Chapter 53 – The living

A corpse with an ice bolt skewering the head, laying on the ground and hidden in thick bushes. Slightly bloodied and frozen over, especially the head, but distinctly fresh. The archer and scout of the team of hunters. Dunno about his name or anything.

"I thought he was away long enough to get up a tree. That at least explains why he didn't alert us of anything and why he wasn't shooting." I say slowly as we stand with Letty on the side of the corpse and stare down at it. It's a bit... funny, how little I think of it, despite the fact that I was most likely an indirect cause of his death and I know he was a real person. My Primordial mentality, I guess.

I found the corpse a moment ago when I stretched out my perception and noticed an abnormal concentration of mana that took me a moment to realize was a mana stone. Apparently they are created when humans die just as well as when monsters die, which isn't very surprising when I think about it.

"Yeah." Letty nods, looking at me hesitantly. "Are we talking it back?"

"I think so, yeah. Either that or we're telling them he's lying there, and the former will be much easier." I explain and step up to the cold corpse, scooping it in my arms and turning around. "Let's go. I'm tired of all this already." I say and beat my wings, shooting up into the air.

Letty follows me a moment later and we make our way to the whole group, which has meanwhile converged by the corpses of Water Serpents again and is just finishing with extracting the cores. Some of the hunters notice me and turn to me, but they stop anything they might have planned when they see the body in my arms.

I land next to Grant, who just now turns around from the assassin's body, which is laying on the ground and is being healed by Daria. I look at him impassively and softly lay the body at the ground before him, then step back when the senior hunter slowly, disbelievingly walks up to the corpse and crouches by it.

"I'm guessing that he was killed by the assassin because he spotted him. Your job was to protect them, correct?" I ask Grant, who turns his eyes to me and nods slowly with heavy expression.

"If anyone asks, I can vouch his death was not your fault. You couldn't do anything to save him, and the assassin was after me."

"...I know. Thanks." The hunter says with a nod and I turn around, noticing the other hunters walking up to the corpse and one of them shooting me a glare. Hm.

I walk up to Catherine and the rest of the group, including Xethu, who is looking at me with concern and with understanding. Hm. She's probably going through similar changes to me, huh? I sigh deeply as I look back at the group of hunters.

"That got ugly." I comment. "We're going back normally?"

"Yeah." Catherine nods.

"I'm so tired of all this shit." I mutter, dragging my hand over my face, and turn to Letty, who smiles lightly and sits down, indicating me to come.

I happily oblige, sitting next to her and leaning on her shoulder with a sigh.

"You probably saw the news how we killed that one Wayfarer in the Guild?" I ask the group, who shifts uncomfortably.

"Yeah..." Vulcan says hesitantly and I frown.

"What?" I ask as I open my eyes and look at them averting their eyes. "Is there something wrong?"

"...They said you killed a fae, a local. And, uh, pressured the Guild personnel." Vulcan says slowly and I blink in surprise. Letty shifts as well, raising her head and frowning in confusion. Don't tell me this was the reason why they were treating me with more distance.

"No?" I frown heavily. "Maala was a Wayfarer? She said it herself. And I don't think I have pressured anyone?"

"What?" This time it's Vulcan's turn to look at me in confusion and I can almost see the gears in his head turning. "Was it fabricated then?"

"Maybe? I don't know. What I know is that one certain Wayfarer bitch tried to insert herself between me and Letty, and she killed her." I glance at Letty, who nods her head. "Then we went out of the Guild, and one guy tried to stop me, so I told him off and said that Maala will be reborn soon anyway." I look at the group, now including Daria, who has joined a while ago and has been listening attentively since, among which everyone has thoughtful and fair bit confused expressions on their faces.

With that said, if that was fabricated... who did it? And what for? I would say it could have been Maala, but I doubt she would do something that petty, not to mention it would take incredible effort. And I don't think she has the means to do that, unless she's really wealthy - much more so than my parents - and paid someone to do it for her, which sounds even less probable.

"Oh! I've got it." Xethu says suddenly and I look at her as she is staring intently into a censored panel in front of her. "I see. The previous video has been deleted. There is only a new version where you are shown killing a defenseless fae with the reason being that... you... hrm." She grunts and twists her face in disgusts. "What the fuck? That's disgusting! Who the fuck even has such ideas...? Oh, great, there's another version."

"Better or worse?" I ask in low voice and Xethu's eyes snap to me and dart to the video nervously. "Um, better, but... um... still bad. It's the one I've seen, though that part about a local is debatable." She mutters.

"So there are at least two different groups who want to ruin our reputation. Great. And they sabotaged each other by editing an edited video and not making sure the previous are deleted." Letty says with a sigh and I only now notice she is looking through her own panel, which isn't censored to my eyes, and scrolling through several articles at incredible speed I can't keep up with without accelerating my perception. Damn, that shit is invisible to my magic sense.

"Um, yeah." She continues. "There's like a galaxy-wide discussion about what really happened there, and like half of the people already believe it wasn't either of those scenarios. You're practically a celebrity, Helia."

"Ignore them all." I mutter, leaning back on Letty's shoulder. "Wait till... you know when. Then people will talk."

"Mhm, yeah." Letty nods with a wry smile.

"So you really killed a Wayfarer? I mean, not like I don't believe you, and even the less smelly shit that's here would be hard to believe knowing you, but even killing a Wayfarer is real bad, isn't it? It's like being a PKer, even if it's not formal here." Catherine asks, looking up at me from her position on Xethu's side after looking at her screen for a long while. Wow, she showed it to her? There's something brewing between them, isn't there? Unless I'm reading too much into it, but I doubt it somehow.

"Yup, I killed her." I sigh. "I don't know what's in these videos, and I don't want to know. But I much prefer to kill her and send her a message she can't misunderstand than have a bitch on my heels that wants my attention and tries to convince Letty that I'll dump her just like I dumped Maala." I say and the group looks at me in confusion. "Yup, that's what she accused me of. I don't think I need to explain that I never got close enough to her to dump her."

"...Okay." Vulcan nods. "That sounds weird, honestly. Normally I would probably disapprove of needless killing, but I feel like that was completely reasonable."

"Nothing I can do about her." I shrug lightly. "On that matter, I wonder what the locals' opinion is. I guess we'll see when we get back, but those guys paint a much better picture." I wave my hand to the group of hunters who is currently in the process of burning the man's body.

"Mhm, yeah."

...

"Thank you for your assistance during the mission. You will receive a separate reward for it if you go to the free hunters' building." Grant says politely to Daria as our representative as we are finishing with the whole ordeal.

There was a fair bit of trouble with the assassin and the dead hunter, but it was fortunately resolved without problems after both teams gave their reports. I'm not sure about the exact details, but from what I know Grant hasn't received any official penalty for the hunter's death, and we weren't made into the cause of his death, so everything should be alright on this matter.

The other matter, the reward for the request, is something we've yet to take care of, but that is going to be in another building as we're now in the main office for the regular hunters. We say farewells to Grant and the rest of the team, among which one is still glaring at me with hostility when he thinks I'm not looking, and leave for the street.

"Are we going straight to the Guild?" I ask Daria.

"Um, yeah. Unless you've got something else to take care of?" She looks at me with raised eyebrows.

"Nah, we're free."

So we walk through the rather empty at this time of the day streets, as it is evening when most people are either already home or already not home depending who they are and what they are doing for jobs. Though I can't help but notice distinctly more soldiers and knights, and I mean the army guys, not the guards or the local garrison.

We are attracting a fair amount of stares as well, which isn't a surprise considering there is seven of us and not a single one of us is a human. At best looks like a human, like Daria or to limited extent Crimson.

With that said, I can't help but notice that large number of those gazes is hostile. I wouldn't be surprised if they were wary or apprehensive, but at least one in four is plain hostile. Another thing worth noting is that great majority of the hostile gazes comes from the simple commoners, while hunters mostly grace me with looks of fear or awe. Putting aside the guys ogling us, obviously. We don't talk about that here.

"By the way, we won't be taking any of your reward." I say to the group as we are walking and they turn to me in surprise. "We were only external helpers, weren't we? And we'll have more than enough money from what we collected by ourselves."

Looking at Letty, she seems to get where I am coming from. We still haven't sold the mana stones we got from our visit as far as to Highlands, where we killed even gold monsters. I don't think I need to explain to anyone that a single stone from a gold monster, which we have tens, is worth much more than whatever we would get from a few stones from bronze monsters. Not to mention the mass of those exact smaller stones we have.

"Alright." Daria replies, though not without hesitation.

"Oh, as for Xethu, are you fine with just selling the stones you collected?" I ask, turning to the demon girl.

"Sure. I don't lack money." She shrugs.

"Why does it sound like we're four poor peasants here?" Catherine says quietly.

"You heard her, Daria." I ignore the Wolfkin. "Then we'll go to Black Swan first and you guys join us after you take the reward, alright?"

"Eh, sure. It'll take only a few minutes, as long as there's no line." She replies.

"Great." I nod. "Then see you in a while. We'll get a large table for all of us if there's one free." I say, pulling Letty lightly by her hand I've been holding for a long while, and give a small wave as I change my course from the Hunter's Guild fifty meters or so forward to Black Swan, which is just to the side of the main street we're walking up.

"See you later~!" Catherine waves her hand enthusiastically and runs after the rest of the group, including Xethu, who hesitates for a moment, but eventually nods in my direction and follows Daria.

We walk up to the building, entering the already familiar, bustling with activity room. People eating and chatting over food, someone playing on something resembling a guitar in one corner, waitresses walking around and serving customers, and generally loud, welcoming atmosphere.

"Damn, I feel like I was there at least a month ago. Not a week. Or tenday." I mutter, looking around for any empty tables and quickly spot a large one by the wall, just being swiped by a waitress. I gesture to Letty and she nods, taking the lead to the table.

When she sits down, I give her a quick kiss to the cheek. "I'll be back in a moment." I mutter and go the bar as she nods with a small smile and stretches out her arms.

I sweep the whole area with my magic sense quickly and don't see anything of interest I haven't seen before. A lot of people, like forty on this floor and fifty on the lower, plus some upstairs, most of them weak, below ten units in terms of mana density. No one very interesting, maybe just a hooded guy sitting in the far corner, whose energy feels a bit... dark and dangerous, stronger than mana. And he has horns under his hood. A Mazoku, just like Xethu.

I approach the counter quickly and lean on it lightly, tapping the ground lightly with my leg, and wait for a moment till the keep finishes giving a drink to one guy. He looks like he just returned from a slaughterhouse, and the bartender is hiding his disapproval much better than the other visitors.

"What can I give you?" He asks, turning his head to me and giving me a brief appraising look, but not reacting to my demonic looks. Or hiding it well enough.

"Something you can boast with? I'm not form here." I ask and get a slight feeling of deja vu. I said something similar before, didn't I?

"I can do Devil's Booze, distilled with spicy peppers, but I don't vouch for your state afterwards. Or the classic beer with citrine water and honey. We've a fresh batch of sweet honey from the capitol."

"One of each, then." I say after a moment and he nods, then gets to preparing the drinks. "Anything important happening around here? I hear a legion came from the capitol, and there are more soldiers in the streets."

The bartender glances at me and sighs. "You know about Riverside and Aver's Crossing?" He asks and I nod. "3rd legion came and will stay here till they get to the reason for the attacks. They were definitely coordinated, and some say there were traitors in the guard or in the Guild. Ah, Stone Heart arrived as well."

"Stone Heart?" I ask, curious.

"You don't know? Ah, not from here. Hm, he's a mage, low white in rank. A really powerful man, can build a stone fortress from scratch with a flick of his hand, or so they say. Was sent here to defend if the attack repeated here." He shrugs. "But what do we know? I say it was an accident, some people say there were traitors, some say it's demons' work. No offense of course, 'm not accusing anyone. I'm sure you understand people just don't like demons much here." He places two mugs on the counter. "That will be half a silver coin."

"None taken." I fish out one coin from my inventory and placing it on the counter, then take the drinks in my hand. "And thanks." I nod to the man and turn around, not waiting for him to give the change.

I walk back to the table where Letty is sitting, currently looking around with bored expression, and plop down next to her, placing the two mugs in front of us.

"Again?" Letty mutters with a smile, taking the mug into her hand. "I'll fall into a habit."

"I wouldn't mind." I grin in response, earning myself a joking glare from my girlfriend.

I take a sip of Devil's Booze, barely stopping myself from spitting the drink out and only pausing for a long while before gulping the thing down. I pull it away from my lips and gasp, feeling a hot tingle go down my throat and ease in my stomach. Damn, it's hot alright. Nothing I can't drink, I can quite easily in fact - likely something to do with being a Primordial - but it took me by surprise. I'd say it's on the level of 'slightly more spicy than than the really hot dish I like'.

"What did you get yourself?" Letty asks curiously and looking at me with mirth dancing in her eyes.

"Devil's Booze." I reply with a grin. "Quite strong. And hot."

We lapse into pleasant silence for a while, listening only to the loud atmosphere of the inn.

"When are we going out?" I ask Letty.

"Uh, I dunno." She replies, glancing at me. "We don't have any limit, basically."

"Mhm." I mumble. "...Let's log out for the night." I glance at Letty from the corner of my eye and see her face reddening a bit. "Yeah, that too, if you want." I mutter in low voice and hide my face behind the mug. Not like I need to hide anything.