1

They say that no news is good news. Unless we’re talking about those whose entire business is about causing bad news. They might say that the absence of bad news, the unavoidable by-product of the trade, is—while good news to most others—especially bad news for themselves. If only we could conjure a category of news even worse than bad news are, and which wouldn’t be good news to anyone at all, then we might begin to understand the situation unfolding in the port city of Verdice.

Situated roughly forty miles southeast from Mescala, in the southern Melgier, Verdice was not a dirty, rundown shack hub, but a proper merchant city fattened by trade, raised on the banks of the river Pheil. The river coursed far inland, deep and broad, and allowed for the shipment of cargo to various other towns and cities along the way, which had no direct sea access themselves. As the larger older brother of Mescala, Verdice shared all of the former’s good points, as well as most of the bad points, and then some.

As could be surmised, Mr Lloyd’s establishment was but a humble side branch of a larger organization, one willful head of the mythical hydra, which lay stretched in the shadows cast by the civilized world. Faithful to the expression, it often seemed in the eyes of the floundering law enforcement that where one head was cut off, two more would immediately take its place, and there could be no end to the battle.

But this was only a—deliberately induced—illusion, of course.

People could be replaced, slaves recaptured, facilities rebuilt, but it was always going to take time and resources. No earthly operator, whether in the service of personal interest, or the common good, could ever draw such resources out of nothing in limitless supply. It was a challenge to find capable professionals in any given field, and recruiting adept henchmen for illegal corporations, with such unhealthy career prospects, was particularly grueling.

Personnel changes were the primary cause to why Mr Elidibiah Mensigh was growing gray hair tonight. Not that he had any real hair on his scalp, growing or graying. He’d recently received the news that Mr Loyd, a colleague he had trained from the ground up, had been found dead and his shop in Mescala was wrecked, and absolutely nothing else had come from that direction since. It was certainly far from the sort of news that you’d call good, even by the standards of a crime lord. But Lloyd’s setback was only one chunk of hard snow in the sea of icebergs these days.

The pirate hunt, which had started in Efastopol and Tratovia, was fast spreading from region to region across the continent, heedless of national borders. Discontent commoners were taking up arms, seeing their chance to avenge past offenses, and it wasn’t looking pretty. This movement had already ceased to be strictly a “pirate hunt”. Now that they had gotten started, the theft of a lamb was about enough to earn the title of pirate king before the less educated minister of justice. Many necks both thick and narrow were decorated with hempen ties, available trees bearing many a meaty fruit, and it was better for self-aware scoundrels to keep a low profile, for the time being.

Mensigh was determined to do just that.

He hadn’t poked his nose out of the safe house in well over a week. Yet, he was never a man who could sit still for long, but a hard-working soul, already busily thinking about how to best fill the emerging job openings in the industry. He had a good motivator too. Only this very morning, a Confederate Captain had sailed to port from Harm’s Haven, and she would doubtless want to see Mensigh’s contingency plan sooner rather than later. It was a little odd that no such requests had come in yet, but the higher ups were undoubtedly busy too. Thieving companies, slave shops, brothels, fraudsters, spies, peddlers, and more virtuous cover agencies—it was a big conglomerate to manage. But counting on being forgotten was useless. Mensigh had to be ready when the time should come. Lloyd was only one of the many shop managers he had under him, and he had to answer for them all. It was going to mean a lot of sleepless nights for a while, but such was life.

Sitting in his windowless underground office, Mensigh gripped his quill and dedicated his time to quiet paperwork, even as midnight neared. Considering his tight schedule and the mountain of work yet to do, the kingpin had made it clear to all his underlings that he was not to be disturbed, save in the extreme sort of an emergency. He hated interruptions, especially when he was stressed—and don’t we all?

Yet, a disturbance came.

A sudden bang sounded from the sturdy metal door ahead, causing Mensigh to spill a drop of ink on the parchment under his hands. Shortly after, the door slightly opened and one of the bodyguards, Lugh, pushed his head in.

“Sir, there’s someone here to see you,” the man announced.

It didn’t sound like the extreme sort of an emergency.

“I’m not seeing anybody!” Mensigh shouted, looking for a napkin to dry the ink drop with, at the same time re-labeling Lugh in his mind as “expendable”. Yet, even after being given such an excellent cue to remove himself at once, Lugh’s coarse head wouldn’t vanish from the doorway.

“But...She says she brings word from Mescala. On Mr Lloyd,” he insisted.

It was now that Mensigh looked up.

Lloyd was one of his own, he had to care—so he reasoned his involuntary reaction to himself.

“This woman, she says Mr Lloyd’s still alive and in hiding,” Lugh continued, encouraged by his employer’s silence. “And that she has a message from him. But says she’ll only give it to you in person, sir. What should we do?”

“Who is it?” Mensigh now asked, taking great care not to seem too agreeable.

Lugh shrugged. “I don’t know. Some broad. Never seen her before.”

Without flinching, Mensigh stared back at the henchman. You wouldn’t send a new face on an errand at this level. It was suspicious. If it was a plot by the Town Guard, he’d make them regret it. But that was not likely. To know where to find Mensigh on this night, to ask for him by name, the stranger had to be intimately acquainted with Lloyd and his business. And Lloyd knew better than to tell investigators—or any living soul—who he was working for, unless he truly trusted the other person.

The story seemed somewhat plausible. Mensigh made his decision.

“Bring her in.”

Whoever it was, things would be made clear soon enough.

In a moment, two guards brought the woman in, escorted by another two, and Lugh. They’d put a black sack over her head and bound her hands tightly behind the back. While her head was fully covered like this and she wore a rather unfeminine outfit, the pronounced shapes of her body made her sex apparent. She came in without resisting and was made to sit on the empty chair directly in front of Mensigh’s desk.

Lugh came forward, carrying a large object in his arms.

“She had this on her,” he explained, hauling the object onto the table with visible effort, and a deep clang. It was a sword. An enormous sword, with a wide, mirror-clear blade, and evidently weighty.

Mensigh gave his guards each a questioning look, but they could offer no explanations. Then, he nodded at Lugh to take off the sack, which he did. If the woman was working for Lloyd, or the Boss, then being seen didn’t matter. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t live to see sunrise after the sight of his face.

The sack yanked off her head, Izumi drew a deep breath.

“You might want to wash that,” she suggested, nodding at the cloth in Lugh’s hands.

“Who are you?” Mensigh asked her, not feeling humorous.

“You first,” Izumi told him. “Are you the boss around here? I do have some juicy intel I’d like to share with you, gentlemen, but I can’t give it to just anybody. I need to make sure.”

Mensigh did his best to be patient. He crossed his fingers and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the rough desk, on which the lamplight flickered, and told her,

“You’re going to tell me, right now, who the fuck you are…or I’ll cut you open like a fish. Your choice.”

He did his best to articulate as slowly and clearly as he reasonably could, to leave no room for misunderstandings or grating arguments.

“Hm-hm.” Izumi nodded in approval. “That does sound reasonably bossy, all right. Not last boss-tier, to be honest with you—but fairly high level. I’m sure you did your best, and have a lot of evil deeds on your conscience, but I don’t think you’re the one I’m looking for. What a shame.”

Mensigh furrowed his thick brow in confusion. His threats weren’t always entirely effective, even if unfailingly earnest and deadly, but this had to be the most absurd reaction he’d received to date. Recovering, he nodded at Fuller and Banning, who stood behind the woman. Very familiar with the proceedings, the two men stepped forward, to add the necessary physical element to the questioning.

“Gram,” Izumi cited and lifted her elbows up and sideways. Snapping her binds, she reached forward and caught the handle of the Amygla on the table. She then leaned back, tilted her chair to stand on the rear legs. Balancing in such a position, she kicked off the floor and spun around, neatly like a top, swinging the greatsword along. Half a second later, she had traveled a full circle, her chair firmly on the floor facing Mensigh again, her sword resting on her lap.

Behind her, Fuller and Banning sank onto the floor without a sound, cut wide open above the hips. Lugh, who stood too close to the left, discovered that there was likewise a crimson waterfall oozing out of his cleaved side. Stumbling back, he slipped in the spreading splatters, fell with a feeble sigh, and wouldn’t get up again.

“Now then!” Izumi said, smiling wide. “You’re going to tell me who’s your boss, or I’ll cut you open like a fish!”

Mensigh was having none of that. He jumped up from his chair, shocked as well as enraged, ready to roar for more guards. Izumi didn’t wait for it. She lifted her knee and kicked the corner of the heavy desk, knocking it over on the villain. Mensigh fell down with a grunt, buried under the furniture. The two remaining guards lunged at Izumi, trying to grab her, but were far too slow to act. She turned back and her blade drew a neat V-curve in the lamp light, both of the rogues dissected in one seamless move. Not sparing the downed another look, she stepped on top of the overturned desk, pinning the struggling crime lord under it.

By now, Mensigh could recognize that the conditions were sorely against him and he changed his tone completely. He wouldn’t have made it as far up in the hierarchy, if he didn’t possess the necessary situational awareness, and a healthy survival instinct.

“Look,” he told the woman, trying in vain to drag himself out from under the desk, “whatever they’re paying you, I’ll pay you a lot more.”

“What did I tell you?” Izumi answered, squatting on top of him. “Definitely not last boss-tier.”

“Wh...What do you want?” The criminal changed tactics. “Not money? Something else? Just tell me. Let’s—let’s talk.”

“You have very poor memory,” she replied, and all humor had left her tone and expression. “I asked you, who are you working for? Who’s the boss of all the bosses? Who’s on top of this poop pyramid? Who calls the shots? Who pays the bills? All I want is the name and where I can find them and I want it now, now, now, now, now, now, now, hey, hey, are you listening to me? Huuh!”

Mensigh shut his eyes and averted his face in horror, pinned flat between the desk and the floor. He knew he shouldn’t. It was the one thing you didn’t do in this business—you didn’t talk, even if you were boiled alive. If he squealed, there was no doubt she was going to go to that place next and get herself either killed or captured. And then they were going to want to know who spilled the beans. He’d be in for a world of pain after that. But he was terrified. How long had it been since he had last been so intimidated another person? No, was she actually even human? What she had just done wasn’t something people could typically do. Maybe it was better to worry about the ramifications afterwards? There were more imminent risks.

Izumi stood and held out her sword in one hand, pointing the gleaming tip down at Mensigh’s face.

“Want me to remodel your nose?” she asked. “I’ll doodle a mustache on you!”

“—The Tarantula!” Mensigh grunted, hoping he didn’t sound too cowardly. “Captain Qi Weler! Everything north of the Bay is hers, she’s in charge of the operation! She’s at the Crimson Lotus, tonight! You’ll find her!”

“Ten points for Gryffindor!” Izumi declared, spinning her sword back to upright orientation, and turned to leave.

Relief spread through his chest like liquid honey, and Mensigh sighed discreetly in relief.

Too soon. Before departing, Izumi dropped her elbow and the Amygla fell like the guillotine’s blade, decapitating the man clean along the table’s edge with no perceivable resistance.

2

The gangsters' hideout was constructed in the basement of an outwards reputable-looking inn. Judging by the size of the four-story building, the cover business was prosperous on its own, but there was a problem. Though she had picked such a late time to make her move, the place wasn’t completely empty. The only way in and out of the underground areas was through the first floor tavern hall. The moment Izumi would show herself, alone and unbound, the remaining security in the hall were no doubt going to want to know why. As could be surmised by Mensigh’s outer persona, it was very unusual for someone taken to the basement in binds to come back out so soon on their own, and not in an unmarked bag in the dark of the night.

First from there, they would send someone to see Mensigh himself, and double-check if the visitor truly was permitted to leave. In so doing, they would find the corpses Izumi hadn’t bothered to cover and come back up, making a lot of noise. Not only would she have a horde of scoundrels after her, someone might also slip away to warn the next target.

That was no good at all.

There was only one way to avoid it coming to that.

The first thing Izumi did when she came out of the basement stairs, was look around the hall and carry out a cursory count. She saw the moustached barkeep to her left, wiping tankards behind the long wood counter, greeting her with a suspicious look. Four customers sat at the round tables that filled the floor space, towards the entrance in the back—no, five of them. Three who looked like mercenaries, lightly armed and armored, and two noncombatants, a woman with the mercenaries, and an older man in the back. Not much of a crowd. Even the waiters had been sent home for the day.

Then there was a table of goons in the southeast corner. Bouncers on Mensigh’s paylist, judging by their uniform outfits. Rough fellows in dark, bearing curving daggers on their belts. Six of them. One now got up and quietly headed towards the doorway behind Izumi, all the while scowling at her with distinct doubt. As expected.

Izumi kicked the basement door close behind her and moved on. The man’s frown grew deeper, but he wouldn’t reach for his dagger yet. His mistake. As they were about to pass each other by, Izumi snatched the sword handle sticking up over her shoulder, took a casual, turning step, and swept the man off his feet. His legs cut apart, he landed on the floor. Before he could howl out in agony, his mouth already wide open, she stepped back and cut down at his neck to silence him for good.

There was only one way she was going to avoid starting a chaos. Before the gangsters could alert their comrades outside, they had to die.

They all had to die.

All of them.

The tavern sprung to life. The other bouncers jumped up to their feet, toppling their chairs, and whipped out their daggers. The mercenaries at the table further back likewise stood, watching on with alarm. The lady with them let out a shriek and ducked under the table, covering her head. The lone civilian further apart took similarly swift cover, without a word. Following suit, the barkeep as well vanished under the counter with rehearsed smoothness.

Maybe this kind of thing happened a lot?

Izumi twirled her blade to shake off the blood and put it away on her back, walking steadily on. The sword was too cumbersome in close quarters, against multiple opponents, and using runes tired her out. She had another long night ahead of her. It was better to hold back and get by with minimum effort.

Assuming a customary boxing stance, covering her head with her arms, Izumi faced the upcoming villains. Waiting for them to get closer, she then slipped in front of the forerunner with a quick sliding step. The man stabbed down at her in a hurry, but her block received his wrist, endured the force, and the dagger failed to reach where it was aimed. Turning the blade hand away, she countered with an uppercut in the bottom of the man’s jaw. He stumbled backwards, but she pulled him back by the collar and punched him again in the eye, flooring him.

Fights rarely went as planned. For such a large man, he dropped much too quickly. Izumi had hoped to use him for a shield a little longer and get his weapon, but he dropped flat at her feet after only two hits, and the other rogues were upon her. She quickly abandoned him and took a step sideways.

A dagger sliced across, coming from the right. Izumi leaned left to evade but her cheek received a shallow cut. Enduring the searing pain on her face, she let it pass unavenged, and turned her focus at the stab coming from the left, targeting her ribs. She reached across, caught the attacker’s wrist with her right hand and took a turning step towards him. Passing deep into the man's arms like a partner in a dance, she smacked her left elbow in his face with a crack. She tried to steal his dagger as he reeled, but his grip held firm. She stomped on his toes in a hurry, which worked better. Tearing the weapon from his fingers, she swung back at his neck and then sprung forward to confront the next one. Not waiting for the opponent to make his move, she drove the blade hilt-down into the chest of the villain. The glint of murder and rage persisting in his eyes said he wasn’t going to give up with just that. His hand kept moving, despite the deadly wound, bringing the blade down. Izumi parried with her elbow, pulled out her dagger, and cut up, opening his neck, and was then already moving on to receive the next customer, all the while voicelessly chiding herself for her clumsiness. She had started to rely too much on magic as of late. The convenient power-ups had dulled her edge in a regular fight. Humans were slower than monsters, less determined, less effective. Being in too much of a hurry to end things spoiled her timing. She was too impatient, tense. She was getting tired too, her focus scattered. After only four days of action? Talk about being out of touch.

The next bouncer was poised to strike, stabbing down at her collar. He was of sturdier make than his sluggish movements gave away. She failed to fully stop the momentum and the blade forced through her guard, cutting into her bicep before she could pull fully out of the way. The side of her arm was sliced open to the bone, but she sucked it up and took distance. The rogue kept coming at her like a mud flood, but her flexibility caught him by surprise. Stopping short, she quickly leaned back, lifted her hips, and kicked almost straight upward at his chin. The man’s legs kept going while his head was stopped by her heel. He spun a good two hundred and seventy degrees in the air, landing on his neck next to her. Leaning forward again, she dropped her boot on his face. The next one came swinging at her not long after. Her left arm was out of commission, but she still had the dagger in the right. She leaned in and blocked by stabbing the blade through the bouncer's weapon arm, near the elbow. As he reflexively swung his arm back, recoiling at the pain, she leapt forward and coiled her arms around his neck to get a firm grip of his head. She spun around on her heels and dropped on her knees, throwing the man on the floor over her shoulder. Keeping a tight hold of his head, she got up and twisted the neck up and back, pulling the ligaments apart.

That was all the close range threats.

Izumi made use of the pause to cast Ohrm, eyeing the trio of mercenaries up ahead. They stared on for a moment, dumbstruck, but ultimately mastered themselves. Either they had ties to Mensigh’s business, or else they figured the odd woman was the real evil in the picture, and chose the fighting path.

One carried a small, wooden crossbow; the other was armed with a longbow. Both now aimed at her, while the third companion carried a hefty, long-handled battleaxe and kept back. Izumi didn’t feel like playing dodgeball with arrows tonight. Judging her arm sufficiently recovered, she changed runes.

The bolts were loosened nearly at the same time, in prelude to the axeman’s running charge. Both projectiles met their target too, one in the arm she covered her face with, the other in the side, near the heart, and she staggered back a step. Letting out a loud battle cry, the warrior simultaneously sprinted at her, lifted his axe and swung down, sure of the kill. But he felt no meat under the blow. Instead, a light, metallic sound rang out in the hall, as though from a hammer falling on an anvil.

The mercenaries could hardly believe what they were seeing.

The axe’s path had been interrupted by the unshielded palm of the victim, and that was not all. There was no longer a pale, foreign woman before them, but a figure veiled all over in steely, alien darkness.

“AAAAHHH!” the axeman cried out in horror and let go of his weapon. He staggered back and tumbled onto the floor, his legs failing him. “A DAEMON! MONSTER...!”

“You wish,” Izumi replied, tossed the weapon in the air to flip it around, and then brought it down on its owner.

They weren’t Dharvic arbalests the local freelancers carried, but only hunting tools of far less refined make. The mercenaries’ arrows had penetrated barely half an inch through the Iron Hide, even from such a close range, mildly uncomfortable but nowhere close to lethal. Izumi plugged the shafts off her, and went to hand them back to their senders. The man with the longbow tried to valiantly support his companion, who needed more time to rearm his rigid crossbow. But a lone archer was not an opponent to Izumi. Able to focus without additional distractions, she read his aim and evaded with a simple, well-timed sidestep. In turn, she raised the heavier of the shafts and flung it in the bowman’s throat like a dart, continuing on towards the remaining combatant.

“Aw, shit!” His friends both dead, the mercenary’s nerves gave away under the pressure. He kicked his crossbow aside, instead drawing the short sword he had on his belt. But he didn’t have the time to use it. Picking up the pace, Izumi was in front of him in a few quick hops, reached past his blade hand and drove the second arrow through his head from below. His gaze turned vacant and he fell.

But there, close to the end of the fight, it was Izumi’s turn to be surprised. The woman who had been with the mercenaries and hid under the table suddenly lunged out while she was occupied, clutching a knife of her own. Letting out a furious cry, she charged at Izumi in revenge for her fallen lover, stabbing low.

Under other circumstances, the sneak attack would surely have been deadly too. Izumi had failed to see it coming at all. Yet, in this particular case, the gap in caliber was much too wide.

“Ow.” The knife slid along Izumi’s magically shielded abs and was deflected, cutting a hole only in her coat and shirt. Caught by surprise, she retreated a step, but the customer continued her assault, swinging at her again and again in a blind frenzy. Guarding with her arm, Izumi adjusted to her moves and caught the knife hand. She turned the opponent’s wrist around in a wide, circular motion, and shoved the blade between its holder’s ribs by a thrust of her open palm.

“Ah…” The assailant froze and drew a sharp breath, a surprised expression on her face. The pain and the blood rapidly filling her stiffened lung prevented her from taking another. In a few muted seconds, she succumbed to the lack of oxygen and sank onto the floor without a word, next to the man who had brought her to the tavern on this unfortunate night.

Izumi deactivated Tauhirn, went to pick up the fallen crossbow, yanked out the bolt from the downed bowman's throat, and began to rearm the weapon.

Meanwhile, the remaining civilian crept up from under the table further in the back.

Since the rampaging killer’s attention didn’t seem to be on him right now, he had judged the time ripe to take his leave. Battling his fear, that man, a traveling merchant, began to advance tiptoe towards the door, when a voice from behind his back stopped him.

“—Just a moment.”

The voice, while rather commanding, didn’t sound particularly murderous, so the man cautiously peered over his shoulder, at the woman who had called him.

“Y-yes…?”

“Before you go, I have a question for you,” Izumi said.

“F-for me?” he asked, as if to confirm whether he had heard right. “Yes? W-what could it be…?”

“I don’t feel like raising my voice. Come over here.”

It was the last thing the merchant wanted to do. Nevertheless, she had a crossbow. If she wanted to kill him, he likely wouldn’t get away in time. Perhaps she really was only looking for information? Overcoming his reluctance with effort, the man went over to Izumi, stopping a cautious distance away.

“Y-yes, what is it?” he now asked again. “If...if it’s anything I can answer, I’ll be happy to help. I assure you, madam, I have no...no connection whatsoever to these gentlemen. My being here tonight was only a random coincidence, that’s all. I shall speak to no soul of what I saw in here. In fact, I had every intention to leave town before morning and only came here for a quick drink before departing. Yes. I—I have a bit of money in my pockets too, you can take it. In fact, have all…”

The man started to rummage through his deep coat pockets.

Izumi said nothing. Done with arming the crossbow, she stared at the bar counter in the back of the hall and waited. Shortly, the bartender raised himself to see if the violence had truly ended. She took aim and dropped him like a rabbit. Sprung!

“Ah!” The merchant crouched and covered his head by reflex, whimpering.

“Relax, uncle!” Izumi’s tone now became cheerful. She threw the crossbow away and relaxedly turned to the older man. “All I need is some directions. This shouldn’t be very hard, if you’re familiar with the town. Do you know where I might find a place called, ‘Crimson Lotus’?”

“…W-why, yes?” the merchant replied, slowly lowering his hands and standing upright. “Yes, I do. I-it’s a brothel. In the northern part of the town, a big, red building. Lights always on. You can’t mistake it. Quite the classy place, mind you. I was something of a regular in my better days. The women there are downright magical, the things they know, their techniques, you’d think they can read minds…”

“Alright, that’ll do,” Izumi told him with a nod.

“Er, okay. I suppose this is not something a woman would be interested in.”

“On the contrary! Truth be told, I’m veeeery interested.”

“Right...” the merchant remarked, with an awkward look. “Um, can I go now?”

“Huh?”

“I—I mean, I answered your question, yes? So, unless you have any other questions for me, would it be all right, if I—if I leave now?”

“Oh?” Izumi raised her brows, and then quickly added with a wide smile, “Of course! Of course, my friend! Don’t let me keep you. Thanks for the info! Safe travels.”

Responding only with a relieved, a tad crooked smile, the man nodded and departed for the front door. The instant he turned his back, Izumi’s hands were gripping his head. He felt only a slight sideways pull and fell dead, his neck broken.

No word could reach the Crimson Lotus to warn them of her coming.

They all had to die.

All of them.