“Uncle, did you go adventuring in our local Bloomsil dungeon as well?” Ben was now regarding Winthrop in a new light, hanging on his every word as we rode in the carriage back home.

  “Well, back then, Bloomsil wasn’t nearly as treacherous as it is now…” Winthrop began to spin the tale of his first adventure.

  I was glad for the reprieve.

  After he started talking to me, Ben had drenched me with attention like the waves of a burst dam. I wasn’t at all comfortable with it. As Joan I had taken plenty of attention, but that was always at the direction of the voice, and never something I did willingly. In fact, all the reverent gazes of the men staring at me made me feel like an inverted hedgehog.

  I always had problems breathing afterwards.

  The scene outside the window of the carriage was an idyllic one, green hills rolling in distance and rows of trees filing past. Just a peaceful ride through the countryside. I wondered what adventuring was like. It seemed like it might be a big part of the game, and I doubted there was much in store for me as the daughter of The Duke.

  He probably wants to get rid of me as soon as possible. Better to choose my own way.

  I thought back to our meeting with The Valiant Fist. After our meal, Winthrop had handed a pouch of coins not to Gorian but to Serina the elf. They were both acting really discreet about it. I wondered what that was about.

  Trees strobed past outside, between them my eyes caught sight of the silhouette of a rider galloping alongside. More joined him until it was a pack pursuing us through the thickets. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  My head shot over to Winthrop, who was still regaling Ben with his adventures. There was no time. I shouted at him, instilling my voice with command. “Bandits! Right side!”

  Winthrop’s head jerked up as if struck by a bolt of lightning. He shoved Ben back deeper into his seat and rushed to the window. I scrambled to the other side as he did so.

  More figures were shadowing us on the left. “Both sides!”

  Winthrop kicked open the door and yelled, “Arm yourselves, bandits incoming!”

  A loud woosh rushed past us. A bright light flashed, followed by a loud explosion in front of us. The horses neighed and the carriage rocked hard, back and forth. I grabbed Ben, wrapping my body around him to keep him from being slammed against the edge of the front seat.

  The clamor of fighting erupted outside. Sword clashed against sword, armor groaned as it crumpled, and men cried out in pain and rage. Once he was sure we were alright, Winthrop rushed to the door. “Stay here! Don’t let anyone else in!”

  I released Ben and helped him off the floor. His eyes were wet, his hands were shaking, but he was holding it in well enough. All things considered. I patted his shoulder, and he nodded at me.

  Several more explosions sounded nearby and their shockwaves rocked the vehicle.

  “Go go! Get them out of here!” Winthrop shouted outside.

  The wheels screeched, the horses whined, and the entire frame of the carriage groaned as we lurched forward, throwing the two of us back.

  Our ride felt like it was careening out of control as the carriage rumbled ahead. Then, the panicked voice of the coachmen cried out from outside. “Oh no… Hang on! Hang on!”

  The vehicle tilted as everything jerked hard sideways. The horses neighed with a sharp, ear-piercing pitch. We were thrown from side to side and then we were airborne as weightlessness twisted my gut.

  SMASH!

  Glass, wood, and metal framing screeched, twisted and splintered around us as the vehicle cratered and then rolled down the hill. I grabbed Ben out of midair, curling my body around him as we were tossed continuously, up, down, side to side.

  Finally, the broken frame of the carriage creaked into a stop. Pain shot up from my side, and I tried to jerk away from it.

  Huge mistake!

  Slurrppp!

  A wet suction sounded as I pulled away from the sharp metal flange that pierced through my lower right side. The pain was excruciating, squeezing tears from my eyes and sweat from my face. I was sure it had torn up something on the way out.

  However, I had worse.

  The stats showed that I had only lost 6 HP, and just 1 wound.

  Even though my [Toughness] was barely 20, that was probably still really high for a kid.

  “Sister! No… no.. No!” Ben wailed uncontrollably from atop me.

  “I’m… fine.” I realized that pulling out the metal must have squeezed a scream out of me as well because my throat was a bit raw.

  “You ok?” I checked his body for any sign that the metal could have pierced him as well. Unlike me, he didn’t have any HP or game system to protect him. I didn’t think so, at least.

  He looked to be fine, no bleeding or open wounds, just a few scrapes and cuts.

  “You… there.” His fingers touched my lips and came away bloody.

  Alright, so some internal bleeding. I’d been a nurse during one lifetime, and knew this wasn’t good. But my HP wasn’t dropping, so maybe it clotted on the inside, or wasn’t worsening at least.

  But Ben won’t understand, it looked bad and he was already close to losing it.

  I wiped the blood from my lips, licking the rest back in. “Ben, can you cut this into a long strip?”

  I tugged at the bottom hem of my chemise for him.

  He unsheathed his sidearm—which was basically a knife—and used it to cut a long section of cloth from my chemise. Then I wrapped it several times around my waist over where the wound was and tied it down with a knot. Red dots bleed through the makeshift binding, but it didn’t get much bigger than that.

  I guided his trembling hand to sheath his blade and smiled at him. “There. All good. Thanks.” His watery eyes looked over me, not at all convinced.

  When we crawled out of the wreckage of the carriage, we saw that we were at the bottom of a deep ravine with a tall sheer cliff to one side and the rocky mountain slope on the other. We must’ve flown off the top of the cliff. The coachman was sprawled out some distance away, thankfully face down. The upper half of a knight was lying beneath the wreckage, his pallid face was exposed, eyes vacant.

  I had to steer Ben away from the sight, but he wasn’t much aware right now, walking dazed.

  “My Lady! My Lord!” The knight with tight dark curls called out to us as he limped over. He had his sword out, but his armor was dented all over. His eyes dropped lower, spotting my bandaged waist, and blood welling up there. “You’re hurt! We need to get you…”

  The bushes at the edge of the cliffs rustled, and dark figures emerged wearing matte-black armor with black head scarves covering the lower half of their faces. Their armor and weapons looked too uniform to be bandits.

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  The knight pointed his quivering sword out at them. “Who are you? Identify yourselves!”

  The figures ignored him as they advanced. “That’s the heir, my lord.” One of the leading figures, a young man with straight shoulder-length black hair pointed out Ben to the taller man behind him.

  The lord nodded curtly. “Good, take him. Kill the rest.”

  Schwiiinnng!

  Blades sang out of their sheaths. The young man led a few figures toward us, their swords out, reflecting the glare of sunlight. The slits of his black eyes glinted lethally.

  “No!” Both the knight and Ben shouted. They were already surging forward before I could stop them.

  This was bad. Really bad.

  The men facing us weren’t amateurs, their movements were smooth and efficient, and they were already spreading out to surround us as their leaders were talking. Plus there were ten of them.

  Compared to them, the knight was obviously injured and hobbled, and Ben was shellshocked with a knife. They were essentially non-combatants.

  They’re going to get themselves killed!

  I sighed. This might be a waste of mana, but there was nothing else I could think of to stop them. I focused on the spell, targeting everyone.

  [Dazzle]!

  Ben staggered, he spun around, his eyes wide and glued to me as he sank to his knees. Then the knight did the same. And one by one the men surrounding us dropped to their knees as well, their eyes glazed over, as if mesmerized.

  That’s way more effective than I’d imagined.

  But the description for the spell had said “a short time”, with no definition of short.

  I quickly cast [Shadow Sword] with the image of a greatsword in my mind, one that was only one and a half times my height.

  It rose out of my shadow, hilt first. I grabbed it and raced toward the closest enemy.

  I closed in on him and planted my front foot, my hips turned, and then my body twisted. My shoulders, then arms swung the large black sword, pulling through the air. Its blade sang, leaving streaks of black in its wake. I sliced clean through his neck. And his head rolled away.

  His leader had already said to kill me, so he was marked as an enemy combatant. Even helpless, killing him didn’t trigger my [Virtuous] condition.

  My momentum carried my body toward my next target. I was still spinning, and the large blade was on an upwards swing. So I brought down the hilt instead upon the back of his head, a bone-cracking crunch sounded as his head jerked back. He crumpled forward into the ground.

  Small points of light floated up from the corpses and drifted over to me like fireflies.

  The ominous word that I hadn’t seen in so long began blinking again in front of me.

  And again that sensation of warmth, both comforting and sickening seeped into me.

  “Stop her! Get up!” A cry broke the silence. One of the men had already recovered. It was the lord and he was already charging toward me.

  I tried to use my demon identify on him, not caring if he found it invasive.

  Yeah, really helpful.

  A shadow crossed my path. The air shifted ever so slightly and I leaned back. A blade sang past my face, slicing off a few strands of my blue hair. Then a face flashed past me, thin black eyes with bushy eyebrows. They widened for a brief, fleeting instant when they stared into mine.

  The sword in his hand was long and curved, its single edge blade glinting lethally in the sun.

  A distant memory came back to me, this was a katana, one of those samurai swords that all the gamers love.

  Is there an eastern area in this game? If so, it’s way bigger than I thought.

  Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that as I deflected another incoming katana with my sword.

  My previous attacker swung back toward me, and I recognized him as the man with the straight, shoulder-length hair. He must be second in command.

  I tried to identify him as well.

  Wait, are the ‘?’s the number of digits? Does the other guy have triple digit attack and hp, and a double digit level!

  And this person is level 6! There’s no balance in this encounter!

  He didn’t give me time to go deeper as he brought his sword up for an overhead swing. I stepped into his compatriot who had overcommitted on his thrust and slammed my shoulder into the side of his lead leg, cutting it out from under him. He went off-kilter, and I redirected his falling weight toward the second-in-command.

  Unfortunately, the second in command was much too fast. He side-stepped his stumbling man and continued his swing. The sharp blade cut apart a section of my skirt, exposing a bare leg.

  At least, it gives me more mobility.

  Dark fingers shot out of the ground to grab his legs. And he stuttered, just a step, to break free. But that step was all I needed. I grabbed onto le talon—the unsharpened section of the blade near the hilt—and pivoted my sword, driving the point into his throat.

  The man’s eyes bulged and blood spurted out of his mouth. I kicked him away, wrenching my sword free. Blood and the points of light sprayed into the air.

  It wasn’t pretty. But as Monsieur Liancour had said, “On t'offre? Tu prends.”

  I will take what’s given.

  “Takashi!” the heart-rending scream tore through the battlefield.

  I sensed a forlorn, a deep sense of loss in that scream. I met the lord’s eyes.

  You shouldn’t have started the fight if you weren’t prepared to lose.

  Strange unseen hands groped me, feeling me from my face down to my body, causing me to shiver uncontrollably.

  So that’s how intrusive an identify is.

  The lord’s black eyes scrutinized me and he came to some sort of decision. He thrust a gauntleted finger at me. “She is mine!”

  I realized that the language he spoke wasn’t the one that I was used to. But that wasn’t my most urgent concern.

  A one-on-one duel? They have that in this game as well? Well, it benefits me.

  I strode forward to meet him and his men all slowly backed away, giving us space.

  He was moving to step forward when he disappeared into a cloud of dust. He was too fast, my eyes couldn’t keep up.

  Alarm bells rang.

  I raised my sword, and it was by sheer luck I blocked his blade.

  It hit like an anvil and knocked me tumbling over the dirt ground.

  I tried to [Dazzle], but he wasn’t fazed this time. Perhaps the spell had diminishing returns, I cursed again the game's vagueness.

  I tried to grab him using [Shadow Fingers], but he shrugged them off easily.

  He disappeared and reappeared behind me. I threw up [Force Shield], but his blade cleaved through the translucent shell and bit into my back. Pain blossomed down my back as the cloth shredded. I barely managed to deflect his attack with my sword before it cut me in two.

  The force of the impact sent me tumbling again. My fingers dug into the dirt as my other hand attempted to steady myself with my sword.

  Stats were blinking in the corner of my vision like a blaring alarm.

  That one attack, even with my shield blocking and sword deflecting, took out 29 HP of damage.

  I won’t be able to survive the next one.

  My mana was low, and I was tiring, my pained lungs gasping for breath. [Sta] was my lowest stat.

  I thought of using [Shadow Fingers] to run, but my eyes found Ben and the knight still kneeling on the ground.

  I can’t just leave them here. Neither [Virtuous] nor my prideful self would allow for that.

  Leaning on my sword, I pushed myself up. My entire back was now slick with blood, the drenched cloth now clinging to me. The dirt burned in my open wound as my muscles moved.

  The lord didn’t attack while I was down. He was waiting.

  He aimed the deadly point of his katana at me. “It’s over.” There was a finality in his deep voice.

  Glowing arrows rained from above, stabbing into the ground between us.

  A giant of a man in plate armor jumped down from a large boulder, landing with a loud thud among a plume of dust. “Hey, you savage! What’re you doing picking on a three year old!” Gorian bellowed from beneath his steel helmet.