"Is this map accurate?" Shiv asked a question he felt was stupid, but necessary.
The woman busy drawing stopped and looked at him over the rims of her very large glasses with disdain. "Of course it's accurate. I may not have been the one to draw it, but it is still one of the highest quality maps you will ever have the privilege of seeing."
Shiv raised an eyebrow and looked back at the map with clear skepticism.
"Despite being an uncouth hag, she is trustworthy." Lucille offered from the opposite side of the room where she was leaning on the wall and watching him with amusement.
The woman ignored Lucille and pierced Shiv with a suspicious glare. "What about it makes you so unsure?"
Shiv frowned and shrugged uncomfortably. "It… it just seems kinda small, y'know? Are you sure this is the entire world?"
Lucille and the old woman both looked at Shiv with consternation.
Shiv didn't know how to respond to that, so he simply laughed awkwardly and walked out. 'Maybe this task won't take quite as long as I thought it would.'
Lucille quickly caught up to him and watched him with a mystified expression, as if she'd come to a realization about him. It made him uncomfortable.
They walked the rest of the way out of the castle in silence, with Shiv being the first to break the silence at the gate. "Make sure the princess doesn't freak out when I show up with a bunch of guys with a ton of food later."
"I am unfamiliar with that word… 'guys'. Do you perhaps mean 'guise'? As in, you are going to sneak all of the food in?"
"Uh, what? No. Guys means men." Shiv stopped himself from saying 'dude', still feeling slightly annoyed about the last time he'd had to explain its meaning.
"I see. I will do as you wish, and make sure the queen," she emphasized that last word, "is ready for your 'guys'."
***
Two days later, Lucille was true to her word.
Shiv showed up to the city with a large number of farmers mixed in with an even larger group of Briggs' men. Though all of them were dressed as farmers and had their weapons and armor hidden in their inventories.
Lucille was at the gate, along with a nobleman Shiv vaguely recognized from the night he'd met the princess, and the captain of the castle guards. Accompanying them were several contingents of hungry soldiers.
"Hello, everybody." Shiv greeted them with a wide smile and arms spread wide, as if he wasn't planning to destroy the whole lot of them.
Shiv quickly explained what was going to happen. Everyone was happy with the plan, aside from the noble, who left with a sour expression. Lucille also seemed hesitant, but quickly got over it and expressed her support for the plan.
Shiv wasn't bothered by any of this. The result was going to be the same, no matter what these people thought.
With explanations done, they spread some of the food among the soldiers, and then spread out into the city, handing out the food to the city folk.
Their reaction changed rapidly from confusion and disbelief to happiness and continued disbelief. The farmers, whilst handing out foodstuffs, also set up special plants on every street corner and in every windowsill.
"What are those strange looking plants for?" Shiv stood back and watched all of this happen with Lucille, who had been the one to ask him the question.
"They're supposed to serve as a reminder that I'm the one that saved everyone here. Though I'm guessing they'll be gotten rid of the moment I leave, because they do tend to give off a bit of a stinky smell after a while."
"But… why those plants? Why not a pretty flower or an intimidating thorn bush?" Lucille persisted.
"Why not the plants that I'm using?" Was Shiv's unsatisfying response.
He moved forward, watching the people's happy expressions with a neutral one. He walked the circumference of the entire capital, seeing the same scene repeated over and over again: happy, smiling people accepting food from soldiers, farmers, and soldiers disguised as farmers.
Lucille followed him for a long while, then mentioned something that made him come to a stop. "I'm certain you never figured this out, but the reason I was so interested in you is…" she waited until he had turned to look at her. "I wanted you to become one of my performers. I was actually planning to drug you at Wells' mansion and enslave you, but you proved to be far more interesting than I had first thought."
They were standing in the middle of the street, which seemed to have gone strangely quiet. Shiv glanced around and saw nothing seemed to be amiss, but he had a strange feeling in his gut. His farmers and the soldiers had already spread food out among the people on this street, so it was relatively empty.
"After you revealed your boldness in your interaction with Wells, I thought there could be more use for you. I could make you my top lieutenant. Perhaps even a co-owner of my troupe." There was a strange edge in her voice. "And the fact that you had an adopted firecracker of a daughter and a talking wolf companion… the crowds would go wild over you."
Shiv remained silent, not entirely sure where this was going or how to even begin to respond to her statements.
"And then… I changed my mind. I began to think- what kind of a performance would you put on for me? What amazing performance would ensue if I, as the premier performer of the world, was the one to perform with you?"
Shiv thought that this was the part where she was then going to mention how she'd poisoned him, and he was going to die if he didn't do whatever she wanted in return for the antidote, or she was simply going to attack. As such, he decided a preemptive strike would be best.
Shiv used his [Freeze Ranged] skill on her, causing ice a thin layer of ice to grow on her skin and restrict her movement. He thought half mindedly about how it was just his luck to finally get an ice skill… that only affects other people.
While casting the debuff, he also dropped to the ground and combined his [Limited Earth Manipulation], [Imbue (Touch)], and [Limited Fire Creation] Abilities to use his favorite move: Lava Lover.
The familiar fan shape of boiling lava appeared, with Lucille at the very center of it.
She had a shocked expression on her face that quickly changed to agony when she fell into the lava. She screamed in pain and horror and continued to sink, farther and farther. Just as she was about to be completely submerged, she looked at Shiv with tears pouring from her wide, terrified eyes filled with agony.
'Did I… make a mistake?' Shiv ignored the growling in his stomach as he watched the last of the hatless woman disappear. He scowled. "It doesn't matter. She was going to die anyway." With that, he trudged off, trying to bury his mixed feelings along with that haunting memory of her eyes. Several terrified people who had witnessed the scene stared at him as he passed, though he didn't notice them.
"Shiv! Farhad told me to find you and tell you to get into position, and to open your mind to him." Burnface ran up to him when Shiv rounded the corner.
Shiv nodded and followed the young man, his mind still focused on trying not to be focused on Lucille's eyes.
They reached the front gate of the city where about half of the farmers and disguised soldiers working for Shiv had gathered. "Everyone here and accounted for? Alright, guys. Just like we discussed. Get moving." Shiv said, and the men moved out. Away from the city.
But not before one of them handed him a rope that trailed along the ground until it disappeared somewhere inside the city. Shiv stared at the rope for several long seconds, then was shaken out of his reverie by Farhad's voice, which was echoing in his head.
"Set the fire in two minutes. We still have a few men lagging inside the capital." Farhad and Briggs were on the opposite side of the city, at a much smaller gate. Briggs was holding a flaming torch and a very similar rope to the one Shiv was holding.
The two minutes passed quickly, with Shiv receiving a few strange looks from the guards standing at the gate, but otherwise being unbothered… until the noble from earlier showed up with a new contingent of soldiers and a cocky expression on his face. 'They better not interfere.' Shiv sighed, knowing that was exactly what they were going to attempt to do.
"What are you doing, peasant!? You were supposed to deliver the food directly to the princess, not hand it out to the other peasants in the city!"
Shiv gave the ugly man a dark look and set the rope on fire.