Getting geared up rapidly was an easy habit after the Academy and her round. Vest remnants on (she really needed to visit a seamstress at some point), armor on, belt on, adjust armor to fit snug, check knives and pouches, ensure straps are locked. Done. It really didn’t take her much time anymore. Soon enough, she was following Night out into the gloom at a… leisurely stroll. It was dark out, but [Vision of the Void] rendered that moot passively while they just walked along the roads until they reached the seafront, then followed it.

  “Where are we going?” Ranthia finally asked, unable to tolerate the silence any longer.

  “Before I answer that question, I suppose it would be better to provide some foundation. Your report has caused a bit of a stir among Ranger Command and their support staff. Though your report largely matches what Sentinel Ocean learned from the locals when he arrived in the wake of the battle, there are many who, frankly, find it improbable. You will find the judgment of the Sentinels important for your path forward from here. The timing is, of course, inconvenient, but life often tends to skew that way.” The creepy man answered.

  Once again, he tried to give her time to process, but she needed real answers before whatever happened—the fact that he had her gear up sure suggested that this wasn’t just a social call. Which meant that she needed to drive the pace of the conversation.

  “So, what, exactly, does that mean?” She prompted.

  “It means we will test you to make sure your claims bear merit.” Night responded.

  Ranthia chewed on her annoyance and decided that it was, ultimately, reasonable. Gods and goddesses, even she still struggled to believe that she had won the fight sometimes, and she had purportedly been there.

  “Seems like a strange thing to waste your time on, but fair enough. …Wait, please don’t tell me I have to fight another kraken.” Ranthia grumbled.

  Sentinel Night chuckled. He chuckled! Ranthia was caught completely off-guard—did the scary man with the imposing personality have a sense of humor buried somewhere under his baggage?!

  “No, no, nothing of the sort. I sincerely doubt there are any to be had in the Nostrum sea. You will match blades with a Sentinel, so do not fear.” He assured her.

  She wasn’t exactly sure that inspired any greater comfort or confidence but pushed past it.

  “So, we’re going to some Sentinel compound?” She asked.

  “A prior member of our number had constructed a sparring arena adjacent to his home. It seemed like an ideal location to avoid other eyes. One other thing, I am afraid I will need to insist that you reveal your full capabilities to us. Every stat, every skill must be laid bare.” Night informed her, as if it was a minor detail.

  Ranthia paused for a moment at those words. Most of her strained mind rebelled. Sure, she had accepted vaguely describing the effects of her skills, but giving out everything? She hadn’t even done that for Hunting and she liked him—not like that (ew)—while she barely even knew the other Sentinels, let alone trusted them. She wasn’t even sure if she could trust Night; something about him just raised her hackles, much like how a cat might react poorly to an intruder. Worse, she had a strong feeling that they would need a breakdown of her weaknesses too, which felt uncomfortably like handing a bunch of powerful people—nominal allies at best—a step-by-step guide on how to murder her.

  Ranthia opened her mouth to try to refuse, or at least get concessions. Yet Night seemed to notice—despite the fact he was a couple of paces ahead of her—and cut her off with yet more words.

  “Oh, I should also note one more thing. When you recently pretended to be a Sentinel, you violated a major law in Remus. Ocean interceded on your behalf and argued that it was for a good cause and, ultimately, convinced Ranger Command to allow us discretion on your punishment. If it helps your personal comfort, please consider my orders to reveal your full capabilities and speak the full truth to us part of your punishment. Perhaps it will be the sole punishment, we shall decide that before we let you go for the night.”

  Ranthia wanted to scream and allowed herself to indulge a brief moment’s fantasy of driving a [Void Edge]-empowered knife through the back of his head.

  She might have been tempted to follow through with the idea, if she was just a bit less certain that she’d be killed before she was halfway through with the act.

  Sentinel Night, Sentinel Ocean, and… er, four others were present. She had no idea what the titles of the others were. She had never paid that much attention to the Sentinels. Hunting wasn’t there, of course. Gods and goddesses, she would have traded much for his presence.

  They were in a depression carved out of the ground next to a large manor made of white marble. Everything in the depression was made of stone and there were gaps around, beneath metal grating, for drainage. A raised square stone arena stood in the center of the depression.

  Sentinel Night gestured for her to step into the arena, while the Sentinels gathered along the ground next to the arena. It felt weird to her, since this meant she had to look down at them.

  “You all know why we have gathered. Ranger Ranthia has quite a storied history. She has been operating as an Adventurer since she was fourteen and had assisted two Adventurers for many years before that. She has been arrested at least twice in Ariminum, once for impersonating a fictitious individual and once for her remarkably poor judgment demonstrated in bringing up a letter of inheritance shortly after her first arrest. She has received a number of other complaints in her time, including standing orders for her arrest in Aquiliea. Then she came to us as a Ranger and became the sole survivor of her team, after she fought a kraken in a feat that almost rivaled that of Toxic’s own. After that, she continued her route solo, which is against protocol. During this time, she became involved in a battle against a group of revolutionaries and was accused of killing the governor in collusion with them. While simultaneously claiming to be Sentinel Mirror, a title we have not used in over eighty years.” Night began.

  Ranthia had to fight with everything she had to keep from protesting multiple times during that. Seriously, was the asshole trying to make the other Sentinels have a negative opinion of her?

  “Ranger Ranthia, you will now share with us your full current stat and class breakdown, with the names of your classes and skills. Along with an explanation of what they do.” Night ordered.

  Ranthia swore under her breath—likely not nearly quietly enough with this group—before she pulled her blindfold off. …Not a single one of the men in front of her flinched or visibly reacted to her eyes. So much for that source of petty satisfaction.

  There was a strong impulse to try to escape, but she knew it would be futile. Instead, she gritted her teeth and began.

  “Ranthia, human. Age 23. Current stats as follows: Free stats 0, Strength 5903, Dexterity 8839, Vitality 8389, Speed 7989, Mana 3160, Mana Regeneration 4471, Magic Power 2252, and Magic Control 2168. Current Mana is 14,097 out of a full capacity of 31,600. Current Mana Regen Rate is only 296.”

  A few signs of amusement. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up—she’d balance her stats as soon as she classed up her Mirror class. …Hopefully.

  “My first class is a [Mage] class, Mirror-aspected, titled [Shards of Reflection], currently capped at level 256. Skills as follows… …[Mirror Spirit] at 256… This is the highest version of the affinity skills—I think—and it allows me a deeper connection to my class skills than usual. [Scattered Reflections] at 256, this skill allows me to generate mirror images that look like myself and almost every skill in this class is tied to this one. [Echoes Reflected] at 163, it allows me to speak through my mirror images, though it's only recently become mostly reliable—so long as I keep it brief. [Reflective Motility] at 256, lets me move my mirror images, a process that has recently become relatively realistic though it still takes active concentration and focus for each image. [Persistent Imagery] at 256, this one allows my mirror images to take a bit more damage before they shatter and also, for some reason, improves the texture and feel of the images to make them seem more realistic. [Mirrored Moves] at 105, which lets me use my techniques from my second class in [Reflective Motility]—though they don’t actually do any damage, it’s still useful to draw attention, albeit less so since I changed from Dark to Void. [Distorted Likeness] at 90, I use it to modify the appearance of mirror images that I generate though it also requires a clear mental picture of the complete image to create anything. [Reflections of Reality] at 119, my most important skill in many ways, it allows me to abandon my true body and take over the body of a mirror image and use it. It allows me to fight reckless battles, so long as my true body is safe. The image becomes identical to my body while I control it. And no, before anyone asks, it does not allow me to duplicate items; anything I use or lose while I am in a mirror image disappears from any other image or my true body when I shift to them.

  “My second class is a [Warrior] class, and at Hunting’s advice I leveled it above my first class since this class is Void-aspected. Its title is [She who Dances with Chaos] and is at level 301. For unknown reasons, I was able to build this class myself instead of selecting it as normal. Its skills are not quite as interconnected as my first class’s skills are, though they are heavily synergetic. [Void Affinity] at 294, I lost cap on it when I leveled significantly during—and after—the battle with the kraken. [Rhythmic Grace] at 301, which wants me to dance while I fight and provides a degree of battlefield awareness and prediction analysis, while it also silences and stabilizes my footfalls and assists with my evasive capabilities due to the skills that merged into it. [Void Edge] at 301, which allows me to create a hard to see thin line of void energy across the edge of my knives, though it does not protect the knives from the energy and consumes them quickly—effectively requiring me to activate it just before impact with the target. [Flowing Momentum] at 301, this skill helps guide my knives while I move to ensure my strikes actually find their target and deal solid damage without jarring me out of my own rhythm. [Vision of the Void] at 110 is responsible for my current visage, this skill lets me see in the dark and at an active mana cost see through certain obstacles such hazes in the air and other thin obstacles, including cheap walls. [Sustained Chaos] at 59, long story short it lets me throw knives without my Skills’ effects immediately cutting off. [Echoes of Devastation] at 301, basically when I strike a target, a follow-up strike comes a moment later at reduced power that strikes the same point, lets me cut deeper with a single stroke of my knife. [True Grace] at level 88, while I’m dancing all of my skills get a small boost, currently less than two percent; it also is adjusting my body to help with my dancing, whatever that means.

  “My general skills are, largely, meant to supplement my classes. First, I have—” Ranthia paused.

  Night’s eyes practically bore into her own as his gaze intensified.

  How had he known she was about to lie?! Ranthia spat another curse, not quite as subtly as she had before, before she balled her fists and continued.

  “I… Well, here goes… [Divine-Touched Identify] at 301, which is bound to me due to the actions I took in my past life, this skill lets me see the generalized class tag and element for every class anyone has, it’s also a passive. [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc] at 90, a skill that formed based on a vow I made to my patron deity, it makes my Mirror skills far more mana efficient, which was basically required to even use my first class. [Ranger’s Lore] at 301, I assume I don’t need to explain that one. [Stealth] at 73, I don’t plan to keep this one, I just took it to try to save the hostages since I expected that they’d be killed if I went in directly. [Combat Awareness] at 297, lets me sense any sort of attack or certain other action with malicious intent within a certain, small radius of myself, only a few steps worth; and yes, I’ve experienced that it can be beaten. [Fast Learner] at 221, it’s a skill that increases my learning speed and offers a modest boost to experience gains. [Image Recall] at 178, a skill I learned to deal with [Distorted Likeness] which lets me store and recall mental images I build, also helps with modifying existing ones. And, um, [Sexy] at 211, which… well, y’know.”

  Ranthia had tried to tune it out, but there were clear reactions to several of her skills, [Mirror Spirit] and [Divine-Touched Identify] got the largest responses out of the Sentinels, unsurprisingly. Then almost the moment she finished, the reason she was on the stage made itself clear. A privacy barrier flickered into existence across the entire raised combat arena, which cut off her view of—and the sounds from—the gathered Sentinels and made it impossible to overhear their reactions.

  She had no idea if the barrier was a Skill or an inscription, but not even [Vision of the Void] helped her see through it.

  She paced nervously and wrung her hands. She hated this. She had to bare herself to these self-centered assholes just because she was a Ranger? She was completely at their mercy too—if they decided to execute her, she would barely be able to put up a fight even if she had attacked Night before they arrived. But now they knew exactly how to kill her—they just needed to smash her true body if she shifted to another mirror image. What would happen if they did? Would she just crumble away into dust immediately? Would she die slowly? Would she suffer, or would she never even realize what happened and just cease to exist and be forced before Xaoc again?

  …Would He even bother to intercede with her again? The fact that her [Covenant] wasn’t capped made it clear that she still struggled to bring chaos into the world. Somehow, she expected to just be cast back into the cycle of souls if she died at this point.

  …Then, of course, the thoughts of how much of a failure she was cascaded and soon Hexara and her dead team and her myriad of other failures bombarded her. She lost the pattern of her breathing and had to try to fight into a more meditative state to get her head back on straight.

  She swore and sent Xaoc a quick prayer. He took a surprisingly large portion of her mana to hear her prayer, which she hoped was a good sign. That or He knew she was about to die and tried to get what He could out of His failed disciple’s final moments. It wasn’t like her vest and choker—why was she still wearing Hexara’s gift?—could refill her mana as they were.

  Fuck she hated the sense of helplessness; she had fought ever since she woke up in Perinthus to be able to defend herself. And yet this was as far as her ambitions had taken her. Fifteen years and she was at the mercy of a pack of men she barely knew.

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  And all she could do was prepare herself for a final dance. If this whole thing had been an excuse to kill her—and why else would they need to know her full capabilities—she wouldn’t go down without a fight. It wouldn’t be much of a fight, she knew, but she was determined to inflict a bit of damage if that’s what it came down to.

  At length, the privacy barrier deactivated. Wordlessly, Sentinel Night stepped onto the raised arena, knives that looked to be carved from some sort of bone or horn in his hands.

  “We will now commence the physical test, to see if you were capable of defeating the kraken as you reported. You may use all of your abilities except for your [Void Edge] in this duel. In light of that skill, I will make assumptions in your favor and assume that any time one of your knives touch me that it will be a crippling blow and pretend I have lost the use of that portion of my form. Do you have sufficient arcanite on your person to top off your mana?”

  Ranthia had been prepared for many things. An attack. A death she never saw coming. A bombardment of questions or accusations. Even just mundane mockery for having a personal vanity skill.

  For them to shrug it all off and just move forward? That was not one of the outcomes she had expected!

  “Oh, uh… no? It went down some more since I prayed to Xaoc.” Ranthia explained after a moment.

  “Toxic, I believe you were the one with the arcanite bag?” Night prompted.

  A massive man seemed to pop out of nowhere behind one of his—much smaller—peers before he waved her over. Ranthia awkwardly shuffled off the stage and nervously approached the Sentinels. A few of the others greeted her while she positioned herself behind the group, created a mirror image, and shifted to it—hey, Night said to use all of her abilities.

  “Can you guys protect my real body while I do this?” She asked, to a couple of nods.

  After that she stuck her hand in the proffered backpack and pulled mana from the arcanite until she was topped off, trying to slyly keep a close eye on her body the whole time. She was already channeling too—if any of them made a move for her true body she was ready to shift back as swiftly as she could. As if her shifting or her reaction speeds could match most of the levels she was seeing.

  Nothing went awry—so far—and once her mana was full and her channel was held ready, she tried to swallow her nerves and hopped back onto the stage of the arena. How had she gotten into this mess? There was no way this would end well.

  “You may begin as soon as you are ready.” Night announced.

  With a mental effort, Ranthia shoved everything to the side. She just had to face the most terrifying creature she had ever seen—yes, he beat out even the kraken by a large margin, no matter what the levels reported—while witnessed by humanity’s elites. Simple.

  Ranthia began. Her first swipes with her knives met only air. But, filled with nerves or not, the rhythm came to her. Grace seeped into her motions, then flowed from them. Her initial probes were laughable, but as she fell into the dance of the duel they became as beautiful as any she had ever made.

  There was just one major problem: her knives still couldn’t touch the man.

  Her senses swore Night never moved, but every sweep of her blade only entered thin air. [Rhythmic Grace] and [Flowing Momentum] guided her, enhanced by [True Grace], but they weren’t enough. Not for the true monster that she dueled.

  Well, if her second class wouldn’t be enough—not that she had honestly expected it to be—she still had her true dance. She had, in many ways, discovered the full breadth of her potential while she fought the kraken; if she couldn’t reach the [Warrior] not quite twice her level with them, she wouldn’t. One by one she sent out mirror images and animated them with their own steps in tune with her movements. They began to strike and, for the first time in the duel—she shifted. Even as new images were introduced while others were allowed to fall idle or were dismissed. She strove to embody chaos in the duel—she needed to keep him guessing and overwhelm his own ability to [Identify] which body she was in.

  Yet nothing worked.

  Sentinel Night might as well have been a hallucination. Her blades were just completely unable to reach him. [Sustained Chaos] entered her dance at opportune moments, but even the thrown blades only sailed through the air. One of the other Sentinels—the one with the stupid pun name—caught blades that went past the boundary of the arena and stacked them neatly.

  It was absurd. How could this pale, terrifying man be so much more than she was? Sure, he out leveled her by a large margin, but the kraken had been a substantial step further than him. She could see him clearly—even [Vision of the Void] was confident that the damned asshole was right there—yet she just wasn’t good enough to reach him. Worse, he wasn’t even bothering to counterattack, he was just—somehow—avoiding everything that she attempted.

  Ranthia pressed herself further, seeking the deepest depths of her skills; she was certain that she had fought better against the kraken. She took greater risks. She pulled from her own arcanite when her mana waned. She tried to lean more heavily into her strength and dexterity. At one point, Night finally parried a thrust with his own knife. Both discarded their blades, as if they had been destroyed in the clash. But even with him reduced to a single knife, she couldn’t make him use it again.

  At length, she pulled back and cursed. Her mana was nearly depleted. She had struggled for a substantial part of the night—yes, against Night at night, hilarious—to no effect.

  “I yield, this is pointless! I’m on my last pair of knives and I’m nearly out of mana.” She snarled. She had saved just enough mana—barely—for a final shift back to her true body, but she sorely doubted pushing herself to zero would change anything.

  Sentinel Night calmly retrieved his discarded knife and put his blades away before he responded.

  “I see.”

  That was all he said. Ranthia wanted to scream. The fucker had a cart full of words normally, and now—after all of this—he just left it at ‘I see’!? Gods and goddesses, Ranthia wished more than ever that she had managed to stab the asshole!

  The other Sentinels conversed quietly, but not quietly enough. Oddly, they didn’t reengage the privacy ward.

  “Would that really have been enough to beat a kraken with that level? Even if it was a juvenile?” One of the men asked audibly.

  There were… multiple things to unpack there, but Ranthia sighed and moved back to the center of the arena.

  “I didn’t win that fight unscathed. I won because of a quirk of [Reflections of Reality].” Ranthia interrupted—earning her more than a few glares.

  Ranthia ignored the glares and started to channel once again. A moment later, she started a new dance while she theatrically spun her knives. Once she was in the full embrace of the grace of her dance, she made her move.

  [Void Edge] activated, [Echoes of Devastation] would ensure the blow did what she needed and [Flowing Momentum] would keep her armor safe. She entered a twirl and severed her own raised leg just above the knee. A heartbeat later her other hand drove a fully empowered knife through the arm that she used to cut her own leg. The Void energy did its job perfectly and both limbs sailed away from her, driven by the momentum behind her dance.

  [Rhythmic Grace] and her own dexterity let her balance easily on the toes of her remaining leg while she slowed.

  Someone called for one of Dawn’s moonstones, whatever that meant.

  “This is how I won.” Ranthia announced calmly, barely bothered by the pain. The kraken had put her through so much worse. While she spoke, she indicated the blood that flowed from her wounds.

  Then she released the channel and waited until she was back in her true body.

  “And now I am whole. You’ll note my bracer and sandal are missing, but my lost limbs are back and I’m no worse for wear. Though if I had struck my armor the damage to the armor would have transferred with me, just like my knives are still gone after the Void consumed them.” Ranthia explained while she swept past the men and hopped back onto the stage.

  She backhanded the wounded mirror image. It shattered and disappeared, the blood that it had spilled disappeared with it.

  “Don’t ask me why, but injury and blood loss don’t matter. As long as I survive the injury long enough to shift to another mirror image, injuries to my mirror image bodies that I sustain are irrelevant. They just cause pain. And after my battle with the kraken, pain doesn’t bother me so much anymore.” Ranthia bowed—performer style—after she concluded her little speech.

  Well, that at least seemed to break the professional calm the other Sentinels had maintained; they entered a chaotic tizzy.

  At length, the Sentinels had calmed down. …Aided by some Skill of Ocean’s and a few quiet words from Night to get them focused before they could start to openly brawl. How that had nearly escalated into a brawl was something Ranthia couldn’t understand. Sentinels were weird.

  “So, you claim you’re unkillable?” One of the ones she didn’t know asked.

  “Ugh, by Xaoc, no. I literally said blows that don’t outright kill me! When I’m in a mirror image body its form IS my body. If I die, I’m dead. Also, if anything happened to my true body, which is only as durable as any of my mirror images while I’m out of it.” Ranthia replied.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to fight naked then?” A different Sentinel asked with transparent eagerness.

  Another brawl broke out, but Sentinel Night and Sentinel Ocean sorted it out swiftly.

  Ranthia chose to ignore that question, she didn’t know the man but her opinion of him had plummeted.

  “Share with us the classes and types of adversaries that you believe you are most ill-suited to face.” Sentinel Night ordered.

  Of fucking course he did, the godsdamned monster.

  “…Fine. Any [Mage] or monster that can surround themselves with something I can’t get through alive. Lava, Dark, or Void would probably be the worst. The proverbial Storm [Mage] that somehow doesn’t suck. Radiance or Brilliance mages can be deadly too, since they can shoot faster than I can react. And no, nothing in my Mirror kit handles those. Certain classers or monsters I might be able to get to, since I don’t necessarily have to come out the other side in one piece. Inferno, Spore, Miasma, or Poison that doesn’t kill me immediately, for example. A clever [Warrior] that absolutely overpowers me on stats—I might only get one chance at a surprise before they learn how I work. There’s no such thing as a perfect class for all situations!” Ranthia explained, feeling defensive and overly exposed at the same time.

  It was unpleasant. Even if she had completely expected the question to come up. It was also a question Ranthia often asked herself as she gamed out and strategized potential battles and opponents. Knowing what she couldn’t engage with was invaluable.

  The other questions came and went. Ranthia confirmed from Sentinel Ocean that the kraken she fought had been a juvenile, nowhere near full size. Juvenile and almost level 800. The Ocean was a freaking absurd place and her belief that the people that willingly chose to live in Massilix were completely insane was reinforced.

  At length they finished. Ranthia found herself back at Hunting’s villa with barely enough time for a quick nap before she had to prepare for the Ranger Convocation. Even then, she grabbed her nap in her armor, which bought her a few precious extra moments of rest before she had to head for Ranger Headquarters.

  She could stuff food in her face while she ran.

  It had been a bad round. Almost every Ranger team had missing members, and more often than not there was more than one empty place on their bench. Ranger Team 9’s bench was empty. Ranthia sat alone on Ranger Team 13’s bench. Two teams were down to four. This round had been worse than average, if the somber mood meant anything.

  Ranthia found just being in the room required immense mental effort. It reminded her of trying to hold her channel for a long period of time. An unnatural pressure that made it hard to think or act. She couldn’t even bring herself to look for the faces she knew, lest she noted those that were absent.

  And yet Command made their speeches, same as always. As if nothing was wrong, as if it was any other Convocation.

  Then it came time for the Indomitable Wall to absorb more grief.

  Team leaders, established or acting, rose when their team was called. Always the same refrain. Always a dearth of information. Just names and the same recitation.

  Bia didn’t make it. Her actual name went on the wall, and even then Ranthia couldn’t absorb it. Her heart ached for the loss of Bia, her fake one-time sister for all of a couple of weeks—counting preparation. And then, a short time later…

  “Team 13.” The Commander called.

  Ranthia stood and faced the wall without seeing it. The scroll she held was unrolled, but she barely had to glance at it as she recited the names.

  “Velius Leoios Enduris.” She said, alone.

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.” They said together.

  A tap sounded, as his name was consigned to the wall.

  “Sulbius Republius Maxius.” Was next.

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.” The too-often repeated mantra.

  Another tap.

  “Resinius Hallus Stellius.”

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.”

  Tap.

  “Ambrusius Penticus Primaris.” Why didn’t they call them Rangers for this?

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.”

  Tap.

  “Cunius Mettlea Ambucus.” She wished she could at least say that he died facing a kraken, heroic.

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.”

  Tap.

  “Secundia.” She died trying to save children, the future of Remus—and she only gets a single godsdamned word.

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.” No change in the chorus.

  Tap. She too was consigned to the wall.

  “Castricius Pibius Bombos.” The least heroic of the set. She couldn’t even appreciate how stupid his ‘fancy’ name was.

  “Brave Ranger. Your time to rest has come. May White Dove take you to a better place. Your deeds will not be forgotten. We will remember you.” Yet he got the same refrain.

  The final Tap for Ranger Team 13, as he was consigned to be just another name among the countless.

  Ranthia returned to her seat, uncertain how she kept her eyes dry beneath her blindfold. At least she was permitted to wear it for this, her eyes could show as much pain as she wanted.

  At length, the final moment of silence came to an end as the final Ranger Team finished its report. It had been a bad two-year period. Several of the Academy graduates looked far less excited than they had earlier.

  The Adventurers beat the odds though. Only two casualties, from their former B-Ranked brethren. The rest of them still sat with their teams. Other faces that Ranthia remembered from her time at the Ranger Academy were missing though. Statia was still there, but many, many others were not. It made sense, fresh Rangers died far more often than veterans. Ranthia’s team had been a horrendous exception to that rule of thumb. Experience and sheer levels helped. Until they weren’t enough, but that often led to an empty bench.

  New teams were formed.

  “Ranger Team 6. Green, Ranthia, Memmina Primus Artellus, Lysia, Abillo, Hyrria Tertia Sinna, Juvenae, Pyra.”

  …Seriously, she was going to be the second-in-command after a single round? Ranthia was distracted after that and completely failed to pay attention to what teams Statia or Kaesios or any of her other friends or acquaintances went to.

  After all teams were assigned, two Rangers were called to the stage. They looked skittish as they approached, unsure of the situation. Ranthia could practically see the realizations dawn on them in real time, as uncertainty turned to… smugness.

  The woman was presented first.

  “A Ranger. At least one round. The undisputed best in her field. A grand feat. An open seat. The ability to survive on your own. Powerful combat prowess. Able to move through Remus and beyond, solving problems.” The Commander announced.

  “She came to us from the frontlines. Her flight skill is unprecedented in its utility and scope. She has fought against the shimagu threat with the Legion. She has fought monsters and worse in Remus as a Ranger. And she single-handedly evacuated an entire village ahead of danger, then returned them when the threat passed.” The Commander worked the crowd.

  “We hereby name you, The Aurora Sentinel!” The Commander called out as he pinned an eagle over a starburst on her chest.

  Ranthia completely failed to get her name to stick in her memory, naturally.

  “But we are not done yet. There is another Ranger who has accomplished his own grand feat, and we have a second open seat to fill.

  “He has been with us for three rotations. He has never taken a single wound. He defeated a river monster that was over level 700, solo, before it could reach the city it was approaching. He fought for three days and three nights, but in the end, he was victorious!

  “We hereby name you, The Silver Sentinel!” The Commander called out and pinned a second starburst eagle onto the chest of the man.

  What the actual fuck? Ranthia was… floored.

  No, she was pissed. It didn’t even make sense!

  She never took a single wound. She defeated a sea monster nearly level 800, solo. In two days and two nights—apparently, not that she quite believed it sometimes.

  Okay, no, she really hadn’t ever given serious consideration to being a Sentinel. It had never really been a goal. She hadn’t even planned on doing a second round, until it became clear that there was nothing in Ariminum for her anymore. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do, and helping people… it mattered.

  But seeing what was just a… pale imitation of her own merits get named Sentinel over her?

  She ground her teeth in her seat, alone on her bench. He had come from one of the very few benches that had its full team.

  Everyone else cheered. She was unable to even fake it.

  What had last night even been about? It wasn’t like she had her hopes up for anything, but the man’s existence just burned like an insult levied directly at her.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.