A Former Hero’s Journey : I just want to live peacefully!

Chapter 18

Kimiko Pov

Kimiko just woke up inside the carriage. Mira was 'unconscious' on the other side. Some blankets placed on top of her. The last thing she remembered was... was....

'Wait why can't I remember?'

She then remembered the last thing before her memory faded away.

Flashback!

Kimiko was sticking herself to the farthest corner of the carriage. Annie was just trying to spoon-feed her abomination to her and Kimiko was doing everything she could to stay the hell away from the abominable thing. At last, Mira was fed first because she was used as a shield for first spoon that was forcibly fed by Annie. Kimiko could hear a gulp before looking at Mira on her hand.

Kimiko could see that Mira had fainted. Annie stopped as well along with Kimiko who could see something that was slowly rising up from Mira's mouth, like a smoke.

But a smoke should not have wings nor the impression of a sleeping Mira on it!

'Holy Hell! It's her soul!'  

But Annie being Annie, did not understand one thing. She pointed out to Kimiko.

"See!"

Kimiko was busy stuffing back the soul into Mira's mouth by her hand. How a soul can be touched? She did not know but she just did stuff it back. She then heard the remaining words.

"Even Mira is so delighted by the taste that her soul flew away in ecstasy."

"Why you-.."

As Kimiko was about to retort a spoon went inside her mouth and by surprise she swallowed the content of it. She knew she made a horrible mistake. Once the taste registered in her taste bud she wished she had cut her tongue. The taste she felt was sweet, sour, spicy, hot, gingery, etc everything all at once and when that everything mixed together? A taste so horrid that you wished you died several times in a row. Even her freaking soul shuddered.

She felt herself getting dizzy.

'No wonder why a soul literally wished to leave its body than to taste this thing!'

Her conscious drifted away.

Flashback end

Kimiko twitched. Not even her Title was enough to suppress the emotions. She burst out of the carriage with an unconscious Mira in hand and went to the nearest source of water she could find. The remaining maids outside were startled at once and followed her. Annie gestured she would stay with the carriage along with Gabby to watch over their belongings while the others accompany their Mistress. Annie then sighed and thought.

'Really, they don't know the finesse of such delicacy!'

Kimiko Pov

Just in few minutes Kimiko found a river running alongside the road just few 100 of meters away from their transport. She dissolved a cube of something that was golden in color. It was the solidified honey from a SS-rank monster, Sylvian Mother Bee. A drop of it was enough to dissolve it in 1000 liter of water and turn it into diluted form of sugar. And these sugars were the most expensive sugar in Vesperia if it was available in the current market. 500 gram was sold at 100,000 gold!

But a cube that had length, breath and height of one inch was casually dissolved into the stream. Kimiko made sure to keep it in one place by surrounding it with rock walls. As she dived into it along with the unconscious Mira in her hands. The sweetness from drinking it was mostly enough to overpower the 'remnant' taste from yesterday's disaster. She poked her head out of the makeshift swimming pool in bliss and she did not care if her clothes were dirtied.

"As long as I can get rid of the taste."

Bubbles were near her and a head popped out, showing extreme bliss. It was Mira. It seems she had regained enough to do a pouty glare for sacrificing her before. Kimiko just smiled a little before scooping out a little water and forced it in Mira's mouth. Of course, at first Mira resisted a little before sipping and drank all of it. She even went as far to lick her hands. Kimiko then pointed downwards. Mira looked down before diving straight into it.

'Ano... wasn't cat supposed to hate water?'

The maids had arrived for quite some time and were observing from the branches of the tree. They were on a lookout with Claire being the only one who got near Kimiko. Kimiko got out of the separated portion of the river. Her clothes dripping in sweet nectar from the honey cube. She decided to use a skill to clean herself up but Claire rejected it.

"Mistress! Please do not use skill to compensate for your laziness!"

Kimiko just sighed.

"And who was the one who kept on looking when Annie was trying to make me eat an abomination? Hmm? Well, keep a lookout. Don't let anyone peep on me!"

She was cautious.

'I have read countless manga to know how 'bathing' out in the open leads to.'

Claire just tilted her head in confusion before nodding. Kimiko slowly removed her outer cloths before removing her garments underneath. She took out a soap and some old shampoo from her inventory as she slowly went inside the river to clean off the sweet honey clinging to her body. As she was bathing Kimiko asked Claire.

"And please give me a reason why you all decimated a part of the forest."

Claire tilted her head a little to the side.

Scene Break

A large swath of land was seen to have been incinerated or trees uprooted with some bodies lying here and there. A lone survivor was lying face down on the destroyed ground with tears in his eyes as well as fear present. When one looked closely enough they could see that he was limbless. Sliced off in a clean manner from where the blood was continuously pouring out. He was slowly dying with the blood loss. He did not have to open his status to know that he was currently and continuously losing a lot of [HP]. Small shaky voice coming from his mouth could be heard as if he was in some kind of trance.

"They.... are.... MONSTERSssss!!"   

He still could not believe what had happened last night or midnight to be precise. They all were just some bandits made up of those who were rejected from the guild. They all were ragtag groups consisting of little to no order and following the strong to prey on the weak for a living. They were almost a group of 400. Until a man had arrived from somewhere. He defeated their leader with little to no effort and became their new leader.

He looked like a veteran for some empire or something. He wore some cool leather armor as well as had a giant broadsword that no one in the camp could lift. He wore a red bandana and had an intimidating scar on his face from the left of his forehead to his right cheek, straight. Life had become good because their leader trained them and made them good money with raid on the road. Until some days ago where a hawk had come to deliver a message in a parchment to their leader. For the first time he showed a blood thirsty grin that made him shudder.

But it was still not comparable to what happened the night.

That night

Leader Pov

It was finally time for his plan. He had been waiting for days for this kind of opportunity. He had taken a job of being a bandit leader from the board. The pay was good and all he had to do was train these good for nothing filthy animals here. Then leave them while these bandits cause chaos and destroy some villages. He did not know the true purpose of even sending a person here, maybe just some random way of causing disturbance for the empire. After all his branch was nothing more than a novice level branch in the eyes of the [Cult]. Nothing more and nothing less. The pay, however, was too good to pass up as well as the points to be earned.

In the [Cult] branches there are varieties of mission posted in the board. These missions gave them money as well as contribution points. Just like those of Adventurer Guild but with much more back-stabbing than usual. They had to earn those contribution points to fill up their monthly quota. If failed to do so would mean their death by the Branch head who was at least AAA level. That was why it was harder to even track a branch of the [Cult] because their standard of opening a branch was much higher than that of Adventurer guild's. Once you were in the clutches of the [Cult] there was just no going back. At least if you were on the upper tier of the hierarchy then you no longer have the need to deliver Monthly quotas.

'Last time I heard, there was some crazy woman who took a ‘Millennium Quest’, wasn’t it?'

Just then the mission parameter had changed. The parchment contained a letter from the main HQ of the [Cult] signifying if he delayed the carriage by half a day at most, his rewards would be doubled. He did not care what was happening to the minds of those old fogeys in the [Cult]. Heck, he did not even know the main HQ of the [Cult]. After all branches were spread over important cities only and he had come from a city 1000km away from here.

Now back to the mission, there were 50 knights or something when watching through the telescope. He was sitting in the open field cut by them to make temporary shelters. Direct confrontation was a direct no. He did not know what important person was inside the carriage but he knew enough that it was an important one if 50 knights were involved. Looking at his group he sighed.

'Whelp, can't beat quality with quantity in this case. Better make trap on the road but before that let's harass the rear guard using guerilla tactics using the few horses that we have. This will cause them to speed up and fall right into the trap while the rest of the forces will ambush them once they fall into the trap.'

'Throw bodies at them until they are exhausted and get the hell outta there. My mission is to delay so paranoia will set to them to at least recover before attempting to advance.'

As he was thinking suddenly some people just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the camp. He was surprised and analyzed them carefully. They appeared to be twins(?) but with different hair color and wearing the same maid dresses of some Noble houses. One had blonde hair and was smiling nonetheless with slightly closed eyes while the other had green hair and was fidgeting a lot. The other bandits were getting agitated both by their sudden appearance as well as being in the presence of two beautiful maids.

'I heard that some inside the camp had the hots for maid as well as for twins.'

A seemingly random thought had appeared inside his head which he promptly kicked it out. Few months had passed and they had only raided a few caravans with males only. Needless to say they were getting a bit jumpy.... for female companion. But he was cautious because he could not feel their power, which meant two things i.e. They were randomly transported or they were horribly strong to the point of simple warrior like him could not feel it.

His stats were like:

[Status]

Name: Scar                             Age: 29                          

Lvl: 169                                 Job: Sword Warrior (Lvl req: 150)                          

Effect: +2 in STR, CON & VIT per level

STAT

STR: 553     CON: 527

VIT: 493     DEX: 316

INT: 156     WIS: 212 

CHA: 196     LUC: 196

Could be comparable to D-rank Adventurer but whatever. He had to tread carefully.

"Who are you and why have you come here?"

The blonde just smiled even wider.

"To tell you piece of scum to not try to do anything or you will face the consequences."

'Oh this is not good!'

After all he had prepared for the group he knew they did not like to get threatened, especially by women. He observed those maids. As expected they all started to curse at them.

"Fuck you!"

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"You stupid if you think you can just waltz in here!"

The green haired seemed to be fidgeting more. Scar thought.

'Weaker one? '

The blonde nonetheless remained unfazed. She asked once more in a deadpan voice which brought a sense of fear in his gut.

"I suggest you keep whatever plans you have up your sleeve and roll out of the way when we pass. Otherwise prepare to face consequences. This is your last warning. Leave this place or be annihilated."

The others raged before he could even speak. Especially the brawny ones.

"Fuck you, cunt. You will be screaming in joy after we are done with you!"

He was sweating like crazy when the blonde released her killing intent. But the idiots remained unfazed because they could not even feel it. The blonde spoke to her companion.

"Leticia...."

"Yes Claire?"

"You heard what they said. They will hamper on our Mistress's journey."

Then suddenly Scar felt cold. The temperament of the shy one suddenly changed to stony. Scar was secretly backing away. Then the green haired one, Leticia, slowly said.

"They.. will.. hamper?"

Claire Pov

Then Claire saw Leticia's expression turn fierce with bloodlust. Claire sighed and said.

"Surround this place with barrier."

Then Leticia's face showed a sadistic smile. Leticia had a personality disorder of sort. One was her shy self which was pretty much the dominant one. Then there was this cruel sadistic one. It emerged out whenever it involved her Mistress's well-being. Suffice to say that Leticia was the one who was the most loyal to their Mistress. She wouldn't question Mistress. If Mistress were to order her to die, then Leticia would do it without an ounce of hesitation.

Not to mention all the Golems created by their Mistress was loyal to the Mistress first then others like Solomon and Terza. Leticia was the [Magic Master] of the group. Golems usually have little to no mana because their mana is used for their day to day functioning. But the combat maids were different than that. The cores used by the Maids are of superior quality allowing them to have mana pool of roughly an average mage. But Leticia's core was of special quality made from a monster which was very adept in using [Magic] which allowed her to access even to a bigger pool of mana. Claire ability was to use thin metal strings as her weapon mostly.

Each and every maid had something that they excelled in but were average in other weaponry. Leticia was the ability to use wide varieties of magic but average in the usage of other techniques. Claire herself was to using strings to cut things up mostly but was proficient in other as well. She was the jack of all trade kind of thing. Annie was an archer. Lara was best in CQC. Gabby was proficient in spears and halberds while Anya talent lied in swords.

Leticia jumped high and flip-landed just outside the camp and used [Barrier] with one hand.

A simple spell that allowed nothing to pass through it or out, if the mana supported it. It negated 80% physical damage and 40% magical damage. Mana was used whenever damage was done to the [Barrier] after negating. However, if casted by someone who had vast pool of Mana like Leticia then it became a cage for those inside of it.

Then she casted [Silence Barrier] with the other hand, a high-support skill for [Barrier] which silenced the sound from going outside the barrier.

Claire gave a grateful smile to Leticia then she looked at the group with bloodlust.

It was a time for a bloodbath.

She then suddenly grabbed the arms of the nearest grunt. The grunt was surprised at fist before screaming as she ripped off their arm using just brute strength. She then kicked him so hard that he his body bent and went straight into his friends and knocked them. The others were surprised before screaming and tried to slice her with their weapons. A person jumped at her while swinging his sword down. She swatted it aside before grabbing the falling man in his face before slamming it down on the ground forward with enough force to crack the ground.

Then quickly grabbed his ankle before using his body to swat away the others that came towards her. She then jumped high and used the body on her hand like an arrow and threw him straight towards some unlucky group. The body turned to paste when it landed along with some men that were unlucky enough to be around the blast radius. Some tried to retaliate but she countered with her hands and the results were men twisted in some very painful direction. It was a massacre. Scar looked on in disbelief as he saw a girl bulldoze his men. He knew that she was strong but to casually destroy the group without even using skill while even smiling spoke volume of her ability.

They were preys to be slaughtered.

Claire did not show mercy. She took a fallen sword before slicing and dicing through the bandits. They were about 300-400 but within a minute more than half of them were already dead. Pools of bloods and body parts were scattered around the field. Many of them were even banging on the barrier to let them out but it was useless. A group of about 50 men were trying to break through brute force.

"LET ME OUT!!"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!"

A cold detached voice spoke from behind them.

"Then you should have taken the offer to retreat but you did not."

When they looked back they could see the girl. One side of her face was shrouded in darkness while the other half was looking right at them with a smile. Her eyes empty. They all felt like they were looking at Death herself. All of them were trembling while some had already wet their pants.

"Because now you will all die."

She raised her hand at her shoulder level. It had been a while since she had last used magic. A red circle appeared on her hand.

"[Solar-

Suddenly the temperature began to rise in surrounding. In her hand small balls of yellowish mana begin to gather before swirling and merging with each other into a bright yellowish sphere with a diameter of half a meter. She casually tossed the sphere to that group. It slowly floated towards them.

-Burst!]

BOOM!

Then it exploded, emitting high temperature so suddenly that in the process it caused the bodies and the surrounding to disintegrate. The poor men did not even have time to scream before they were disintegrated into small ash particles.

Leticia had casted another spell called [Darkness Boundary] to cover the barrier. Otherwise Claire's spell might light up the surrounding like the sun.

Meanwhile on the other side of the field Scar and the others were trying to figure out a way to escape when they heard the biggest explosion they had ever heard. They saw the surrounding getting decimated before some of the men started to cry, most likely losing their sanity which he too was about to lose his.

"What should I do with you all?"

Scar frantically said.

"I COULD GET YOU INFORMATION ON THE [CULT] SO PLEASE LET ME LIV-"

That was what he last he said before he saw he was flying above and plummeted downwards.

Thud

His body led before him as he saw his own headless body which was squirting blood from the neck. Also the loathing in her eyes when he said something about the [Cult]. Everyone was the same except for some lucky guy that only got his limbs sliced off. He then died with wide open eyes, staing at the look of disgust on her face.

"Too bad, our Mistress wants to stay incognito. Therefore, your life was to be forfeited. Also you were from that heinous group known as [Cult]."

Then, Claire looked around to see her work. Everyone was dead except for one limbless guy but she knew he was already about to die. She nodded to Leticia who dropped off her barrier and smiled shyly. It seemed her old personality was back. Then they both disappeared into the night silently back to where their Mistress was. When they returned Annie looked at them while both of them nodded. Annie nodded back while looking at the unconscious Kimiko and Mira.

After all they were responsible for the well-being of their Mistress.

To Present

Claire replied to her Mistress.

"Nothing to worry about Mistress. Just some annoying insects crawling here and there caused Leticia to scream before destroying the place. No need to worry mistress. No one saw or heard it."

Kimiko knew there was more than just that but left it alone. She cleaned herself up while Claire washed the clothes. Claire then dried the clothes using her magic before folding it into neat piles. After a while when she was about to leave the maids gestured Kimiko at a certain direction. She checked her map and it showed some people from the carriage coming towards their location. They were moving slowly which meant that it was a coincidence. Kimiko's eye twitched.

'What a powerful effect of Fate! If I had not used this map before and my maids were not here, then surely some guy would accidentally peep on me!'

Now what will she do?

Kimiko thought while looking at a blissful looking cat still swimming on the separated part of the river.

Edited: 27-Nov-2020