The round progressed. Slowly the team came together. Even more slowly Ranthia began to learn names, except for the name of their pompous, dour [Healer]. She was pretty certain she would never be able to internalize any name for him except ‘asshole,’ which was why she did her best to refer to him strictly by his class tag.

  They had resolved numerous minor issues, in that terrible relative weight of the word ‘minor’ when the major end of the scale usually meant something that threatened to—or worse, successfully managed to—destroy the bulk of a town. In one city a man with a binding class used it for terrible things, and did not survive when Ranthia found him (self-defense, she claimed—not that anyone questioned it). Purple Flower smugglers were caught in another town and handed over to the local guard. A young, territorial dinosaur in a third village, which they managed to relocate somewhere it could live. Numerous other incidents with the local wildlife that were ultimately largely ignorable, as far as incidents went.

  An idiotic classer that decided forcing his three sons to help him kill travelers on the road was the fastest way to level them up. The three youths—kids, really—were all too eager to surrender once Leoios put an arrow through their father’s skull. Still handed them over to the guards in the next town, where Ranthia had to suffer through an irate old woman that couldn’t believe that Rangers were unwilling to assist her with her neighbor that was ‘stealing her hair’.

  The woman never left the desk the entire time Ranthia was stuck manning it.

  At least the next city was one Ranthia actually knew. …Well, yes, she knew of—and had been through—more than one of the towns they had visited so far, but Aquiliea was the first she had spent real time in and had memories attached to.

  Those memories were a hearty mix of attempted beast extinction and dyed pigs, but they were fond memories of her childhood. Such as it was.

  Why on Pallos was she the one that had to introduce them? Ranthia put on her best Ranger Business face as she neared Aquiliea’s gates. There was a bit of a line, since the city had clearly joined most of the larger cities in screening those that entered with [Healers]. Still, Aquiliea wasn’t exactly massive, so it was a short wait.

  She was a Ranger now, she could speak to lowly guards without incident.

  “Ranger Ranthia, speaking on behalf of Ranger Team 13. We’re seeking entry to perform routine duties.” Ranthia saluted the guard before she spoke, just to be Extra Official.

  “Right, all [Mages] will need to discharge mana. Everyone out of the wagon so the [Healer] can screen you all.” The guard ordered. The other guard that stood behind him frowned slightly, before he stepped back into the guard compound that was built into the wall. That was… odd, but probably not alarming.

  Ranthia was mostly distracted with the urge to roll her eyes. A few towns hadn’t required Rangers to discharge, but this was clearly one of the stupider rules over sense cities. And the need to be screened by a [Healer] when they had their own was just idiotic, but Leoios had been very clear that they needed to adhere to whatever [Healer] policies were required without question.

  It was kind of hard to forget the lesson after they just recently watched a [Farmer] get murdered by the city guard for refusing to let a [Healer] touch him, when they went through the last large city. Leoios had to restrain her—albeit just with a hand on her shoulder—to stop her from tearing into the guard.

  The emperor’s orders, he said. Gods and goddesses, what the fuck was wrong with their society?

  Ranthia, Hail, Secundia, and Pibius lined up. By Leoios’ orders, Mettlea was to never mention his [Mage] class in town; no one really wanted him conjuring clouds of Poison just outside of a town. Ranthia made a single image with [Scattered Reflections] and made a show of slowly and clumsily moving it with [Reflective Motility] (no, she was not draining her mana). Hail used the mana dumps as an excuse to practice trying to make ice sculptures, at least until he had to put out the brush fire Secundia started (sigh). Pibius, as always, unleashed a thick gout of steam straight up into the air which made him unpleasant to be around (well, more unpleasant).

  After that it was time to let a far-too-young, low level [Healer] prod each of them. Republius was already done and back in the wagon to steer it through the gate once they were cleared.

  That was when the guard that had stepped out returned, baton in hand, and announced that Ranthia was under arrest.

  So, it turned out that maybe Ranthia hadn’t quite gotten away scot-free when she was a kid and inflicted a bit of chaos on the governor’s estate. At least one guard realized it’d been a girl with short hair, not a boy. How they got her name, she had no idea, but there was a standing order.

  And lucky her, she got a go-getter young guard eager to prove himself that had memorized all the standing orders, no matter how old.

  At least the situation resolved itself. Honestly, it was kind of fun to watch the senior guardsman verbally dismantle his younger peer.

  The gist of it was that the man that had issued the standing order wasn’t even part of the guard anymore and his mental state had declined rapidly before his death. Then of course there was the minor issue that the kid was trying to arrest a Ranger based on speculation from a decade ago (oh Xaoc, how time flies) on the orders of someone that couldn’t even be contacted.

  She was allowed through, though she didn’t miss the fact that Leoios was giving her some serious side-eye.

  Which was probably why she was assigned to patrol the city with Secundia. Her fondness for Aquiliea dropped multiple notches, but in the end, there was no need for the Rangers there.

  Soon enough, it was time to move on.

  Cities and towns were a bright spot, but the bulk of their time was spent on the roads, where they seldom encountered anything of note. Day after day, road after road.

  The sun was high in the sky. Mettlea was on scouting duty. And Ranthia was stuck working with Republius in the wagon. He was supervising—sorry, advising—her while she worked to repair her own armor. A close call with a starving bear—she had sorely underestimated the threat they posed when she was a teenager, it seemed—had cost her some of the leather strips on her skirt, but she did ultimately succeed in leading it to a stream that had an overabundance of fish. A happy ending where nature could balance itself out once again (ignore the fact that it was completely unintentional).

  The jerk of a [Healer] was also in the wagon, of course, with a face that fully suggested that he was silently, yet openly judging her. As if the man knew a single thing about leatherworking. At the very least he’d learned to keep his mouth shut around Leoios or Republius. Ranthia could ignore him. Probably.

  Pibius was driving the wagon. Leoios and Secundia were still in the previous town while she classed up. They would catch up, which was why things were a bit relaxed and dull. Even Hail and Penticus had fallen back a ways; they were experimenting to see if Hail could keep Penticus from overheating. Their previous efforts had always shown little promise—often ending with Penticus both overheated and frostburned—but they remained optimistic that they could figure it out. It was all about graduality and timing, as the men eagerly explained before Republius finally just gave them leave to go do it.

  All in all, it was a perfectly ordinary day.

  The explosion came out of nowhere and shattered the peace of the day all at once.

  The sound preceded a great, bone-jarring impact against the side of the wagon. The wagon didn’t just get knocked over, no, the force was so great the wagon began to tumble as it was thrown completely off the road. It—they—crashed through several of the thinner trees near the edge of the road before it settled to a halt on its side, pressed against the more robust trees.

  The one merciful detail was the fact that Leoios always insisted that they had to keep everything restrained. All the crates, boxes, and sacks were to always be tied or netted to the sides or bottom of the wagon. The man was adamant that no objects could be left loose that were not in active use; loose objects inevitably caused problems he said. The man was a godsdamned genius.

  His foresight meant that the only loose objects were Ranthia’s armor and the armor repair kit that Ranthia had actively been using.

  Also, perhaps more problematically: the three occupants of the interior of the wagon.

  [A Void Dance] tried. It really, really did. But there was no way to start dancing while in a tumbling wagon and trying to completely avoid two other bodies in a confined space was all but impossible. Blows landed by sheer accident. The best she could do was try to keep her head safe while she struggled to not hit the heads of either of the men.

  It was one of those incidents that took only moments, yet felt like an eternity while she lived it. A brutal sort of chaos filled with terror and uncertainty.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Owww…” Ranthia winced as she stood up. The wagon was mostly dark. They hadn’t been using candles or oil lanterns (thank Xaoc, she had better things to do than burn), but the tumble had smashed the doors shut.

  She hadn’t even known the wagon was designed to do that.

  Republius was already up, eyes narrow and silent. A Ranger hand sign—barely seen in the gloom—from him told Ranthia to stay quiet. He drew his bow and took position, facing the back door to the wagon. Another set of gestures ordered Ranthia to standby, ready to engage anyone that opened the side door—well, upward door at the moment.

  She paused only to carefully open her personal chest. She slid the bracers from her Adventurer armor on, then relatched it. There was no point in trying to find her Ranger armor at the moment, and in an emergency, she wanted the arcanite more than she needed armor. Her belt was always on while she was awake (and she kept it wrapped loosely around her arm while she slept). She was ready. She drew a pair of knives from the first holsters. Cheap, simplistic pieces of bulk-produced iron, not even proper steel.

  Pibius had, at some point during the tumble, stopped screaming. The [Healer] was crumpled on the wall that was now the floor, either unconscious or dead. This wasn’t the time to check.

  Footfalls. Voices in eager discussions of prospective loot. Republius and Ranthia traded grim looks in the gloom. Ranthia suppressed all notifications except kills.

  The back door opened first, and Republius loosed his arrow immediately. A bandit fell back, gurgling. More shouts, followed by a clatter on the roof.

  Ranthia didn’t wait for the side door to be fully opened, instead she sprang up with every spark of strength she could muster, one arm held defensively above her head. Ranthia’s arm smashed the door the rest of the way open. In the instant of surprise, she took in the situation and adapted, catching her toe on the doorframe and flexing her foot to use the leverage to pirouette. Her knife spun and tore through two bandits that stood there.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Mighty Slave of Burden] (Earth, level 164), [Bloody Brigand] (Dark, level 150)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Service is my Pleasure] (Fire, level 201), [Future Bandit King] (Fire, level 180)!]

  Ranthia tried her best to ignore the gore as the two men fell lifeless, swaths of their heads outright erased by [Void Edge] (which meant [Cross Strike] hadn’t done much, but it was better to be safe than dead). Immediately, she tossed the knife she used to the side and drew another from the second slot in her belt. She’d learned her lesson. There was no way that she’d risk a potentially faulty blade that might shatter before her strike landed, not ever again.

  A huge man threw a rock at her (quite literally, just grabbed a rock and threw it; it felt almost out of place). Ranthia immediately leapt from the side of the wagon, then kicked off the rock when she passed it to increase her forward momentum by a tiny amount. She landed gracefully beside the man… her knife left buried in his eye socket when she passed.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Bulky Butler] (Earth, level 107), [Dim Lackey] (Water, level 65)!]

  Three more men waited, armed with simple tools rather than weaponry. They tried to menace her with their equipment, visibly uncertain. They were even lower level than the last man had been, clearly the two she killed atop the wagon had been the ‘elites’ of the group.

  “I’m a Ranger and I’m higher level than all three of you combined, yield.” Ranthia ordered with a disdainful roll of her eyes.

  Sometimes the fastest way to deescalate a situation was to show utter contempt for it.

  “Yah, well, our numbers are way more bigger than you!” One of the trio retorted.

  Ranthia blinked at the idiot. Fortunately, his other two fellows seemed to be just as confused; if they were all that stupid they would have probably attacked.

  [*ding!* Your group has slain a [Eager to Serve] (Dark, level 68), [Dreaming of Escape] (Dark, level 34)!]

  That notification made her have to repress a shudder. It had to have been the one that Republius had put an arrow into. He’d just been a kid!

  “Look around you! Do you see your fellows dead?! Do you really want to join them!?” Ranthia snarled at the trio, her mood further soured over the notification.

  They were hesitating. They looked at the big guy Ranthia’d already killed. The two bodies atop the wagon. Then they looked at each other and, suddenly eager to comply, they hurriedly threw down their tools and raised their arms in surrender.

  Republius had captured the one that blasted the wagon. The man was only a level 138 Inferno [Mage], but he confessed to having a skill that let him keep building up a skill inside of him all day. It let him put out a big blast, exactly once. And he swore the skill literally used every bit of his mana and it left him helpless since all of his stats went into magic power. The man was now tied up tightly and uncomfortably, with his hands pointed at his own stomach. Ranthia would never understand why so many [Mages] seemed to only be able to use their skills from their hands or their fingertips—the System wasn’t so limited.

  More importantly though: gods and goddesses, [Channel] was horrifying when it was used for direct attack skills!

  Ranthia hurriedly geared up properly once their prisoners were secure, though it took her a bit to relocate all of the scattered parts of her armor. Thank Xaoc her quiver and bow had been secure in her chest at the time.

  The time also allowed her to confirm that their [Healer] wasn’t unconscious, he was dead. Pibius seemed to be alive, thrown clear of the wagon, but there wasn’t time to carefully assess his condition; their position wasn’t secure yet.

  The bandits had a camp nearby. Ranthia and Republius scouted it and confirmed that there were five more bandits within. Pibius’ potentially urgent condition forced them to engage, rather than signal for reinforcements. Republius launched a signal arrow immediately before they charged into the base, announcing themselves as Rangers.

  Four of the bandits surrendered immediately. It wasn’t hard to figure out that their fellows went out to hit an incoming wagon and Rangers appeared to challenge them after their fellows failed to return. The only one that refused to surrender was an old man, [Laborer] in both classes, who insisted that they would have to kill him.

  The man was less than level 120 in his lead class, and he was old enough that his body was slowing. On Republius’ orders, Ranthia weaponized the tyranny of superior stats to disarm and restrain the man, no matter what he demanded. Once bound, the man broke down weeping, muttering over and over that he couldn’t go back.

  By the time they were done, Hail and Penticus were at the wagon and had further secured the prisoners that Republius and Ranthia had left there while they rushed to secure the base. That meant that Mettlea was still missing though.

  The sun had begun to set by the time Penticus pulled the—now upright, which had been a chore and a half—wagon into the bandit camp. The camp itself was a little encampment with makeshift walls surrounding the ruins of some long-abandoned structure that Ranthia couldn’t identify. There was just too little left; the bandits had only used it as a watchtower to keep an eye on the nearby road.

  “Pibius should be fine, but he’s still unconscious. Had to put the horses out of their misery, they were badly crippled.” Hail grimly reported after he led the prisoners over to where Ranthia and Republius had secured the others.

  “Still no sign of Mettlea. The bandits claim they hadn’t seen him.” Ranthia replied, her tone still cold. She was a bit worried for the man, but more than that she was just plain bothered by the entire situation.

  There was no reason to report that the base had been taken successfully—the other Rangers had eyes.

  Leoios and Secundia showed up right around the time Pibius woke up. The jerk was hungry, which was a promising sign, no matter how ugly the bruises were that were forming on him. They gave him some sausage while Ranthia took it upon herself to raid the bandits’ supplies to start a large pot of stew. Leoios eyed her, but ultimately said nothing.

  It was nearly done when Mettlea walked into the camp, humming a jaunty tune.

  “Huh, how did I miss this place? Anyhow, nothing to report.” He announced with a smile on his face.

  For a heartbeat, Ranthia swore that Leoios was about to attack the man. Their leader took a deep breath and, instead, ordered him to start running laps around the camp. At least Mettlea had the sense to not ask how many; he took off immediately.

  The rest of them ate, then carefully supervised their prisoners while they were allowed to eat.

  That night, Mettlea was assigned the first watch after he was finally allowed to stop running laps. Ranthia doubted that any of them would be able to trust him on scouting ever again; not only had he missed the bandit camp, but he’d completely failed to notice the noise or Republius’ signal arrow.

  The rest of them were tasked with sleeping, while Leoios and Republius went to burn the dead [Healer]—Ranthia never even thought to pray for the horrible man’s soul—and the bandits that she and Republius had killed.

  Yet, for the first time in ages, Ranthia found herself unable to sleep. Ever since Ranger Academy she had gotten great at sleeping, even when bothered or worried or upset (and she rarely even had nightmares about the war goblins anymore). But sleep just rejected her outright.

  Reviewing her level gains didn’t make her feel any better.

  [*ding!* Congratulations! [Blade Dancer] has reached level 247!]

  [*ding!* [Void Affinity], [The Flow of Battle], [Void Edge], [Steps into the Void], [Strengthen Blade], and [A Void Dance] have reached level 247!]

  [*ding!* [Critical Strike] has leveled from 231 to level 235!]

  Just over killing three men and subduing a handful of others. The System loved to reward the slaughter of other thinking beings. Normally she was fine with it, but in the moment…

  With a sigh, Ranthia gave up. She stood, walked a short distance, and began to sort through the accumulated stolen junk and supplies from the bandits.

  The kill notification for the kid just kept flashing through her mind. She hadn’t even been the one to shoot the arrow, so she really had no idea why it bothered her so much, beyond the vague sense that it was just such a waste.

  “First time killing another person?” Leoios interrupted her eventually.

  “Gods no. Not by a long shot. Honestly? I’m not even sure what’s bothering me. The kill notification for the kid, the one Republius shot, just really got into my head for some reason.” Ranthia answered readily.

  She had begun to respect Leoios enough that she was happy to let him do his leadership duty and check on the wellbeing of those under him. Even her. Only a few years ago she would have brushed it off with an “I’m fine,” but she wasn’t the same independent Adventurer she had been.

  “Ah. Let me guess, he had slavery-related classes. I’ve known many Rangers that had a similar reaction to cutting down escaped slaves that turned bad.” The man replied as joined her in going through the supplies.

  They worked in silence for a time.

  “I know I’m being stupid. I’m not blind. Escaped slaves or not… There were no women here, yet it’s hard to imagine that a group of only men escaped their owner without a single woman among them. Nor had they taken any other prisoners. We had no reports of bandits in the area robbing people and sending them on their way. There’s freshly turned ground over that way that no doubt conceals the true horror these men did. They killed our [Healer], could have killed Pibius, and would have eagerly killed—and likely done worse to—us, had Republius and I been knocked out too.” Ranthia finally spoke.

  “Valid observations.” Leoios prompted.

  “Even the kid probably was involved in the darker stuff these pieces of shit did.” Ranthia admitted.

  “But you dislike turning your power on those far weaker than yourself, especially those who had likely just wanted a better life but knew not how to obtain it.” Their leader offered.

  Ranthia nodded along with his words. They made sense. They filled a big part of the picture. She had no idea if it was the whole picture, but it made sense.

  “It’s just such a damned waste.” Ranthia concluded.

  “Yes, it is. Come, let us take the next watch shift together, then you should rest. I can make it an order, if you need.” The man offered.

  It wasn’t like they were truly doing anything productive. Rangers didn’t loot rogue classers. For some reason.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.