bookworm

“Hey, wait... Where’s Elisa?”

After taking my sweet time preparing everything I needed to head out, I noticed that the little girl that should have been sitting in the living room was nowhere to be found.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t see her anywhere,” Margit said. I felt a tad irked hearing that from her with how much pointless chatter she sent my way (though I was also at fault for responding to everything she said) while I was getting ready, but my sister’s whereabouts were more important than quipping at her.

Searching for lost persons is one of the big three archetypes of tabletop adventures (the other two are dungeon diving and one I’ll leave to the reader’s consideration), but having this sort of thing happen all the time wasn’t ideal.

“Her shoes are gone,” I said after a quick glance around the room. Elisa’s intimate relationship with her bed had left her with a distaste for wearing shoes, so she always took them off when she took a seat. Baring one’s feet was unladylike behavior, but I could never bring myself to scold her when she cried about how tight they were with puppy-dog eyes.

Which meant, despite being unable to tie her own laces, she must have put them on herself and headed out. I got low to the ground and inspected the area around the chair. Chaining together small perception checks to reach an objective like this was a common occurrence. GM, do I see anything?

Despite my half-joking attempt, I couldn’t find any helpful clues. My workaholic mother could be called the quintessential housewife with how little tolerance she had for grime. My family had been lazing about in the living room earlier today, but she’d already swept it clean of any dust or dirt that I could’ve used to trace Elisa’s tracks.

As an aside, if anyone tries to enter our house without knocking the mud off their shoes, my mother tears them to shreds. While this practice suited my Japanese sensibilities well, it was a terrible hindrance to my deductive reasoning.

“I think she’s gone that way,” the scout candidate of my ideal party said. Today, the little huntress was perched up on my shoulders.

“You can tell?”

“Well, sure. Compared to the beasts of the wood, mensch might as well be singing when they try to hide.”

Margit’s dramatic analogy drew no ire from me after witnessing her cull geese for years in our childhood games. I had liked this kind of big talk in my youth, then grew tired of it, but it was only now that I realized how weighty it sounded coming from someone with real skill.

“Mother Dearest may love to keep her home clean,” my arachne companion elaborated, “but even she can’t overcome the endless specks of dust that blow in. I think Elisa departed through the kitchen door.”

Margit’s use of the phrase “Mother Dearest” to refer to my own mother caught my ear, but I decided to let it slide. I could have sworn the imperial language had two completely different words for other people’s mothers and mothers-in-law.

“Oh,” I realized aloud, “we initially planned to go with just the two of us. Maybe that’s why she got mad?”

“My, is that so?” Margit said. “If you had told me, I would have been more than happy to come again later.”

“I didn’t want to make you do that.”

“I’m not so friendless that I can’t find a way to pass the time while I wait for your little princess to run herself out of energy and take a nap, you know?” she said with a laugh. I really wished she wouldn’t giggle into my ear like this, because every time she did, the tingles in my spine refused to go away. “Still, your sister is so enamored with you.”

“Yeah, you remember the incident from last year, right?” Margit immediately recognized the loathsome event I referred to and sent shivers through my body with another snicker.

“You certainly made a name for yourself, Sir Swordsman.”

“Please, stop... It’s so embarrassing,” I groaned. The huge commotion my venerable father caused at last year’s autumn festival taught my beloved little sister entirely the wrong lesson. “Anyway, ever since she got the pearl from the incident, she’s started to think that being with me will bring some kind of spectacle.”

Elisa may not have ever had an opportunity to hold a gem of that quality without my interference, but her understanding that my presence equaled good things happening was problematic. She practically glued herself to my back whenever we went out to play, and she fought to engineer time alone with me incessantly.

Once, we’d been playing pretend (not pretend adventurers with our brothers, of course. I’d been looking after her and some of the smaller neighborhood kids) and I’d played the role of a mage, only for Elisa to act as...my familiar. She’d jumped at the opportunity to play a role that any other kid would hate—perhaps my sister was suited to niche roles.

Similarly, there had been a few occasions in my old life when I would play the part of a classic hero only to see every face at my table twist into genuine confusion. Considering how my playstyle involved aggressively avoiding mainstream story beats, perhaps this sort of thing flowed in both of our veins.

“Tee hee,” Margit laughed, “if that’s what you wish to believe.”

“That sounds awfully sinister...”

“It must be your imagination,” she said, giggling all the while. I walked out the back door while enduring a barrage of shiver-inducing laughter and used my level III Stalking skill to survey the area. Trimmed grass still grew in the path leading out from our kitchen, and the unreserved stomping of a child left clear impressions for me to see.

I expected no less: Elisa didn’t think about being followed when she walked, and it was easy to see her tracks on earth this soft. Although I had to focus to spot them, anyone could pursue a lead like this with minimal knowledge.

“Hmm,” Margit mused, “it’s been quite some time since she was here.”

“You can tell just from looking?” My skills paled in comparison to a professional’s, however. I might as well not have tried.

“If I know the mark’s height and weight, I can make a rough estimate by checking the state of the ground.”

Margit hopped off my shoulder and somehow left no footprints of her own as she scurried over to the markings. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that her light weight was compounded by the fact that every step’s tracks were covered up by the leg behind it. I let out a sigh of awe at her feat of multi-legged mastery.

“My mother is far more impressive. One print in the ground is enough for her to discern a beast’s species, of course, but also their sex, age, weight, and flavor.”

“...That’s terrifying,” I remarked. Hmm, I picked up Stalking for an urban setting, but I feel like my purchase was wasted... If Margit could figure out all this information just by invoking her skill in beast tracking, was there any need for me to continue allocating experience to this sort of thing? Keeping roles distinct within a party is one of the fundamental rules of party composition, after all.

I chased after my skittering companion when she came to an abrupt halt. Just as we left the view of my home, the trail that I could see vanished. Grass flourished on either side of the footpath, and the overgrown greenery was too busy singing the praises of springtime to offer any useful hints. This was in the realm where a GM would refuse perception checks unless the party had a particularly convincing argument.

“I guess she went to play in the woods,” I said. “Ah sheesh, I told her not to stray too far from the house. She must have been really mad that—”

“Give me a moment,” Margit cut me off soberly, her eyes fixed on an unassuming patch of plantlife. The sound of dice rolling in her brain echoed around me. As if searching for an invisible mark, the young scout touched the grass and began muttering to herself with conviction. “Two legs, and this stride... A mensch? Too perfectly spaced to be elderly, and...he’s trained in combat.”

“Margit?”

My companion thrust a single finger toward me without looking up: the hand sign for “Quiet” that we used on our hunting expeditions. She’d taught me a bunch of them, saying that this silent communication was standard amongst huntsmen, but for her to use it here meant that her brain had shifted gears into hunting mode.

“Lightly dressed for a mensch...but much heavier over there...” Still close to the ground after rising to her feet, the expert hunter chewed over the information that my eyes failed to notice. After some thought, her eyes went wide and she turned up toward me with a trembling voice that I had never heard in my life. “Wh-What are we meant to do?”

“Wh-What’s wrong?” I asked nervously.

“Oh, Erich! This is bad—so very bad! Oh no!”

I’d never heard Margit reduced to a frightened little girl before. I knelt down to eye level and she leapt onto me. Her nearly indestructible palatial speech crumbled, and she mumbled her words like a commoner.

“Wh-What do we—no, this can’t be happening... It can’t...”

“Calm down, calm down. What happened, Margit? I won’t know what happened if you don’t tell me,” I said, patting her on the back. The hands wrapped around me suddenly squeezed both shirt and flesh alike, and her trembling fingers betrayed a terror beyond even her panicky words. Seeing her turn into a scared child was unthinkable to me—I couldn’t even imagine her acting this way before we first met. What the hell could have—

“I think Elisa’s been kidnapped!”

“...What?”

The nervous wreck of a childhood friend that stood before me had poured liquid nitrogen into every corner of my skull, instantly glaciating my mind. Her proclamation had been so outlandish that I almost took it for a joke, but the evidence was stacked against me: I’d seen her prove her expertise time and time again.

What was more, from her mumbling I surmised that she’d seen traces of a third party. A young male mensch had left tracks nearby, and Elisa’s own footprints vanished. If the man’s weight suddenly changed, there were only two possibilities I could think of.

The first was the warm and fluffy thought that a worried man picked up a lost little girl to take her back to her family. However, the close proximity to our house eliminated that possibility outright. No matter how juvenile Elisa was, she wouldn’t lose her way on a straight path from home.

The second, more likely scenario was that a man had picked Elisa up and whisked her away. Their objective was obvious: after all, our little princess was the cutest girl in the world.

“Oh, Erich, what do we do? Erich...” Margit said in a fret.

“Margit,” I responded firmly, peeling her off by the shoulders. I looked in her teary eyes to see two hazel gems that tickled my protective instincts in the absence of their usual sublime cuteness...but now wasn’t the time. “Can you find her?”

“Wha, but, we should find an adult...” she stammered.

“They’re too drunk to help,” I insisted.

On any other day, Margit’s plan would have been correct, but today was the spring festival. I’d been waiting indoors for Elisa to wake up, but everyone else was off to party. Whether they were window shopping or enjoying themselves at the square, I knew from experience that everyone would be plastered. The Konigstuhl Watch officially warned the citizenry not to overindulge themselves, but I could only expect a handful of people to be functional.

Of course, if I went straight to Sir Lambert, he would never shrug off my report as a child’s tall tale, so the idea held some merit. But barring those caravans invited by the lord of the land himself, the times at which each merchant left were unpredictable. While some stayed the night to stock up on spring fruits, others packed up as soon as the rush of midday waned; a kidnapper had no reason to stick around the scene of their crime.

“It’s getting late,” I explained. “No one would suspect a thing if a caravan or two closed up shop and left. And if they get away, we’ll never see Elisa again.”

I knew all too well that two children chasing after criminals was a fool’s errand. Though Margit was only a year from adulthood and my body was growing rapidly, we were far from fully developed.

No matter how much training I’d endured, I still didn’t have the most critical element in combat: experience. I could keep up with Sir Lambert’s monstrous strength while sparring, but frankly, I wasn’t all that sure that I could handle having a real weapon pointed at me with intent to kill.

Yet I was certain that the situation beckoned us to act. There was a chance that the culprit wanted to take their time departing, and there was even a chance that they’d stay until sunset to capture as many children as they could. All the drunken adults would assume a missing child or two had just gone home, and would only notice the disappearance on the morning after—perhaps festival days were the harvest season for villainous scum.

However, it was equally likely that their modus operandi was to pluck only a child or two at a time from every canton to keep a low profile. Or what if they had a second, main source of income, and this was merely their side project?

We needed to assume the worst for every detail. Besides, they say a sloppy beta release is better than a masterpiece no one sees, and situations like these hinge on getting the first step right. The two of us would find Elisa and then rush back to rally as many sober adults as we could. That was all my pathetic mind could muster.

“Please, Margit, I’m begging you,” I pleaded from the bottom of my heart, pushing my forehead against hers. Putting Margit in harm’s way weighed on me heavily, but I couldn’t do it alone. Even if I dumped all of my savings into tracking skills, my build wasn’t anywhere close to matching her. “Help me. For Elisa...for me.”

“For...you?” she asked.

“Yes, please. I don’t want to lose her, but I know I can’t do it alone. That might make me a failure of a brother, but I still want to save Elisa!”

How blessed would I be for this to all be a misunderstanding. If Elisa had been so upset that she asked the kind stranger to take her to the town square, this would all be reduced to an embarrassing episode my friends and family would tease me with for years to come.

But the terrible premonition in my gut said otherwise. I was not a lucky man. I’d come out of the womb haunted by a missing stat, and a statistical analysis of my lifetime dice rolls was sure to skip straight past morbid humor into the realm of tears. Expected values were fortune incarnate, and I’d once caused my party to wipe by rolling five snake eyes in a single session.

The worst part was that my lighthearted rolls for checks I couldn’t fail always brought out disgustingly high numbers. Whether I rolled 2D6 or 1D10, each and every chunk of plastic toyed with me. That was why I turned away from my LUK stat and the dice gods in favor of fixed values.

As a result, I was convinced of one thing: I would lose someone dear to me if I got complacent now. If I had absolutely no chance of saving her, then maybe I could call it quits after crying and cursing and screaming at fate until I puked blood. However, if there was even the faintest sliver of hope left that I could do something, I would never be able to forgive myself for inaction. Who was it that said the contents of hell are found inside the skull of a shallow man?

“Okay,” Margit said after a long pause. “Yes, very well!” She sniffed her dribbling nose, wiped off her bleary eyes, and pursed her lips. “I’ll chase them for you. Following mensch is little more than child’s play.”

The arachne tilted her head and brought our touching faces even closer to one another. She rubbed her nose against mine and we shared the same air in our breaths. With our eyeballs nearly touching, her amber gems had me entranced. Owing perhaps to the shadows we cast upon each other, the eyes in my view abandoned their usual color for a rich golden glow.

“But I shall ask you to return the favor... Do you understand?”

“I’ll do anything,” I swiftly answered. “I swear by the Goddess.” Saying this in a land where gods were observably real was nothing short of signing a blank check. She could demand my life and I would be expected to quietly obey.

I wasn’t taking it lightly because I expected her not to ask for anything unreasonable. Quite the opposite, in fact: this was Margit, after all. Me, underestimating the never-ending source of intimidation, cold sweats, and half-pleasant, half-terrifying chills known as Margit? Please, I wasn’t the sort of fool to stick my head into a sleeping tiger’s mouth.

My determination wasn’t so flimsy that I would regret this decision. I had no qualms about being ordered to do something ridiculous...so long as Elisa got home safe.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her usual smile escaping her as if to say there were no more chances to retreat beyond this point. On the other hand, that meant I still had a chance to turn back now.

However, what kind of family would I be if I backed down? Margit was far scarier than the demons of hell or the whims of dice, but I wouldn’t balk. In the worst-case scenario, I could end up in a life-or-death sword fight today—I couldn’t hesitate at something like this.

“I’m sure,” I said with certainty. “I hate lies, and I’ll do anything in my power to keep myself from becoming a liar.”

The time for dice drew near. No matter how they fell, a roll was the only way to move forward. Life would be so serene if it were all cutscenes, but as a lover of the epic highs and lows only the whims of two tumbling polyhedrons could yield, I was prepared to accept my fate.

“Splendid! I humbly accept your payment of one favor. Finding her will take no time at all.” The corner of Margit’s lips pulled upward into her familiar smile. The arachne huntswoman bared her long canines and turned to find her mark.

Now then, let’s take a look in the dice tray.

[Tips] Catching criminals who cross regional borders is an exercise in futility. Without photographs or telephones, information is too generic to find a given individual. This difficulty holds true when searching for culprits and victims alike.

With very few exceptions, every person has thought themselves to be special at some point or another. Whether this overconfidence stems from childlike egoism or the surging courage of someone with the will to prove themselves, this phenomenon is near and dear to the hearts of all mortals.

One such specimen found himself laying down in the bed of a stagecoach parked amongst the camping caravans. The man was in his mid-twenties and had a middling build: he was neither particularly tall nor particularly short and similarly straddled the line between skinny and fat.

His most striking features were his cowlicked black hair and his dark, sunken, drooping eyes. A long staff embellished with countless gems and ornaments laid beside him, and his robe was embroidered with a library’s worth of incantations. The sharp scent of herbs clinging to him marked the finishing touch to make it undeniably clear that he was a magician.

The rarity of mensch mages aside, the man was not at all special. He only led a small caravan of ten-odd people; one could find washed-up mages drifting along in every corner of the Empire. It was common to see magic researchers procure grants by asking around the realm, and many started caravans not as a business, but as a more efficient means of funding their own projects.

Once, he had been special: he’d been born with memories of a prior life. The intricacies of his past will not be dwelled on. Such milk had long since been spilt, and the man himself had largely forgotten the details of his own origin. It suffices to say that the reincarnator had experienced a chance encounter with some higher being who offered him a single blessing on his path to this new world.

“If it’s a world with magic, I want talent for it.”

The deity smiled and forgave the man for interrupting His explanation and bestowed him with the talent he so wished for. Minor acts of insolence were of little concern to the god, and He’d long grown used to the unabashed greed of worldly souls. Considering that some craved power that would rival gods of creation, the man’s little request evoked only a tender smile.

Thus, the man became a boy with an intact ego and a talent for wizardry. The story that followed was hardly worth telling. He continued on swimmingly for a time until he hit a wall, and the success of brute forcing things with raw talent no longer seemed like a predestined outcome.

At ten he was a prodigy; at fifteen he was a genius; at twenty he was reduced to a normal man—the old adage he’d heard in his school years a lifetime ago had been true. His friends and family paraded him around as a genius, and he bloomed into his own with the help of his canton’s local witch doctor.

The boy could start fires without any tutelage, his medicine brewing skills were far beyond any child, and he’d even begun to experiment with the space-bending magic that most considered a lost art. He was the spitting image of brilliance.

Had he been content to be the local mage of his canton, perhaps his life could have been different. Surrounded by the love of his mentor and many lifelong friends, he could have built up a blissful world where he was trusted and relied upon by all.

Yet the young man had little resistance to the intoxication of prestige. Praised and lauded, the fellow sought out a new source of accolades and left his village behind to serve the local magistrate.

With a letter of recommendation from the village chief, the fifteen-year-old landed a position as the magistrate’s magical adviser and was generously given a house in a city of middling size. His boundless supply of mana meant that he could make the most of—or abuse—his mastery of forgotten arcane arts, and his employer prized him for his service.

Had he stopped here, there was a solid chance that he would have been blessed with a slow but steady stream of joy. While working for the magistrate, he could have opened a small store dealing in enchanted trinkets and lived out fulfilling days. Respected by his tutor and peers and fortunately of high status, he would have had no trouble finding a girl to share his life with, all while partaking in luxuries far beyond the reach of any commoner. Though altogether different from the unrealized future in his hometown, this too was a possibility rich with earthly happiness.

And yet the withdrawals demanded that his addiction be sated. Basking in the pleasure of merit and his social standing as a public official, he began to drown in a nebulous sea of glory.

The position of adviser asked little of him, and in his leisure he chanced upon someone known as a magus. Magia were altogether separate from standard wizards and hedge mages, but his life in the countryside had left the man no opportunity to meet any students from the Imperial College of Magic.

Investigation revealed that “magus” was a title reserved for those who had been deemed worthy by the College of Magic in the imperial capital. What was more, those admitted as lecturers were conferred noble titles, received an official laboratory, and were licensed to sell the fruits of their labor in all sorts of different trades. Furthermore, the state gave each magus a stipend to promote research, and some even went on to become bureaucrats influencing national policy. Magia were simply a cut above the typical mage.

How could the man, with his infantile thirst for clout, ever hope to resist? His patience lasted but a handful of days: the knowledge that there was something higher cheapened his current position to an unbearable degree.

After a year under the magistrate, he suddenly resigned, selling all his household effects and making for the capital. Having seen the unimpressive powers of a magus already, he thought that the title was sure to be his with ease.

While hitching a ride with a caravan on his journey to the capital, he met yet another magus. To gratify his childish pride, the man began to boast like a foolhardy drunkard.

The man demonstrated his skills and began to talk himself up as best he could to secure a quick recommendation. Up until now, the braggart had silenced naysayers with his undeniable talent and found himself as the target of nothing but admiration. Knowing no failure, he was sure the magus would grovel before him (that said, while bowing was part of Rhinian culture, groveling on one’s knees was not) and recognize his awesome power. But an unexpected quip left him utterly confused.

“Wow. And? Why is this spell so wasteful?”

The stark, uninterested timbre of the magus’s voice and the incomprehensible nature of her words bundled together and shot through the man. For someone who had used magic his whole life through sheer intuition alone, the question presented before him was indecipherable.

Neither the assembly of the near mathematical equations that enabled one to meddle with physics, nor the logical sequence of actions taken to bend natural phenomena to his will, nor even the general idea of magic theory were known to him. The question—no, the interrogation left the man utterly puzzled.

His prodigal disposition had never given him the opportunity to think. Magic to him was just something that happened. The divine had given him an intuitive talent that skipped the troublesome thinking that was usually necessary.

Upon closer analysis, the higher being had made a perfectly rational decision. To give a total novice unimaginable skill, it was far simpler to hand him a magic button that did a thing than to try and cram all sorts of theory into his brain. The god knew all too well that even the most impressive technology was worthless in the hands of someone who lacked the requisite knowledge to use it.

Whether spell or cantrip, all magic obeyed certain metaphysical principles and were therefore bound and governed by reason. Reason, attainable only via diligent study, was inherently antithetical to the convenient talent the man had desired. But with higher beings came higher authority, and the rules of the world had been bent. The man no longer needed to know for the world to think he knew, and this potentially world-reaving blessing had allowed him to use magic up until this point.

As a local town mage, that was more than enough. However, the College was far more than a collection of mere mages. It was an institution of learning, of research. The various experiments run by the cream of the crop—that is, the lecturers—weren’t just for show. Their research was the very reason they were there.

Study was the process of nurturing intellect by polishing, refining, and filtering deep thought again and again until all that remained was concentrated truth. The shimmering gem of wisdom had no margin for the blemish that was a man who “just kinda did it.” To the College, who carefully polished these sorts of scratches out of existence, the man’s magic was but a massive chip on their beautiful diamond that they would never accept.

Feeling thoroughly insulted after being told as much by the magus, the man promptly marched to the College in fury, where he was quickly thrown out in a similar manner: with disinterest and scorn. Seeing his passion, some magia had written him letters of introduction to give him a taste of reality, and in all truth, the man should have been grateful he got an interview at all. His arrogance was grounds enough to turn him away at the door.

For a sagacious soul, ignorance and failure are but the first steps to growth and success. Learning from defeat and seeking new paths forward was exactly what led civilization to spread its reach across the globe.

Had the man begun to study the logical roots of magic here, his story surely would have been far different from its eventual conclusion. With his natural talent and limitless magical energy, the College would have accepted him as a student without reserve. If he’d devoted himself to true learning, it would be no exaggeration to say he could have eventually left his mark on history.

Yet he crumbled. Having the one thing he’d placed all his stock in dismissed as worthless was heartrending enough to break his fragile spirit. There was nothing weaker than strength without foundation; the spells he hadn’t spent effort or labor to use were far too brittle to serve as the lynchpin of a man who had dedicated his identity to casting them.

As a user of magic, he was still well within the upper echelon, even on a global scale. However, his makings as a researcher or human were crude at best. Magia never balked on their perpetual quest to change the study of magic itself with their own two hands. The man’s passion was hopelessly outmatched—he didn’t have the will to live his life like the torrents of a rapid river.

This one crucial defeat marked the beginning of his downfall. The man couldn’t return to the magistrate after abandoning his post a year into the job. For better or for worse, society prized feudal loyalty, and a man too enamored with his own power to think about the consequences of his actions had no place at the magistrate’s door. A faithful retainer was far more desirable than a haughty genius, and a drop in skill was a small price to pay for dedication.

Then what about my hometown? But alas, the welcome there was just as cold, owing to his ingratitude when leaving for the city. A rude customer is never welcome, and the glares of his mentor and childhood companions eloquently aired their distaste for his return. He turned his back on the canton for the second time, running from their gazes.

With a tendency for convenient delusions, the man thought of the girls who would always love him, but daydreams and reality did not converge here. None forgave him for sullying their years of youth by leaving them all behind in search of greater glory. Drawing the ire of influential women is a surefire way to lose your place in any community, regardless of any other traits, as the man discovered.

Hubris had stripped him of title and home, and he was quick to sink to rock bottom. Sweet-talked and taken advantage of, the man used his magic to take the easy path every time. Losing his spot in one location sent him to another, and then another, until the wandering mage had no choice but to drift in lands where no one knew him.

The subordinates around him were nothing but leeches that wanted to make use of his powers. His miserable company dragged his mind through the mud, and now he found himself ransoming and selling children in the name of profit.

The shining visage of a protagonist he once knew was nowhere to be found. With effort, he could have been a hero, but all that remained was an empty husk.

“Hey boss, boss!”

“What?”

As he gazed into the blue skies and suppressed the unceasing, unspeakable pain inside his chest, a call from one of his lackeys caused the man to stir. The goon was one of his two aides. One had forged documents as an official scribe and now sold family registers with blank slates. The one before him, though, had been part of the underworld from the start, and played a large part in the mage’s fall from grace.

With a disgusting grin, the lackey silently beckoned his employer over. The mage ignored the insolence of this gesture and got up—he knew there was something that they couldn’t speak about in the open.

He followed the thug to an opening in the trees to find a sack. The burlap bag was a common sight for merchants toting their wares, but the deliberate secrecy hinted that this contained a very different kind of product.

“How are the goods?” the mage asked.

“A wonderful batch of wheat,” the lackey replied. “Fine texture, first-class coloration, and I’m sure it would make for white bread fit for a noble.”

The boss let out an impressed whistle. Wheat was code in this line of work for abductees that were to be sold. Texture denoted quality, color race, and the type of bread represented the intended buyer. Unraveled, the statement meant that his catch was a good-looking mensch child that would fetch a pretty penny whether she was ransomed or sold. The mage opened the bag to take a look and, after a moment, he covered his mouth.

“Where the hell did you get this kid?” he asked.

“Huh?” the goon said, puzzled.

If he were to judge the girl only by her silky gold hair and flawless white skin, he could see how someone might think her to be a noble. Farm children spent most of their youth outside, and their household chores meant even the youngest of kids would have distinguishing marks on their hands and knees. The girl had no such blemishes, but her dress was something that one could easily buy in town, and it clashed with the rest of her appearance. As short as his time under the magistrate had been, one year had been enough for the man to get a taste of noble fashion. No respectable noble’s daughter would be adorned with something of such mediocre quality.

However, that wasn’t the important point for the man. He’d seen blithering idiots empty their meager purses to dress up their child for a festival many a time in many a canton. Rather, the mage saw value in the girl herself.

“Whatever,” he said curtly. “When can we leave?”

“Huh?” the lackey said again. “Uh, well, it’s not that big a town, so we can be out by sundown at the—”

“Good, prepare to leave by evening.”

“What?! H-Hey, come on, it’s a festival! Can’t we at least grab some free booze?” The truth was that the goon had underestimated the mage. He’d easily managed to steer his employer’s mind before, and as the one who had taught him the basics of “business,” the career criminal had grown overconfident in his ability to get his way.

Birds of a feather flock together and rotten apples ruin their bunch. The lackey was just as lost as the fallen mage...but he would have done well to remember this: the man in front of him could vaporize an entire canton with his magic, if he so wished.

“Tell me,” the mage spat. “Since when have I allowed you to place your hand on my shoulder?”

“Eek!” the lackey squealed when his master glared at him from below.

The wrath of being talked back to caused the mage’s mana to quiver, and his bitter eyes gleamed gold in time with the pulse. His hair writhed like a living being, and the effects of his anger leaked out to whip the wind into a furious howl. This unrestrained display of power would do him no good, but it was enough to intimidate his impudent follower.

“Got it?” he sneered.

“Y-Yessir! I’ll get on it right away.”

In fact, it was more than enough. The goon’s legs had given out, but he hobbled away to follow his orders, and the mage was left with the bagged girl.

He hefted the bag with the sort of brilliant smile that had often snuck onto his face when he was young and innocent, although his grin was anything but: his purehearted dedication to impurity in the past few years left only a shallow and gilded counterfeit.

“If I sell this, I’ve got a chance. I can be more than a tired old caravan owner. So much more...”

A broken blade may still pierce its mark. The man saw some hope—some goal to chase—for his broken mind, just as he had done before. The memory of his forgotten honors clung to him.

Alas, he had missed a simple truth: a warped blade leaves only warped cuts. Once broken, no sword can ever regain its former shape.

[Tips] Even the wondrous displays of magic are dictated by unflinching laws of nature.

My childhood friend really is something else. No amount of cheers or applause would do her justice. A decent amount of time had passed since we began searching for Elisa, and the sun had begun to sink. I suspected festivities were peaking at the town square by now. I could practically hear the atmosphere of civic order gently creak as its scheduled collapse into anarchy drew near, free-flowing alcohol softening the rigid bonds of feudalism as it spongified everyone’s brains.

The energy of the jovial music dwindled behind us as we slipped into the woods. Had I wandered around the forest by myself, it would have taken me far longer to find this spot.

We’d gone beyond the thicket to a location that seemed fit for camping but somewhat inconvenient for a caravan trying to do business in town. The workers were packing up barrels and boxes full of supplies and giving their pack horses a final drink of water as they prepared for departure.

The awkwardness of the spot would make one think that this unlucky crew had been bullied away by a more influential caravan or arrived too late to find a reasonable campground. However, the quiet woods were also the perfect spot for a band of kidnappers eager to evade prying eyes.

“They’re really here,” Margit said, marveling despite being the very person who discovered their whereabouts. Her hands unconsciously tightened around the hem of her skirt, and the damp stains of sweat gave form to her fear.

“Of course they’re here,” I said. “You were the one tracking them.”

“...I suppose.”

I tried complimenting her to ease the pressure, but Margit’s streak of good dice rolls clearly didn’t transfer to me, and my attempt to loosen her up fell flat on its face. Her tone was empty of any joy at the success of her pursuit.

“Do you really think those are kidnappers?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. But villains—”

“Never look the part,” she said, finishing my sentence. The arachne scowled with more anger than I’d ever seen her express in our long history together.

At any rate, those we branded as the bad guys of our society always worked to hide that fact. Business was hard when others knew of their crimes, and a guise of honesty helped conceal their unseen sins. A villain that looked the part was less than third-class: they were amateurs that relished in playing the part. The criminals that could turn the fear of others into a profit were a special breed, and the men busying themselves with seemingly regular cargo were among their rank.

They truly appeared to be nothing more than a normal caravan. The three carriages and a handful of horses fitted with carrying packs looked like they belonged to a respectable merchant group, not a crew of wicked kidnappers. But of course, a real kidnapper would never carry something as obvious as a cage—it would only draw the suspicion of the local patrol. Only a truly exceptional imbecile, someone so foolish as to leave dumbfounded anyone who might try to give the account of it, would dare.

In which case, the question was how we could tell that they were more than met the eye.

“Take a look at those two,” I pointed out. “The guy that’s standing there, and the one that looks like he’s lazing around over there.”

“Lookouts,” Margit confirmed. “No loafing bum would look as alert as he does.”

Although they seemed to be normal merchants at first glance, there were a few subtle differences to note. First, they didn’t have any mercenaries or adventurers to protect their cargo. Not all caravans employed bodyguards, but small companies of ten or so people tended to employ at least a handful. Bandits preferred to target smaller groups to minimize the risk that an escapee could call for the authorities. Plus, there were simply fewer people they had to kill. Any prudent caravan leader would hire a tough-looking fighter to ward off attacks.

Second, the weapons on their waists were unorthodox. While my own quest to procure a weapon was full of struggle, anyone with the proper funds could purchase one in the Empire, and could even openly carry it outside of the major cities. By and large, those who ferried valuables through the perilous countryside had some form of protection.

Still, merchants were by no means professional warriors, so they prioritized ease of use in their weapons. Favorites included concealable daggers that wouldn’t intimidate potential customers, clubs that required no maintenance (after all, they were sticks with a bit of metal attached to the end), and machetes that were useful when clearing out patches of brush.

However, a few of the men wielded proper, respectably made arming swords. Judging from the way they distributed their weight and the positioning of their sheaths, their weapons were not just for show. While these blades made for stellar companions, they were too exceptional to be carried in self-defense—especially by multiple members of the same trading party. They weren’t children drawn in by romantic tales of swordplay. It was hard to imagine a traveling merchant going out of his way to weigh himself down without deeper reason.

Everything about this reeked of foul play. The evidence was flimsy, but I was sure Sir Lambert would act on behalf of my suspicions. Furthermore—

“Erich, this is bad,” Margit said suddenly, silently dropping down from the tree she’d been spying from.

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re already on the verge of departing. All of their remaining goods are too damaged to bother loading onto their carriages.”

“How do you know that?!”

“I read their lips. All humanfolk have similar mouths, so it’s not that difficult to do.”

While I would have loved to be genuinely surprised at my companion’s nonchalant feat of brilliance, I’d grown used to it by now. She’d probably picked it up from her ex-adventurer mother.

We were a ways away from the town square. In the time that it would take for us to go back, convince the adults, prepare ourselves, and leave, the men here would be out of the canton with no hope of determining which path they’d taken. Not even the little scout by my side would be able to pick out a single set of tracks on a paved road taken by infinitely many other caravans.

Thus, I needed to buy time; there was no need for both of us to call for help.

“Wait, Erich?!”

“I’ll go stall for time, so you go talk to Sir Lambert! You’re faster than I am!”

The wise men of the past certainly knew what they were talking about when they said to strike while iron is hot. Generally speaking, more is better when it comes to action points, so I wanted to act fast to save as many rounds as possible. Come on, I told myself, how many times have you encountered combat where the win condition is to stall? No big deal.

Besides, what jumping spider arachne lost in endurance, they made up for in raw speed. Margit made for a far more suitable messenger than me with my stubby mensch legs. No party would let their thick-skulled front-liner whose only talent lay with the club handle their perception checks; I knew it was far more efficient to divvy the roles based on our apparent differences in skill.

The dice should only ever fly when your character has a chance to shine. It wasn’t as if I was trying to show off in front of Margit or anything.

After all, I didn’t have the huge corrective bonuses of an epic hero. The future Buddha’s blessing allowed me to shape my future in accordance to my will—which inversely meant that I could end up achieving nothing. I could die a dog’s death, like the forgotten casualties buried in the memories of countless sessions of play.

I was no hero: I was merely a lone player character dropped into the world. Strong or weak, a PC could die at any moment. No matter how plentiful the handouts or how thick the plot armor, fate was determined by the dice alone.

If so—if everything is still on the line...what’s the point of getting a second chance if I don’t even do what needs to be done?

“...I feel a bit tipsy,” I muttered. Of course, not from booze, but from my own pompousness. Still, as I steeled myself for a conversation that could lead straight into combat, I forgave my own embarrassing attempts to hype myself up. Compared to the lines I’d recorded for replays in the past that sent me in search of a hole to bury myself in, I was thankful that I managed to keep it all in my mind this time.

“Now, the time for dice beckons.”

I slipped out of the foliage where we’d taken cover and took broad steps toward the parked carriages, actively exposing my presence to draw their attention. My final one-liner had been cool and all, but... My rolls are always so cursed.

[Tips] The frequency of certain odds can skew with a finite number of trials. In fact, some might claim that such statistical biases are inevitable.

The young arachne watched with bated breath as her childhood friend marched off. Margit had a good reason for scurrying up a tree and watching over him despite being tasked with delivering a message to the grownups. She wasn’t upset that a younger boy gave her orders, and she wasn’t frozen with fear either.

Rather, just as Erich had sensed earlier that something was awry, she too had a visceral premonition that something was going to go wrong. The danger she sensed wasn’t the same as when one was surrounded by enemies, but rather a unique hunter’s instinct that was difficult to put to words. It was a hunch that a shot well within the bounds of one’s skill would miss due to unforeseen factors, and it only appeared the instant before an arrow was loosed.

Margit’s intuition for this sort of thing had never been wrong. A sudden breeze would steer her arrow off course, an unexpected predator would steal her mark, or an ill-timed sneeze would cause her form to skew—no matter what the underlying reason, an arrow would sometimes fly wide due to sheer misfortune.

In this case, the arrow was Erich. With his silver tongue, Margit should have had little worry that he’d manage to prevent the men from leaving. She could see him mouth the words “drinks” and “party” as he called to the lookouts. The lip reading she’d practiced with her mother was far from perfect, but she could make out enough to guess what was being said.

Erich was probably inviting them to stay and enjoy the free wine provided by the local ministry. Offering alcohol to merchants at the end of a merry festival was common practice to encourage their future return, so his appeal was more than natural.

He’s such a smooth talker, Margit thought, a smile coming to her face. At this rate, he’d defy her expectations and keep them busy without a hitch. They might even come to the town square on their own two feet.

Thinking that her protection was no longer needed here, the little arachne readied herself to sprint at full speed to make up for lost time—but that very same moment, a perilous sight caught her eye.

A man calmly walked toward her eloquent partner as if to join the conversation, his fingers coolly wrapped around a dagger. On any other day, Erich would have noticed. He had managed to evade the huntress’s surprise attacks that outmatched the sixth senses of wild beasts with incredible consistency; detecting a mere mensch should have been a breeze for him. The pair’s relationship would never have grown so deep if he’d been an easy mark, after all.

But today, Erich was anxious—anxious that his sister had been taken, that he had to do something about it, and that a single mistake could cost him a precious member of his family. His usual senses that could detect a silent arachne hellbent on hiding had been overwritten by the overwhelming pressure, like he’d been caught in an unimaginable streak of bad luck.

The phantom clatter of two tumbling stones filled Margit’s ears. Faced with her companion’s exceedingly rare fumble, she lacked the composure to maintain her usual smug smile.

Erich’s time spent training with Lambert meant he could easily whoop a standard hoodlum into the dirt, but there was nothing he could do about an attack that he didn’t see coming. Even a brittle dagger was more than enough to end a soft, fragile mensch.

“Erich!” Choked up, Margit could hardly breathe. At this rate, she thought, he’s going to be killed!

However, the unarmed girl was too far to close the sizable distance, and it was even doubtful whether or not her voice would reach him in time. Something, anything! Her hands clawed at the tree she’d been clinging to and suddenly sank into the bark.

Still panicked, Margit looked to see that she’d unwittingly reached into a hollow in the wood, and felt something cool at the tip of her fingers. Pulling out the source of this sensation, she found a single coin weathered by the passage of deep time. Large and thick, the weight of the metal drew attention to itself; it had been minted with the visage of a regal woman who gleamed a proud gold in spite of the years’ worth of mud and wood chips that covered her.

Whether she knew it or not, Margit’s hands had never moved faster as she slipped off the ribbon holding up her hair and wound it around the coin she’d haply taken in hand to form an impromptu sling. Her mother had taught her this trick in case she ever ran out of arrows or snapped her bowstring during a long expedition. At the time, she’d thought that surely such an occasion would never arise, but present circumstances proved otherwise.

The same could be said for the coin. Margit couldn’t begin to comprehend why such an expensive-looking gold piece had been resting in the trunk of a tree, only for her to chance upon it at this exact moment...but that didn’t matter. The coin could have materialized out of thin air for all she cared, so long as she could save Erich. She would have taken a rock or an unripe fruit and had little reason to question the chunk of metal in her hand.

Margit whipped the sling around in circles over her head. Its unwieldy shape proved unstable, and the makeshift nature of her weapon necessitated that the coin and ribbon be thrown together: there would be no second chance.

The distance measured roughly fifty mensch paces. It’d be a guaranteed shot with her well-loved shortbow, but her partner in crime was napping at home. Margit had no other options—she would land her attack to save Erich’s life.

If my dearest is ready to risk his life, then I shall prepare to die should I miss.

The arachne was not so devout as to pray before firing. She never prayed to the deities that presided over the hunt or war, nor even love. Once everything was said and done, her pride as a huntsman shone because victory was something she claimed with her own two hands. Prayer only came after the dust had settled to thank the divine for a peaceful hunt.

Free of both divine protection and mere coincidence, the life-or-death projectile took flight and smashed into its target. The coin drilled straight into the man’s shoulder as he made to raise the dagger to Erich’s neck, as if it had been guided there by an invisible wire.

Even from afar, the man’s piercing shriek of pain rang sharply in Margit’s ears. Flesh and bone alike had been crushed on impact, and the right arm that had once wielded a dagger now twisted in an unthinkable direction. The sweet touch of a perfectly conceived trajectory mutilated his shoulder beyond recognition.

Two different reactions accompanied the scream. The thugs stood in mute horror at the failure of their foolproof first strike. The same could not be said for Margit’s precious childhood friend. Once he whirled around to see the source of the agonizing wail, his switch flipped.

Whenever Erich fought, he always had a different air about him, like something had shifted inside his brain. Which means...he’s going to be fine. Trusting that he wouldn’t die so easily, the arachne sprinted away to bring victory to her beloved. Margit’s only regret was that she couldn’t stay to fight alongside him. Unfortunately, an unarmed arachne without the element of surprise would be of no use in combat.

“I won’t ever forgive you if you die!” she shouted in frustration. With an unwavering will, her tiny legs tore up the earth, skittering forward as fast as they could.

[Tips] The fairy coin is a figure from Konigstuhl canton folklore. Legend says that it was given to a powerful fairy to secure the well-being of young children, but no one knows where it is. However, the local elders say that it will never fail to appear when a child needs it most.

I whirled around at the sound of a man’s scream and realized that I’d fumbled. Eating a sneak attack as penance for failing a perception check was nothing new, but this commonplace occurrence could wipe half a party or down a tank in one shot, paving the way for an untimely demise.

Jeez, I never catch a break, do I? The memory of a party of five rolling for perception and the best of us only getting a four, only to turn my way and shout “This is your fault!” flashed before my eyes. What a terrible scene to reminisce upon.

In any case, the friendly neighborhood spider-girl I called a partner had bailed me out of my botched negotiations. I had thought she’d left to find help long ago, but she had no doubt been too worried about my risky plan to leave me unsupervised.

Now it was my turn to take the stage. Exploration giving way to combat was par for the course, and every role-player has at least once substituted a speech check with brute force. Anything goes when you take a more physical approach to “negotiation.”

My Lightning Reflexes made everything seem almost vexingly slow, but allowed me to snatch the dagger my assailant had unhanded out of the air. The weapon’s make was flagrantly cheap, but it would serve.

I’d managed to succeed on my first reaction, and perhaps as a bonus for avoiding the sneak attack, it seemed I had the initiative. Once upon a time, I’d chided turn-based battle systems as unrealistic, but as I twirled the knife to a backhanded stance, I felt that it was a reasonable estimation of combat.

I lowered myself to the ground and turned without any wasted movement, pressing the handle of the dagger into my hip and securing it in place with my left hand. This efficient stance put all of my weight behind the blade and prevented any slips that could injure my own hand.

Hybrid Sword Arts included a bonus to a warrior’s last hope—the dagger. When quivers ran dry, spears snapped, and swords shattered, a versatile sidearm was man’s best friend. A martial art forged on real battlefields would never be so ridiculous as to omit such a crucial weapon.

“Hurgh!” the enemy cried.

I plunged my blade into the knee of the man I’d previously been talking to with the momentum of my entire body. The unpleasant sensation of parting flesh came through crystal clear as my strike rent his sinews. Metal ground on bone as I twisted the knife to open his wound, and I found it distasteful how similar it felt to dissecting a wild beast.

Ugh, so this is how it feels to slice into a person? Despite all of our lofty talk of society and culture, this feeling made it seem as though we were no better than any other desperate animal rooting in the dirt—and in truth, we weren’t. Here stood a group of people that had stolen my sister in the name of profit, and here I was making sure they would never walk again to get her back. We were nothing but mortal in every way, shape, and form.

In which case, justification could wait. I yanked the dagger out—with surprising ease, thanks to the gaping wound my twist had opened—and turned my attention to the next closest target. My first victim was a non-factor: without two legs to stand on, he could do little more than writhe in pain.

To my great joy and surprise, my next mark was still carrying luggage, unable to process what had happened. I take it that I’m getting another turn?

The distance between us was further than what I could close in an instant, so I pinched the blade of the dagger and prepared to let it loose. My expertise with thrown weapons could hardly be called adept, but I knew I could at least hit my opponent with all the pragmatic training I’d received. At this range I’ll need about...three and a half rotations.

“Argh?!”

The twirling steel sank deep into his right shoulder; with the handle almost touching his skin, I was forced to abandon hope of recovering the weapon. Still, I was grateful to learn that the thugs here weren’t wearing armor underneath their clothes, as it would have been quite the struggle to beat down a pack of high-AC enemies.

Plundering another knife from the man whose knee I’d ruined, I dashed toward another enemy. As cheap as it looked, the dagger was well used, and I assumed it to be sturdy enough for the task at hand.

“The hell’s wrong with this kid?!”

The early bird gets the worm, so I lunged at the next closest thug. However, these people weren’t career criminals for nothing, and this man powered through his bewilderment to unsheathe his arming sword. An overhand swing from a top-heavy blade like his could split a log in two; my undeveloped skull would burst like an overripe melon if it hit me.

Of course, that was if it hit me. Exploiting my small stature, I somersaulted forward out of its path. I banked slightly to the left to make it as hard as possible for him to catch me in a corrected swing, reaching out to shank the back of his knee as I rolled past.

“Ow, agh!”

Without any sturdy bones to protect it, the fleshy joint ruptured with ease. I could tell that the dagger’s tip had cleaved his tendons and reached bone when its course slanted, so I pulled it out before the man fell. The prone status that accompanied attacks on people’s knees made it a most lucrative target.

I slammed the back of his head with the handle as he fell onto me and the man went out cold. The knife had chipped when it shattered his bone, so I relieved my partner of its short tenure and set my sights on the fallen sword. Its broad, girthy blade was about as long as an average adult’s forearm—just my size.

Now then, next up—whoa! I caught a glimpse of a drawn bow in the corner of my vision and reflexively brought up the sword, only for the force of impact to reverberate through my arm not a moment later. Wide swords like this sure are handy as a makeshift shield.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! You sure this brat’s human?!”

“Shut up and shoot! He’s already taken out three of us!”

“Everyone, to arms! I dunno who he is, but just kill him! Who cares if he’s a kid?!”

Oh crap, they’re getting serious. Where were you hiding those swords, hand spears, and shortbows? An entire camp of bandits amounts to practically a single significant foe in TRPGs, but these goons weren’t going down that easily. The archers stood on barrels to gain height, and the two frontliners approaching me made sure to stay out of their path of fire. They were too well coordinated to reduce them to a single forgettable mob.

I couldn’t help but feel like this use of strategy against a twelve-year-old was somewhat immature as I took a hearty leap to the side to avoid an arrow. The first shot I’d deflected left my right arm numb, so I decided the next one had to be dodged.

“You’re mine, brat!”

The bandit with the hand spear pounced on me, so I flipped my sword grip to have it follow my forearm and held my stomach in my other hand to deflect the thrust. The combination of Lightning Reflexes and Insight made defense and evasion reactions laughably trivial. Each had cost me a pretty penny, but I was glad to have them now.

Not expecting to have his attack parried by a downed opponent, the spearman had come in with excessive momentum, leaving me ample opportunity to roll onto my shoulder and sever his legs.

“Wha—gah!”

As he collapsed forward, I mercilessly slammed my heel into his nose. I posted my elbow onto the ground to put my full force into the kick, and it was plenty to concuss an adult far larger than me.

“Dammit, are you all right?!”

“Forget him, moron! Just kill the kid!”

The other vanguard wielding a one-handed sword froze when he saw his comrade go down, giving me a moment to dive behind a pile of wooden crates and hide from the barrage of arrows. Good, the numbness is fading.

“Elisa!” I shouted. “Elisa, where are you?!” At this point, their guilt was undoubtable. They attacked because they considered me a threat that might uncover whatever it was they had to hide. Whether they planned to kill me or knock me out, there was no other explanation as to why they’d suddenly turn on a child inviting them to join the local festivities.

I shouted in search of Elisa while weaving in and out of the cargo to buy more time. I wasn’t a total idiot, after all; the optimistic idea that I might wipe them out had never once crossed my mind. No matter how much training I had, my young body lacked the stamina to fight for an extended stretch, and truthfully, I was already feeling winded. My heart hammered faster than any sparring session; I knew I was hyperventilating, but I couldn’t stop.

I was scared of the fact that a single misstep would spell my death. Both body and soul shrank from the horrible fate that could await me. The gap in skill between these hoodlums and Sir Lambert was night and day. Had the captain of the Watch been here in my stead, a swing or two of his broadsword would have turned the whole crowd into chopped liver.

Compared to when I crossed swords with him, this battle should have been effortless. But as easy as it was meant to be...I couldn’t move in the way I wanted to.

“Found ya, kiddo!”

“Stay still!”

The sword fell sluggishly and the dagger stabbing in my direction was half a pace too far to land. Slicing the swordsman’s hand—fingers and all—was a simple task, and I managed to kick the dagger away while smacking the second enemy in the head with my sword’s grip. But it cut deep into my stamina, and my desperate breathing only grew rougher as sweat streamed from every pore. The slickness of my fingers dampened my grip, and I struggled to find control of my blade.

I could no longer tell if I had been here for a few minutes or a few dozen. I’d explicitly tried to keep track of time at the beginning of the battle, but pathetically lost my bearings as soon as combat began.

With the two goons I had just cleaned up, my tally was at seven people. Their dwindling numbers made it easier for me to escape, but I may have lost myself in the moment and gone too far. At this rate, they might use Elisa as a hostage...

“How pitiful.”

A young voice hoarsened by liquor rang in the air, dispelling the sound of my breath and the overwhelming drumming of blood in my ears. I turned to the only roofed carriage in the camp to see a single man step out of it.

His robe was decorated with grave ornaments whose purpose was totally alien to me. While nothing about his middling build or stature caught my attention, the permanent bags under his sunken eyes filled me with dread. The dark, discomforting gleam of his deep amber eyes almost looked gold from a certain angle.

There was only one kind of person who had tools dangling off every corner of their body like this. Despite not carrying a staff, the man was obviously a mage.

“What’s with all the fuss over this single kid?”

“B-Boss!” The man who’d lost his fingers had been frantically gathering his severed digits and feebly looked up at the mage. “Y-You don’t understand, this brat is—”

“I don’t want to hear excuses. But I suppose there’s no use in waiting for you fools to do your jobs.” With a flip of his robe, he stepped off the carriage and onto the ground. He ran his hand through his hair looking exceedingly annoyed and shot me an evaluating glare. “Well, at least it looks like we’ll be able to cover our losses.”

A shiver ran up my spine, wholly lacking the affection of those caused by Margit’s soft whispers. His appraising gaze rested on me, but I wasn’t what he saw. To him, I wasn’t a person—merely livestock ready to be priced for the marketplace. All that mattered was how much gold I would fetch... In fact, his dispassionate eyes hardly registered me as a living thing.

“Sit back clutching your fingers,” he ordered. “I’ll put them back on for you later.”

“Y-Yessir!”

The mage stepped toward me in place of his retreating subordinate. A mage leading a group of bandits? Been there, seen that, but...I don’t know, he seems a teeeeeensy bit different from what I’d expect. He’s a far cry from the hooligans that parade around their basic magic to feel cool that act as the first boss of a campaign.

“Heed me,” he muttered.

“Hngh?!”

Just as I resolved myself to stay on my toes, I found myself soaring through the air the very next instant. It took a moment to register that I was airborne and to feel the pain exploding through my jaw despite my Lightning Reflexes.

I had no idea what had happened. Even with Insight-boosted observational skills, I hadn’t seen him telegraph his spell in any way, and a short murmur was immediately followed by a strike on par with a clean uppercut from Sir Lambert. It was probable—nay, certain—that his magic had summoned a physical attack.

Without the experience of rolling off damage while being beaten to a pulp by my mentor, that attack would surely have shattered my jaw and robbed me of consciousness. Never had I been more thankful that I’d invested so heavily in damage reduction. While I was fond of systems where combat amounted to rocket tag, my journey would have come to an end here if I’d built myself as a glass cannon.

My short trial run as a creature of flight came to an end when I crashed into a pile of crates. Thankfully, the boxes didn’t contain any heavy goods and took on some of my momentum as I flew past them and rolled to shrug off most of the impact. This was the first time today that I was grateful for my small, light physique.

“Urgh...”

Still, that wasn’t to say it didn’t hurt. My sense of taste was overwhelmed with blood, and I could feel something slide down my tongue into the back of my throat. Were those teeth? I can’t tell which ones fell out because everything hurts so much, but I’ll never forgive you if those were adult teeth, you bastard!

That being said, my tumble had been quite flashy, so I decided to play dead and wait for an opening. If he underestimated me and came closer thinking that I was unconscious, I could ambush him, and being left on the ground would accomplish my original goal of buying time.

“Hm, I suppose I should hit him again, just in case.”

“Whoaaaa?!” I shouted. I leapt to my feet only for the space my head had occupied moments prior to explode. Carried forward by the wind, I surmised from the dust cloud at the area of impact that he’d blasted me with compressed air. Or maybe he temporarily expanded the air in that location? Regardless, I wasn’t a fan of his mysterious magic that was hard to dodge and quick to cast.

“Oh? You’re conscious after a direct hit and even managed to dodge the second.”

I managed to get back on my feet riding the shock wave from his attack and re-equipped myself with a nearby dagger. The mage’s words of praise were accompanied by a truly vexed frown, like a villain who’d failed to end a fight with his signature move. I nearly burst into laughter, but labored to keep a straight face to not draw his wrath by substituting it with a demand.

“Give me Elisa! Give me my sister back!”

“Sister?” he asked with a tilt of his head. “I don’t know about your sister, but the sight of my poor subordinates after you brazenly attacked them breaks my heart.”

What a bald-faced lie. My grip tightened to the point that the dagger creaked, but I knew his response was logical. Admitting to kidnapping, even to a child, would do him no favors. Whether he planned to kill or kidnap me, unnecessary risks were always worth avoiding.

“So let’s finish this quickly,” he said.

Apparently not a fan of drawn-out speeches, the mage fired another volley of spells. I danced to the tune of his imperceptible explosions of air. Unable to block them, I was forced to dodge them with an unsure step and depended on my breakfalls to avoid critical damage.

First shot: the area around my head exploded, so I sank down to avoid it. Second shot: the ground beneath my stomach exploded, so I jumped back to dodge it. Third shot: the air below my back exploded while I was airborne, so I had no hope of evasion. Instead, I relaxed my body, rolled off the momentum, and tried to close the distance between us. Fourth shot: he cut off my approach path, so I slammed my dagger into the ground to act as an emergency brake. Fifth shot, sixth shot, seventh shot...

[Tips] Many races lack the internal mechanism to focus mana into magic. Even among these races, there are some exceptions caused by rare and sudden genetic mutations.