Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess-Chapter 418 - Group A, meet Group B

It wasn’t Briana, Skye, or the Baroness’ people who moved first.

The garden—this impossible sliver of summer buried in a winter estate—shivered as if it could feel the violence about to unfold. Petals trembled along their stems. The warm air thickened. Even the emerald at the centre pulsed, like a heart bracing for a blow.

Regina caught all of it, even as her focus stayed on the four figures before the gazebo — on the minstrel most of all.

Rosa’s smile thinned. “Well then,” she murmured, “I’m sure she won’t be mad if we rough them up just a little, will she?”

A ring of angular runes flared into being above Regina’s group. A heartbeat later, torrents of flame crashed down.

Regina was already shaping a barrier, but Oveth moved first. His staff slammed into the ground with a dull thud, and coils of black mist surged up like striking serpents, swallowing the fire in layered folds until it guttered into embers and steam. Even so, Skye and Briana split apart, darting sideways as secondary tongues of heat licked the path they’d been advancing along.

Skye paused long enough to throw a glance over her shoulder. “Oveth, I thought you said the magical defences were dealt with.”

“Most, not all,” he replied, voice level despite the condensing mana. “These are not of imperial make. They’re Zuver. The prismite is feeding them with what remains of its strength. That should be burned out soon.”

“Great.” Skye clicked her tongue and faced forward.

“If you think the combined hospitality of our resident cat or house spirit is a bit too frightening,” Rosa said, “you’re more than welcome to call this off. I don’t carry grudges. Our employer does, but shower her with enough respect and nice things and she tends to forget.”

“No, thank you.” Skye shot forward with Briana at her side.

More Zuver runes flared across the ground in their path, spitting narrow lances of fire and compressed force, but Oveth countered line after line, his magic devouring them before they could fully form.

Skye blurred in, appearing in front of Rosa with her crescent blades raised.

“I don’t have any respect to offer her,” she said.

Rosa’s brows lifted — more amused than alarmed. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

Regina saw the tiny hitch in Skye’s movement when Rosa didn’t react like most opponents would with a blade aimed at them. Instead of cutting, Skye let one crescent dissolve mid-motion and flowed around Rosa’s guard in a smooth pivot. She caught the minstrel’s arm, twisted it up behind her back, and pressed the remaining blade to Rosa’s throat, forcing her to face the others.

“Rosa—” Allyssa yelped, raising her crossbow.

The scarred youth—Shin—took a sharp step forward, but Briana was already there, sliding between them and Skye, her sword flaring brilliant azure as she levelled it at him.

Rosa shifted awkwardly in Skye’s grip. A small, breathy laugh escaped her as a thin line of blood welled at her neck. “Whoops.”

“Back off, or she’s gone,” Skye said, voice flat.

“Rosa…” Kat—the one with the claymore—spoke tightly, glaring at the minstrel.

“At least I was right that she wouldn’t try to outright kill me,” Rosa said lightly. “I might’ve just overestimated the part where she’d gamble my throat on it.”

Regina frowned. These people were familiar with them. With Skye. You didn’t expose yourself like that to simply anyone. What exactly was the Baroness’ relationship with Skye? And could they really afford to treat this so lightly?

A thin stretch of silence followed. Even the prismite spirit seemed to recognise the pause as no more magical attacks manifested.

Regina didn’t like it. As the quiet dragged on, she kept channelling, building several spells in parallel.

Skye tightened her hold on Rosa’s arm. “Hand over the Tribute and no one has to be hurt.”

The other side didn’t respond.

“…Are you not going to do anything, Rosa?” Kat finally asked, eyes fixed on Skye’s blade.

Skye’s grip hardened.

Rosa sighed. “I am doing something. I’m being damselled. Can’t you see my distress?”

Kat’s scowl deepened. “Rosa, this is serious. Don’t joke. You know we can’t offer Slate up.”

A heavier sigh slipped from Rosa. “Fine. But just know Scarlett would have made this significantly more interesting. She’d at least have thrown a few cold glares around and told them to hurry up and cut my throat before intervening.”

“I’m serious—” Skye started.

Regina’s eyes widened as Rosa changed.

Power rolled off her in a sudden wave. A discordant chord tore through the garden, like one too many notes forced into the same space, crawling along Regina’s nerves like cold fingers. For an instant, the air seemed to twist around Roasa.

Briana’s head snapped back towards Skye just as Skye disappeared in a sharp shimmer, Severance flaring. She reappeared next to Regina.

At the same time, something inside Rosa broke loose.

A coiling mass of violet and blood-red darkness erupted from her chest, swallowing her silhouette in a roiling shroud.

Briana’s sword came down a heartbeat later, but the strike stopped short — caught on a solid, rippling barrier that condensed from the shroud with a sharp, resonant note. The haze peeled back.

Rosa stood with her klert gripped in both hands, hair drifting unnaturally in air that had turned deathly still. Her eyes were black, filled edge-to-edge, with thin, violet lines flickering somewhere deep within.

Regina stared.

They had fought demons twice together before. They knew the energy those things carried. This was the same.

But Regina had never seen a demon that looked so much like a person. Or one whose presence felt this deep.

Could this be an arch demon? Manifested in the Material Realm?

The idea alone was terrifying.

As was the implication that Baroness Hartford—and possibly the Shields Guild—kept something like this close.

“You do realise you just made things infinitely more complicated for all of us, don’t you?” Kat said, still watching Rosa.

Rosa glanced her way, then smirked. Something else seemed to sit behind the expression now, like a second expression peering out through hers. “Don’t worry. All according to plan.”

“What plan?”

“Don’t know. I’m making it up as we go.” Her eyes glinted. “But I look suitably intimidating now, don’t I?”sl

Briana’s gaze flicked from Rosa to the minstrel’s companions, then to Skye’s group. A pulse of blue aura ran along her blade as she drew it back.

“Oh. Right. Seriousness. Yeah?” Rosa rolled her shoulders once, almost theatrically, and retreated half a step. “I might actually need proper help this time.”

Frost burst across the ground beneath Briana’s feet as crystalline motes spiralled around her. The Oathbound’s aura surged, and she brought her blade down in a brutal cleaving arc aimed straight at Rosa.

A burst of pearly light detonated across Shin’s shield as he lunged forward to interpose himself. The impact rang through the garden like a struck gong. Shin was forced back a pace, boots digging in as he held against Briana’s strike, his breath hitching when her eyes narrowed.

Regina had only been looking, but the clash snapped her back into motion. She released one of her prepared spells. A string of dark motes threaded along her sabre, then shot towards Rosa in a streak of pitch-black starlight.

Rosa turned her head. A violent cluster of deceptively beautiful notes tore from her klert in a single wrenching sound.

The motes spasmed mid-air like insects drowning in oil, then jerked upward before unravelling into harmless wisps.

Regina’s breath caught as the other spells she’d been weaving suddenly crumpled out of alignment, the cores of their formations collapsing. A sharp pain jolted through her.

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For the first time in years, she miscast.

Another chord rippled from Rosa. It was more delicate — and wrong. Too resonant. Too full, as though it pressed against the air from every direction at once.

Regina’s knees nearly buckled. A crushing heaviness settled into her limbs, molten-lead weight dragging down her bones. Her fingers locked around her sabre hilt as her chest constricted. The world narrowed to two points: Rosa’s dark eyes—gleaming like something staring at her from between nightmares—and the klert in her hands, vibrating like a living thing.

Then that crushing weight eased — pushed back by a paler darkness. Oveth’s spell washed over them, dimming the world in a muted pall and severing the pull that had started dragging Regina under.

She blinked hard. She’d almost been taken by Rosa’s magic.

It was frightening.

Regina forced herself upright, falling back on the disciplined casting forms drilled into her since childhood. She reached for another spell—

Only for her mana to shove back again, volatile and unsteady.

Concentrating, she managed to corral it, but she realised she couldn’t sustain more than one cast at a time.

Above, Zuver runes crackled open again, spitting narrow bolts of force and flame.

Skye slid in front of Regina, crescent blades flashing as she cut the projectiles apart in clean arcs. A breath later, she dropped low, eyes looking to Briana.

Briana and Shin were locked together, azure light screaming off Briana’s blade as she drove the scarred youth another step back. But Regina noticed that the Oathbound knight was moving slower than usual.

The ground trembled. Pillars of stone erupted around Oveth, locking him inside a jagged cage.

Regina’s eyes snapped to Kat.

The claymore-wielder was a mage?

A sharp, glassy crack rang beside Regina. Vapour burst outward, swallowing her and Skye in a drifting haze. Her eyelids drooped immediately, a pleasant heaviness tugging at her mind.

A chill knifed through her. Her hand snapped up to a talisman at her collar. As it activated, a pulse of light washed over her and Skye, burning the soporific haze away.

Her gaze locked onto the blonde girl with the crossbow and vials strapped across her chest. She had thrown something.

Regina forced her next spell into shape. Darkness pooled beneath the girl’s feet, then snapped upward, binding her arms and dragging her off balance. The magic bucked, threatening to unravel under Rosa’s lingering distortion, but Regina clamped down with sheer focus and made it hold.

Allyssa hissed, twisting hard, trying to wrench herself free.

Skye blurred forward again, using her weapons to cut across space towards Rosa. The blades glowed, edges catching the light so sharply they seemed to score the air itself.

The earth rippled beneath her. Stone ridges heaved upward in a wave to block her path. Skye vaulted the first, twisted over the second — only for another net of runes to flash overhead.

Skye vanished in a shimmer just as a lattice of flame caught shut like a jaw where she’d been. She appeared next to Regina.

That made the seventh or eighth Severance Anchor already. She could only do it ten times a day.

As the ridges of stone crumbled back into ambient mana, two slim slashes split the air towards Rosa — Skye’s delayed cuts snapping forward like whips. A single chord rang out, darkness thickening over Rosa in a hastily raised shield. Even so, one strike slipped through, etching a thin line across her cheek. A bright bead of red trickled.

Rosa brought her fingers up, touching the blood. Then she cranked the klert in her hands, and the wound sealed instantly.

“Regina,” Skye said, nodding towards Kat across the garden. “Can you handle her?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good.”

Skye bolted forward again.

Regina exhaled and focused on another spell. Layered shadow constructs burst around Kat from every angle, swinging intangibly but forcing the claymore-wielding mage to conjure a ward of writhing flame to keep them at bay.

At the same time, Briana’s aura flared in a surge of blue as she joined Skye in a coordinated push against both Shin and Rosa.

“Mel,” Regina called, maintaining pressure on Kat, “Skye needs your help.”

Mel stood rigid at the rear, eyes locked on the chaotic spiral of combat unfolding. Regina recognised the frozen tension. The woman wasn’t unwilling. She had come of her own free will. But she was trapped in her own hesitation because these were people connected to the Baroness.

Regina needed her to break through it soon.

The stone cage around Oveth suddenly collapsed, dissolving under tendrils of thick smoke that emanated from his staff. But another alchemical flask shattered between him and Regina, blooming into a roiling cloud of noxious vapour that swallowed him at once.

Regina leapt back, coughing as she cleared the edge of the fumes, turning back to the girl with the crossbow.

Allyssa met her stare with one arm still pinned by Regina’s spell and the other already hurling another vial.

It arced through the air.

Regina was forced to counter, cutting her sabre forward. A thin lance of darkness shot from the tip and struck the flask mid-flight. It ruptured in a compressed shockwave that clipped Regina’s shoulder and numbed it briefly, but that was all.

Before she could follow through, Allyssa vanished behind spiralling black wards, cutting her off from the field.

Regina glanced at Oveth staggering free of the fumes, mana crackling unsteadily from his staff as he made the alchemical cloud collapse in on itself.

At the front, Skye and Briana pressed their advantage. Shin fought them with impressive strength and speed, but even so, he was driven back step by step. Skye’s delayed cuts and erratic shifts made her unpredictable, while Briana’s raw force—even weakened—hammered through his guard.

Skye slipped a stalled attack past his shield-line and caught Rosa off-balance, hooking the woman’s instrument by its neck. A sharp, dissonant twang snapped through the garden as one of the strings broke.

Rosa stumbled.

Shin surged in, blade glimmering faintly, but Briana intercepted him. Her strike slammed into his raised shield, frost crackling across it and climbing his vambrace as his boots carved trenches into the dirt.

“Shin!” Kat shouted, claymore blazing as the woman completed a spell. A wall of stone rose in front of Skye and Briana.

Skye’s focus moved to Kat.

Regina saw her intent. She raised her sabre, touching the flat of the blade with two fingers, and drew in a tight breath.

“Kat!” Shin barked. “Left!”

Skye had already shifted, angling towards the mage.

Kat reacted—weapon glowing and runes forming in Skye’s path—but Regina was ready. She dragged a partial cast through the distortion. Umbral Dissident completed in a flicker of shadow that dimmed the space around Kat’s head just enough to muddy her focus and stall the spell until Skye reached her.

Skye kicked her flank, sending her reeling.

Briana tore through the remnants of the stone wall in a burst of azure light and collided with Shin as he tried to recover, while Regina began shaping her next cast.

The Baroness’ party was giving ground. Regina could feel it. Even without Mel, they might—

The world tore open.

A rent of fire split the air before the gazebo, revealing a sky of grey ash and endless flame. Oppressive heat and pressure rolled across the garden.

Regina’s blood went cold.

Skye froze mid-step.

Briana’s head whipped towards the rift.

A figure stepped through — and for a fraction of a second, relief loosened Regina’s lungs when it wasn’t the one she feared.

It was a white-haired young man, bloodied and beaten, with something feral about him.

Regina paused, attention sharpening as she recognised the threat he posed, even if he wasn’t the Baroness. Sir Leon had made mention of this person as well.

A pair of predatory yellow eyes swept the garden, taking in every fighter as the rift flickered shut behind him.

“What happened to you, Fynn?” Rosa asked, almost conversational. “Don’t tell me you fought a dragon?”

His gaze lingered on her. “…No. But he was strong.”

“Yeah? Sounds rough. Not that we’ve got it much easier. These folk are surprisingly hardy. If you lend a hand, I might consider patching those wounds of yours.”

Fynn’s eyes slid towards the gazebo, stopping briefly on the robed, motionless figure sitting there. Then he turned sharply to Skye.

More discordant notes rippled through the space.

Cutting wind spiralled outward. Ethereal claws extended from his hands. A sharp crack rang out as he moved faster than Regina could follow.

Silver spears erupted between him and Skye, halting his strike a hair’s breadth from her face.

His head snapped towards the source.

A silver trail etched across the garden’s floor, leading to Mel.

She stood with both arms outstretched, trembling, eyes wide.

“Don’t…you can’t hurt her…”

He watched her.

Lightning crackled from a pair of bronze bracelets at his wrists. Skye blinked away an instant before a bolt struck where she was, appearing a step behind Briana this time.

Wind tore through the garden, whipping Regina’s hair across her face. She braced so as not to fall over.

Briana pivoted and blocked Fynn’s next attack, skidding several metres under the force.

Then his focus locked fully onto Mel.

She flinched, but didn’t retreat. Argent light spilled from beneath her robes, pooling out in a rippling tide. To Regina’s surprise, she felt Rosa’s oppressive distortion ease the moment the light touched her feet.

Silver forms—shards, strands, spears—bloomed from the ground around every member of the Baroness’ party.

A moment of stillness settled over the garden.

Then the pressure radiating from Rosa spiked, sharp enough to steal Regina’s breath. Horror clenched in her chest as she realised the woman had been holding back.

A unique, jarring sequence tore from the klert — wrong yet perfect at once. The power crept into Regina’s mind like a metal hook, dragging at her thoughts. Mel’s argent tide quivered, fraying at the edges. Regina’s mana snapped loose again. Even Oveth staggered suddenly, while the Baroness’ people pushed through the silver constructs.

Fynn blurred across the battlefield towards Mel. She stumbled back, silver erupting in a frantic lattice to support her and stop him at the same time. Blood carved along Fynn’s arm, then sealed almost instantly in rhythm to the music.

Regina pressed a hand to her temple. A stabbing headache split her skull as she fought to claw back a fraction of control over her mana.

She looked up, and panic cut through her.

Allyssa, Shin, and Kat were all shifting their focus to Skye and Briana.

“Oveth!” Regina shouted. “Can you get us out?”

He was doubled over, leaning heavily on his staff.

It was affecting him this much?

“I can,” he rasped. “One of us.”

Regina didn’t hesitate. “Skye! The Tribute!”

Briana moved at once to cover Skye, taking one of Kat’s spellbursts on her shoulder and deflecting Shin’s blade in a clash of steel and light. Skye glanced at Regina, then at the unmoving figure beneath the gazebo.

Her form flickered, turning muted and harder to track.

She slipped past Shin in a burst of speed as if Rosa’s music no longer affected her, severing the air in a diagonal arc that forced him to move aside. A wall of stone rose, but she cut cleanly through both rock and the mana binding it, twisting mid-step to avoid a crossbow bolt at her flank before crossing the last stretch to the gazebo.

Oveth’s staff flared with shadow one last time. A half-transparent shroud swept forward like a rippling veil, wrapping around Skye and the Tribute the instant it reached her. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Skye activated her Severance Anchor.

She vanished, reappearing behind Briana with the Tribute in her arms.

The Baroness’ party reacted instantly. Shin lunged, Kat’s claymore ignited. Allyssa hurled two vials at once.

Skye tightened her grip and slipped through the attacks with precise footwork while Briana crashed into the line to buy her space. Regina fought through the pain and managed to cast a single spell, shadows lashing out to disrupt Allyssa’s aim.

Fynn turned from Mel, preparing to intercept — but Mel’s argent tide surged upward, barring his path in a patchwork of silver spears that drove him back a full step.

Skye’s form was starting to solidify by the time she approached Oveth. His hands shook as he tore a dark crystal from his robes and shattered it. Mana swirled, coalescing into a thin, glasslike sheet that split open into a trembling aperture of black.

At least Skye could escape with the Tribute.

Regina hated what that meant for the rest of them, but Skye was the priority. If Skye survived, their side still had leverage. It was a victory she could cling to.

Skye stepped towards the aperture.

A cold voice cut across the garden.

“That is enough.”

Regina stiffened.

The words slid through her thoughts like an ice-forged blade, shattering her concentration. Her half-formed spell died. Oveth’s aperture buckled, twisting violently — then blue-white flames swallowed it whole, devouring the mana to its last threads. Oveth staggered under the backlash.

Regina’s heart hammered.

She turned towards the gazebo.

Scarlett Hartford stepped out of a fading rift of crimson fire, her gaze fixed on Skye with quiet, absolute finality.

“Bold of you to trespass in my domain,” she said. “Tell me — do you know what happened to the last ones who tried?”