Gun Girl from Another World

Temper

I come storming out of the office with the newsletter clutched in my hand and Leuke and Anara hot on my tail.

"Come on, Ayre, we're going back to the estate," I declare, much to the elf's confusion, as I grab up my holster and begin fastening it back on again.

Leuke puts his body in front of me to stop me in my path. "Rem, stop!"

"Give me one good reason!"

"Because if you go up there like you are right now, you'll kill the mayor!"

Oh, we've got the attention of the whole barracks now, but I don't care. I scoff at the idea. "Oh, don't worry, Leuke, I'm not going to kill him. I'm far too pissed to kill him!" I crunch the newsletter in my grip, not caring about the damage done to it. "I'm going to paralyze him, string him up from a lamp post, and shoot him again every hour until his seizures cause the rope to come undone! If I get bored, maybe I'll even plink him with healing bullets in between!"

Captain Anara comes up behind me so I'm between the both of them. "That sounds very illegal, Miss Lee. Don't make me arrest a Hero."

"Hah," I laugh. "That's the best part! It's all technically harmless!"

Ayre is on his feet now. "Wait, what's going on?!"

I slap the newsletter down on the table, freeing up my other hand to help me get my crossbow harness on. "He's been using us this entire time, Ayre! Lying about us in the press! Says we're staying up at his estate because we're helping him with his whole stripmining schtick!"

The elf picks up the newsletter and opens it up from how I've crinkled it, and is aghast at what he sees. "No ... It's no wonder why everyone is so mad at us, then ..."

"Please, Rem," Leuke insists, still with his arms out to block me from moving past him, "take a second to breathe before you do something you know you'll regret."

That's when Anara says something that catches me off-guard. "Hero Lee, you said before that you trust us."

I blink at that and turn back toward her, halfway through sliding my backpack's straps up my arms. "... Yes?" I agree hesitantly, more because I don't understand why it's being brought up now than any lack of agreement.

But her eyes are intense, focused, determined. "Then I beg you to trust the system we swore to uphold. Even the mayor isn't above the law. Before you go taking it into your own hands, let us do it our way."

"Captain's right," Leuke agrees immediately. "I know you could probably raid the entire estate on your own, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do. Let's do things the right way, and you won't need to do it on your own, okay?"

I take a deep breath at their words, close my eyes as I hold it for several heartbeats, then open them again as I release it. I'm still furious, but the fires of my temper burn a little dimmer. Not by much, but enough that I can see past them again.

"Alright, then, what's the plan?"

"The plan is the same as before," the captain of the guard tells me, her own tone more relaxed now that I'm listening. "You wait out here while we question your companion." She glances to the elf. "Ayre, was it?"

Ayre nods, but I give a frown. "You still don't believe me?"

"It's not about whether or not we believe you," she assures me. "It's about corroboration. The more corroboration your story has, the stronger it stands. Without it, it will only be your word against the mayor's, and there is little to be done in that kind of situation."

"I know Ayre's story is going to back mine," I object, "but Regent Noya is just going to give one that backs the mayor. Then where will we be?"

Ayre nods in agreement. "Then there's station to be considered. Remmi outranks them as a Hero, but both of them outrank me. At best, doesn't that just make it all come out weighted evenly?"

Captain Anara shakes her head, however, and crosses her arms. "Station doesn't play a role in testimony," she corrects the elf. "It's testimony to testimony, corroboration to corroboration. All that matters is getting to the truth of the matter." She sighs and shifts her weight to the other side. "It may be a different matter when it comes to charges, but that's out of my hands."

Then she focuses on me again. "These won't be the only testimonies we take, either. We'll find other witnesses and ask them what they know of events they were involved in. I assure you, it will be very thorough."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Leuke chimes in. "And if we still end up in a stalemate, we'll just ask the local Temple to send a priest that can cast truth spells!"

I stare at Leuke for a moment at that revelation. "You mean spells that compel the target to speak the truth, or just detect a lie?"

"Both!" He grins proudly at the opportunity to share such information. "They're the same skill tree, just different levels. Either way helps tremendously with a stubborn investigation!"

Yorin never mentioned priests having such scary powers as compelled speech. I turn back to Anara as I point to Leuke with my finger. "Why not just do that to start with?"

She sighs and gives Leuke a look that says he was too quick to speak. "Because enlisting the Temple is expensive. Priests who have invested in truth spells in particular are considered a sort of specialist. The village funds don't look kindly upon spending so much money without exhausting every other avenue first."

Anara steps aside and motions Ayre toward the doorway to her office. "Now, let us be on with it."

"Oh! Right!" Ayre starts forward, but stops of his own accord, pausing to shrug off the bow from its harness and undo his quiver. These main weapons are followed quickly by a long dagger and a small set of utility knives. And since I left my backpack, he does, too.

Really, it's kind of uncanny to see just how nearly identical our loadouts are in a general sense. Obviously, we're both ranged combatants, but our main weapons are so different that it's strange to be reminded how much everything we carry echoes each other.

Ayre goes into the office and I'm left sitting at the table with our stuff. Unfortunately, I don't sit still well, and it's not long before I'm getting antsy. I'm soon looking around for something to do, and that's when I notice the guard that yelled at me get up to leave.

I know that he was lied to, that he was wrong about me, and he didn't have to call me a whore, but I feel like I owe him an apology out of sympathy if nothing else.

I get up from my seat and head over to intercept him. It's not like I'm hiding what I'm doing, so of course he easily sees me coming. I wouldn't call his gaze welcoming, but he waits for me to arrive.

The guard doesn't say anything, so I start.

"Hey, so, I know what happened now, and I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. It's no wonder you were so disgusted with me."

He seems to chew at his cheek, and the tension in his face and neck says he's trying to restrain himself. When he finally does speak, it's to ask a question. "Did you do it?"

I blink, my default reaction to being confused at a response. "No. No, absolutely not. The Mayor lied."

The man gives his cheek another chew before he says anything more. "Are you doing anything about it?"

"Yes. Captain Anara is opening an investigation."

But that doesn't seem to appease him. "That's what the Captain is doing. What are you doing about it?"

I stand there like a dullard for a long moment. "They ... convinced me to wait."

"It doesn't sound like you have much of an idea what you'll be doing when the waiting's over, either."

"Well," I excuse, rubbing my head, "it will depend on what the Captain does."

He gives a short, derisive scoff. "Listen, kid, you can't always wait around for others to make decisions for you. Especially not if you're going to go around calling yourself Hero. Sooner or later, you have to figure out what you're doing for yourself."

And just like that, he walks right on out of the barracks, a couple others right behind him. I'm left standing there, dumbstruck by his words.

Half on autopilot, I find my way back to my seat, but my mind is still on what the guard said to me. I can't even find the energy to take offense to being called a kid; for the first time in a while, I feel completely out of my depth, like a kid playing at being an adult.

His words hit me harder than I would have expected. They just keep replaying in my head, over and over again. I had been ready to act, but Leuke was right, I would have gone on the warpath. Having time to cool my head, I can see that now. But what was I going to do next, instead?

Do I really just leave it all up to the cops and wait out a lengthy investigation? And into what, lying in an interview? What do I expect them to do, vote him out of office? I don't get the impression it's an elected position around here.

I trust Anara and Leuke, and they clearly think there's something to be done. I absolutely believe in the right way to do things, too, but what does that even mean here? And I'm a Hero. Isn't the whole reason I'm given so much freedom in action specifically so that I can do what needs to be done when normal channels can't?

But that just brings up another question: What needs to be done? Lord Mayor Oshu needs to be confronted, at the very least, and probably Lady Regent Noya, as well. I have a feeling that going after the mayor is pushing Anara's luck without the backing of the regent, and Noya is almost certainly in on the whole scheme.

A regent is all but definitely beyond the Captain's pay grade. Even I know that. Corruption at that level can probably only be addressed by the Throne, itself. And yet, was I really just going to leave Noya to Anara to figure out?

I'm sure the Captain must have some sort of a plan. After all, she has known these people for far longer than I've even been in this world. She must have something prepared.

Or she's just trusting in the rules and expecting procedure to guide her through the night. I have no way of knowing. I didn't even think to ask.

What would a Hero do? Well, if the comics are to be believed, a Hero would rush in and shut down the criminal enterprise, then leave them for the police to book and jail. That's more than a bit too silly to be practical, though. No, I need to prove they're guilty first. Not just of embezzlement, not just of abduction, not just of lies and slander. I need to do something about the oni, too.

In all of this mess, I nearly lost sight of them. Not only are they my doorway to the Ogre's Grotto dungeon, but the Mayor and his financiers want to take their home out from under them. That's worse than anything he's done to me.

I don't know what Anara has planned, but the very least I can do is give her my backing and support as a Hero. And make sure she's not standing alone, that I'm there ready to act when the time comes.

I stand up immediately the moment the door to the Captain's office opens, my gaze serious. They recognize it immediately. For a moment, they look worried that I've worked myself back up into a murderous fury.

"Captain," I announce, "your next destination is the Mayor's estate, am I right?"

She narrows her eyes at me, trying to get a read on me. "... Yes."

"I'm coming with you. It's time I start acting like an Imperial Hero."