Chapter 182 – The Nostradamus of Murphy’s Law

Persephone

She was woken by the smell of cooking meat. Feeling sore after a night spent sleeping on the sand, she sat up and saw Lilyth roasting something on the spit they had made the day before.

‘Heeeeeeello,’ Persephone yawned.

‘Morning,’ Lilyth smiled.

‘You didn't have to,’ she pointed at the fire.

‘I mean… in the case the breakfast delivered itself. I have no idea why, but there is a species of bird here which seems to consider me food.’

‘It is probably because you are a Kitsune,’ Persephone mused. ‘They see your ears and that majestic fluffy tail and think you are a fox.’

Lilyth just shook her head at that tail remark, but said nothing.

After breakfast, they went exploring. It was a surprisingly fun experience.

Never had much chance to do that. Mom was insistent that I study magic for the war. Funny how that one went.

Spending sixteen hundred years trapped in a metal obelisk does wonders to one's perspective, doesn't it?

She snuck a peek at Lilyth.

So does almost getting killed a few weeks after being freed.

Persephone sighed to herself. This would be a long journey. One she was weirdly eager to go on.

Lilyth

I sincerely hoped that the tail remark was just a compliment and not some sort of pass at me. I was happily married and didn’t want to jeopardise it. I also still haven't forgotten what she tried to do to me the day before.

Still, having company that wasn't a bloodthirsty monster would be nice.

My mind flashed back to the way Phosi pounced on Persephone. It was absolutely terrifying and made me glad the Sconryoll was, for now, on my side. It made me wonder though.

Was this how I looked to Helrika and Persephone when I lost control?

I didn't want to turn into another Phosi. The world had enough savage beasts. Perhaps, Persephone was a blessing in disguise here.

Then again, she is the one who put me in this situation to begin with.

My unexpected and unscheduled trip wasn’t all that bad though. It did let me get more… attuned to the moods of my new body. After all, for a few days, I REALLY didn't have to care about being the “mostly-human Lilyth”. It was liberating. In fact, after a few days of embracing my slimehood, it was weird to return to eating food normally that morning. At first, it almost felt unnatural. Not to mention inefficient.

At least thanks to Persephone fucking up I will not devolve to the point of being unable to eat with other people in the room.

We came across a town about three hours later. We have been climbing a fairly steep hill for the previous hour and we were both winded. Well… Persephone was, I was just tired. When we emerged from between the trees we saw that we were on a hill overlooking a fairly large port settlement with stone buildings with red tile roofs and a lighthouse. To the North, I could see a field-surrounded hill with a fairly large estate that looked like a mediaeval narcobarón mansion: a garish, vaguely Spanish colonial two-winged manor surrounded by a thick stone wall more suitable for a keep.

I knew the fortifications were likely built with naval artillery in mind, but I couldn't help but think that there was a darker purpose to them.

In general, something felt off about the whole town.

‘Why is there no movement in the port?’ Persephone suddenly asked. I followed her gaze and saw that, indeed, there were no ships in the harbour. Plenty were moored though. Like… there was barely any docking space left.

It’s the middle of the day. Wouldn't many people be out fishing or ferrying cargo. And yet… the port is closed, it seems.

I examined the sky looking for any storm clouds, but couldn’t see any, and since I doubted the narcobarón had access to a weather radar, that couldn't have been the cause.

‘That is an excellent question,’ I said. ‘One we are ill-equipped to answer, I think.’

She gave me a questioning look.

‘We have no money. And should there be fuckery involved, our only means of defence are my knives.’

And since I am apparently the fucking Nostradamus of things going to shit, the fuckery in question was waiting for us at our campsite.

You see, the reason the port was closed was a patrol boat spotting our fire last night and the local warlord was fearing we were spies from a rival “island kingdom”. So he dispatched a unit of his soldiers to capture us.

This wasn't just due to Persephone joining me on my “involuntary vacation”. While there were always patrols around the island, they were recently increased due to the local hunters reporting on strange animal behaviour caused by yours truly. Of course, I wouldn't have to do that to begin with if it weren't for her.

So what I am saying is - for once, what was about to happen was not on me. This fact doesn't make the situation any better, but it just constitutes a nice change of pace.

‘Voices!,’ I whispered to Persephone as we were almost back.

‘What… where… I can't hear anything…’ she whispered back.

‘Campsite. At least three.’

Deciding not to reveal the other reason for the keenness of my senses, I then pointed at my ears, causing her to facepalm.

‘What do we do?’ she asked.

‘We look for a place to hide and stay until whoever that is fucks off.’

She bit her lip and nodded, but as we were about to start walking disaster struck. I stepped on a branch, which snapped in two with a loud crack.

SHIT!

‘Who’s there?!’ one of the men from the beach shouted, instantly dashing any hopes I had that they didn't hear me.

‘It must be them!’ a second man yelled.

Maybe if we are quiet and we quickly find some place to hide…

I heard heavy boots enter the forest from three directions.

We had a choice. Fight, run or surrender. None of the options was particularly appealing or feasible.

If, and it was a big if given how I had Persephone to defend, I managed to kill those men, more would be sent. Probably a lot more. If I fucked up this time around, I doubted their friends would be gentle with us.

Surrender would, maybe, result in better treatment. At least they wouldn't have an extra reason to be rough with us.

Running… Persephone was a baseliner. Not a chance.

The only actual way out was to kill or evade those men, wait for Phosi, steal a boat from the harbour and escape to another island using Phosi Express.

Once again, I could possibly do that if I were alone, and even then, surviving for several days on my own was a long shot.

Diplomacy it is then. Maybe it is just a giant misunderstanding. I mean… we did nothing wrong.

‘We surrender!’ I shouted.

‘What?!’ Persephone asked in disbelief.

‘Got better ideas?’

The chainmail-wearing soldiers were surprised that the people they were looking for were just two women. I lied that the boat we were on sank and we got stranded on the island. I wasn’t sure they bought it, but we were to be taken to the “king”, likely the narcobarón, to sort the mess out.

Did I actually make the correct choice? I thought as we were being ferried by boat to the harbour.

You would think that the answer to the question turned out to be a big fat “no” when I saw that a lot of longshoremen were wearing thick, padlocked iron collars.

Slavers. Of course.

But the answer was actually a resounding “yes”. You see… murder was back on the menu. I wasn’t particularly bothered about being put in any sort of restraints because I was immune to them. So if anything went particularly wrong, the floors of that fucking hacienda would run red with the blood of those cabrons and I wouldn’t lose a second of sleep over it.

As we entered the mansion, I noticed that a lot of the house staff were collared too. It was then that a slight wrinkle appeared in the plan. The jackass in charge, understandably, couldn't see us immediately and we were invited to wait. In cells that reeked of blood and excrement. That didn't have large enough gaps in bars for me to squeeze through. In fact… they were just those small ten-by-twenty centimetres rectangles that seemed to scream “Fuck you, Lilyth”.

I was not entering one of those.

Nope. Fuck that.

Fortunately, our “hosts” didn't seem to consider us much of a threat. We were both women and, seemingly, unarmed. They searched us and everything. Surprisingly gently too, which is what made me initially think that things would be all right.

Anyway, after we entered the manor, our escort shrank from ten to two, and there was only a single extra guard in the gaol.

‘All right then…’ I muttered and summoned my knives.

I sunk Sol into the eye of one of them, and, cheap chainmail and bone not being that great against magic knives, stabbed the other one through the sternum and pierced his heart. I dematerialised the blades, resummoned them and pounced at the shocked prison guard, pushing him to the ground. He tried to scream, but a cut through his vocal cords put an end to that nonsense pretty quick. It also put an end to his life as I cut him deep enough to nick one of his arteries.

I wasn’t in a particularly mercy-killing mood, so I got up, leaving him desperately trying to stem the bleeding, and looked at Persephone, who had mostly checked out around by that point. She was staring at me with a gaping mouth.

‘Y-you killed them,’ she finally stammered out.

I pointed at the cells with Luna.

‘Not gonna willingly go into one of those. Do you know how to fight?’

‘Not without magic,’ she sagged.

I nodded, my irritation with Persephone reaching its zenith.

‘Hide,’ I told her, as I heard someone approaching the gaol.

The bitch would have to fend for herself for the time being, as I was done protecting her.

This whole fucking mess was her fault, and I would not get myself killed by keeping her safe.

Not waiting to see if she was actually doing anything, I moved to stand by the thick door. From my side, it was a pull door, so when it began to open, and I saw a chainmail-clad arm, I wheeled around the frame and tackled the guard to the ground.

‘ALARM!’ someone shouted as I was about to ram my knives into the slaver’s chest.

It threw me off long enough for the guard to place his thick arms on my chest and push me off.

Even without magic I was faster than him and just as he managed to recover I lunged at him, running him through, likely mortally wounding him, but he was not out of the fight just yet as he delivered a powerful backhand to the side of my head, staggering me.

Alarm bells began sounding throughout the building making it harder for me to both concentrate and hear.

I didn't need my enhanced senses to get past this corridor though. I rolled to the side, resummoned my knives, still stuck in the guard's chest and immediately cut at the back of his knee, sending him to the ground.

I heard two pair of boots run down the stairs leading to the gaol. Their owners turned out to be two more guards. They were wielding crossbows.

Sorry, fuckos. Last time they had to use caseless ammo at point blank range to take me down.

I began charging towards them, which clearly wasn’t in their script. To make things worse for them the bells stopped. It would take a moment for my insides to settle, but I still managed to hear them start to press the triggers.

This was where the [Swiftness of the Wind] would have been handy, as I wasn't quite fast enough to fully move out of the flight path of the bolts and one of them pierced my side, lodging itself in my body and xausing me to wince from pain.

That gave me a chance for some psychological warfare. I stopped, pulled the bolt out of my body, showed it to them, smiled, dropped the projectile and resumed my charge, as if nothing had just happened.

‘Wh-what are you?’ one of the crossbowmen shouted, his brain likely short circuiting from the sight.

‘Your death,’ I replied and drove a knife sideways into his neck.

I pushed him at the second crossbowman and looked at the alarm-shouter who was standing there, his truncheon at the ready, though I could see him casting dubious glances at it.

Seeing that his buddies were out of the way, he swung it at me. Almost effortlessly, I parried the strike with one of my knives and sent the bastard into Ereshkigal's embrace with a stab to the side of his chest that pierced his lung and heart.

By that point, the second crossbowman has almost finished disentangling himself from the soon-to-corpse of his friend.

This won't do.

This won't do at all.

‘Please, don’t!’ he managed to shout before I pounced on him.

Six down. A gajillion more to go.