Under the gleaming night sky, in the mountains that acted as a natural protective barrier for Atrila, was a single hunter, letting out a sigh while lowering their oversized weapon. Mavis reached out to grab another great arrow from the pile next to her. She had brought a total of five shots, and so far had only fired three.
Initially, her goal was to distract the Queen enough for the low-ranking cultists to infiltrate the castle and swoop Saya away to safety. Killing the former Witch of Glaciation was beyond anyone’s capabilities, let alone hers.
But those plans were burned to ashes when she laid eyes upon the blue-haired mage who stood in the middle of the city and had used an amount of magical energy that Mavis herself had never seen throughout her life, even from someone like her own boss.
Now, during the aftermath of their failed invasion, Saya Idlansil was laid out on the ground, in a puddle of her own blood leaking out of her now cauterized shoulder. In her defenseless position, killing her off would have been like finishing off a paralyzed animal, but she had been given strict orders not to execute such an act.
Of course, it wasn’t out of kindness, but simply for her master’s entertainment. Her eyes narrowed toward the castle. Even with her keen sight, she couldn’t tell if any of the fifty cultists who had infiltrated the castle had escaped alive.
Some barely made it out with a missing limb or two, but they were finished off quickly afterward. Though they weren’t useless, they were far from being as skilled as herself and the other notable names in the cult.
“An error on my part,” she muttered while organizing the last of her arrows, bundling them all together under a leather mat. She raised both ends, and tying them up with a rope.
“Are you sure we don’t have to take action ourselves?”
“Mother Tella.”
She asked while keeping her gaze still and forward, as if talking to the air itself. The wind howled ever so quietly, making it seem like it was responding to Mavis’ question. But just then, a sparkle of blue magical energy shone at the edge of her sight.
Bare footsteps slapped against the cold, damp soil with a wet squelch. The emerging silver hair acted like a beacon in the dark, shimmering with a metallic luster that rivaled the moonlight overhead.
Her overgrown hair trailed behind her, sliding over the mud and roots with a ghostly hiss, yet the strands remained unnaturally pristine, not a single speck of grit or crawling insect clinging to the fibers.
A light, melodic giggle serenaded the silence of the woods. Quintella stepped out from the dense shadows of the bushes, emerging directly behind Mavis. Her small, delicate frame was swallowed by the scale of the forest, her head barely reaching the midpoint of the gnarled trunk beside her.
“You’re smarter than that, Mavis!”
“If I went in there now, I’d reveal myself to good ol’ Viera.”
“And if she warns Ocky about me, then the fun’s going to be spoiled completely!”
Wrapping her arms around Mavis, Quintella leaned in for a hug, her cheek touching the cold surface of Mavis’ neck. Her actions came not from love or admiration for the cultists, but to calm herself as much as possible.
While every other cultist referred to her as “mother”, only Mavis had the mental capacity and sanity to distance herself from the monster embracing her as much as possible, which was what drew Quintella’s attention even more.
Being a woman of few words, she never expressed any form of discomfort or annoyance towards Quintella’s actions, but from her body movement alone, it was painfully obvious that her mere presence made the hunter extremely uncomfortable.
“Mother Tella?” Her tone was as bare as always, not a hint of emotion coating her words.
“Ahhh, it was such a show.”
“I never expected her to do something so crazy, especially when it could have killed her.”
“I’ll admit, I was this close to helping her, but she managed to set off her spell just fine.”
“Well, I suppose I did still interfere by saving her life.”
She chuckled as she pressed her cheek against Mavis’, nuzzling into her with deliberate affection and a chilled pressure that felt like smooth marble. Quintella let out short squeals and chuckles of joy, her body growing hotter and hotter with each time her head stroked against the seemingly unmoved hunter.
Mavis remained kneeling. Her posture remained unflustered, and her hands stayed where they were, resting neatly against her lap.
Mavis remained kneeling and unwavering. To Quintella’s disdain, there was no visceral physical reaction, or even a flinch from her, which frustrated her greatly. Mavis’ hands stayed exactly where they were, resting neatly against her lap. It took all the willpower within her to not tremble even once.
She neither leaned into the touch nor pulled away from it. Her gaze was steady and unreadable, as if the warmth pressed against her cheek were nothing more than a passing breeze. But to the bow-woman, this was less about fear of disrespecting her boss and more about her own personal nature.
“Couldn’t you have brought her here after healing her? Why go through all this trouble if we were going to let her go?”
Her question came not from frustration, but from genuine confusion. She had no problem utilizing large amounts of magical energy for a fake-out. They had done something similar many times in the past.
But with how much Quintella mentioned Oktavia, she was sure that her boss would do whatever it took to bring the girl with her, especially since she had decided to make a personal appearance herself.
Waving her hand dismissively, Quintella responded, “I wanted you two to bring her back to me because I wanted to see what she’d do afterward. If I took her away in the current state she’s in, then I highly doubt anything interesting would happen.”
“Humans change into completely different beings when they’re faced with pressure, danger, and heaps of adrenaline. That’s what I wanted to see today.”
“Also, this is a completely new route for me. Out of eighty loops, she hasn’t recalled this soon, nor developed this fast.”
“It’s only natural that I get curious.”
“Besides, if I get too excited, I risk getting my trail revealed to Eudoxia.”
Mavis turned her attention back to the now-busy city as streaks of green vortexes rushed through the streets and alleyways, wind fizzing upward. Explosive sounds produced from Hana kicking the air reached as far as the mountains, the blood, dust, and mud from the aftermath of battle all springing upward, cleansing the entire city.
Although the physical damage was something that would be very easily removed, the mental and emotional scars were entirely different.
“Look at our lil’ Sword Saint, such a hard worker.”
“Even after being hit with all that power, she still has enough strength to zyoooom all over the place.”
Letting go of her grip on Mavis, Quintella released her as she had grown bored of a toy, her fingers slipping away without hesitation.
She pivoted lightly on her heel, her overgrown shirt flaring in a soft arc as she twirled with effortless grace. The motion was unhurried, almost playful, as if she were dancing to music only she could hear.
A loose strand of hair followed half a beat behind her turn, catching the light before settling back against her shoulder. Without sparing Mavis another glance, Quintella began walking in the opposite direction.
“Mother Tella,” Mavis called out, her eyes scanning before and behind her.
“Where’s Lucia?”
Quintella stopped. Though Mavis was staring at the back of her head, she could feel the miasma of a vile leader radiating from her. In the past, their missions often led to success one after another, with very few records of failure. Even in such cases where their missions were incomplete, there were rarely any occasions that required interference from the very top.
The time the group returned from Kala had been the first time they faced punishment from their leader. But now Quintella’s objectives had clearly changed, no longer desiring the book that she had tortured them so much for misplacing.
Technically, the mission was a failure. Unfortunately, despite the mission and objective changing, the fact remained that they had lost countless devoted cultists in the raid. Plus, they were not able to capture and extract the one target they were aiming for, and with that in mind, Quintella had made the easy decision to punish the one person who hadn’t done her job properly.
“I took and abandoned her in Zhesper.”
Quintella continued walking, her small frame vanishing into the shadows.
“Failures who can’t do the simplest of tasks don’t deserve to live, don’t you think?”
“Though, I feel like what they’re about to do to her will be a fate worse than death.”
Sadistic laughter rang through the mountains bouncing off the cliffs before rolling down toward the resting city below. Even after it faded, a faint echo lingered in the night air.