Book 2: Chapter 3 - Abattoir [Part 2]

  The thieves in this branch were generally nocturnal, most of them sleeping during the day. Seraphina made a beeline toward the Guild’s dormitory, eager to harvest more experience.

  With Frest trailing behind her, Seraphina quickly located her goal. She motioned to her ears, prompting the knight to respond with an exaggerated shrug. Rolling her eyes, she pointed again, and with a reluctant sigh, he inserted a pair of earplugs.

  Seraphina sighed, then pushed open the door to a large, dimly lit room lined with bunk beds. The thieves within lay sprawled in various stages of slumber—blessedly silent, snoring, tossing-and-turning, passing flatulence, or grinding their teeth.

  One groggy figure near the entrance blinked at her. “Izzit my shift already? Ger’ away, gimme half a glass and I’ll be up…”

  From her perspective, they were little more than a convenient stockpile of experience points packed into human bodies. She readied her voice, bracing herself for the paradox about to unfold. Wail of Judgment was classified as a spell, but it required no traditional chant; it was a short, channeled ability whose “chant” was the spell itself. Normally, her Silent Casting skill removed the need for verbal or somatic components, but what happened when the spell itself was the chant?

  Despite the potential risk, Seraphina pushed forward and unleashed her voice. The system resolved the contradiction by pitching her Wail of Judgment beyond the threshold of human hearing.

  Its impact, however, was just as lethal. Bestowed by the Goddess of Justice, holy spells were especially devastating against criminals. Those closest to Seraphina died instantly from the sheer force of her supernatural cry—deadlier even than the Banshee’s shriek she had once faced. The sleepers farther away clutched at their ears, wailing and tumbling from their bunks to thrash about on the floor as they awoke to a world of agony.

  The notifications kept coming, a steady litany of Seraphina’s final judgment upon the thieves.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Frest, kill the rest of them,” she ordered coolly, her inner vision flooded with endless updates.

  With a resigned sigh, Frest drew his sword.

  “Whatever happened to your mace… or flail?” Seraphina asked.

  Frest only stared blankly until he remembered to remove one of his earplugs. Luckily, offensive Divine spells in the game did not have any “friendly fire,” but Seraphina had decided it best to take precautions.

  “I said, what happened to your other weapon?” she repeated. “The one you used to beat that lout over the head.”

  “Oh… that. Didn’t think it would look as good,” he answered sheepishly, switching to his sword.

  Seraphina gave a curt nod. She understood fashion priorities, at least. Then, with an imperious gesture, she waved at the thieves who still stirred, dazed and struggling on the floor.

  Frest set about his grim task with practiced efficiency, stabbing each survivor in the throat or chest. It was like watching a gardener methodically uproot weeds. Seraphina observed in silence, aware that she was likely earning only half the experience points, but still reveling in their steady accumulation. By the time Frest finished, she had gained well over twelve hundred experience—enough to push her even closer to her next level.

  There and then, she decided to invest all her upcoming level points into Intelligence. The new school term was about to begin, and while she didn’t need to be even more of a genius, boosting her Intelligence attribute enhanced her power of recall. As far as she remembered, raising Intelligence bolstered her Mana reserves and also made her smarter—albeit smarter only to a certain limit.

  According to the lore, storing increasingly larger amounts of Mana within one’s body forced the mind to adapt in order to handle the raw impossibility of such energy which defied physical reality. More and more of the cognitive resources were devoted to the constant calculation of Mana. In short, there was a cap on how much the Intelligence attribute actually made you smarter.

  Still, if it helped her with upcoming exams, she was all for it. As the daughter of a duke, the Academy would naturally waive her entrance requirements. However, her pride demanded she excel, and she was determined to begin the term as the top-scoring student and representative of the first-years. She would have it no other way. It was not as if she would ever lose to a bunch of hormonal teenagers.

  Of all things, her maid Miriam also intended to enroll. Miriam had the means to pay her tuition, and she had mentioned something about wanting to—

  “...I said, I have just killed about two score of helpless men and boys, Lady Seraphina. What are we to do now?” Frest interrupted sharply, waving a hand in front of her face.

  Seraphina shook her head, clearing her mind of stray thoughts. She frowned, more annoyed at the interruption than anything else. On closer inspection, she realized Frest had indeed been ruthless—some of the bodies were probably boys around Ibn’s age.

  “Of course, I was just thinking about that, Frest. Do you think using the Sight is easy?” she said, trying to save face in front of him.

  Frest merely waited in silence, expecting a proper explanation.

  “There are a few guard stations up near street level, and another before the sewer gate, if I remember correctly.”

  Frest looked at her in disbelief. “Oh, so you’ve been here before, milady?”

  “Not in the way you would think,” Seraphina replied in a mock-mysterious tone, flashing a devilish grin. “But I have walked this path before. There are secrets to this place. Many secrets. Come along, Sir Ferdiad Frest. We have a few more thieves to usher into the next life.”

  “Very well, milady,” he answered, pretending to be immune to her charm.

  In truth, Seraphina felt a sliver of doubt worming its way into her thoughts. While Frest’s satchel held a few Health potions, she had foolishly forgotten to pack any Mana potions. Her new spell had proven quite effective against multiple enemies and did not affect those she viewed as her allies; it was just a shame that at ten Mana points per cast, she simply could not use it more often.

  Oh well, she would just have to deal with what was left of the thieves here in the old-fashioned way.