After exiting the dungeon, the team traveled directly to the next town. The soldiers left behind had received orders to stay a week to help stabilize conditions where they had separated, then meet them at the next destination if it was safe to do so. The new town was a fairly bustling place, its people busy with the tasks of life despite the increase in monster attacks. 

There was a pest extermination company here, and the town had a disproportionate number of armed and muscular people who stood about looking dangerous when they weren’t out killing monsters. Still, thanks to these mercenaries, this town had a relatively stable supply of food.

“They seem to be doing well,” Jiyon said quietly as he looked around.

“Do you have holes for eyes?” Tanner scoffed.

The citizens, ordinary people who weren’t hulking and scary looking, scurried about with a hunted look on their faces, their shoulders hunched, eyes lowered, darting furtively along their errands. The market stalls were busy and full of goods, but the hawkers advertising their wares held a certain edge in their voices.

“What’s wrong?” Jiyon asked earnestly, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

[He really is an idiot.] Mina scrubbed her face with a hand in exasperation. “Look closer. Everyone is terrified, and not of the monsters.”

Jiyon turned fresh eyes on the crowd, trying to see what the others had already spotted. A vegetable seller flinched when a woman in leather armor helped herself to a head of cabbage, unable to protest even when she walked away without paying. Farther down the lane, a boy tripped and stumbled into a man wearing a sword, who drew the weapon and threatened the child until the boy fled in tears. The man laughed, an ugly sound, as he watched the terrified kid run away.

Fury swept through Mina, so strongly that even Grandma could feel it. The girl began to gather mana from her surroundings, preparing to do Grandma knew not what.

[Be subtle about it,] Grandma advised. A sudden slip and fall, a twisted ankle. Or a more direct approach, carefully dislocating a few joints here and there in his body. Grandma didn’t care what Mina did, just as long as no one made the connection between the man’s sudden misfortune and the young woman with the soft blue hair glaring hatred at him.

[He’ll never do that again,] Mina said after a brief pause.

Grandma had felt the pulse of magic, but she didn’t have refined enough senses to pinpoint what exactly the girl had done. 

The man walked away like nothing happened, but he didn’t get far. He managed a few steps before he staggered, listing to one side and flailing as his legs collapsed unevenly beneath him. One arm flew up to try and catch himself, but the other lagged behind, devoid of strength. “What the–” he started to say. The rest of his cursing devolved into words slurred so badly they couldn’t make sense of it.

The townsfolk hesitated, glancing at each other, then at the fallen man flopping on the ground. None of them moved to help him. Mina stepped forward, a false smile on her lips and winter fury in her eyes. “Oh my, you seem to be in some distress,” she said, leaning over him.

The man reached for her, eyes wild, breathing shallow and erratic. He grunted and gurgled, incomprehensible noises that he forced out between clenched teeth.

“Do you need some help?” Mina asked, crouching down and holding his hand.

“Yuhhhh,” he groaned, spittle dribbling from his mouth.

“It’ll cost you,” the girl whispered sweetly, rubbing her fingers together in a universal gesture for money.

The man grunted with increasing urgency, scrabbling for her with weakening arms to try and urge her to action.

Mina put on a good show. Her hands glowed as she moved them up and down over the man’s body. Underneath the light spell, another fizzle of magic sparked briefly and faded just as quickly. Suddenly, the man went limp.

“From what I could tell, you would have died if I hadn’t intervened.” Mina leaned back and smiled down benevolently. “Now then, how much do you think your life is worth?”

The man snarled and lunged for Mina, pinning her to the ground with a forearm across her throat. “You little brat.” He swore at her, spittle flying from his lips as his jowls quivered with fury. “How dare you try to extort me! You’d all be dead if it weren’t for us.”

“Hands off.” Grandma had drawn her sword and laid its blade very gently across the man’s carotid artery. “Or die.”

The man froze. So he had some sense, at least. “You must be new in town,” he sneered. “You’ll learn soon enough, you can’t live without us.” Slowly, he backed away from Mina, who lay unresisting on the ground, and pushed unsteadily to his feet. As he put distance between himself and the sword, the man chanced a glance back. “You’ll pay for this, granny,” he spat before hobbling away.

“You may test that assumption at your convenience,” Grandma growled. Secretly, she felt inordinately pleased that she had asked Fariel to recite the line for her, even coaching him on his delivery, and had been hoping for an opportunity to use it on someone for ages.

[Aww,] Mina pouted in Grandma’s mind. [A little more and I would have had a perfectly good excuse to end him forever.] The girl rose to her feet and dusted herself off with an air of nonchalance.

[There’s no need to dirty your hands with his filthy blood, my dear.] Grandma wrapped an arm protectively around the girl. [Let me handle that for you next time.] She leaned away to examine the girl in her arms. [So did you give him a heart attack or a stroke?]

[Why not both?] she beamed, lifting her hands and shrugging, the very picture of innocence.

Fariel sidled up to the pair. “What did you do to him?” he asked Mina with a faint air of disapproval.

“Do you really want to know?” Mina asked with a smirk.

The scholar sighed and pulled out his notebook and pencil, flipped it open to a blank page, and waited expectantly.

“I pinched several key blood vessels shut in his body. The rest he did all on his own.” The girl’s voice was steady as the earth, and cold as a glacier.

“Remind me never to anger you,” Fariel murmured as he jotted down Mina’s words.”

The entire debacle took only a minute. Donovan, busy directing his troops, hadn’t even realized that something had happened. Jiyon, who had only been able to watch, frozen in confusion, stood sulking. Grandma was willing to bet that he was upset that he hadn’t been the one to hold a sword to the man’s neck. Not that Mina needed either of them to do that, really.

The opportunity to test the assumption, as it were, arrived sooner rather than later. The town, situated squarely between two overflowing dungeons, came under attack the very next day from the opposite direction of Gray’s realm. Tanner and Grandma’s animals alerted them to the impending attack, but instead of taking care of it out of sight, the two instructed them to simply get out of the way and let the people deal with it. Soldiers and mercenaries alike gathered at the town walls, watching the horde of monsters bearing down on them.

[How very Biblical,] Grandma murmured.

[What’s that?] Mina asked.

[Mm? Oh, it’s a book from my world.] Grandma shrugged. [It also had stories about frogs plaguing the people.]

The mercenaries hooted and hollered to work themselves up, then leaped into the fray as the giant amphibians plopped into range. Grandma spotted the dumpster fire of a man from yesterday. She was distantly impressed that he had found it in himself to actually fight, given his condition. Or perhaps it was only his pride that had dragged him here.

The soldiers joined the battle as well. Mina, Tanner, and Grandma held back, not wanting to hurt their allies with high intensity casting. The fight was frenetic and disjointed. The frogs lashed their tongues out at the people, trying to eat them, or leaped and kicked to stun and disable them. The mercenaries brawled while the soldiers worked in small, coordinated teams. Now and again, Mina or Tanner would slip in a bit of magic, a knife of ice or a lick of flame. Grandma felt sorry for the frogs. She quite liked amphibians, and would have preferred not to kill them, but the people here didn’t deserve to die either. Mostly. And frog legs were delicious.

After the battle, Grandma directed a few soldiers to harvest the meat from the carcasses. Fariel confirmed that indeed, the frog legs were edible, and warned them that the skin seemed to carry some toxins, and that they should be careful. 

“Now we’re even,” someone spat behind them.

Grandma turned to look. It was the dumpster fire man. Of course.

“How so? I don’t recall my life being in danger here.” Mina smiled, all teeth and no warmth.

“If you’re so great, why don’t you just take care of the problem at its source?” Tanner scoffed. “I bet you’re just too scared to actually go look for where these monsters are coming from.”

“Ooh, or maybe you’re milking the people for protection money, so you don’t actually want to take care of the monster problem?”

“Why not both,” Grandma rasped, raising her hands in a shrug in echo of Mina’s words the day before.

Before the man could respond, Mina called out in a loud, clear voice, “We’re going to set out to find and terminate the source of the monsters. All mercenaries who join the expedition will receive bonus pay!”