บท 36: SUSPICION
The morning after she had been approached by the scarred undead bitch, Kaylee and her companions had opted for a hard march. From dawn to dusk they walked without stopping. Many of the rescued victims complained about this. Their feet were sore and their stomachs growled from hunger. Even so, the Scarlet Quartet pushed them to keep going. It was for a good cause.
None of them complained when they reached their village that night.
When the village came in sight the rescued women shed tears of joy and ran forth with renewed vigour to inform their loved ones of their return. It was unfortunate that the population was sparser than when they had left it earlier. Many of their loved one had fallen in the raid that had turned them into captives. The returned hostages were not even as many as they were when they had been taken.
The mood turned sombre at the realisation. What should have been a tearful and joyful reunion turned out to simply be a tearful one.
As the saviours of the surviving captives, Kaylee and her gang were welcomed by the villagers with as much hospitality as one could get in a village. The four of them were fed and given a place to sleep. When morning came one of the villagers even offered to give them a carriage-lift to the city, something that had them all sighing in relief. After all, they currently had no money.
Courtesy of that undead bitch.
As she sat at the back of the wagon she could not help but sigh.
The assignment was finally over. Now all they had to do was go back to the Mercenary Guild, turn in the quest and claim their reward. Then they could put the whole ordeal behind them.
Or at least that was how it was supposed to be.
There was someone staring at her. She could feel their eyes on the back of her head. Craning her neck, she found herself gazing into Arletta's scrutinising gaze. There was no intensity in the redhead's gaze, but it was unyielding. Even when she faced Kaylee's glare she did not relent.
"What?" Kaylee asked, annoyed.
"Nothing," Arletta replied after a while.
Then she went back to browsing through her spell book.
Kaylee felt two more gazes upon her. Turning around, she met the eyes of Marcus and Zachary. Unlike the redhead, when she met the eyes of the two men they quickly looked away. Even so, their movement was not so fast that she did not miss the suspicion in their eyes.
This caused her to sigh, both in frustration and guilt.
Her three companions had been giving her those looks since the previous morning.
***
Before the first break of dawn everyone was up, packing up their belongings and getting ready to go. The women were unwilling, but for the sake of reaching their destination sooner they complied.
In less than ten minutes they were done and ready to go.
That was when Kaylee handed Zachary and Arletta their books.
"What's this?" Zachary asked, confusion mixed with disbelief.
"The undead came by last night and returned your books," she responded with a tired sigh.
When she pictured this scene earlier she had imagined them overreacting and getting angry about the fact that the undead bitch had been here the previous night without their knowledge.
The scene happened exactly as she had imagined it.
"The undead was here!" Zachary exclaimed. "AND YOU DIDN"T WAKE US?"
Both he and Arletta gave her incredulous looks. Marcus, who had been tying up the last of their belongings, dropped his task and fired an intense gaze at her.
"When did this happen?" he asked sternly.
"Last night," She replied calmly.
She had run this scene countless times in her mind. Every question they could possibly ask had been thought of. When she responded she looked into their eyes, her gaze calm and unwavering.
"How could you not wake us?" Arletta asked in an upset voice. "We could have dealt with her."
"I couldn't even if I wanted to?" Kaylee explained. "She cast a sleeping spell on all of you."
"You could have still tried!" the redhead retorted. "Sleeping spells are not that hard to break."
"It was [Sleeping Circle]," Kaylee responded. "Its effects are much more potent than a normal [Sleep] spell. Now if I had [Dispel] I would have been able to do it. Unfortunately, I am just a 2nd Order mage so there is no way I could ever learn such a spell."
"So you didn't even try because the undead cast a 5th Order spell?" Zachary criticized. "You just stood back and did nothing."
"Fuck you," she retorted. "If I had tried something she would have probably killed you all. My doing nothing saved your arse so why don't you just shut up and accept the book. Consider the fact that it's back a blessing."
Her comment caused the priest to frown. "A blessing from an undead? From the enemy of the Goddess? I would never accept such filth!"
Fuck! She exclaimed inwards as she watched the Zachary and Arletta take a few steps back instead of accepting their books. These actions brought a frown to her face, causing her to angrily toss the books onto the ground.
"Fine!" she exclaimed. "If you don't want then let them stay there. Burn them or wipe your arse with them for all I care. They're not my books."
Before any of them could respond she turned around and left, indicating that she was done. Both Arletta and Zachary shouted things but she did not care to pay attention. Picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder, she left the clearing.
However, she did not get far before a large hand was placed on her shoulder. When she looked back she found Marcus with a calm look on his face.
"You cannot blame them," he said softly. "The fact that the undead came back last night is pretty suspicious."
"I know," she said with a sigh.
Although she was angry, her anger was not directed at them. After all, they were right to be suspicious. Her reaction would have probably been the same if she were in the same situation, maybe even worse. Her dislike for undead was nowhere near as passionate as Zachary's, but her hatred for Sage ran deep. At the moment her greatest desire was to worm her fingers around the stitched-up bitch's throat and press.
If only that would kill her.
"There is no way she came here without an ulterior motive?" the large man said. "What did she want?"
"Nothing," Kaylee replied with a straight face. "Her necromancer had died and she was fading out of existence. Apparently she was being pushed out of the Main Plane so she came to return the books. She said she had no more use for them."
"That's it?" Marcus asked, clearly not believing her.
"Yeah," she replied. "I too was surprised when she didn't ask for anything."
Silence followed. A moment passed where the two of them unflinchingly looked at each other. Then Marcus sighed and turned away.
"Okay. I believe you," he said, turning around and heading back to the clearing. "Why don't you cool off here while I go and calm the others down? It would be bad for morale if we escorted the hostages back while being at each other's throats."
"Okay," she replied.
Looking at her leader's back she could not help release another sigh.
It had been a while since she heard him tell a lie.
He definitely did not believe her.
***
After that she had made up with Arletta and Zachary. However, the two's suspicion still remained.
It had taken a while for Arletta to accept her book and comfortably leaf through it, studying the spell she wanted to learn next.
Unfortunately, even though Zachary had accepted his holy book, he still stayed away from it as if it was some kind of cursed artefact.
From time to time both he, the redhead and sometimes even Marcus would look at her with mistrust.
In those moments Kaylee could not help but hate the undead bitch even more.
Her original plan had been to wake her companions up half an hour after Sage left the camp. She would then tell them everything that had happened before proceeding to break the contract with the undead.
This was how it was originally supposed to go.
But who would have thought the thieving bitch had not lied to her.
Less than ten minutes after she had been left alone she felt her mana stir. It was not the unpleasantness of going up in Order, but the feeling had not been comfortable either. When it was done she had realised that her mana had truly increased.
That development caused her to change a plans.
As much as she hated to admit it, Sage had been right. She had reached the end of her rope. Her potential had been used up and she did not see how she would be able to improve herself and get stronger while everyday she watched her companion's improvement with worry. In time she would truly become a liability them, causing them to be dissatisfied and possibly dump her for someone better.
Although such a thing was commonplace in the mercenary profession, the thought of it happening to her was unbearable. As much as she argued with them she loved the other members of the Scarlet Quartet like a family. The last thing she wanted was to be cast aside by them.
Now that her aptitude had increased she only needed to improve herself to prevent herself from dragging them down. As much as she wanted to send that bitch to hell she decided to keep the contract for this reason.
With the way they had reacted it was certain their reaction would have been much worse if she had told them the truth. That was why she had opted for half-truths and little lies. The guilt of her act ate at her slowly, but she forced herself not to show it. If she wanted to stay with them this was the only thing she could do.
Kaylee sighed and looked into the sky, spying a raven in the cloudless azure.
Hopefully her companions' mistrust would vanish as time passed.
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