Chương 94: Book 2 Chapter 46 - The Silver Serpent Clan

The city guards had cordoned off the area for safety, but allowed Kiara's group to pass once they disclosed they were with House Yountal. The building hadn't just been broken into, it was completely torn apart. The entire front wall lay in ruins, the rubble littered all over the street. The buildings nearby looked like they'd been hit by some of the shrapnel in the initial explosion. Once they stepped inside the shop, it got weirder.

The building and everything inside it looked as if it had been liquified and then dripped everywhere. Holes in the ceiling to the second level looked like they had been eaten away by acid, and there was a sharp, bitter smell in the air. All of the merchandise was ruined and unusable. After seeing the inside of the shop, or what was left of it, Kiara followed Dustin back outside. The shop owner, who officially worked for House Yountal, was conversing with the city guards, looking very distraught.

Along with the city guards, one of the city officials was there to jot down an official report. Kiara only caught the tail end of the conversation, but it seemed like standard red tape and paperwork. Once the city official had what he needed, he left for the city offices to file the report, and the shop owner heaved a big sigh. He was a short middle-aged man, with pudgy features.

He was wearing a small cap, and a shop apron over his clothes, the kind that helped him carry around odd tools and knick knacks that he might need throughout the day. Dustin patted him on the shoulder.

"You okay, Renaldo?" Renaldo nodded, glancing up at Dustin.

"Just frustrated is all." He thumbed over his shoulder to the ruins of the shop.

"Luckily no one was inside when it happened. I found it like this when I showed up this morning." Dustin nodded sympathetically.

"Well, it goes without saying, but House Yountal will cover the repair costs and get you outfitted with new merchandise. Speaking of which," he gestured to Kiara.

"This is Shain Yountal, the head of House Yountal." Renaldo faced Kiara with surprise and bowed low, removing the cap from his head. He had a bald spot underneath that looked like it was mere weeks from spreading to peek out from beneath the small cap.

"My lady!" he said as he straightened back out.

"It's quite a pleasure, I had no idea you'd be visiting Portish anytime soon." Kiara curtsied slightly in response to his bow.

"The pleasure is mine, Renaldo. What kind of work do you do here?"

"Ah," he said, twisting the cap in his hands out of nervousness.

"I'm a purveyor of household goods, a general merchandiser of sorts. Soaps, tools, cleaning supplies, odds and ends." He glanced back at Dustin respectfully.

"Dustin found me at an opportune time, honestly. I enjoy the interpersonal aspect of running the shop, but I was having a hard time managing inventory and juggling the financial aspects of the business. Dustin stepped in to help me get organized, set me up with my new clerk, Jonathan, who is a life saver with that stuff. I've owned the shop for almost three years, but now I work under the House Yountal umbrella." Dustin nodded.

"Renaldo was one of the first to sign on with us here in Portish." He glanced somberly back at the ruins of the shop.

"I've honestly never seen anything quite like this." Renaldo grimaced as he looked at the shop. He finally relaxed enough to replace the cap on his head, meticulously fine-tuning its placement to cover up every hint of his baldness.

"It really is something. I can't think of why the Silver Serpent Clan would want to target my shop, though." Kiara raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"The Silver Serpent Clan." Renaldo fished a small lapel pin out of one of his apron pockets and held it out. It was green and silver, in the shape of a snake. Kiara remembered an identical pin on the suit of Kane Vondeer's lapel. Dustin narrowed his eyes as he saw the pin.

"We were just beginning to sell products branded with the House Yountal logo this week here at Renaldo's shop, and now this happens. The timing is… suspicious, to say the least." Renaldo looked back and forth between them.

"Oh, does the Silver Serpent Clan have something against House Yountal?" Dustin patted Renaldo's arm reassuringly.

"Politics in Easton, nothing for you to worry about." He looked back at the shop and scratched his chin.

"Err… theoretically it's nothing you need worry about, but seeing the shop…," he trailed off, lost in his own thoughts. Kiara plucked the pin from Renaldo's fingers.

"Where did this come from?" Ranaldo pointed to the shop.

"It was on the checkout counter inside, the only thing that wasn't marred from the damage. They clearly left it as a calling card." Kiara furrowed her brows.

"Did you show this to the city official?" Renaldo nodded.

"He took note of it in his report, but I doubt anything will come of it. The Silver Serpent Clan is too powerful. They are headquartered in The Capital up north and have branches in a few of the largest county capitals like Portish. Count Dremond doesn't want to make waves with them." Kiara growled softly in the back of her throat. She hated bullies who pushed others around just because they could get away with it. Renaldo looked at her in surprise and alarm as the noise escaped her throat.

She coughed to cover it up.

"Ahem. Do you uh, mind if I hold onto this?" she asked, holding up the lapel pin. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Renaldo shook his head.

"Feel free, I have no use for it." She pocketed the pin.

"We need to hire more guards to keep an eye on things here in Portish," Dustin said, staring at the shop.

"We're too far away to get here quickly in case of an emergency. We need people here in Portish that are ready to respond." Kiara nodded.

"Hire whoever you need." He turned to her.

"Do we want to use soul oaths again?" She shook her head.

"Only if they live at the estate with us. If they live here in the city on their own, we're okay without an oath." Silence settled over their small group as they stared at the shop. Kiara glanced back at the carriage, where Zoey had taken a seat to rest after the journey and had her eyes closed. Kiara made her way over, and Zoey peeked one eye open as she approached.

"Everything okay?" Zoey asked lazily, closing her eyes again.

"Yeah," Kiara replied.

"The shop and all of the stuff inside is ruined, but no one was inside when they attacked, so no one got hurt." Zoey mumbled something in response, but was clearly too tired to enunciate her words properly. Kiara didn't catch any of what she said. She chuckled softly to herself and walked back over to Dustin and Renaldo.

"I'm going to run some errands," she said to Dustin.

"Zoey is napping in the carriage, I'll leave her here with you while I'm gone. What do you say we meet back here in an hour?" Dustin raised an eyebrow.

"Errands?" She nodded.

"I want to ask Victor about the sword he gave me." * She found Victor in his shop, fiddling with something behind the counter.

"Good afternoon, Lady Yountal," he said without looking up as soon as she entered the shop. She smiled in response.

"Call me Shian." That got his attention, and he looked up from his work. He blinked twice, then placed the piece he was working on to the side and stood. He walked out from behind the counter and gave a small bow.

"Very well, Shian. Call me Victor."

"Uh… I already have been," she said, slightly confused by his response. He looked up and to the side, as if trying to remember their past interactions, then laughed lightly.

"Ha! So you have, so you have. That might be my age talking." She eyed him up and down. He didn't look a day over forty, but then again, he was a tier 5 mage, so his looks were likely very deceiving.

"So, what brings you by?" he asked.

"Have you by chance tried out that sword yet?" He had barely finished asking when Kiara pulled the sword from her soul storage and held it up with a triumphant smile.

"Yes! And… wow! What a sword. What did you do to it?" A proud smile took over his face at her reaction.

"What can I say, I have a talent for artificing. May I?" She handed him the sword. He took it gently, then nodded to himself as he studied it.

"I see you've used it a bit already. Mind if I recharge it?" She nodded eagerly.

"Please do!" The sword lit up momentarily with a soft blue glow as Victor channelled his mana into it.

"About your other sword," he said conversationally as he refilled the one he was holding.

"The sharpness and durability enchantments on it are very basic. Almost to the point of being shameful. The sharpness aspect in particular was aimed mainly at maintaining the blade's own edge, rather than an actual sharpness enchantment. This one, on the other hand…" He held the blade up as the glow died down.

"I worked an actual sharpness enchantment into it." His fingers traced the runes on the flat of the blade as he spoke.

"This set of runes here guide the mana onto the sharp edges of the blade. These ones help project the mana past the blade's edge and form it into a sharp cutting mana construct, able to cleave most materials without too much pressure. I have a sharpness concept based on… well, I probably shouldn't go into the details, but suffice it to say that I can make my constructs very sharp." He extended the sword back to her, hilt first.

She accepted it and held it up close to try and see the mana construct he was referring to. Nothing was visibly apparent.

"You won't be able to see it," he said as he watched.

"It's much too small to see. Most physical materials with a point that fine would be incredibly brittle, but magic has a way of getting around those rules. My durability concept actually reinforces the runic mana constructs as well as the sword itself, much the same way my own spells work. It makes them very difficult to ignore, tear apart, or defend against." Kiara nodded at the explanation, fascinated.

She pulled a bronze coin from her soul storage, and laid it on the sword's edge, holding it with her finger and thumb to keep it balanced. Victor watched her with a look of interest. She applied a gentle pressure, and watched in wonder as the coin split cleanly around the blade's edge. Incredible. Before she could question the wisdom of the idea, she held her thumb against the blade's edge to feel it herself, something she hadn't yet attempted.

"No, wait!" Victor cried out in alarm, holding out one of his hands with concern.

"You'll lose your finger." Kiara felt the edge of the blade, but it felt normal. It was sharp, but not unusually so. She pushed pretty hard, running her thumb perpendicular to the edge to avoid getting sliced, the same way one would test the sharpness of a knife. The sword's edge was sharp, and well made, for a steel blade, but just a steel blade nonetheless. Apparently runic mana constructs also dissolved on contact with her, something she was honestly glad to discover.

Victor stared at her intact thumb in amazement for a few seconds before snapping his hanging jaw shut.

"I don't sense any mana shields…" he trailed off, staring intently at the space surrounding Kiara's body, searching for any hint of a protective shield. Kiara realized she had just displayed her World-Engine-granted power to a tier 5 mage, and instantly regretted it. Who knew what other powerful individuals Victor might know. What if they learned of her abilities and decided she was worth locking away and experimenting on to see how her abilities worked. She paled at the thought.

Victor, still stunned, followed up his previous comment with, "You are… quite durable, my lady." He bowed deeply, his face a mixture of awe and fear. His gaze dropped to the blade, specifically to the place where she had touched, and his eyes widened just a fraction. Kiara wasn't sure what to make of his reaction, but guessed that he was noticing more than she wanted him to. She decided to make a hasty exit.

"Well, I just wanted to stop by and thank you for the sword, it is an amazing gift. How much do I owe you for recharging the enchantments?" He shook his head vigorously.

"Oh no, nothing at all! It was my pleasure, truly. Stop by any time, I'd be happy to recharge anything you need, Lady Yountal." It didn't escape her notice that he had stopped calling her Shian again. She wasn't sure why he had bowed so low, or why he was acting so strange suddenly. She was in enough of a hurry herself to get out of there that she didn't give it too much thought. She bowed in response, flashed him her most disarming smile, then hurried out the door.