CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

  Hours Earlier – [Super Easy Mode Tutorial]

  “She’s going to kill him,” stated Maya, as if it were already a forgone conclusion.

  The little kiddies, meanwhile, scampered about the camp. Turning over logs and pulling back tent flaps. Calling out his name, as if he were a lost kitty left out in the rain. Eva watched the children’s antics with a measure of both pity and trepidation. Her eyes occasionally straying toward the seated form of Denise. Head bowed, as she carefully sharpened her blade. Working it up and down with steady motions, her eyes completely hidden behind her blonde bangs.

  Eva shuddered.

  “Oh, he is so dead,” she agreed.

  Having yet to come to terms with this inevitability, however, the children’s hopeless search went on unabated. Alice and Sanya even going so far as to flip over an especially icky looking stone near the edge of camp, as if he might’ve somehow been hiding under there.

  Braving all the dirt, moss, and grime, all for the sake of their fearless leader.

  And, while the menagerie of creepy crawlies which immediately greeted them put the instant kibosh on a repeat performance, the fact they’d been willing to sully their hands in the first place spoke volumes of their mounting desperation.

  “Don’t y’all think he could’ve just gotten lost or something? I mean, he’s still just a little kid, ain’t he?”

  “Maya?” Eva turned the question onto her.

  The girl furrowed her brow, tapping her chin as if really giving it some thought.

  “Hmm… well, according to my calculations…? I’d say that rates about a zero point two on the believability scale.”

  Marlene blinked.

  “Out of how much?”

  “A million.”

  “That low?!”

  Eva chuckled.

  “Honestly Marlene, the fact that you’re still humoring even half of what she says at this point, rates, like, five out of five Marlene’s on the Marlene scale.”

  “Uhh… oh! Wait. I-is that good…?”

  “Umm, hello? Copycat much?! Seriously, I know I said I was a trendsetter and everything, but, girl! Look, I didn’t want to be the one to come out and say it, but it’s actually starting to look real desperate, and not in a good way.”

  “What in the world are you even talking about?” Eva asked, genuinely perplexed.

  “Uhh, rating stuff? It’s basically what I do now? It’s totally my thing.”

  “Since when?” Eva scoffed.

  “Since like a minute ago. Figured someone had to guess the likelihood Mr. ‘Disappearing Act’ gets off scott free. It’s a zero out of ten redemption points, by the way. I mean, he leaves us with all these questions then dips? Not a snowball’s chance in swell he gets out of this one alive.”

  Shooting a glance towards Robin, as she trudged over from the edge of camp, completely empty handed, Eva couldn’t help but agree. Robin didn’t waste any time. Stalking straight up to the disagreeable woman, and quashing any bad blood before it had a chance to blow up in all of their faces.

  Or, at least, she tried to.

  When she’d reached about three quarters of the way there, however, her nerve was immediately tested. Tested, and clearly found wanting. Perhaps it was the innate hesitancy of a woman so used to resolving conflict to start up yet another row merely to clear the air. Or perhaps it was the aura of ducal authority enveloping Denise’s form like a strong perfume. The invisible pressure which always had her knees feeling wobbly and opinions less valid.

  Perhaps it was a little bit of both.

  Regardless, the end result was the same. Her stern countenance morphing into a far more conciliatory expression. While her tone reflected the change likewise.

  “Denise I- listen. I know you have your reservations about the boy- believe me! I have mine as well! But, please. Don’t let your suspicions cloud your better judgement. For better or worse, we’re better off with him than without him right now, and, just because he’s disappeared without a word,” even the kids could make out the clear exasperation in her tone. “I’m sure there’s a completely reasonable explanation for all of th-!”

  “Yeah I know. It’s likely something just came up. I’m sure he’ll be back shortly.”

  Robin froze, the rest of her entreaty promptly dying on her lips. Jaw hanging open and eyes gone very wide. And she was by no means the only one. Eva, Maya, and Marlene all slack jawed. Even the kids having seemingly lost the ability to move. Everyone utterly transfixed by this bizarre turn of events.

  The shocked silence eventually growing so awkward, that a visibly perplexed Denise felt compelled to raise her head in question. Her eyes bounced from one face to another, her confusion only growing the longer they stared at her.

  “What?! Why are you all looking at me like that?”

  “Nothing!” they all choked out in unison.

  The word apparently breaking them free from whatever disbelieving stupor had overtaken them.

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  “Well!” Robin clapped her hands together before mumbling to herself. “That was a whole lot easier than I’d been expecting. I guess sometimes, things really do just go the way you wanted.”

  And of course, the enemy chose that very moment to attack.

  +++

  Purrsefone of Sands peered in through the semitransparent barrier. Golden eyes narrowing to slits as he surveyed the movements inside the camp. Eyes passing over the imperial thorn in his side from where she hovered just above the center of the encampment. Not only tracking him with her haughty gaze—displaying a degree of stubborn determination so out of place on that of an infant child—but with her mana as well.

  Thousands of invisible, constantly roaming mana tendrils quite literally making a mountain out of a mole hill. An impenetrable fortress out of a wall of sticks and brambles. His every attempt to pierce her defenses futile. Her reactions, already sharp, only having grown more terrifying as time went on.

  Well, no more.

  It’d taken him some time to get a handle on his newfound class skills, and their levels generally reflected as much. Abysmal one’s and two’s across the board. Long gone where the days in which he could flow effortlessly from one skill into the other. Maximizing their value and stretching their versatility with every engagement.

  And yet, if given the choice to go back to how he’d been, he’d have declined without hesitation. The tread of several claw toed feet signaled to him that the others had arrived. Swiveling his head one hundred and eighty degrees with a loud crack—and relishing in the way the gangsters jumped—Purrsefone took in the fully kitted out forms of his shock troopers.

  Far better equipped than they had been upon stepping foot inside this tutorial, not a one of them was without a slick suit of black, form fitting nano-weave. While each and every one of them held in their hands a military grade direct energy rifle. And suddenly, this little gathering of pretend soldiers, weren’t looking quite so “pretend” anymore.

  “Remember. Do with the others as you wish. The girl is mine.”

  Without even waiting for a response, the Midnight Earl swiveled his head back around, and reached for the skill that’d replaced his Shadow Gate: Penumbral Reflection. Grasping onto the illusive sense of the space around him, he enveloped the entirety of the two hundred odd gang members, and, with the flip of a switch inside his head, transported them to an umbral reflection of reality. What his skill labeled, “the shadow realm.”

  Once there, they didn’t need his urging to get a move on. He’d been explicit when he’d told them that this realm was not one even he dared to treat lightly. Though if they’d had even the slightest reservations, the reality of the place quickly put those doubts to rest.

  As the skill suggested, it was a nearly one to one reflection of the real world, with a few key differences. The real world wasn’t shaded in a dull monochrome, for one. Nor were there flakes of shadow, like falling ash, drifting down from an overcast sky. The wispy shadow wraiths dashing madly through the atmosphere, and shifting pools of liquid shade which swelled to dwarf entire mountains in scope when disturbed, a uniquely terrifying aspect of this realm.

  Their group moved fast.

  Dashing the intervening space between them and the clearing proper. The eerie silence of the place broken by the tramp of footsteps and their ragged breathing. For all of two seconds they remained in that penumbral mirror world before the Earl brought them back out on the other side. And yet, in that time, it was plain to see, a not insignificant number of their fighting force had simply disappeared. Snatched away when nobody had been looking, likely never to be seen again.

  It was all worth it though, to his mind, to see the look of shock flash across the impudent infant empress’s doll-like face, as the two hundred- or rather, one hundred and seventy eight, well armed fighters bypassed all her security to appear right at the heart of their inner sanctuary. Where they now had them surrounded.

  Clearly shaken from the harrowing ordeal, the gangsters—standing dumbly, lightly trembling, and uselessly staring off into space—were in no immediate hurry to shoot. No instead it took a blast of authority from him for them to finally get ahold of themselves, raise their rifles, and unload on the stupefied group of women.

  +++

  Penelope was the first to react.

  Ambient mana lashing out reflexively. Intertwining streams of raw, unseen mana converging on the circular wall of glowing projectiles. Matching the shrieking onslaught blow for blow. A bevy of invisible streams—like pressurized water from a firehose—attempting to douse the bolts mid-air. To tear into the charged particles through main force.

  To smother them. To dissipate them. And all of it to no avail.

  When it became apparent that accomplishing such a feat through raw mana control alone would prove impossible—or at least far too costly, both in time and in mana, to be of any immediate help—she settled on deflecting the shots instead.

  A dome of hardened ambient mana springing up before the mommies and all her friends. Every impact sending ripples and cracks through the barrier, faint white lines that seemed to arc across thin air. And yet, with the entirety of her focus dedicated to the task, she was just barely able to heal the damage before the barrier shattered.

  Shots landing near the edges skittering off the barrier entirely. Ricocheting to burn holes in gray canvas tents and set the manicured lawn ablaze.

  Throughout all of this—the whine of the rifles, the roar of the fires, and the shrill screams of the children—Penelope put everything she had towards keeping her friends safe. Which was probably why she was caught completely off guard when the creature attacked.

  +++

  Marlene watched as a shadow wreathed figure—looking like a massive tiger made of inky black darkness—leapt from among the troop of soldiers to tackle poor Penelope from the sky. It happens so fast, all she was left with was a blurry after image, and the sickening sound of impact. Marlene spun. Watched as the two disappeared over the crowns of a distant tree line. Her heart racing. A cry tearing itself, unbidden, from her throat.

  Mind fixated on the fate of their little darling, even as her cloak screamed for her to act.

  The shooting had stopped—the only reason they hadn’t been riddled with holes. The mercenaries just as captivated by the sight as she was. That fascination didn’t last very long, however. It seemed as if their eyes snapped back down to one another at the same exact moment.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Seeing death in the smoking barrels aimed their way. Veins pumping with so much adrenaline, it was as if everything before her were moving in slow motion. Scaly fingers rested on triggers. An anxiety spike caused nausea, so extreme, that her entire body shuddered—bile beginning to rise in the back of her throat. Her eyes snapped toward the space between her and the enemy. And the barrier that was no longer present.

  The scaly soldiers began to place pressure down on their triggers, and Marlene… Marlene just froze.

  Useless…! Useless! Useless! Oh, mamma was right. I ruin everything!

  It was just as her life began to flash before her eyes, more salt to throw into the metaphorical wound, that a commanding voice broke through her anxious spiraling.

  “HALT!”

  And, as if little kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the hundred odd group of bloody minded killers froze. Their gazes, much like Marlene’s, utterly transfixed by the radiant form of Robin as she stepped out in front of their group, a bluebell earring dangling from each ear. Standing fearlessly before almost certain death, the way she held herself would make one believe it was they, the hardened cutthroats, who were held at a disadvantage. And not the trembling party of pregnant women and children.

  No, instead of displaying any sane emotion, given the circumstance, she seemed entirely in her element. Glaring down sternly at the much taller aliens, as if at a group of misbehaving children.

  Only when she turned her head ever so slightly, and revealed the sweat beading her brow, did Marlene realize that the fiction she’d been portraying wasn’t the gods honest truth. While her next words—these sounding like they came from the woman she’d grown to know these past weeks, and not the deific commandment of a holy ambassador—sounded nothing like a woman in complete control. The frantic words spilling out from the corner of her mouth, her eyes bulging with portent.

  “Well?!” she hissed back at them. “What are you waiting for? Run!”