Testing My Luck in the New World

"This is my place. We better hurry inside before someone notices us."

Near the western edge of the city, Lucielle's house was large enough to comfortably house two families, but it was also only a few broken walls short of dilapidated. Attempts to cure its patched-up roof and boarded over windows had been made, but to little effect as the unkempt garden out front only worsened its appearance. Despite all this, its relative grandeur looked as though it had been labeled a spectacle of rural architecture when it was built, but Lucielle had to shake the doorknob several times before it creaked open.

The interior was worse. Without a speck of light to see by, save for what moonlight filtered in through the window's slap-dash repair job, it felt as though we were being faced with the deepest abyss.

Although, that was probably just me being paranoid after spending hours on high alert. It's not like anyone here would bother to keep any lights burning when nobody was home.

We followed Lucielle inside and I immediately found the reason for the janky door when I stumbled on a piece of broken floorboard sticking up under the door frame.

"It's not much, but it's home. Go ahead and wait for me in there. I'll make some tea."

She lit a candle and handed it to Yua before she pointed towards one of the darkened rooms down the hall. While the door was heavily damaged, it happened to be the only one that was still on its hinges.

"Thanks, but are you sure it's okay to leave your post like this?" I asked, though a bit late. "Won't you get in trouble?"

"It's fine. I'll just tell them I saw someone suspicious and gave chase. At worst, they'll just chastise me a little for not saying anything first. Now go on. It's late. The tea will only take a minute."

Obeying our host as she unclasped her sword belt in what was left of her living room, Yua brought the candle over to the room pointed out to us. As she moved and as the candlelight stretched out further into the house, it quickly became clear that the damage to the front was not the least of it.

Gashes in the walls. Chunks cut out of support beams. Furniture missing legs or cushions. A fireplace that looked to be one speck of dust away from collapsing in on itself – it was a surprise anyone could call this home and keep a straight face.

Unphased by all this, Yua swung the door open easily and quietly, like it had been freshly oiled. In comparison to the rest of the house, the furniture in here was nice, if not sparse. The room contained only a large, neatly polished table and a few chairs.

A quick count of the chairs added up to us being one short, but Mana quickly cured this issue when she took me by the hand and had me sit in the seat closest to the door. She then climbed atop my lap and let out a cute yawn as she relaxed deep into my chest.

Ready to bear the brunt of any questions Lucielle might throw our way because of this, I wrapped an arm around her and pulled the chair next to me out for Yua, who placed the candle at the center of the table.

"Is there anyone else in this house?"

"No. Just us and her."

Elane closed the door, doing so slowly and with a caution that was new to her. She kept her hand on the handle so it didn't click shut.

"Alex," she whispered. "You might want to keep your magic on standby."

"Why? She's the one that hired us."

"I know, but a guard's salary should be more than enough to fix this place up. Something about this place isn't right."

"Maybe she's new to the job."

Elane considered this, but shook her head.

"I doubt it. She wouldn't be put on church duty if she was new."

That was probably true, the church would likely want the best and brightest protecting it, but I held my reservations. She'd already paid the guild for the quest. Why go out of her way to hurt us after we came to help?

Having said her piece, Elane shrugged and quietly reopened the door. She took a seat on my free side, leaving the only empty seat in front of us.

A few minutes later, Lucielle rejoined us. Having discarded the metal parts of her armor, she carried a large platter topped with a fine tea set that, surprisingly, wouldn't have looked out of place in Elane's mansion.

She quietly and hastily handed out the cups as she poured, hesitated a moment when she noticed where Mana was sitting, but finished by pouring herself a cup. She raced back to the room's door, closed it, locked it and let out a long sigh that had her leaning on the door as though her stamina bar had just hit zero.

Noticing us looking, she quickly corrected herself and found her seat.

"I hope you'll excuse all the caution. One can never be too safe these days. Believe it or not, this room is enchanted with sound-muffling magic."

"Is that why you haven't fixed this place up?" Elane asked. "Enchanting's not cheap."

"Not me, my father. He was a Merchant. Sold pretty much anything he could get his hands on, and he was good at getting his hands on things. He was even better at selling them. He could sell you the boots on your feet if you weren't careful."

Lucielle let out a short laugh at the thought as she gazed into her tea.

"And as soon as the church came and business here picked up, he asked the man that came to set up the inn to enchant this room as well. He planned on using it to negotiate trade deals with other companies."

"Not a bad idea," I mused. "With all the new trading happening here, I could imagine how he'd want to keep competitors from eavesdropping and stealing his profits."

My Merchant class may still be under-leveled – buying foodstuffs didn't net me much experience even with my EXP boost – but I could tell from this that the man knew his stuff. Or, that he was at least willing to gamble a little on his business.

"Yea, well… father didn't get much use out of it. It wasn't long after that they killed him."

A tear slipped down her cheek and everyone's gaze fell to their drinks at the sudden shift in topic. By chance, none of us understood her grief well enough to comment on it. Yua and Mana both still had happy, loving families, while Elane never knew hers. Meanwhile, while my parents and I had been a little estranged, they were alive and well.

Despite this, Yua tried to offer a few sympathies anyway before Lucielle continued and cut her off. Sniffling, but pretending she hadn't, she quickly wiped at her tears.

"I'll try to spare you the sobbing. I'm sure you just want to talk about the bandits. So ask away."

I took a breath, knowing I was about to come off as an asshole before I even opened my mouth.

"I'm sorry to ask, but could you walk us through the day your father was killed? We need to know what we're dealing with."

Lucielle bit her lip, but after a moment of silent thought, she pulled her gaze away from her cup to meet my eye.

"It was several years ago in the winter. My father came home fuming about something. Stomping, parading around the house like he wanted to smash everything he saw to bits. He was so red in the face, that I thought someone had surely insulted my mother. She'd passed years before, you see, and he always got like that when someone brought up her past. But that wasn't it. It couldn't have been."

She paused, brow twisting in a confused arch. After taking a drink, she continued.

"I was outside at the time, hiding behind the house hoping he'd assume I was only gathering a few logs for the fire. I remember it being frightfully cold that day, so it was the perfect excuse. Although, don't get me wrong, father wasn't an angry man by nature, but when he got like that, it was simply best not to get in his way until he worked out his frustration. But then, out of nowhere, the yelling suddenly stopped. It was when they came.

"There were at least four of them, all men. I never saw their faces, but I heard them. The moment father opened the door, the first immediately jumped into a sales pitch about some deal they had on the table, said he'd be a fool to miss out on it. Father didn't sound too happy that they followed him from the shop, but he must have heard some of their pitch before, because he relented and let them in. Brought them straight to this room and closed the door." Lucielle tapped the table with a finger before looking listlessly towards the door. "I'd only just dropped a new log on the fire when he told me to ready enough tea for five people, but then he changed his mind and practically pushed me out of the house, telling me to go man the shop for him before I could.

"I never learned what they spoke about," Lucielle concluded. "But when he returned to the shop later, he looked upset."

"Upset how?"

"I don't know… Maybe scared. Maybe annoyed."

"Those sound like two totally different emotions."

"Maybe, but I'd never seen him like that before. It was like he'd seen a ghost or a demon, but then decided it was just his own reflection. He stayed like that all day and then, after we closed up shop for the night, he suddenly said he had a meeting at the church and that he'd be back late. This was back when the church and the newer parts of the city were still being built, so we both thought they were going to ask him for a donation in exchange for a reward. Like a promised seat in heaven, or something. I waited up for him for hours, and when he finally came home, any fear he had in him was gone and he was the maddest I'd ever seen him."

"Did he tell you what happened at the church?"

"Not much. Not anything, really. He just kept spouting off something like: I can't believe those bastards would ever think I'd… Tracia, I'd never…, then he'd trail off, like just finishing the thought was poison to him."

"Tracia?"

"My mother's name. I don't know what she had to do with it, but that's what he said. I tried to calm him down, but before I could, there was a knock at the door. His face went paler than the snow."

Lucielle's grip on her cup tightened. Her knuckles whitened as the cup squealed against the saucer, until she let go and put her hands on her knees.

"Before I could ask who it was, he covered my mouth and hid me in this room. He told me to close and lock the door. I wasn't even old enough to call myself an adult at the time and the way he looked at me didn't leave room for argument, so I did what I was told. I locked the door, fell to my knees and, suddenly, I was all alone. I think it saved my life."

"What happened next?"

"They killed him," she said with a pained bluntness. "I couldn't see anything, but I replayed what I heard that night in my mind thousands of times. They spoke at first and I pressed my ear to the door to listen, but they were too far away. No matter how I tried, I couldn't make out the words. Then I heard a crash. Then another. And another. Father screamed in pain and I heard swords clashing. But father wasn't a swordsman. He sold the occasional sword, but that didn't mean he was any good with one. I couldn't do anything; I was so scared.

"Steel clashed, things broke, several men laughed and father screamed again and… I don't know. All I can remember is how wet his voice sounded before something heavy hit the floor. I just sat there, listening, pleading, screaming at the top of my lungs for them to stop, but because of the room's enchantment, they never heard me. The fight was over before it ever started. I waited and waited, too petrified to open the door for fear of what I might find.

"Hours passed and, when the sun found its way through the window, I finally managed the strength to open the door. The house was a mess, everything was broken, and… father was gone. Just gone. They'd taken his body. All there was left of him was a splatter of blood on the floor that looked like it'd been scrubbed before someone covered it up with a carpet."

Lucielle fought hard to keep the tears from flowing again, but they did anyway. Unsure of what to say, we all sat there in silence for a long while before Elane leaned on the table and spoke up.

"Hold on. Earlier, you said you saw them kill your father, right? To me, it sounds like you only heard them."

"And I know what I heard! I heard four other voices that night, okay? Four! It had to be the same four men that visited earlier in the day. They knew where we lived."

"What about them being Bandits? Were you guessing when you made the guild request?"

"Elane…" I started, but she put up a hand to stop me.

"I know they're bandits because when I came out to check on my father, I saw that our house had been gutted of anything with any value. Not the least of which was our family heirloom The Unlucky Thorn - a staff we had hanging over the fireplace. They stole almost everything. They killed my father. They. Are. Bandits!"

Throwing up her hands, Elane sank back into her chair. I looked at Yua, but after a flick of her ears, she nodded. Lucielle wasn't lying. Or at least, she didn't think she was.

"What happened next?"

"Nothing. I thought about telling the guard, but I was scared that the bandits would come after me next. I was just a loose end they didn't know they'd left untended. Not that it would have mattered. When I finally mustered up the courage to leave the house, I found out that a rumor had started going around that my father packed up and left the city with some woman who'd come to visit with the other travelers. After some investigating, I learned that they thought I stayed behind because I didn't agree with him remarrying. As if he would. He loved my mother way too much to ever consider it."

"Why didn't you get your neighbors to back you up? Surely, they would have heard the commotion."

Lucielle's house was on the edge of the city, but there were houses all along the street we were on. And it was hard to believe they weren't close enough to have heard a literal sword fight happening next door.

"We didn't have neighbors back then. This happened while Villeverdure was in the middle of expanding."

"Then why didn't you show them the damage that'd been done to your house? Or the blood?"

"I tried, but hardly anyone listened. Those new to the city didn't know me enough to care, and those that did were divided. Many didn't believe me. Many more were doubtful since the blood stain was barely visible, like it'd been there for years. They didn't want the prosperity they saw coming to the village to end over some little girl starting rumors about a gang of murderers hiding here."

Her gaze fell back down to her cup, eyes empty and almost lifeless before she leaned back in her chair and ran her hands through her hair and continued.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"The few that did believe me were the next to vanish. People had been disappearing one after another already at this point, each one leaving behind some ridiculous story, baseless rumors about why they chose to go. Everyone left to run away with secret lovers, or they left because they refused to convert to the church's teachings, or because they didn't like the changes happening to the village. We were too stupid. I don't think anyone ever thought the rumors were a lie. Not until I showed them the blood… But then those that believed me enough to start looking into what was happening wound up missing as well. Each with a new rumor all their own."

"And by missing, I assume you mean…"

"They were killed, yes. And each time, their passing was followed by endless rumors, excuses that made up for their absence and everybody just ate it all up. I don't know any other way to explain it, because it makes no sense. Like I said, everyone that died was either too old to up and leave or had too much to lose by leaving this place. A baker and his wife, whose family owned their bakery for generations and who was earning multiple times what they had been thanks to all the newcomers. A elderly farmer who'd been in the middle of deciding which of his sons to give his land to. An old widow with an excruciatingly bad hip, who couldn't even mount a horse, let alone ride one out of the city.

"All of them and more supposedly just up and vanished! And yet, everyone believed the stories without a damned doubt in their stupid little heads… I was the same. I never considered they were being murdered until father died and his body was stolen. After that, I realized we'd all been blissfullyliving a lie."

"You said that before, that only the elderly were dying. Why is that?"

"How should I know? At first, I thought it was because a few of father's old friends were helping me look into the killings, but then people I had no contact with started disappearing too. Back when all the disappearances and rumors started, it was just one or two older people every few months that vanished. It was like this for years."

"And you all believed it for years?"

"What else were we supposed to do? The people that died weren't able to refute the rumors and worse, the rumors made sense. Old folks a rarely willing to change their ways, so why not leave when the growing city is trying to force you to do just that?"

"That still doesn't make any sense," I said. "You show up with actual proof that your father was murdered, but they stick to their rumors, just because they made a little sense?"

Has skepticism not been invented yet?

"That's what I'm telling you!" Lucielle shouted, slamming her hands on the table. "None of this makes sense, but it's happening! I tried pointing out the flaws in the rumors, but the idiots living here refuse to see reason. They just stick to the lies like it's all they have, then they look at me like I'm the fool for trying to refute them."

"And if that's not bad enough," she continued. "Recently, maybe half a year ago, it all stopped. Nobody vanished and no more rumors started. At first, I thought the terror was finally over, that the killers finally left and that I'd missed my chance to win my father his justice. There was peace for at best a month, but then the deaths started piling up again. Only now, they are happening more often. And now, those poor people are being found dead in their houses or in the street. And it was almost always older people."

"And still nobody suspected anything was amiss but you?" Elane asked.

Lucielle shrugged. "Many died of natural causes. Many only looked like they died of natural causes. Because they were old, and because there were no markings on any of the bodies, nobody bothered to look into it. They just continued their lives as though nothing were wrong at all in the world. The rumors changed from sudden desires to leave Villeverdure, to oh, well he was old. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"And are you sure that wasn't the case?"

"No, it wasn't," she said, letting slip a sigh that was so profound it nearly hurt to look at. "I managed to see a few of the bodies before they were carted away to the graveyard. Even in death, every single one of their faces were stuck with expressions that made it look as though they died experiencing the worst agony you could possibly imagine. I can't begin to tell you how many nightmares I've suffered just after seeing them."

"Wait," I blurted, making Mana's ears jump. "Were they clutching their chests?"

I'd assumed that what killed these people were merely heart attacks brought about by the stress of being stuck in the ever-evolving city, but Lucielle shook her head.

"No, it… I don't know how to describe it, but… It's almost like every inch of their body was on fire, but there were no scorch marks on or anywhere around them."

"That's… odd. By chance, were there any strange looking boils or blisters anywhere on their skin? Did they look sick?"

"No. They looked just as they had the last time I'd seen them. Just in tremendous pain."

Damn… Guess that rules out plague. Not that I had much room to assume it was a problem here, what with us already confirming the existence of one bandit.

"I don't know if everyone decided to ignore it all or if I've gone crazy," Lucielle said. "But I don't trust anyone here anymore. I had to sneak a message and the bag of what little gold my father had stashed away into the hands of a traveling merchant I barely knew, just to request help."

"You trusted us enough to bring us to your house."

Lucielle raised a brow at me before letting out a breath.

"If you were a bandit that both knew my real name, what I did and that had the sort of magic that could whisk me half-way across the city in less than a second, I figured you would have just killed me on the spot."

"R-Right," I said, choosing not to mention how teleportation magic could be a potential cause of the disappearing bodies. "That aside, Marcy, I get you're using a fake name to hide your relationship to one of the victims so the bandits don't come for you, but why are you working for the church if you're capable of running a store?"

"Because I spent so much time trying to solve this mess that I ended up running my father's shop into the ground. That's why the house is still a mess. I don't have the coin to fix it anymore. Besides, all that happened to my father, happened after he went to the church. I'm sure it has something to do with this, so I became Marcy, a former swordswoman of meager renown who happened to be in search of a place to settle down. Working as a church guard just gives me a chance to snoop into their business."

Elane nodded, her suspicions about Lucielle's employment likely cleared up.

"You find anything yet?"

"N-No," she said, biting her nail. "Turns out there's parts of the church that even the guards aren't allowed to enter. I've been waiting for a chance, but aside from the other guards, there's the priestess to deal with. She's usually up late praying."

"And it's hard to sneak past her wearing all that armor?"

"Exactly."

"Hmm… What can you tell us about this priestess?"

"Not much. At least, nothing useful. She's the one who started the church here and she uses her healing magic to mend everyone's injuries." Lucielle paused, thinking. "Actually, she's pretty well respected here. No matter how insignificant your injury or sickness, she'll heal it without question, and she'll do it for free. She's been a god-send to this place."

"For free?" Elane echoed. "Since when does a church heal for free?"

Lucielle shook her head. "I don't know. The church does make plenty of coin from donations, but as a Merchant myself, I can't feel comfortable knowing they're choosing not to charge for their services."

"Maybe they're just doing it on good faith," I said, hopeful, but even I doubted it.

Four bandits with blood on their hands that are potentially working for the church. Or, maybe they were just fanboys of this priestess and they didn't take kindly to Lucielle's father rejecting her request for coin.

Wait… Only four?

"Lucielle, if you only know of four of the bandit's, why did you tell the guild there were eight?"

Where I thought the question would have stumped her, she instead nodded slowly as if expecting me to ask.

"The bandits came back a few hours after they killed my father, this time with more voices, and more muscle. I think they carried away as much of our stuff as they could the first time, but since they had to… since they had to dispose of my father as well, their hands were tied. And clearly, they liked what we had enough to come back for it."

"Then how did you count them if you were locked in this room?"

She was no cat-kin, nor did she have the sensitive ears of one. I could believe Yua if she told me she was able to distinguish between multiple voices well enough to count how many speakers there were, but for a human girl that was at best fourteen at the time to do so? And right after suffering the traumatic loss of her father?

"I didn't need to see them," she said, pushing up her glasses. "They didn't just steal random objects from us that night. My father had recently bought twenty-one backpacks from a leatherworker to resell them himself at the shop. There were twenty-one before the attack, and there were only five left the next day. And there were no trails in the snow to suggest they brought a cart or horse. I may be guessing, but if sixteen bags were loaded with valuables and taken, assuming they each carried one per arm, then there were eight people."

"A guess?" I sighed. "But, still, for you to notice something like that…"

"I may have been young, my father may have only just died, but you can't mess with a Merchant's stock and expect them not to notice."

"But what about the class levels you reported?" Yua asked. "How'd you guess that if you didn't even fight them?"

"Easy, I didn't," she said. "My father built this room with reinforced walls and a sturdy door to secure business meetings. Assuming there was valuable loot inside, the bandits tried breaking the door in when the handle refused to budge, but failed. Your guild's scout assessed their levels after examining the damage."

"Why didn't they just chop the door down with an axe?"

"I don't know… I've wondered that hundreds of times myself, but the only answer I could come up with was that I was lucky." She laughed. "Funny that my luck only decided to wake up after all that."

"Funny, yea..."

It was hard to say if the Luck stat was as great as it seemed to be. Back when Yua and I were working ourselves to the bone in the dungeon, it was basically a Goddess-send, but to everyone else, it seemed to barely exist at all.

If everyone had a base amount of luck and either couldn't or simply didn't level it, then her father and the four bandits who attacked him were equal in a sense. And when they clashed and that proverbial coin was flipped, he lost. Only, right after that, Lucielle went against presumably the full eight bandits and won her every flip. So, did luck really mean anything if you couldn't level it to the point of randomly finding a chest full of gold right when you needed it most? I guess it really was laughable.

Or… Was it better to think that her father won in the end because she survived in the first place?

"Mmn."

While I was lost in thought, Mana slipped off my lap and walked somewhat unsteadily around the table towards Lucielle as she sulked. And without missing a beat, the cat girl threw her arms around her and wrapped her into a tight hug.

Startled, Lucielle jumped in her seat, but settled down the moment Mana started patting her head.

"It's okay," Mana cooed. "You don't have to cry anymore. Big Bro will beat up the bandits for you."

"O-Okay?"

Mana closed her eyes, smiling sweet enough for it to carve cavities straight into my teeth, but then her petting stopped, her arms went slack, her knees buckled and she fell face first into Lucielle's bosom.

Now visibly taken aback, Lucielle raised her hands overhead, as if to say she had nothing to do with this.

"Um… Is she okay?"

"She's just asleep," I said without the need to consult her status page. The little glutton was so tired, she'd barely touched her tea.

"We spent the whole day traveling and started tracking the bandits the moment we arrived," Elane added, and while she was wearing a mask, the way her eyes crinkled suggested there was a happy smirk on her face as she watched Mana snooze. And I had to admit, the girl's choice in pillow was a little confusing.

"She's tired," Yua concluded with a sigh.

After a quick glance at the clock in my HUD, I finished my tea and stood.

"I think we ought to wrap this up for the night. We did a lot of traveling today and we still have work to do tomorrow."

"That may be for the best," Lucielle agreed, carefully moving Mana off her and into my arms so she could collect the candle. "The little lie I cooked up won't work if I don't return to my post to report it."

Lucielle unlocked the room and, with Mana in my arms, we walked with her to the front door. Under the light of the candle, I was able to get another look at her house. The damage to the walls and floor was extensive, but I hadn't considered it to be battle damage until now. Many of the gashes in the paneling looked like they'd been made by a blade years before. Her father must have put up a real fight.

Still, just to be sure, I squat down when Lucielle was once again trying to jimmy the front door open. I pulled aside a rug that had been rather suspiciously placed and indeed found a faded, barely visible blood stain. Yua and I frowned at it.

Unfortunately, with this and with Yua's ears as a witness, I knew Lucielle was telling the truth. She probably tried to clean it more at some point, but decided to cover it so she didn't have to see it every time she came home.

When we heard a click and the door swung open, letting in the night once more, I quickly replaced the rug.

"Sorry we had to meet under such dire circumstances."

"It's okay. I'm just happy someone finally answered my request. Honestly, I wasn't even sure of what I'd do once I found the bandits that did all this."

I nodded and slipped my hand out from beneath Mana's thighs to cast my magic, but stopped myself when a thought occurred that we failed to address earlier.

"Oh, right. Before I forget, do you know of a guard named Gino?" I asked, purposefully leaving out Giulio's real name so she didn't slip up and speak it.

"You mean that pretty boy who's always getting drunk at the tavern? What about him?"

"He's one of the bandits. You better be careful around him."

Lucielle's eyes widened at this, but her surprise quickly turned into confusion.

"Really? That's… A shame. He's been so diligent in his duties that I'd never… Wait, how could you possibly know that? I've been looking into this for years and haven't identified a single one of the bandits. You've only been here for, what, a day?"

Smiling, I shrugged. "We Adventurers have our ways. Good night… Dimensional Step."

Aiming my spell inside the house to keep it from being seen, the usual blue lights swirled into existence. While she'd technically seen it earlier, Lucielle still jumped a little at the sight, but her surprise lasted only for a moment, as curiosity got the better of her and she moved closer to examine it. That is, until Elane walked on through the portal and she stepped back out of her way.

"So, this is how you kidnapped me."

"Please don't put it like that." Even if it's technically correct. "And please don't mention my magic to anyone. Can't have the bandits learning of it just yet."

"Right. Then, good luck. If you need my help with anything, don't hesitate to let me know."

"Will do."

I nodded to Yua and she hurried through the portal. I took a step towards it, then paused again. Lucielle was still examining the spell, though now from a slight distance. It didn't take much to guess she didn't see much in the way of magic out here.

"We'll take care of these bandits for you. And soon, you'll be able to get back to living your life."

"Oh. Um, thank you," she said and the chill of the night reddened her cheeks a little. A slightly-forced smile appeared on her lips. "Though I suppose I don't really know what such a life will entail. This has been the only concern in my life since father died."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out. Good bye, for now."

Unsure of why I felt the need to reassure her, assuming my words even managed that, I stepped through the portal and into our room at the inn.

Elane was already sitting on the edge of the twin beds, her mask laid beside her as she rubbed her now bare feet. Meanwhile, Yua was diligently peeking through the room's curtain, likely to see if anyone noticed my magic.

I gave Mana a light shake until her eyes opened again and set her on her feet. She took one look at the bed, yawned, stretched and immediately started undressing. Her half-kimono fell to the floor with ease, but when her top got caught on her head, Elane was quickly and suddenly back on her feet to help.

Oh, but no. Never mind. The moment Mana's petite breasts popped into view, a seedy grin swept across Elane's face and her hands latched onto the tiny buds for a squeeze. Grumbling, more from the clingy shirt than the clingy woman, Mana ripped off her shirt and threw it to the floor. She only bothered to stop Elane's groping when it came time to take off the rest of her clothes.

Shaking my head, I began undressing myself and turned to Yua after she closed the curtain and spoke.

"Do you think we can trust Lucielle? Nothing she said sounded like a lie, but…"

"I don't know... She's been at this for years, even though she's found nothing of note. If she's still going, she's clearly obsessed with revenge. Understandable as that may be, that desire may be clouding her judgement."

Even if the stories about her father and the others leaving the city were believable, it made no sense that nobody was the least bit skeptical. And, more importantly…

"I'm more concerned with how she managed to evade getting killed herself if she's been looking into all this."

If the bandits were okay with killing those just looking into their actions, then she should have been the first on the chopping block. Maybe she really did get lucky that the bandits didn't come looking for her.

"Well," Yua started, scratching her head. "If she never saw the bandits, then they likely never saw her either. And I don't think she's foolish enough to run around the city screaming murder. She was probably discreet with who she asked for help from, so the bandits never took notice of her."

I sighed. "There's too much discreet going on here."

Yua's emerald eyes took on a sympathetic look for a moment, but it didn't last. "I think what we need to worry about is whether or not there's really only eight bandits. What if there's more? What if there's less?"

"Yea, she didn't give the best evidence," I said, unbuckling my belt and dropping my pants to the floor. "But it's better than nothing. She may have just embellished their numbers a little to get the guild out here faster."

Be they from the guild, the local guard or the kingdom's knights, I could imagine any sort of lawe-enforcement would react faster the higher the threat facing the people. But that only mattered if they were able to get word out about the attacks in the first place. Then came the trouble of proving something was wrong, a feat of which a lack of damning evidence or witnesses made difficult.

"Or she was just underestimating them. It could be more dangerous than we thought."

"Maybe," I said, tossing the last of my clothes into my item box. "But put yourself in her shoes. She's done the best she can, and things have only gotten worse. Wouldn't you do the same if your father were the one they killed?"

At this, Yua tilted her head. Her tail flicked behind her, looking almost amused at the thought.

"You know Daddy wouldn't lose to a bunch of bandits."

"Pfft. I could only wish you'd have as much faith in me as you do your father."

I pointed a finger at Yua and, using my rights as her master, I instantly removed her clothes. However, the moment the pink of her nipples appeared before me and her mask vanished to reveal a pointedly-wry smirk on her lips, I just as quickly replaced her outfit with one of her night gowns that I'd tucked away just in case this quest took longer than a day.

Not once during all this did she break eye contact with me. Nor did her wry smile fade as she wrapped her arms around the back of my neck.

"I do have faith in you. That's why we're here. If I didn't think you were ready, I wouldn't have let Elane push the issue so fast."

"And now that we're here, we might as well stick around and help," said Elane, though her proclamation sounded much less impressive after taking note of how she'd pulled a now fully nude Mana onto her lap to finish groping her breasts. Despite this, Mana's head bobbed listlessly. She was already struggling to keep her eyes open.

Seeing how Elane was the only one of us still fully clothed, I aimed a finger at her and swapped her things out for one of her nightgowns as well. She thanked me by throwing herself and Mana backwards onto the mattress, leaving her little black thong in plain sight. And, somehow, that little strip of fabric looked even more erotic than usual, even though Mana's bare pussy was just as visible where they lay.

"If things get rough," Yua said, pulling my attention back to her with a kiss. "We'll just fight harder."

"Haha. Thanks, but I'm not really the one that needs to be reassured. I just don't like the idea of running into a fight without knowing all the details. But… you're right, we do need a more concrete answer on how many bandits there are."

"Then tomorrow we'll do some more snooping. And we'll figure out what to do with Giulio. But for now, let's get some rest."

Checking the clock again, I yawned.

It was already well beyond late and we were all tired, so I let Yua lead us to bed. We slipped under the blanket and, finding the gap between the two beds to be immediately unacceptable as it would only separate us from the other two, I used Material Creation to temporarily fill it with more homemade mattress.

Satisfied, Yua rested her head on my bicep, laid a hand softly on my chest and offered up one last kiss before she finally closed her eyes. Only once Elane had had her fill of groping, and once Mana was entirely unconscious, did they join us beneath the sheets. Together, the four of us started to drift.