Chương 91: Chapter 2.28: Backups for Redundant Redundancies

The blade of rainbow steel caught the sunlight as it descended like an executioner's axe toward Brutus. Favius could almost see, almost understand the movements. Oh God, is he— With a single straight punch, Brutus's free hand shot forward. It collided with Sirrana's temple as his blade almost contemptuously deflected hers. Sirranas blade fell with a sharp ring, followed by the dull thump of the cultivator herself hitting the ground. Favius stared with wide eyes as Brutus studied his bloodied knuckles and whistled.

"Is. Is it over?" Favius inquired hoarsely." No. That's a dumb question." He murmured and chuckled. Favius got to his feet and stumbled forwards, before steading.

"Brutus. That was fucking amazing. That fight. I. I…" He giggled before his expression darkened as he met the cultivator's eyes. He really just played with her. This was never an actual battle.

"You played at her level," Favius accused. Brutus snorted.

"If killing her was the point, I would have broken her door down and hewn her in half while she was still in her bed. Favius, this is about understanding her, learning who she is." Favius paused before snorting.

"Well, so I guess now we are taking another perspective to learn who she is." Brutus nodded.

"That we are indeed doing. After all, now she's ready." Favius rubbed his chin.

"Why did you push her so far, so hard?" Brutus chuckled.

"Oh, Favius. In time you'll come to understand that nothing quite clears your mind like the pure, unadulterated desire to kill someone, to slaughter them and to bathe in their blood. It is..." His smile acquired an almost manic edge.

"... liberating." Favius shivered once, then shivered again much harder. That first one. That wasn't really fear, was it? He tensed. Anticipation? At… at what I'm becoming? Favius shook his head, but Brutus merely grunted.

"Trust me. You shall understand it in time." Favius shrugged before turning around. He gestured and glared accusingly at Brutus.

"Did you really have to split that poor pine? This is a nice clearing. If you just vandalize the trees..." Brutus chuckled.

"Oh, trust me. We need that pine for the next part of the plan." Favius looked between the suddenly frail-looking woman, the cultivator, and the axe still hung between the two halves of the pine.

"What exactly is your plan?" murmured Favius. Brutus grinned and winked at him before gesturing to the rocks where he had hidden.

"Do me a favor and get the stash I placed there, will ya?" Favius nodded and walked over. After a bit of searching, he found a bunch of wooden sticks and ropes. As he returned from the rocks, his eyes opened wide. Brutus had stripped Sirrana down to the underwear chest and hip wraps. He had carefully removed her weapons, clothing, and equipment piece by piece, and thrown it onto a pile.

"What are you doing?" murmured Favius.

"Less than is probably wise," Brutus said.

"I'm accounting for your..." Brutus gestured vaguely at her, at Sirrana's half-naked form.

"... sensibilities around women. Now..." Brutus tilted his head to the side.

"When you are in a situation where you need to restrain a hostile cultivator..." Favius rolled his eyes but closed the distance and dumped the equipment.

"... it's important to recall that mere manacles might hold mortals, but chains of bronze will not reliably restrain every Praecultor. Never mind someone like her." He gestured. Favius looked at the equipment. The sticks. They're almost the same. Two of two lengths, with four in total.

"You want to restrain her arms. Splint them as if they were broken." Brutus snapped his fingers.

"Exactly, boy. I knew you would get it." He straightened Sirrana's arm, put on a splint, and Favius noted the boreholes that were cut into the splint. At intervals, Brutus began threading the rope through them and around the woman's arms.

"You see, with a proper splint, they can never develop the momentum, the force that would be required to break manacles. Normally this is only the first step. You'll want to bind her to a frame, but in our case..."

"Well, I have a solution for that." Favius narrowed his eyes as he noticed Brutus continuing to bind her.

"What do I do if I need to restrain a hostile cultivator without having ropes or splints available?" Brutus snorted.

"Just break every bone in their arms and legs. That usually does it." Favius swallowed.

"That doesn't sound healthy." Brutus sniffed.

"It's decidedly not, boy. Now look." He leaned over, holding up the woman's hand.

"It's important you bind the thumb, otherwise they might get an opportunity for leverage. If you restrain the palm after the hand, their wrist will also be unable to generate the leverage it needs to do something useful." Brutus continued explaining it, and Favius nodded along as, limb by limb, the female fighter was restrained. At the end, Brutus simply dropped her and leaned over. He ran his calloused hands over her chest wraps, over her back, then under them at the back. Favius cleared his throat.

"Brutus, what are you doing?" Brutus did not reply and only made a noise a few seconds afterward.

"Ah." He drew out a dagger in a leather sheath and sniffed. Favius's eyes widened." She had a dagger in there!?"

"Of course," Brutus sniffed.

"In fact..." His hand stopped on her chest and Brutus lifted the chest wrap up and reached in. Favius stiffened. Yes. This feels fucking inappropriate. He was about to say something again when Brutus pulled first a short, stumpy, then a longer curved blade out of Sirrana's cleavage. Favius swallowed.

"Three daggers. That's. That's…" He trailed off. Brutus paused at her side.

"And also this." He partially unwrapped the chest wrap and drew something out.

"Is that lead?" Favius asked. Brutus nodded.

"No telling what's in it, though my guess would be it's some sort of poison within the vessel. Could either be used for assassination or as a suicide pill." Favius swallowed and remained silent while Brutus repeated the procedure with Sirrana's hip wrap. He produced another curved blade of arcane steel, a long knife, a long braid of woven horse hair at which he only sniffed.

"Garrotte." And finally, after he finished checking the hip wrap, he whistled.

"Now this is interesting." The item glittered like a glittering egg-shaped piece of black crystal. Favius caught it and his eyes widened. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"That's adamantite, right?" Brutus nodded.

"Indeed. If I had to guess, it contains vitriolic essence."

"Vitriolic essence?"

"Yeah. It eats through nearly everything. Metal. Stone. Probably her back-out option for breaking restraints that she cannot tear apart. Or getting through a door if she doesn't have lock picks." Favius sniffed.

"I thought only mages can use adamantite."

"Well." He looked at the glittering arcane steel blade. Brutus sniffed.

"Lithii built their enchantments specifically for use by cultivators and even mortals. As for Pyrii… The issue isn't detonating the grenade, boy. The issue is keeping the grenade stable so it doesn't detonate at an..." Brutus smirked at the woman hip wrap.

"... inconvenient moment." Favius's eyes widened and he glanced incredulously at Sirrana's hip wrap.

"You're telling me she carried a vial of acid in her underwear?" The sides of Brutus's mouth twitched.

"Indeed. And one that would have long since splintered if she hadn't always been devoting a fraction of her will to keeping it intact." Favius rubbed his finger over the unnaturally cool piece of black crystal. Well, at some point I need to investigate what adamantite actually is. It's weird. Every other material in this world seems like it could have existed on Earth or even existed on Earth, but this... He removed his thumb. It's cold. Almost as if it is drinking in my body heat.

A bit like metal, but even a solid steel object... He shook his head. No, let's not come to conclusions. That just means it either has high heat capacity or is great at conducting heat. Or both. He carefully placed the object next to the pile of her clothes and equipment. Favius coughed delicately.

"So Brutus, you think we found everything thing?" Brutus sniffed.

"Reasonably certain there's nothing else in the underwear. But as for finding everything..." He looked over at her before snorting.

"Let's just say I found everything I'm willing to search for." Favius's eyes widened and he swallowed involuntarily.

"That's just..." Brutus laughed.

"It's actually rather conservative for her type." Favius sighed and Brutus walked over to the pine.

"Step back, boy. I don't want anything to fall on top of you." With a few dozen sharp, swift strikes Brutus brought down first one, then the other half of the pine. They collapsed to the side, and with a dozen more precise strikes, Brutus delimbed the nearly fifteen-meter-tall tree.

"Now, remember when I said that we wouldn't need the traditional frame?" He grinned and shrugged at a long rope.

"If you would be so kind as to help me." The cultivator's muscles strained as he lifted up the pine. Favius's eyes grew ever wider, as he carried the entire log. While Favius was still gawking, Brutus casually bound Sirrana's hands together with a tough rope and bound it to the last few meters of the pine that were still stable. Finally he picked up another piece of wood and began moving a few boulders about. Favius looked first at the long split pine, the woman affixed to its end, and what Brutus was building.

"You don't mean to..." He swallowed.

"... dangle her out there like bait on the end of a fishhook." Brutus laughed.

"Seems you have grasped the gist of my plan." Favius gave him an incredulous glare.

"Will you finally tell me where all of this is gonna go?" Brutus tilted his head in consideration.

"No, no. I believe it will be more entertaining if you realize it bit by bit." Favius sighed. Soon Brutus told him to hold up a rock with a lever. The cultivator slowly moved the tree trunk closer to the abyss and shifted it out inch by inch, dragging Sirrana over the floor almost incidentally.

"Now!" Brutus called out, and Favius released the lever, fixing the end of the split pine in place with a boulder. Brutus preened as he surveyed his handiwork while Favius sighed. A split tree, boulders as counterweights, and a woman hanging... He shook his head. Like ten meters out and three meters down over the same abyss he almost threw me into. Is this supposed to be funny? Some sort of messed-up reference to our first honest conversation? Favius snorted. Well, of course it is.

Though if he thinks I'm gonna comment on that... Favius smirked.

"All right," began Brutus as he settled on the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling into the canyon. He patted the empty stone beside him.

"Settle down." Favius walked over and carefully sat down, glancing at the sparse vegetation on the stones below. He smirked. Given how valuable arcane steel is, she's probably not going to be happy if she needs to search for her dagger down there. Nearly a quarter of an hour passed and Favius studied the woman. Her underwear was wet with sweat and blood and the crimson fluid trickled from almost two dozen shallow cuts. Her perfectly smooth skin looked almost ethereal, yet the reality was... He glanced at the trunk.

We literally got her hung out to dry, like a fish or bait for some sea monster living in the canyon. Five more minutes of merciful silence passed until Sirrana groaned.

"What?" she murmured, the word barely audible. She blinked and wriggled, first with her arms, then with her legs. She winced as she tried to bend them.

"I'm bound," she groaned drunkenly before suddenly flinching sharply.

"I'm bound." Her eyes snapped open. Her glare might have been more effective if she hadn't been turned at nearly a ninety-degree angle away from them.

"Ovinius Kestrelo, you asshole!" She hissed out, swinging and wriggling ever more vigorously, yet unable to do anything more.

"You vile beast! You insulted me! You... You stripped me!" She hissed as she glanced down at her body.

"Good, good," drawled Brutus.

"Let it all out. Anger is healthy."

"I... I'm going to castrate you! Make sure that no more dogs are born of your lineage! You vile… You foul… You—" Brutus's roaring laughter drowned out her voice, and Sirrana could only splutter in the end. Finally, she rotated out of sight and five minutes of awkward silence passed as she turned around. As soon as she could nearly see them again, Favius cleared his throat.

"Brutus, next time you do this, you should attach a thread, a guideline to control the rotation of your prisoner." Brutus rubbed his beard.

"That, yes, that would indeed have been wise."

"Bastards!" spat Sirrana. Her glare settled onto Favius.

"You think this is funny, do you? Your grandmother will fucking hear of this. She'll tan your skin until—" Favius exchanged a look with Brutus and burst out into laughter. This. This is hilarious. I mean, honestly, this is cartoon-level shit we are pulling right now. Brutus studied her face and then shrugged as he produced a rainbow dagger.

"Favius, tell me, with all you know of arcane steel, do you think I can cut the rope in a single throw?" Ice ran down Favius's spine and even Sirrana flinched at the man's casual inquiry. He threw the dagger up and down, always catching it by its grip. Sirrana took a few deep breaths, clearly using pneuma to calm herself as her eye settled on the two of them again. Brutus cleared his throat.

"All right, are you ready to drop the games?"

"Games? I'm the one engaging in games here?" she hissed before taking another pneuma-filled deep breath. Brutus sighed and his arm flicked forward in a sharp gesture. The dagger hit less than a finger width from where the rope was attached to the pine trunk. Sirrana flinched at the thunking noise and even Favius let out a panicked gasp.

"Brutus," he hissed. But the man's voice had become dangerously casual again.

"You are obviously with the Speculatorii. Not sure whether or not you are an Exploratoris or an Infiltratoris, though." Brutus sniffed, making a derisive hand gesture.

"You're obviously not a Nominatoris or, gods preserve us, Custodis." Sirrana's large owl eyes blinked in disbelief.

"How?"

"How would he even know that?" Brutus laughed out loud.

"How would I know that you are not a Nominatoris or any other kind of proper cloak-and-dagger operator? Simple. You're utter shit at hiding what you are." She winced and Favius noticed her deflating. The tension and struggle left her body. But Favius's thoughts raced. Speculatorii. Hefnus mentioned them. Standing army and specialized units. Well, I can guess at a few of the names, but... He poked Brutus in the arm and the cultivator smiled.

"She's either a scout or with the infiltrators and assassins. Not with..." He made a vague hand gesture.

"... the proper spies or internal security." Favius raised an eyebrow. They have an internal security service. Of course they have an internal security service. What was I even thinking? Sirrana let out a low chuckle.

"You're mostly right. I was initially recruited into the Exploratores when I was sixteen years old. Eventually my talents were recognized and I was promoted into the Speculatorii Infiltratoris. Currently I still hold the rank of Decurii Speculatorii Infiltratoris." Favius swallowed hard. Holy fuck. Did she just admit being an actual assassin and saboteur? The story of her injuries ran through his mind. And if she's in the assassination branch of the Republic's military, that means that enemy mage...

He swallowed, but Brutus was faster than Favius.

"Good, good, we're getting somewhere. Next, tell me about you. How you got injured." Brutus glared at her.

"What did really happen?"

"Yeah, I'm curious as well," Favius added. Sirrana shook her head, and a few red drops flew of her chin and into the abyss.

"Young Master, everything I said was technically true." Favius snorted.

"Well, technical truths are certainly a nice thing, aren't they?" Sirrana laughed. It was sharp and ragged.

"Favius, you have exactly the same expression as your grandmother when making such comments." He rolled his eyes as the cold heaviness in his stomach still held him.

"Not in the mood for those kinds of jokes right now."

"Very well. I'd been on deployment near the southern border for a while. The usual kind of operations. Cross into territory held by the City of Blue Mountains and their clients. Burn down a warehouse, sabotage a bridge, poison a well. Kill someone in need of killing." She shrugged casually and Favius shivered at her tone.

"There was this aristocrat, actually from the city himself. Pyrii of Alticultor rank. Cultivation mixed between the arcane and martial paths." Brutus hummed along as if tasting the words while Favius just stared. She's like just casually giving us a report. Why did she turn around like one hundred and eighty degrees all of a sudden? Brutus nodded.

"And he led border raids." He gave Favius a look.

"It's not unusual. There are always raids on the southern border." He smirked.

"There are almost always raids on every border." Favius raised his eyebrows. There are always raids on every border. That means there's always low-intensity warfare. He sniffed again. Of course there is. If you're not bordering proper states... even if we were bothering proper states, without photography and radios, reactions are slow and military action is always deniable. Sirrana snorted.

"Oh indeed. It would not have been anything unusual. I'm fairly certain you know the setup. A Pyrii with his personal guard and some slingers. A mounted unit that goes into our territory and slings alchemical or incendiary grenades at villages, estates, or military outposts." Brutus snorted.

"Nothing unexpected so far." She sniffed.

"Yeah, except that he did it every three days. Reliable as a cock's crow in the morning." Brutus whistled.

"And no one reined him in?" Favius raised his eyebrow. If I understand Pyrii magic correctly, these people are casually doing chemical warfare against villages. He shivered. Sirrana smirked sharply.

"Well, we reined him in. Combat happened as I told you. I just omitted the fact that we ambushed him shortly after he left his own estate. From there on..." She shrugged one shoulder towards her scar.

"Well, I gutted him properly, barely blocked his bodyguard's counterattack, and he detonated the grenades. The rest..." She nodded downwards.

"The rest you can see."

"What was the final score?" asked Brutus. And Sirrana's proud expression shattered and soured as if she had been force-fed a lemon.

"Two of my soldiers dead, me and one other wounded. But still, it was a success." Brutus hummed and murmured in a philosophical tone.

"Well, assassinations are a dangerous business." Sirrana's expression settled into a neutral mask.

"Yes. That is the nature of things." Favius took a long breath. Alright, all of this nicely answers who she is and what she did in the past. Leaving just one question. He cleared his throat.

"With all of that in mind, why.." He pronounced each word sharply.

"... did my..." His expression grew sour as he glared at Sirrana.

"... grandmother send someone like you at me?"