Ultimately, Ranthia decided against checking her notifications from her battle against the ornithocheirus swarm. She wasn’t sure which outcome would have been worse: the temptation that might linger in her psyche if there was a surge in her levels or a bleak reality of minimal gains in spite of the fact that it nearly killed her. The decision was made easier since, by the time her life had been saved, any new Skill offerings or non-automatic mergers would have timed out and been lost. There was only bitterness and regret to be had in what had been gained or lost. Instead, she left level notifications silenced and resolved to check them only after the conclusion of the round—after other tribulations had long buried and masked the contribution of her foolish attempt at heroics.

  And so, the round continued. Art’s Metal class and Tertia’s Gale class both got their level 256 class ups after the team dealt with a few Saber-tooth tigers that somehow relocated far away from the Kadan Jungle and had begun to hunt nearby farm animals—and farmhands—for food.

  Abillo had recently gotten a new toy for her Mist class too, one that Ranthia was low-key jealous of. The woman could fly into the sky, immersed in her cloud! It was, admittedly, slow—Abillo could walk faster than she flew—but for a flight skill it seemed to be exceedingly mana efficient, and it was flight. …Arguably, Ranthia could claim that she could fly, but she personally didn’t think putting a mirror image as high into the sky as she could and shifting into it before it hit the ground counted. In fact, she was pretty certain that it very much shouldn’t count, considering that the numbers sure suggested that she’d never be able to shift back out of the body before it hit the ground due to the range of [Reflections of Reality] and the need to channel.

  Not that flight was remotely useful in her kit, unless she intended to fight something in the sky for some reason. It was just awesome.

  They were in the depths of the rainy season that was winter, enjoying a pleasantly cool, sunny day on their round when they encountered a few members of the Adventurer’s Guild on the road. Ranthia barely knew one of the men, an A-Ranked Adventurer that she had briefly met back in Ariminum before he moved on to other parts of Remus.

  “Tuteo! You’re still kicking I see, what brings you out here?” Ranthia called from the driver’s seat.

  “Ranger, how can I… wait, are you seriously that Adventurer kid from years ago? Randy, right? Wow, I knew some Adventurers who couldn’t cut it had defected to the Rangers to live in luxury, but it seems to have treated you well!” The man replied sassily.

  Tulto Ambius—not Tuteo, which probably explained his ‘Randy’ barb—seemed to be in high spirits, despite his situation. He had been part of a team of Adventurers that were hired to recapture a dinosaur that escaped from its tamers. They had finally tracked it way out here, but their recapture efforts had gone poorly due to its level and power. To Ranthia, Tullio was oddly cagey about specifics and seemed eager to bid them farewell and continue on his way—despite the usual Adventurer culture of being eager to catch up with a former colleague you hadn’t met in years.

  Ranthia watched them depart and wondered what that had been about. She supposed it was likely they would soon find out. She doubted an escaped high level dinosaur in the area would be beneath the notice of the nearby towns, especially once a Ranger team showed up that could handle the matter.

  That night they set up their camp. Ranthia had caught a few rabbits while scouting out the location for their campsite and was in the midst of making a large pot of wild rabbit stew, with plenty of foraged local vegetables as well as a few provided by Green, along with a smaller pot of pure vegetable stew for Green. Art was singing for the others while they waited, and Ranthia found herself humming along with his song more than once.

  “Oho, a Ranger team! What a lucky find!” A voice called out.

  The group tensed, ready for anything, even as a man approached with a large smile plastered on his face.

  “I am Sentinel Silver, and from this moment on, the lot of you are at my disposal so my mission can go off without a hitch! …Oh, nice, you even have food ready! I’m famished!”

  Fuck. Ranthia could have lived another lifetime or two without being reminded of his existence.

  [Warrior – Metal] level 346, [Warrior – Metal] level 281. Ranthia watched him with a neutral expression—courtesy of all of her image training which (hopefully) kept the hostility off her face—while he devoured over half of the food she had prepared for her whole team.

  A Sentinel was a major problem for a Ranger team. The Sentinels were their direct superiors, and many veteran Rangers had horror stories about Sentinels derailing their round or absconding with essential supplies. In this case, it seemed she was fated to experience both from the same first encounter with a Sentinel on the field.

  His hair, now dyed silver to match the title that the selfish asswipe was practically handed barely a year and a half ago, was carefully styled and a little longer than was entirely practical. He smiled at them periodically—while he ate the bulk of their dinner—with a sleezy kind of smile that put the women on edge. Ranthia’s unreasonable grudge against the man for becoming a Sentinel off a feat that was less than her own was rapidly turning into true dislike. And she suspected she was going to dip deep into hatred before their time with the man was done.

  That night, Sentinel Silver claimed their wagon for his sleeping quarters. He seemed surprised that none of the women deigned to join him—the wagon could sleep 8 (extremely uncomfortably) in a pinch—but the fact he didn’t volunteer to share the wagon with Art spoke volumes about what he was inviting them for. Even Juvenae had no interest, thank Xaoc. Just as obnoxiously, he didn’t volunteer to take a watch shift for himself. Green, Art, and Ranthia took watch shifts instead, as the highest-level members of Ranger Team 6. Privately, Ranthia suspected even Green and Art planned to keep as much an eye on him as they were going to watch their surroundings.

  After an uneasy night—for everyone except Sentinel Snoring—the asshole helped himself to their entire stock of cured sausages while he ordered them to spread out to find the dinosaur he had been assigned to recover on the behalf of “extremely important people that you don’t need to know about,” an abelisaurus. Ranthia tried to coordinate the team into groups of two, but Sentinel Silver vetoed the plan and told them to scatter individually armed with bows and signal arrows. He wanted to waste no time and find the dinosaur so that he could subdue it as soon as possible and “get out of these backwaters already.”

  Ranthia fretted as she wandered the rocky, irregular terrain. Her team was [Mage] heavy and, frankly, wildly ill-suited to functioning as eight individuals. Few among her teammates were built for solo combat—honestly, the list probably ended with Green and herself. In her anger, she swore that if anything happened to any of her teammates, she would ensure that Sentinel Silver suffered a tragic ‘hunting accident’ and would never be seen again. She was angry and judgmental, but she was still confident that she could take the man. His mere existence had drained much of the mysticism from the Sentinels, far more than anything else she had experienced since she entered the Ranger Academy.

  Sure, the Sentinels had absolute monsters like Night and Hunting, but there was a clear difference between their elites and their newest dregs that were merely chosen because the better options refused.

  It was late in the afternoon, near evening when Ranthia finally heard—and saw, thanks to the metallic dust it left in its wake—one of the obnoxiously loud shrieking arrows that they were using for the signal. Obnoxiously, that didn’t even narrow down who it was—his Sentinelness had insisted they all use the arrows, so there was “no confusion.”

  Ranthia moved as swiftly as she could for the location the arrow had been launched from, a dance woven across the rough terrain.

  At last, she finally arrived. She had been far enough away that most of her team had already gathered, and she could already hear the sounds of the others as they crashed through the underbrush nearby. They had gathered at the top of a cliff, near a small waterfall caused by a stream. In the valley below there was a pond among the rocks. And there, near the pond, Sentinel Silver menaced an abelisaurus with a spear, his two short swords still on his belt.

  “Everyone okay?” Ranthia asked while she joined the others in watching.

  “Thankfully, I saw it from up here before I floated down. The stupid thing was snoozing half-submerged in the pond. Nearly missed it, would have sucked to have gotten closer before I noticed. The Sentinel told me to wait here where it was safe and jumped down there.” Abillo replied.

  Sentinel Silver’s plan was—grudgingly—actually decent. Harass the abelisaurus deeper into the pond, then try to bind it and—presumably—feed it some sort of sedative. The problem was that the abelisaurus seemed to be smart enough to counter the plan; it shuffled from side to side instead of moving backwards.

  The rest of the members of their team trickled in while they watched the show. Though Ranthia was frowning more and more as she watched the fight. The dinosaur was oddly high level—level 320—and it carried itself like it had more than a little experience dealing with human opponents. It wasn’t a companion bond if it had run away, which meant…

  The beast opened its mouth and bit Sentinel Silver’s spear in half—with gleaming metal teeth.

  Ranthia gasped out loud.

  She had never seen the damned thing, but she hadn’t forgotten how Statia and the other trainees she had been with had described it. Sure, she supposed there might be another gladiator abelisaurus with metal teeth, but what were the odds?

  She was pretty certain the beast was the same one she had fought as a trainee—blindfolded, back when that actually meant something—Keeeerusher! …Also, why in Xaoc’s eternal name was that name stuck in her memory when she struggled so hard with names?! Aside from Statia, Ranthia couldn’t recall a single name for any of the other trainees that she had fought the dinosaur alongside. A few of them even became Rangers!

  In almost perfect synchronization with her recognition, the abelisaurus managed to get its teeth around Sentinel Silver’s arm and yanked him forward. Shortly after, the man was kicking and flailing while the majority of his upper torso was trapped in the abelisaurus’ mouth. Lucky for him, the Sentinel was too bulky to be swallowed and some class ability—or, less likely, pure vitality—made him too tough to bite through.

  Didn’t stop him from screaming for help though.

  “Green, I recognize that dinosaur! It’s a colosseum beast from Ariminum, not sure how it escaped or got way out here.” Ranthia quickly reported.

  “And what does that change for us?” Green asked after a brief pause.

  Ranthia had no idea how she pulled it off, but she managed to get through her next words with a completely straight face and a neutral tone of voice.

  “The dinosaur is a trained killer from the colosseum. It’s gained over a hundred levels in roughly four years’ time. It also reinforces itself with Skills. With these abilities and its training, it has proven itself a credible threat to a Sentinel; we should abandon all hope of capturing it alive and kill it while Sentinel Silver may still be saved.” Ranthia recommended, with the utmost sincerity.

  Something twinkled in Green’s eyes. Approval?

  “You heard your second in command—we shall bring it down!” Green ordered.

  “Lysia and Art, draw its attention! Abillo, stay in the air. Tertia, wait until you have a clean shot for its heart; your goal is to be our killing blow. The rest of you, magic as you see fit—just avoid striking the Sentinel! Move!” Ranthia ordered once it was clear that Green was—once again—deferring to her for command.

  Ranthia was already channeling. A short time later, she threw a mirror image down into the valley and shifted into it. Once she charged forward to reach the dinosaur, she wouldn’t quite be able to shift back to her body from there, but at least her true body—well, the conjured flesh that the [Healer] used to remake her true body—was in no danger of ending up beyond the range of [Scattered Reflections].

  Ranthia immersed herself in the rhythm of her dance even as she rushed the beast that she had fought long ago. The flow of the still-igniting battle brought her next to the abelisaurus’ leg before she lashed out with a [Void Edge]-infused knife. The last time she had fought ‘Keeeerusher’ (such a stupid name) she had been completely blind—okay, yes, she was still wearing the same blindfold she raged about donning for that fight—and her attacks were shallow, but wide. But for their rematch, not only did she see everything, but [Flowing Momentum] and [Echoes of Devastation] made her blows narrow and deep. With just her first knife, she managed to carve deep enough into the combat-trained predator’s left leg that it started to stumble and clearly favored the wounded limb.

  Ranthia discarded the remnants of the knife while she danced away from the beast, back to dry land. Sentinel Silver might have wanted to trap the beast in the pond, but the pond would just get in the way of their efforts to kill the man-eating (hey, it’s trying, it counts) dinosaur. Dry land would suit their movements far better—the last thing they needed was Lysia sinking in the mud.

  Juvenae had impressive range with her spells and she put it to violent use, remaining right where she was atop the cliff while conjuring thin, pointed Metal shells to be filled with Pyronox before she launched them at her target. To maximize her odds of hitting, she mostly aimed at the abelisaurus’ back and haunches.

  Sentinel Silver was still screaming and thrashing in the dinosaur’s mouth. It was kind of legitimately impressive just how determined the beast was to keep its new chew toy.

  Abillo came into range, cocooned within a fluffy little cloud that hovered overhead and began to rain sharp shards of ice on the back of the dinosaur. Yet the wounds were shallow—the beast’s hide was quite resilient.

  Lysia beat her short sword against her shield to draw the dinosaur’s attention, while Art stood nearby wielding a spear with a rough, unusually large tip. For the moment, Green stayed atop the cliff and watched, though Ranthia knew the veteran woman would jump in when—and if—she saw the need. Green always preferred to let them get the experience when she considered the situation to be stable enough.

  Once the abelisaurus was on dry ground, Ranthia formed three mirror images as swiftly as she could and assigned all three to [Submind]. They were tasked with helping to drive the dinosaur further inland while they cut it as they found opportunity—so long as Ranthia’s mana remained fine. Ranthia, meanwhile, focused on striking at its tail to try to keep it from using the blunt, heavy appendage as a weapon. She was mostly certain that it had preferred to use its tail when she had fought the dinosaur, after all.

  [Void Edge] consumed knife after knife as she danced around the increasingly bloodied tail, often finding herself forced to leap over it. As she continued to cleave deeper and deeper into the dense muscles the dinosaur often started to turn towards her, but fortunately Lysia and Art managed to draw its attention back each time—not that Ranthia could spare much attention for how they did it.

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  The fight wore on as abelisaurus blood flowed. The pace of the battle shifted when Abillo called she was low on mana before she retreated to the cliff. Pyra had, wisely, chosen to stay back since her abilities needed close range to have the accuracy to avoid causing problems for Ranthia. And, yes, Sentinel Silver was still trapped between the abelisaurus’ teeth—the dinosaur was clearly determined to keep its prize at all costs.

  Juvenae stopped firing her own barrage shortly after Abillo’s mana was tapped out. The dinosaur seemed to refuse to hold still, so Tertia still held her attack ready while she waited for a clean opportunity. The abelisaurus was, unfortunately, almost certainly intelligent enough to recognize the threat she posed once she attacked, so it was better to hold her in reserve for a single decisive blow.

  With the pressure decreased, the abelisaurus suddenly charged directly at Lysia. So much for its leg being too badly damaged for it to use its full range of motion! Ranthia cursed as she danced after the beast. She was getting dangerously low on knives, but once she caught up to the leg that she had previously damaged, she pirouetted and unleashed the best blow she could manage into the same wound she had previously given it. That time she was pretty sure that her Void-kissed blade found bone.

  …Which meant that she was positioned quite poorly. A heartbeat later, the dinosaur’s leg crumpled under its weight and the heavy beast began to fall towards her. Ranthia’s scramble to get clear was far from graceful, but she managed to roll clear before she was crushed under Kee—nope, she refused to finish that thought, it was too stupid.

  The beast immediately began to thrash, but thick vines erupted from the ground and seized the dinosaur and held it still…

  When the dinosaur was slammed into the ground a second time by the vines, Sentinel Silver finally freed himself with a roar of effort. His armor was scuffed and torn, but his skin was remarkably intact. Reddened and chafed, yes, but it really was impressive that he was in such good condition after spending that long crunched in those metal jaws. The man opened his mouth to say something, his face filled with fury.

  And that was when Tertia’s spear flew right past him and sank deep into the abelisaurus’ chest.

  [*ding!* Your party has slain an [Abelisaurus] (Metal, level 323)!]

  Sentinel Silver was upset. Ranthia wasn’t entirely certain if he was upset about the dinosaur’s death or if it had more to do with just how long he had remained trapped in its jaws. The man was clearly building himself up to yell at the assembled Rangers.

  “We’re lucky you were able to endure, Sir. We were forced to use lethal force since the caster monster had proven itself to be a threat to a Sentinel. As mere Rangers we lacked the confidence to try to subdue it without your assistance.” Green announced right before he could start.

  Gods and goddesses, it was hard for Ranthia to hold her tongue. She outright bit her own tongue as she swallowed a thousand and twenty-four insults. Though she was also more than a little distracted by the sight of the arcanite she could see gleaming through the myriad holes in the man’s armor. Freaking Sentinels got the best stuff! Tragically, she somehow doubted her teammates would be down with the idea of murdering him and taking his armor off his body. …Unless, maybe, if he did something stupid?

  “Mm, yes, that makes sense.” The man decided at length, plainly mollified by Green’s diplomacy.

  Ah well, maybe someday…

  Sentinel Silver finally dismissed them, and they made their way back to their wagon. In the end, they had slain a tough dinosaur and gotten a Sentinel out of their hair at the cost of some food and a wasted day. That really could have gone worse, in so many different ways. He didn’t even bother to raid their stores again after the battle, the Sentinel was in far too great a hurry to return to Ariminum.

  “That was amazing.” Tertia spoke up once they were completely confident that the man was long gone, complimenting Green earnestly.

  “I have known more than a few Sentinels of similar personality and plenty of senators, dearie. A bit of flattery applied at the right moment tends to misdirect and counter their anger.” Green answered with a smile.

  They were still preparing to get underway; the man had made an utter disaster out of their supplies.

  “Yes, but I really thought for a moment there that Ranthia was going to attempt to kill him, yet with a bit of flattery you averted a disaster.” Tertia noted with a smirk.

  “Hey! I’m not that violent.” Ranthia protested immediately.

  “…You are one of the closest friends that I have ever had, and I cherish you. But to be blunt? Girl, you were already tallying the loot you could have taken off his body.” Tertia replied.

  Several of the others giggled while Ranthia tried—in vain—to argue that she had never considered it.

  The round resumed. Some idiots had tried to set up a protection racket in the town that came a couple of stops later. The guards had been loath to deal with them because the group had a pair of level 160-ish classers that were distant relations to some wealthy family. Ranthia had never heard of the family, but Tertia got nervous, which said enough. Not that Ranthia or Green were about to let petty politics get in the way of doing their job. The team of Rangers made short work of the organization and the two classers—who were shut down by Green while the rest of them handled the effluvia—were delivered to the town guard with a condemning report on their crimes from Green. It was unlikely their limited political connections could get them out of that.

  That was their most interesting ordeal through that leg of Remus, though of course other minor situations were resolved. A burglar apprehended, more dangerous beasts culled (dangerous to towns and dangerous to Rangers were very different things), or a couple of corrupt guards that they were able to catch—things that were almost mundane by that point.

  And, yes, Ranthia did try… teaming up with Juvenae once, per the surprisingly persistent woman’s repeated invitations. While they worked well together, there was an obvious problem that, somehow, they both missed until it became awkward. Vitality from their levels, coupled with Remus’ penchant for thin indoor walls and, well… some things were never meant to be overheard between coworkers. They hastily agreed to end their partnership for such matters and go their separate ways for their pursuits in the future.

  Spring came, and soon the team would be making a stop that Ranthia actually looked forward to. Her return to Sardonia, after so many years. She hadn’t managed to visit her favorite town with Ranger Team 13 in the previous round, but Green had gotten them back perfectly on schedule.

  They cut their arrival so close that Ranthia had to run ahead of the wagon to beg and cajole the guards—neither of which were familiar—to wait up for the wagon before they left their station for the night. The guards grumbled—only somewhat good-naturedly—but complied. After the wagon was safely in the town the group enjoyed a hot bath in a very familiar bathhouse, poor Art alone on the other side. With the grime of the road left in the baths, the Rangers found an inn that hadn’t even existed the last time Ranthia had been there, in the newer part of town that used to be much emptier, and settled in.

  The next morning, Ranthia rose bright and early and applied her cosmetics, as per Green’s policy. She had finally gotten some proficiency at doing her own makeup and admired the results of her latest work, an experiment in slightly heavier cosmetic use around the upper cheeks and her brow—and around her eyes beneath—to better blend with her blindfold, in the mirror.

  [*ding!* [Sexy] has reached level 237!]

  Ranthia smiled at the notification—[Sexy] was the only level notifications she had reenabled, because they always brightened her day. And the Skill really did love having a team leader that insisted on cosmetics and making use of their appearance skills. Ranthia had taken a while to warm back up to [Sexy]—the skill inevitably reminded her of Hexara—but she had found her peace with it a fair while ago. She was in love with the Skill again and had pursued new ways to make her blindfold-covered face more attractive.

  “Maybe if I get [Sexy] up past level 512 or so I’ll find a way to make my actual eyes somehow attractive…” Ranthia grumbled to herself. She wasn’t convinced that she’d ever adapt to her current eyes, no matter how Lysia—and only Lysia—complimented them.

  With that done, she geared up in her Ranger armor—her personal Adventurer armor was so tempting but she was on duty—and made sure she had her old Adventurer’s Guild token.

  “Time to show my original Guildmaster just how far I’ve come.” Ranthia informed her reflection in the crude metal mirror.

  “I… What? What do you mean?”

  Ranthia was shaken.

  “He passed away several years ago, it was before my time here.”

  A female clerk had a bored expression as she clarified what she had meant by “he’s not here anymore.”

  “I… Oh. Apologies, he had helped me out a lot back when I was an Adventurer here.” Ranthia muttered.

  “I see, does the Ranger have any other business with our Guild?” The clerk asked in her same detached, indifferent tone.

  “No.” Ranthia replied coldly. She was feeling far too petty to thank the woman for her time, especially with the woman’s attitude.

  The Guildmaster was dead and gone. His husband had passed a short time before, and their boyfriend had long since left town. Sardonia didn’t do anything to mark or commemorate the dead, there was just the typical Remus-style funeral pyre and party, both of which were done long ago. Ranthia desperately wished that she had visited beforehand, but all she could do was send Xaoc a very late prayer on behalf of the men.

  The Guildmaster had done so much for her, but she never got to show him what she had done with that trust. …Though the man had never spoken fondly of the Rangers—which she had spent days fretting about—but it seemed she would never know how he would have taken the news. It was a strange feeling.

  Sardonia had grown outward further than it had been before, and now the older part of the town—what used to be the heart of it—felt empty. Many businesses and homes that she had known back when she was young were just boarded up and abandoned. The alchemists she bought her mana potions from were both gone. The housing building with the built-in tavern for the Adventurers was gutted and abandoned.

  None of it was the homecoming she had expected—not that Sardonia was truly much of a home anymore—though she supposed it could be worse. The town was still there, at least. Even if it was filled with unfamiliar faces and everyone lived in unfamiliar places.

  Ranthia just kind of wandered around town more-or-less aimlessly. She could—and would if called on it—argue that she was patrolling to discover problems, but it would be a strained version of the truth. When she was a teenager, the town had felt so comfortable and warm, but now she just felt like a stranger. It was a weird feeling.

  At least until Ranthia spotted a familiar profile of a woman standing near a market stall.

  “Wait… Bex, is that you?” Ranthia called out as she approached.

  “Huh? Ranger, do I… Wait… Oh, I do know you! That little pup, Ranthia!”

  Bex turned to face her with an expression that first showed confusion, then bloomed into recognition along with a brilliant smile.

  Ranthia’s own expression went through almost the exact opposite reaction though. When Bex turned to face her, the movement revealed that the other half of Bex’s face was scarred and her right arm was completely gone, along with a good portion of her shoulder.

  “Heh, yeah, Sardonia really isn’t the same anymore, is it? I barely recognize anyone at the Adventurer’s Guild anymore. After the Guildmaster and his family were gone, some outsider merchant bought our old tavern and dorms, chased off the Adventurers, and tried to make it some fancy inn. Place didn’t even last a season before it shut down.” Bex grinned viciously at the memory.

  They sat in a local tavern, where they both slowly sipped at their respective beers. Neither of them wanted to get drunk, especially not that early in the day, but it felt like a conversation that needed a bit of alcohol. Bex had carefully kept the conversation directed at the Adventurer’s Guild and changes to the city as she shared tidbits—blatantly avoiding information about herself.

  “Augh, okay I’m going to just come out and ask,” Ranthia grumbled, “what in Xaoc’s name happened to you?”

  Bex laughed.

  “Y’know, I had actually reeaally started to consider becoming a Ranger, when the news reached us that you and a bunch of others had done it. Especially since the Adventurer’s Guild was looking for more of us to join up in the future. Finally decided that I didn’t want to be away from my kid for two years at a time.”

  She paused to take a larger drink and drained nearly half her mug. Before she smashed loudly against the table—denting both—with sudden naked irritation.

  “Damned mistake, that was. I might have gotten out in time otherwise.

  “You remember those nastier-than-usual goblins you told us about? War goblins. Your big heroic accomplishment. More of ‘em came about 3 years ago now. Nice, big group. Completely took over some of the older mines.

  “Our new esteemed Guildmaster, some dandy from Ariminum with a family name that he preened over, had signed an agreement with one of the bigger mining companies to provide guaranteed security for the area. The company decided that war goblins a few leagues away from their territory violated the agreement and demanded we clear ‘em out. Bloody politics and financial intrigue—shit that should have never come out to this shithole—it wasn’t even a proper job. Just a ‘do this and we’ll figure out some coin after.’

  “We had three A-Rankers in town, me and another couple of dozen or so B-Rankers. We all went down, while the Guildmaster followed us and barked at our heels. The plan was to set up a kill box and bait some goblins out into it. See what kind of dent we could put in their numbers. A good plan, one I was behind.

  “The fuckers ambushed us.”

  Bex fell silent and stared at the dregs of her beer for a long moment, while Ranthia waited.

  “We never even saw ‘em coming. Just suddenly we got hit by big spells. It was madness. Some of the finest Adventurers you ever saw got cut down before we could even react. One of the A-Rankers gave the order to pull the survivors out, after a bit of fightin’. Someone musta grabbed me, I was near Demios when he got killed, the fucking splash from the Inferno spell that got him did this.

  “Some outsider [Healer] that was there got me healthy enough to wake me up, gave me two choices. I could pay for this level of healing or give him nearly everything I had saved to get my arm or my ugly mug back. I made my choice.” Bex finished.

  Ranthia frowned at the injustice of it. Bex had been forced into a ‘job’ she hadn’t even wanted to take out of paranoia and a deal between people she barely knew…

  “Bex, I cou—” Ranthia started.

  “Don’t you dare, girl. It’d be one thing if you had somehow turned into a powerful [Healer] or maybe were romantically involved with a guy—wait, no, gal in your case, sorry—that could heal me. But if you’re about to offer coin so I can hire a [Healer], don’t. I made my choice. My damned choice.”

  Both women sat in silence and sipped their beers for a while.

  “Never actually told anyone this part before. I made my choice so I wouldn’t pick up my sword again. I can’t fight like this. Can’t, not won’t. It’s… freeing. It let me choose to spend time with my kid, instead of getting killed trying to pretend I’m still young and tough. I know I’m not some withered old crone, I know others much older than me still fight. But that massacre took something vital from me, I don’t think I’d have a long career if I went back out there, if you know what I mean.” Bex muttered quietly.

  Abruptly, Bex drained the rest of her mug and slammed it down. Again. The bartender was definitely glaring their way.

  “Anyway, glad to see you’re still doing great, kid. I really am, so please don’t misunderstand this. But I should go. I’ve got shit to do and you’re probably needed for whatever Ranger crap you do. Thanks for the beer. Catch ya around sometime.”

  With that Bex quickly stood and left, before Ranthia could even figure out something to say in response. Ranthia just sat there for a while longer in a heavy mood, then brought the two mugs—her own still mostly full—back to the barkeep and paid—with extra coin to cover the damage—and left.

  Amazingly, there wasn’t much to do in Sardonia as Rangers. The war goblins were still out there, maybe a two-day trip away, but the town and mining groups had established something of a truce with the monsters. The town and miners would leave food and supplies that had started to go off out for the goblins to take and, in return, the goblins stayed put. The town never asked Ranger Team 6—nor any of the prior Ranger teams—to deal with the goblins and Green refused to risk the team for no reason when Ranthia tried to bring it up.

  Ranthia’s mood stayed heavy, which was somewhat worsened by the fact that she never managed to run into Bex again while they were in town. Eventually they moved on, and the round continued. The heaviness gradually left Ranthia once they were back on the move.

  Ranthia’s 25th birthday was actually celebrated, just the same as most birthdays for the team were. A leisurely camp in the morning, a bit of travel, and an early camp that evening while they celebrated within their means. A few fine beverages, a big stew—rabbit, of course—and some candied sweets that could hold up to travel. Even on the rare occasions someone’s birthday coincided with time spent in a town—Rangers spent far more time on the road than they did in towns—they still followed a similar pattern.

  Most of Ranthia’s team had enough sense to realize why Ranthia ignored her birthday last year. Pyra started to ask at one point, but Juvenae cuffed her before she could.

  And yet, it had been less than a year since Ranthia nearly killed herself fighting a flock of ornithocheirus like an idiot. In some ways, she still didn’t feel like her skin was her own still—especially since she had to get her healing topped off every season or so. Conjured material just… went away gradually. Enough of her body was conjured after the [Healer] saved what was left of her life that it posed major risks to her health, so she had to keep getting topped off. Green wasn’t even sure how long it would take for her body to have replenished itself to the point that she no longer needed it. Every time she was topped off the [Healer] of the moment reported that mana was used. Ranthia’s flesh wasn’t her own, and so she decided not to create a new image for her 25-year-old self. The 24 version was good enough for now.

  Morose thoughts of her own physical state aside, Ranthia appreciated the birthday spent among her comrades. Tertia was the only one she felt a close friendship with, but there was genuine warmth with all of them. The team meant a lot to her, and she still wished Hylla was there too.

  The rest of their round passed comparatively quietly and relatively routinely. As the Summer Solstice approached and their final destination as a team—Ariminum itself—grew ever nearer, each of the group faced their return with mixed emotions. They had truly come together; they were a well-oiled team. They knew and trusted one another. And yet all they could do was try to cherish what was left of their time together—Ranger Command always shuffled teams every time. It was something that Ranthia had never thought about, but now that she had found a team she thrived alongside, it was hard to accept the practice.

  What was the point of honing them, only to separate them afterwards?

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.