The Villainess is the Villainess [LitRPG]

Book 2: Chapter 36 - The Dragon Turtle [Part 2]

The men and women under Seraphina's command moved with practiced efficiency. After donning their newly acquired equipment and scrounging up a few serviceable mounts, they gathered in the village square. The ground was still damp from rain, and the air hung heavy with the scent of ash and blood.

To their surprise, a handful of survivors had begun to crawl out from hidden basements and root cellars—faces smeared with soot, eyes wide with disbelief at the sunlight they thought they'd never see again. Some wept openly. Others knelt in the mud, murmuring thanks or prayers in trembling voices. A hunched old man gripped Seraphina's gloved hand with a reverence she found unsettling, while a young mother pushed forward to press a dried bouquet into Eloise's arms, her eyes brimming with tears.

In exchange for one of Seraphina's earrings—a fine ruby set in gold—and a solemn vow of vengeance, the villagers provided tack and supplies for the horses. They would not accept any money for the horses and just asked her to return them. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. Still, Seraphina shook her head as she watched them bow and scrape. Had their survival not influenced the dungeon's reward calculations, she was not entirely sure she would've bothered. It was a grim thought, and she pushed it aside.

These people, she reminded herself again, were not real. Perhaps they had been real once upon a time, but these were mere memories. Remembrances given tangible form to help test those who challenged a Trial.

Was treating them as humans also part of the test?

Now fully outfitted and mounted, the party was ready for the next, and hopefully final, stage. The dice would have to be cast—though technically, it was Eloise who would be rolling them.

Seraphina swung onto a dun-colored mare with practiced grace. Her hands were bound loosely in front of her, and her helm was hooked at her hip like an ornament. Her greatsword, too recognizable to display openly, had been swaddled in layers of cloth, its deadly profile disguised beneath the wrappings.

Desdemona, similarly bound and mounted, rode beside her. The pair of comely Aranthian noblewomen were roped together and tethered to Sir Frest's mount by a leading rein, giving the appearance of captured prizes rather than commanders.

The rest of the group completed the deception. The men wore a mismatched array of Aranthian and Imperial armor, giving them the rough-hewn look of veteran mercenaries—dangerous, unsavory, and well-paid. Eloise, in her usual blend of modern Aranthian flair with classical Imperial elegance, completed the minor illusion. She looked every inch the eccentric noblewoman: imperious, unpredictable, and entirely convincing as the leader of this motley escort.

Seraphina cast one final glance across the square, meeting the eyes of each of her companions. She offered them a crooked smile before fixing her face into an expression of rebellious defeat. The young girl had a part to play, and all her life she had always played her roles well. Even if she detested playing the part of someone who had lost.

***

Travelling in a north-easterly direction through a lightly wooded stretch of land, the party kept a rapid clip on their borrowed horses. Leaf-dappled sunlight flickered across the column like a stuttering lantern, illuminating the rough disguise of patched armour and knotted ropes. Both she and Desdemona rode upright and steady despite their bound wrists, their posture regal enough to pass for dignified captivity. Here and there, the trees thinned, revealing jagged ridgelines to the north—territory the Imperial army was said to occupy in force before the war of Jade and Steel.

They had not gone more than a league when Seraphina's mare flicked an ear and snorted a warning. Moments later, four riders appeared between the trees ahead. They wore the lamellar breastplates and peaked helms of Empire light cavalry, green-black lacquer dulled by travel grime. Their mounts fell into a wary trot, forming a loose chevron that blocked the trail. At the apex rode an officer no older than twenty, moustache wispy, shoulders squared as though parade-ground drilling could shield him from a world of ambushes.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Frest reined up, doing an admirable impression of a mercenary captain whose nerves were forever frayed. Seraphina let her gaze slip half-lidded, chin tilted at just the angle to suggest defeated hauteur. Beneath the veneer, her mind whirred—four scouts, light armour, sabres at the hip, cheap iron spear-heads. Easy prey. One whisper to Desdemona, one feint from Frest, and the forest floor would bloom crimson.

She almost gave the order. But, the empire's scouts were worth pennies in experience; their deaths might even penalise negotiation routes or trigger an alarmed patrol. And, it would slow them down. Besides, Eloise was already nudging her sorrel horse forward.

The officer lifted a gloved fist, barked a challenge in the Empire tongue—a string of crisp, tonal syllables that was basically an archaic form of Mandarin. Seraphina's lip twitched. Of all the grand cultures the developers could have invented, they'd taken the laziest shortcut: file off serial numbers, change a few words here and there, and call it "Imperial." Oh, and they added a bit of Latin here and there, the lore being that a legion had once been transported from their world to this one.

It had irked her every time a character mispronounced a fourth-tone word, and the game subtitles had insisted it was ancient and dignified. However, it basically meant that Seraphina could understand the exchange.

Eloise answered smoothly in the same language. As much of a daughter of the Empire as she was Aranthian, her accent was impeccable. She opened her fan, a swirl of indigo and silver. At once, the scouts' attention riveted to her like iron filings to a lodestone. She offered the officer a shallow bow, commending them on their duties for reclaiming this land for the glory of the Empire. She then spoke quickly, framing their presence as Eloise looking for glory on a path to Heaven. The words ransom and noble hostages glittered in the air like coins tossed onto a tavern table. Fortune had favored this Lady Mingtian, and she wanted to gain more honor by offering the general her war prizes of foreign flesh.

The officer's scepticism wilted under that barrage of polite flattery and private greed. If this noblewoman found glory under the eyes of Heaven, then so would he by association. He motioned for his men to fan out, eyes narrowing at Seraphina and Desdemona. For a moment, he pictured himself mastering these Aranthian whores then thought better of it.

As for the girls, they played their roles to perfection—backs straight, wrists tense against the rope, faces carved into masks of reluctant submission. One scout rode up to inspect the bundle that concealed Seraphina's massive greatsword. Eloise glared at him, daring him to tug loose the cloth strips. He reconsidered with visible unease; the seeming captives radiated too much presence to be ordinary spoils.

While the scouts conferred in hushed tones, Seraphina's gaze drifted to the treeline, measuring arrow angles and stride lengths out of habit. Four corpses, thirty heartbeats, her inner tactician noted. But the alarm would echo farther than steel can fly. She exhaled, forcing the calculation away. This was a mission of deception, not carnage—at least not yet.

Eloise returned at a trot, the officer riding beside her, chin lifted with the self-importance of a dog freshly awarded a ribbon. "Captain Chong has graciously offered to escort us directly to Lord Marquis Ma's field camp," she announced in broken Aranthian, voice pitched just loudly enough for the scouts to recognise the deference but none of the mockery, to the Seraphina's men. "Our… escorts will ensure we suffer no further indignities on the road."

Seraphina offered Sir Frest a quick look, silently appending—not yet. The party fell in behind the Imperial riders. As they set off, Desdemona leaned close, whispering from the corner of her mouth, "I assume we're still alive because murder was not quite necessary? Let me… run wild. Please…"

"Restrain yourself, a sword without a sheath is useless," Seraphina replied, though the words tasted sour. Secretly, she agreed with Desdemona and would have much preferred lopping off the escorts' heads. She had never liked letting potential threats get so close to her. Still, the living could open doors locked to a corpse.

Their new escorts kept a brisk military pace, rattling off occasional remarks in that pseudo-Mandarin dialect. Seraphina caught most of the phrases—references to siege engines, supply wagons, complaints about the Count's impatience for gathering his "prizes" for his hareem back home, which could only mean the two "Aranthian nobles" now riding behind them. She filed the intel away, even as irritation simmered. If her developers insisted on plagiarising Earth cultures, they really should have at least hired decent linguistic consultants.

The forest thinned to scrubland dotted with flinty outcrops. Ahead, banners snapped above a rise—crimson silk stamped with the gold-thread dragon of the Empire. And beneath it was Lord Marquis Ma's heraldry, a stylized tortoise with a serpentine neck. Drums rolled like distant thunder. Seraphina straightened in her saddle, allowing a flicker of anticipation to spark behind her feigned defeat. The board was set; the pieces were advancing. All that remained was to decide when to strike the blow that would cut off the head of this odious serpent.