Wish Upon a Sin

Arc 2 - Chapter 15

Subaru lay back in his chair, holding a small black stone up to the window's light. It was slightly transparent, and seemed innocuous enough. It was a magical miasma stone, a piece of lagmite heavily corrupted by the same miasma that marked the followers of the Witch.

It felt vaguely glossy to the touch, but the surface was dull and didn't reflect light. The most unusual thing about it was that it was a bit heavier than you'd expect a rock of that size to be.

Subaru felt they were pretty. Perhaps not pretty enough to be considered gemstones, like the normal lagmite he had seen, but pretty nevertheless. Apparently this was a good sign for his ability to sense miasma. Normal people instinctively recoiled at the mere sight of the stones.

Subaru rolled it around in his hand. The fact that he didn't sense anything malicious from it was all well and good, but he hadn't made any actual progress in sensing the Witch's scent yet.

He was almost tempted to try tasting the thing to see if it would speed up his learning process, but the stones were apparently fatal if ingested. While death would only be a setback for Subaru, he didn't want to have to go through the effort of infiltrating the cult again. Once was more than enough for one lifetime.

Instead, he brought it to his nose, and took a deep breath. He smelled the faint scent of his own clammy hands, a whiff of the spices Griselda had used to try and flavour lunch's dried meat, and something... sweet. A fruit?

Subaru took another breath, but the unknown scent was gone. He tried a few more times, but no hidden scent revealed itself to him.

Sensing miasma was a rare skill, but much like shadow-walking, it was one that every cultist learned eventually. Subaru would be able to pick it up in time, but time was something he was running out of. Once the loop ended, he wasn't sure he'd be able to obtain the highly illegal stones, which meant the end to his practice.

And the end of the loop was very close. Midday had already passed, and it was almost time for the... 'big event'.

In a few hours, the Royal Selection would begin. All of Subaru's spirits were on standby throughout the manor, waiting for the flurry of activity that would herald the beginning of the end.

In the week since the first raids, the guards had attacked several more locations, working their way through the list Subaru had provided them with. Unfortunately, their priorities seemed to differ vastly from his. They went after the cult's accomplices more often than not, people who dealt with shady business and sold on the black market. They were important people to the cult, of course, but they were easily replaced.

The civilians had calmed down after the initial fear the raids had provoked, and the opinion among the masses was that the cult had been rooted out. Despite the lack of truth to that sentiment, it had caught on quickly, especially with the nobles of the city. None really wanted to believe that the Witch's Cult had such a large presence in their backyard, and were more than happy to accept the victory the Captain of the Guards had claimed.

At least the knights had finally gotten involved, though, it was too late for them to raid the more important locations, which had already been abandoned. The few times they did catch cultists had proved to be little more than minor setbacks, but they did manage to secure more of the supply caches before the cult could move them.

Meals had noticeably declined in quality over the week, not that Subaru particularly cared. The weight of the task he had set for himself made it rather difficult to taste food, be it good or bad.

With a quiet sigh, he closed his hand around the miasma stone, and placed it in the pocket of his tracksuit. He didn't have much time, but he wasn't going to be able to practice in his current state. Perhaps after the selection, he'd be in a better mood.