Ok, I need to keep a level head. This is an opportunity that just can’t be allowed to slip away; it would be a tragedy. It’s my duty as an inspector of god to catch these heretics, otherwise they’d be running wild doing heretic things, and corrupting the innocent people of the kingdom of Sol. But I can’t just kill her down here. No, no there definitely needs to be a display. This is a grand event after all; my first genuine heretic burning. I’ll have to do in front of the citizens of Plyan, and share the experience.

I can’t wait, but then again, how do I get her to the site of the pyre? She’s got that dwarf fellow there, and I very much doubt he would be open minded enough to hand her over. Two A rank adventurers… A head on confrontation is risky. If I had to guess, with my current capabilities, in a head on fight I could probably take on a standard high A rank magical beast, but there’s two of these guys, and they’ll probably complement each other in battle. Adventurers are all about team work after all. What to do? I mean for all I know they won’t even be heading to Plyan after this. In fact that’s almost certain. Two demi-humans walking into a human city? Not a chance.

I kept pondering and pondering the situation. The sooner I put together a plan, the better. As I walked alongside the two adventurers and Hina, I picked up a few details from a small chat we had going. Of course I didn’t allow Hina to open her mouth. Every time she tried to enter the conversation I made sure to cut her off, if she mentions me being an inspector, things will go anything but smoothly. Most free demi-humans have got a kill all inspectors on sight rule or something. I could never get my head around it either, we’re only doing our jobs. You guys chose to worship the wrong god, so we go over and burn you alive (or you get enslaved if you worship Sol). No need to just kill us whenever we wander into you territory. It’s also due to this that I don’t think travelling is a very viable option in the future.

The details which I’d gathered from the small conversation with the elf woman, whatever her name was, weren’t great in quantity. Despite being kind hearted enough to allow two adventurers who were out of their depth to tag along, I couldn’t even get a hint as to why they were down here. They mentioned a map earlier, but I had yet to see anything of the sort. These fellows must have memorised it.

Well from what information she did impart, she and her colleague are relatively well known adventurers further down to the South in that country that worships that moon goddess (kind of like the alter ego of Sol). Of course, from the fact that they could do their adventuring without trouble down there just goes to show how lenient those moon worshipping heretics are. I mean, if you are going to have a religion for the entire country, you’ve got to go and get rid of all the other religions and discriminate against other races, otherwise you’re not doing it right. They should take note from how the church over here does things; race isn’t human, so probably doesn’t worship human religion, so enslave or burn if a heretic. Logic.

Apart from that, I could also see that they didn’t hold any ill will towards humans. When I asked them about it, they just said they were brought up in a city where many races lived. Most of the cities over in that moon country are like that. So accepting and what not. I had to suppress a shudder as I thought about how badly they were going about running a country. What was it called again? It wasn’t very creative… Lun! That was it; Lun, the country that lies to the south of the kingdom of Sol.

Mr Dwarf didn’t say much throughout the entire thing, only grunting whenever I directed a question his way. Of course, they eventually found my constant pestering irritating, and I got the hint, so I stopped probing them. No useful information was gathered. How am I going to make sure that heretic ends up on a pyre?

Cyne, shouldn’t you focus on the situation at hand? The natural magical energy is getting extremely dense, so you should be wary of strong monst-

Serenity, don’t interrupt my train of thought now! I’m dealing with a very important issue. Okay, after turning my attention away from the unhappy owl, I refocused on how to deal with the elf. I have priorities after all. I can incapacitate one with that spell, sending them to sleep, and then over power the other. But then I still have to deal with Hina… Okay, I could knock Hina out, send Mr Dwarf to sleep and then overpower the elf… but how exactly do I explain things to Hina or transport said elf? Well… I could make something up to Hina, like they were assassins sent to kill the hero. Yep, that could happen; a few heroes’ in the past were assassinated by evil cults before they got strong enough to fight the hordes of shadows.

With my plan of action nearly complete, I began to think about transporting the elf. Unfortunately I didn’t have any slave collars on me, otherwise this would be an easy endeavour. I could always knock her out and just bag her; elves tend to be light, so I could just carry her around… but then there are problems in her potentially escaping. Elves are widely known as expert escape artists; go and ask any slave trader out there: one second they’re there, the next they’ve vanished into thin air.

Eventually an idea popped up into my head. I just need her alive for the burning, not necessarily intact. Hehehe… Alright, it’s decided! I’ll just throw all her parts into a bag afterwards. That sack the dwarf is carrying looks big enough for the elf. Perfect. The next issue is when I should start. If I get rid of them, then would I be able to find whatever treasures they’re after? In addition to that, I was rearing to go, but I was also way too excited. I could make mistakes! Then, no heretic burning… Whatever, I’ll just go for it. I don’t need these adventurers to find whatever they’re looking for. I can just take their map!

The area had become eerily quiet. No sounds but our own footsteps. The air carried a chill, as it slowly flowed past the four of use. Now was as good a time as any.

I gave Hina a sharp rap over the head with the back of my knuckle, sending her out could, plummeting into the hard stone ground, face first. Ouch, that looked like it hurt… the scrape marks don’t look pleasant either. Well, it’s her fault for having such poor awareness and a weak body, plus I could just heal those skinned areas later.

The two adventurers looked over, the dwarf surprised by her sudden collapse and the elf concerned. Hehehe, they didn’t see me cause it. Fantastic. I gave my hand a little wave in the direction of the dwarf, manipulating my natural magical energy. The confused dwarf noticed the small shadowy wisps of energy heading towards him and did his best to dodge. I’d have to commend his efforts there! Despite being faced by a surprising incident, sneak attack and unknown magic from someone who was previously non-hostile, the small fellow actually managed to regain enough awareness of the situation to try and dodge.

Unfortunately for him, his dive to the side was simply followed by the dark wisps, whereupon they entered his body through his nose. As the last of the dark wispiness flowed up his nostrils he collapsed into a snoring heap. This spell was truly convenient. In the future when I’m able to use it on more than one person… I could barely hold back my anticipation at the thought.

The elf caught on as her friend collapsed to the ground, immediately entering a fighting posture with her thin, curved short sword held in front of her. I was actually taken aback at how ferocious the previously harmless looking, willowy creature appeared. Well, that’s an A rank adventurer for you. Even though she was a heretic, I couldn’t help but admire the dangerous vibes that her stance sent my way. She watched me closely, eyes taking in every detail. She wasn’t making the first move. So I did.

I immediately clad my blade in solar flames, darting towards her and sending a lunging thrust aimed at her shoulder; don’t want to kill her after all. Initially she was slightly caught off guard by the speed of my attack but quickly regained her composure, swaying to the side like a leaf in the wind. She dodged the attack, but there was still the heat. She flinched away from the burning sensation and took distance.

Before I could follow up on my attack, her expression turned to one of concentration, and a faint green glow emanated from a tattoo on the side of her neck. A spirit contractor. Fun times. I’d never fought one of them before. Well, first things first; I scanned the areas and observed her closely in anticipation of the spell’s effect. Before long her short sword sprouted barbs similar to what you’d find on certain plants. They were oozing with some sort of clear fluid. I decided it was best not to touch said barbs and continued my assault.

I sprang forwards, whipping my blade at her throat. She responded by ducking below the swipe and directing the tip of her sword towards my abdomen in an attempt to impale me. Of course I dodged, doing quite the impressive acrobatic manoeuvre in my opinion. To my misfortune, my dodge wasn’t perfect and one of the barbs sliced across my abdomen. Pain quickly starting shooting through my body, and I began to feel nauseous. Well, the situation wasn’t looking too good. That was pretty obviously poison. It shouldn’t kill me, but my combat ability would definitely be impaired for the remainder of the fight. I really need to be more careful.

The elf took the initiative to start the next exchange after that, darting forwards with a swipe aimed at my legs. With some difficulty, I parried her blade and responded with my own downwards blow aimed at her shoulder. She rolled to the side, avoiding the blade by a margin.

Like this the battle continued for a few more exchanges. I’d finally lulled the adventurer into a false sense of security, keeping my attacks to a set pattern. This elf may have experience fighting beasts, but not so much humans it would seem. This was further accentuated by her constant dodging instead of parrying with her blade. I proceeded to begin our final exchange. I circulated my natural magical energy, manipulating the moonlight in my glove, creating an image of myself performing several other attacks, overlapping with the one I actually had aimed at her. The sudden attack and peculiar display of several blades coming her way sent the elf into a panic, wildly swiping her blade in my direction in an attempt to gain some distance.

Half way through her swipe, I impaled her arm into the ground with my weapon. She shrieked in pain as it pierced her flesh and the flames began to eat away at her. Of course, I couldn’t let her die yet so I extinguished the flames after they’d successfully ruined the majority of the muscles in her forearm. Her hand went limp, having no strength left in it, dropping her blade to the ground. The barbs disappeared as it left her hand.

The elf was focused on her arm, staring in dismay at the charred remnants of what had lain there before. I kicked her in the chest while she wasn’t paying attention, causing an alarmed cry as she fell backwards. I’ll be honest, the injury she gave me had irritated me somewhat.

I went over to pick up her weapon before she managed to regain some control over herself and stabbed it into her other arm, digging it deep into the ground. She won’t be getting away from that. I watched with amusement at the elf gasping in pain with both arms firmly held against the floor as I applied some healing magic to my wound, just quickly sealing it so that I wouldn’t lose any more blood. It was only superficial, it just looked really nasty. She met my eyes after a while, pain, anger and fear were all present in those eyes. I let loose a chuckle, and walked over to Mr Dwarf.

As she watched where I was heading her eyes began to show far more fear than the other two emotions.

“W-wait! Why are you doing this! Who are you?!” she shouted in hoarse voice, full of pain.

I looked back with no intention to answer yet and just reached down to the dwarf. I held his head in both my hands and with a sharp twist, broke his neck. The crack resounded through the empty dungeon area, and was soon followed by a grieving wail from the elf. Tears openly flowing from her red rimmed eyes she glared at me, anger now being the most prevalent emotion.

“You! Why?! Dammit, I’ll kill you!” she shouted, although if I had to say, in her current state, she wasn’t especially intimidating.

I took the dwarf’s sack and emptied its contents. It’s not stealing because number 1, he’s dead and number 2, it’s being commandeered for a good cause. After all the… is that mead? After all the mead was emptied out of the large sack, I threw it over to the elf. She was still screaming at me in the back ground about something or other. Of course before I get back to her, I needed a sharp knife. The pocket knife won’t do… oh! The dwarf has something that’ll do the job. I took a well-made steel dagger off of the corpse and tested its sharpness. The blood that dripped from my finger being a tribute to its capabilities. Since I’d left my interrogation set with Melissa at the inn, it would have to do.

I walked back over to raging elf whilst playing with dagger in my hands. I looked down at her tear stained face and allowed a sadistic smile to settle on mine.

“I charge you with being guilty of heresy.” I said.

She looked at me dumbly. After a few moments she seemed to understand and began to spit harsh words at me. How rude.

“You’re one of those inspector bastards! Why do you scum even exist?! You should just go and die for your crimes already.” She started spouting more things following a similar trend.

Telling me to die wasn’t very pleasant. I stabbed the dagger into her leg, stopping the torrent of abuse. Instead, a shriek escaped her mouth. She looked down at the dagger, terror now filling her eyes. Oh? So she finally understands her situation? I began to saw the through the flesh around her femur, enjoying the sensation of slicing through muscles and tearing skin. Before I knew it I’d started to whistle as I worked. This particular tune was from a song dedicated to a pair of lovers who died, fleeing from all those who wouldn’t accept their love. The details of the story allude me now, but I remember it being sad enough to bring a tear to my eye. It was beautiful tune full of meaning, harmonising with the painful screams of the elf.

After I was done, separating all the flesh, I was challenged with the problem presented by the bone. I didn’t want to risk dulling the dagger by sawing through it, since I still had a few more limbs to get through, and I don’t really like working with a dull blade. It’s a bit crude, but force will have to work.

With this decision made, I place one hand above the gaping wound and on top of the leg, and the other below the wound and under the leg. The sensation of my hands caused the elf to flinch and as she saw what I was about to do, the pleading for mercy came. Of course, this was something I had to do. I couldn’t leave her with the ability to escape. She won’t even need her limbs to burn alive so it’s fine. I proceeded by applying pressure in opposite directions.

*snap*

Shrieks full of pain echoed through the empty darkness. Oh, that looks nasty! The bone had splintered and dug into the flesh at the stump I’d just created. I cauterised the wound and applied some healing magic thereafter, to ensure the elf wouldn’t die before she got to the pyre. She was still screaming quite loudly even after I’d healed her. It was actually starting to hurt my ears. I threw the severed leg into the large sack and turned back to the wailing elf. I got in close and brought a bloodied finger to her lips. The action silenced her as she looked at me in confusion, pain still clearly present in her gaze as well as the new addition of despair that had appeared after I turned her into a cripple.

“Shhhh, you need to keep those screams for later. I’m putting on a big show when we get back to the city, and you’ll be the centre of attention. So save your screams, after all a heretic burning with no screaming won’t get the crowd all riled up.” I said, letting out twisted smile.

The elf’s face turned even paler and the begging began again, but of course I simply ignored her and continued to systematically remove her limbs, each going in the bag that the main body would also end up in. Today is a good day: I caught a genuine heretic, and am now on the trail to what I can only assume is treasure. What a fruitful journey. Of course, the owl watching with sad eyes in the background was a bit off-putting, but as usual I just phased her out.

Looking back, I actually feel a bit guilty about writing the elf's fate in such a way. BTW that heretic and her companion have their own sins *wink*, which may make you feel they deserved their ends *wink* (although Cyne didn't know at the time)