Sworded Affair

Emma just shook her head, and issued another mental order to her summon.

Squeeze.

The hand holding him expanded to cover his entire body, then clenched just once, reducing him to a fine red paste.

[10 EXP gained.]

As expected, a pittance of EXP was her only reward. Belatedly, Emma realised she could have stored his gun as well, before dismissing the thought. She\'d already grabbed one earlier, and had neither training nor spare ammo in any event.

[Everyone goes through a hoarding phase at some stage, typically right after getting their first storage item. Practitioners usually grow out of it after filling the whole thing up and having to empty it out.]

"You two will be more cooperative, I hope?"

Emma asked rhetorically, even as she ordered the Earthbound Immortal to release the remaining Scavengers. They nodded fervently, any bravado in them quickly extinguished alongside their leader\'s life.

"Catch," Emma, for her part, was happy to let them take her captive off her hands, tossing the unconscious one into their arms.

"Now let\'s try this again. What are you doing here, and what kind of numbers are we looking at?"

Just as her captive audience recovered their wits and looked about to answer, the rumbling of engines caught her ear. Emma didn\'t bother turning around, recognising the sounds of the convoy she\'d become rather familiar with lately.

"Soldiers?"

One of the Scavengers muttered, glancing back and forth between Emma and the new arrivals, trying to work out what was happening. He was the smart one.

"Help, this maniac attacked us out of nowhere, and wants to kill us all!"

His companion screamed hysterically, drawing everyone\'s eye and pointing at Emma in a truly awful attempt at acting. He didn\'t realise that the Earthbound Immortal was still beneath him, something Emma took full advantage of. Swapping places with her summon using Parallel Lives, she reappeared right in front of the screamer, driving her palm into his face.

The wave of death magic that followed took off everything above the neck, putting a sudden end to his complaints.

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[5 EXP gained.]

As before, Emma only earned a pittance for this, but by this point it wasn\'t about the EXP, it was about sending a message.

"We\'re just out looking for food!"

The only conscious Scavenger remaining blurted out, finally answering part of Emma\'s question.

"There\'s a couple dozen of us living in the old church. Demons don\'t go inside, so it\'s safe, but the cellar\'s running out of food, so we all chip in to find some."

[5 EXP gained.]

Emma glanced back at the first man she\'d incapacitated; still unconscious, he\'d fallen awkwardly when Emma released him, his neck snapping on landing.

So fragile.

"More impostors?" The one of the riflemen asked, his rifle trained on the sole survivor the moment he landed.

He wasn\'t one of the men on Emma\'s previous patrol, so word had clearly spread.

"No, just fools," Emma shook her head. "I\'m curious about the church they mentioned though. Are houses of faith typically protected from the demons?"

"...Not that I know of," the rifleman grunted. "We\'ll take a look, want to come with us?"

"No need; you\'ll be fine, if slingshots and handguns are the standard of opposition. I\'ll make my own way to the castle."

Emma didn\'t bother searching for another bird; they were fragile, as the slingshot incident showed, and she didn\'t want to risk being sniped out of the air by something more dangerous. Sir Bearington made his reappearance for the first time in a few days, carrying Emma off the main road and only the dirt footpath leading to her destination. The convoy soon faded from view, her last sight of them being the soldiers cuffing the survivor and dragging him into the back of one of the vans.

The footpath was clear, suspiciously so; by the halfway mark, Emma had expected to see signs of wildlife running about the undergrowth, but even the rats and rabbits were staying well away judging by the complete lack of tracks and droppings. Sir Bearington made good time, and ten minutes later they were in front of Blenheim Palace, and Emma felt a chill settle on her neck. The palace grounds were pristine; the vast front lawn perfectly ordered, the grass trimmed evenly and not a single blade out of place.

"It took a full-time groundskeeper just to keep our school garden clear. Something this size would take an entire team working daily to maintain."

Try as she might, Emma couldn\'t find any signs of human activity, and her minimap likewise remained clear. Sir Bearington whined as she urged him onward, instincts even death could not erase protesting their course. She would not be denied however; so on they went. A singular iron gateway proved no obstacle; Emma extended her intangibility to Sir Bearington for a moment, and they were through. After that, all they had to do was continue down the singular gravel pathway cutting through the lawn, until at last they both stood before the palace doors.

"You first," Emma ordered, still rather wary of her surroundings.

Sir Bearington obliged, standing upright and knocking with surprising softness, given his bulk. When nobody answered the door, he knocked again. And again. And again. She gave no order to stop, so he kept knocking, and with every thud, the air grew just a tiny bit heavier, an invisible weight settling upon Emma\'s shoulders.

[Hallowed Candle (Demonic) withdrawn.

Lighter (Full) withdrawn.]

"This is creepy as hell," Emma muttered, lighting a Hallowed Candle for the first time.

The blood red candle stood tall, its face set in a rictus grin. No flame was lit; even as the lighter vanished from sight, before Emma had any chance to try using it again.

[Oh no.]

The candle vanished, too, and a banshee screamed in the distance. Emma was halfway to summoning her sword when the world vanished in a sea of white.

[It\'s About Time resisted.]

—

"...Not that I know of," the rifleman grunted. "We\'ll take a look, want to come with us?"

Emma blinked once, and found herself facing the rifleman again, the latter eyeing the captive Scavenger dubiously.

[Ah. This could be a problem.]