After their discussion, Ana hesitated doing something she would have done without a second thought half a month ago, namely wiping Uta’s memories of their conversation. It would have been easy, justified even, given how much Ana had revealed, how much she had hinted at her distrust toward the Garden. But something stopped her. A shift, perhaps, in how she saw the girl.
In the end, she let it be. The girl left the room with every memory intact.
The conversation the two had was followed by lunch, a small but festive feast prepared by Uta’s mother and sister, meant initially to celebrate Uta’s rare visit home. The trio of Ana, Charmy, and Lydia lingered longer than they intended, but eventually with the day wearing on, and with the afternoon dwindling, it was time to return to the Garden.
Despite the trio polite refusals, Uta insisted on escorting them. They were halfway through the residential quarter when Ana leaned slightly toward Uta and murmured, "You don’t really have to walk us all the way back. I remember the way."
"It’s alright. I want to," Uta insisted, then added more quietly, "I also wanted to thank you."
"For?"
"For our talk. I was nervous about discussing all this with my mom. You’ve seen a glimpse of what she’s like, she’s no very fond of the Garden."
"I’ve noticed that. So when she hears about this... What do you expect her reaction to be?"
"Honestly? I don’t know." She hesitated. "Or maybe I do, but I don’t want to admit it."
Ana was about to reply, but something pricked her senses. She looked over her shoulder subtly, only to just find Lydia and Charmy, who were walking arm-in-arm behind them. Lydia’s eyes met hers, and she offered one of her usual smiles. It was sweet in form, but it always seemed to carry a veiled sharpness.
"I think," Uta continued, voice lowering, "that my mother will be offended that I even consider this a choice."
From the standpoint of Ana’s investigation, a pregnant flower was both dangerous and useful. She had considered many angles from the moment her suspicions about Uta’s pregnancy had taken root. Yet, at that moment, she didn’t speak as an inquisitor. "There is a choice," Ana said. "And I think it’s ultimately yours."
Uta gave her a conflicted smile. "You say that to reassure me, but honestly, it just makes me feel more pressured."
"You mean... you’d rather not have the choice?" Ana frowned.
Uta froze. "Pathetic, huh? I’ve done nothing but falter lately. Must be disappointing, seeing your senior isn’t as kind or perfect as she pretended to be."
"It’s alright. I never expected you to be kind or perfect. I wouldn’t even expect that of myself either—it’d make me sick."
Uta laughed, the sound catching her off guard. "I guess that’s why we get along. It’s because you know you’re evil and flawed, like me."
"Hey," Ana retorted, amused. "I said I wasn’t kind. Not that I was evil."
"Really? Because you kind of look the part."
"The evil part?"
Uta nodded. "You and Lydia both. What’s that thing called again.?" She burst into laughter, as she remembered the term. "Right! A resting bitch face."
"What?!"
"What’s so funny?" Charmy asked, catching the tail end of Uta’s laughter.
"Nothing!"
"Clearly there’s something," Lydia pressed. "I heard my name."
"So what’s funny, guys?"
And in that playful mood, the quartet continued walking through the residential area. But a few minutes later, just as they reached the edge of the district, Ana felt it again, that itch between the shoulder blades. She retrieved her mirror from her pocket, angled it subtly, and confirmed it.
They were being followed.
Leaning closer to Uta, she whispered, "When you visit your family, do you go alone, or does the Garden assign someone to escort you?"
"Alone," Uta replied. "Why?"
"You’ve never felt watched?"
Uta began looking around instinctively, but Ana, reaching onto her hip, stopped her. "Don’t. Just answer."
"No.... Never."
"I see," Ana said, slipping off her gloves. She smiled to put Uta at ease.
"Why?"
"No reason. Just don’t look back."
They reached a semi-residential corner, where a store caught Ana’s attention, a glassware shop, one which the layout was easily predictable. Ana stopped. The other walking beside her naturally also stopped. "Why’d we stop?" Charmy asked.
"They might have something I’m looking for," Ana replied, tugging Uta into the shop.
A bell rang as they made past the door's treshold.
A man in an apron, a man in his late thirties or early fourties, was chatting with a customer. Ana’s eyes locked on the customer, and she let go of Uta. Without hesitation, she approached the man and spoke in a low but ultimately commanding voice. Power pulsed between her words, and the man, after listening to a long but rapid set of instructions, obeyed without resistance, exiting the store at once.
The shopkeeper blinked. "What did you just—"
"Open the back door for me," Ana interrupted the man.
"Yes, of course," he murmured, entranced, and headed to the back to do just what Ana demanded of him. Ana moved to follow, but a hand caught her arm. Ana turned around to find the girl frowning at her. "What are you doing, Lydia?"
The grip was firm. Too firm. Ana tried to casually shake it off and failed. She stared down at the girl’s hand, remembering the stats she’d once seen: surprisingly high stamina and health for a peon. Being a highbreed with much higher stats, she had dismissed it. Now she realized she was a fool for underestimating it. Ana raised her other hand, intending to reach onto her, but Lydia was faster. She grabbed Ana’s sleeve.
"What am I doing?" Lydia said. "I should ask you the same. What are you doing?"
Ana’s mind spun. Lydia’s timing was too precise. Could she be connected to the one following them?
"Is it your friend out there following us?" Ana demanded.
"Friend? I don’t know what you’re talking about," Lydia said lightly, so lightly it made Ana’s suspicion burn hotter.
She struggled again. Lydia’s grip was solid, but Ana was ultimately a highbreed, classed and leveled. Casting away her weak pretense, assuming her true stats, she threw off Lydia’s hand.
"What are you two doing?" Charmy burst in. Her voice was sharp; the girl had surprisingly caught that this was no mere roughhousing.
"Ask her," Lydia said.
"You," Ana growled. "What’s your game? Are you an enemy?"
"An enemy?" Lydia leaned in, smiling. "I’m obviously a friend."
The smile wasn’t reassuring. It felt, in fact, unhinged to Ana. As if not being suspicious enough, the girl slipped past Charmy and whispered to Ana, "You don’t trust me? Or maybe you do…" She tilted her chin toward the shopkeeper, who still held the door open. "So? What are you going to do?"
Ana stared at her, unsettled. From the start, Lydia had been a source of confusion, fogging her instincts, pulling her off-track.
It was maddening.
And yet, she always gave in to that pull. Ana moved. She rushed to the back. "Uta, Charmy. Wait for me here. I’ll be back soon."
"Ana?s, where are you going?" both Uta and Charmy called out.
She didn’t respond.
To the shopkeeper, she gave one final command. "Close the shop. Let no one in or out." She gave the man's response no heed. She was confident the man would follow her instruction to the letter. The back door led to an alley that ran parallel to the street they had walked. Ana moved swiftly, trying to flank the one tailing them.
Nearing the corner, she saw him a dozen meters ahead, still distracted, just as she had arranged through the enthralled customer.
Now was the time to act. Ana activated her appraisal skill, targeting the customer and triggering the signal she had set as a condition. He reacted at once, retreating exactly as ordered.
She then appraised the confused man, and what she saw brought a wide smile to her face.
“A non-peon, just as I thought, and—”
—
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Name: Oscar
Level: 6
Race: Highbreed
Class: Sorcerer
Title: N/A
[Status]
HP: 20 / 20
MP: 98 / 101
SP: 19 / 19
Defense: 22
Offense: 34
[Skills]
Fireball: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Hellblaze: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Detection: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Eagle Eye: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Ember’s Embrace: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Abilities:
[Appraisal Level Insufficient]
—
"—and is weaker than me," she grinned, grabbing a brick from a nearby wall.
Sensing the unpleasant feeling that all people used the appraisal skill on feel, the man looked around, recognizing the skill used and trying to locate the caster. The moment his back was open to her, Ana emerged from hiding, hurling the brick that she crushed into smaller portions at him. She did so not with raw strength alone, though that strength would have given that brick portion impressive velocity, she paired it with a skill of hers: Windburst Array.
The projectiles tore through the air to meet the man, who only had enough time to turn around and attempt to block the attack. A red mist exploded as the projectile knocked him with a yelp, and he fell hard to the ground, more or less as Ana had expected. What she did not expect was the scream.
She realized she had to stop that. Activating [Windburst Array] again, summoning something akin to a magic circle beneath her feet and on her back, Ana was virtually hurled to his side in a mere breath. Their gazes met. His immediate reaction, despite his bloodied state, was reaching onto her, a move she barely evaded, making her realize that the scream had been much more dramatic compared to the damage he sustained.
She swung her leg, and with a kick paired with the spell-type skill [Windburst Array], sent him crashing against a nearby wall. He wheezed, that was all he was able to do before she grabbed him by the throat.
“Listen to me. In silence.”
With her bare skin pressed against his, the man could do nothing but obey.
She was about to give her next instruction when she noticed how violently he was trembling—a natural response to the pain. She knew that agony could interfere with her control, so she adjusted her approach.
“You will feel relief from the pain,” she said calmly, “especially when you answer my questions.”
The instruction was meant for his body, or, more precisely, for the recesses of his mind that governed pain. There was no visual or verbal confirmation, but Ana knew it would work. She herself often resorted to it; this was an aspect of her power in which she had the greatest confidence.
“Speak. Who are you? Why are you following us? Are you from the Garden, or—no—”
She stopped short. She realized. This man hadn’t followed them from the Garden. They’d passed him on the way to Uta’s house. And he'd been keeping an eye on it since. Until she spotted him from the window of Uta's room. That left only one possibility: he wasn’t following them. He was following Uta.
“What do you want with Uta?”
“We—” he began.
Ana’s attention was violently torn away. A familiar, deeply unsettling sensation washed over her: appraisal. Someone was appraising her. And she knew with certainty it wasn’t coming from the man in her grasp. She snapped her gaze around and caught him, hovering in midair a couple dozen meters above a nearby rooftop. A man wreathed in a white magical aura, a wand in one hand and a strange spherical object, almost certainly an artifact, in the other.
Ana didn’t hesitate. Just as he had done to her moments earlier, she appraised him.
The results made her frown.
“No good!”
—
Name: Aaron
Level: 11
Race: Highbreed
Class: Wizard
Title: N/A
[Status]
HP: 41 / 41
MP: 387 / 420
SP: 31 / 31
Defense: 30
Offense: 211
[Skills]
Appraisal: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Lightning Spark: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Static Pulse: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Chain Bolt: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Spellcast Focus: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Mana Control: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Healing Magic: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Lightning Resistance: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Lightning Magic: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Identification: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
[Abilities]
??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
—
Ana winced.
Another Highbreed. Stronger than the man who’d been tailing them, and worse, clearly higher level than her. But then her eyes caught one crucial detail: his defense was low. Typical of those of the wizard-class. Combined with the lightning he was conjuring, that observation forced a bold, reckless conclusion on her. Instinct took over.
No hesitation. She could not afford it.
Activating [Windburst Array], Ana quite literally hurled the man she’d been holding—Oscar—straight at the floating Highbreed like one would a pillow in pillowfight. The reaction was instant. As expected, the airborne man, at the sight of his ally being tossed so casually aborted his attack, arms snapping forward to catch him.
Ana saw her opening. She took it.
Activating [Windburst Array] again, she blasted herself into the air, propelling toward the distracted enemy on a roaring gust, then another, adjusting her trajectory mid-flight for a direct hit. Sure, he was of a higher level than her. But his defense? She was confident she could bite through it.
While still airborne, Ana began preparing her next move.
She activated her lightning magic, a skill she had randomly acquired at twelve through a fluke of a level-up, but it would have to do. A magic circle flickered into life.
Her magic casting time was weak, abysmal even. At her level, she was slower than a mage when it came to casting magic. Her Wisdom and Eloquence stats were low, which only made sense. She had not invested points like a sorcerer or a high-level mage would. She was only a wizard.
That weakness needed fixing.
The true key came next: [Scales of Accord]. The radiant, mighty scale manifested within her psyche.
“Allow me to cast lightning magic in half the time,” she demanded.
One side of the virtual scale dipped low.
“In exchange... for 20 MP.”
The scale balanced.
A fair trade, but not enough.
Just like her Wisdom and Eloquence, her Intelligence stat lagged. Again, it made sense. She wasn’t a true mage, just a wizard scraping by on tricks and nerves.
“Double the damage,” she bargained, “in exchange for twice the required MP.”
The scale wavered. It was close to finding balance.
“…plus 10 more MP,” she added.
Snap.
The virtual scale achieved perfect balance.
Her spell ignited in full force, lightning cracked through the air, the scales vanished, her body still spinning midair with the momentum of her leap. Ana gritted her teeth and unleashed her strike. With the speed and angle, it should’ve been unavoidable.
Then came an unexpected interference.
Something slammed into her midair. She was knocked violently off course, crashed into a rooftop, and tumbled to the ground below. Only a last-second reflex kept the landing from breaking something.
“Who was that?!” Ana groaned as she forced her head up.
Three men hovered above her now. One was still beside the Highbreed who’d caught Oscar. Another—new—was wrapped in the same white magical aura, holding a spherical device identical to the one, Aaron. Ana had appraised him. He didn’t possess natural flight. Which meant the truth was obvious. They were flying by artifact.
She tried to stand, hissing through the pain, as the three began speaking in a language she didn’t understand.
"Alles in Ordnung mit dir?"
"Ja, aber Oscar hat’s richtig übel erwischt von dieser Schlampe."
---
Name: Fynn
Level: 12
Race: Highbreed
Class: Monk
Title: N/A
---
"Wer ist sie?"
"Woher soll ich das wissen? Sie war bei dem anderen M?dchen, und dann ist sie aus dem Nichts auf Oscar losgegangen."
"Hast du sie eingesch?tzt? Was ist sie? Eine Verdenkind? Eine Hochgeborene?"
"Eine Hochgeborene."
"Eine Hochgeborene… sie sieht nicht wie eine typische Kultistin aus. Und sie war auch bei dem anderen M?dchen—k?nnte sie für den Garten arbeiten?"
Ana didn’t understand a word, but their glares made it obvious she was the subject. What are they saying? she wondered, along with more urgent questions: Who were they? What did they want?
They were Highbreed, but clearly not affiliated with the Cult of the Angelic Deities as highbreed typically are. So who were they? Who would dare cause trouble on this holy ground?
They’d been near Uta’s house, waiting, no doubt, for her. This wasn't a coincidence. Ana bit her lip. If only she had managed to squeeze out a confession before being interrupted.
"Aurel wird dieses Chaos nicht gefallen."
"Wen interessiert, was er denkt?"
"Der Messias tut es."
Still hoping for that confession, Ana asked, "Who are you people?"
"I could ask you the same. Who are you?" one of them replied. It was Fynn, the last to join the fray and the man Ana owed an acute headache that she suspected was a concussion. He was of the Monk class, and a Level 12 Highbreed.
"I asked first," Ana snapped back. “So you answer fir—”
A scream cut her off. She recognized the voice. It was Charmy's.
Ana’s heart lurched. She’d left Charmy and the others at the shopkeeper’s place. As both she and Fynn turned toward the sound, their eyes locked, each judging the other’s next move. It made Ana uncomfortable. Considering the level and in fact strength difference, she had the feel that whatever tactic she tried, it would feel expected to him. And for someone like her, reliant on trickery and clever maneuvers, that was suffocating.
But she had to do something. And in that moment the only thing that came to her mind was to attack. With a flick of her finger, she cast [Fireball], a spell she unleashed instantly at the group. They dodged with ease. As expected. The spell wasn’t meant to hit. It was meant to buy time.
Time to escape.
Without hesitation, Ana bolted in the opposite direction, away from Uta and the others. Charmy's scream confirmed to her that, there were more of the men out there. She wasn’t delusional. She couldn’t save them, she didn't have the strength to do that.
The best thing she could do, for everyone's sake was, survive and bring reinforcements.
She knew their faces, their names. Surely there was something she could use these for with the network available to her through the organisation she belonged to. That is of course, if she got away. But a glance back made her heart sink.
They were following, lifted effortlessly by those damn artifacts.
“Think, think, think—” she muttered, and an idea came.
She summoned [Scales of Accord] again.
“In exchange for 20 SP, give me 20 MP. In exchange for [Fireball] for half a day, temporarily reduce the MP cost of [Windburst Array]. I also surrender my ability to use [Hidden Spark] for 12 hours—no, for a whole day, so give me 100 MP? That won’t do? Alright, 75? Still not? 50? 45? Alright, deal!”
She winced at the bargain she just made. The deals were weak, and the returns were just as weak, but it would do. It had to. She promptly called upon a second ability, another ability that belonged to the lawyer special class, a class that Ana, with her titles and skills was guaranteed to unlock as a special class upon reaching level 12.
The ability was like the Scales, but different. This one summoned not balance but consequence.
A thick black book materialized in her hand, truly physical, unlike the scale. A wise man had once said, “While magicians manipulate perception through tricks and deceit, lawyers manipulate consequence through bargains, collateral, and, ultimately, contracts.”
The Binding Ledger was proof of that. The ability didn’t conjure fireballs or any non-abstract results. Instead, it conjured consequences such as buffs, debuffs, restrictions. And Ana had one in mind.
"Ledger," she began, "for the according MP-price, I prohibit all entities within 30 meters of from using—" She stopped mid-sentence. She realized that her wording wouldn’t work. She changed the terms. "I prohibit "their" use of flight magic within 50 meters of me."
It sounded right, but something felt off. Her instinct screamed it. The same feeling she got when the Scale was about to accept a bargain in which she offered a ridiculously heavy price.
She glanced back. They were closing in, despite her absurd speed. Each moved in their own way, one more effortlessly than the other, leaping and gliding from building to building as if weightless, carried by momentum, dragged down only by the same force working against Ana and her [Windburst Array]: air resistance.
Then it clicked.
She'd seen people with flight skill, this wasn’t flight powers. It only looked like it. It was gravity manipulation. The artifacts weren’t granting flight; they were bending gravity itself. She adjusted her terms instantly. “Ledger, restrict their artifacts’ ability to alter gravity within fifty meters of me.”
Snap.
The restriction took effect instantly. The result was twofold: the enemies plummeted toward the ground, and Ana’s MP plummeted almost as fast.
She didn’t waste a second celebrating. She blasted forward, casting [Windbust Array] again and again. When her MP finally stopped draining so rapidly, she knew they were beyond fifty meters. She turned to confirm—and froze in horror. One of them was already closing in. Fast.
It was the man called Fynn.
How?!
The answer struck her immediately. A skill. The monk had a movement skill. She’d seen it when she appraised him. “Fuck!” she cursed, realizing that fleeing was not a viable option anymore. She turned and cast another [Windbust Array], this time offensively. The blast of wind connected. Or at least, that’s what it looked like.
In truth, it was met with a counter, another wind spell. “Shit, shit, shit!” she cursed, readying another spell. But it was too late. The man had reached her.
"That's enough," he seethed, sending a vicious blow to her gut. Ana gasped. Her consciousness flickered, but didn’t fade. She reached for him, desperate. He was within reach. Just one last move. But something slammed into her face.
Darkness instantly swallowed everything.
