The tavern, moments before a cozy cacophony of drunken boasts and friendly insults, was now choked with a terrified silence. The clatter of dropped mugs and the scraping of hastily pushed-back chairs were the last vestiges of the previous joviality. Most patrons, their survival instincts kicking in with admirable speed, had already stampeded through the narrow doorway and into the relative safety of the Valorian streets, leaving behind only the foolishly brave, the morbidly curious, or the utterly paralyzed with fear. Among the brave were the four S-rank adventurers, their recent victory celebration abruptly curtailed. They stood with their own well-worn swords drawn, their faces a mixture of bewilderment and a dawning, righteous anger, all leveled at the kingdom's most celebrated Holy Knight.
"What's the deal, Ronan!" the party leader, a burly man with a thick, braided beard that spoke of years spent battling monstrous things, shouted. His voice, though laced with a tremor of unease, held a core of moral outrage. "Even for you, Holy Knight, this is low! Attacking a seemingly defenseless citizen without so much as a by-your-leave?"
Ronan didn't even grant him the courtesy of a full turn, merely glancing over his shoulder, his gleaming white armor reflecting the flickering tavern lights. A condescending grin, sharp and unpleasant, played on his lips. "I'd recommend you lower that blade, adventurer, before you lose the hand holding it. This is⦠a private matter, far beyond your limited comprehension."
"The hell it isn't!" the leader shot back, his grip tightening on his sword hilt. "We won't stand by and watch a member of theâ"
"You fail to grasp the gravity of the situation," Ronan interrupted, his voice now dripping with an arrogance so thick you could practically taste it. He gestured dismissively with his glowing sword toward Riko's hooded figure, still and silent near their ruined booth. "This 'patron' you're so nobly defending isn't exactly a casual guest enjoying a quiet drink." Though, admittedly, he thought with a sneer, her companion was certainly enjoying quite a few too many.
In Riko's perception, the world remained a canvas of perfect black. Ronanâs form was a blinding beacon of rigid, white-hot lines, the unmistakable signature of a powerful Crest user channeling a significant amount of Mana. But her Kokugan saw something more, something the ordinary eye could never perceive. It was faint, a subtle distortion in his otherwise brilliant aura, but unmistakable. A sickly, viscous purple haze clung to his radiant form, like oil slick on pristine waterâthe unmistakable stain of Sin. It pulsed faintly, a silent testament to a corruption that went deeper than mere arrogance.
Ronan's grin widened, savoring the dramatic pause, the way all eyes in the tavern were now fixed on him. He turned fully to face the remaining adventurers. "This womanâ¦" he announced, his voice ringing with self-importance, "...is Riko Akari. The Muganome. The most wanted criminal in the kingdom."
The name landed in the tavern like a physical blow. The few remaining conversations died in mid-sentence. The shuffling of feet ceased. The room went utterly, deathly silent. Even the flickering torchlight seemed to dim in anticipation. The S-rank leaderâs jaw went slack, his sword tip now trembling visibly. Riko subtly shifted her weight to her left, a near-imperceptible adjustment of her stance, her senses hyper-alert, anticipating an attack that might come while Ronan was lost in his self-congratulatory monologue.
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"Y-you meanâ¦" the leader stammered, his voice now a dry, terrified whisper. "The one with the⦠the hundred-platinum bounty?"
Ronan, clearly relishing the effect his words had, pulled a rolled parchment from his belt with a practiced flourish and unfurled it with a dramatic snap. It was a high-quality bounty poster, the ink still crisp. He held it up for all to see, the stark black and white image of Rikoâs cloaked figure stark against the tavern's dim lighting. The sum emblazoned across the top was so immense it seemed almost fictional: 100 Platinum Coins. Underneath, in bold lettering: Dead or Alive.
Suddenly, a chair scraped loudly against the wooden floor. Lyra, still swaying slightly from the copious amounts of ale she had consumed but now fueled by a surge of pure, unadulterated indignation, pushed herself to her feet. She gripped her empty tankard so hard her knuckles were white.
"HEY!" she slurred, pointing an unsteady finger directly at Ronan, nearly losing her balance in the process. "Riko isn't some⦠some criminal! She actually helps people, you pompous⦠unlike your shiny, self-righteousâ"
She never finished the sentence. With a movement too fast for a normal, ale-addled human to even register, Ronan lashed out with a vicious, lightning-fast kick. The reinforced steel toe of his polished boot connected solidly with Lyra's chest just below her sternum. The force of the impact forced the air from her lungs in a strangled gasp and all the ale she had so enthusiastically consumed from her stomach. The foul, half-digested liquid erupted from her mouth, splashing across Ronan's gleaming white greaves. She stumbled backward with a pained cry, clutching her chest, her eyes wide with shock and agony, before collapsing to the floor in a crumpled heap, wheezing for breath.
A switch, cold and merciless, flipped within Riko. The carefully maintained, almost unnerving calm she usually projected shattered like brittle glass. Before Ronan could even fully register the incandescent fury he had just unleashed, her hand was a blur, drawing a small, wickedly sharp dagger from the hidden sheath at her hip. She moved with a speed that belied her apparent blindness, ducking under his preemptive swingâa wild, mana-enhanced chop aimed at her head that would have cleaved her skull in two. Her blade flashed forward, a precise strike aimed not to kill, but to cripple. It sank deep into the meat of his sword arm, just shy of a major artery, severing tendons and eliciting a guttural roar.
Ronan roared, more in outraged disbelief than in genuine pain. The sickly purple taint around his aura flared violently, now visible to anyone with even a sliver of magical sensitivity as a malevolent, swirling miasma. "Insolent wench!"
He channeled a massive amount of mana into his entire being. To Riko's enhanced senses, his form blazed with an almost unbearable, holy light, the purple now a dark, furious core within the white. He vanished from his spot with a thunderous boom, reappearing directly in front of her in the space between two heartbeats. Before she could fully shift into a defensive stance, before her brain could even fully process his movement, his fist, empowered by his core speed and righteous fury, slammed into her. The impact was absolute, concussive. Riko was launched backward like a ragdoll hurled from a siege catapult, crashing through the tavern's already weakened back wall in an explosion of splintered wood, shattered plaster, and flying debris.
Ronan stood over the gasping, retching Lyra, a cruel, triumphant laugh echoing through the suddenly much larger tavern. The purple glint in his iris was now clearly visible to anyone watching, a terrifying sign of his escalating corruption.
"For someone with the biggest bounty in the world," he mocked, his voice dripping with venom, "you're proving to be⦠disappointingly slow!"
From the newly made hole in the wall, amidst the dust and rubble, Riko slowly, deliberately, rose to her feet. She calmly spat a small stream of blood onto the dusty ground and settled into a low, coiled stance, her black sword now fully drawn and held before her, its polished surface reflecting the chaos around them. There was no backing down now. This fight, she knew with grim certainty, would end here. One of them would not be walking away.