Capítulo 41: Compensatory Corpse
"How the hell am I going to get my revenge now?!"
Riva punched the ground in anger.
Her fist left a considerable dent.
"So they finally offended a Faramus." The woman had watched everything play out.
She wore a perfect mask that didn't reveal her emotions. But Riva was sure she had shuddered just now. Despite that, she pretended as though nothing happened and addressed Riva in a formal tone.
"His death is unfortunate. I hope you will overlook this mishap. Let me introduce myself, I'm Minerva Valorn from the Special Forces, how about we have ourselves a talk back at the fort and exchange…"
"Unfortunate my ass!!" Riva cut her off. "You're lucky that I'm holding back right now. Or I would have shown you what I think about the fact that you fucking killed him!"
"I couldn't know they would go that far."
"Yeah, that's why you're alive right now!" Riva spoke with suppressed anger.
She was almost certain that the woman in front of her could wipe the floor with her. But that didn't matter. She had basically killed her best lead.
Riva gave her a burning glare. One that told the woman to not move an inch.
Then she roughly but thoroughly searched Victor's body for any sort of clue or lead. He had several scrolls, some of them considerably high-end. Everything else was just basic adventuring necessities.
Riva went as far as tearing apart the pouch to look for hidden objects and the like. Nothing!
"If they were thorough enough, to let him commit suicide when he got captured, it's highly unlikely, that he had anything of importance with him." The woman commented on Riva's actions. "He's useless now that he's dead!"
"You tell me. And who's fault is that?" Riva snapped back but in truth, the comment had brought about an interesting idea.
"Since he's useless, you won't mind if I take the body then, will you?" Riva gave her another glare.
The woman appeared as though she wanted to refuse, but when she met Riva's gaze she just sighed and said, "Let me check something and he's yours. See it as my apology."
She took a moment to cast a spell. Riva attempted 'Identification' but the system just threw another error. Even the UI was bugged and glitching all over the place.
When the woman finished, Riva openly stuffed the dead body into her inventory (thankfully it worked). Apparently, clothes counted as a separate objects, because they were left behind. Riva didn't care about the implications nor the fact that she openly revealed an odd 'space-related spell'.
"Will you take care of the organization that caused this incident?" Riva asked.
"We will." Again, the woman hid her emotions on the matter.
"You say that. But then why have you let it come thins far already? I would have taken care of my own matters were it not for you humans troubling me!" Riva took a guess based on the woman's previous behavior in an attempt to fish for more information.
"My apologies, the Abyss is tricky. We would prefer your non-interference in their regard. They may hide in the shadows and let others do their dirty work but we will make sure they won't continue to trouble you!"
"You better keep your word. Let me tell you, if you humans continue to interfere with me, I won't sit by idly! I won't be so friendly if there's a next time!" Riva revealed a sinister smile.
[Intimidation roll successful] A glitched window informed Riva. The system was clearly on one of its weird trips.
"Yes! We will take care and not bother you again!" The woman bowed. And this time Riva was sure that it was to hide her expression in front of her.
Riva gave the beetle boss one last look. Contrary to her expectations the soldiers had little trouble in dealing with it.
The battle power of that thing wasn't its size but the way it handled its special ability. Normally Riva would have expected it to trample its foes to then convert them into its puppets. But watching the battle, it appeared that it had lost all tactical thinking. Possibly because of the dungeon's collapse.
The army had cornered the boss and trapped it with their spells and was now pummeling away at its massive body. It was just a matter of time until its death.
Riva could still feel her connection to Slashy and the two Zombies. They remained alive. But she couldn't think of a good and easy way to get them back, nor did she care all that much about losing them.
Maybe people could find the truth about her, but it didn't matter this time. After all, they already appeared to know the basics anyway.
With that, Riva turned and stormed off towards the Tearwald forest. "May we never meet again!" She left her parting words.
The woman that had been talking to her nodded, she didn't attempt to stop her and just watched her leave.
~~~
Riva ran for a long time. Long enough to be absolutely sure, that she had no pursuers.
She finally stopped by a small lake that was well hidden in a rocky crevice.
Riva thought back on the events that transpired. The way Victor said 'They're totally not here for the relic!' made it almost certain that he used their previous interrogation method to inform her of the opposite. The extermination force had come not because of them or the dungeon's collapse but the relic. In that case, they should also poses the means to predict the relic's appearance beforehand.
It was pretty safe to assume that they were at odds with Victor's faction, which was likely the one the woman called the Abyss.
Just what kind of mess had Riva gotten herself into? The whole thing felt so unlikely that she suspected she had been tagged as a protagonist by the system. Right! She should check her titles when she got the chance. Doing something of the kind would totally be the system's style.
Then there were Victor's final moments.
Victor hadn't died just because he became a captive. Had she not captured him too? No. He made a decision, one he felt was necessary even if it caused his death.
Riva had done her best to act as a cover-up for his actions. She wouldn't be surprised if she acquired an 'acting' skill, given how often she had to utilize acting.
Was it really necessary to kill yourself over this thing?
Riva pulled a blood-smeared object from inside her collar. Victor had deposited it there when he hugged her and vomited the blood in the moments just before he died.
His decision to hand it over to her and thereby betraying his contract was the real reason for his death.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
mingapur
mingapur Riva's Inventory (3/3):
1st slot: Wild Boar
2nd slot: License Badge (Riva Faramus)
3rd slot: Human Corpse (No Name)
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder