Chapter 10: Blood and Politics
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Megumi made it back to the inn just as a group of twenty soldiers charged by her towards the direction she had just come from. She had a small list of noble houses and their political enemies based upon the gossip passed on to her by the boy at the inn. Surprisingly, he knew a lot about what was going on around the noble quarter of the city. 

Apparently, guards who came to the inn for a drink after their shifts tended to have loose tongues, and the staff of the inn liked to listen. She went back into her room and saw Poro-tan still standing in the corner where she had left him. He was sulking. Good. Maybe he learned his lesson about being snippy with me. 

"Mission successful!" she announced. "Poro-tan, we've got a lot of work to do tonight if we want to blow this place wide open. Let's go grab some food downstairs and then we're going to head out."

The two of them ate dinner, which was just as overpriced as the night at the inn, and listened in on people's conversations. What she had done had already generated an explosion of gossip, only a third of which was true. People had all sorts of wild theories about what had happened at Lord Blum's estate, and it was fun to listen. Soon Megu will have all of these entitled fuckers at each other's throats. It's going to be great! 

She dug into the delicious dessert that she had ordered along with their meal, a kind of chocolate cake with a pool of liquid chocolate in the middle, and then they headed out into the night to cause more chaos. The next name on her list was Lady Vindel, whom was rumored to have slept with Lady Istar's husband. 

As they wound through the streets of the noble quarter, it was clear that what had happened already put everyone on edge as each of the houses had guards posted at their gates. So much for sneaking in easily like the first time. No matter, Megu has the perfect pawn to act as a decoy.

It didn't take long to find the estate based on the description she had received from the boy at the inn. She noted to herself that she would have to silence him later as well to cut off any loose ends. They peeked around a corner while hiding behind shrubs and saw that there were four guards near the large estate. They had the green falcon, Vindel's crest, painted their chestplates that gleamed in the light from the street lamp.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a white cloak with pink fuzzy trim around its edges. "Poro-tan, put this on." It would be a little short on him, but it would obscure his face with the hood up and it was pretty dark out, not to mention this would be fucking hilarious. Poro-kun opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him and forced him to comply. Once he had it on, she had him wait for a second and then she ran around the corner straight towards the guards.

"Help! Please! There's a creepy guy in a white and pink cloak is chasing me!"

Megumi willed for her pawn to come around the corner with his sword drawn and chasing after her. The chivalrous guards leapt into action seeing that she was a young damsel in distress, although a couple of them let out a chuckle when they saw Poro-kun. No matter how dumb her pet looked, he was still deadly and when one of the guards tried to talk to him and calm him down, he was thanked for his trouble with a cursed sword rammed straight through his chest. 

Getting Tylus' sword really was a stroke of luck! Now Megu just needs to wait for the right moment. She watched as the fight played out. Poro-kun was much better now that she had upped his abilities, but even so he was outnumbered 3 to 1. When he backed up a little it was her turn, the guards had completely ignored her at this point and were focusing on their foe, so she casually took out her weapon and readied herself. There were two guards within range of her corpse explosion skill, so she went with that. 

The body exploded into green flames and viscera with a sickening noise. The shrapnel killed the two guards that were in proximity to the body instantly and a piece of bone found itself into the third man's left forearm. He let out a yell and looked around for the source of his pain. When he saw her holding a glowing green staff, a look of utter shock crossed his face. The fool had made a mistake by turning though, and Poro-tan promptly ran him through. "Poro-tan, we need to move fast!"

She had him grab one of the key rings off of the guards and the two of them quickly entered the estate. The design of the noble quarter worked to their benefit as each of these large estates were spread pretty far apart from one another. Nobody should have been able to hear the commotion they just caused, but one couldn't be too careful. 

They entered the quiet manor and headed up the stairs, looking for the bedchamber. According to her information the man of the house was rarely at home as he worked in the capital. Lady Vindel would be alone, and should be easy to eliminate.

Megumi sent Poro-tan ahead of her to search for the correct room once they reached the second floor and just when they found the large hallway that must've lead to the bedchamber, two figures almost faded into existence in front of them and knives streaked through the air and into Poro-kun's chest with a thwack. Fall down! She sent the command to make him play dead and he complied.

"Another one of Istar's assassins? She's getting them awfully young these days."

The two figures wore black and had masks covering the lower halves of their faces. Megumi would say they were both rogues if she had to guess based on how they appeared out of thin air. They stepped over Poro-tan's motionless body and calmly walked towards her. Time for Megu to put on a show! She put a look of fear on her face and slowly backed away.

"Oh no you don't," the one on the left said. "You'll be coming with us and answering some questions."

Megumi continued backing away while Poro-tan quietly got back onto his feet behind the two rogues. She had him use Shockwave. A blast of ki shredded the two rogues from behind, and as a pleasant added surprise the blade's special properties came into play as well.  Both rogues fell to their knees in pain as the curse spread across their bodies. Megu held up her staff and finished them off with an Eldritch Blast.

She also used Sanguine Infusion on both corpses. Neither gave her any TP. "Poro-tan, go ahead and find the woman, bring her back here." 

Her pawn silently complied and ran off down the large hallway. A few moments later he came back dragging a lady by her hair as she kicked and screamed helplessly. The daggers that were embedded in Poro-tan appeared to be poisoned as his health ticked down slowly. Poison wouldn't affect one such as him nearly as much as it would a living person. She had him take out the blades one at a time and then had him stab one into her chest. 

"Time to go. We still have a lot of work to do." she tossed another prepared note down on the floor. Luckily one of the things she had trained at doing in the villain guild was forgery. She could write in 10 different handwriting styles, so no one would be able to tell she was the one committing all these murderous acts.

They spent the rest of the night hitting the remaining four noble houses and once it was all said and done she knew that the town would be ready to implode in the morning. Not only that, but they had managed to steal a small fortune. She now had well over 4,000 GP and they hadn't even looked hard for loot to take.

Megu was wrong when she would complain in school; Politics CAN be a lot of fun to be involved in. She giggled to herself as they left the final building which they had set on fire and wandered off into the darkness.

Spoiler
Name Hideki (Poro-kun)
Level 013 (6828/6834 EXP to next Level)
Class Warrior
HP 187/550 MP 50/50
TP 0 Adventurer Rank D
Attributes
Vitality 22 Magic 2
Endurance 18 Magic Resistance 5
Strength 16 Luck 4
Agility 11  
Dexterity 13
Passive Skills
• Warrior's Essence - Level 3 (+30 HP regeneration/min)
• Sword Mastery - Level 4 (+40% proficiency with swords)
    • Tiger Style - Level 1
    • Turtle Style - Level 1
• Stalwart - Level 1 (+5% natural defense)
Active Skills
• Holy Blade - Level 1 (Envelope blade in holy aura for 15 seconds)
• Shockwave - Level 2 (Release shockwave from blade)

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Spoiler
Name Megumi
Level 017 (12,620/13,655 EXP to next Level)
Class Necromancer
HP 350/350 MP 625/625
TP 0 Villain Rank C
Attributes
Vitality 14 Magic 52
Endurance 7 Magic Resistance 40
Strength 5 Luck 13
Agility 6  
Dexterity 9
Passive Skills
• Mage's Essence - Level 4 (+120 MP regeneration/min)
Active Skills
• None
Necromancer Magic

• Sanguine Infusion (50 MP) - Level 7 (Absorb life essence of recently deceased, 7% chance to gain +1 TP from human victims)
• Corpse Explosion (30 MP) - Level 6 - (+60% damage from explosion)
• Corpse Absorbtion (10 MP) - Level 1 (Absorb a corpse's essence. Recover 80 MP)
• Raise Undead (20 MP) - Level 10 (Raise weak undead to fight for you. Max: 50)
• Soul Trap (350 MP) - Level 1 (Trap soul of a recently defeated foe. Max: 1)
• Eldritch Blast (75 MP) - Level 11 (Unleashes a roiling ball of Eldritch energy that burns its subject on contact for 5 seconds)

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