Chapter 5: The Village of Velle (2)
One problem at a time.
Freya let her gaze wander across the square, and the question posed itself. What to do with all this, now?
They’d shown too much. Far too much. An entire village had seen Aria, her tentacles, her aura, and had seen her command it all with a gesture. That kind of story traveled fast and always made its way to the wrong ears. The safest, cleanest solution came down to a single word she couldn’t quite bring herself to voice: silence them all, down to the last.
And when she thought about it, it wouldn’t even be a dead loss. The bodies yielded mana, she knew that now. Fifty villagers, fifty corpses poured into the Dungeon Heart, enough to make her grow all at once. Nothing wasted, and already a part of her was lining up the numbers, weighing the pros and cons.
Then she met a gaze in the crowd. A little girl, five or six, her face half buried in her father’s coat, one eye peeking out and fixed on her, terrified.
And something jammed inside her.
Wait. She froze on her own thought. Did I really just... count how much they were worth? That little girl included? A dull unease crept up from her stomach. What’s wrong with me?
However hard she looked, she didn’t recognize herself in it. The girl who worked at her desk, who grumbled about the commute and spent her evenings on video games, that girl would never have looked at a terrified child and wondered what she’d be worth. Never.
That’s not me. That’s not me.
The worst part was that the coldness had its reasons. Calculating, cutting without flinching, that was probably what would keep her alive in this world. But if she let that part decide every time, one day there’d be nothing left but it, no more Freya, just a thing that runs a dungeon.
So she decided to try. Not to save the world, just to stay herself a little while longer.
A throat cleared, pulling her out of it. An old man was stepping forward, one hand pressed to a wound at his side, pale but upright. She spoke first.
"Don’t be afraid." Her voice turned steady, almost gentle. "I’m not your enemy. Are you the head of this village?"
"I... yes. That’s me." He was trembling, unable to hold her gaze.
One of the bandits had taken her for a noble earlier. Might as well use it, the cover was right there for the taking: she’d be the noble they already thought they saw. She squared her shoulders, softened her features, and went on in a dignified tone.
"Then I owe you an apology. For my servant, whose power is enough to freeze the blood, I know. She lost herself at the sight of you being treated this way." She inclined her head, slowly. "Forgive her. And forgive me for not arriving sooner."
An incredulous murmur ran through the crowd. A noble bowing her head before peasants, no one knew what to make of such a thing.
And Freya, for her part, caught herself doubting her own words. Am I apologizing because I mean it, or because it’s exactly what needs to be said to win them over? She had no idea, both probably, and no longer being able to tell one from the other unsettled her more than anything.
A small voice broke the silence.
"Thank you... thank you, my lady."
The teenage girl had pulled away from her sister, a step toward Freya, hesitant, her face smeared with tears and dust. A woman moved to grab her back, as if the child might dirty a lady’s dress.
Freya beat her to it. She crouched to the girl’s level, and for a second, saw herself two minutes earlier, calculating what a body like hers was worth. She pushed the thought away. She didn’t want it.
"It’s nothing," she said, seeing the girl glance down at her dirty hands. "Come here."
And she wrapped her arms around her. The child collapsed against her, sobbing, that small body shaking against hers, that warmth, that tightness in her chest. None of it was calculated. It was real, and it felt good to feel it.
A little further off, Naïa approached, unable to hold back her tears.
"Our mother... she’s..."
"I know." This time, Freya didn’t play the noble. She spoke plainly, because the girl in her arms made the role suddenly unbearable. "It’s going to be hard. Very hard, for a long time. I won’t lie to you about that." She laid a hand on Naïa’s arm. "But stay strong. For each other. You’re all you have left, the two of you. Don’t let go of that."
Naïa nodded, her throat too tight to answer, and held her little sister close.
That was the moment Aria chose to reappear.
Freya felt her before she saw her, like a chill down her back. The demon stood at the edge of the square, dragging the half-conscious captain behind her, one arm missing. Her gaze had fallen on the scene, on her mistress kneeling, two strangers in her arms. The smile had frozen on her lips, and her fingers had tightened around the wrist of the body she held.
Freya had seen that expression on her face before. Jealousy, bare.
She rose without hurrying and untangled herself from the two sisters. A thought brushed past her, half amused, half uneasy. As long as I can still calm her with a word, everything’s fine. The day I no longer can... She didn’t finish.
"Stay strong," she told the girls one last time.
Then she turned to Aria and resumed her noble bearing, her voice firm, before the demon could put in a wrong word.
"Aria. Gather the bandits’ bodies and pile them up. Keep the two prisoners for interrogation, tie them securely. And after that, help the villagers put out the fires and get this village back on its feet, as much as you can."
Aria’s gaze lingered a second too long on the two sisters. Then she bowed, her face smooth once more, and dropped into a flawless curtsy.
"Very well, mistress. It shall be done as you desire."
Freya turned to the old man.
"As for you, I’d like a word. Alone."
"Of course," he murmured.
And he led her toward one of the few buildings still intact, while behind her, she felt Aria’s gaze weigh on her until her very last step.
Once the door had closed on the din outside, Freya shifted registers. Gone was the compassionate noble; before the village head, she let something colder surface, more calculating. A woman of business, an aristocrat at the negotiating table.
"You suspect as much, I’m sure, but I’m not here out of pure charity." She let him weigh the words. "Someone of my rank would never travel all the way here for common bandits."
The head of the village didn’t seem surprised by the shift. If anything, something in his shoulders eased. Free kindness didn’t exist in this world, and a noble who expected something in return, that he could understand. It almost reassured him.
"I’ve come to study the forest that borders your village. We’ve received certain reports concerning it." She kept it deliberately vague. "I’ll set up a camp there for a time. In exchange, I’ll require your full cooperation and absolute peace. And in return, I’ll guarantee you protection without fail, should anything like this ever happen again."
He thought a moment, then ventured,
"We live largely off hunting, in that forest. I’d... I’d like us to be able to keep going there."
"Very well," she answered without hesitation. "On one condition: no one is to approach our camp. Whatever the reason."
He nodded, visibly relieved by the deal. In the end she asked only for a little peace, in exchange for a protection her servant’s abilities made all but absolute. A windfall, for a village that had just lost half its own.
Freya held out her hand. He stared at it, thrown that a lady of her rank would offer such a gesture, then seemed to remember she’d already bowed to them earlier. This noble wasn’t like the others. He took the offered hand, and the deal was sealed.
"As for the bandits," she went on, "I’ll take their bodies, recover what belonged to them, and bury them in the forest. I’ll also question the two survivors, in case they have anything to say."
"That suits me."
"I do have one more question, though." She tilted her head slightly, letting a curiosity through that wasn’t feigned. "Your village has no fighters, not even a guard. Is this the first time you’ve been attacked? You’ve never had to defend yourselves against raiders before?"
The old man’s face darkened, his fingers knotting together.
"We had David." He paused, taking a moment to master his emotions. "A rank B adventurer, in his youth. He came to retire here, on his family’s land. Unfortunately..."
He didn’t finish.
Freya stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I understand. It must be hard. You don’t have to go on." She softened her voice. "Look after your people. And hold on."
With that, she stepped out.
Outside, the air smelled of ash and wet smoke. Freya let the door swing shut behind her, and her face hardened as her thoughts took over again.
There was indeed something off here.
She still didn’t know how strength was measured in this world. But a low-rank bandit chief, small fry, surely didn’t beat a rank B adventurer. And he certainly didn’t parry one of Aria’s tentacles with a sword, the way he had earlier. This man was hiding something, she’d have bet on it.
Never mind. I’ll find out soon enough.
She looked around for Aria. The demon had already put out every fire in the village and was lending a hand with the rebuilding, raising sections of wall with a simple motion of magic. Freya gave her a nod: let’s go.
Aria dropped everything that very instant. She joined her without a word, and behind her, her tentacles unfurled to lift all fifteen corpses at once, a macabre escort drifting in her wake.
And so the two of them vanished into the forest.
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