Ranthia had largely stowed her own thoughts by the time they reached the next city. Or at least she had pulled herself out of her head. No matter how she felt about it, this was the world that she lived in. Some men eschewed civilization and turned to violence. It was a fact of life.

  And she would never submit meekly to the violence of others.

  They handed over the surviving bandits and the useful or valuable items that they recovered from the bandits’ camp. In theory, the city guard would find out exactly who had been affected by the bandits and redistribute the contraband appropriately. In practice, she suspected the city’s coffers would grow as soon as the Rangers left without even the most token of efforts put in.

  Ranthia treated herself to a real bath before she turned in to try to claim some space next to Secundia to sleep in the wagon; the men—as usual—claimed spots in the city guard’s barracks. While they were on the road Ranthia favored sleeping beneath the stars, but in a city they needed someone keeping tabs on their wagon and supplies. Preferably multiple someones—Secundia was a surprisingly deep sleeper.

  The next morning Hail was given the duty to man the desk by their wagon to receive reports and complaints from the townsfolk. Leoios and Republius were off doing resupplies. Secundia had taken Pibius to see a local healer, just to be safe (which was a massive hit to their operational budget). Mettlea was ‘asked’ to investigate around the poorer parts of the city, with Ranthia ‘requested’ to stick with him for ‘safety’. Both of them knew that she was babysitting him to make sure he stayed on task. Penticus won the lot draw and was left to his own devices for the day.

  Mettlea, at the very least, seemed properly apologetic and eager to make up for his stunning failure. The man kept quiet and kept his eyes peeled while they walked through increasingly poor parts of the city. Ranthia was more relaxed, content to let him take the lead on this assignment. City patrols rarely uncovered much of anything, especially not when Ranthia was partnered with one of the men. If it was just Secundia and her, they sometimes had vulnerable women approach who needed help. …Whether they could offer such help varied, though Ranthia still had a certain Adventurer’s mentality that could mattered less than should.

  At least she could be sneaky when she had to be.

  They were in a part of the city that was so poor that there weren’t even any stalls present, only quiet people that seemed in a hurry to be elsewhere—especially once they clapped eyes on the Rangers—and a few filthy kids.

  “Psst, you two, come over here.” A young woman whispered in passing as she walked past them. She never even looked their way as she walked away and turned down an alley.

  Mettlea glanced at Ranthia, and she subtly shrugged in response. There was no need to discuss it: they turned to follow the woman. If this was some sort of trap or robbery—which was hilariously idiotic to pull against two fully equipped Rangers with their badges on—it was better to spring it and smash through it. Besides, there was always a chance that it was something legitimate that Rangers were truly needed for.

  The woman cast off her hood once they arrived in a small, abandoned building. She was even younger than Ranthia had assumed; she was just a teenager—a kid (meaning that she was 3-5 years younger than Ranthia was). …Which was more than a little surprising, given the woman’s classes were both close to level 150 (Ranthia was an outlier and should not be considered as part of the standard age-to-level rates in Remus). The youth looked around for a bit, then nodded to herself.

  “Look, got a tip for you. The guards’ve been robbin’ people too, it’s why they hasn’t been doin’ anything ‘bout the reports of bandits much. I can tell you where they hidin’ their loot. Unused part of their stables, behind the big locked door.”

  “Uh-huh, and why tell us?” Mettlea asked, subtly signaling Ranthia to keep quiet.

  She resented it—the man was only barely above her in rank and she was assigned to keep an eye on him—but she held her silence.

  “‘Cause you’s both Rangers?” The young woman replied. Her tone clearly conveyed that she thought he had asked a very stupid question.

  Mettlea groaned. Ranthia fought to keep a grin off her face.

  “Fine. Ranger Ranthia, keep an eye on her. Don’t let her leave. I’ll find our leader and we’ll check the tip out. If it pans out, great. If she was just trying to stir up shit, we’ll hand her over.”

  He left.

  Shortly thereafter, the young woman not-so-subtly sidestepped into the shadows and vanished. Ranthia didn’t react at all, at least up until the moment that concealed teen tried to carefully sneak past her. The kid was clever; she had the sense to wait for a moment before she tried to move.

  Ranthia still caught her arm.

  “Neat trick, but a spot that weirdly erases sound entirely is super suspicious and makes you easy to track with high vitality.” Ranthia smiled.

  The young woman reappeared and scowled.

  “Damnit. How’d you know?”

  Ranthia could see the kid’s Dark and Sound class aspect tags, of course.

  “I’m a Ranger.” She answered instead.

  “Ugh fine.” The young woman pulled her arm free and flung herself into a corner.

  “I saw you near our table this morning, didn’t I?” Ranthia asked.

  “Yeh. Was gonna report it there, but nearby guards made me nervous. Then heard you two were gonna get sent out here. Seemed safer.” The kid admitted, sulking.

  “How did you know about where they keep their stuff?” Ranthia asked.

  “Guards steal from us, so I’s steal from them.” The kid replied with a sneer.

  “Want to tell me more about how they steal from you?” She might as well do some information gathering while she waited for the men to either resolve things or start a problem that required the full team to intervene. If the kid was right, the latter was probably more likely.

  “They always ‘investigating’ everything,” actual finger quotes were used, “they take crates from poor merchants coming into town or small local shops. Contraband tip, they say. Gotta ‘investigate.’ But then they never give it back, or when they do it be half gone and they claim it was like that when they took it. Got records to show they right. Or records that show a tax officer seized it all legal like. Always excuses. They never do it to them rich folk or citizens, only those with little. My peoples.” The kid replied, still sulking.

  Ranthia nodded, then frowned.

  “You’re just a teenager and an urchin on the streets. Xaoc knows I’ve seen enough of your sort from my time spent as an Adventurer. Why cut off your own meal ticket?” Ranthia finally asked the big question.

  “Psh, would rather the shits be stopped from ruinin’ everyone else. I can worry about me after.” The kid replied with a confident glare.

  Ranthia fell silent while she looked the teenager over appraisingly. The kid was skinny, too skinny. But she carried herself well and she definitely had the right mentality. The rest could be built up…

  The teenager turned around and pulled her tattered cape over herself, turning her head to openly glare at Ranthia.

  “I ain’t no whore. Got some respect still.” She snarled.

  Ranthia laughed aloud at the absurdity of it.

  “Sorry, but no. I prefer my women a bit older these days. No, I want to make you a deal, one that I think you might like.”

  “I jus’ said…” The kid started. Ranthia rushed to cut her off.

  “No! Ugh, by Xaoc… Look, you swear the tip you gave was good?”

  “Wouldn’t lie ‘bout my people’s safety.” The kid answered.

  “Good enough. Got a name?” At last, progress!

  “Vert. Gave it to meself, ain’t never got one from whoever my parents were.” The kid answered.

  Ranthia sighed and silently repeated the name in her head the entire time while she took a moment to convince herself. It was a long shot, but…

  “Vert, what do you think about trying to become a Ranger yourself in a couple of years?” Ranthia asked, proud of herself for accomplishing the completely ordinary task of remembering someone’s name for a few moments.

  Vert’s tip paid off in a huge way. One of Leoios’ big emergency signal arrows went up a short time later. The corrupt guards had chosen to do something that was all too common in a Ranger’s line of work: they committed suicide by Ranger. Ranthia and the others rushed to join Leoios, Republius, Hail, and Mettlea, then the eight of them tore through over half the city guard.

  They fell far behind schedule as the investigations continued. Every now and then another corrupt guard would panic and try to kill one of them, often picking Ranthia, Secundia, or Pibius to try to ambush. After the second attempt, they were ordered to stick together in pairs—at a minimum—except the times Leoios used Ranthia as bait.

  Ranthia eschewed Hunting’s orders every time that happened. Leoios and Ranthia worked as a pair, without the others involved. She used her mirror images—and occasionally even dusted off [Reflections of Reality] to shift—as they countered entire groups of guards and hired thugs. It was refreshing, but sadly the moments of freedom from her restrictions were far too limited.

  In the end, Leoios personally executed the captain of the guard, and they had arrested almost the entirety of the surviving city guards. They had, very nearly to a man, all been involved in the scheme and it went back years. The exact flavor of excuse they used varied over time yet, somehow, it seemed that the city’s leadership and judiciary were completely innocent (since, tragically, sheer incompetence wasn’t a crime, not even from those responsible for the lives and welfare of others). There was only one other person outside of the city guard that they were able to tie anything to. The leader of the local tax collectors whose involvement was just selling the city guard a stack of tax appropriations forms with his signature on them. It was still a crime though, and Ranthia suspected that the entire team secretly enjoyed arresting the tax collector. It was cathartic!

  Another Ranger team arrived while the investigations were underway, but they hurriedly moved on as soon as they learned that Ranger Team 13 had the situation in hand and would be sticking around. Ranthia didn’t even get a chance to say hi to the former Adventurer on their team!

  By the time that Ranger Team 13 left town (horribly late):

  The 3rd Legion had been deployed to the city to replace the mostly absent city guard. Which was not giving Ranthia happy vibes or memories.

  A courier clad in reds and golds arrived with a decree that the governor was to be replaced, under orders of the Emperor. (Huh, maybe incompetence was frowned upon!)

  Roughly sixty-four men and women had been killed or arrested.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Ranger Team 13 had ‘accidentally’ disseminated the coin recovered from the bandits to the citizens that had been affected by the corrupt guards. (Leoios was unamused, but surprisingly Republius had distracted him.)

  Ranthia had reached level 254 in [Shards of Reflection] and level 252 in [Blade Dancer] (though she was rather surprised that her [Covenant] hadn’t leveled at all; the situation had sure felt chaotic).

  Ranger Team 9 should have arrived days ago and Leoios seemed to be judging them hard for being late. As if he had any room to talk.

  And Ranthia’s own storage chest was lighter. Thanks to her sacrifice, Vert had money to live on and—hopefully—would follow through in turning her life around and training herself. Ranthia had promised that, come late spring in a year and a half’s time on a particular day, she would meet the kid on the street where they first encountered one another. The kid hedged that she would only if she didn’t change her mind, but said she’d maybe be there.

  …Which left Ranthia with a need to figure out how to backtrack back to the city while her team made its way back to Ariminum ahead of the Summer Solstice at the end of their round, but that was a problem for future Ranthia to figure out.

  They were barely out of the city gates when Leoios announced that they were altering their route due to how long they had been delayed. Ranthia… had her doubts about whether or not the man was supposed to do that, but he was the leader. She was a bit gutted to know that this meant they wouldn’t be heading towards Sardonia though; she had looked forward to showing the people that lived there just how far she had come! Still, it was so far out of the way that just removing it alone nearly had them back on schedule.

  She understood, but she was still disappointed.

  A few more minor towns, with simple problems. They were almost back on schedule. In this little village, a young boy had run away from the town and was somewhere in the nearby woodlands. Leoios ordered the rest of the Rangers to assist in locating the boy, while he and Republius handled other matters.

  “Can your bird find the kid?” Secundia asked Penticus.

  “What?” The man replied.

  Pibius had started to snicker.

  “Your bird can fly around and find the kid, then lead us to it!” The woman explained with a grin.

  Pibius’ snickering developed into a full-fledged chortle. Ranthia was torn between frustration at his attitude and a horrible urge to join him.

  “…He’s a sparrow.” Penticus explained, plainly baffled.

  “I’ve heard all the stories! Bonded companions are the stuff of legends! You can see through one another’s eyes and he’s super smart.” Secundia explained confidently.

  With that, Pibius fell over and entered a full-on laugh attack.

  Even Penticus, Hail, and Mettlea seemed amused.

  Ranthia may or may not have let out an amused snort before she got a grip on herself.

  To be fair to Secundia, while companion bonds weren’t exactly rare among Rangers, probably only roughly half of the teams had one—based on Ranthia’s cursory experience in the nameless room. So, this was probably Secundia’s first time really interacting with one.

  To be unfair, it was a bird. She suspected the bulk of any advantage the companion bond gave its tiny mind was wholly devoted to the thing not flying off or migrating.

  “No way! I mean sure he’s smarter than your average sparrow, but complex orders? Nope. It’s a companion bond, not a… I dunno. Maybe there’s a class devoted to a companion bond that could do some of that, but off a single skill? No way!” Penticus explained.

  Ranthia just shook her head. The value of a companion bond seemed to plummet further every time she had to interact with one. How on Pallos was a glorified pet worth a skill slot and eternally halved level gains? Without exception they seemed to be a vulnerability for their person, rather than an asset.

  They did, ultimately, find the child. He hadn’t even gotten very far from the walls before he got tired and hungry, but he was lost and wandering in circles.

  No one had an explanation for it, but those five ouranosaurs were so angry and destructive that the Ranger team had no choice but to kill them. It was always weird when herbivores started killing anything they saw, but they were large enough that they were a problem.

  The actual culling was easy enough. Leoios distracted the rest of the dinosaurs, while the team handled them one at a time. Republius and Hail coordinated to slow and bind their target. Penticus got in its face and held its attention in a straight fight, protected by two shields. Ranthia and Mettlea struck from behind while Secundia attacked the side. Steamguy was on standby in case Leoios lost control of one of the ones he was distracting.

  Methodically, they dismantled the beasts and ended the threat they posed. Another small town saved from another threat!

  Ranthia was mostly distracted because the fight finally got her [Warrior] class above her [Mage] class in level. Almost the instant the all clear was given, Ranthia bolted for the wagon before anyone else could react. Her cute little metal mirror was in her chest somewhere…

  At last she pulled it out and checked her own reflection. The reflective sheen was gone from her eyes, as she had expected. She had somewhat dreaded the effect that Void would have on her eyes—she was all too familiar with it from her interactions with Hunting.

  And sure enough, the dark brown of her eyes was adrift in a sea of black. The whites of her eyes had turned solid black and…

  Honestly, she didn’t hate the effect. It would take a bit of getting used to—and it was unusual enough that random people were sure to be obnoxious about it—but tentatively, she liked it. At the very least [Sexy] didn’t complain.

  Ranthia smiled to herself, then stepped out of the wagon to show her team.

  …Not that any of them noticed, until Secundia finally went “Hey, something’s different” over dinner (ouranosaurus wasn’t half bad, actually) that night.

  Honestly, she was [Warrior] tagged now—how had it taken so long for anyone to notice?!

  They finally had horses again. Penticus was relieved to be forever freed from wagon mule duties—not even Mettlea could do it for as long as he could—but the new pair of mares seemed to have a top speed somewhere just below ‘sleepy child’. The horses would be replaced, no doubt, but until then they were actively falling behind again. They had just gotten back on schedule!

  The next town was close (close in that Ranthia had traveled between its gates and the wagon six times already as part of her ever-wider scouting patterns; she suspected the horses would get the wagon there sometime before she turned eighty). Honestly, she was getting more than a little bored as she explored more and more spartan woodland. The area was fairly rocky and thick trees just weren’t a thing, visibility was hindered mostly just by scraggy, prickly bushes.

  Ranthia found a small thicket of bamboo, likely a relic of some failed prior attempt to tame a slice of the area and had a brief bit of fun trying to get through it at full speed. At least until she came to a sudden, absolute halt.

  It was easy to take her vitality for granted. She was closing in on four thousand vitality. Vitality enhanced the body in numerous ways, including her senses. And… yes, she was perfectly willing to admit that Hunting’s stupid blindfold had helped her refine her awareness of the world (even if she still resented being gifted it—Hunting had somehow had the blindfold along with a scroll devoted to a tiny note that simply read “Do well, don’t join the war” snuck inside of her chest before they left Ariminum).

  Which was a long mental aside to distract herself from the fact that she was staring straight at an ornithocheirus nest. She had barely two arm lengths worth of bamboo left before the clearing in front of the rocky raised area the beasts were nested upon. Another moment or two of play amidst the bamboo and she would have been spotted.

  Ranthia seized her panic and buried it deep. The beasts were terrifying. That was valid. But this was a weirdly small swarm. They were at rest, squatting on their crude nests. There was a wealth of eggs on display too.

  Her terror warred with her former Adventurer greed (that would be… er, would have been a nice potential payday if she had the right team) and her Ranger-y sense of duty (the flock was small, but they were within a half day’s average travel of the town). Professionalism won, though she wasn’t quite sure if it was her inner Adventurer or her Ranger mask that she slipped into.

  Either way she slowly and stealthily withdrew (thank you, Xaoc, for [Steps into the Void]) a safe distance before she rushed back for the wagon.

  “We’ve got a major problem!” Ranthia called out as soon as she was mostly certain she was within earshot.

  The Rangers had gathered inside the wagon by the time she reached it and leapt inside.

  “Report.” Leoios ordered, almost the instant her feet touched down.

  “There’s an ornithocheirus nest, half a day out from the next town. Given the proximity, no doubt they’ve been raiding it. Nest seems somewhat new, but there are a lot of eggs. Unclear if they’re a group separated from a larger flock or just survivors that lost their former nesting ground. Shouldn’t be any here, at any rate. Less than five dozen individuals currently but couldn’t get a hard number.” Ranthia rattled off before she accepted a waterskin and gratefully drank from it.

  Leoios frowned.

  “Okay, gear up and prepare yourselves. We’ll have to cull them. Draw mana from the wagon if you’re not at full.” Their leader announced.

  The eight of them began their individual preparations with practiced precision. They had come far enough along as a team that they didn’t even trip over one another anymore while they put on their armor, readied their weapons, and checked their gear.

  The operation was dangerous. It was made worse by the fact that they had no [Healer] and the next town was probably too small to have a [Healer] that could do major restorations. Leoios dictated a plan that was—ideally—meant to minimize risk. Hail was to expend his mana to try to keep ice in the air across as large an area as he could (Ranthia had, somewhat grudgingly, lent him her Adventurer’s bracers so he had more arcanite). If they were lucky, it would help to ground the majority of the flock. Ranthia volunteered to go among the swarm—against her better judgment—and deal with the landbound beasts. Leoios seemed to hate signing off on it, but it improved their odds. Leoios and Republius were going to perch with their bows and shoot down any of the beasts that managed to get into the sky. Pibius was their ace in the hole; he was confident that he could set up a blast large enough to erase the grounded targets with a bit of time. The rest of the group were assigned to protect Hail and Steamguy.

  The signal went up, and Ranthia cheated mercilessly on her restrictions. A mirror image of her ran out of the bamboo and she shifted to it a moment later.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to risk her own body, not with murderbeasts and Steamguy. Pibius had already knelt, using his Earth abilities to form a tiny tunnel to funnel his Steam to the big rocky tumor that would spout out of the ground amidst the ornithocheirus… eventually. Hail was already filling the sky with floating shards of ice and snow, even as the temperature began to drop.

  And then Ranthia was among the murderbeasts. She was loaded down with knives, ready to expend them while she carved her way through the (mostly) grounded swarm.

  Anything that took to the air could be ignored. Her focus was on the snapping beasts around her. Fortunately, they were far less deadly when they were unable to divebomb her. Bites hurt, but they didn’t erase armor and flesh like the incredible and self-destructive divebombs did.

  And pain was an old friend she was well acquainted with.

  Ranthia danced through the grounded swarm, slaughtering beasts in their own nests. A small slice of eternity coalesced into a single deadly dance. But Ranthia wasn’t willing—or able—to sink her awareness entirely into the dance. Once rock began to slowly bloom and expand out of the ground, she began to channel. The strain was familiar and didn’t slow her down at all, not for dancing. Dancing came naturally and effortlessly to her; it was infinitely easier on her mind than directly manipulating multiple mirror images was.

  Naturally, shortly after the thought came to mind, she was forced to use two images, sent out one after another, to separate a large group of the beasts to give herself more room to operate.

  And then the call finally came for her to get clear. Ranthia made a show of lunging clear and shouting for him to let loose, but in truth she simply released her channel and shifted back to her body immediately. Her call had been made through [Echoes Reflected], which was why she had sounded closer to Amaus than her own voice (that Skill…).

  The blast came two heartbeats after she put out the call. The ice that Hail had put out was mostly gone by the time Pibius was ready, and his Steam-empowered blast rattled them all despite their distance.

  In the aftermath, the entire flock had been shredded. There wasn’t a single survivor for them to finish off. Every egg had been smashed, and the immediate vicinity of where the rock had been was just a sea of red paste.

  …Which explained a lot about why Steamguy—Pibius—was so rarely allowed to use his magic ‘properly’. Of course his levels languished; the man erased everything within range! The obnoxious thing was she couldn’t even say he was ill-suited to teamwork; he needed a team to cover him while he built up such a slow-to-fire skill.

  He just was a final option, one that was suited to few situations. And, grudgingly, yes, one that was probably invaluable in those rare circumstances.

  They finally rolled into town. The gates should have closed already, but for Rangers the town guards were willing to keep the gates open a little longer. Especially when Ranthia ran ahead and told them that their ornithocheirus problems had been resolved.

  The town was small enough that there was no [Healer] to screen them and the guards just said “you’re probably all out of mana from taking care of our problem” and waved them through.

  Which meant Ranthia had a narrow window of opportunity.

  “Sir, requesting permission to get a tavern room. I’m ready to class up my [Warrior] class!” Ranthia announced before the man could start assigning tasks, duties, and sleeping arrangements.

  She was still a bit surprised when he nodded immediately.

  “Granted. I’ll accompany you to handle the lodging arrangements. I do not believe you will require a protection detail since the town should be friendly to us. If your class up runs long, you’re familiar with our pending route.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Ranthia still nodded her agreement. Maps and roads were easy to remember. She had no idea what the next stop’s name was, but she knew how to get there. And the one after that, just in case.

  “Excellent. With me, then. The rest of you, negotiate with the local guard for a berth for our wagon and stabling the horses.” Leoios ordered before he hopped out of the still-moving wagon.

  Ranthia rushed to follow, as she allowed her mind to indulge in her excitement. It was finally time for her first level 256 class up! For much of her life she had assumed this one and her Mirror class’s would be her final class ups.

  But Hunting and the rest had given her a taste of the truth. This was just a foundation for her journey to truly flourish from. If 512 was so readily within reach for the Sentinels… well, her level 768 class up couldn’t possibly be beyond reason.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.