Sylva senses a champion inside the shop but enters, anyway; she’s grown so used to the elf hero that she doesn’t mind it. Upon entering, she finds a woman with an air of violence and short rabbit ears; the Beastman champion.

The rabbit woman stinks of miasma and grudges, an abnormal state for a champion since the benediction provided by the faith of their people normally hold the corruption back.

“Please sign and stamp the receipt.” asks the champion in a business tone.

“Sure thing.” answers the demi-Elf behind with her usual bright smile, "Miss Inimica, what a nice coincidence, it’s the delivery you’ve been waiting for.”

Her business finished, the Beastman woman leaves the room without a sparing Inimica a single look.

There was no coincidence; she timed her coming perfectly, but the package can wait, “Linnea, tell me about the woman that just left.”

“It’s rare for you to show interest in someone Miss, but on that instance, I understand where you come from; she is beautiful and has such a mysterious aura about her. Her name is Vindicta, an up-and-coming bodyguard and delivery man. I hear she has a perfect success rate at avoiding ambushes and is a force to be reckoned with in battle… Her only fault is that she gets a bit battle-crazy when it comes to Beastmen and giants.”

She’s named Vengeance and kill her own people? It fits her demeanor perfectly and explains the grudges, but what with this wealth of information, she didn’t expect more than a name and place of origin, “How do you know so much about her?”

“She’s a hot topic among mercenaries, quite a few bought gifts for her in our shop? To no avail, though, she doesn’t seem interested.”

“I see… Well, enough about her, give me the box.”

“It’s written to avoid touching it.”

“Silly, you can touch the box, it the necklace that’s cursed.”

“Another cursed item? You really like them.”

As she removes the packaging, Sylva explains, “This one is special as I designed the curse. It’s safe for me and anyone I design.”

“Wow, that’s high-level stuff; no wonder you don’t mind the curses.”

The work is even finer than with Brisingamen; each individual stone is enchanted to reflect and enhance the light from the central stone. To further the illusion of a small sun surrounded by colored moons, the chains are so thin that the jewel appears the float around her neck. It’s magnificent, it was entirely worth destroying multiple statues, rings, and necklaces to recover the stone and pay the craftsmanship. Sylva removes the necklace, extends her arms to better admire it, and then surprise herself by asking the elder sister, “Do you want it?”

Linnea answers with a squeaky sound and Inimica mouth fall shut.

‘What am I saying?’ thinks the dumbfounded Devil, ‘Why did I offer my greatest treasure to a worthless demi-Elf?’

Linnea is shocked, but she still manages to squeak out an answer, “I could never accept, Miss, it’s far too precious to accept, far too precious for the likes of me.”

The self-deprecating comment annoys Inimica, the girl is one of the few people she made the effort of remembering the name, and she even learned the name of her sister despite having no interest in the useless cowardly creature.

Sylva doesn’t reflect on how she herself considered the girl worthless just a few seconds ago; she doesn’t take kindly of people disparaging her acquaintances, even if it is done by the individual in question.

“I don’t want to hear this kind of talk! I won’t let you insult my…”

‘My what exactly? She just a seller in a shop I often frequent.’ The ridiculousness of the situation catches up with Inimica, the person she is defending and the one she’s lecturing are the same and her own motivation is incomprehensible.

“Sorry, I lost my cool. You are right; this piece doesn’t suit you. When I saw this dangerous woman earlier, I thought you were too defenseless and my judgment erred.”

The new Brisingamen is a poor choice; it can draw the power of the sun but it takes power and mastery to direct it. She opens a small hole in space to access to her treasury back home and grabs at something. When she opens her hand, there are two simple rings and a torc, “The two rings offer protection passive protection against physical and magical attacks, even if it’s only on the level of an unenchanted full plate mithril armor. This one is an offensive artifact; it can cast a variety of lightning spell by calling on lesser elemental, so it only requires the user to make a pact.”

Linnea looks at the artifacts of legends in incomprehension, only a few powerful mages and warriors have access to items of that level, but when the Devil orders her, “Take them and wear them!” she obliges mindlessly.

“Good. Do the elf hero still come regularly?”

The answer comes out a bit miffed, “He only comes here to talk about you. Even my sister deemed him safe to be around and stopped chasing him out.”

Inimica doesn’t catch the subtleties from the answer, all that matters is that a decent fighting force visits the place regularly, “That’s good, don’t hesitate to use him as a shield; being resilient is about his only value.”

‘He’s not…” Her sentence stops there; if miss Inimica has no interest in him, what need is there to raise his good points. She answers instead, “I’ll do as you say, but I can’t accept gifts this precious.”

“They are not! I have many on that level, and you need them. That’s final!”

“Yes, ma’am!” what else can you answer when a powerful being threatens you to accept gifts for your own protection.

“Good girl.”

<><><>

Once again, they’re too late; before them lies the ruins of a village, its field ravaged and all of its inhabitants slaughtered.

“No survivors here, and all the soldier posted are dead.” says knight Fidel, Gustavo right-hand man

“What about the message, did they leave one behind as ordered?” asks the hero.

“None, it seems the barrack and the guards were targeted first.” answers the knight.

“I don’t like the implications. We only found traces of a giant wolf and some strange tracks so far, but this indicates a high level of intelligence and planning.”

“It’s the elves!” asserts a soldier.

A murmur a yeah and yes echoes his assumption, but other voices rise to challenge him.

“It’s the damn empire; their so-called hero was last seen going in the forest, he’s coming after us for rejecting the merge!”

“Don’t be dumb, the prince is dead! We wouldn’t have sir Gustavo if he wasn’t.”

“Then the bastard agitated something he shouldn’t have! Remember, the empire managed to draw the ire of the dwarves and the little bastards don’t ever get out of their mines!”

Fully adult dwarfs are as big or bigger than humans, they’re only small when compared to their enemy the giants, comments the scholar internally. As usual, it shows a poor understanding of the events and species involved, but that’s to be expected when even him with all the books and treatises he’s read know so little about them.

“We can eliminate the elves of the list of suspects, they’re also fear the great forest, why do you think the enchanted roads are for? Anyway, did you ever see an elf venture outside of their territory?”

“I saw one in my father’s town; she was a brave girl who defended the citizen with her life.” comments Fidel.

“That’s unusual. What was she like?”

“Ivory skin, hair dark as night and shining emerald eyes.”

“Glowing eyes are an immortal trait, what you describe sounds more like a Fae; they are rumored to be the elves’ progenitors.”

“I thought Fae were monsters haunting the forest, like dryads and the like.”

“There are many types of Fae, Goblin for example count as one. For those who haven’t traveled to Mannhtorg, a good analogy would be that Elves are like trained house-cats while Faes are feral.”

“Even if it’s you, Hero, I won’t permit anyone to insult our town benefactor! She was a noble and humble soul!”

“Sorry, but it’s how one of my books describes them. It’s got nothing to do with good or evil, elves are social creatures within our understanding, but the Faes are forces of nature. Even so, every individual is different and you cannot hope to categorize them.”

“Then, could be the more feral Faes?”

“It’s possible, I never read about animal-shaped Fae, but what we know for sure fits a single piece of paper, and we’d need a library to list what we ignore. Sill, since there are tree-shaped ones, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch.”

“I was right; it’s the previous hero’s fault!”

Gustavo sighs tiredly, he wouldn’t have expected his most arduous task to be reining rumors in. Time to end this pointless bickering. He screams at his men, “It doesn’t matter who’s to blame! We need to catch the culprits before they do more damage!”. He put down his map and point two villages, “From the previous attack direction we can deduce the next target to be one of these, we must ask the local garrison to take care of one while we go to the other. Suggestions?”

A young soldier walks forward, “I’m the lightest and the fastest rider if I leave my equipment behind, I should be able to bring the garrison in less than a day.”

That’s a wild ride, but with such haste, everyone knows the chances of arriving in time are slim.

“Thank you, soldier, I’m counting on you.”

The man immediately strips his armor and baggage and launches his horse towards the nearest fort.

‘Becoming the hero wasn’t my decision but helplessly watching my people die isn’t my idea of the work. Please god, if you exist, let us make it in time.”