500th Time Reborn, A World Only Known By Women: The Karma System

"Why are you going out already?" Olivia asked.

"Get on people's good side, and see if I can capture some cultists. I can see in the dark, so I will be fine and have weapons on me. If they are as bad as people make them out to be, then I can at least see if the cultists are causing it," I explained.

"How am I going to get a room?" Olivia asked after taking a sip of her drink and moving closer because of how loud everyone was talking around us.

​ "There is some coin in the pouch; use that, and try not to cause trouble," I said before kissing her before standing up from my chair and then looking over at Karen's table, who was too focused on having their own conversation about something else entirely instead now.

I left the inn through the front door and rubbed my big arms, pulling my coat tight. The sun was going down, so I headed north through the town, but there were very few people out then, but I couldn't really blame them. I had no thermometer, but I was pretty sure it was colder than -20 Celsius.

The sky was darkening quickly, and while I didn't mind the darkness, others were probably more suspicious of it. If something out there wanted to attack me, it might be in for a nasty surprise tonight, whether or not they liked what was coming to them. I would have to make sure I didn't reveal myself, or it would defeat our whole ploy the first day. I would just play some overpowered farmer that is also a master in a bunch of ways to kick ass.

Once I was out of town, the temperature went down further, but I added enchantments to all my clothing once I was far enough out of town. One of the things I wanted to do was look for paths and tracks of animals in the area, so now that I was good and warm, it was time to get to it. I also pulled some blades out and tucked them in various spots so I could access them quickly or throw them if needed.

I turned on my Mana runes in my eyes, but since animals' Mana seemed a bit different, I added some runes to account for that, making only humanoids red and animals yellow. The moment that I did that and looked around, I realized that there was a large group of red stalking towards me from the east, but they were about 1500 feet away from me still.

I decided to keep going deeper north, and the party of red angled towards me, so I was sure they were looking to find me. The real question was, which me were they looking for? Galio, the Cat God (still not even the proper name), or Rosie, the hunter that doesn't like floods? I was pretty sure they had no clue who I was and just assumed that I was another that they could pull into their cult, or make into a sacrifice, or maybe a bit of both.

I walked along until I found a large pond, and in the middle was an island with some ruins. It looked like this place used to be sacred for something, but whatever had happened here destroyed everything, including the wildlife, so there were no animals around there. The party following me caught up and stopped about 10 feet behind me. There were six women in their group with dark cloaks covering their bodies, but these weren't the cultists.

"It is unusual for anyone to go out at night these days," One of the women said while walking towards me. "You are wearing winter clothing and have a few weapons on you. Are you headed somewhere or just out for a stroll to see what there is to hunt? We don't get many hunters these days."

"Looking for some food," I lied smoothly after taking a moment to think about how best I could answer this question considering the situation that we were both in right now. I decided to play it off as if nothing was wrong with hunting at night so far from town when it was cold outside, even if that wasn't the case here tonight since my enchantments ensured that.

"Where did your group head off to?" The woman asked, but she didn't seem like she cared about my reply. She was doing too much after glancing over her shoulder at one of her companions. They were all staring nervously, like something terrible might happen here any second.

"Oh, they headed back to town a few hours ago after not finding anything good out here, though it seems like there might be something moving around, so I was thinking about maybe setting up a trap or something. Have you all been learning anything about these things?" I inquired with an innocent look as if I wasn't aware that this group was nothing but trouble waiting to happen, in my opinion, right now.

"No... nothing of note," One of the other women said while looking towards her companion and then back towards me again with an uneasy look on her face like she really didn't want to be talking while outside at night.

I nodded slowly in response before reaching into one of my pockets and pulling out some coin before jingling it between my fingers for effect. "Well, maybe you can do me a favor then?" I asked innocently enough.‌

"What do you have in mind?" The woman said after taking another quick look around herself for a moment before turning back towards me again with a fascinating look on her face now instead of the suspicious one from just a minute ago.

"I thought maybe you could help me set up this trap, and I will pay all six of you 2 gold each. What do you think? Think it worth your while considering how dangerous things have been here lately?" I explained to them but didn't feel like I was giving them much choice. I wasn't sure about these girls, but I was pretty sure none of them were cult members by their very low Mana. They also looked hungry, and I could use some blood to whip up some spring traps using Transmutation.

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