Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 373: A Guest’s Farewell

Claude stayed calm. "So these people have been scheming behind our backs this whole time. Who is it, then? The last of the stray dogs that turned tail and fled during the last war? Or that little alliance between the merchants and the fiend council elder?"

The Order member shook his head. "Our scouts couldn’t place either of them anywhere on the front lines, my lord. And to be honest, I’d be relieved if it were them. Because whatever’s marching on the central zones is no ordinary force. They cut down our outpost guards and several of our own without so much as slowing their step."

Claude’s brow creased. "If it isn’t them, then who?"

"Apart from the headmaster of the Dark Mage Academy," the man said, "we couldn’t put a name to a single face out there."

"And what business could that one possibly have with me?" The frown dug deeper. "Don’t tell me the fool went and struck a pact with an archdemon, came back drunk on enough power to think the world was his for the taking, and decided this academy made the perfect first prize. With every pillar of the academy gathered under one roof tonight, he’d have timed the whole invasion for exactly this."

"That isn’t the part that frightens us, my lord," the man replied. "It isn’t him at all but it’s the rest of the factions marching in at his side."

Seeing the sweat beading on the man’s brow, Claude said, "Explain yourself."

The man swallowed. "Ogres. Monsters. Demons. The undead. High dragons—"

Claude cut him off, and for the first time all night, real worry crossed his face. "High dragons? Why in the world would they crawl out now? Weren’t they cursed by the gods themselves and sealed away inside their own lands, punishment for their little scheme to swallow the world?" His jaw set hard. "Did that seal break? Are you absolutely certain of what you saw?"

"I’m certain, my lord. I saw it with my own two eyes. A dragon the size of a mountain, blotting out a sky already gone black from the spell smothering this estate. And I watched her fold herself down into human form."

"What in the hells is happening," Claude muttered, more to himself than anyone.

But the man pressed on, trembling now. "And they aren’t the only thing we have to fear, my lord. There are worse monsters still loose out there. One of them..."

Grief dragged his words to a halt. He clenched his fist, knuckles whitening, and forced the rest out. "Word reached me that Sir Vergis met that very monster head-on, out at the outpost. And Sir Vergis fell, my lord. He’s gone."

He drew a shaking breath. "It gutted what was left of everyone’s nerve. Our Order’s third ranker, put in the ground in under a minute."

Claude turned sharply to his butler. "Notify the entire continent of our situation and call on every soul of it to stand with us in this war. Recall every last member of our Order back to the estate. And send word to every kingdom in the lands below as well. Tell them plainly that we now stand in a war that will decide who rules and who kneels once the dust finally settles."

Loki, who had been content to stay quiet until now, finally spoke up. "Mister, are you dumb, or just a little hard of hearing? Did you not catch a single word that poor man just bled out for you? Your whole pretty estate is sitting under my spell. Nothing from the outside gets in, and not one soul steps out without my say-so."

She smiled sweetly. "So, to put it in small words, every last one of you is trapped in this box. Right up until I get exactly what I came for."

Every eye in the hall snapped toward Loki, who happened, at that precise moment, to be caught mid-yawn.

"So," Claude said. "You’re one of them."

"One of them?" Loki scoffed at the very idea. "No, no, no. I’m the one leading them. I’m the name history will carve into stone for orchestrating a war this gloriously beautiful."

The room fell dead still. A handful of panicked guards and Order members drew their weapons and closed the ring around her.

Claude’s voice stayed flat and even. "What is your motive? You said you won’t stop until you have what you want. So tell me. What are you truly after? And who are you?"

Loki’s smile turned dreamy. "I’m nothing but a poor, helpless little damsel in distress. Waiting ever so patiently for the prince who’ll come sweeping in to paint the color back into my dull, dreary little life. And as for what I want?"

She turned toward Jax and raised a single finger, the smile blooming wider across her face. Then that finger began to spin, swinging slowly out toward every corner of the hall. "I want all of you gone. Every. Last. One. That’s the sweet little promise I made to the dears working under me, you see."

She stretched, lazy as a cat in a sunbeam. "Anyway. That’s quite enough questions for one evening. My jaw is honestly starting to ache, so I think I’ll be on my way. Oh, now, don’t go pulling those long, gloomy faces at me. We’ll all be seeing each other again before too long. Provided you manage to live through my minions first, naturally."

Kessiri charged straight at her. "Wait! You don’t get to simply stroll off after all this. Tell me where my sister is."

Loki made a great theatrical show of weighing the request, then gave a small shrug. "Didn’t I just finish telling you my jaw hurts? So that would be a no. No more questions."

Rage hauled Kessiri the rest of the way forward. Her sword came around in a clean arc and sheared straight through Loki’s neck.

Silence. Loki’s head and her body dropped to the marble apart from one another, a pool of blood blooming wide across the floor. And then, all at once, the bleeding simply stopped. That dark red drained away into a soft golden light, the glow swallowing her body whole, and the whole of her winked out of sight.

Some time later, a voice came drifting down from somewhere above the stairs. "How dreadfully rude of you all, treating a guest like that. I’ll be keeping this little insult tucked away, mark my words. As I told you before, I only popped in to kill a bit of time and have a touch of fun, and yet here I stand, robbed of even that one simple pleasure."

The voice softened into something almost fond. "But still. May the gods bless each and every one of you this fine night. May sis, I mean, the goddess of war, and auntie, I mean, the goddess of luck, see fit to shower their blessings down upon you all."

And with that, she gave a cheerful little farewell and began to fade, thinning into nothing until not a trace of her was left.

Jax was the first to move. He crossed to the tall window and looked out, and what waited beyond the glass was a nightmare given shape.