Chapter 77: Back in the Thick of Things

 “Are those guards following us?”

Dys looked over her shoulder at the two city guards that had been trailing her and her other selves since she’d left the inn. One was a human woman, the other a male elf, but other than that she couldn’t make out much else about their looks with how far back they were. They both carried spears and shields and wore the same white and blue surcoats over armor as the rest of the city guards she’d seen in Far Felsen.

“Definitely,” Dys confirmed, causing Aila to frown.

“Why?” her companion asked as she adjusted one of the straps on her light armor.

They were outside the city walls by a few hundred feet, having done all they set out to do in preparation for their hunt. The day was still young, the time mid-morning at the latest, and Jadis had high hopes of slaying a large number of demons throughout the day and hopefully getting Aila to her twentieth level and secondary class.

That was, of course, unless these guards interfered for some reason.

“I don’t know,” Jay said with a hard look on her face. “But I’ll go find out.”

Breaking away from Aila and her other selves, Jay turned and jogged back towards the two guards who were following them just far enough back that Jadis couldn’t hear anything they might be saying to each other, and presumably they couldn’t hear her and Aila talking. Though with the elf’s ears, she wasn’t sure about that particular detail.

“Hey! What’s up?” Jay asked as she stopped a few paces away from the two guards who had come to a stop when they saw her approach. “Just going to cut straight to the point here—Why are you two following us?”

The woman glanced nervously at the elf. It was hard to read her expression under the helmet, but Jadis could tell by body language at least that the guard was anxious. About what, she couldn’t be sure, but the way she kept turning her head towards the giant mallet slung over Jay’s shoulder seemed like a good hint about what could be causing her distress.

The elf man looked far more relaxed and in control, his posture and expression not betraying any sense of nervousness. Jadis could see just a little more of his face due to the unique shape of his helmet. She guessed the elves needed something a little more open to make room for their ears. His blue skin reminded her of Vraekae, though his eyes were yellow instead of red.

“Orders, ma’am,” the elf said in clipped tones. “We’re to stay close and make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Stay out of trouble?” Jay repeated, one eyebrow raised. “There’s some concern that I or my sisters will be causing trouble?”

“No ma’am,” the elf gave a single shake of his head, his eyes looking steadily up at hers. “We’re to make sure no trouble befalls you or the other two,” he corrected, gesturing with his spear towards where Dys, Syd, and Aila were waiting on ahead.

Huh. Jadis hadn’t expected that answer. Why would the guards be ordered to guard her from trouble? Just as she was about to ask, the realization struck her. She was a Nephilim. The last of a supposedly extinct race, something the magistrate had personally confirmed and had said the second prince of the empire would likely take an interest in. Vraekae even knew about her class, how she really was just one last Nephilim, not three.

It seemed to her that Vraekae was making sure the rare, exotic animal that had just wandered into town wasn’t going to kick the bucket before she had a chance to show said rare animal to her superior.

Jay put one fist on her hip and gave the elf a flat look. “You do know that we’re registered independent mercenaries, right? We’re about to go hunt down demons and shit.”

“Yes ma’am,” the elf nodded once and said no more.

Jay’s lips thinned. “We’re trying to get experience points. We don’t want two uninvited guests draining any away.”

“We have orders to not interact or interfere unless our intercession is necessary,” he calmly replied, pointedly ignoring Jay’s obvious annoyance.

Flipping her stare to the female guard, Jay held back a snort as the woman visibly flinched when her eyes fell on her.

“Fine, then. But you two better stay back. And we’re not carrying either of you if you can’t keep up.”

“Ma’am,” the guard said, though whether that word was meant as an acceptance of what she said or just an acknowledgement that she’d said it Jadis couldn’t tell.

“Hmph. Your time I guess,” Jay said before jogging off and rejoining Aila and her other selves.

Jadis had no need to repeat what had been said, Syd having repeated the conversation to Aila in whispers as it happened.

“I’m guessing the magistrate assigned them to guard you since you’re a Nephilim,” Aila said after Jay had regrouped. “She can’t put you under house arrest since you haven’t done anything wrong, so instead she’s given you a protection detail.”

“See, that’s one of many reasons I like you, Blue,” Syd said with a grin. “That big brain of yours. You caught on way quicker than I did.”

Aila shrugged. “Makes sense, actually. You might literally be the last of your race. If I were in her place, I’d probably lock you up regardless of law, just to be safe.”

“Would you?” Dys raised an eyebrow at the admission. “Lock us up? With chains and whips and other fun things?”

“What?” Aila looked confused for a second until she saw the lascivious grin on her face. “Oh, shut your mouth you pervert.”

“For now,” Jay said with her own sly grin. “But we’ll talk more about the ways in which you’d lock us up and what you’d do with us later.”

Before Aila could indignantly protest any further, Jay passed her mallet to Dys and swept the flustered redhead up into her arms.

“Let’s see if those two can keep up with a moderate pace,” Dys growled as they set off to the northwest.

Jadis didn’t sprint, but she set off at a speed faster than a jog, for her at least. With her agility still overlayed with her eldritch stat, the speed she was hitting even when not going all out was still making her hair fly in the wind. She couldn’t guess how fast she was for sure, but the way Aila clutched to her neck made her assume it was far faster than the reserved woman was used to going.

Checking behind her, the two guards were tiny figures in the distance even after only a minute of running. From what she could see, they were likely sprinting to try and keep up, but it didn’t look like they would be able to.

“Hope they know how to track,” Syd snickered as the two guards were left behind, lost from sight as the many hills of the land around them hid them from view.

Out of sight and out of mind, Jadis stopped thinking about the guards and instead focused on finding any demons that might be prowling the countryside. There was a road that led northwest towards another large settlement, according to Aila, and Jadis followed it roughly without actually staying on it. Instead, she weaved back and forth through the hills, checking the valleys for any demons or signs that they had been present recently. It took roughly a half hour, but eventually they came across a band of twisted wretches.

Eight of the malformed demons were marching up through a valley that led towards what looked like a natural cove along the sea. Jadis couldn’t see into the cove and couldn’t guess what the demons had been doing there, but they were leaving, heading in the direction of the road.

“No sign of rock monsters,” Jay said as she set Aila down.

“No, looks like it’s just wretches,” Aila confirmed. “But don’t let your guard down. We don’t know how strong they are. One or two might be higher level than the others, that’s not uncommon.”

“It’d be nice to have one of those detection stones,” Syd commented as she readied her lance.

“It’s on my list of necessary items, once I’ve got the coin saved for it,” Aila said. “For now, just be careful.”

“Will do,” Dys agreed before leaning down and planting a kiss on Aila’s cheek. “We’ll try to keep a couple of them alive so you can get the killing blow.”

Aila nodded at Dys’ statement, tightening her grip on her quarterstaff.

“Just don’t put yourself at unnecessary risk.”

“Roger that,” Jay said as she took her mallet from Dys and started heading towards the band of demons.

“Who?” Aila called after the trio as Jadis broke into a sprint, rushing down the side of the valley towards the wretches who had finally spotted them and were starting to squeal wildly as they brandished their rusted weapons.

In moments the battle was engaged.

Syd led the charge with her lance, the long point of it burying deep into one of the boar-like wretches as it tried to dodge out of the way but didn’t have the speed to. Much to Jadis’ surprise, the lance went right through the wretch, piercing it like a hot knife through butter, only to catch another one behind the first, smashing the two together. Syd’s momentum carried her all the way up to the stuck pigs and she slammed into them, almost tripping and falling over as she struggled to maintain her footing.

She found that instead of just killing the demons in one blow, she’d pierced through their torsos and had picked them up like some kind of demented kabob, carrying the squealing abominations forward as she continued her charge. The closer of the two jabbed its sword against Syd’s chest, scraping uselessly against the solid metal armor there, but the rear demon had a spear and managed to cut at Syd’s arm as it struggled wildly to get free from the lance it had been skewered on.

Not sure what else to do with her package, Syd angled the tip of the lance down and shoved it deep into the sloped side of the hill opposite from where her charge had started from, then let go of the lance. Backing off, she saw that the two were stuck in place, at least momentarily, as their feral struggles to get free worked against each other.

As Syd thought of what to do, Jay and Dys crashed through the remaining six demons, their mallet and maul breaking limbs and shattering bones with every swing. None of the demons had weapons with enough reach to get close as the two swung their weapons in tandem, knocking wretches down and crippling them, if not outright killing them.

 One wretch reared its head back and opened its mouth in a familiar gesture. Before it could spew its payload of noxious acid, Jay pivoted and slammed her mallet down on the demon’s head with enough force to put its skull into its chest cavity.

“None of that fuckery!” Jay snarled as the dead wretch collapsed to the ground.

While the two demons started making progress on extracting themselves from their pinned condition, Syd dashed towards her other two selves where they were decimating the other demons and snatched up a spear from one of the dead. Turning and taking aim, she hurled the spear at the foremost demon, putting the rusted weapon square into the wretch’s chest.

“Ha! Aim’s getting better! Thank you twenty-seven dexterity,” Syd crowed.

Having been struck through a second time, the squealing pig demon finally expired, becoming a useless weight helping to hold the second demon in place.

With a meaty thwack from Dys’ makeshift maul, the last of the still ambulatory demons was crushed. Four were dead outright, three were broken and barely alive, and the last was still squealing and struggling where it was pinned to the earth by Syd’s lance.

The whole fight took less than a minute.

“Alright, should be safe, come on down!” Dys called for Aila where she waited further up the hill.

“You’re something else to watch,” Aila said as she approached. “I don’t think you realize just how unusual it is that you are able to take that many wretches down that quickly by yourself.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m the biggest and the strongest. I don’t even exercise,” Syd shrugged with palms raised up and a cheeky grin.

While Jadis giggled at her own reference, Aila just shook her head at the incomprehensible giant and set about doing her own part. The quarterstaff she’d brought wasn’t the best implement for executing downed demons, so instead she took up one of the fallen wretch’s axes and methodically put the three partially crushed demons out of their misery.

The last demon Jay had to help finish off as it was still wildly struggling.

“I’m going to need a lot more practice with this thing,” Syd said as she pulled the lance free from the hill and the two dead demons with Dys’ help to slide the wretches off the shaft.

“Yes, or we need to ask Sabina to add a crossbar to the end,” Aila pointed out. “Turn it into more of a boar spear. Or we could—”

Aila wasn’t able to finish her recommendation as a whistling sound of something large flying through the air caught Jadis’ attention. Reacting instinctively, Jay grabbed hold of Aila and leapt to the side as Dys and Syd jumped away from where they were standing.

A massive globule of water the size of a minivan slammed into the ground where they had been standing a second later, sending crushed bits of twisted demon flesh and other debris flying in all directions. Some piece of stone or wood turned shrapnel struck Dys’ temple, drawing blood, while a piece of demon flesh slapped wetly against Syd’s shoulder hard enough to send her spinning, though the pauldron did its job and kept her from any serious harm.

“The fuck was that?” Jay demanded, looking for the source of the watery explosion.

It didn’t take long for her to find an answer as she spotted another huge globe of water hurtling through the air in their direction, coming from the beach at the south end of the valley. A massive shadowy form was crawling up from the shadows of the cove, arcane magical symbols already swirling around its bulbous head as it prepared to launch another spell at them.

“I am really starting to miss the bone thieves,” Jay grumbled as she picked up Aila and ran out of the way of the incoming water bomb.

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