"Why wouldn’t it?" I asked, cocking my head.
"Sacred piss, lassie, are you mad? Why would the Holy Xan Empire send Inquisitors over every single claim of someone doing magic? That’d make it very easy to get anyone you don’t like killed. Just go to your local temple and say ‘hey, this guy does magic!’, and you’ll be rid of him forever. Of course not that’s not going to happen."
The Dwarf waggled a finger in the air.
"The worst thing that could happen is the city guards believing the person accusing you, and they’ll try to toss you in a dungeon for a few years. Maybe get some Priests to visit you and cure you. Then they’ll let you go."
"I don’t think I’d like that either," I said simply.
"Well, unless you’re an idiot who wouldn’t leave once it seems like you’ll be arrested, that won’t happen. And this won’t happen in the first place unless the man who spotted you casting spells is some mad fanatic— which most people aren’t. They’ll just take the bribe and stay quiet. Avoid trouble, like normal people do," Gennady said, matter-of-factly.
I held myself back from telling him that my situation was a little bit different from most, since that would reveal too much. Instead, I took a deep breath and apologized.
"Sorry, you’re right. I probably could’ve just ran away or something. I overreacted."
"That’s underselling it, lass," Gennady said, glaring at me for a moment. Then his eyes relaxed as he continued, "But I accept your apology, since I’m alive. I probably shocked you too, coming in like that, huh?"
"Just a little bit."
"I just saw those Abominations and had to act. I didn’t even know you were here until I saw the last of them die, and got excited when I saw that Light spell hovering over your head and knew I wasn’t seeing things."
"How did you even see me kill those Crawlers anyway?" I finally asked the question.
The Dwarf grinned, and just set down his pack. He rummaged through his equipment, pulling out a small cylindrical object which he pulled open to make it longer. It was a spyglass. "This," he said, tapping the lens of it. "I carry one with me at all times, and I just so happened to be looking in the right direction when you began casting those spells. Although it was a blur, I could’ve sworn you were a Geomancer and not a Thaumaturge."
I chose not to confirm or deny anything, and just gave him a curt nod. "I see."
So it was poor timing and the fact that the Dwarf was actually searching for me that led to my supposed slip up; I could very easily breathe a sigh of relief and push the responsibility of my mistake to bad luck, but being unlucky was a state of being for me. I had to have known things would go wrong somewhere and prepared for it better.
There was no use in pointing fingers or wallowing in sorrow. I did that plenty in the past, and I had to focus on getting better for the future.
"So," Gennady started, interrupting me from my thoughts, "this is where those Abominations have been coming from. How did you even find it?"
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. "Luck, I guess. As you saw, a group of Crawlers were retreating after failing to take back their nest. I ran into them and they attacked me, which led me here."
I was not sure how accurate it was to call being attacked by Monsters ‘luck’, but that was the best descriptor I had for it.
"Aha, and I caught you just in time from stealing all the credit for exterminating the Abominations. I think I took out a dozen, which means I should be getting at least ten percent of the reward," he said, smiling greedily. "Although I would have liked to fight the tougher ones. These were barely even an E Rank threat!"
I decided against commenting on Gennady’s insistence of using his ranking system for Monsters, and addressed the other part of his statement.
"Ten percent of the reward?" I cocked an eyebrow beneath my mask."Why?" I asked.
"What? Are you telling me that you fought more than a hundred Abominations before I arrived? That seems hard to believe. I don’t even see that many dead bodies lying around, and there can’t be that much more inside."
"...you think I already killed them all?"
"Yeah… wait, you mean you haven’t?" Gennady frowned, his beard scrunching up in the process.
"Uh… no?" I said, "I’ve only just got here. I’m pretty sure there are a lot more inside."
"Wait, so why were you just standing around and not fighting? I thought you were tired!"
"I… was observing them." I inhaled deeply, deciding to explain now rather than having to come up with an excuse later on. "The Abominations are docile towards me. They don’t attack me unless I attack them first."
"But that’s… not how it’s supposed to work. I’ve fought groups of them before, lass. And I’ve read all the reports. They attack almost all living beings the moment they see or hear them."
I shrugged again. "Don’t ask me how it works. That’s just how it is for me."
That was not a total lie; I truly did not know how it worked. I knew I was special to the Abominations because they had something to do with those three strangers and their god—sorry, I meant to say jerk god— but the exact details eluded me. So I was telling the truth, even if I was being incredibly vague.
Fortunately for me, Gennady did not ask me to elaborate.
"Hm, if the Abominations aren’t gone yet, then I guess that’s better for me. Maybe we could run into some Horrors or Amalgams. I need to see how
