Chapter 86: Big Sister
Freya, or rather her replica, was walking through the streets of Evangel, which were incidentally far more crowded than before, no doubt owing to Aldric’s return and above all to the fact that he hadn’t been idle for a single one of these past few days.
Of course it all remained fairly minor still, but even so, over such a short stretch of time, this city that had only ever truly been alive down in its underworld and in its criminality was beginning to change under Aldric’s hands, helped of course by the few pieces of advice Freya had slipped him along the way.
The stalls had reopened along the main avenue, you could hear the merchants calling to one another across the street again, children were running between the carts, and there was even a queue outside a bakery which, only a few days earlier, still kept its shutters closed in broad daylight.
But with the growing number of people in the streets came a growing number of rumors about her.
"Look, that’s her..."
"I heard she called down a miracle to get out of that village alive..."
"The way I heard it, she went 7 days and 7 nights without food or water, praying to the gods for the dead of her village, before young Paydragon found her."
"They say the gods answered too. That a light came down over the ruins and that’s how he found her at all."
"I heard she carried a wounded child on her back for three days through the forest without ever setting him down."
"Poor soul..."
"All of this is the fault of..."
There it was. Thanks to her enhanced hearing, she could catch this sort of conversation every single time she passed through, so much so that she had grown used to it by now and simply let it wash over her.
But aren’t the rumors about me getting a bit too absurd, though?!
Of course, she knew perfectly well why that was the case, something which would incidentally be explained far better behind this particular door.
She was now standing in front of an unremarkable building in the district, a low structure whose facade had absolutely nothing to draw the eye, with a heavy wooden door and no sign of any kind.
She opened it.
Inside stood some thirty men well over 2 meters tall, along with a few women, and a single glance was enough to understand that these were the highest-ranking figures in Evangel’s underworld.
They were lined up along the walls, standing, most of them in dark suits with their hands folded in front of them, and you could very clearly make out three distinct groups depending on where they stood in the room, each clustered behind one of the three occupied seats, those of the games, those of the black market and those of the pleasures.
In the middle stood a table with 4 chairs, 3 of which were already taken, which left only the one at the end, behind which Aria stood perfectly upright, hands joined in front of her.
Freya walked up to it, step by step, through all those scrutinizing stares, before sitting down at the table.
She crossed her legs, put them straight up on the tabletop, then held out her hand to the side without so much as looking, and a glass was placed in it within the second by her maid, who immediately filled it with a wine of a very dark red.
Except that, oddly enough, the room was completely silent.
In this sort of gathering there’s usually at least some noise, some comments, or at the very least one loudmouth, isn’t there? At least that’s what I was counting on to bounce off of.
She swept the room with her gaze, and absolutely nobody moved.
No? Nobody? Really nobody? I prepared something for that exact classic! And what about my aura farming in all this?! How am I supposed to establish myself with the underworld as their shadow regent?!
She then turned her attention back to the 3 people seated at the table, none of whom were looking anywhere near her direction, all of them staring stubbornly at the wood in front of them.
To her left sat Kyiara.
Wait... hasn’t she lost weight?
She saw the hollows in her cheeks, the shoulders that seemed to float inside an outfit that had clearly been tailored to her, and the tails that no longer moved at all behind her.
Yes. Definitely lost weight. And those dark circles, would someone care to explain?
Then she remembered the promise she had made to Aria, and looking at this trembling woman on her left who kept her eyes on the table instead of raising them, a woman who bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one she had met in that office, Freya felt a touch of pity for all of one second at most, before letting her gaze slide over to the two men on her right.
The first was young, dressed in a purple suit with his hair swept back, and he was the head of the black market, whom she recognized by his appearance and above all by the scar he carried at the corner of his right eye.
Jeremia Volontaliti, a very young boss, who had reportedly killed every one of his brothers during the succession before doing exactly the same to his father in order to take the district and the black market.
He was trembling too, his fingers drumming against his thigh without him managing to stop them.
Then the third.
Hold on? Isn’t that the old man from the other day?
She did indeed recognize the old man who had come to speak to her in the gaming district while she was crying, the very one who had told her that in his day greed hadn’t been nearly so prevalent, and it turned out he was in fact its boss.
He was trembling as well, both hands laid flat on the table in an attempt to steady them.
Anyway, enough daydreaming!
"Right! I assume Aria has already explained everything to you."
The 3 people at the table nodded at the same time, at the exact same instant.
"Good, that’ll make this quicker. I’ll simply ask you not to forget a few points."
She raised one finger at those words.
"Number one! You don’t trade with the baron or his associates! Not one little thing, not one favor, not one anything... nothing!"
They nodded, so she raised a second finger.
"Number two! You never challenge Paydragon or his house, on the contrary you build good connections with him and you help one another out!"
They nodded again, still trembling, so she raised a third finger.
"Number three! Kyiara, under Aria’s direct orders, Aria being present right behind me..." she said, gesturing over her shoulder toward her maid "...will be the ones you deal with. Which means this will be the first and the last time you ever see me."
Freya took a sip.
"And if you do see me again anyway, it means you’ve done something wrong. And if you’ve done something wrong, we arrive at number four! If you screw up, lads, you die. It’s as simple as that."
She took a second sip, then looked at the glass, turning it slowly in her hand.
This wine is absolutely divine~~! I have never tasted anything like it in either of my lives!
She pulled her eyes away from the glass and returned to the discussion.
"Naturally, you’ll operate exactly as you did before, aside from those 4 tiny little rules. You’ll be free in everything you do, and there will even be upsides with the new markets and the developments I’ll be putting in place, whose operations I’ll be handing over to you, or rather delegating to you, as with the mithrite."
She set her glass down on the table.
"But do be smart about it. If you screw up, as stated in rule 4, the girl behind me will come looking for you."
Aria stepped forward to refill it, except that Freya laid her hand over the glass as though to stop her, giving her a small smile.
"Right, that’s about everything."
Then her gaze settled on the old man.
"Well, I am curious about one thing, old man. Or should I call you Regulus Dantar?"
He looked up at her, the panic entirely readable on his face.
"You recognize me, don’t you?"
"Yes... yes... you’re that woman from the other day?"
"That’s the one. So what were you going to tell me this time? I’m curious."
"Nothing of interest, madam, I’d rather not—"
A black aura burst out from behind Freya and swallowed the entire room, so that everyone present began to tremble, with the exception of Freya and Aria herself.
Along the walls, several 2-meter men stepped back without even realizing it, one of them outright grabbing his neighbor’s shoulder to steady himself.
"It seems to me that my mistress asked you something."
Aria hadn’t raised her voice by half a note.
"Do you dare, little creature, to refuse her request?"
"No! No! No! I swear I wouldn’t dare!"
Just how much fear did she drive into them for them to react like that? Are you the devil himself, Aria?!
"I was simply going to say that after losing everything, my wife, my children, my family, I went looking for revenge, and that this is how I ended up in this position, and..."
"I see. So it really was hypocrisy after all."
She said this while cutting him off, rising from her chair at the same time.
She then turned toward Aria, and on meeting those magnificent mauve eyes she came within a hair of cracking entirely and throwing herself at her, except that she pulled herself together for the sake of her image, and simply said:
"Exquisite, this wine."
"I’ll bring you a bottle tonight."
Oh, will you now~!
"With pleasure."
Then, already starting to walk away, she turned back one last time to lay both hands flat on the table.
"Of course, if my role as a survivor of the village of Veille and as a fragile little woman ever leaks, I’ll kill every one of you here, regardless of who did the leaking. Your families, your loved ones, and let’s say..."
She seemed to think it over for a moment before smiling.
"...given that it would compromise my plans, hmmm... I’ll kill every living person in this city."
She struck the table twice with her fist and turned to leave, when a voice rose behind her.
"What... what should we call you?"
Jeremia had spoken without lifting his eyes, his fingers still drumming against his thigh.
"We’d like to know your name, at least. Please."
Freya stopped.
Ah. I hadn’t thought about that one at all.
Come on, think. It has to sound good, it has to fit the underworld, and above all it absolutely cannot be my actual name.
...
Well, there’s always the one Kaguya uses.
"You can simply call me Big Sister."
And with that she walked out of the building, leaving the rest to Aria, who she knew perfectly well would do an excellent job without her.
Resuming her role as a fragile little woman the instant she crossed the threshold.