Villainess x Grimoire

With a bang, I opened the guild's door. People's eyes instantly focused on me, as if they were expecting someone.

As I stepped inside, the waiter, who before was in the middle of serving a drink, approached me cautiously.

“Miss, swords must be kept inside the...”

I glanced at him. His words forced me to become aware of the sword in my hand, frozen by magic.

“It’s stuck,” I rotated my wrist, facing my palm towards the ceiling, allowing him to see the icy areas formed from my sweat.

Working all these years at guild hardened the man significantly. "Come here, kid," he gently placed his hand on my shoulder pointed towards fireplace. Despite there being only three of them, evenly placed they kept the building warm.'

We stopped by a fireplace, one of three in the guild. Altogether, despite being far from one another, they made up a triangle to warm up this entire floor.

Once the heat from fire melted the ice, my weapon fell to the ground, making a clacking sound a few times.

I felt my palm burn. The skin was damaged and my fingers were stiff from cold.

Out of the corner of my eyes I caught a glimpse of red meat. Immediately, vivid images of Brook flooded my mind. Unable to keep it in, I began to whimper. It started low, then louder, in full voice, I started to wail.

Seeing me crying out loud, the man couldn't bring himself to ask questions. In long slow motions he patted my back. Letting his warmth seep deep into me. It reminded me of father. He always did it when I was feeling down. Soon, silence descended. As I was wiping tears and snots I found my hand no longer in pain. Some fellow must have healed it.

Seated next to me was Tania with shallow, red eyes. She was regretting tracking the clues she had found. They had cost Chris an arm and Brook his life. But I didn’t utter a word. There was no way for her to know whose trail that one belonged to. It was a risky task, and they decided to do it during the night.

“Bro-ok stepped on snow, he cra-cked a branch beneath it.” At last, Tania spoke. Her words no bigger than a whisper

“Walking on snow is dangerous. Even more so during the night,” an older man spoke across the table, taking a sip of his drink. There was no sign of sadness in his voice, a hint of disappointment perhaps.

It was not by chance that the quests for low-level adventurers were the easiest, but they, too, could pose a risk to one’s life.

"A group of Tusk boars came..." she added while looking at her legs.

"Just how far were you guys in?"

"South from here by the frontier."

The old man's eyes widened in surprise halting him for a moment before taking another sip.

At his words, Tania’s fingers curled, holding her anger and frustration for a job wrongly done. Out of all of us, she was likely the one feeling the worst.

Ryze was further away, staying by the side of Chris, whose shoulder was being bandaged. There was no coming back from losing an arm, at least not if it was lost to a beast.

Potions could heal wounds, but only powerful magic could glue an arm to a shoulder.

To rub salt into the wound, it was likely that for this party it was over. The instructor would make sure of it once the news reached her ears.

I grabbed Tania’s hands with my own, “You did what you could.”

She nodded slightly, but her saddened expression didn’t change. All I could do was spark a tiny light of hope.

Disregarding our mood and prevailing atmosphere one man put the spoon inside his bowl of soup, “adventurers die all the time. It’s a horrible job.” The man declared, showing us his teeth, well, eighty percent of them, as some were missing: most yellow, along with a few putrid black ones with holes.

My gaze slipped away from his bold smile, yet I appreciated the words that he said. The truth was that we had been too weak and slow to save everyone. If there was a deity of misfortune, he or she had certainly touched Brook that moment, right before his feet landed on the snow.

‘Aria,’ I called her, the goddess who looked over humans. However, I shook my head from side to side slowly and only twice. If there were more entities like her, then she wouldn’t have been the culprit. I sighed, realizing that the gods were not at fault, and neither was luck. It lay in one person, in Brook himself.

‘Poor guy...’ Pity remained stuck in my mind along with all the scary noises from that moment. My stomach growled, not from hunger, but from sickness. I had held on, throwing up far too many times now. And I was at my limit, and the moment my body tried to get up, I felt Tania’s hands sheltering themselves in mine.

She wasn’t satisfied yet.

‘Breathe, Iris, breathe,’ I told myself, and so I did. Deeply, inhaling whatever smell was around, painting in my mind the diverse scents, replacing those wicked visions. I focused on the soup scent, mushrooms, and potatoes. Not smelling any meat helped.

I rested my cheek on the table. He took a sip out of his drink. Then he continued, "the fragrance of the dust and wood."

At that moment, I realized the most important thing. I was a human being, and my life was short.

This was the beginning of my path. To be strong enough to protect my parents, which I took as the ultimate goal. However, it was clearly far from my reach, and knowing that made it rather painful.

My soul properties were not bad, but it wasn’t significant enough to be meaningful.

If I had enough power to save Brook’s life, or even to slay the five creatures that came through, that would’ve been a dream come true.

‘We were weak,’ and I looked across the room. Right at this time, I happened to see guild employees giving their condolences to Chris.

As if receiving some sort of confirmation, he got up and glanced at us briefly, walking hastily to the exit with his head down.

“Chris...” I mumbled in a trembling, soft voice, not wanting him to actually hear me. There were no words that could cheer him up, and if there were any, I didn’t know them.

My heart tightened, leaving everything that had happened, feeling like nothing but a nuisance. It pissed me off how careless we had been, the way, I didn’t tell them what to do. The things my experienced parents taught me. ‘But I wasn’t the leader...’ I scorned such words in my mind, finding a justification for the passiveness within me. A part of me believed that they wouldn't have listened.

‘I...’ I shrouded myself in the secrecy of my heart, ugly as it was, whenever pain came at me. I resented everything, hiding such emotions from my family and friends, bottling all of it inside. I couldn't wait to get back home and write my feelings in the black book: just like magic, it eased my mind whenever I vented in it. And I wrote a lot these past years. Even more so whenever something happened between the teens from the village and me. The disputes we had, the plays and conversations, the bonds, the good and the bad. And like a drug addict, my fingers trembled, wanting to head back home, fill a page, maybe two or three, and watch as all the pain went away.

Seeing how shaky I was, Tania enveloped her hands around mine, and softly rubbed them.. It must’ve been her way of taking care of me.

A possible reward for my actions and words.

“Thank you,” and I held on to it without looking at her.

I heard her mutter softly, but I don’t think there were any words. It was more like a plain sound of conformity, yet it was a good enough answer for both of us.

Lost in thoughts and time we were sitting like that. Those around, eventually, began busying themselves. It didn't take long, or perhaps we simply didn't notice, for someone to disturb us only to inform us in solemn voice that the guild staff dissolved the party, causing Tania and me to lose our place in it. Now I had to seek a new one to take me in.

The following day, I would have news from the guild, so instead of staying here, I returned home.

As usual, little saint approached me, but being the dog with keen nose he is, he did not jump on me. He halted and waited. I knelt in front of him hugging his large neck.

My eyes focused on the waving of his tail. It was slower than usual. I could tell my pet wanted to play. That little saint was holding back. But it was all I really needed at that moment, and that was what I received, grateful for his presence and kindness.

It didn’t take long for me to speak with my parents about what happened, to receive their comfort, but also their sermon.

Their warnings were not in vain. I made sure to tell them that, but I had trained for this all my life. I still didn’t want to let it end there, but there was no way that I would accept my death. To be fair, I didn’t think anyone would ever pursue it.

At night, before bed, I lit up my hand with tones of light blue, and below it was the open book. Between my fingers, one of the few pencils I had left, and with it, I wrote.

[

Day 6 of the moon season, year 5014.

I, Iris, lost my first companion. His name was Brook, a tall boy who wielded a spear. I didn’t get to know him well enough, since everything happened too fast. But he seemed nice, and I could tell the other two, Chris and Ryze, liked him a lot. He must have been a brother to them. The two of them were the ones who shed the most tears, especially Chris, who lost his arm and even his future as an adventurer. The lady from the staff told me there weren’t many one-handed adventurers; it was quite an arduous feat to achieve. Indirectly, I believe, that she was telling me he would retire that day, or in the near future. I saw the sad way he spoke with the staff and the way he left without telling us girls anything, not even me. I thought he would have told me something... anything. I don't know why, but I had that expectation.

]

My eyes rose from the paper momentarily, and I glanced over at my room window before continuing to write.

[

The moon is yellow today and hugeeeee! I’m still not okay, not after what I saw and heard. And I couldn’t express myself to my mother. I wasn’t able to tell her how much her training saved me. From the animals I killed back then and the blood tip. If it wasn’t for that, I think, I would’ve been too shocked to move, or maybe I would’ve run and gotten caught, instead of waiting for a chance. She made me tough. Now, more than ever, I am grateful to have her as my mother.

]

A tear slid down my eye onto the book, one after another, a soft rain hitting the pages, causing the book to shine, absorbing not only the letters but also the wetness.

‘Why are you so magical?’ I questioned it in my thoughts, realizing, like many times before, that it wouldn’t reply to me, and like in the past, this time around, there was no answer either.

Tightly, I held onto the pencil and added my last words for the night.

No matter what, I will not give up. I’ll fight, become stronger, and next time... next time for sure, I’ll make a difference!

And I closed it, placing the book under my bed, the sole place that my mother never checked.

“Good night,” and I plunged into my bed, closing my eyes, and hoping to sleep peacefully.

That night, I had a nightmare.