“You alright, lass?” Gorian asked as he stepped up beside me. The eyes behind the slits of his helmet focused on my back, which I was sure didn’t look pretty.

  “No.” There was no point sugarcoating things. “We need to finish this fast. These guys are professionals.”

  “Hah,” Gorian snorted. “What do you think we are?” But he made a quick motion of his chin to urge the rest of the group forward. “Right. Kamuel will patch you later, can’t say how well given…”

  “Focus…” I hissed, gnashing my teeth through the pain.

  The tall black-haired lord signaled his men with a slashing motion across his neck and they surged forward. Serina fired an arrow from behind us while Justin unleashed several streaks of flames. Kamuel held his staff at the ready while Gorian rumbled forward with a roar.

  It was immediately obvious that we were outclassed.

  Serina’s arrows whizzed by their targets or were knocked out of the air by katana blades. Justin’s flames grazed a few attackers, singeing their already black armor. Kamuel’s staff didn’t connect with any of the enemies either as they darted around him.

  “These fuckers are too slippery!” Justin complained as a couple of throwing stars buried themselves into his leather armor. “Shit! What the heck are these!”

  Gorian swung his own massive greatsword at the lord and cleaved only empty air. The ensuing riposte rang hard against the blade of his greatsword, knocking it aside, and he staggered back with a nasty dent in his armor.

  My attack was knocked back as well, and I barely escaped the counter, the razor-sharp curved blade whistling just an inch from my eyes.

  “Gorian! We can’t win. I think we need to retreat.” Serina shouted as she shot another glowing spray of arrows to keep the attackers at bay.

  “You mean we need to high-tail outta here!” Justin screeched.

  I glanced back at Ben and the knight who were just coming to their senses.

  “You guys run, take my brother and his knight. I can hold them.”

  “What are you talking about, lass? Winthrop would kill us!” Gorian shouted at me.

  I pulled back my sleeve, revealing my bracelet. “I have this! So I have one life to give. Now go!”

  As usual, duty calls.

  Gorian just stood there, staring at me dumbfounded. I shoved him back as I deflected another bone-jarring strike from the lord. At least I was getting better at predicting them based on his gaze.

  “Too late!” Serina yelled as she looked behind her. “They got us surrounded. They’re too fast!”

  My eyes surveyed the battlefield. She’s right. There is no escape.

  I had only one thing left to try.

  “Everyone, will you follow me?!”

  “Huh? What’re you talking about girl! We’re here aren’t we?” Justin shouted snarkily back at me as he threw up a wall of flames.

  “Will you accept me as your liege? Will you take up arms for me, and heed my call?!” My voice rang out loud and clear, echoing against the sheer cliff.

  “Fine, Lass.” Gorian grunted, but there was no hesitation in his voice.

  “Sure, whatever.” Justin snapped back.

  “I will.” Serina said, surprisingly firm.

  “Yes,” came Kamuel’s reply.

  I stepped forward, leading the charge, swinging my sword in an upward arc. “We are, as one!”

  For the first time ever in this world, I attempted to activate the one ability I had used so many times as Joan, the one that had just recently been unlocked: [Divine Guidance].

  “Dieu, guide-nous!”

  Guide us now!

  The lord flickered out of sight, and reappeared, only to be greeted by my upswung sword, stabbing straight into his chest.

  Serina’s arrow shot out and found the eye of an opponent, knocking him to the ground.

  Kamuel’s staff connected with the knee of another enemy, sending him hobbling back.

  Justin’s flames struck another man in the chest, setting him alight like a screaming match stick.

  “Holy shit!” he gasped.

  Even the knight who had just gotten back up found his mark. His sword slicing away the arm of another attacker.

  “Move!” I commanded. “The aura won’t last long!”

  A pair of hands grabbed at my throat, squeezing hard. That lord was still alive even with a sword stuck in his chest. Gorian scrambled behind him and swung his sword, the impact rattling my assailant’s body. But the fingers gripped like iron, digging into my skin, squeezing until black and blue spotted my vision.

  I released my sword and grabbed his throat in turn. Aiming my palm at the soft part beneath his chin, I formed a spike of shadow with my magic and shot the [Shadow Spike] upwards.

  The back of his head exploded and his body toppled like a felled tree, his fingers at last slipping away from my neck.

  I coughed, struggling to breathe as I rubbed at my bruised neck. At the corner of my vision, my stats blinked in warning.

  More points of light streamed from his corpse lying on the ground up toward me, filling me. As usual the sensation was disturbingly warm. Checking the status showed that my Soul Points had refilled a bit.

  The last kill had given me 45 points, more than even…

  I pushed that thought to the back of my mind, and searched for more opponents. But the last of them had fallen to the ground groaning, clutching at an arrow to his chest.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The battle was over.

  Scenes of the fighting flashed through my mind, like a cartoon flip book. I saw what I’d done: the spells I cast, the attacks I made and the ones that were made against me. Then I felt a rush of euphoria.

  Mama was right, it did feel exhilarating. Though what I got for leveling up felt a bit underwhelming.

  I'll have to figure out what these 'skill points' do later.

  Unlike in The Hundred Years War, I didn't get any points to assign manually; instead, my stats had increased passively. I would rather have increased my [Atk] and [Def] more. My [Hp] rose, but it wasn’t much compared to my [Mana], which I guess made sense given my class.

  Crucially, the level-up hadn't healed me; I had retained all the damage that I took.

  In fact, the pain was getting worse. The world drifted beneath me, and I began to pitch forward when a new message popped up.

  Three items coalesced into existence in front of me. My head swam and my legs were jelly, but I had enough presence of mind to quickly stuff them into my bracelet’s inventory slots.

  No way I’m letting anyone take them away this time.

  It was a simple mental command. I brought up the inventory UI by focusing on the bracelet, and my thoughts directed each item into an available slot. The physical items vanished, reappearing as icons in the UI. The process was quick and simple, but I was so out of it that I barely registered what the items were.

  “Sister?! You’re hurt! You’re really, really hurt!” Ben’s boyish cry sounded distant as he slammed into me. His small hands grabbed hold of me to keep me from falling.

  “Lord Ben, please. Just hold her steady and let me heal her.” Kamuel’s calm voice felt a little more solid and closer than Ben’s. I looked over my shoulder, and he was standing behind me, holding up a glowing palm to my bare, exposed back.

  I didn’t care, but that [Virtuous] condition turned my face the deep shade of a ripe tomato. My eyes squeezed themselves shut.

  A warm, soothing sensation spread up and down along the long gash that the katana had carved into my back. The pain receded from its heights, and my ragged breathing steadied.

  “Damn, that’s one nasty cut. He sure got you real good!” Justin’s voice cut in, and then he whistled. “But that’s a lot of muscle for a...”

  “Go away! Don’t you dare look at my sister like that!” Ben barked indignantly.

  “Yes. Give the Lady her privacy.” Kamuel shooed him away.

  Klunk!

  Hard knuckles rapped against a skull and Justin yelped. “Hey!”

  “Show some respect to the one who saved your ass, will you?” Gorian growled.

  I forced my eyes open to find Gorian standing before me with his helmet off. He was looking past me. “How’s she doing? Her face doesn't look so good.”

  “She’s responding to the healing better than anyone I’d ever seen,” Kamuel replied. “Her wounds are even closing on their own, which shouldn’t be possible. I was prepared to do a lot of stitching.”

  My breath hitched. Getting stitched back together was never a good feeling, especially when it was a large open wound. I checked my status, and I had recovered a few HP.

  Maybe my wounds close on their own because my flesh isn’t real?

  Another disturbing thought.

  “Sister?” Ben must’ve noticed my eyes were open, because a small hand was waving at my face.

  “I’m better now, Lord…” I bit my words back. Looking at his frustrated, worried eyes, I realized that the anger and rage I had witnessed in that boy who banged his fist on my crib back then, wasn’t anger that was directed at the infant me. No, it was anger and rage at his own helplessness. Anger at being trapped and tortured by fate. And rage at the fact he couldn’t break free.

  I touched his cheek with my blood stained fingers. “Brother.”

  —

  Kamuel yelled at me when he discovered my other wound wrapped beneath the makeshift bandage.

  I apologize with slurred words as I leaned against Ben. The pain had drained a bit out of me.

  He grunted in reply, but continued healing me.

  Winthrop appeared, walking out of a path in the trees by the cliffside. A group of knights followed him.

  He looked quite a bit worse for wear. His red jerkin was torn up with slashes and was singed at a few spots, and an ugly gash grazed his forehead. His knights all showed signs of battle, with dents in their armor and splatter of smeared blood.

  Winthrop’s face was dark and haggard. His eyes were strained. They brightened when he caught sight of Ben, and then darkened again when he saw me leaning against him, then his eyes went wide with shock when he saw the bodies stacked on the ground, and the tied up prisoners with the dark tight-curl-haired knight standing on guard.

  “You did it!” he exclaimed as he ran over and clapped Gorian on the shoulder, relief evident on his face. “You managed to defeat the bastards! How? We barely managed to hold out against them before they retreated.”

  He bent over covering his face as he struggled to regain his breath. “I was afraid of what I’d find here.”

  Gorian placed his hands upon his hips and laughed gruffly. “Well, we didn’t do much. It’s all your niece, or erm, our liege now I guess. She took care of a few of them on her own before we even got here.”

  Winthrop’s gaze shot back to me, his forehead wrinkling. “Liege? I don’t understand? How did she take care of them?”

  “You know how you told us to chase after the carriage?” Justin said, idling at a log. “We found a roadblock, and tracks running off the cliff. When we got down here we found that niece of yours facing off against those masked men with a giant black sword. Wait… where did that sword go anyways?” Justin squinted one eye at me.

  I shrugged listlessly, not bothering to answer. The sword would dissolve on its own in time. But I also could just focus on the word “release” when I looked at it. In either case, I was too tired to deal with an explanation.

  Justin gave an account of what happened, embellishing his own efforts a little. But I was a little surprised when he got near the part where I asked them to join me. “So we were beaten like dogs and I was set to scram. Then that mad niece of yours said she’d hold them off while we ran. That she’s got one life to give, some real heroic shit!”

  “What?!” Winthrop clutched at his temples in agony. “Why would she say that?!”

  “That’s what I heard as well. She looked like a heroine then.” Gorian rumbled in agreement.

  I groaned, wanting to throttle both of them. They completely missed the part where I was pointing out my bracelet!

  Ben seemed to remember the bracelet. “My sister is a hero! The crown prince said she has the hero’s bracelet!”

  That’s the wrong memory! And I didn’t realize he saw that!

  “Oh, she’s a sanctioned hero?” Kamuel asked, looking over me with a new glint in his eyes.

  “No, no!” Winthrop yelled, waving his hands from side to side. “She’s my brother’s three-year-old daughter! She can’t be throwing herself away like that. And she isn’t sanctioned by anyone!”

  Thoughts of Anthony popped up: his last clandestine birthday present was a set of sapphire earrings. When the maids found them they were clamoring to pierce my ears. Mama put a stop to that immediately.

  My head hurt. All I wanted to do was to rest.

  Justin snorted. “Really? Guess what happened next? She made us all vassals, and then she yelled some strange battle cry, and all of our attacks were hitting, and we took them down just like that. She even blew the head off the big bad herself.”

  “She was more eloquent than that. A rather inspired rally cry.” Kamuel corrected him.

  “The ancient tongue.” Serina, who was quiet all this time, finally spoke up. “She used the ancient tongue Winthrop. We need to take her to Lodindale.”

  That jerked me out of my torpor. French is the ancient tongue?!

  “No, absolutely not! Leopold would kill me if you took her away.”

  Wait, why would father care in the slightest?