Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess

The sudden ambush by the Hallowed Cabal had put a damper on their plans. They were probably only an hour or so away from Freybrook, so it wouldn't take too long to get back to the city and send for help, but they still had to deal with all of the dead Cabal members and the wrecked carriage. Kat had gotten to work on cleaning up the parts of the road that had been destroyed during the fighting, as well as moving the bodies and lining them up by the wayside. It wasn't something Scarlett could've helped with, even if her shoulder hadn't been injured. She had started putting some light exercises into her daily routine, along with training her magic, but it was becoming all the more clear that she needed to put a bit more focus on her athletic ability in the future.

Instead of helping Kat, Scarlett began trying to—somewhat—control the fires that were swallowing the carriage with the help of her [Pyrokinesis] and [Minor Hydrokinesis] skills, so that the flames didn't spread to the nearby trees and bushes. While she couldn't extinguish the fire she at least managed to make a decent job of keeping it in check. Sometime during the process, she spotted the carriage's driver—it was the same young man she'd had as a coachman several times before—slinking up to them through the surrounding thicket with a half-relieved, half-horrified expression on his face as he took in the damage and the dead bodies. For a moment he'd seemed afraid that she would punish him for running away, but Scarlett just sent him off to look for the escaped horse. It took a while, but when he returned with the horse in tow she also ordered him to ride back to Freybrook and get another carriage and some more hands to deal with the situation.

While waiting for that help to arrive, she and Kat had gathered before the lined up bodies of the Cabal Adepts to inspect them. Some of them had pretty harrowing injuries — with Kat's magic having torn holes straight through their flesh and burned their skin to a crisp. If this was still her from her previous world, Scarlett would almost certainly have retched just from the sight of it. Thankfully, leftover traits from the original Scarlett had some perks to them, and she made do with simply feeling a slight sense of disgust at the display. Kat was the one who seemed most affected by it however, even though she'd been the one to cause those injuries to begin with. She'd also been the one that had to carry the bodies. Scarlett felt a slight tinge of pity for the woman.

As for the bodies themselves, just a closer look at them was enough for Scarlett to get a grasp of the equipment they wore.

[Mask of Canon (Epic)]
{Sees the truth of the world through the scriptures of the dogma}

[Robes of the Sinless (Rare)]
{Guards from perils with the words of truth}

[Boots of the Sinless (Rare)]
{Treads forth silently alighted upon the words of truth}

[Vambraces of the Sinless (Rare)]
{Finds all weaknesses by the virtue of the words of truth}

[Greaves of the Sinless (Rare)]
{Abates all weariness braced by the words of truth}

[Khopesh of the Sinless (Rare)]
{Cuts the world's fabric to the very soul through the grace of the words of truth}

She frowned. The descriptions for the pieces were very grandiose, but from what she knew the effects weren't anything that special. The helmet, for example, gave you complete vision in the dark along with a decent amount of magic resistance. That in and of itself was, admittedly, pretty rare as most resistance items in the game were type-specific—rather than just giving resistance against all magic—but she certainly wouldn't say it was enough to justify such an ostentatious description. As for the other equipment; if she recalled correctly, the robes gave resistance against pyromancy and a couple of other schools of magic, the boots lessened the amount of detectable noise you made, the vambraces increased your damage when attacking from behind, and the greaves just increased your stamina. She wasn't sure about the khopesh as she'd never used them herself in the game, but they probably had some damage-over-time effect that targeted the mind. If so, it was most likely some sort of umbramancy enchantment. That was the school of magic that dealt mostly with mind-related stuff. They were all decent enough sets—better than a lot of what she'd found yet—but there was a reason even some of these lower-ranked members of the Cabal could wear them. They were far from the best.

She was still uncertain if these descriptions were the item descriptions from the game or not — but if they weren't, then she was really curious as to who it was that wrote these versions. Of course, she was also curious about who created this system that bound her and put her in this world in the first place, but none of those questions were things she was likely to get an answer to any time soon. It wouldn't surprise her if all of those things shared a culprit, though.

Except for the equipment the Adepts wore, they didn't find anything special on most of the bodies. Kat did a cursory search and the only thing of note she found was a [Mirror of Communion] on the body of the Mage Stalker that Scarlett had fought. To avoid anything similar to what happened last time from occurring again, Scarlett instructed Kat to carefully pick it up with a piece of fabric before putting it in the pouch of holding. Thankfully no horrifying voice invaded their minds this time. For now, Scarlett would just keep it in the pouch. It might be that she could find a use for it sometime in the future.

As for the equipment itself; she now had eight sets of heavily enchanted armor to do with as she pleased. She didn't really have any practical use for the Cabal Adept's armor set, though. It was specialized for assassins, after all. It also wasn't the kind of thing you casually wanted to go around wearing. If she tried to sell them they'd probably be worth a decent amount, but that came with its own issues. The Cabal had eyes and ears in a lot of businesses, and she didn't know what the consequences could be for just outright selling their armor. In the game you could do it without anything special happening, but this felt like one of those things where the real world was likely to diverge from the game.

Of course, she'd already made herself a target of the Cabal — but they were a busy organization that had a lot of things to do all across the empire. And in the coming years, they'd no doubt become ever more occupied. As such, it might be in her best interest not to paint any more of a target on herself than she already had. She didn't want them to actually send any of their more powerful members after her.

Maybe it was possible to disenchant the armor for reagents? It had been a feature in the game, so there should be some equivalent to it in this world. Or perhaps there was some way of moving the enchantments or changing the looks of the equipment. The ability to see in the dark could certainly be useful in the future. She'd have to look further into it later on when she had the time.

They left the armor on the bodies for now—neither of them wanted to undress a bunch of corpses—and sat down at the edge of the road to wait for help to arrive. Kat had spent several minutes creating a chair for Scarlett through terrakinesis, saying things like "Yes, my Lady," and "Of course, my Lady," in an obviously fooling manner, but Scarlett couldn't really help it. There was just no way she could get herself to sit down on the dirt at a roadside.

As they waited, a couple of wagons drawn by a muscular pair of mules had passed by in the direction of Freybrook, but Scarlett had largely ignored them. At first, they seemed deathly scared by the toppled still-burning carriage and the row of bodies, but Kat had managed to calm them down somewhat and told them to keep traveling towards the city. After that Scarlett had absentmindedly practiced her magic as she kept watch on the carriage. Although the fight had been tiring, she still had almost half of her mana left.

[Mana: 1843/4088]

Of course, all of that mana had been used against just one opponent, but she didn't think that was too unreasonable of an amount. It was just that she had too little mana. She would need at least five times that in the future.

She'd also have to ask Kat to refill the [Depraved Solitude's Choker] for now.

"Hey," Kat eventually said at one point, a while after the wagons had passed by. "You said this 'Hallowed Cabal' is in charge of the Tribe of Sin." Scarlett turned to look at her. The Shielder had a dark expression on her face. "What is it that they actually do? How come I haven't heard about them?"

Scarlett dispelled an attempt at water sculpting that she'd been dallying her time with as she thought about what to answer that question with. "There is a lot that they do. It ranges from assassinations and political tampering to mere racketeering and trafficking. Though I could not describe it in one word, suffice it to say that their activities are not something you would enjoy involving yourself with. As for why there is no widespread knowledge of them, it is simply because they conduct much of their activities from the so-called 'shadows'. The Tribe of Sin is the group that carries out their more overt endeavors. That said, their existence is not unknown to all. There are guaranteed to be certain members of the Shields Guild that are aware of their existence."

Kat's expression deepened, as she seemed to consider Scarlett's words. "...What use did they have for the children? The original buyer was that voice we heard, right? The leader of this cabal."

Scarlett hesitated. "I...am not entirely certain." She'd never heard of that situation specifically in the game, so she didn't actually know the answer. But the Cabal didn't use slaves. They didn't really need them. As such, there was only one use she could think of that the Cabal might have of them. "Be that as it may," she continued. "It is no longer of relevance. You have already helped prevent such a scenario."

Kat shook her head. "But there's bound to have been other cases like it. And more in the future. Gods know just how much grief just the Tribe of Sin has caused over the years." There was a bitterness to her voice.

Scarlett didn't respond. She couldn't really refute it. The Cabal was one of the major players behind the havoc that would beset the empire in the coming years, and that wasn't really something she could affect too much. Many of their actions were far outside the range of what she even had an interest in getting involved with. Of course, she wouldn't always have a choice in the matter. She was bound to clash with them at some point in the future.

"You said they were likely to come again," Kat continued. "How long before that, do you think?"

Scarlett leaned her head slightly to the side. "I cannot be sure. It is unlikely that they will make any significant moves against me while we are in any major city. I also do not believe they have the ability to send another group such as this one before we have returned from our current venture." While she knew the Cabal had an impressive information network, they weren't omniscient. She hadn't shared where they were going with many individuals, and the Cabal had just lost the group that was keeping an eye on her. It should take them some time to send out another group that could actually pose a threat to her, and even longer for that group to catch up. So as long as they kept a decent pace on their current trip they should be all right. Though she would have to be careful when traveling in less populated areas in the future.

"But you're saying we should still keep our eyes out?" Kat said.

Scarlett nodded her head. "It would be prudent to display caution, yes."

"Right."

They went silent again and Scarlett shifted her attention back to practicing her magic.

"You know," Kat suddenly spoke again. "When I originally accepted your escort request I never even imagined it'd lead to me exploring centuries-old ruins and having to fight murderous secret cabals. But despite that, I can't really say that I hate it. I wouldn't put it in my top five jobs, but I've definitely had worse."

Scarlett glanced at her. The woman had a thoughtful expression on her face as she looked out into the trees on the other side of the road. "...I am glad the danger has not discouraged you from continuing your employment," Scarlett said after a moment.

"Well, I once took on this request to get rid of some Grave Slimes back when I was a junior Shielder." Kat grimaced. "Lost almost half of my armor from that job, and I had to cut off almost all my hair just to get rid of the smell. At the time I seriously considered just quitting this work." She smiled. "I'm glad I didn't, though. I've been able to help a lot of people through my work as a Shielder and I wouldn't give it up for anything."

Scarlett gave her a long look. "It is commendable that you have such pride in your work...Although that does sound like an unpleasant experience."

"Oh, it was," Kat said. "But what I'm trying to say is that I won't abandon you just because things turned out to be a little more serious than I thought it'd be."

Scarlett knitted her brows. That's what she was getting at?

"From how things are looking, it seems like I'd put you in a pretty tough situation if I did that now, so..." Kat turned to look at her. "Well, I was going to say that you don't have to worry about it, but I'm honestly not sure if you ever worry about things. But just know that you can rely on me, even if you're super suspicious and all that."

"...I appreciate your loyalty, and your sincerity. I truly do," Scarlett said and turned away. If she had been in Kat's shoes she probably wouldn't have stuck around, so she honestly respected the woman's devotion. Although... "I ask that you henceforth refrain from suggesting that I am in any manner 'suspicious', however." Perhaps she was just a bit too honest at times.

Kat chuckled. "Is 'calculating' better?"

Scarlett gave a slight nod. "That is acceptable."

They once again lapsed into silence as they waited at the roadside.