bugs

The bugs spread out all around as they bit and stung anyone in the area.

It seemed like a tiny annoyance at first until the first person started to display strange behaviour.

A man waved his arms around trying to fend off the advances of the bugs then suddenly dropped down to the ground.

His falling produced a small thudding sound followed by many more as more around him began to follow behind him.

As they were all beginning to collapse displaying faces of exhaustion and confusion, a figure appeared above in the sky.

Blush was in her human form after transforming and was sitting on her flying broom magic tool.

She watched everything take place below and had a calculative look in her eyes. "Hm.. much faster than last time. My babies have improved in their effectiveness."

While researching many different types of bugs and other types of animals, she did not miss opportunities to apply things she had learned to those she had contracted as her familiars.

In order to improve the combat effectiveness of the bugs, she made sure to apply the various poison and other abilities to the bugs.

Each new familiar gained helped to improve upon her previous trials which resulted in some losses due to them being far less effective and easy to kill.

Through trial and error, the most recent bugs had been further modified to increase the potency of their bug bites and stings which contained a powerful poison that was able to put people and some larger animals into a deep sleep.

As she made improvements, the effectiveness started to increase drastically causing each person affected by it to pass out within moments of being stung or bitten.

It resulted in the current scene that was laid out before her eyes which was all too familiar. "Hello again my dead test subjects. Sorry to put you through this again but it couldn't really be helped."

As she encountered such groups and events more often with the worsening condition of her surroundings, Blush had come to terms with the fact that venting on such people would do no good and it was a pointless effort to do so.

They were nothing but small cogs in a greater machine which would not take another chosen path.

Each mercenary or anyone else that took up such tasks were just pawns to be used by the powerful and wealthy.

If she went around venting her anger on such groups, nothing would be solved unless she planned on intervening in much bigger events.

The powerful and wealthy would just use their power and wealth to send some others in their place.

It would be a constant cycle of repeating killing random people who were just following orders or were carrying out a task for whatever Zeni was being paid.

She could not really intervene in such events but through some thinking, it was possible to come up with a compromise that was beneficial to her.

Blush landed down on the ground and put her flying broomstick back into her storage lamp magic item. "Alright.. time to repeat the same as last time."

She arrived in the village shortly afterwards and began to wake up the villagers entering their homes one by one.

There was some talking going on in doors as she stated several terms and requirements related to their current status and futures.

Since they were dying and she possessed the cure, she would give them an opportunity to join her if they signed a contract vowing eternal loyalty to her and Alchemi.

If they declined then she would still bring them away to safety but they would not be cured.

They would either die or would have the chance to change their mind later about the contract.

That was the best she could do for them to allow them a slightly longer life or to be cured completely.

If she had left them to their fate then they would have been burned alive which she let them know how they could have died and would still be in danger of such things should they remain where they were.

Several carriages came into the village moments later to pick everyone up and take them away leaving Blush alone once again.

She overlooked the village and then stuck out her arms summoning her magic power towards them. "I have managed this a few times already so hopefully it will not take as much time."

A mental image came to mind along with several other details until different sized things started to materialise out of nowhere.

Each of them were shaped like the bone structures of different shapes and sizes.

Blush had already finished analysing the bodies of each living person in the village before sending them off so she was able to get a close enough version of each person's skeletal structure.

The bones that had materialised were non living objects which had been formed to emulate the bones of their body using creation magic.

She could not be considered as a master of it after studying what she gained from the Dark Demon Realm but she was able to create simple objects and structures so long as it was not something like a magic item or something far sturdier.

It made it easier when she created each bone at a time before linking them in place so it took away a lot of the complicated process of creation that may have caused her problems during the creation of a whole bodies skeletal structure.

There were several failures at first but she had started to improve the more she created them for her current purpose.

The skeletons started to levitate and entered each home before being wrapped in clothes, blankets and other things until a flame started to come from further away where the other people had set up camp and started a camp fire.

Arrows started to float in the air and made contact with the flames before flying towards each of the homes.

Each one of them caught fire and created the scene that Blush wanted, her magic activated again as the surrounding tracks were cleared up.

If the creations of hers survived during the fires then it would be enough to let others confirm the deaths of the villagers since they would not wish to get too close to inspect it further for fear of catching it themselves.