Chương 28: Mysteries on the chase

After having watched Kat run off into the forest, Scarlett started following the forest edge as she searched the fields for her butler. It only took her a couple of minutes before she spotted him, close to the border of one of the fields, assisting a rather large bald man who lay on the ground and had blood running from what appeared to be a bite on his right leg. An impromptu splint made of part of the ruined fence nearby had been created to support the leg.

When Garside noticed her he stood up and bowed towards her.

"My Lady. The monsters appear to have fled, as you predicted. I've assisted a number of the villagers in escaping back to the village itself, just as you ordered." Scarlett inspected him. He'd been wearing the same black suit during most of their journey—she could only assume he had many like it—and it seemed mostly intact so he probably hadn't been hurt. There were some signs of blood on his sleeves, but they didn't seem to come from him.

"Well done," she said, momentarily glancing over the injured villager as he shakily stood up.

"Kat has left in pursuit of the monsters," she continued.

"I expect it will be some time before she returns. I will retreat to the manor for now. If you wish to search for any other injured I suggest you do so immediately."

"Understood, my Lady. I will join you as soon as I can," Garside said. She nodded her head and began to make her way back to the village. Kat's breath flowed out heavily as her foot found purchase on a protruding root in front of her. She tried to pace her breathing evenly as she sprinted through the dark canopied forest. The haste spell was taxing enough on the body as it was.

Leaping over the body of a fallen-over tree, and landing with some uncertainty before quickly regaining her balance, she spotted more movement some distance in front of her. These wolf monsters were as quick as cockatrices. Even after injuring some of them, she could only barely keep up. Another minute or so and she wouldn't be able to keep the spell up any longer either. She dodged a low-hanging branch that she noticed at the last second, scanning around for the wolf she had been following.

Howling sounded out somewhere to her right, but it was far too dark for her to see anything in that direction. She kept running forward, hoping to spot her target again. There. A short distance away some of the moonlight found its way through the trees and reflected off silver fur. Kat immediately veered off towards it. More howls, some of them closer than before, rang out from different points in the forest. She ignored them and focused on following the monster ahead of her.

She saw it run out from amongst the trees and cross a wide area that held a large gathering of rocks before continuing deeper into the forest on the other end. She made sure to not lose it as she ran and kept her balance across the stones. The wolf didn't seem to mind her as she kept close to its heels, when it suddenly slinked into a large bush next to a tree and disappeared. Both her feet slammed into the forest floor and she grabbed onto the trunk of a nearby tree to help her halt despite her speed.

She readied herself for an attack and observed the bush closely, but there was no more movement. The wolf wasn't hiding. She didn't even think these monsters had the brains to try and trick her like that. She looked around the area. Judging from the howls earlier there were still other wolves out in the forest. Although they had turned out not to be a major threat to her, finding herself stuck amongst an entire pack of them while dealing with the aftereffects of using haste probably wasn't the brightest of ideas.

She glanced up the tree next to her. Boosted by haste, she managed to jump and climb up the tree without much issue, setting herself to rest on a branch that was fairly high and gave her a good enough view of the bush that the wolf had disappeared into. She wanted to make sure this was the right place. She also let go of her haste spell, feeling the fatigue wash over her body like a Viles-damned wave. Some of her bones made small popping noises in protest and she was already starting to feel stiff all over.

Gods, she really hated that spell. Taking long and deep breaths as she kept an eye out for any more wolves, she began trying to look to the east and see if she couldn't find out her general position. Scarlett had been right when she'd said the mountains wouldn't be far off. Kat could see them through the treetops. Without haste it'd take her maybe a minute or two to get there. She shook her head. Sometimes it was downright scary what that woman knew.

She'd met plenty of impressive people throughout her time as a Shielder, but she'd never met someone quite like Scarlett Hartford. Despite being a baroness—and living up to at least half of the stereotypes Kat would have anticipated from a noble—Scarlett still somehow managed to go against her expectations. The woman so naturally somehow acted like there was barely any secret in the world that wasn't known to her, yet at the same time she was exploring new territory.

Kat was pretty sure this was the first time Scarlett had ever been to Whistlecreek—and it showed—but it still felt like the woman knew all its mysteries. It was as if she had the gods themselves whispering in her ear all the little secrets she wanted to know. Kat paused. Scarlett couldn't actually be an Augur, could she?... No. That'd be ridiculous. From what she'd heard that was impossible outside members of the Followers. She didn't know if any of the other gods even bothered with things like that.

And Scarlett felt about as far removed from a holy woman as possible, so it definitely wasn't that. But what other ways were there for the woman to know all that she did? If it was just the stuff about the Tribe of Sin—Kat still had a hard time swallowing that there was a whole other group behind those monsters—then Kat might just have thought Scarlett had first-hand experience of them or something similar.

But all the different ruins, caves, and other interesting places that they had visited because of Scarlett's vague 'research' didn't really fit into that explanation. There had to be more to it. Did Scarlett actually have someone feeding her all this information? Somebody that had to be kept a secret? Or had she learned it all by herself? Kat had found herself more and more intrigued by that question the more time she spent with the woman, and the more comfortable she also felt around her.

It was pretty clear that Scarlett had also mellowed up some towards her — at least as far as that word went when it came to describing the usually indifferent noblewoman. Kat grinned. She'd even gotten Scarlett to pull what she was pretty sure were supposed to be jokes at times. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Movement down at ground level caught her attention and pulled her out of her thoughts.

She spotted shadows in the shape of large wolves creep out from among the trees, lurking towards the bush where she'd seen the other wolf disappear. Either they didn't smell her, or they didn't mind her. Soon enough they disappeared into it too, which meant this was definitely the right spot. She leaned back against the tree. At least they knew where they were supposed to go next then. Now she just had to return to Whistlecreek. Although maybe she could take some time to rest first...

It wasn't until the next morning that Scarlett found Kat returning from the forest. The Shielder looked completely exhausted, almost like she'd spent the better part of the night just running. It seemed like the effect of [Haste] was much harsher in this world than it was in 'Chronicle of Realms'. That was curious. She didn't know what the spell actually did, so she could only guess as to the reason, but in the game [Haste] had drained your stamina and temporarily reduced the stat.

If you were to translate that into the real world where not everybody has a stamina stat that recharges every few minutes then it sort of made sense for it to have more of an effect. But Kat had managed to locate the wargs' den due to the use of the spell, so it wasn't a waste of effort at the very least.

Scarlett did decide to let the Shielder rest for the day though, as intruding in the lair of a large pack of wolves didn't sound like the best idea when one in the group was too tired to stand on their own two legs. Much like the previous days, Scarlett took the opportunity to spend most of the day reading the books she had—she even managed to read some of the books on noble traditions and decorums when Garside was busy looking around the village—and getting some more practice with her upgraded hydrokinesis skill.

That night, after double-checking with Kat if she was well enough for it and getting a decently reassuring confirmation, they got ready to move out. After having checked everything and standing in the village's manor house prepared to leave, the village head had approached them. He seemed to mostly stay in some nearby house during their stay, but came in now and then to see if there was something Scarlett wanted and had noticed their preparations.

"Ah, ehm, my Lady. Are you leaving somewhere?" Scarlett gave the man a look-over. He looked significantly more tired than when they'd first arrived here. She could only assume that the stress of their stay here didn't treat him well.

"Indeed we are," she said.

"We are leaving to attend to the infestation of monsters that have plagued your village for these past weeks." His eyes widened at her words, no doubt realizing what it meant.

"Y-You mean to say that you've found the monsters' lair?"

"That we have."

"Ah, that..." He hesitated as his eyes passed over Kat and Garside who were giving him careful looks.

"That is great!" he exclaimed with just a bit more fervor than was believable. Scarlett chose not to bother him about it.

"Yes," she said and turned towards the door.

"I expect that by the morning we will have concluded this entire affair in all of our favor. Then I and my retinue will be able to leave with clear consciences." She really couldn't wait. Having to endure using a smelly privy for her... business was practically torture in her current circumstances, and not a problem she ever wanted to face again in the future if she could avoid it.

"T-Then I wish you all the best," the village head said, though there didn't sound to be much emotion behind it. Scarlett gave him one last look before they left. Well, she couldn't really fault him. He was probably afraid they'd take what was in the wargs' den. After they'd exited the manor house and had reached the outskirts of the village, Kat spoke.

"That guy is so suspicious. He's been weird about the wolves ever since we got here. You'd almost think he would've tried something by now."

"I concur, Miss Breeden," Garside said as he thumbed his thick mustache.

"The village head has most likely been hiding something from us. But attempting to do anything towards a noble such as the Lady would have been the height of folly. I do not believe he is the sort of man that would perform that kind of mistake."

"You're probably right. But you'd think he would've been happy about us going out to take care of their monster problem. Makes one wonder what would make him act like that." That last part was obviously directed towards Scarlett.

"There could be many reasons," Scarlett said, not looking at the Shielder.

"But ultimately, none of them matter. Garside is correct in that they would not dare go against us, and I do not believe they are hiding anything nefarious." All of the villagers were weak. Even if you outright offended them during the questline in the game they still didn't dare go against you, and she had no reason to expect them to act differently here.

"Alright." Scarlett could imagine the Shielder shrugging.

"If you say so." Soon enough they entered the forest surrounding Whistlecreek, Kat leading the way with a lantern in hand. Scarlett didn't really recognize where they were going from the game, but it was both dark out, and this wasn't the most unique of forests, so that was hardly a surprise. They walked on slowly, keeping a lookout for any wargs in the area, but they didn't encounter any.

To her knowledge, they only left their den every few days or so to raid Whistlecreek's fields, and now some of them had even gotten injured so it might have taken even more time before the next attack. After a while Kat finally stopped, pointing towards a bush nested against a tree.

"That's where I saw the wolves disappear."

"Wargs," Scarlett said as she cautiously neared the bush.

"These monsters are called wargs." She realized now that she'd forgotten to tell Kat of the specific type of monster this was. Not that it really mattered much in their case.

"Wargs, huh?" the Shielder muttered.

"I think I've heard of them. There are so many different kinds of wolves."

"They are quite a rare species," Garside said.

"Not seen much outside of the Whitdown Mountains." Scarlett turned to him. He seemed to know a bit about monsters. And he was giving her a curious look now.... Crap. She looked back to the bush. Maybe she shouldn't act as if she knew things like this near him. He'd been rather quiet and obedient about stuff so she'd started to grow complacent around him. But there was no knowing what he might find odd or suspicious.

"It is likely that there is a pathway here that the wargs use. We will have to utilize that," she said, looking at Kat. The Shielder's lip turned up.

"I'm guessing I'm going first then?" Scarlett nodded her head.

"I believe that would be the most prudent. You did say that you had mostly recovered and would have no trouble dealing with 'a few overgrown dogs.'" Kat shook her head with a smile.

"I wasn't complaining." She then walked closer to the bush and used her hands to move some of the branches away, attempting to climb in on her fours.

"I think I found something," she said after disappearing behind some of the leaves on the bush.

"There's definitely some kind of opening or hole here. It's a bit tight, but I'll try to climb inside." Her voice faded, until after a moment they heard it again but a lot more muted.

"It's safe down here. You can come down!" Scarlett looked towards Garside.

"Kat will be enough for this. I believe it would be best if you stayed and ensured there are no problems here. Is that understood?" He merely bowed.

"Of course, my Lady. You may put your trust in me. And if there is anything else you require you need only signal me."

"Good." She moved away from the butler—who thankfully turned away as she did—and kneeled down. She wasn't exactly looking forward to this specific part.