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It was in a well-hidden base, in the slums of the capital, a place that even the beggars and homeless do not tread, that the masterplan the best of best in the witch cult concocted has begun to be set in motion.The preparations were immense, even more so after their recent losses, both in numbers, and combat power, that they suffered for the first time in centuries. With so many Archbishops either killed or captured, many of the operation were now managed by the authority of the next lower rank, the Bishops.
The plan was about vengeance, about retaining their pride, and rescuing the ones the witch love touches upon the most, the captured Archbishops.
They were going to slaughter the heretics, the foul and impudent beings that thought they owned the world SHE owned. Every citizen in the capital will feel their wrath and diligence, as the blood of children and adults alike will mark the ground they'll stain as the garden of the Witch of Envy. For none is innocent in the eyes of the cultists.
With the Archbishops free once again, the capital will be set ablaze, and true justice will reign supreme.
Right now, a large group were waiting in an abandoned building's first floor, the floor designed as an auditorium. They were waiting for their boss, one of the spearheads for this sacred ordeal, Bishop Matthew, their leader.
Sounds of screaming came from outside the building. The cultist looked at one another, several readying their weapons, eyes locked at the only door in the floor.
"Everyone, listen up! We need to leave, now!"
With a wail, Bishop Matthew burst through the doors, face pale, and shaking like a leaf.
Bishop Matthew was a respected member of the Witch cult, even more so than most Bishops. With a stony face riddled with scars, and hair gray from time's passage, he was one of the most seasoned members of the cult. Some say he was only five years old when he joined, after setting his house on fire, and trapping his parents, a couple of knights, in it.
But now, he looked as if he was a bullied kid in the playground, begging his parents to leave.
All the people in the auditorium looked at each other in confusion, dumbfounded. The plan to destroy the capital was already in motion, and many of their hidden resources were used for this. It was a plan that was planned to counter even the strongest of heroes, like the Sword Saint, and the Finest of Knights. Sure, they can't win in direct combat against many of them, but these heroes were only humans at the end, they could not be everywhere at once.
And the Witch Cult was filled with believers, true believers, that had the Witch's love by their side, how could something go wrong in the face of their faith? What could rattle one of their most devout Bishops?
A brave, or foolish, follower approached the Bishop, The feelings of confusion and anger the only things keeping his voice from cracking, "Bishop Matthew, please enlighten us. The ordeal is already in motion, and many of our agents are ready to strike. With but a word, the capital will be set ablaze! So why, why, why to forsake the gift our supreme being gave us?!"
The Bishop looked at him, expression filled with horror and fear so profound, you'd think someone leaked his search history, "We were fools… dancing on the heretic's hand… there is no escape…"
Another follower approached, encouraged by seeing that his fellow man was not reduced to paste for questioning the trembling Bishop before them. He spoke urgently and with purpose, "Bishop, no matter what comes our way, is it not our diligence, our humility, which allowed us to reach this far?! We planned for the Sword Saint, The Valkyrae, and even...", he quickly took a calming breath, and spoke with rage that made his voice tremble,"…even the half elf imposter, there is nothing that could stand in our, the chosen one's, way!"
Behind him, murmurs of agreement, fervor praying, and shouts calling for slaughter of the innocent rang out and filled the place they were in with spirits anew.
The Bishop looked around, his frightened gaze catching the eyes of every sick and twisted mind in the auditorium. It looked as if his mind hadn't even processed the words said to him.
"Fools! You don't understand! If we act now, we will only insult the Witch! If we act now…how will she aid us…when we will not even be able to take the first step to show her our love?!"
Murmurs of confusion and annoyance rang out from the crowd of Witch cultists. Suddenly, the entrance to the auditorium was pulled open with a loud noise, and an angry voice shouted out, "Mattew, your shouts outside has rattled the hearts of our brethren! How dare you doubt the Witch's love?! To try and prevent the Witch's love from reaching her disciples?!"
An angry old woman, dressed in Witch cult's robes, entered, and the crowd parted in two to allow her direct approach to the sniveling man behind them. Her eyes flashed in anger, her face was red, and her breathing heavy, either from running to this place, or from sheer rage. She looked like a grandmother who found out their grandson received less than a stellar score on a test. Truly, the most terrifying of beings.
As her heels clicked on the ground, Bishop Matthew's eyes finally cleared, and the noise led him to make eye contact with the woman before him.
"Bishop Spring, trouble! Big trouble! We need to run, we take who we can with us, but for no-"
Mattew could not finish his sentence, as a foot brutally kicked him in the face, and sent him crashing with a loud thud against the wall. Spring's face was achieving levels of red the juiciest appas could only dream of.
"HOW DARE YOU?! THIS ORDEAL INLIST THE LOVE OF THOUSANDS OF OUR FELLOW BROTHERS AND SISTERS! IT WAS PLANNED WITHOUT A SINGLE SLOTHFUL ACTION! MANY OF OUR FELLOW BELIEVERS IN LOVE ARE READY TO SACRIFICE THEIR LIFE, ONLY FOR YOU TO BE CRYING LIKE A KURARAGI BABY THAT HAD HIS STOMACH SLIT OPEN! IF NOT FOR YOUR PURPOSE, FOR THIS HERETIC, DISGRACEFUL, ABBROHENT, WASTEFUL, PATHETIC ACTIONS! YOUR HEAD WOULD HAVE BEEN OFFERED TO THE WITCH RIGHT NOW BY MY HAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!
Her body, which shook slightly from the rage she felt before her impromptu speech, was now shaking violently, her face now achieving a shade of red deeper than the deceased royalty's eyes. She looked at the scum before her, her lungs heaving, as they tried to retain the air they wasted on this waste of space.
With a huff, she turned and shouted at the large crowd before her, "Don't listen to this madman! A man that doesn't acknowledge the Witch's love that allowed us to reach this far should not shake your hearts!"
She received shouts of agreements and whoops of joy.
"You don’t understand", Matthew muttered under his breath. A murmur that Spring caught. She looked at him, sneering, "What is it we don't understand, fool? What happened for you, a Bishop, to reject the love we have given?"
Matthew muttered, fear still clinging to him like poorly made rice.
"Su…H..re..Na…ki…h…e"
"What?!", Spring looked at him irritated, "Speak up!"
Matthew, finally breaking from his fear filled trance, yelled, "Natsuki Subaru is here! In the capital! He arrived with his contracted spirit 3 hours ago!"
Silence.
Every follower, every mad and twisted mind looked at another, confirming with their eyes and expression to each other that what was yelled was not an illusion, or a nightmare. Spring's face, with retained a shade of red until now, quickly paled.
"Fuck!"
"We're gonna die!"
"Why!!!! Why does the witch entrust us such cruel ordeals?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
"Shit! Shit! My youngest daughter is in this city, if he's here… NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
"Forgive me!!! Forgive me!!!"
"I… think I just…shat myself…."
"I KNOW I shat myself."
"Our plan… our love… reduced to nothing…"
Several members began crying like babies, hugging themselves. Several others took a quick trip to the bathroom standing up. But what was common to everyone was sheer, and all encompassing, FEAR.
Bishop Spring, now pale as a corpse, took Matthew roughly by his collar, Her voice shaking, "That can't be! We planned for him to be over a week away from here right now! How?! How is he here?!"
Mattew looked at her with an empty gaze, and spoke with an emptier tone, "The Vollachian…tato eating contest was cancelled…"
Spring gasped in horror. That contest was the perfect plan to get Natsuki Subaru, the bane of the Witch Cult's existence, as far away from them as possible. He was going to go there, cheer his Archbishop/their boss turned daughter at the contest, and NOT be in Lugunica!
So why? Why? Why?! Why?! Why?! Is he here?!
"But wait", Spring whispered to herself, one of the few to not lose herself completely in panic, "why weren't we informed of this? What about our other plans?"
She quickly shook Matthew to understand where this major fuck up happened, "Answer me!"
Matthew roughly pulled himself away from her. He took several unsteady steps backwards, his voice gaining life to it, but filled with fear of a prey knowing his hunter is near, "How should I know?! I just looked at the registers of those who entered and left the capital! All of us Bishops, each of us has made an independent plan from the others, to derail and lead away t-tha-that EVIL from defiling our sacred ways! And yet… and yet?! He is here!"
Spring looked at him, the reality of the situation crashing down on her. She looked across the auditorium, at the best and most deranged minds all the Bishops have personally handpicked for this ordeal, meant to have risen the Witch Cult to its former glory, now reduced to crying, soiled, and anguished children.
Shouts from the outside drew the two Bishop's attention. They looked at each other, as if they could find the answer for salvation in the others face. They slowly made their way to a window on one of the side walls of the room, and creaked it open, just slightly, as if they were terrified children, and the window was the only thing to separate themselves from the monsters outside.
The calm, orderly manner the cult carries themselves was nowhere in sight outside. It seemed one of the followers who was in the auditorium ran outside and spread the news.
Several buildings outside were caught aflame, streams of fire coming out of their broken windows.
People were on the ground, clutching their head with their hands with all their strength, quaking and sobbing. Several ran in circles, fervently praying. Others, secretaries, informants, were running wildly, shouting nonsense as they threw whatever piece of paper or information they had on them into a burning building.Ground dragons and rigers, prepared for them to swiftly take the lives of the citizens of the capital, were running across the base wildly, knocking the incoherent and panicked cultists to the ground and the burning buildings.
The smell of urine and feces quickly spread across the base.
"My Witch..", Matthew exclaimed, in a mix of horror and awe, "It has began..."
Spring quickly took out a metia, resembling a hand mirror from her pocket, and with a clack, opened it and shouted fiercely into it, "All Bishops! This is not a drill! Code Lolimancer! I repeat, Code Lolimancer!"
Not waiting to hear the responses from her coworkers, she threw her metia away, and grabbed Matthew by the shoulder. "My apologies, brother. You did us great service, alerting us now."
She took a long calm breath, locking eyes with the frightened Matthew, "But now we must leave. We never know where or when that heretic, he who goes against our pure love, will strike. If we act now... we will fail. But if we retreat, then... there can be hope for another day. I need your strength, Matthew, now more than ever before."
Matthew's eyes, for the first time since he came to the auditorium, began to load with strength. "Yes, sister… the fact that we now know of his existence in the capital is surely a sigh of the Witch's love, warning us against our foolishness!"
Even as the room they were in had begun to be filled with the smell of excrement and urine, they only looked at each other's eyes, finding strength in the other's love in the face of such overwhelming despair.
Matthew looked at all the crumpled, twitching, crying bodies of his brothers... sisters…fellow believers in love... and with all his might shouted, "Enough!"
A few looked his way, fear and horror still have not left their face, for there is no other the most demented organization in this world feared more than HIM.
Matthew understood, for he was in the same position a few minutes ago. He saw the encouraging look Spring sent him, to whip his followers back to shape, and RUN THE FUCK AWAY FROM HERE!
"My brethren," Matthew spoke solemnly, "It is now of no secret that Natsuki Subaru-", a few sniffles and cries of horror came from his broken audience, "Is here in the capital, and knows of our plan. That beast which took down our most devoted and pure Archbishop, Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti, and later was responsible for our strongest Archbishop's, Regulus Corneas, death, as well as defiling our efforts to carry the Witch's tasks in Priestella and Arlam village. And yes, he was responsible for the death of one of our Archbishop's of gluttony, and brainwashed the other to be his daughter, BUT-"
He quickly got to the point, seeing Spring's dumbfounded face, as well as noticing a few more suspicious puddles coming to existence at the floor, "We now know he is here, don't you see?! The Witch is smiling upon us, granting us a chance of life instead of being fed to this monster that DARES to walk amongst us!"
A few more people were looking at him now, with something that was absent all this time…hope. He continued, "While it is true that as long as that vile false hero is here, we cannot hope to succeed in our ordeal, we can always rebuild and restock! The Witch is evaluating us, to see if this minor setback, which will take us only a decade to recover from, is the limit of our faith! Don't you see it, my brethren?!"
One female follower began getting up, wiping the tears and snot from her face.
"This is love! Titling, unexpected, but still unyielding! The capital will not fall today, over 40 percent of our resources will be wasted, and many of our brethren will be caught and executed, but we will live and carry their will!"
Others began to stand up, invigorated.
"We will not end here! A decade, two, a whole lifetime! Nothing will make our love waver! In a decade or so, we will return! The likes of the Sword Saint and Blue will kneel in despair at our might!"
Most of the crowd stood up, their teary eyes filled with light, as if after a lifetime of despair, they were allowed a small amount of happiness and hope.
"Next time, Natsuki Subaru will not be near us to disrupt our plans! Whatever it is, a week, a month, a year away from us, we will make sure he will not be there to take from us, as he has taken before!"
Shouts came from the cheering crowd, as they gained their spirits back.
"But for that to work, we need now to retreat! prepare the carriages! Burn everything that can be tied to us! Our war… is not over!"
War cries resounded from the crowd, as they hurried for the exit, to enact the brave plan to… run away.
Matthew let out a weary sigh and supported himself with his hands on his knees after seeing the last of his followers' charge through the door.
"Well done," Spring mused, clapping her hands. "That was quite the invigorating speech, now we have to hope our fellow Bishops behave the same way".
"I doubt it", replied Mattew, still exhausted from his speech, "No one can react positively when they hear THAT name. We need to gather everyone, and run away as fast as possible," He looked in shame, "Even if it means leaving our allies here in the open, we must live… that is our penance."
His gaze was lifted, along his face, as two strong, wrinkled hands, turned his gaze to the smiling visage of Spring. "That confidence from that speech can't just disappear, can it, Matthew? For now, as long as we're together, we will overcome this."
She then chuckled, "Crying right now will spend the last water in your body I'm afraid, so do try to keep it together."
"Huh", Matthew wiped at his face, noticing his sleeve becoming a little moister.
"That's right…let's go, Spring!"
As Matthew advanced, Spring beside him, he could not help a final thought about the beast they were all running from.
'But how is he here? There were so many plans, how could he have foreseen this? Truly, Natsuki Subaru, there is a reason we all fear you.'
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"So, why are we coming all the to the capital, Subaru? You just told me it will be a surprise, I suppose", questioned the great spirit Beatrice, her contractor, as she, hand in hand, walked with him across the streets.
Subaru had in his other hand a big brown bag, as he looked elated and impatient, hurrying down the path, but not fast enough that Beatrice's small feet can't catch up.
"I finally found a time that all of us can play D&D, Beako!", he explained excitedly, "Reinhard, Julius and Felix are going to love this!"
That's right, the reason Natsuki Subaru, the Lolimancer, The hero of Priestella, The Child of War, The Demon of the Battlefield, and Bane of Witch Cult is in the capital, was an unexpected alignment of his fellow knights' schedule, that allowed him to finally do something he wanted to do since he arrived in this strange, new world. Find friends and start a D&D campaign.
He did a few small, semi–campaigns in his camp first, trying to sharpen his skills as DM, as well as wanting to share his hobby with actual friends. But only few truly found interest. Emilia died at the start of every campaign, Garfiel couldn't remember over half of the rules, and Rem and Ram merely gazed at the game, insulted it and went back to being, in Beatrice's words, 'a couple of boring wenches'. Surprisingly, Frederica, Sylphy and Meili took to it the most.
Now, after sharpening his DM skills, he was ready to not embarrass himself in front of his knight friends and give Beatrice the full experience.
"Really, A true, full campaign, in fact?!", Beatrice looked at him excitedly, she was one of the few that took to the strange new game Subaru taught his camp, surpassed only by the maids and Meili. That is why, as his contracted spirit, and as one of the, if not the most, closest person to his heart, he wanted her with them.
He noticed that the establishment they agreed to meet on was just around the corner. He smoothly took Beatrice off the ground, and into his arms.
"That's right, Beako! Prepare for an otherworldly experience that will blow you away!"
A content and excited smile stretched on Beatrice's face, so different from the face she had only less than two years prior.
As they approached the building where they will meet their friends, both of them found themselves truly and fully content. They had fought hard and long, sometimes against each other, most of the time against others, gaining mental and physical scars, breaking and mending themselves again and again throughout the trials life gave them, all so they could achieve what they have now.
Peace.