“…What?”

A chill ran down Gaven’s spine as the Baroness’ steely gaze locked onto him. A sudden tension filled the space between them, and the frigid night air was forced aside as the temperature spiked.

“…You took care of her?” the woman asked him. Her voice was as emotionless as always, but there was a danger to her tone now.

Gaven fought down the instincts that told him to step back and reach for his hidden blades.

It had been annoying enough making his way back after jumping off a several hundred-meter-high tower back in the Sanctuary, but now he had a pissed-off boss to deal with as well? Could it be she actually wanted the Countess to live after all this? There’s no way she was that naive.

She couldn’t know that he hadn’t been able to make sure she died, could she? That was even more impossible. Besides, the poison would have taken care of the woman by now.

He opened his mouth to speak, surprised to find it slightly dry. “We couldn’t have anyone spilling the news of what happened, could we? So yeah, I took care of her.”

The Baroness’ eyes met his, and he stilled. There wasn’t just anger hidden there. There was rage.

“When did I ever command you to take care of her?”

Small flames burst into existence behind the woman, licking the ground like hungry spirits. Gaven stared at them, uncertain if it was her doing. He hadn’t even been sure if she was a mage or not.

“Ehm, right… Seems like I might have been a bit hasty,” he said, giving up the usual daring smile he wore around most noble types. He was starting to suspect she did want the Countess alive after all. But there was also the chance that she was just angry he didn’t follow her exact orders. “With people like her, you’ve got to take the opportunity when you have it. We can’t exactly keep her locked up for all eternity, so dealing with her as soon as possible saves us a lot of trouble and her a bunch of misery. Not like she was living much of a life before you picked her up, so this makes it easier for everyone, yeah?”

The flames behind the Baroness grew in size, and the strange crystal ball in her hand suddenly lit up a soft white. The temperature continued to rise as she stepped closer to him, and the look in her amber eyes told him all he needed to know.

That was not what she wanted to hear.

“So you killed her?“

The heavy words hung in the air.

Gaven stared at her. Blazes… He’d misread her, it seemed.

This woman was crazy as well.

He raised his hands up. “Never said that.”

He knew better than to dig his grave even deeper at this point. The Baroness was a noble, and some nobles didn’t give a rat’s ass if they did something idiotic or not. If they thought you were going against them, then you weren’t making it out with all your limbs intact.

“She was still alive last I saw her. Used some strange cube that caused her to just up and disappear. For all I know, she could be in the nearest town over, spilling the beans to anyone listening.”

The Baroness narrowed her eyes at him. “…You poisoned her.”

The words were uttered with barely restrained anger, now.

Silence fell between them.

…Well, damn. He’d almost forgotten that there wasn’t much this woman didn’t know about him.

The flames behind the Baroness danced to some unknown rhythm, beating and pulsing like they could barely contain their fury. Sweat was forming on his brow from the heat, and it was like the moment drew out between them.

Then, Gaven moved. Spinning around, the world turned into a blur of red as he shade morphed away. He was cutting his losses here, even if it hurt to do so. He’d taken enough valuables from the Augur’s chamber to get a decent payday even without the Baroness, and his life was more important than some old locket.

In his reality of red, a wall of deep scarlet appeared to block his path. He immediately stopped, and the world returned to normal. There was a wall of fire in front of him. He frowned at it, looking back at the Baroness. Shade morph was a skill he’d spent over two years learning from an old vagrant near the Unresting Steppes. Only manifest magic could affect it, and even then, any effects were usually more than halved. Those flames hadn’t looked weakened at all, though. What types of spells were she using?

Still standing near the center of the clearing, the Baroness raised a hand.

Gaven’s instincts had been honed from years of experience, and at that moment, they told him to move just as dozens of strange-looking fireballs popped into existence around him. Once again, he shade morphed, turning into a red mist in time to dodge a shower of water and steam bearing down where he’d just been. He reappeared a short distance away, touching a hand to the shoulder that had originally been wounded by the Countess. One of those blasts hit him even while morphed, and it stung more than it should have.

He shot another look at the Baroness as she started walking in this direction. Blasted woman was crazier than he thought. He wouldn’t have pegged her to be this skilled of a mage.

Yet another assault bore down upon him, but this time he was ready and evaded it in time. As the world turned red around him with shade morph, he aimed towards the edge of the clearing. More scarlet barriers popped up to block his path, forcing him to exit the ability each time and reactivate it in another direction.

The woman wanted to stop him from escaping. But there weren’t enough fireballs in an entire squadron of mages to keep him locked down.

Repeatedly shade morphing his way forward, he moved in an unpredictable pattern and relied on his instincts to dodge any other attacks that were aimed at him and avoid getting caught between the walls of fire.

He had dealt with his fair share of annoying opponents in his time, but this might take the cake. Usually, he could just zoom through whatever people tried throwing at him, but clearly that wouldn’t work now. Which was a shame. He’d never been good at any of ‘em defensive techniques.

Luckily, he had yet to encounter any situation that he couldn’t get out of when he actually set his mind to it.

Another barrage of those strange fire spheres weighed down on him the next time he exited shade morph. The Baroness tried caging him in a barrier of flames as well, but he was already out even before it had completely formed.

He was nearing the border of the clearing, with the forest straight ahead.

That was when it was as if the Blazes themselves opened up into the world. A sea of flames burst into existence, forming a wide half-circle in front of him and casting an eery glow across the trees beyond. He felt the heat almost immediately, pushing down on him like a wave. One breath was enough to sting his lungs, and plumes of smoke rose from the plots of dead grass that hadn’t been outright swallowed by the fires.

He searched around, but there was no way through. The flames only opened up behind him. He looked back, where a sinister tunnel of fire had formed between him and the Baroness. An imposing air hung around her as she stepped through it towards him. In her right hand was a short dagger, and for some reason, she was now wearing a freaking tiara on her head. With her eyes fixed on him, she moved forward as if leading an army, the flames closing in and trailing behind her like followers behind their queen. The fires closest to Gaven soared even higher, and all of it cast a fiery glow on the woman’s approaching appearance.

He clenched his teeth. The heat was still rising behind him.

What was with this insane difference from before? Had she been holding back at first? What even was this kind of spell? And how much mana did she have?

He glanced back at the inferno that was blocking his escape. He might have been able to force his way through the weaker flames before, but he couldn’t be sure about these. Simply standing here felt like being baked alive.

Not to mention that this woman might literally burn down the entire forest just to get to him.

Suddenly, his instincts warned him of another attack. Or rather, they screamed at him.

In the next instant, a raging tempest of fire swallowed him. As if the morning sun had been pulled down and squeezed into a pulp before being thrown at him. He tried activating shade morph to flee, but the flames followed him even when he severed himself from the Material Realm, tearing through space as they forced him to move towards the Baroness.

With a scream, he emerged a short distance away from her, catching himself on his singed palms. He had tried protecting himself, but his defensive techniques had been shredded through in the blink of an eye.

“Let’s talk this out!” he yelled, looking up at the Baroness and gasping for breath as his lungs burned. “I get you’re mad…” Even talking hurt. How in the Blazes did she look so unaffected? “The Countess might not be dead yet, yeah? If I help ya, we might find her in time, so let’s not do anything hasty here, kay?”

The flames were still inching closer to him from behind. He had to force himself up again to shade morph away, reappearing slightly to the side of the Baroness. He opened his mouth to speak again. To say anything that could convince her. But as their eyes locked, he froze.

She didn’t care one lick about whatever he had to say. There was only death and pure rage in that look.

He wasn’t leaving this clearing alive if he didn’t act first.

He pulled out two blades from his belt.

This was the last time he was taking a job from a Vile-cursed noble.

Triggering a few of the body-enhancing techniques and tricks he’d learned in his time on the streets and as a member of the Vanguards—most weren’t things you wanted to use unless you enjoyed puking yourself out on the ground afterward—he threw a quick glance to make sure the blades were still coated. Then, he activated shade morph again and moved towards the Baroness. He was running low on energy, so he would have to deal with this quickly.

Yet another wall of fire appeared before him. He immediately canceled shade morph and rolled to the side of the flames. Then, while the woman was focused on conjuring another array of attacks against him, he threw both daggers.

Her reaction was quicker than he thought, and one of the blades was completely engulfed by a sphere of fire, obscuring the woman from his view. The other one, however, he’d seen graze her shoulder.

He pulled out another set of daggers, ready to dodge another assault and search for the next opportunity, when the firestorm around him suddenly stilled, as if frozen by time. The flames protecting the Baroness calmed down for just a moment, revealing the woman as she shot him an intense glare. There were traces of blood on her shoulder, but it was a lot less than he’d hoped for. That hadn’t been Specter’s Tears poison, so it wouldn’t be enough to take her out.

Forcing himself out of his momentary daze, he threw both daggers towards her again. This time, barriers made of water materialised to slow their momentum before another set of flames swallowed them up. He wasn’t even sure if they got close to the Baroness.

There was a brief moment where complete silence descended on them, and then everything moved. It was as if the entire clearing churned and a forest of fire stormed towards him from all directions, engulfing him in the blazing conflagration before he could move. He screamed as he tried to fight back, clambering for an escape. But the flames moved like they were alive, roiling and shifting in impossible ways as they eroded his body. He blindly fumbled around in this ocean of red and fire, the pain drawing out for what felt like an eternity.

And then it all disappeared.

Gaven fell to the ground, barely able to breathe, though he wasn’t sure whether there was no air or if his lungs simply weren’t capable of it anymore.

Now all that surrounded him was the dark clearing, illuminated by the pale light of the moon that hung in the sky above. Weakly lifting his head, he bore witness to the destruction that had been wrought. Over half of the area was nothing but charred black, with weak embers of fire spread out over what remained of the vegetation. Yet the bordering trees were completely untouched.

For a single breath, he wondered if one of the six Blazes actually had descended here, simply to spite him and the choices he’d made.

Striding through the chaos she had brought about, the Baroness stopped a step away from Gaven, staring down at him.

He tried raising his arm — tried to shade morph away, but there was no energy left. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak.

One last time, he met the woman’s eyes, looking into the wrath and intensity behind them. But now, there was something else mixed into there as well.

He almost wanted to laugh.

He wasn’t even sure when he fell for it, but he supposed he only had himself to blame for forgetting even the basics. Funny couldn’t even begin to describe it.

This was what happened when you got too caught up in your beliefs about someone. Was this what that Countess felt, maybe?

The Baroness raised a hand.

“…Filth.”

The single word was almost whispered.

And then Gaven’s world turned to ash.