"Gyahhhh!" a cry sounded, but not from the partially bisected bitch. It was the cultivator who had spoken so cockily before. His life essence was rapidly draining away while Lilee, unsurprisingly, pulled herself back together, healing at the same speed the cultivator was dying.
~Should I stop her?- Mina asked, ready to finish off the creature.
~No, this is for the better. I doubt she would be able to talk a lot in her previous state,- Seth answered. He held no empathy for the cultivators; their fate was of no concern to him. He was more interested in the reason behind their actions.
"You will pay for this. What are you doing, get- ugh!" Her ethereal face was fed Mina's boot., who appreed right beside her. The kick had the beauty make a backflip before slamming on the ground.
"Shut up. You only talk when asked," the cat girl said coldly and gave a sharp glare at the group of cultivators still standing.
The remaining four backed away. At this point, even the cultivators broke free from the illusion and understood what they had been working with and who they were facing. Considering how easily their leader and allies had been handled, they understood their place. Ignoring them, Seth and Fin came over to Mina, who was standing on Lilee's face to keep her down.
"Now then, the guy you just killed said you are the reason they steered the city into the shitter. Where are the kidnapped children, and why did you exchange them with ...changelings? Was that the name?" the bard asked, looking down at the woman in her bloody dress.
"Mina, would you take your foot out of her mouth so she can answer?" Seth asked his wife politely.
"Fine," Mina said with a shrug, shifting her shoe down to her chest.
"Honey, you..." she started speaking, but her sentence was interrupted by another notification.
The notification was followed by the sharp sound of a slap on soft cheeks, which interrupted her properly. Seth sighed.
"Your charm won't work on any of us. Stop that shit and answer the question," he said, a little annoyed. This wasn't supposed to be such a chore. They just wanted to bring Pip here and leave everything to her; now things were getting complicated.
"..." Lilee stayed silent after receiving the resounding bitchslap. It was obvious she had no intention to talk.
~Should I start hurting her again? There are a couple more cultivators she can use to heal.- Mina suggested to him. The cat girl seemed eager to hurt Lilee. She really disliked her. However, this was not the most effective way.
"Nah, I have something more effective. Let's just make her a friend," the bard said with a smile and brought out Oz and Gleobem. He couldn't use the Devils Wheelfiddle in the middle of the city, but the song would work just fine.
The upbeat melody Fin and Mina already knew from a night at Spring City started to play on the little square marred by the previous battle. "We know that we will be mates forever. Step in with our crew and the future's bright~" the
"Stop right now!" A new visitor joined the stage, and a storm of arrows descended on the plaza, interrupting his song. Incidentally, the arrows also struck the knocked-out council members lying on the ground.
Charging down from the sky was a man with pointy ears and transparent wings on his back. Fin, Mina, and Seth stepped forward at the same time to stop him; however, the man phased through them and their attacks, without taking damage.
Shocked, they found he had passed them without a single injury and reached Lilee, right beside Mina. It was not an illusion, or magic, or simply speed. Seth would have seen through those. The newcomer had literally turned immaterial and was able to ignore their attacks. Was this... a geass?
"Stop right there!" the bard exclaimed with the
"This will not be the end," were the last words he left them before he was completely gone, escaping with Lilee before they could get any answers out of her. It was clear that this was one of 'her people' the cultivator mentioned. Now, Seth was convinced this was orchestrated by creatures of the awakening realm...
"Tsk" "Tsk" "Tsk" all three clicked their tongues, frustrated by the fact that someone actually managed to escape from them, despite their various power-ups. This was their first setback in a long while.
They had lost their captive, they had not gotten any answers, they had lost the actual culprit...The only thing they still had were a handful of cultivators who had next to no idea what they had done and for what reason, because they were under a charm curse.
Considering how much control Lilee had over them, they might be even more useless than not having anyone at all... the worst was that they would have to leave this problem to Pip, since they had to leave for the Gate Guardian soon.
The young druid would have to deal with this situation alone, at least until a system church was finally built here. Then she would be able to get support from Minas Mar. He wanted to sigh again, having to continue their journey with this kind of worry.
"Resurrect!" Fin's voice sounded, distracting Seth's thoughts. While the blacksmith was lamenting, Fin was already taking action. There was no helping the drained cultivators, but she could bring back the Guild Council, which had been killed by the volley of arrows.
They might not have any helpful information, but maybe they could use them to help Pip. That was up to the girl then.
...
"All that happened in the ten minutes it took us to get here?" Pip asked, flabbergasted, when Seth shared what had happened here and his own conjectures based on what they had seen. While Fin had healed the leaders of the Guild Council, who were now sitting tied up to the side, Seth had extinguished the fire in the sky scraper.
"Yes, I guess?" the bard simply said, his eyes wandering over the destruction, mostly caused by the cultivator's rampage. Although the fairy brute had destroyed some street cover and a corner of the building, Zuo Zuo had drilled a tunnel through part of the city.
"And you are saying that a dark court of creatures from the old world is aiming for New Hope?" she asked her next question. Seth nodded. He knew this was hard to believe, but he had shared his knowledge and experiences so far to the best of his abilities.
Pip, who was barely a young adult, was massaging her temples. "Of course, it couldn't have been easy...." she mumbled. Not only were only a few of their prepared allies left, and unknown, terrible danger was threatening the city she wanted to save. The system god really had his ways to present players with hardships.
Now, Pip only had some giants, the remnants of the Liberation Guild, and the Oathguard to rely on in the short term.
"Don't worry, once the priests set up a church here, you can get help from Delta and the Adventurer's Guild," Seth tried to cheer her up. She still had a lot of allies waiting to help.
"..and you can use those guys," he added, pointing at the captured high-level players.
"Do you really think so? I don't think they will listen to," Pip said doubtfully.
"All they need is the right incentive, and I have just the right thing to help you with that," he said, acting like he was opening an imaginative scroll. It had been a while since he made a bunch of soul contracts at once...