Three days, she had estimated, to Ariminum and back. Three. She’d been so damned confident!

  Naturally, by the evening of the third day, she still wasn’t even in sight of Ariminum’s walls. For all of her practice with studying maps, she obviously still struggled with senses of scale—and with the reality of just how much travel time roads added. Yes, she might have made better time by cutting through the wilderness—maybe, if she was lucky—but that had the risk of ending up off-course and getting lost, even before terrain or territory issues.

  …Yeah, it was no wonder that Green had looked so amused at her estimation.

  Time aside—gods and goddesses, being off by over twice her estimate was so embarrassing—Ranthia’s journey back to the capital passed without event. There wasn’t much time to practice with [Submind] since she refused to slow herself down any further, but that was fine. She’d have more time once she got back.

  But after nearly five full days of travel (ha, and she thought it’d take her three days to get to the capital and back to Ranger Team 6), she made it to Ariminum’s gates. Loath to waste more time, Ranthia used the urgent Ranger entrance instead of waiting in line—though she still had to wait impatiently for the very slow [Healer] to come over and tap her arm—then she hit the main streets bound for Headquarters. She was sprinting through the speedster lane when someone abruptly stepped out right in front of her! Ranthia pivoted and side-stepped to bleed her momentum and opened her mouth to curse whatever idiot stumbled out into the fastest lane—

  —only to realize she was staring straight at Hexara. Ranthia froze, her mouth open. Heedless of the messenger that dodged around them, cursing.

  “…I knew it was you. Please, can we talk, I just—” Hexara began to speak; a voice that used to melt Ranthia’s stress away instead filled her with dread.

  She couldn’t.

  “Sorry, on my round—urgent message! Team’s waiting!” Ranthia held up the scroll like a shield, dove around her ex, and fled at full speed.

  She wasn’t fast enough to avoid the hurt look on Hexara’s face. Ranthia had transparently refused to interact with Hexara—as if a short conversation would have made her any later—and… yeah. Just what Ranthia wanted, more guilt to carry.

  …She would still take an alternate route out of the city when the delivery was done, she decided. She might feel awful, but she was still a coward.

  Ranthia had been confident that she had memorized Green’s convoluted string of directions to this clerk—if not his name—but when she opened the door and found herself in a tiny room filled with brooms, mops, buckets, rags, and other cleaning implements she was a lot less certain. Still, Green had said to pass through the room and open the far door… and there was another door there.

  All she could do was hope for the best while she stepped past the cleaning implements and tried the other door. She was more than a little surprised that it actually opened.

  Though nowhere near as surprised as she was when she stepped into a decent-sized room with three counters, each manned by a different man. Ranthia closed the door and, with an effort to recalibrate herself, approached the counter at her left.

  “Ranger…” the man paused and his eyes unfocused for a moment. “Ranthia, Ranger Team 6. What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  The man was utterly forgettable and would be all too easy to overlook in a crowd, but Ranthia offered Green’s scroll to him and tried not to fret about how weird all of this was.

  “Message from Green, she requested I deliver it to you.” Ranthia confidently replied, no matter how uncertain she was that any of this was correct.

  The man accepted the scroll, checked its seal, then nodded.

  “I acknowledge receipt, is there anything else, ma’am?” The man asked in the same… indistinct tone of voice.

  “No?” Ranthia replied uncertainly.

  The man offered her a salute from behind the counter and watched her until she finally nodded to him, then turned and—stiffly—left the room. She had so many questions, but the Rangers did weird stuff sometimes. Maybe this was just something they did to mess with Rangers that got forced to run messages? Sure, that made sense. As much sense as any of it did, at least.

  Ranthia’s return journey also went smoothly, though she did stop at one point to help a farmer replace the wheel of his uncovered wagon. …Why anyone would travel Pallos’ roads without a sheltered wagon was beyond her; ornithocheirus alone made it idiotic to take such a risk. She had learned a lot since her own pilgrimage from Perinthus, and there was no way she’d make the same sort of mistake again. Not that the old farmer seemed to care, he just laughed and told her that he was too sour for anything to eat.

  She didn’t argue, she just helped him get on his way again and resumed her run.

  Ranger Team 6 hadn’t been at the town Ranthia had hoped to meet them at, of course, but thankfully they were still at the next town. …For another day or so.

  Ranthia wasn’t entirely confident on which road they followed next, so it was a very good thing she caught up.

  “Thank you, bright Flower, and welcome back. Here’s some coin for a bath and a meal, tell sweet Tertia that I’ll relieve her at the desk momentarily and that she may join you.” Green greeted her with a smile, before tossing a pouch to Ranthia.

  After a hot bath and a fresh application of cosmetics, Ranthia felt more like herself. Their round was still in its earliest stages, but she was already getting thoroughly spoiled by how Green ran things. The woman was clearly supplementing their team coin out of her own wealth, but it was wonderful to have private rooms, cosmetics, and baths as part of the Ranger experience.

  “So, I take it I didn’t miss anything?” Ranthia asked Tertia while the two ate bowls of hearty, spicy stew at the tavern they were staying in.

  “Actually, in the last town, we got stuck dealing with an interesting mystery. Someone was stealing from the governor’s tax collector.” Tertia replied with a smirk.

  “…Wait, really? How did that get resolved so quickly?” Ranthia blinked.

  “Turned out it was the guy’s own kid. Something smelled funny since it was always exactly one coin short. So, Green had him do a fake tax collection, then we waited. Sure enough, the kid squeezed right through an airflow gap in the wall, took one coin from the collection box, and left. Turned out one of the kid’s friends told him that coins were getting bigger every year, so he decided to collect a coin a year to study the effect.” Tertia replied with obvious amusement.

  “Well, at least it was easy to resolve. What did you guys do about the kid?” Ranthia asked.

  “Clapped him in irons and sent him to the governor for sentencing.” Tertia answered with a cold expression.

  “What?!” Ranthia gasped in horror—only for her newfound friend to immediately start laughing.

  “Oh, that was beautiful, thank you! You are so easy, girl! I just have to slip back into my childhood training and don a mask and I swear I could convince you that the emperor’s prone to skipping naked through fields of flowers!” Tertia somehow managed to speak clearly while laughing.

  “See, with a vile personality like that, I’m not surprised that you’re worried about finding a decent match when you get married.” Ranthia grumbled while she fought to keep the grin off her face.

  “Hey, I told you that in confidence!” Tertia gasped in exaggerated outrage.

  The two broke down giggling after another moment.

  The round continued. Ranthia stole every opportunity that she could to train with her mirror images—and to her utter delight, there were a few times when her teammates mistook one of her mirror images for the real her! …Unfortunately, she enjoyed it a little too obviously, so everyone started using [Identify] to screen before they interacted with ‘her’.

  She had been somewhat doubtful, but [Submind] really had proven its worth already. Even in its relatively early levels, she found that the Skill could basically run one mirror image perfectly with barely any effort required from her. She looked forward to the day it would be able to take over a second, but already she was practicing with four mirror images active. In a real battle she kept herself limited to three at most—and more often stuck with just two to better manage her mana expenditures and spare enough focus that she could channel while doing it.

  Real battles were all too common. On the road they dealt with aggressive wildlife that attacked their wagon or one of the lower-level women—Hylla was especially delicious-looking, it seemed. In towns, more than once, they had to form up to fight predators or territorial dinosaurs that had gotten too close. There was the token small bandit group—just dumb kids that got too greedy (fortunately, they were easily restrained and handed off to the guards in the next town).

  Then there was the incident with the crazy naked woman (being covered in colorful dye did not count as clothes) that leapt out of a collapsing ruin of a house, just a bit beyond the walls of the nearby town, and tried to eat Lysia’s face. Weirdly, according to the locals that was just a thing that the woman did sometimes. They seemed to shrug it off, somehow! Not that Ranthia felt guilty for using lethal force to save her junior.

  And currently they were in a mid-sized city dealing with the fact that Hylla had been kidnapped. The criminal gang in the city had been too small and too harmless to be on the Rangers’ radar, but they seemed to have taken that as a personal challenge. They had—somehow—lured the [Healer] out overnight while the team was asleep, but eyewitnesses had seen known members of the gang take her after she healed someone that was injured.

  Thank Xaoc, the guards were actually competent. They gave Green a list of known hideouts for the gang and, while most sane people were eating breakfast, the team gathered to plan their rescue. Between [Vision of the Void] and however Green’s [Predatory Plants] worked, they were certain that there were sixteen thugs—the entire gang (again, they were tiny and harmless)—inside the abandoned coppersmithy. Hylla was probably in the smithy’s underground storage, considering there were six idiots milling around the door to it.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  Green’s plan was simple and effective. First, Lysia and Abillo were to go in through the front entrance. Heavy Mist, lots of noise. A moment later, Ranthia and Pyra would enter from the back and head straight for Hylla. Tertia, Juvenae, and Art would hit the smithy through the side door. And Green herself would come from above. The amount of force they used was left at their individual discretion.

  The tranquility of the morning was shattered by the sound of a door being crushed and angry shouts.

  “Let’s go.” Ranthia whispered to Pyra, before she erased the bar—and part of the door—with a sweep of [Void Edge].

  The two charged into the back room. Two enemies were inside, though they were clearly caught off-guard. Ranthia rushed them, even as one of Pyra’s [Flare Arrow]s passed by her head. The orange Inferno arrow struck one of the thugs in the chest, then erupted into a conflagration of Pyronox—Pyra’s [Imbue] and [Coexisting Blaze] Skills made her remarkably effective for a fire-based [Mage]. Inferno’s solid flames gave her serious range, and Pyronox’s raw stopping power made them hurt.

  [*ding!* Your group has slain a [Daytime Laborer] (Wood, level 78), [Nighttime Burglar] (Dark, level 103)!]

  The other thug screamed his surrender as his counterpart went down in a flaming heap. Ranthia simply reversed her grip on her knife and slammed its base into the man’s jaw as she rushed past him. There was no kill notification, so it was fine—no matter how loud the crunch had been.

  Abillo’s cold voice echoed through the mostly-empty smithy, shortly before another trio of kill notifications came. But Ranthia had no headspace to focus on that, she was already bearing down on six visibly shaken idiots that were barring her way to save their problematic [Healer].

  One by one, she sent three mirror images out—and two of them lunged aggressively at the idiots. She was already channeling too, just in case. The dance came to her and her rush grew into something much more as she closed in.

  The first man was armed with a knife not entirely unlike the cheap piece of junk in her own hand. She sliced through the back of his hand and replaced the consumed knife with his.

  The second was wielding a staff—an impractical weapon when it came to life and death, at least add a spearhead. He was busy fending off the [Submind]-controlled image, so she ignored him. It would have been all too easy to cut him down as she passed him, but she needed to make sure Hylla was secure before she got bogged down. There was too high a risk that there were more gang members that were in there with her. She might be killed if they took too long.

  The third was unarmed and came at her with his bare fists. [Sustained Chaos] let her throw an empowered knife into his face.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Cargo Wrangler] (Wood, level 85), [Brawl Fanatic] (Water, level 89)!]

  The fourth and fifth were both rushing for Pyra—so much the worse for them; she was even deadlier at close range.

  The sixth wielded a spear. He managed to break the image he fought shortly before she reached him—he was surprisingly good. Not that it helped him when she put another image behind him and shifted to it while he turned to face her true body. The man never even noticed the knives that she buried in the sides of his skull.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Legion Spearman] (Earth, level 171), [Little Crime Boss] (Dark, level 140)!]

  Ranthia was more than a little relieved when she kicked down the door and saw Hylla tied to a chair, alone. Her tunic was even intact, which proved the scum had some level of morality.

  Not that it helped them when Green descended on those that still fought.

  Honestly, baths and beds aside, the incident cemented it for Ranthia: the time they spent between towns was clearly preferable to the time spent in town. The biggest reason, of course, was that there were no Hylla problems! (…Usually.) But the time spent in the wilderness was also the only time Ranthia could work on her mirror images freely; for some bizarre reason townsfolk got weirded out by groups of the same [Sexy] woman. Their loss! …Though Ranthia supposed that she could practice with [Distorted Likeness]—which was really starting to get neglected—while she was in town and see what she could get away with.

  The nine of them—Hylla included; no matter how many incidents there had been, she wasn’t exactly a bad person—had bonded closely. Spring was deep in bloom and Ranthia’s birthday was only weeks away, which meant that they were nearly a year into their journey across Remus. They were a short jaunt away from their next city, but they weren’t in any hurry—they were almost ahead of schedule if anything.

  Ranthia’s opinions on her companions had solidified. She liked each of them well enough, no matter how strange a team they made.

  Green was motherly, if one used the word as it was meant to be used—contrary to Ranthia’s own experiences. Her weirdest quirk was that she refused to eat anything that contained animals, though she was just fine with the rest of their meat-eating habits. Which was a good thing, Pyra and Lysia would have probably rebelled if they were denied their meat—getting vegetables in those two could be trying. Green’s main hobby was tending to her own little traveling garden, though she was always there to offer advice on any topic. She was so open and helpful that Ranthia had almost convinced herself to speak to the woman about her own heartbreak—and aversion to touch—that refused to heal no matter how much time passed. …But only almost.

  Art was friendly and well-meaning to a fault. His hobby turned out to be singing, and the women tried to coax him into song every chance they got. The man was by far the twitchiest of them when he was surprised though—a common enough fate that most experienced Rangers fell prey to sooner or later.

  Lysia never held still… unfortunately, not even when she was asleep. She was a bit of a nightmare when they had to shelter from the rain. The girl was mostly just insatiably curious and talkative. Lysia had decided that Ranthia’s eyes were ‘the coolest,’ which was weirdly flattering. Beyond just being a social butterfly, she didn’t seem to have any personal hobbies—though she was happy to talk about anyone else’s interests.

  Abillo was the quietest member of the group. She liked the rain and tended to walk alongside the wagon while it rained so she could relish it. Recently, she had confessed that a childhood injury had left her unable to speak for many years—though she tellingly refused to elaborate on the injury with a haunted look on her face—and during that time she grew to be uncomfortable with social interactions. She had become a Ranger to escape the pressures she had to get married, much like Art.

  Despite Ranthia’s initial misgivings about Tertia, she really had grown into a cherished close friend. Superficially, yes, Tertia had a somewhat snobby attitude from her wealthy upbringing, but beneath it she had a great sense of humor and a deep appreciation for the arts. Ranthia’s own dance practices—or performances for the group—drew the woman’s eyes and held her in rapt attention every time. Tertia mostly just wanted to focus on the here and now; the future was a scary prospect for her since she knew soon enough that she’d have to seriously work to try to take over her family business… and find a suitable match for her own betrothal.

  Juvenae was a bit macabre and pessimistic, but the woman was also a big sister/best friend to Pyra. …Though her hobby was, basically, men. Every time they got to town and she was free of obligations, she would restock her supply of silphium and go out at night, only to return quite a while later reeking of sex.

  In Ranthia’s eye though, Pyra was the most immature member of the group. The kid’s mind seemed to change as often as a flame flickered in the wind. She tore through hobbies one after another and kept two general skill slots that she just endlessly rotated through her interests of the moment. Her genuine affection for Juvenae was about the only constant she had. …Well, that and her love for fire. She would even throw a tantrum if Ranthia made a cooking fire herself instead of asking Pyra to do it. Still, it wasn’t hard to appreciate the enthusiasm and energy she brought to the team. Especially since she was a legitimate help when Ranthia cooked for the team—Green, on the other hand, refused help when she cooked and would outright chase Pyra away with her plants.

  And yes, Hylla—at least when she wasn’t trying to do crap like dive past them to heal a rogue classer they had subdued before they tied him up—was alright too! Ranthia could admit that much. The young woman liked to come up with random poems that described the world as she saw it, though Ranthia suspected that she was… flexible with the structures of her poems, to say the least. Not that Ranthia was an expert, but some of those rhymes were awfully forced and some lines could be significantly longer than any other.

  So bonded, they were in the final approach to the city.

  “It’s Port Salona, not Portona.”

  Tertia had quickly learned about Ranthia’s inability to remember names and had taken it upon herself to help her friend straighten that problem out. Ranthia was unsure that it helped, but at least it didn’t make things worse.

  “Alright my blooms, gather ‘round!” Green called as she jogged back to the wagon.

  The Rangers gathered, as requested, once they brought the wagon to a halt.

  “I know we were all looking forward to getting into town, but I want to check in on a local farmer who was notorious for causing issues with things like his ‘Eirfmoo’.” She announced, amused.

  “What on Pallos is an Eirfmoo?” Juvenae asked.

  “Ugh, no, not him. I had to deal with this guy before, two rotations back.” Art groaned.

  “Don’t worry, Shrub. The governor ordered him to destroy the rest of his herd a while back. Still, now he’s raising chickens and I want to make sure he’s not recreating winged problems for everyone. Ranthia and Pyra, please take sweet Hylla and get into town. Take her wherever she urgently needs to go so that we can all relax tonight, at least once the rest of us are finished.” Green laid out her plans.

  Orders given, Green drove the wagon while Art, Lysia, Abillo, Tertia, and Juvenae piled into the back and prepared their gear just in case (seriously, how bad could chickens be?). Ranthia and Pyra stood in salute while the rest of their team pulled away, then they walked the short distance to town with Hylla on their heels.

  There was a long queue to get into the city, as it turned out. Port Salona—like almost all decently sized cities—required people to be screened by a [Healer] before they entered. Unfortunately, the healer on duty was very low level and could only clear one person every so often. It had created a bit of a backlog, especially since a caravan had arrived ahead of them.

  Pyra was first in line, followed by Hylla, with Ranthia in the rear.

  They waited, patiently.

  Then they waited, less patiently.

  They weren’t the only ones; a man a few places in front of them positively writhed in obvious frustration. He was also notable due to his odd clothing; Ranthia rarely saw pants in Remus outside of rare protective outfits. Which was why he stood out more than any of the other frustrated [Farmers], [Merchants], or [Laborers].

  Hylla finally clucked her tongue in impatience and leaned her head out of line and called to the guards.

  “Hi, I’m a level 130 Light and Water [Healer]. I’d be happy to help screen the line to get everyone through faster! I’m sure my Ranger te—”

  Crack!

  Ranthia’s guard was down, but it happened faster than she could hope to react. The fidgeting man had just suddenly thrust his hand out and a rock spike pierced straight into Hylla’s head with a horrendous noise.

  The crowd screamed and began to scatter. The man began to turn on the guards and the [Healer] there.

  Ranthia was on him before he could finish pivoting his arm. Immediately she drove a [Void Edge]-infused knife through the top of his head, erasing a deep swath of his brain.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Chosen Spy] (Earth, level 128), [Bringer of Despair] (Gravity, level 128)!]

  She might have been too slow to save Hylla, but she—

  Wait, something was wrong. The body hadn’t dropped.

  Instead, it unleashed a maelstrom of purple mist.

  Ranthia lunged backwards as fast as she could, roughly pulling Pyra clear as well. The young Ranger had gone catatonic, and Pyra’s focus remained locked on Hylla’s glassy eyes and the blood that poured from her forehead. There was no saving her…

  Ranthia just roughly shoved Pyra further back and watched the people that had been caught in the mist. They gasped and clawed at their throats as they stumbled around, seeking escape.

  Good, it wasn’t instantly fatal.

  Ranthia started to channel as she drew new knives. Once it was ready, she threw a mirror image in front of what should have been a dead body. It was unlikely in the extreme that the man was a Mirage [Mage] that had blind guessed how her System notifications were formatted and, simultaneously, faked his own injury. Yet, in the heat of the moment she had no idea how a dead body was using some sort of an attack Skill, but she figured if she erased enough of the man, the Skill should stop. Those thoughts carried her through the precious moments it took for [Reflections of Reality] to shift her into the mirror image.

  Even while she held her breath, she felt whatever the purple mist was as it crept into and through her skin, burning the whole way.

  It didn’t matter. She could hold out, and she was already channeling for her return trip.

  But in the moment, Ranthia focused on her dance as she maneuvered around the still-standing dead body and lashed out with strike after strike enhanced with [Void Edge], driven by all of her applicable Skills. Finally, just before she was forced to retreat to her true body by her need for air and how badly the mist was burning through her current body, her blade erased the back of the man’s neck, and a second kill notification came.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Whisper in his Ear] (Ooze, level 487), [Dreadful Undercover Killer] (Miasma, level 419)!]

  Ranthia shifted back to her true body and coughed out of instinct, despite the fact that her true body hadn’t been damaged by the Miasma. The cloud dissipated immediately with the conjurer dead. As soon as she got over the coughing fit, Ranthia grabbed Pyra and roughly shook her out of her stupor.

  “Pyra! Flare fountain, now! The shimagu are here!” Ranthia ordered.

  It seemed the descriptions weren’t quite as impossible as she’d thought.

  fan content license provided by !

  https://patreon.com/CrimCat

  https://discord.gg/3BQB5YJpHs

  https://patreon.com/CrimCat

  https://ko-fi.com/crimcat

  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.