Chapter 332 - Scrupulous Samaritans
Guifford watched as Scarlett came to a halt before the sea of monster corpses, her gaze sweeping over the carnage with a slight frown. Then, lifting her head, she looked at him and his knights. A heartbeat later, her form dissolved into mist and reformed directly in front of him.
“Count Knottley,” she greeted, reaching up to remove a pair of glasses. The dagger in her hand vanished, along with the burning circlet that crowned her head. “It seems my arrival was well-timed. Shardscarabs are a very particular breed of monster. My barony stores a considerable share of our supplies in this harbour’s warehouses — their destruction would have been a costly loss.”
Guifford’s knights stayed silent, their eyes fixed on her. He, too, studied her closely.
Was this truly the same Scarlett Hartford he knew? The daughter of his old friend — the girl he’d watched grow from a distant, aloof child into a sharp-tongued, imperious young noblewoman? She had always lived in the shadow of her father and younger sister when it came to magic, never showing much aptitude.
He had heard tellings of her so-called blossoming talent as of late, but he’d been skeptical. He knew all too well her tendency to embellish her achievements. Yet, based on what he had just witnessed, it seemed those rumours had not only been true, but they had undersold the reality.
“…Is there something you wish to say?” Scarlett asked, one brow arched.
Guifford’s eyes drifted past her, toward the scorched remains of the shardscarabs still littering the docks. Then to the young man approaching through the field of corpses. Guifford’s instincts told him the youth was dangerous in his own right.
Finally, he looked back to Scarlett.
“How did you do this?”
The sheer scale of the destruction rivalled what he’d only ever seen in large battles — usually the work of entire mage battalions or a grand wizard, and even then, rarely with such ease. Mages were more suited to handle creatures like shardscarabs, but this…this was something else.
Somehow, she’d even neutralised the monster’s explosive death throes.
This wasn’t the work of someone inexperienced in battle. Guifford also couldn’t ignore the artifacts she wore. He could practically feel the raw power that had radiated from some of them.