The Defiler

It was nearing the end of an exhausting day when Sherry was finally led to a room, which she was told would serve as her personal quarters. A small sense of relief washed over her as she crossed the threshold, welcomed by the much needed solitude.

Sherry softly shut the door softly behind her. Her ears buzzed with the sudden quiet, a stark contrast to the cacophonous sounds that accompanied the bustling day. It was a reward of sorts, a token of success for navigating her first day undercover in this unfamiliar territory. Yet, it was a sobering reminder of her situation, isolated in the heart of enemy territory, away from everything she knew.

The room was quite comparable to her old dorm in Laugus; in fact, this room was a smidge larger. Considering that Sherry's scholarship afforded her the largest dorm just short of a royal suite, Sherry mused at the contrast; Shadow Garden's generosity with real estate was clearly a strategy to foster loyalty, a tactic made possible by Shadow Garden's underpopulation relative to Alexandria's former glory.

The space itself was adorned with some decent furniture – a bed, a wooden desk, a lamp, a full-body mirror, and a modest closet, all cast in the soft, waning light that seeped through the curtained window. The room echoed with a sense of austere potential, akin to her first day at the academy, albeit with the conspicuous absence of her personal belongings. With a smirk, she traced her fingers around her hidden lizard necklace, a small defiance against Lambda's mandate of renunciation.

Leaving her Alexandrian sword and sheath on the desk, Sherry collapsed onto the bed, a sigh escaping her lips as she stared at the ceiling. Memories of the day, with its training sessions, new faces, perpetual embarrassments, and the constant need for vigilance, whirled around in her mind. Now, in the solitude of her room, the adrenaline-fueled alertness was fading, slowly replaced by creeping exhaustion. Deactivating Chameleon, she let her elongated nose return to its natural form.

"Ahh... I can finally breathe," Sherry murmured to herself, before letting out a groan of frustration. "Argh! But there so much I need to do still!" She kicked her legs and let out a groan of frustration, a small tantrum born of sheer tiredness.

Shaking off the negativity, she took a deep breath and sprung back into a sitting position. There were tasks she had intended to handle since her arrival, and with this moment of privacy, she could finally tackle them.

Despite her initial fears of having to share a room, Sherry spent what chance she could scouting for a secluded spot, almost resigning herself to operate solely from the bathroom, but since Shadow Garden graciously offered her her own quarters, Sherry wouldn't dare decline using their gift against them.

Rising, she ensured the door was locked and the curtains drawn, ready for her nightly tasks. Then she began pulling on her earlobe, stretching it until it became the size of a loaf of bread. With her left hand, Sherry slowly reached into her own head.

This was not an exaggeration or a metaphor. Sherry's crystal earring was actually a subspace storage artifact called Void Tear. Once magic is applied through her earlobe, Sherry had to stretch out the earring's opening allowing her to shove her hand inside to access its inventory.

To the outside perspective, it gave the uncomfortable optical illusion that Sherry is reaching elbow-deep inside her own head. Similarly, it took Sherry a while to overcome the proprioceptive illusion that comes from using it. Sherry spent nights of practicing anatomically impossible poses debating with her instincts to assert that she had not, in fact, just pushed her brain out of her own skull.

While the Void Tear may appear as an inconspicuous piece of jewelry when idle, the act of rummaging around within her own head was hardly something she could do covertly in public in any case.

Without further ado, Sherry pulled out a number of items she needed for tonight's work. This included:

> A miniature alchemy set

Sherry brought this along because why would she leave home without it? The kit held a medley of ingredients she had deemed potentially useful for her mission and was also the toolset she used to prepare antacids for the bandits.

The compact kit, no larger than a shoebox, contained an assortment of vials, each filled with meticulously categorized and labeled ingredients. Powders, liquids, and small gemstones of different colors were all at her disposal.

Housed within the kit was also an array of miniature tools — a pestle and mortar for grinding, tweezers for handling delicate materials, a tuning fork for precise magical resonance, and a small but potent burner that utilized her own magic as fuel. Additionally, a stack of high-quality parchment and a few sticks of chalk for drawing magic circles were neatly arranged in a corner. Sherry set the set aside for now.

> Invisibility cloak

A seemingly ordinary cloak, but once suffused with magic, it rendered the wearer invisible. Ironically, it didn't allow the user to see from beneath it, necessitating the exposure of the wearer's eyes to avoid stumbling around blindly.

Its unremarkable appearance when inactive had led Sherry to consider wearing it at the start of her mission, but she wisely chose otherwise. Had she done so, it would've already been shredded to pieces by Shadow Garden's apparent hatred for non-slime clothes.

Holding the smooth fabric of the invisibility cloak, Sherry decided to verify its functionality for tonight. The cloak absorbed her magic, the fabric rippling with a sheen of distortion as it refracted the light around it. Sherry glanced at the mirror, seeing her whole body disappear under the cloak's illusion save for a pair of floating eyes. She could feel the energy being drawn from her, a steady trickle of mana.

Sherry turned off the lamp – a fancy magic one given that it used a switch. Regardless, Sherry's room was plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the moonlight filtering through the curtains. The magic drain of the cloak significantly lessened, as was anticipated. The cloak's magic consumption correlated directly with the intensity of light it was exposed to. This made it ideal for night escapades, but not much else, unless one had an absurd level of magic.

Satisfied with the cloak's functionality, she promptly deactivated it, the fabric reappearing to the naked eye. Having confirmed the cloak's readiness, she resumed her inspection of her inventory.

> A small pouch of red pills

These small capsules were a horrifying testament to the lengths Shadow Garden would go to achieve their goals. These capsules were remnants of a past Shadow Garden assault. They were a form of drug designed to bolster the physical prowess of a user, albeit at the heavy price of significant cognitive debilitation. It was a chilling testament to the ruthless lengths Shadow Garden would go to craft and control their potent soldiers.

Sherry was still trying to figure out how these pills fit in with Shadow Garden's training regimen, and honestly, she expected to have been issued a variant of these pills by now. These pills were perhaps the most mysterious thing about Shadow Garden, and Sherry had formulated several wild theories about their genesis, some even relying on the existence of fairy tales.

Regardless of their source, Sherry developed a method to purify the capsules, mitigating their harmful effects while maintaining a modicum of their enhancing properties. Her method was overzealous: she used an assortment of reagents and several rounds of distillation and filtration. This drastically reduced their potency but secured their safe consumption.

Moreover, Sherry managed to coat the purified substance into a slow-dissolving compound, transforming the short-lived, potent boost into a mild, enduring enhancement. The result was a pill that could last all day, albeit at a fraction of the original's strength.

Sherry still didn't like the idea of taking Shadow Garden's drugs, but remembering how powerful her peers at the training grounds were, she knew she couldn't get hung up on this. As long as they start handing her pills, she can purify them with her alchemy set. As she improved her alchemy, she could refine the process to be more efficient, and hopefully, her strength will end up matching her instructors' expectations.

> Scraps of food

Even after succumbing to the temptation of the heavenly cheesecake at lunch, Sherry's suspicious nature hadn't fully eased off the food. As a safety measure, she ensured she carried out a thorough analysis of the leftovers, despite feeling completely lucid. An assurance was always better than a simple guess.

"Negative, negative, negative... at least against known substances," Sherry muttered to herself. The food was clean as far as she could verify. Sherry licked her lips. "I guess I can eat the food without guilt. I mean, worry."

Sherry was relieved. Her backup would've been to use her alchemy set to clean the food at night, which in turn would've robbed it of its delectable taste and freshness. On top of that, Sherry personally found it awkward to gather food scraps, or let alone do anything, discreetly, as she reluctantly admits her spatial awareness may be a bit below average. Thankfully, she avoided detection today, but all that spinning in place to check for observant eyes was exhausting for Sherry.

A random memory from the day suddenly tickled Sherry's mind.

"Why did that therianthrope ask if I was a raccoon?" Sherry reflected. The obvious answer was no, of course. She was human, and so Sherry answered as such. She was too busy trying to secretly get the food off of the plates to think much of it, but thinking back, that question was strange, wasn't it?

Sherry shrugged. It was probably nothing. Sherry discarded the food scraps and set her sights on the next item in her inventory.

> The Eye of Avarice and its Control Unit

Sherry had retrieved the Eye of Avarice and its control unit from the chilling embrace of her father's lifeless body. Her comprehension of how her father had come to possess the Eye was foggy at best, yet she surmised that he must have been trying to obstruct the plans of Shadow Garden.

During the assault, Shadow Garden wielded the Eye of Avarice to siphon and immobilize everyone's magic, all while trying to steal the control unit that Sherry had been examining. In retaliation, Sherry used the control unit to disable the Eye, effectively restoring magic to the students, enabling them to resist. Amid the ensuing chaos, her father, Lutheran, miraculously managed to seize the Eye and safeguard the control unit from falling into enemy hands.

Despite Sherry's desperate efforts to save her father, she was forced to witness his demise at Shadow's hands. Shadow merely deserted her with the cryptic phrase, "You're better off not knowing," leaving behind the charred remnants of her father. The only reason Sherry presumed she was left with the Eye of Avarice was because it was damaged during their confrontation.

Was it necessary for him to murder her father? Absolutely not! The cruelty of killing her father for something Shadow didn't even bother taking anyway infuriated Sherry to no end. He merely left behind a shattered Eye and a heartbroken Sherry, and Sherry vowed to make him regret such an act.

Since then, Sherry resolved to complete her mother's research. The Eye of Avarice in her possession now is a testament to a year of diligence. She has not only managed to restore it but has also gained a more profound understanding of it. This was to be the backbone of her scheme to annihilate Shadow Garden's base.

Sherry planned to siphon the magic from the members of Shadow Garden and use it against them. The only magic Sherry would feel justified in stealing was from Shadow Garden, and this notion of poetic justice was vital to her. Additionally, the control unit could adjust the absorption rate of the Eye. Sherry just had to make it slow enough to go unnoticed by Shadow Garden members and install it somewhere frequented by members.

With the control unit, Sherry could remotely manipulate the Eye. Through her research, she had significantly extended its range, so all that remained was to strategically install the Eye somewhere frequently visited by Shadow Garden members.

–––

Preparations complete, Sherry's final task was to discreetly install the Eye of Avarice. Looking out the window, Sherry had identified the perfect spot. Sherry donned her invisibility cloak, disappearing completely apart from her eyes, which gleamed with a devilish light. She slipped out the window and into the night, ready to make Shadow Garden pay.