Being Rational—A Tragic State

"I am sorry, but unless you provide official documentation of my arrest, I decline upon the authority of my house—Regina."

Adeline did not falter.

She gestured subtly, and Horn and the blacksmith moved without hesitation, stepping back into the smithy. The door closed behind them.

The Conjurer in front of her stiffened. "Are you refusing to cooperate with an officer, withholding authority given by the Church?"

There it was.

The moment they would return to force.

Adeline took a steps back, positioning herself in the middle of the street. Here, no buildings would suffer collateral damage. No taverns, no smithies, no shops to bear the brunt of what was to come.

She smiled. "Yes."

The air shifted.

One of them unsheathed a blade. The other raised a wooden staff—its head carved into the snarling maw of a beast, its handle old and worn from years of use.

An Augmenter and a Manipulator.

The manipulator slammed it against the muddy ground with a sharp crack. "Twenty!"

The air around her grew heavy.

Ad's breath slowed as she adjusted to the change. Not painful, not suffocating, just weighted—as if something unseen pressed down on her shoulders.

A strangled sound caught her attention.

A man, one of the broken-jaw thief's companions, had collapsed onto all fours in the street, gasping, clawing at his throat. His face contorted in agony, veins pressing against his skin.

"Can't breathe, can you?" the manipulator sneered. "My ability allows me to lower the immunity of a person I lock onto—or the surrounding area I latch onto. I've decreased the air resistance of anyone in this region by twenty percent." He chuckled darkly. "Must be excruciating. Must be terrify—"

"Man, why are you acting like a maniac and yelling your abilities out?" The augmenter gave his companion a disgusted look. "How the hell are you in our ranks?"

Adeline straightened, and exhaled.

"Shut up! What do you—"

"If this is all you can do," she cut in smoothly, "then you are not defeating me in the slightest."

The augmenter lunged, his grip tight on the hilt. His right arm disappeared the moment he swung.

Adeline did not hesitate.

She felt the shift in the air. A sharp, unnatural movement. She ducked, letting the blade slice through empty space as he sailed past her, flipping mid-air before skidding through the mud.

Her mind moved quickly.

How did his hands vanish? Transparency? Color manipulation? Or… was his hand even there at all?

She didn't need her innate ability for this.

Instead, she amplified the mana surrounding her—coating herself in a barrier, unseen but absolute.

"She's an Augmenter!" the staff-wielder shouted.

Adeline smiled.

The augmenter regained his footing, his arm and blade visible once more.

Strange… a cooldown? A limitation? A rule that forces him to use it a certain way?

They didn't understand what she was, not truly. She wasn't an Augmenter, nor a Manipulator. She wasn't even a Conjurer. That had always been the problem, even in the old world—trying to define what she was, for herself and the enemy—both.

The augmenter came again.

She would have tested his limits, but she had already noticed something.

The fog. The wind.

It moved toward him when he advanced, rather than away like it naturally should.

She unsheathed Aldric's shortsword, coating the blade in mana, and blocked—meeting his unseen strike with precision. A horizontal slash. Predictable. Simple.

Her voice was calm, unwavering. "Your technique is tied to the fog, isn't it?"

His eyes widened, just for a fraction of a second.

Then he masked it.

But that single moment was enough.

Enough to confirm that she was right.

It was her turn to attack.

The Augmenter lunged again, his hand disappearing mid-motion.

Adeline didn't bother with him.

She moved, sidestepping effortlessly, launching herself toward the Manipulator instead.

He was tired—no, he was suffering his own effect. The fool wasn't immune to the conditions he applied to others.

Adeline almost laughed.

"Eek!"

The Manipulator let out a pathetic squeal, raising his arms in a feeble attempt to block. It didn't matter.

Her fist crashed into his wrists, heavily coated in mana. Bone snapped. His arms bent unnaturally as she drove past them, her second strike hammering into his jaw with a sickening crack.

He crumpled instantly.

She had spared him, in a way—holding back just enough, breaking his wrists to weaken the blow, dulling her mana at the last second. Mercy, in the loosest sense.

The augmenter, his companion didn't scream.

Instead, he pushed himself further—his body vanishing entirely this time.

The only sign of him was the whistling wind as he passed by.

"Well," Adeline exhaled, rolling her shoulders. "I should say, congratulations."

Mana flared from her form, changing its constitution into flaring tendrils of light that snapped and whipped violently.

Lightning arced in jagged tendrils, snapping through the air—deep violet, searing against the mist. Electricity hissed around her, restless and violent.

She stood, unshaken, waiting.

And then—she found him.

Her lightning bent, drawn like a compass needle to its true north—the human conductor of electricity.

The man had made a mistake.

He had underestimated her.

"You've made me use my innate ability."

She raised a single finger.

Two tendrils curled through the air, twisting, shifting, then lashing out toward the exact spot she pointed at.

The charge hit hard.

The swordsman jerked from the impact, ripped from his invisibility as the fog around him shattered, his body convulsing from the residual energy. His brain nearly fried in the process.

Silence settled over the street.

A battle that had lasted only a minute—but that was all it took.

The smithy doors swung open.

Horn and the blacksmith stepped out, weapons in hand—Horn with a sword, the blacksmith with a hammer.

"Ma'am, you're alright?!" Horn's voice carried more relief than anything else. His eyes darted across the scene—two Conjurers down, one burned, the other broken.

"Yes," Adeline replied simply.

They were still breathing.

Good.

"Can you both carry them to the smithy?"

Horn and the blacksmith exchanged glances but moved without question.

She would treat them. Keep them alive.

Not out of kindness.

But because even shit had its uses—fertilizer for something far greater.

HAZEL BROWN

Morning crept in, pale and sluggish, but the Conjurers never returned to check on her.

Hazel had long since decided that Arthur had been assigned this utterly useless task because they knew he'd bungle it. He wasn't a guard—he was a placeholder, a fool they could afford to waste. If anything, he was a liability to their plans, not an asset.

She had suggested they run. His face was still unknown to them, his identity intact. He could disappear with her.

Arthur refused. Said he had to maintain his cover, that if he abandoned his position now, he'd never be able to infiltrate the higher ranks.

So she left the warehouse herself.

Arthur groaned but followed anyway, dragged along by her decision.

The moment they stepped outside, his head snapped to the right. His hand shot up in front of her, stopping her mid-step, one finger pressing against his lips. Silence.

Moments later—

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shiiittttttt!"

A man in a dark cloak sprinted toward the warehouse, only to trip and collapse face-first into the mud right in front of the entrance.

Another Conjurer followed close behind, barely keeping up. He stopped just short of his fallen comrade, doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping like a winded dog. His back rose and fell rapidly, his entire body heaving.

"What the hell was that?!" the one on the ground rasped, shoving himself upright, sitting back on his heels. "Lightning?! I've never seen lightning like that! Moving when commanded? It defies basic physics. Shit's not fair! She wasn't a fucking Augmenter, that dumb duck! She was a Manipulator for sure—a high-rank Manipulator!"

The other kept glancing over his shoulder, face twisted with unease.

"She's like Lady Flower," the panicked one continued, voice wild, breath shaky. "A Brigadier-rank Conjurer. That woman probably even has a Sanctuary! Did you see the way she used only mana to stop their attacks?"

Hazel stilled.

A woman, as powerful as a Brigadier-rank Conjurer—the highest rank their kind could reach? Who the hell were they talking about?

She needed answers.

She flattened herself against the back of the warehouse, Arthur still standing behind the thick trunk of a tree, unmoving.

Hazel shot a glance his way and swung her hand in a sharp motion, gesturing for him to attack.

Arthur immediately crossed his arms and shook his head.

Too late.

Hazel had already launched herself forward.

Hazel pounced.

The sitting Conjurer barely had time to turn his head at the sound of her approach.

"What the sh—this is the crazy bitch from be—"

She didn't let him finish.

Her hand slammed into his skull, driving his face into the mud with a wet crack. He went limp instantly, unconscious before his body had even settled.

"Thyou bith!"

The other one stumbled back, eyes wild with recognition. He was the same fool whose teeth she had knocked out the night before.

The air thickened, heat increasing around the surrounding. A cold mist curled around him as jagged shards of ice began forming, fracturing the space between them, he was absorbing the cold in exchange of creating ice shards in thin air. He raised his wooden staff, pointing it skyward.

This was about to be a rough experience.

Then, in a blink—

Arthur was there.

His blade flashed through the air, striking down the forming ice crystals before they could manifest fully.

"Fho?" The Conjurer barely got the word out before the hilt of Arthur's sword crashed into his jaw. A dull thud, then silence.

The man crumpled.

Arthur exhaled, lowering his sword. Hazel took note—he was fast. And strong. Far more competent than his usual blundering suggested.

"I am really in trouble because of you..." he grumbled.

"Well," Hazel said, dusting her hands off, "since you're already in trouble, why not make the most of it?"

She nodded toward the warehouse. "Let's take them inside."

Arthur sighed but complied. Of course, he did all the work, hauling their unconscious bodies inside and tying them to the same post where Hazel herself had been chained earlier.

She cracked her knuckles. "Can you sense when someone is lying?"

Arthur hesitated. "Well, in a way—when their—"

"Very good. That's what I need."

She didn't let him finish.

Instead, she grabbed a nearby bucket, filled to the brim with ice-cold water, and threw it at them.

"What the hell?!"

"Fhath ta phackh?!"

Both of them jolted awake, sputtering, shivering.

Hazel barely suppressed a smirk. "You—" She pointed at the one missing teeth. "Shut up. If you open your mouth again, I'll knock out the rest."

He shut up.

"Good. Now, I have a few points to declare." She crouched in front of them, her voice dropping lower, colder. "First: I killed the man who was holding me captive." A lie, but her tone made it convincing enough.

"Second: If you even think about conjuring something, I'll kill you. If I feel the air shift or smell so much as a whisper of magic, you die." That was the truth, and she let them feel it—the thick, suffocating pressure of bloodlust pressing against them like a blade against the throat.

"Third: I ask, you answer. Truthfully. I will know if you lie. And if you do…"

She let the threat hang in the air.

They nodded.

"Good." She turned to the other one. "You. Speak."

"Y-yes?"

"Where is my bow?"

"We—we threw it somewhere in the dark on our way here. We don't know exactly where."

She glanced at Arthur.

He nodded. Truth. Hazel sighed.

"What are you doing here?"

"We were ordered to stop trade. Stop all wagons heading toward the Forest of Keidar and the Forest of Almond." He swallowed. "We don't know why anymore."

Another glance at Arthur.

Another nod. Truth.

"Who ordered you?"

"Major Morning Star. He's in charge of the operation. He serves under the second Brigadier—Lady Flower. We don't know if she's involved."

Arthur's nod came quicker this time.

Truth.

"Where is Morning Star now?"

The man swallowed hard. "Near Quaztrel. The village next to Edhan. Edhan was wiped out by a beast attack, but it hasn't been confirmed if it was a special-grade or an unauthorized-grade."

Hazel exhaled slowly.

This had gone much easier than expected and free extra details too.

She stood, stretching.

"You promised us freedom!" the Conjurer barked.

"Yep."

She knocked them out again. A swift blow to the jaw, precise and practiced.

Then she unchained them. "A few hours and they'll be up and good."

She turned to Arthur, grinning. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

Arthur frowned. "Waiting for what?"

"If we find out what Morning Star's planning and capture him, then whoever your 'he' is won't be mad at you, right?"

Arthur tilted his head, considering.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

Hazel smirked. "Simple logic."

She turned toward the road. "Quaztrel it is."