick succession. Each hit only staggered their enemy, partly because hitting the same spot on a hopping target was harder than it looked, but didn't quite stop it until the wind blade finally cut through the weakened chest wall to the heart. With a rattling croak, it shuddered to a halt, then flopped forward as its strength failed.
"Wow, I didn't have to do anything! Super glad you were along!" Len whistled before going over to check their kill.
Yunyun meanwhile was watching the other toad, but while they had it's attention it wasn't moving to attack yet.
"D-do you usually have to kill it?" Yunyun asked curiously, and a bit worriedly as she followed. She'd known the on paper difference in power between an Intermediate and Advanced spell, but had assumed with the creatures around Axel so much weaker it would all balance out. To have to hit one several times…
"Yep, the last party I was in the wizard would've had to hit it probably two or three more times to bring it down alone. We don't usually have that much time, so after the wizard weakens it the frontliner has to step in to finish the job," he agreed after confirming their prey was dead.
"Huh," Yunyun muttered. She had been imagining mowing through the local monsters to raise her levels, but that definitely wasn't going to work now. This might be harder than she thought.
"All right, one down, three to go," Talitha prompted, the other toad having decided they weren't going to leave and let it take over the other's territory peacefully and hopping over to come make them.
Taking careful aim, Yunyun carved into that one with a wind blade. At over one hundred meters range it would only cut with a fraction of it's usual strength, but she was hoping that…no such luck. Hitting the throat, even on a target the size of a toad, moving in three dimensions was no small feat until it got closer. Magic might move in a perfectly straight line, unlike the arc of an arrow, but it wasn't any faster than an arrow either. Judging the right timing to catch it in a vital spot was going to take a lot more practice.
Abandoning the idea for now, she fell back on simply hammering it until she hit did enough cumulative damage like she had on the last one.
She might get some good practical experience out of this year after all, Yunyun decided as they set out after another toad. No time like the present to get started.
"…And that's why Axis liquid soap is the only trail ration you'll ever need!" Len said, breaking into her thoughts.
Perhaps with a different party though.
The next Erisday found Yunyun buried up to her elbows, sadly literally, in receipts trying to bring order to the chaos. The good news was they were sort of chronological, oldest at the bottom of the bag. The bad news was everything else.
Sometimes there was a date, usually not. There was the occasional invoice, but some of the prices looked…strange. And she couldn't have all of them, since matching invoices to inventory left much of the stock on the shelves unaccounted for. Which implied some of the store's stock had been there at least since last year, which couldn't be right.
She had resorted to using the dated receipts to act as signposts for the other undated ones on their 'layer' and tried to excavate without disturbing where any was in relation to the others.
At her side was a pad of paper she'd bought. For some reason, Wiz insisted recording wasn't worth the money when she could see what she had. But while paper wasn't cheap enough you could blow your nose on it, even a poor family could afford enough to write a letter once in a while, or a shop owner could make a simple ledger.
Yunyun sighed. Speaking of letters. She had tried not to think about it, but it had been long enough that a letter from Megumin should've arrived by now. Her dad had teleported to Arcanretia before sending Wiz the letter telling her she was coming, which Megumin clearly couldn't do. But even a letter written a day or two after she left should have arrived and it was beginning to bother her that her best friend hadn't sent word when even Arue had.
Of course the future author's letter had mostly been a plot outline and first chapter of a spicy forbidden romance between her father and Wiz, cast as leaders of opposing armies drawn to each other by the thrill of battle against one another. Yunyun had firmly taken a pen and written 'NO' across it. But at least she'd sent something.
Perhaps because of that, she smacked the next layer on the counter a bit harder than was called for, scattering a few loose sheets. While she was collecting them, Wiz arrived through the back door.
"Hello! Did anything happen while I was out?"
Yunyun shook her head, tidying up her stack while Wiz set down her basket from the market and stepped into the storefront.
"Oh keep going, I'll just be in the kitchen. I've been meaning to sort those for ages, but I just haven't a head for figures." After delivering perhaps the understatement of the year, the lich breezed back into the kitchen and began unpacking her basket. Not for the first time, Yunyun wondered if her mentor even needed to eat. She clearly could, and enjoyed cooking at least…
Nothing further disturbed her until the bells tolled for close of business, besides the occasional noise of Wiz bustling around in the back. After flipping the sign to Closed and bolting the door, Yunyun joined the proprietor in the kitchen.
"How does a rabbit pot pie sound? The grocer had some very nice carrots!"
"G-great!"
Yunyun took a seat at the table, the kitchen being too small to benefit much from a helper, and started a pot of tea on the little hotplate on the table.
"How was your day, dear?"
"I d-didn't have anyone ask about the flier this morning, but I did meet a party outside town. They a-accidentally attracted a terriboar while they were clearing a goblin nest. I killed it before it hurt anyone," she assured Wiz. "T-they seemed nice, too."
"Another solo quest?" Wiz asked, knowing the answer even before the girl nodded and agreed. "Do you think you'll join them?"
"Probably n-not, it looked like they had a wizard already," Yunyun sighed. "There w-was another one the other day I didn't tell you about, they had three toads on them so I took care of one. T-they already had a wizard too though. I thought we were supposed to be rare?" she pouted.
Wiz's frown deepened as her student talked behind her. When she made a point of introducing Yunyun around town and linking the two of them together in people's minds, she had been worried that a very pretty, very shy, and very sheltered girl from a small village might get into trouble unless it was well known someone was taking a personal interest in her.
Unfortunately, that also seemed to be causing the local parties to avoid her. Finished chopping the carrots, she dumped them into the crust lined dish and mentally shrugged. What's done is done, no help for it now. Yunyun was a nice enough girl when she could nerve herself to speak up, so she'd find a party before too long.
Hopefully.
Soon enough the pie filling was prepped and the freshly assembled pie went in the oven, and the pair sat at the table sharing the pot of tea to wait.
"I think it's time we had a talk about who I am, and what you want to learn from your time with me," Wiz began softly after a sip, her demeanor hardening from maternal to mentor. "You guessed that I'm a lich, and have been for, well some time now. Since my old party dissolved. What you may not realize is that I'm also a general of the Demon King. In name at least."
Yunyun sucked in a breath. That…wasn't necessarily worse than being a creature famously hostile to all that lived, but it was still a bit of a surprise…
"I say in name only because I accept no missions, command no troops. He confines his attacks to adventurers and soldiers, those that have chosen to take up arms against him. In return, I contribute to the barrier around his castle."
Yunyun nodded slowly. "W-what happened? You were a famous adventurer before."
"General Beldia happened. We were in battle with him, not for the first time, when he managed to curse us to die in one week before making his escape. We were desperate, and I was the only one still fit to fight." Wiz's eyes gleamed as her lips curved into a nostalgic grin, her persona shifting fully into the famously aggressive Ice Witch who had carved her legend. "So I sought out another old enemy, General Vanir, and challenged him to single combat!"
"My plan was to force him to accept a geas to call Beldia off, since he had retreated where we couldn't reach him. So I pushed him, a greater demon, right to the wall! Threw everything I had or could think of at him. But it wasn't quite enough to force him to submit." Wiz shrugged, "Of all my battles, I think I'm most proud of that one, failure or not. And Vanir must have agreed. He gave me a way to do the deed myself, in recognition of my efforts."
"Did you force Beldia to release the curse?"
"Oh yes! That I did!" Wiz laughed. "I stormed the Demon King's castle and forced him to submit as a newly raised lich, just in time. Afterwards, I received my pick of the treasury and a commission as a general. And here I am!" Her voice dropped but Yunyun's ears were as good as her eyes, so she still heard "though that's all gone now…"
Which explained a lot, not least how the shop had managed to stay in business for so long while running at a loss.
She also left unsaid her suspicion that 'Wiz's pick of the treasury' had been more in the way of a bribe to leave and never come back.
"Like all liches, I am cut off from the divine, and the world to a degree, so that time does not touch me, and only the strongest magics or blows have any hope of harming me. For most liches this is enough. They seek power and immortality for their own sakes, and they are corrupted into the monsters that the Axis and Erisites claim them to be. Should you meet any other liches, you must treat them as the deadliest things you'll ever face."
Wiz took another sip, perhaps from habit since she probably didn't need to wet her throat anymore. "But while a Wind Blade might not care what it's cast at or why, intentions do matter in magic, the more so the greater the working. I gave up my life, my soul, my chance of children, and not least the light of Eris and hope of my rebirth because I couldn't stand to watch my friends die when I might still prevent it. And so I retain most of what I was before."
She took a drink from her tea, finishing off the mug to let her student take in the story.
"So here we are. By the laws of the kingdom, technicalities aside, you will be guilty of treason by continuing to associate with me. By the laws of the divine, you will be abandoning the heavens and hopelessly tarnishing your soul by merely attempting to follow in my footsteps. Knowing all that, think very carefully before deciding your future." She held up her hand. "Don't answer now, it's much too soon and you're nowhere near ready in any case. Just know that whichever way you decide you'll have a place here. After this long in Axel I'm hardly likely to be discovered, after all."
She patted Yunyun's hand after she spoke, coolness over the warm, tightly clenched fist.
"That's enough revelations for one day, I think!" Wiz chirped, her shopkeeper persona back in full. "If you want to, you can drop by the guild again and see if anyone asked after you this afternoon. You should have time, dinner won't be for another hour."
Taking the chance to think things over for what it was, Yunyun rose and did just that.
Axel at dusk, outside of the cheap side of town frequented by adventurers, tended to be quiet.
Wiz's shop was on the edge of that area, so as Yunyun made her way to the guild hall she was passed several parties heading the same direction, either loudly congratulating each other on the day's success, or glumly determined to see if the day looked better after a liter of beer. Or somewhere in between.
She tried not to resent the companions in their successes and failures. That would be her soon, a group of friends at her side trying to make it to the next level, the next quest. She was sure of it.
Any day now.
Yunyun arrived at the guildhall to find it full of more adventurers drinking and bragging about the day's accomplishments. Passing the crowd by, she headed to the front desk, finding a buxom blonde woman on duty this time.
"H-hello, has anyone asked about my party notice?"
The clerk, Luna she remembered after a moment, shook her head. "Afraid not. Have you considered joining an existing party? Most of them would take an archmage in a second, and you'll surely find more people willing to let you do that than join a new one you're leading."
Yunyun started in shock. "ME! Lead it?! N-no, I just wanted us to start out together! But t-thank you." She bowed slightly and hurried off.
On some level, she knew that Wiz would be perfectly happy if she stayed and ate at the guild if it was because she met some new people to go adventuring with in the future. But the excuse was in front of her, and so she left to head back to the shop.
Yunyun had taken the direct route on the way to the guild since she wanted to find out if she had any prospects as soon as possible, but with that out of the way she saw no reason not to take a detour. The longer route meandered along the riverbank and across the other bridge convenient to the shop district.
The running water was soothing, and she felt like she could use that right now.
As she went, the streets darkened seemingly with every step she took, but of course that was no problem for a Crimson Demon. Nowhere in Axel is very far from anywhere else though, so she returned to her home and part time work soon enough. Letting herself in through the back, she navigated through the cleared lane of clutter, following the smells of buttery baked crust and savory filling.
The kitchen was now lit by the lamp hanging from the ceiling instead of the fading daylight, and for a moment Yunyun hesitated at the doorway, just out of the puddle of light it gave.
If Wiz heard her she gave no sign, standing at the counter where she had just chilled a pitcher of water, though the back lock wasn't particularly quiet. The table was already set, two wooden plates flanked by spoons and cups on opposite sides of the steaming pot pie resting on a trivet in the middle.
"Miss Wiz?" Yunyun asked softly.
"Yes dear?" she turned to face her.
"Did you ever regret it?"
Wiz paused and thought, a sad smile stealing onto her face. "Well, one of my old friends didn't make it. The curse combined with the wounds he already took was simply too much. He died not long after I became a lich. But the other two married about a year later, and even visited me last spring. They brought their son Felix with them, about six years old now and a darling child. If I hadn't become a lich then none of that would have ever happened, of course."
Yunyun nodded, watching her closely all the while. There was a long silence. But then Wiz sighed, and shook her head.
"A part of me does wish there had been another way. That I bested Vanir fairly and forced a perfect solution where everyone lived, Beldia was vanquished, and we all went on to more adventures. But, the truth is that I probably have helped more people by doing what I am right now than I did in my days as an adventurer. The war still might grind onwards in fits and starts, as it has since my grandparents were young, but it touches many fewer people directly now."
Wiz in turn regarded her student, "Does that answer your question?"
Yunyun nodded again. "I-I think it does." She crossed the rest of the way to the table and pulled up a chair.