[Name: Scarlett Hartford]

[Skills:

[Greater Mana Control]

[Greater Pyromancy]

[Major Pyrokinesis]

[Greater Hydromancy]

[Superior Hydrokinesis]]

[Traits:

[Dignified August]

[Supercilious]

[Cavalier]

[Callous]

[Overbearing]

[Conceited]

[Third-rate Mana Veins]]

[Mana: 1324/5047]

[Points: 2]

Scarlett prompted the status window to appear before her, mindlessly scanning through it and its contents. This was maybe the…tenth time in the last five minutes? She wasn’t sure. There wasn’t anything new that appeared just because she kept looking, but it was something to focus on.

As her eyes passed over her mana, she paused and blinked. It was depleting quickly again.

She turned away from the status window to see a crackling inferno of flames hovering in the air a dozen meters ahead of her. It hadn’t even registered to her that she’d summoned it. She raised a hand and closed her fist as if smothering the flames. They died out immediately, and now that she was paying attention, she noticed the temperature decreasing quickly, leaving only the usual summer warmth that was always present here in Freymeadow.

For a while, she simply sat there, looking out at the empty space.

“Want me to refill it for you?” Rosa’s approaching voice rang out after a while.

Scarlett looked to the side as the woman neared, stopping next to her and pointing down at the [Depraved Solitude’s Choker] around her neck. She considered the bard for a moment, then held up her hand. With a thought, the necklace disappeared and reappeared in her palm, which she extended out to the woman.

Rosa received it and touched her index finger against the violet crystal hanging from the artifact. It lit up as the mana inside began filling up.

Neither of them spoke.

With everything else that had happened recently, it felt like that was threatening to become the norm now. They had barely had more than a few conversations over the past week and a half. Scarlett had been away, yes, but after she returned… Well, the awkward talk they’d had the night before in her office spoke magnitudes.

Her gaze turned down to her left hand resting on her lap. The pain that had flared up from the crest there was still vivid in her memory. She shouldn’t have even tried asking Rosa about the woman’s condition to begin with. She’d allowed her current mental state to get the better of her and done something stupid. Her words had been far too close to breaking the pact of noninterference she had made with the being inside the bard. If she had pushed things further, it wouldn’t have ended well for either party.

“So… How’s the practice going?” Rosa asked casually.

Scarlett looked up at her, and the woman gestured to where dark pockmarks were scattered out over the dirt in front of them.

“Couldn’t help but notice that it all looked slightly more intense than it usually does. Almost scared the living daylights out of me at first. Thought the entire village might go up in flames.”

Scarlett eyed the aftermath of her ‘practice’.

She had kept it all a decent distance away from any buildings at least, so it wasn’t as if there had been an actual risk of her burning the place down. Although she would admit that the traces left on the ground looked more erratic than usual.

“…It has proceeded adequately,” she answered.

She was just having a hard time concentrating.

“Uh-huh, sure.” Rosa smiled as she finished refilling the necklace, holding it back out to her. “Nice to see you’re human as well. That austere look of yours used to have me think you didn’t know what the W in ‘worrying’ stood for.”

Scarlett received the artifact, storing it away with the [Charm of Expeditious Change].

Rosa pointed back to a small group of children at the center of the square, sitting on the edge of the wooden stage there with their legs dangling in the air. All of them were staring in their direction. “I should probably head back to the little scoundrels. They got a bit riled up by your training earlier and started talking about crazy witches. Had a hard time convincing them you were as harmless as a butterfly, so I made a bet whether you would gobble me up or not if I went up to you. I just won myself a free tour through their ‘secret forest trail’.”

Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “Have you not already explored what there is to find in the surrounding area?”

The bard shrugged with a sly smirk. “Sure, but they don’t know that. There’s nothing quite as amusing as watching the surprise on others’ faces as they start thinking you must be a fortune teller of some kind. I know you agree.”

Scarlett studied her for a moment before turning away. “I see. Then you may take your leave. I will not be needing your assistance for another few hours, at the very least, so there is no need to stress.”

“Alrighty then,” Rosa said, but then a few seconds of silence passed without any footsteps. “…You sure you’ll be okay?” the woman added after a while.

Scarlett shifted her eyes back to see a slightly worried furrow on the woman’s brow.

“…Even if I were not, there is unfortunately not much that you could do about it, Miss Hale.”

A strange expression crossed Rosa’s face, but it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, replaced by her usual smile. “Well, I’ll see you later then. Toodles.” She started walking over towards the children.

Scarlett watched her leave for a moment, then turned back to gazing out at nothing.

She had hoped that visiting Freymeadow would help her calm down a bit after all that happened, but she wasn’t sure if it had made much of a difference. She clenched her fist. Even just thinking about it made the anger surge up again.

Ever since arriving in this world, she’d become somewhat used to being at the mercy of the original Scarlett’s more negative emotions, but never before had she felt so powerless before them. Never had she felt herself lose control like this.

Days had passed since it all happened, and she was still mad.

The anger lurked beneath the surface most of the time, but it was always ready to show itself again. She’d been like this ever since Gaven basically admitted to trying to kill the Countess. After that, she wasn’t completely sure of everything that happened or what she’d been thinking. It had all just been a mess of pure, unbridled rage and destruction like she had never experienced before.

And the worst part was that she wasn’t even sure what she was angry about.

Was it the fact that Gaven had attacked the Countess, a naive and innocent woman who relied on Scarlett? Was it that he had essentially betrayed an ally of theirs? Was it because he had gone against her order? Because he had slighted her?

Or was it simply because she knew what happened was partly her fault, and she could have avoided it if she had taken the man’s personality into further account?

She genuinely couldn’t tell.

It was infuriating. Maddening, almost. Both to not know her own thoughts, and to know that she could lose control of herself like that. At the time, she had almost burnt down an entire clearing by the time she completely grasped the situation. Pushed a man to the brink of death before realizing what she was doing. And she knew, knew, that what happened to Gaven after that couldn’t be wholly blamed on the original Scarlett’s influence.

The only silver lining in this whole situation was that Gaven’s last words suggested the Countess could still be alive. He had poisoned her, but the woman had managed to use the artifact Scarlett gave her to teleport away. She was sturdier than what one would expect from her appearance, and she had access to powers not even Scarlett completely understood. Someone like her could survive being poisoned. Scarlett truly believed that.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the chance to stay and look for the Countess after the heist on the Sanctuary. Not after the mess she caused. She doubted the woman would let her after what happened. But that meant the Countess might currently be by herself, god-knows-where in the empire. Not only injured, but also betrayed by the man she had worked with—the man Scarlett had told her to work with—and without having rescued her sister.

There was no telling what state of mind the Countess was in after all that. Or what would happen if the wrong person ran into her.

Scarlett closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths as the emotions threatened to overtake her again.

Whatever her actual feelings on the matter, she had to find the Countess again, no matter what. Even if not for the woman’s own sake, she at the very least had to make sure the Countess didn’t speak of what happened to anyone else. From there, she might be able to repair what was left.

From what she knew, the Followers hadn’t made any public announcements yet. There was bound to be some uproar within their own circles, though, but this much was good. They shouldn’t have any reason to suspect her in particular. Barring that she left without the Countess and Gaven, her escape had gone off without a hitch. After taking their leave from the area near the Sanctuary, she and Garside had hidden inside a nearby dungeon she knew of before making their way back towards Silverborough, with no one stopping them. A couple of trips through the Kilnstone had then brought them back to Freybrook with hopefully none the wiser.

But it was still a precarious situation. She had spent hours upon hours since coming back looking into how to locate the Countess again. There were only so many places the woman could have gone immediately after things went down. Scarlett had pored over maps and notes, trying to figure out which were the most likely, as well as written letters addressed to Beldon Tyndall and a couple of other people she was hoping could help discreetly. There wasn’t any guarantee that the Countess would go somewhere with people, though. The woman might both be paranoid and confused, so her actions were hard to predict.

And all the while this whole mess was going on, Scarlett had to prepare for the Tyndall Ball that would take place in less than a week.

Backing out now would probably be a bad idea, but there was also the real possibility that, if she did attend as she was now, she might accidentally light someone on fire. Considering her current reputation and social standing, there were guaranteed to be people that tested her self-control present.

She was tired.

There was so much to think about, and so much she was unsure of right now. Getting a decent night’s sleep lately had been difficult, and focusing even more so. Add to that her magic acting out and being hard to rein in and it spelled a mountain of problems. She was sure part of that was because she had upgraded her [Superior Pyrokinesis] to [Major Pyrokinesis] in the heat of the moment and hadn’t quite learned how to manage the new skill, but that couldn’t be all. When she’d been facing Gaven, controlling her flames had been like breathing, but she couldn’t reach that same state. The magic kept doing whatever it wanted at even the briefest lapse in concentration, and it was difficult to perform even the simplest of exercises that she did before.

She glanced at what remained of her mana.

[Mana: 356/2047]

She could theoretically continue her current session if she wanted to. Using the mana Rosa had filled the [Depraved Solitude’s Choker] with would probably cause her to faint from exhaustion after just a couple of casts since it still used some of her own mana, but there was an alternative. [Ittar’s Genesis], the divine tier artifact she had gotten from the Sanctuary of Ittar, didn’t have that same limitation. In theory, if she used the mana inside that to fuel her magic, she could go on forever without worrying about mana exhaustion. It also replenished itself over time, so even when she emptied it she only had to wait for about an hour or so to go again. Mental fatigue was still a thing, but that was easier to fight through for shorter periods.

In her current state, however, that would be a terrible idea. Considering the weak control she had of her mana right now, she could only imagine what might happen if she pushed herself even more. Not to mention that this village was the last place that you wanted to bring out one of the holy items of the Followers of Ittar.

She turned her head, looking to the porch where Arlene always sat.

Scarlett was tired, but she didn’t want to take a break. Doing nothing just made her mind drift even more than it already did. It was all too easy for her thoughts to wander back to Gaven.

But she didn’t have much choice. She needed to rest just as much as every other person did.

With slow, deliberate movement, she rose from her chair and began walking towards Arlene. The woman didn’t look up from her book as Scarlett stepped onto the shaded porch. The cool air chilled her as she lowered herself into the empty seat there.

“Doesn’t seem to be going well for you,” Arlene said, her tone casual.

Scarlett eyed her. “…No, it is not.”

“It’s to be expected. Your flames have grown several times stronger than yesterday. Anyone progressing that fast would have difficulties.” The woman turned a page. “Most prospective teachers might have gotten annoyed thinking you were trying to hide your skills before. Luckily for you, I’m not that blind. It is a curious development, though. What I find more odd is that it doesn’t appear to be the main root to your problems.”

Scarlett stayed quiet.

The last time she had been here was before the heist, so her sudden growth would of course look strange from the woman’s perspective. The last time she upgraded her pyrokinesis, she explained to Arlene that she’d had a ‘revelation’ that helped her, but something told her that excuse wouldn’t work this time.

That didn’t matter, though. She wasn’t in the mood to try and come up with believable excuses. This current loop would only continue for two more days, so what did it matter?

“For a person who claims not to care much about others, you certainly seem to cause others to worry a lot about you,” Arlene said. “That companion of yours has been keeping a close eye on you since you arrived.”

Scarlett looked back to the empty square. Rosa and the children had already left. That the bard had been paying attention to her wasn’t surprising. There were several reasons for her to do something like that.

“I do not believe I have ever claimed that I do not care about others,” she said.

“Hmm, no. I suppose that wasn’t exactly what you said. It also wasn’t too far off, though.” The woman turned another page in her book. “That said, it surprises me to see you wallowing in your worries so suddenly.”

“…What makes you think I am wallowing in worries?”

Arlene looked up from her book. “I have eyes.”

It left an unpleasant aftertaste in Scarlett’s mouth to let that pass by, but she didn’t argue. It wasn’t wrong.

“I am not judging, mind you,” the woman said. “You simply did not strike me as that type of person.”

“And what do you know of what type of person I am? You have yet to know me for two full days. Our previous conversation was far from enough for you to become familiar with who I am.”

“I know your type well enough.”

Scarlett met Arlene’s eyes. “I do not think that you do.”

A few seconds passed, and eventually Arlene placed a hand over the cover of her book as she closed it. “Then why don’t you enlighten me? What kind of person are you, truly? I am curious to know.”

Scarlett looked at her for a moment longer, then turned away. “That is not a question that I am able to answer.”

“You don’t know?”

She pressed her lips together. “…It is not something I speak of with others.”

“Then are you even certain of it yourself?”

She sent her a small glare, but Arlene didn’t seem to care.

“To me,” the woman began, “it doesn’t sound like something you can’t speak about. It sounds like something you don’t want to speak about.”

“I…” Scarlett opened her mouth, but not much more came out.

Arlene didn’t know exactly what she was asking.

There were over a dozen reasons why she didn’t talk about who she was. About her real identity. There were over a dozen reasons why it would be a bad idea, even if she avoided telling the whole truth. And there was no one that had to know more than what she had already shared. There were no benefits to sharing her circumstances other than to confuse the other person and put herself at risk. So why would she do it? There were only risks, but no real gains.

But…what did that matter here?

It felt strange to think about it, but in a way, Arlene was already one of the people Scarlett had interacted the most with in this world. Despite that, the woman was essentially a stranger to her. But more importantly, she was a stranger to Arlene. There was no actual connection between them.

And…the woman would forget everything they spoke of in a couple of days.

Scarlett took a deep breath, then met the woman’s eyes. “I am not the real Scarlett Hartford.”