Ranthia had feared that her return to Academy life would feel… weird. She had only been gone for a week, true, but it had been such a week that she expected to feel disconnected from what her life had been. She was wrong, as it turned out.

  Aside from a few snickers about her hair, she settled back into things quickly. Statia seemed happy to see her again, but nearly all of the other trainees had taken to feigning ignorance at her having been absent. She wasn’t sure how the trainees had coordinated to that extent—okay, it had Kaesios’ fingerprints all over it, yes—but she was impressed.

  Not that it stopped her from causing a few… minor incidents of retribution. The instructors pretended to be blind to them at first, but Ranthia soon sensed that she had run through their patience.

  She had managed, somehow, to do most of the assignments she had been given and so she found her classes proceeding smoothly.

  The exception, of course, being Rigira’s.

  “So, let me see ye juggle!” The dwarf demanded the instant Ranthia entered the building.

  “…I can’t!” Ranthia protested.

  Ranthia had made a few attempts at juggling; she even got offered a Skill for it. But her Skill slots were full and, given Rigira’s entire point was that Ranthia couldn’t just rely on her Skills, she suspected the dwarf might actually murder her if she succeeded only because of a Skill. But mostly, yes, all of her Skill slots were full.

  She just didn’t have the time to learn the skill properly. Not with her other coursework and rehearsals. …Okay, yes, there was also a small part of her that didn’t want to, but she hadn’t had the time!

  “Ach, I am ‘rofoundly disappointed! I would be quite livid if I had not seen ye performance with me own eyes! Ye worked hard on that, lass; good job.”

  “Wait, you were there?” Ranthia blinked in surprise.

  “O’ course!”

  Rigira was abruptly replaced with a perfectly ordinary, short but unremarkable woman who held the hand of a small child. Together, the two took up slightly more space than Rigira did. Then, a blink of the eye later, she was back to herself.

  “Did it without te kid, naturally. That other Sentinel guy, Sea or whatever, he let this old hand have a seat in ‘is little box. Saw te whole thing. Nearly brought a tear to me eye, it did. Beautiful work, worthy of the Sierra Obelisk even!”

  The dwarf beamed, then seemed to deflate into an intense sudden melancholy.

  “Um, are you okay?” Ranthia asked, unsure what to do. Offering comfort to the distressed felt reasonable, but there were major cultural differences and—wait, how did she know that?

  She hadn’t gotten any chaos-granted insight in a while, so it took her a bit by surprise. International Studies hadn’t really even touched on interpersonal cultural stuff, which in hindsight, was a worrying omission.

  “Aye, apologies lass. I sometimes nearly forget the Sierra Obelisk is gone, along with everything else. ‘Tis a challenge, bein’ a refugee ‘n such. But ah well, enough whinin’! Let us get back to makin’ ironwood in ye!” Rigira announced.

  All too abruptly, Ranthia found herself trying to evade illusory giant wooden spears again. When she was struck, she had to hold still and take a blow from a real wooden block fired at the same place the illusion struck. Inevitably, sooner or later, Ranthia would find herself having to pick herself up off the floor or from where she got slammed into the wall. She would groan and work the very sore point of impact, then Rigira would make a variation of the exact same joke.

  “C’mon lass, yer tougher then that! …Wait, yer vitality is over 3000, right? Eh, whatever, you should probably survive either way! Up with ye now!”

  The woman raised the vitality numbers each time. Unfortunately, Ranthia was pretty sure the force of the blow increased each time too.

  The blows were, in theory, helping to train Ranthia on how to take a hit when she had to. It was an essential skill for someone that relied on evasion instead of barriers or other defensive skills. Sooner or later, it would be impossible to avoid every attack when multiple ones were inbound. Ideally, she needed to learn how to determine which she could survive taking. Except Rigira’s barrages were so absurd that Ranthia felt like she was just training her pain tolerance—there was never enough space to make logical decisions on which blows to take.

  Finally, when the two gongs-worth of abuse came to an end, Rigira had to get one last proverbial kick in.

  “Do remember, yer just dealin’ with me every night now lass. And I expect ye to be jugglin’ for me by the end too! Maybe I just might make ye juggle while ye dance around evadin’, that would be a show!”

  Ranthia could only groan in pain from her place on the floor. The last mistake had led to her getting hit by four illusions, which meant she took four wooden blocks.

  Kallisto had been the only other person that she interacted with who had seen her show, or at least the only other one who said anything about it (she was marginally surprised he noticed she was in the performance, with how much he talked about one of the other women that was in the performance). Ranthia often tried to engage the man in conversations about the scrolls that Kallisto left, ostensibly to discuss fine details of the strategies employed. In reality, Ranthia had realized that—given the timeframe—the [Healer] that he spoke of had to have been the long missing Sentinel Dawn. She hoped to get some information from Kallisto about where she had gone and what she was doing.

  She was never quite successful, unsurprisingly. It was still wonderful to learn more about the woman that had saved her life. She was—mostly—over her childhood crush on her savior, but she still considered the woman a hero.

  Unfortunately, with how long Dawn had been missing and how cagey everyone was on what happened, it seemed rather unlikely that she would ever be able to reaffirm her gratitude.

  Ranthia went back to her knife-cut short hair when whatever Skill the [Stylist] had used finally wore off, or at least weakened enough that she was able to overpower it without risking [Void Edge]. It was far from a [Sexy] hairstyle, but long hair was so incredibly impractical.

  Time passed and spring came once again. Once the Summer Solstice arrived, they would graduate. Most of them would become Rangers, but a few presumably would not. A nervous energy was slowly building among the trainees, but their coursework continued unabated.

  “It’s a stalemate.” One of the other trainees in Unit 2 Sparring complained.

  “You think so, eh? Not very observant.” Kaesios chuckled.

  Ranthia ignored them. Instead, she pirouetted to get the momentum needed to get around yet another blast of conjured material. Her time as a real dancer had further influenced her [Warrior] class, it seemed. It had gotten to the point that she started to consider [The Art of Dance] part of the class and strongly expected it would merge in soon, most likely into either [The Flow of Battle] or [Steps into the Void].

  Her new Class Skill offering for hitting level 208 in her second class was horrible. [Hands of the Void] offered to let her treat her hands as knives for the sake of her Skills, including [Void Edge]. It sounded almost reasonable until she remembered that she didn’t have [Void Resistance]. The Skill would have literally required her to cripple her hands! Most likely it was only offered thanks to her hand-to-hand training course, which annoyed her. Had she not taken that course she might have gotten a much better Skill.

  Not that she had any space for it, but it was the principle of the thing!

  She was in a sparring match with an instructor, namely Artillery Mage C. He had made a mockery out of almost every other [Warrior] classed trainee, and had even taken out one of the speedsters with absolute impunity. The man had some serious skill, but he was also under a restriction for the matches that limited how big an attack he could unleash. This gave her an opportunity.

  Ranthia adopted a different tactic. She made a few half-hearted attempts to close in early into the match, just to test his reaction speeds. But once she had her information, she kept to a range where she could evade and dance around his attacks.

  “Okay, I yield!” He finally called out and threw his hands up in frustration.

  “Match, Ranthia!” Another instructor yelled.

  Ranthia saluted her opponent instructor and moved off the field, only lightly winded. Dancing like that was nothing after her performance at the theater.

  “What the hell, why did you give up? You could have tagged her still!” The disgruntled trainee yelled.

  “I used a bit over half my mana pool and never came close. Honestly, she probably could have been ten paces closer and still managed to dodge everything. With the restrictions I was under, I had no way to end the match in my favor—aside from just hoping she got careless and became suddenly stupid. She would have just run me out of mana and stabbed me. I can do without that happening, especially when the end was clear.” At that moment, he was entirely Artillery Mage C and not an instructor.

  Which got him more than a few looks from his peers.

  “And that would be why you’re the worst-rated person here.” Kaesios taunted the noisy trainee (who might or might not have had a name).

  The two immediately got into a scuffle and ended up getting shoved into the ring to work it out.

  Kaesios won handily.

  On the day before Ranthia’s 21st birthday the instructors called them all to gather before the morning exercises. They were lined up in boringly orderly lines—easy enough for Ranthia when it wasn’t a march, for some reason—while they waited as the instructors gradually gathered near the gongs. Finally, one of them—the short one—stepped forward to speak.

  “Alright trainees, look alive! We’re coming up on your final tasks and tests, but we’re going to try something new, something that we’ve never done quite like this before!

  “We Rangers have a special training outpost. Tomorrow, you lot are going to use it for a little game. Half of you will be in charge of defending it, the other half will be in charge of attacking it. Defenders will wear a special iron badge, so no being sneaky and trying to cross sides and pretend to be part of the other group. The event will last from high noon tomorrow until high noon two days later—that gives you two full days to struggle! Defenders will win if they can hold the outpost! Attackers will win if they can breach the walls.

  “A few rules to note. First, we are on sparring rules and by that, I mean regular sparring rules. Do not try to kill each other! Second, you may not disturb the ground of the outpost! That means no digging, no earthquakes, and no changing the terrain it sits on! Third, this is a Ranger outpost, do not destroy it! Only the gates may be attacked with intent to destroy! If anyone uses any skill or spell that can cause widespread devastation, we will come down hard on you, even if no one was in the blast radius! Fourth, we will be blocking off a section of the outpost! If any of you try to go in there or throw Skills off towards that area for any reason, including negligence, you will regret the day you were born!”

  Ranthia was less than thrilled that she would have to spend her birthday dealing with a long, pointless game that didn’t even play to any of her strengths. Whether she was on attack or defense didn’t really matter, she was all but useless—comparatively—unless an opponent was within arm’s reach.

  Ranthia was even less thrilled to find herself assigned as a defender when they arrived the next day. If she was an attacker she might have been able to attempt to scale the walls or something, but her abilities seemed to be useless inside the outpost. If any attacker reached her… they already breached the walls and that meant the game was done. It also grated on her that literally every other Adventurer was on the attacker side, especially since she still considered her fellow guildmembers to be amongst the best of the best at the Academy.

  They could request to be removed from the game at any time, which was intended as a way to give them an out if they got wounded. [Healers] were on standby, of course. They would also be removed if they were knocked out.

  Defenders were strictly barred from removing their defender badge pinned over their heart and would be considered to be knocked out if their iron defender badge was destroyed or lost. Which seemed wildly unfair, it gave the attackers an extra way to knock defenders out of the contest.

  Animal Companions were also barred from this game, which pissed off several trainees who relied on formidable beasts. So, it wasn’t like Ranthia was the only one nursing an exaggerated amount of discontent.

  The game was to begin at high noon, but they had arrived early to give each group time to settle in. They could prepare however they liked—within the rules—and they were given limited permission to cut down trees or acquire rocks and other natural resources from the area. Food was provided, thankfully. The defenders could mingle outside the fortress if they wanted—but no attackers were allowed inside—though they were on their own if they found themselves outside the walls when the game started.

  One of the instructors, wearing a bright red sash, appeared in front of Ranthia and Statia while they ate breakfast.

  “Oh Xaoc, please, no, not the stupid blindfold! Not for this, I’m already restricted enough by the situation.” Ranthia groaned.

  “Trainee Ranthia, I regret to inform you that is not why I am here. Trainee Statia, you are hereby designated as the commander for the outpost for this game. Your word is law! Trainee Ranthia, you are second in command. If Trainee Statia is removed from the game, you will assume command! Further, Trainee Statia, if you hear anyone ask for help, you are to assume they are speaking to Trainee Ranthia unless they call you by name! …And don’t worry, we’re making sure that the attacking side is barred from using the word ‘help’ for any reason. That is all!” He was gone as swiftly as he came.

  “Oh, joy, now I get to be responsible for trying to prepare defenses for this half-abandoned would-be fortress.” Statia deadpanned.

  “Commander, I am prepared to follow you into the fires of war!” Ranthia saluted, with an impish grin and a playful tone.

  “Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s rouse the group and see what we can get ready before it starts.” Statia announced.

  A loud, echoing gong announced the game’s start (not that Ranthia had seen a gong anywhere). Under Statia’s command, they had prepared a number of rocks and boulders that were stacked along the walls and guard towers for use as weaponry. [Mages] were each given the highest ground they were effective from. Everyone else had bows, with arrows already nocked. They were ready.

  …They were less ready for absolutely nothing to happen.

  Statia and Ranthia held a quick meeting and decided that the attackers were probably going to wait for them to lower their guard. Both were more than a little chagrined that they hadn’t considered the obvious tactic.

  They tried to disguise the change as starting routine patrols, but they pulled two thirds of their people back and organized everyone into three shifts—each roughly similar in combat and sensory capability. One shift would be on active defense, manning their positions. One shift would be on standby, geared and ready but allowed to sit and talk or eat. One shift would be on rest, allowed to disarm and get some sleep. Roughly every three gongs’ worth of time (not that they would have the gongs out in the middle of the woods a short distance from Ariminum), Statia or Ranthia would call for a shift change; whichever wasn’t on rest. Active would move to standby. Standby would move to rest. Rest would move to active.

  Everyone seemed to expect the attack to happen during the night or with the light of dawn.

  Instead, things remained quiet. They sometimes saw scouts from the attackers, men or women that seemed to be investigating their defenses, but they never entered a range that made attacks worthwhile. Each time tensions rose, then crashed.

  The attack came late in the morning.

  Statia was asleep and Ranthia was supposed to be on standby. Hurriedly she bounded up onto one of the guard towers shortly after the call went up.

  Yeah, this was the real attack alright. The bulk of the attacking force moved forward carrying an absolutely massive battering ram they had constructed out of the bulk of their tree allotment. The thing was an impressive amalgamation of Skill-fused wood, and the bulk of their strongest physical classers carried it at a brisk pace. A second group, with a big guy carrying half of a tree by himself, approached the side gate.

  Ranthia whistled. Others throughout the defenders took up the whistle—apparently not quite everyone could whistle, for whatever reason—and the standby people either scrambled to their posts or helped rouse those that had been on rest.

  Statia soon arrived in the guard tower, still rubbing sleepily at her eyes. Ranthia took a moment to silently judge her friend before she filled the sleepy commander in.

  “I’m going to take the wall above the front gate, you good here?” Ranthia asked afterward.

  “Yeah, go. Which of you is my speedster messenger?” Statia turned to the others in the tower to ask her question.

  That was the system they had come up with. Statia would stay on overwatch. Ranthia would take the main action. They were to keep a speedster sheltered nearby, a man or woman whose only role was to run messages for them, or report to the other if one of them was eliminated.

  Ranthia grabbed a speedster on the way, freeing the rest to take up their other duty posts, and soon was on the wall facing the charging group.

  The battering ram was even more impressive up close. Six big trees had been fused together by a Wood—or advanced element—[Mage]. It looked like it had to weigh quite a bit more than any of their logs in the hell months ever reached. Thick, sturdy handholds had been attached for the physical classers to carry it with greater stability. Water and Mist [Mages] kept the battering ram damp to prevent it from being easily set aflame. Unfortunately, their [Mages] were good enough to keep only the battering ram and not the handholds wet, which meant their grip was solid.

  Ranthia glanced at the Lava [Mage] stationed next to her.

  “Will your team be able to ruin it?” Ranthia asked.

  “Not a chance. Even I’ll just be adding some extra weight unless one of them bothers to knock the cooled rock off of it. I just can’t conjure enough material to make a difference.” The [Mage] replied, with a tone that suggested that she considered the question to be exceptionally stupid.

  Ranthia nodded and considered.

  “Message!” She called.

  Her speedster arrived.

  “Tell Commander Statia to see to the preparation of every drop of cooking oil we’ve got left. We need all of it delivered up here all at once. Multiple containers. Go!”

  He went.

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  Lava [Mage] quirked an eyebrow.

  “The instructors told us to use all of our available resources. Food is a resource.” Ranthia replied, with a smirk.

  The Lava [Mage] smiled.

  …Which was a bit unnerving; her mouth was far too wide. It was almost as bad as Amaus’ smile had been!

  The timing had been tight, but Ranthia had successfully swapped her [Mages] brigade for physical classers that claimed to be good at throwing. Each of them stood ready, armed with wooden buckets that were filled with cooking oil. Some of the buckets leaked a little, but that was fine—they would kick the oily bedrolls (every resource) that were placed under their feet down when the time was right.

  Shortly after they were ready, the battering ram was already close enough. The attackers were building up speed as they prepared for their first big blow against the gates. To Ranthia’s eyes, they were moving too quickly. They would only jar themselves if the gate held.

  Honestly, it was perfect.

  “Reinforcement buffs on the gate, now!” Ranthia ordered.

  She and the other physical classers kept their hands down, the buckets out of sight.

  “The instant before the moment of impact, if you can. We want things to get slippery right as they have to deal with the recoil.” Ranthia whispered.

  There was no sense in using hand signals, her people were busy staring at the giant charging phallic object—seriously did the attackers do that shape on purpose? They nodded at her words though, with a few brief smirks.

  They waited, even as the battering ram closed in. But soon enough Ranthia stamped her foot as a signal.

  Not quite as one, they threw their buckets, each aiming—loosely—for a different part of the gigantic target the attackers had provided for them.

  The entire outpost seemed to shudder on impact, but the gate held.

  The attackers stumbled backwards, just as the buckets of oil smashed into their burden. Overall, Ranthia was pleased with their aim as a whole. Oil had covered the top of the battering ram and was dripping down its sides.

  Her physical classers leapt back down into the outpost, while the [Mages] scrambled back up.

  “Burn!” The Lava [Mage] cried out—a bit too gleefully—even as she and the other [Mages] began to rain Lava, Fire, Inferno, Pyronox, and Radiance down on the oily battering ram.

  Most of the attackers got a clue and backed away quickly. Others were either slower or more stubborn and soon found themselves clinging to the heart of a violent, angry blaze. Steam hissed and sizzled as the water mixed into the oil cooked off.

  Instructors ran in to grab the burnt students that were unable to deal with the damage. One shot a glare at Ranthia, before he ran off with his burn victim.

  Ranthia shrugged—hey, she was mostly sure she wasn’t breaking any rules so long as the Lava [Mage] watched her aim—and started kicking the oily bedrolls over the edge toward the conflagration. She might as well add more fuel to the blaze before the spilt oil ended up causing problems for them.

  Enemy Water—and Water-adjacent—[Mages] tried to fight the fire, but the blazing oil was too hot to be put out easily. Instead, their efforts mostly just resulted in gouts of steam that the [Mages] had to back away from.

  Unfortunately, Ranthia noticed a larger problem.

  One of the trainees that was over level 200, namely an Inferno-aspected [Warrior] that wielded burning weapons in her sparring course. The man was charging at the back of the battering ram, arms held forward.

  “Shit! Can anyone take out that charging classer from here?” Ranthia called.

  They had precious moments at best.

  “Message! Doing something stupid, sorry if I get eliminated!” Ranthia called out, even as she acted.

  She leapt. Over the wall. Into enemy lines.

  By some miracle the hostile [Mages] and [Warriors] were too stunned at such a brazen display of sheer idiocy that none of them thought to take her out while she was in midair and unable to do much to evade. That… had been a danger that only dawned on her after she was mid-air and committed.

  Ranthia landed. Hostiles were beginning to react, but she could finally move. She danced around attacks and landed a few swipes with her knives—she wasn’t using [Void Edge] since she didn’t want to kill anyone—when she had easy targets, but she kept moving forward as quickly as she could.

  The Inferno [Warrior] smashed into the rear of the flaming battering ram and roared as he struggled to push it forward, creeping the blaze closer to the gate. Ranthia swept behind him and kicked the back of his knee with every shred of strength she had. It wasn’t enough to bring someone with his level of vitality down, but it did make him stop for a second.

  She stabbed him in the armpits with her knives.

  “Sorry! I tried to angle them to not hit anything vital, but you should really call for a pick-up.” Ranthia called before she danced back.

  One of the Water [Mages] almost hit the guy she stabbed with a jet of high-powered water when he tried to strip her flesh off with the torrential blast, but she danced to the side of the attack easily. The [Mage] was broadcasting his movements more than a little—some people really struggled to absorb the lessons the Academy tried to instill in them.

  Two speedsters charged at her and tried to overwhelm her with their speed while they jabbed at her with their spears. It was a solid tactic, with one fatal problem—they lacked the levels for it. She wasn’t a dedicated speedster, but with the difference in levels, Ranthia was a bit faster than they were. It wasn’t an overwhelming advantage, but it was enough that she could react.

  She ducked under one spear, kicked its wielder in the gut, then caught the other spear and pulled its wielder closer so she could slash him across his arm. It was kind of fun to have a strength advantage for a rare change of pace! With her attack done, she disengaged and drew a new knife to replace the one she dropped so she could catch the spear.

  Having so many knives in her belt still felt ridiculous, but it was a necessity.

  She had to get back to the wall. She was fast and slippery, but if they coordinated and ringed her in there was no way for her to get out without breaking the rules—[Void Edge] was lethal force.

  She got lucky though; her opponents were surprisingly disorganized. She assumed that they had lost whoever had been in charge of the attack to the fire, but she wasn’t going to push her luck.

  Ranthia rushed back to the wall, pursued by several classers, even as one of the stronger [Warriors] on her side lowered his spear, bent over to lower it a bit further. She leapt and managed to grab a solid hold while he pulled her up. Getting her feet back on the wall was sheer relief.

  “Message! Mission successful!”

  Her wall gave a cheer, even if several of them were still giving her serious side-eye for pulling such a stupid stunt. Lava [Mage] was muttering that she would’ve fried “the idiot” midair before she landed.

  Oh well, as her personal 43rd rule of combat stated: if it’s stupid and it works, it’s still stupid and you’re lucky.

  She could live with lucky, this time.

  The rest of the attackers had arrived too late to salvage their battering ram. Instead, archers—certainly not [Warriors] or [Rangers] that specialized in archery though—were harassing her wall. Their levels and skills were ineffectual enough that Ranthia was dancing in the open while she returned fire with her own bow. She was, if anything, an even worse shot than they were, but she was gleefully engaged in a bit of psychological torment.

  She even at one point caught an arrow and shot it back. Which, had it been even slightly intentional, would have been downright awesome. Instead, she was actually reaching for another quiver and just kind of happened to catch an arrow that was perfectly positioned and rolled with it. She wasn’t quite arrogant enough to try to do it intentionally.

  She was hoping to learn what the attackers were planning next while she kept the lower level non-specialists occupied, but eventually her shift ended and she had no more information than she began with.

  Gods and goddesses being on defense sucked.

  The Radiance/Brilliance [Mage] that Ranthia had worked with in the colosseum once so long ago was a far more obnoxious adversary than she had ever expected. He had set up a large barrier of Brilliance and sat behind it, firing beams of Radiance straight through it like it wasn’t even there. Meanwhile, arrows and other spells sent at him struck the barrier.

  He had eliminated several of her people, and it was only because his beams of Radiance seemed to rely on his fingertips that Ranthia was barely able to avoid being taken out herself.

  She was sorely tempted to jump down again and deal with him, but she wasn’t stupid; there were bound to be some skilled ranged attackers on standby to protect him. It was too obvious of a trap. She had no idea what his mana situation was like, but… well, why let him operate with impunity?

  “Get me my throwing team again!” Ranthia called down.

  A short period of time later, rocks were lobbed into high arcs through the air. Most missed, but enough angled just right to come down just behind the barrier where they rained down on the [Mage] until he finally retreated while flipping them off. The poor guy was probably going to have some nasty bruises after that.

  Which served him right.

  “Message! Tell the commander about how we responded to him. If he shows up at any other walls, they can borrow up to three of my throwers if they don’t have their own.” Ranthia ordered.

  The sun was low in the sky when the sound of that mysterious gong interrupted the battle with a couple of [Rangers] from the attackers that had almost pinned down Ranthia’s wall entirely. Ranthia looked around, confused, until she saw it. She cursed out loud, colorfully.

  The side gate was open.

  “The attackers win!” One of the instructors called out, as everyone stood down.

  Ranthia was still pissed off, but the attackers’ strategy had turned out to be damned effective. Her section was pinned down by the two best archers the attackers possessed. The Adventurers had also been roaming around, attacking the walls in undermanned sections. …That was also a distraction, which defied Statia’s expectations, she’d been convinced the Adventurers were trying to find a vulnerability with their hit and run attacks.

  The real strategy relied on a small group of trainees that Ranthia had never even paid much attention to—those that made baskets for one of their courses, which felt like a bizarre waste of time. The four of them had managed to slip over the wall through a narrow opening while the defenders scrambled to reinforce those trying to repel the Adventurers. Those trainees had snuck through the base—unchallenged, despite their lack of badges—and managed to unbar the side gate.

  Worse, they’d passed right under where Ranthia stood!

  So, yes, she was frustrated! They were doing great, and they had countered so many plans the attackers had made. She had actually started to assume the attackers were just desperately trying to find some vulnerability or chance. Yet it turned out they were still following a longer-term plan, and it was one that neither she nor Statia ever saw coming.

  The debriefing with the instructors didn’t take long.

  They were generally pleased with the game. They felt Statia had been a bit too passive for a commander but noted that she didn’t do anything outright wrong. Ranthia’s own review was significantly worse. Some instructors felt the trick with the cooking oil was clever, some felt that it was borderline cheating, but most of them agreed that it was needlessly reckless to the trainees and endangered the outpost. The instructors were a united front in their belief that her leaping into the midst of her enemies was idiotic, the kind of move that one could only make in a spar where no serious consequences could arise.

  Ranthia bit her tongue and kept the thought to herself that she would have probably done the same thing in a real battle. They’d already assigned her laps to perform once they got back to the island, she wasn’t going to push her luck further.

  After they left, Ranthia sighed and slumped down.

  “I spent my entire birthday yesterday on a stupid game and ended up not only losing, but also getting chewed out by the instructors.” She groused.

  “Oh, it was your birthday? Happy birthday, a day late, I guess. But for what it’s worth I don’t think they were actually mad at you! You did good and held your section; if you ask me, you made for solid leadership. Honestly, I think they were more pleased with you than they were with me. They’re right, I need to work on how passive I can be. The struggle with growing up, you know?” Statia replied.

  Ranthia found herself thoroughly distracted by that. Most people her own age were still so focused on growing up, which was something that was—bizarrely—easy for her to forget. Remus tended to think of people as functional adults well before then, but there was a lot of mental catch up most people needed to do. Which might have had something to do with why she preferred older women, since they were closer to being peers to her…

  “Ranthia?” Statia’s voice broke Ranthia out of her spiral of distractions.

  “Oh, sorry! Was in my own head. Yeah, I appreciate it. I guess neither of us did terribly, it wasn’t like they assigned us hard exercise as punishment or anything.” Ranthia said after she shook herself out of her introspection. Even her own laps were minimal, and she suspected they were mostly assigned over the instructors’ annoyance about needing to establish a new rule because of her.

  Still, the best way for her to take the defeat was that it provided more lessons for her to learn. At least once she stopped feeling sorry for herself.

  Some of the instructors had wanted to make the trainees clean up the outpost themselves, but a support team from Ranger HQ showed up and asked them to please let professionals handle it and kindly leave. So shortly thereafter, the trainees packed up their supplies and began to file out.

  Once they got back to the island the instructors gave them the last two gongs left in the day off. The trainees clumped together and ate while they enjoyed a rare opportunity to socialize.

  “So, any team you guys hoping to get on?” One of the women Ranthia had never learned the name of asked.

  “Anything that isn’t Ranger Team 13.” Kaesios replied immediately, to general nodding from the others at the table.

  “Why?” Ranthia asked, confused.

  “Ranger Team 13 has been wiped out entirely virtually every time for as long as I’ve known. At least a decade, I think?” Kaesios replied.

  Others nodded in agreement.

  “That’s some shit luck, but it’s not like any team’s any riskier or safer.” Ranthia grumbled.

  Superstition bugged her on some level. Not all trends meant anything. None of her odd habits or beliefs counted for that, of course; there were real reasons behind those.

  “Well, whatever. I am dead certain that everyone at this table, at least, will become a full Ranger!” A man that Ranthia had never even interacted with called out.

  Everyone toasted and added their own variations of agreements.

  Rigira had nearly fallen to the floor laughing when Ranthia completed her story about the mock siege. The chortling had started when she mentioned that the sneaky trainees had gone right under her feet.

  Rigira, of course, took it as total validation of her disdain for [Combat Awareness]. Ranthia felt the need to defend her skill; it was valuable. It had been a niche situation at best!

  “Oh, come on, it’s not like they set up explosives under me or something. They were just passing through; not like my other senses gave me any better warning.” Ranthia muttered.

  “I mean ye were pretty stupid t’ not keep two guards posted on te inside o’ each gate, but fine I shall meet yer challenge. What makes ye so sure yer precious skill would have warned you if they did mean ye harm?” Rigira retorted between chuckles.

  “I… Well, I get the sense that it would, since that would clearly be a hostile action.” Ranthia replied.

  “So shall we find out?” Rigira replied, with a scary look on her face.

  Godsdamnit.

  Rigira press-ganged the instructors that camped outside into service. In short order Ranthia found herself blindfolded—of fucking course—and seated on a conjured wooden platform, specifically perched atop a trap door that was secured in place by a rope tied somewhere beneath the platform. Also beneath the platform, several of the instructors milled around. Ranthia was forbidden from knowing which instructors were present, how many were, or where exactly the rope that kept her safe was positioned. One, and Ranthia didn’t know which one, would at some point try to cut the rope. If Ranthia sensed the danger, all she had to do was shout. If she was wrong, she would have to eat five wooden block blasts from Rigira. If she failed to notice the sabotage, she would drop onto a bunch of wooden stakes beneath the trapdoor with rounded points. Painful, but not deadly.

  Naturally, Rigira had wanted them sharp to serve as a better lesson and had argued that a good [Healer] could probably fix the damage. The female instructor had, miraculously, talked her down, which made the woman officially Ranthia’s favorite instructor. Not that she knew the woman’s name beyond “Sir!”

  Ranthia tried not to squirm while she waited. She was confident in [Combat Awareness] giving her warning since the rope was completely within its range. Okay she was mostly sure it would. …Oh Xaoc, she really hoped it would! But either way, the wait was pure agony, especially as she doubted herself a little more by the moment.

  Finally, she sensed something. She shouted immediately.

  “Damn, I hadn’t even touched the rope yet. I had just barely started to take a swing with my short sword. Figured if anything you would have been dropped for shouting when I merely drew the sword a few passes back.” The female instructor called from below.

  Ranthia took back her earlier praise—the woman was an absolute menace that probably only went with a non-lethal option to let her feel better about her own involvement! Ranthia had been so sure the woman was among the instructors that left before the stupid game began!

  Rigira though was giving Ranthia a strange look.

  “Well, damn. Was not expectin’ that outcome.” The dwarf admitted sourly.

  The promised final tasks and tests of their time at the Ranger Academy were, for the most part, somewhat overstated. Visualization Exercises, Hand-to-Hand Training, Ranged Combat Training, Unit 2 Sparring, and Speedster Training all just continued to be regular classes until they were done. International Studies, Geography & Cartography, and Advanced Monster Slaying each had dense review sessions for their last two classes, followed by a somewhat perfunctory quiz over their basic tenents.

  Countering Sapient Foes didn’t even try. Kallisto just hung out with her and shot the breeze for the last course, though he did offer little practical bits of advice for life on the road in the Ranger wagon. Mostly incredibly obvious stuff, but Ranthia appreciated the sentiment behind it. He seemed to have no doubt that she would make the cut, which was kind of a relief.

  Field Leadership Training had a surprisingly daunting final test. She was shoved into a room with 7 random Rangers that had already returned for the Ranger Convocation that was to be held in two days. She was given a short period of time to learn, generally, what they could do and how they fought. Then she was given a scroll with a scenario written on it and had to solve it using those Rangers while she was personally unable to act due to injury. The whole disabled by injury thing made her roll her eyes since that wouldn’t actually stop her; even if her true body’s legs were shattered, her mirror images would be fine. Even aside from that, it was hard to imagine letting herself remain downed by an injury in a crisis.

  Anyway, she was able to cheat shamelessly in the Field Leadership Training final exam. [Divine-Touched Identify] let her see exact levels and elements, and while it didn’t include skills or even class names, it gave her enough information to approximate what she needed to know, especially when added to the information they gave her. Though one of the Rangers had claimed to be Forest aspected rather than Verdant for some reason. At least it was for his primary class, so Ranthia was able to claim she recognized the difference in his eyes.

  Hopefully that had been an intentional test.

  “This was the best I could do. I think I’m close to being able to add a fifth ball, but this is more complicated than it looks.”

  Ranthia was juggling for Rigira, who seemed delighted at the show while, simultaneously, disappointed that Ranthia hadn’t mastered using all eight balls.

  “Well, good ‘nough. Now let me see ye dodge while ye juggle!”

  “Wait, no not yet!”

  Ranthia lost one ball nearly immediately, unable to keep its momentum moving with her when she had to hop to the side to avoid an illusory attack. Rigira had dialed the challenge up to the maximum and there were—once again, by Rigira’s own shouted warning—real wooden spikes being driven at Ranthia too, among the illusory ones. Those would do more than knock her senseless if they landed.

  By the end of the session, Ranthia could barely remember anything that happened. She had to use every last bit of her mental capacity to track threats, dance and evade, and somehow keep juggling three—er two, when had she lost the third?—balls. Near the end, it had very, very nearly become one ball, but she managed to recover the second. She vaguely recalled that part, but not what happened or how she recovered.

  She felt exhausted by the time Rigira stopped shooting at her. Immediately Ranthia collapsed on the spot. Rigira smiled comfortingly at her and approached. Ranthia was unable to even look up.

  …And immediately took two wooden blocks, one to either side of her chest.

  “Whhhyy…” She gasped from her back as soon as her lungs deigned to allow her to grab enough air.

  “Ye dropped two. Ye got two penalties.” Rigira replied, mercilessly.

  Ranthia shakily raised her hand and held up her middle finger.

  “Ha! I will miss all o’ this. ‘Tis been a pleasure. Yer still young, look forward to seeing what kinda ironwood ye grow into. Or maybe ye will end up more like one of them bendy trees that grow in windy places, now that I think ‘bout it. Either way, I hope I get to see what ye grow ‘nto with seasonin’ brought on by age. Take care of yerself ‘n look me up when ye worthy ‘o te frontlines. Juggle all eight of ‘em for me when ye do!”

  With that, Rigira gave a cheery wave and walked out of Ranthia’s life. Ranthia needed more time to recover before she felt up to the journey back to her room.

  Though she swore to never touch those stupid balls again.

  Their final day at the academy was a total non-event. They ran in the morning, then were told to rest and recuperate so they could be ready for tomorrow. Ranthia would have really preferred being released into society so she could go get her hair done and spend time with Hexara, but they were kept on the island until it was time to head into town as a cluster for the Ranger Convocation.

  She was mildly frustrated that she wasn’t able to class up at the Ranger Academy. She had tried her best to reach level 256 with her [Warrior] class, but it just wasn’t in the cards. After more than a little mental back and forth, she decided to keep her free stats on-hand. That way she could distribute them if she saw a need after she became an official Ranger and met her team… or, possibly, keep them until it was time for her next class up.

  In the end, all she could do was try to take it easy and wait until morning.

  Because they were to become Rangers the next day. …Or end up left on the bench and forced to reassess their lives, as her more intrusive thoughts liked to remind her.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.