Giselle

The capital of the old [Emerald Goddess]. It once was the most beautiful city in the world, other than the capitals of the two great empires, fueled by trade, inhabited by satisfied believers.

Then, it was still bustling with people, but they were terrified, and came in such huge waves, the interior of the city was already full of refugees, tents and barracks had to be set up just outside in a camp that extended itself for hundreds of meters away from the sturdy walls.

The grassy fields that once encircled the beautiful capital city had then turned into muddy open sewers, filled with disease, and the horrible stench of fesses, and the ashes carried from further away, from the constant conflicts everywhere; the improvised shelters were of poor quality, and offered little protection against the wind and rain; the refuges were all just bone and skin, no food visible anywhere, and I even caught the scene of some people drinking from the brown, dirty still water of a puddle by the side of the road.

Their eyes were dull, and their bodies seemed to be moving automatically, as if they didn’t actually expect to live for much longer, as if they had given up on any hope.

Frowning I, closed my fists and approached the desperately thirsty people.

“Here, have my water”, I offered.

The refugees looked up at me, and gaped. Their hands shaking, their bonny fingers approached my water bottle.

Then, they suddenly stopped, as a band of figures towered over us, shadowing our position.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t a well-intentioned richy lady”, the tallest of the figures surrounding me and the thirsty refugees spoke. Dirty, wild hair, bloodshot eyes… The guy and everyone with him looked just like your stereotypical vicious bandit group. “What about you show a bit of your kindness to us too, richy?”, he asked, smirking, as his goons followed with laughs.

As the desperately thirsty refugees shrunk down, trembling even more, I got up, frowning and tightening my fists so intensely, the temperature around my hands had started to rise. It was a challenge to keep my power in check, so not to let slip my enraged aura around. There were many civilians around, after all, and they were all debuffed from all that they were going through.

“Could give to this poor troupe your water? Your food? Your money?” he asked, still smirking. Then, turning savage, he screamed, spitting all around: “WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT!?”

My two companions tried to step forward and face the troupe in my place, but I stopped them with a hand. I had to vent all my frustration from that war (and from my newest rejection) into something, after all.

“What about this: you go fuck yourself, and I don’t turn you and the bunch of trash that follows you around into a stain on those stone walls back there?”, I suggested, pointing to the city walls with my thumb, hoping they wouldn’t listen to me.

The bandit's leader stared deadpan at me, then turned to his followers, and they all burst into loud laughs.

Then he stabbed me, right in the abdomen.

“PLINK!”, the dagger hit my skin, and was thrown back violently, as if the bandit had just thrust his weapon against a rock.

“Shit, are you wearing armor?!”

“You’re not the smartest type of guy, hu?”, I smiled.

“Whatever, I just need to go for your head!”, the bandit leader screamed again, and attacked again.

“Ho, now that I look closer, this is quite a nice dagger that you have here, isn’t it?”, I asked, holding the bandit leader’s wrist, and noticing the silver weapon he held.

“And I’ll have quite a nice armor once I’m finished with you too!”

“So this is how you got it…”, I frowned even deeper. And closed my hand completely, the one that was holding onto the criminal’s wrist, until my fingers touched my palm; as the bandit's leader’s flesh and bones were squeezed in between my fingers, and dropped on the ground beneath as a disgusting paste, his hand was separated from the rest of his body.

“G- GAAAH!”, the bandit leader screamed in pain, holding onto his bloody stump, and staggering backward. Until I silenced him, holding the bandit leader by his neck, and hurling him against the city wall behind me, his entire body exploding like a strawberry against the solid rock, reduced to a simple red stain in a second.

“W- W- W- Wait!”, his companions begged, but there would be no forgiveness for those who took advantage of the weak in their lowest point: they, too, all became stains on the wall, as I moved faster than they could even see, a blur for the low-leveled ones, I knew.

“Pat! Pat!” I cleaned my hands, rubbing them together. Turning back to the desperately thirsty refugees, I gave them back my water canteen, and asked:

“Is there anyone in charge of this city?”

Even inside the walls, in the end, the situation wasn’t much better, and filthy, despair, and death were everywhere, and while the paving prevented the formation of (too much) mud, the roads were so crowded that it wasn’t easier to walk within the city walls either… and, somehow, the port managed to be even more crowded.

“The heck, are they using some kind of space bending magic to contain all of these people here?!”, asked one of my companions, the muscular ax wielder.

“And, can you get away from me? You take the space of two!” replied his four-armed companion.

“We’re here”, I said, as we all stepped before a tall wooden stand, guarded by a dozen spearmen. A single bearded man stood atop the stand.

“Only three more seats available! Three more seats!”, the man atop the stand screamed. And the audience replied:

“Five thousand!”

“Eight thousand!”

“Fifteen!”

“Thirty-five!”

“Thirty-five thousand!”, The bearded man echoed, pointing the buyer with a finger. “Thirty-five thousand! Do I hear a forty? No? One of three seats sold for thirty-five thousand to that gentleman right there!”, He sold, and his guards dived into the audience to fish out the seat buyer; a slender figure hidden beneath a thick leather cloak; and bring them to inside one of the ships behind the stand. “Two seats left!”, the man atop the stand started again.

“She’s pissed again…”, Guillian said, my ax-wielding companion, sighed.

“Really? I didn’t notice”, Rose, his four-armed wife, snapped back, laughing. And, before I could step ahead and do everything by myself again, she tapped on my shoulder, and bypassed me with her husband. Winking at me, she said saying: “You already had all the fun before, don’t stop us from taking care of the small fries now. You go up there and do your thing.”

“[WAR CRY!]”, the muscular ax-wielder screamed, and soon after, multiple spearmen started to fly up in the skies, and the ground started to shake as he fought his way through the guards.

“[Water Canon, Shock Laser!]”, The four-armed girl conjured too, and didn’t stay behind Guillian, water explosions followed by lightning exploding left and right.

Smiling because I had such good partners, and just a little less pissed off, I did as Rose said, and jumped over the stand, and approached the flabbergasted bearded man.

“Wh- What’s the meaning of this?!”, he retreated a step, sweating, terrified. “Just so you know, I’m the only one who can properly take us off this country! No one else can read the stars like me!”, as I stepped closer, he stepped back more, and more, until he was on the edge of the stand. “E- E- Even if you can pilot the ship, you will only get lost in the wide sea! If you kill me, you won’t be able to escape!”

“I’m not planning to escape”, I replied. And, with an ascending kick, split the pirate in half, from the crotch to the head. Then, immediately after, before the crows started to run in panic and someone got stamped to death, I spread my aura over the public; thin enough so to only inflict paralyzing fear, but not actual physical harm; and announced: “I AM GISELLE, 6TH GUILD MASTER! AND I AM CLAIMING THIS GODLESS COUNTRY TO THE ADVENTURER’S GUILD! LET IT BE KNOW, ANY ATTACK AGAINST THIS COUNTRY OR ITS CITIZENS WILL BE TAKEN AS A PERSONAL ATTACK AGAINST THE ENTIRE GUILD!”

The reactions were of happiness, fear, and confusion. Some seemed to think that they, then, were surely ended and hopeless, while some others apparently thought that they were saved. But all were euphoric. As expected.

Someone, however, did not react as I thought they would:

“Oh, great. There they go, people messing things up, and fucking with me again…”, complained the cloaked figure who bought a seat in the pirate’s ship.

And, once that I thought about that: that person had 30 thousand to buy a single seat; this was enough money to buy an entire fucking ship in any other situation. They might be an important ally… or an enemy that I should deal with as soon as possible:

“The pirate would probably just throw you overboard and let you drown when you got into open seas, or sell you into slavery in the best case scenario anyways”, I approached the cloaked figure, and pulled their hood back: “And who are you?”, rich people were often connected with the Gods. And they were evil. If they had anything to do with Umi, I’d kill them immediately.

“…My name is Incute”, replied the petite girl I revealed; her hair short, and just like her skin and eyes, bright yellow. It almost looked like she was shining, like a miniature sun.