Villainous

If anyone did, they could have the d.a.m.n key. They deserved it just for braving the spiders!
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Li Mei exhaled slowly and glared down at her clunky boots. In a haunted house where she wanted to sneak around, she had the added burden of heavy loud boots she was unable to take off thanks to the stupid slave collar!

Disobeying caused horrible pain and violent muscle convulsions to wrack her entire body until she ceased whatever action was against orders, and she wasn"t confident she could keep completely silent while white hot streaks of lightning shot continuously burned her from the inside out.

Faust forced her to experience the punishment once by giving her an order she was physically incapable of following just to show her what it was like, not an event Li Mei wished to repeat.

The pain was so severe she couldn"t breathe properly for an entire day. Slave collars were incredibly inhumane!

"Maybe I can just stay in this corner and not move until tomorrow," Li Mei pondered.

Skrtch...

Skrtch...

Skrit!

A tree branch tapped and sc.r.a.ped against a window, creating an arrhythmic staccato similar in pitch to scratching fingernails. Li Mei flinched repeatedly with each sharp skritch, skritch, scratch piercing her eardrums, dashing her hopes of just staying in one corner indefinitely.

She"d been so excited when Faust said they were approaching Brittalund, even if looking out the windows only provided a wonderful view of white fog. The thought of civilization, socializing, recreation...

Grocery stores.

After so long in the forest, Li Mei learned a lot of hard lessons about how difficult wilderness survival really was. Things she never would have considered, taking into account her very urban lifestyle on Earth.

Sneaking around, pickpocketing, methods of interrogation and torture? Sure, she was familiar with those thanks to a combination of her background and unique life experiences. But how to find drinkable water or skin an animal?

Forget about it. How was she supposed to know that!?

Without Scan, she wouldn"t have even known which plants were edible!

A single illness could mean life or death - if she didn"t have Bao, those times early on when she fell ill would have proved fatal. Catching a cold and being stuck in bed for a few days might sound merely tedious and uncomfortable to a person of modern sensibilities, but to someone alone in the wilds?

Without cold medicine, antibiotics, hot soup? Without the ability to keep hydrated or fed, or defend against roaming predators or opportunistic scavengers?

A single scratch could prove fatal if it got infected, which was why animals did everything in their power to avoid danger. Even predators expressed caution, and intelligent creatures taught their young the ways of herbal medicine and healing tricks.

Failing to notice a single venomous insect could end one"s life, especially if one didn"t know what to notice in the first place. Pausing to rest on a tree and placing your hand just a little too close to a spider, scorpion, or biting ant could have catastrophic results!

Li Mei wasn"t a wilderness survivalist. She didn"t join the army, and never went camping or hiking before in her life. When she first fled the manor back on the estate, she a.s.sumed there"d be plenty of supplies to steal from all the farms and houses. Her long-term plan was to hide, stealth around, wear down the psyche of that horrible Vigen using psychological tactics and tricks he wouldn"t be expecting considering he thought she was dead, and kill him in his sleep as soon as an opportunity to strike presented itself.

She didn"t expect to get trapped in a forest!

And once in the blasted forest, she had to learn survival the hard way. Bao showed her some things, and others she had to figure out for herself with a combination of trial, error, and Scan.

She always insisted on her own cleverness, but even clever people didn"t know everything. As reluctant as she was to admit aloud, Li Mei knew she made plenty of mistakes that anyone who knew anything about survival would never have made. A lot of what she tried came from novels combined with a modern girl"s common sense, and while some was accurate and worked out well, other times she was not so lucky.

Rejoining society was an exciting prospect not just for the comforts it would provide, but because she"d be in her element! Li Mei was familiar with navigating social circles, building relationships, networking. Manners, etiquette, scholarly pursuits. She spent her time reading and trying hobbies like calligraphy, painting, gardening, flower arranging, knitting, sewing, or cooking.

Yet instead of indulging in a refined cultural environment, she was thrown into a d.a.m.ned haunted house!

Li Mei grumbled deep in her heart. Was it because she had the cheat-like Interface? The universe had to balance things out, so it kept throwing her into danger?

She glanced around, then inspected the bottoms of her clunky boots. Wedged in the sole was a small pebble probably picked up from the house"s own front yard, which she carefully pried free with a victorious expression on her face. Then she threw the pebble at a picture frame hanging in the hallway.

Thnk!

FWUMP!

K-kra!

Ktchtchtaa....

The picture frame fell from its support and hit the hardwood with just enough force to crack the gla.s.s but not shatter it, before clattering to a rest with a fading rattle. Li Mei held her breath, pressing her back to the wall and straining her senses to the maximum.

Yet even after five minutes, the only sound in the house was the continuous scratching of the branches against the window gla.s.s.

"Was there an alarm attached to the opening of the door that grabbed attention, rather than a reaction to the sound of me running inside?" Li Mei wondered, shuddering as she pictured that ghostly face and its gaping maw. "Well, there"s an easy enough way to test that, I suppose. Ugh, I really don"t want to though..."

She took another couple of minutes to steel her nerves, then leaned over to open the front door and carefully shut it again before any spiders could sneak inside.

-----

[Sense]

Hostile detected! Unable to detect origin point of hostility.

Threat level: Average

-----

Sure enough, Li Mei barely returned to the corner and hid her presence before the woman"s pale white face emerged from the wall, empty eye sockets staring at the door.

Unlike the ghost"s previous startling entrance, this time Li Mei was calm and expecting her visit, so she had the presence of mind to notice faint flickering lights like dim fireflies around the woman"s face.

Mana particles! Li Mei"s eyes narrowed with interest. Thin and weak, but distinct in appearance.

Instead of stretching into the entryway, the ghostly woman repeatedly bobbed her head in various directions - looking up, down, left, right, then repeating the whole process. She didn"t seem to notice, or care, about the fallen picture frame despite turning her face in its direction more than once. Her long black hair swished and whipped through the air like an inky curtain with a mind of its own.

The woman let out another grim wail as she retreated back into the wall. Wispy mana particles flickered around the face as she melded into the wall, then faded away once the woman vanished entirely.

Despite her fear and revulsion toward ghosts in general, Li Mei couldn"t help but find the whole process comical.

"It seems I can hide from ghosts, they don"t seem bothered by sound, and Sense pops up a warning just before a ghost appears. And those mana particles around the eyeless ghost woman... " Li Mei frowned, a flicker of interest lighting her mauve eyes. A theory took root in her mind, and she glanced at the door again. "Guess I have to mess with that ghost one more time. Ah, and while I"m at it..."

She opened the door for a brief moment, enough to catch a glance outside and quickly Scan one of the countless spiders lurking overhead, then quickly shut the door again while creating a small barrier right in front of the doork.n.o.b. Except unlike the previous two times, Li Mei stood in plain view next to the barrier with Concealment activated only to suppress her aura.

Her heart hammered in her chest, expressing a mixture of antic.i.p.ation and anxiety. Cold sweat made her palms slick and clammy, threatening her grip on the shuttered lantern and sharp bone knife.

If her theory was wrong...

Appearing for the third time, the ghost woman let out an unearthly screech and lunged forward with all the speed of a striking serpent. Her mouth stretched open so wide it split her head in half and exposed her throat, revealing an enormous mouth lined with hundreds of jagged teeth.

The ghost woman bit onto the barrier, shattering it with little resistance. Her foe vanquished, the ghost glanced around the entryway before, once again, retreating into the wall. As she disappeared Li Mei thought she saw an expression of satisfaction on the woman"s pale white face.

Well, she finally did get to destroy an intruder after all.

"She senses auras," Li Mei thought with a smirk, trying to pretend her legs weren"t jellied and shaking. The tears of fear shimmering in her mauve eyes were incidental! "She doesn"t have a real body so a.s.suming she relied on physical senses was already an error. She didn"t see me at all, and there was no reaction to the picture frame falling."

Emboldened by her discoveries, Li Mei stashed the lantern in storage and opened her inventory screen, eyes flicking to finally take in the information she Scanned about the spiders. "Now, what can I do to get rid of those little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds... If the spiders are gone, I can retreat outside to rest. But with those pests occupying the porch, I"d have to be even more careful out there instead. So I"ll just get rid of them first!"

...

Outside, Faust blew out a mouthful of smoke that quickly blended in with the surrounding fog. Reflected in his dark eyes was the looming shadow of the haunted house glimmering with undulating auras gathering around multiple focal points, signifying the presence of multiple ghosts even through a blanket of fog obscuring most of the building from the street.

The flow of mana moving in repeating patterns left traces of those movements. That trace was called an "aura", and wasn"t unique to living creatures. Any repeated movement of mana would create an aura, such as within an array or magitech tool, with the brightness and steadiness of the resulting aura determined by the number of repet.i.tions.

In essence, a steady and bright aura meant stronger magic.

Auras were to mana as light was to flame. It wasn"t the only byproduct, but it was certainly the most noticeable to those with the ability to perceive them. Heat could only be felt from fire in close enough proximity, while light could be seen from quite a distance.

Likewise, auras could be seen from quite a distance away and even through a layer or two of common solid materials, such as wood or iron, if it was from a strong source.

Not everyone could perceive mana without decades of proper training, unless they had a special tool, specific spell, or were of a species that had inherent mana perception. Faust was of the latter group, and he squinted at the haunted house with annoyance displayed plainly on his face.

Three times an aura on the bottom floor surged, likely to manifest an apparition near the front door. The third time he saw a familiar flash of cyan mana that belonged to his little slave which disappeared moments after it was created.

No one really knew why or how mana picked up color, only that creatures with Cores had saturated mana and auras. Even if the color was inherently dark, such as navy blue or indigo, the intensity of color always made it stand out against unrefined mana particles which tended to appear washed-out and semi-transparent.

Even if someone was surrounded by mana particles of different colors, once it was refined in their Core it would always take on the color of the individual"s aura, completely overpowering the natural coloration.

"Truly obnoxious," he muttered, the cigarette dangling precariously on his thin lips. "Unless she uses magic I can"t sense her position or see her aura at all."

If he focused his impressive senses Faust could hear her movements when she was close by. Otherwise the child was silent and unnoticeable. Even her breaths were subdued and quiet, as though she constantly sought to suppress her presence and hide in plain sight.

To the Rank 7 Faust, having challenges sensing a 14 year old girl was mortifying.

How embarra.s.sing would it be if, in front of others, he as the master was startled by the sudden appearance of his own disciple? Would he be able to keep his prestige and powerful appearance in front of Li Mei if she knew?

Absolutely not. So he forced the boots on her, to train Li Mei in making her presence known when not hiding for a purpose.

He had to save face somehow.

His nose suddenly itched as an aroma of foreign chemicals drifted through the air, scalding the inside of his nostrils with a strange and unfamiliar sensation. Faust sniffed the air, ignoring the burn, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Where was it coming from?

The house?

A spark flickered within the fog, then turned into a brilliant golden roar of light and flame that burned away the fog in the brief moment of its existence. Startled, Faust stared open-mouthed at the haunted house"s front porch, oblivious to the cigarette dropping forgotten to the damp cobblestones below.

Li Mei crouched on top of a barrier hovering in mid-air, holding a magitech tool meant for lighting stoves and hearth fires. Another long barrier hovered above her head and just below the porch roof at a slight angle, catching the charred remains of spiders and powdered ash of burnt cobwebs. Flames flickered atop the surface of the higher barrier.

As Faust watched, dumbfounded, Li Mei controlled the burning barrier to move through the air, setting the webs ablaze and scorching countless spiders on the underside of the porch roof. Hundreds, thousands, dead before they could flee.

And through the fog that slowly enclosed the house once more, echoed Li Mei"s soft cackle of satisfaction.