Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess-Chapter 398 - Shadows

“Allegiance?” Nol’viz whispered, tasting the word as though it were foreign. “We do not have allegiance.”

“You are of the Hallowed Cabal,” Slate said.

“Yes.”

“Allegiance,” Slate continued, voice flat. “Loyalty or commitment to a group or cause. Your affiliation with the Hallowed Cabal is an allegiance.”

“…We understand.” Nol’viz lowered her masked face slightly. “Then we will not change allegiance.”

“Why not?” Slate asked.

“The Cabal helps us survive,” Nol’viz answered.

Slate studied her in silence for several long seconds. “I understand.” She turned to Scarlett. “She will not change allegiance.”

“…I gathered,” Scarlett replied.

Of all things, she hadn’t expected Slate to take initiative and start questioning Nol’viz directly like that — especially not about allegiance, of all topics. She’d thought it would take weeks, months even, before the girl developed that level of independent judgement.

Her gaze slid back to Nol’viz, thoughts circling. Maybe this was simply the difference between reality and the game. Maybe it was because Fate was no longer directing events, and there was no set script to follow. Or maybe it was Nol’viz’s influence, somehow drawing something new out of the homunculus, like a catalyst. The strange kinship between the two wasn’t something Scarlett had expected, or entirely understood. But it was…interesting.

“Slate,” she said, not looking away from Nol’viz. “Consider this an exercise in reasoning. Why do you say she will not change allegiance? You should present your conclusions properly, rather than merely repeating her words.”

Slate’s eyes remained on her. For the homunculus, it was about as close as she came to a curious look — just a brief, unblinking glimmer in those unnerving green irises. “This was explained. The Cabal helps her survive.”

“And what does that mean?”

Scarlett had an idea, of course. She knew Nol’viz from the game, at least in part. But there might be details she was missing.

“Without the Cabal, they would not survive,” Slate said.

Scarlett gave her a pointed look. “…Expand on that. Why not? Are there no alternatives? What exactly does that entail? Those are the questions inherent in mine.”

Slate regarded her for a long moment, head tilted as if she were processing. Then she gave a small nod, her short silver hair shifting faintly against the pale skin of her temple. “The subtext of your question. The implied expectation. The assumption that details are required, not merely surface truth. I understand.”

Scarlett raised a brow. “…Good. Then proceed.”

Slate turned back towards Nol’viz. “Why will you perish without the Cabal?” she asked, tone perfectly even.

All three of Nol’viz’s eyes blinked at once.

“Nol’viz are perishing,” Slate said before the other answered. “They cannot exist within the Material Realm. The Hallowed Cabal seeks to destroy and remake the realms. That would allow Nol’viz to exist. Thus, Nol’viz is allegiant to the Cabal.”

“We are,” Nol’viz whispered.

Slate tilted her head again. “Alternatives are to cease existing, or to forge a new realm with separate laws. The first is not survival. The second is impossible without the Cabal. Therefore, Nol’viz must work with them. I understand.”

Nol’viz inclined her masked face in a small nod. “You understand.”

Slate looked back at Scarlett. “You expressed curiosity regarding Ayrlazkreh, Guardian of the Molten Peaks, and its interest in Nol’viz. It is likely Ayrlazkreh is fascinated by Nol’viz’s existence, and wishes to study or recreate it.”

“…And what makes you think that?” Scarlett asked.

“Ayrlazkreh fears death. Ayrlazkreh seeks power. Nol’viz is beyond death. Nothing in the realms holds greater power than Nol’viz. Standard deduction suggests a correlation.”

Scarlett frowned. “Did you not just claim Nol’viz is dying?”

“They are perishing.”

She glanced at the masked girl. “But she…they cannot die?”

She was aware that this small body wasn’t Nol’viz’s true form. It was more of a vessel or a shell. If she remembered correctly, Nol’viz didn’t even have a singular form, but rather existed as a sort of collection: an amalgam of wills bound together. A hive-mind of sorts, evident enough from her speech. That Nol’viz might be ‘beyond death’ was one thing, but Slate’s assertion that nothing in the realms rivalled her power sounded far-fetched.

“The laws of this world resist Nol’viz,” Slate said. “A conglomeration of unbound wills cannot exist. It is contrary to the world’s laws. Fate’s intervention allowed it regardless, but Nol’viz are continually suppressed. They cannot die, but their wills can perish.”

Scarlett’s brows rose slightly. That didn’t sound entirely unlike how the Anomalous One’s power was constrained by the world.

“Do you know what Nol’viz’s original form was?” Scarlett asked, turning to Slate again. “Does it still exist somewhere?”

“Yes.” Slate’s eyes focused on her, strange and unwavering. “You do not see them?”

Scarlett hesitated, then looked back to Nol’viz. “…No. I do not. Can you?”

Was this form not just a vessel after all? Maybe she’d misunderstood, and what she was seeing was instead a weakened manifestation of the true Nol’viz?

When she looked back to Slate, the girl seemed to be watching her as though she were trying to see through something deeper than her words. Finally, Slate’s gaze shifted towards Fynn. “Fyntrarth Grehaldrael. Do you see them?”

Fynn cracked his eyes open, giving Slate a dry, questioning look before turning his attention to Nol’viz. He observed the girl for a long beat, jaw tight. “…I don’t.”

Slate blinked once. Then she turned back to Nol’viz, her head tilting once more in that unnaturally deliberate way of hers. “They do not see you. I do not understand.”

Nol’viz mirrored the gesture, her mask angling in the opposite direction. For the briefest moment, the whisper of her voice carried what might have been amusement, though twisted as it was, it came across as far more unsettling. “We are one now. They do not recognise what we were as us. You are the first who has.”

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Seconds passed as Slate appeared to absorb that without comment. Eventually, she nodded slowly. “I understand.” Her gaze shifted back to Scarlett. “You see them, but you do not know. Your understanding is incomplete. I have overestimated.”

Her pale arm emerged from the folds of her robe, hand ghostlike in the light. She raised a single, thin finger and pointed to Scarlett’s feet. “They are there.”

Scarlett frowned and followed the gesture. She saw nothing but the stone floor, her shoes, and the shadow cast by the light from the cell—

Her eyes widened.

Her gaze dropped fully to her shadow. Then it snapped back up to Slate, lingering on her for a heartbeat before shifting to Nol’viz and those three lavender eyes watching her without blinking. “…Are you saying that…’they’ are the shadows? All shadows?”

“Yes,” Slate said. “Shadows do not exist. They do not possess wills or presences. These are antithetical to their nature. Therefore, Nol’viz’s existences are unnatural, suppressed so that shadows remain shadows.”

Scarlett had no words. She simply stared at Nol’viz.

She’d known the girl’s powers were tied to shadow, and that her true form was meant to be something greater — but this was something else entirely. To claim she was every shadow…

It was no wonder she couldn’t die. Maybe it wasn’t an exaggeration to call her one of the most powerful beings in existence if that were the case. Scarlett couldn’t even begin to imagine what such a thing truly was. The sense of scale felt closer to something like Fate.

At what point had an entity like that actually been around without being suppressed? She found herself almost grateful that this world refused to allow it. The vessel before her was far less terrifying by comparison.

Folding her arms, she pushed her unease aside for the moment, one hand rising to her chin as she studied the masked girl, attempting to reconcile this new information with what she already knew. “You have not existed in your current form for long, no?”

Nol’viz shook her head. “We were not one before. We were all. But all were not permitted. We were diminishing. Slumbering.”

“Then The Angler Man helped you form as one,” Scarlett said.

That much, at least, she knew. The Cabal had supposedly performed a ritual of sorts to ‘forge’ Nol’viz into a single vessel — a rebirth of sorts. What had once been many was forced into one. Scarlett couldn’t claim to understand the process or magic involved, but when it came to esoteric, arcane procedures, few rivalled the Hallowed Cabal’s leader.

“When were you originally born?” she asked. “When did your existences first begin?”

If a being like this wasn’t even permitted by the world, it seemed unlikely she had arisen naturally.

“We do not know,” Nol’viz said. “We remember little of the time before.”

Scarlett turned to Slate. “And you? Do you know?”

Slate met her gaze. “Nol’viz were created through the intervention of Fate, by the Third Divinarch.”

“The Third Divinarch?” Scarlett trailed off, a name flashing to the title in her mind. “Meneth…?”

That was the Zuver divinarch Arlene might have known. The same figure Scarlett herself had glimpsed as a Memory in the Hall of Echoes. The one who should have died long ago, yet might still be roaming the world.

She narrowed her eyes at Slate. “Do you know where Meneth is?”

The homunculus’s expression didn’t shift. “No.”

Scarlett exhaled sharply. Of course. That would have been too much to hope for. She turned back to Nol’viz, pondering the still figure in silence. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

“…I wonder what to do with you,” she murmured.

It wasn’t as though she had a solution. She didn’t know how to prevent the world itself from suppressing Nol’viz. The only thought that came to mind was using Slate to rewrite the laws of reality, but not only would that no doubt require immense power, and if Slate herself didn’t consider it an option, Scarlett wasn’t about to pretend she knew better. And creating an entirely new realm for Nol’viz to exist in? That was even further beyond her reach. Something like that demanded the Anomalous One’s power, and it would be inherently destructive to what already existed.

Maybe there was a way to achieve it without tearing the world apart. But if there was, she didn’t know it. It was a dangerous promise to even contemplate.

“If Nol’viz are an enemy,” Slate said, as though in response to Scarlett’s thoughts, “would the optimal solution not be to eliminate them?”

Scarlett looked at her. “…Did you not just state they cannot die?”

Slate returned the look without expression. “If their current vessel is destroyed, they will soon perish under the world’s laws. Nol’viz will remain, but the wills will be gone.”

“And you would wish for that?”

“I do not have a wish.”

“But you are intrigued by Nol’viz.”

“I am.”

“Then would you prefer they perish?”

Slate’s gaze lingered on Scarlett before shifting back to Nol’viz. The Cabal girl’s eyes locked onto the homunculus. Slate’s brow furrowed, a faint crease marring her otherwise still face. “I would not.”

“…Then I will consider what other options we have,” Scarlett said.

Keeping Nol’viz confined forever wasn’t ideal. If she remained hostile, the most efficient solution would be to eliminate her. Scarlett doubted destroying her current vessel would suddenly grant her dominion over every shadow in the world—she assumed the suppression prevented exactly that—so it was likely the safest route. Simple, too.

And yet…if Nol’viz’s presence acted as a catalyst for Slate’s growth, that alone was reason enough to hesitate.

Scarlett also had to admit she was reluctant in general. There’d always been something about Nol’viz that drew her attention. A certain sentiment that coloured their interactions, even as enemies.

“We prefer to continue as we are,” Nol’viz said at last, turning her mask towards Scarlett.

Scarlett raised a brow. “Then you would be willing to accept concessions in exchange for your survival.”

She recognised that they had revealed their hand by admitting their reluctance so openly, but with the way Nol’viz’s mind seemed to work, Scarlett doubted it mattered.

“Concessions…” For the first time, Nol’viz’s whispers genuinely sounded as quiet as an actual whisper. “What concessions?”

“I do not know. It is something I must consider more carefully.”

She doubted it would ever be wise to release her, at the very least. Not if Nol’viz refused to abandon the Cabal. But there might be other possibilities. The girl’s powers were undeniably useful. And Scarlett now had access to both Zuverian knowledge and Thainnith’s Array Forge.

Besides, hadn’t Yamina demonstrated a strong understanding of Nol’viz’s abilities when transporting them from Beld Thylelion to the Forgotten Tower? Perhaps the wizard could help in some way.

Nol’viz observed her in silence for some time, perfectly still. The crimson folds of her robe didn’t stir, and her mask revealed nothing. If it weren’t for those eyes and the prickle that ran across Scarlett’s skin under their gaze, she could just as well have been a statue.

Scarlett’s attention drifted to Slate. The homunculus was slightly better when it came to expressions, but she was almost equally motionless.

…No, really. Why did Scarlett always find herself surrounded by these people?

“We wish to speak with the Tribute,” Nol’viz suddenly said, drawing Scarlett’s focus back to her.

The request caught her slightly off guard. “Now, or at some point in the future?”

The mask tilted ever so slightly. “In the future.”

It was phrased almost like a question, but Scarlett sensed it was her answer.

“I am assuming that is your requirement for cooperating.”

“Yes,” Nol’viz said.

Scarlett turned to Slate. “Is that acceptable to you?”

Slate regarded Nol’viz for several seconds. “Yes.”

“…Very well. We will see what can be arranged.”

Scarlett would need to be somewhat careful with what she let the homunculus be exposed to, but this much could be a good thing.

“Before I forget,” she added, her gaze returning to Nol’viz, “there is one matter that could use clarification. You refer to yourself as both one and many. Slate does the latter. I am aware the Cabal refers to you as female. As a girl. Is there a reason for that, aside from appearance?”

Up until now, she’d simply followed the convention she remembered from the game. But maybe it was odd to apply those terms to an entity like this.

The three lavender eyes blinked, though curiously, not in unison this time. One closed, then the next, the last lingering shut just a fraction longer than the others. Scarlett wondered if that held any significance.

“Are we not a girl?” Nol’viz asked.

Scarlett paused. “…What do you believe?”

The oversized pupils contracted. “That is what Vail called us. When we were formed, she was disappointed we were no longer all. We were a ‘little girl’.”

“I see…”

That…sounded very plausible. Vail had probably been anticipating the chance to fight the complete Nol’viz. That confirmed that it wasn’t exactly a self-chosen identity, but a label thrust upon Nol’viz at rebirth. Still, Nol’viz didn’t seem to reject it. Scarlett had her doubts about whether they understood the implied meanings and expectations that came with being ‘personhood’, but she wouldn’t press further.

She extended awareness through the Loci, brushing across the mansion to check on the others. Seeing that Rosa was still sleeping, she judged they still had time. But soon she’d have to gather them all.

Her eyes returned to Nol’viz’s mask. “In that case,” she said, “I have more questions.”