The Peculiar Alchemist

67 || As Obvious as It Is Not

Things with Briar went somewhat well. Kellen had done what his grandmother had asked him to do, and it was ensuring Marc had left the meeting unscathed, but she wasn't happy about the fact that Kellen had helped his father, too.

According to her, it ruined all the fun, but Kellen had bigger problems on his plate.

Keeping up with Toby's deaths is starting to become a chore, and Vincent will start to suspect something when Toby takes longer than usual to come back to life. It'll soon be obvious that the only time Toby comes back to life is when Kellen is around, and sadly Vincent is perceptive enough to notice. It almost made Kellen regret ever using Toby as something to drive away attention from himself.

The deception didn't last long on Aubrey, but at least people thought Toby was the necromancer. He was supposed to be dead anyway, he had died the moment Agnes found him on the floor after drinking one of her poisons. If the idea to use him didn't cross Kellen's mind, he would have been buried instead.

It's Sammy who should be alive right now, not Toby.

There was also another problem he's having a hard time dealing with, but he is slowly working on it. Briar was more ambitious than he thought, and while she isn't really much of a threat, she was one of the rare bold ones who would go to great lengths to achieve their goal. That alone wouldn't be much of a problem, but Briar had followers and she very obviously had her eyes set on the main problem.

The biggest threat that could ruin everything.

And that threat was cluelessly leaning on his shoulder with a curious expression as Kellen sunk deep into his thoughts. The hand that was resting on Kellen's shoulder had a bottle dangling from it, and he hoped it caused large amounts of pain and agony.

"Are you having a staring contest with a ghost I don't see?" Aubrey asked, having been there for a while, and the way Kellen was silently staring at nothing had worried him.

"That's too bad, that means you can't see me winning." There was actually a ghost in front of him, but she wasn't even looking his way or paying any attention to him. Just an old lady who appeared not too long ago, quietly walking around the place with no goal in mind. "Maybe you can help me with this. Do you know a way to kill an entire cult without bringing attention to the incident?"

Aubrey laughed at the unexpected question before shaking his head. "Pretty sure that would grab all sorts of attention."

"It would, and worst of all, killing them slowly is – you guessed it – a slow process." Kellen sighed realizing he was getting a bit sloppy as he spoke from how tired he was of the whole thing. Vincent will soon know that he was the reason for convincing Briar to let Marc and his father go, and Briar still didn't realize that she had been listening to his command. Once she does, everything will get messier than it already is. "Fuck." He couldn't help but curse.

"Why not just kill Briar?" Aubrey suggested without much thought, he was not too interested in the details since he barely knew anything, but he knew it wasn't that simple despite his earlier suggestion. "She's just making more necromancers, er, I mean- people who think they are. What do you call them?"

Amused, Kellen answered him. "Idiots. I just call them idiots."

"That's fitting." An entertained smile fought its way to appear on Aubrey's face, and Kellen took the bottle from Aubrey's hand but he didn't open it. "Isn't it pointless to keep killing idiots if she's alive to make more?"

"It kind of is, but the idiots will scatter if I do that. I don't want to hunt each one of them down." And he was also sure that not all of these idiots were brainless, surely they noticed the way their dear leader was interested in Aubrey. If they're dead, their interest would lead nowhere. That was his reason for killing him among other things. "What's in the bottle?"