Six weeks later…

  Amber

  It was only a few weeks after the birthday party that something they’d all been fearing finally happened. They were attacked. Not by monsters, but by people.

  It was a group of eight who thought they had the advantage against their group of four, and had sneaked up on them in the middle of the night. Ordinarily, they would’ve been right.

  But the three adults of the Earth group had started out with more mana than the average person, and had been practicing and developing their skills every single day since their arrival. Not only did they now possess even more mana, but they also had a magic wolf on their side that could increase to massive proportions.

  The fight was over quickly, and Amber, Michelle, and Sarah… did what they had to. The three adults of the group had killed six of them, and Diamond had gotten one with her claws.

  Even though Elsanth had been unpleasant for them, they had learned back then that in this world, the policy for dealing with bandits is the same nearly everywhere; to just kill them and move on.

  In every place they’ve stopped in so far, there were posters and descriptions of criminals to watch out for, people who had become bandits because of some crime, and now lived in the wild because they had nowhere else to go.

  The eighth and final bandit who attacked them understood that as well, and just surrendered and waited for one of them to kill him and be done with it. That only made it even worse for the Earthlings.

  Defending against an attack is one thing, but killing an enemy that’s already given up is something else entirely. He even got angry at them for dragging it out. The whole situation was entirely unfathomable to them.

  There were no authorities who would take him. Prisons were only for aristocratic criminals and people who had committed monstrous acts that a lot of people would seek justice for. They didn’t want to kill him. His group had only even been after their supplies, and nothing else.

  Seeing that they weren’t making a move, the man ran toward Luna. He never even made it to her as Michelle rushed forward and killed their final attacker.

  In actuality, he likely wanted nothing to do with Luna at all, but knew they would finally kill him if he went after the girl. He wanted them to kill him because dying to another person was a much better fate than being mauled by monsters alone in the wild.

  None of them knew how to handle such a mentality, how to deal with death so casually. Michelle, more than any of the others, had experienced more death throughout her life than the others, and those experiences had taught her that life is sacred. And now she had taken a life herself.

  Once they recovered enough to move, that’s just what they did. They just left the bandits there.

  The four of them had seen corpses on their very first day in this world, but this was the first time they had ever killed anyone else themselves.

  Witnessing the aftermath of somebody else’s fight and causing that aftermath yourself were two entirely different things. It felt like the last flimsy barrier between their old lives and their new ones had finally been broken.

  The group’s mood plummeted afterward, and had hardly gotten better since then.

  ———

  Amber had just been staring off into space when Michelle sat next to her in the grass. The ground around her was dry, as she had melted all the snow around her with her magic.

  “Hey,” her friend said.

  “Hi,” she responded.

  They both remained silent for several minutes. Eventually, Michelle began talking about what was on her mind, “I’ve been thinking, we’ve all become miserable because of what happened, which is entirely understandable.

  “But we’re not going to get any help from anyone. There are no therapists here. There are no support groups. Even if we talked about it with someone, the reaction would basically be, ‘Isn’t it normal to kill bandits?’.

  “I’m not saying it should be normal, not at all. But we can’t go on like this forever. We have to start moving on.”

  Amber considered Michelle’s words. “I get it, and I even agree. I just don’t know how to do it.”

  “I’ve lost many people throughout my life. Because of that, I’ve learned to appreciate the time I still have with the people beside me. And to not hold back if I feel like I should be doing something.

  “I think that all of this…” she gestured before her, meaning the world in general. “…is a part of that, but in a different way.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Even after we make it to Nibuolos, we’re still going to be working as monster slayers for a while. Even if we stop altogether, we’re likely to fight against other people again one day, especially if we decide we don’t want to spend our entire lives in one city.

  “And there’s also blacksmithing that we both want to get into. We both already knew what weapons are for, but now we truly comprehend it. That point has been made incredibly clear.

  “So what I’m dancing around here is, I like you. And I don’t want to waste my time thinking about the people who’ve wronged me and all the other messed up things in life when you’re right here.

  “I already accepted months ago that I’m Michelle now, but I was afraid to truly commit to it. Some remaining, defiant part of my mind has been holding me back from doing anything besides focusing on Luna.

  “But I’m done with holding myself back. I’ll actually live as Michelle from now on, rather than just existing. I like you, and I want to go out with you.”

  I’ve been wondering how she feels about me. Though I guess I was also afraid to act on what I felt. Afraid of how she might take it and if she even was interested in dating after Mia’s death.

  My family pushed me away for being gay, so I’ve never lost anyone the way she has. But thinking about it happening… I see her point.

  Amber finally replied, “I’ve been mentally stuck since I realized we couldn’t go back to Earth. I had only just begun really building up a new life for myself when it was all ripped away from me.

  “But you’ve been helping me deal with that all this time. I’ve been thinking about you for a few months now, but I was afraid of how things might change.

  “And why the heck did I say all that when I could’ve just said, ‘I like you, too.’”

  “Pfft! So that’s a yes?”

  “Yes, it’s a yes.”

  “Yes!”

  She rolled her eyes and put her arm around her, and she did the same.

  “Thank you for all the stuff you said. You should probably tell Sarah, too. Might help.”

  “Yeah, I plan to. I’ve been spending all my time with Luna so far, making sure she’s okay, but now that I’ve actually started processing things, I’ll tell her, too. Could we stay like this for a bit, though?”

  “Of course,” she replied, resting her head on Michelle’s shoulder, who then rested hers on Amber’s.

  She asked her new girlfriend, “So what does committing to being Michelle mean exactly?”

  “Just that I won’t hold onto who I used to be anymore. I’m not going to deny myself experiences because of being afraid of a potential future of losing myself. I don’t actually think that will happen, but irrational fears can make you do stupid things.”

  “I see. What kinds of experiences?”

  “Dating you, for one thing. Beyond that? No idea.”

  “Hmm, I guess an obvious one would be wearing more feminine clothes?”

  “Well, I’ll probably try stuff like that. I don’t think I’ll bother with makeup, though.”

  “I don’t bother with makeup, either. I much prefer armor.”

  “You do like women in armor, so I’ve already got that covered, at least.”

  She laughed. “That you do. Speaking of, I’ve been neglecting everyone’s gear somewhat, only doing minimum repairs. I should probably fix that.”

  I can’t wait to see her wearing something I’ve designed.

  As she examined every piece of her own armor, she asked, “Hey, would you mind if we started sleeping next to each other again? We only did that for a while at the base, and then everyone had enough blankets and we had our own sleeping spaces after that.”

  “I’d like that, but are you sure? You remember how much Luna squirms and kicks in her sleep, right?”

  “There’s a really easy solution for that; you sleep in the middle instead of her. That way, we can both share you, and only you will wake up with bruises!”

  Michelle gasped dramatically. “I’ve been sacrificed!”

  Sarah walked over and sat down with them. “You two seem to be in a good mood. What’s up?”

  Michelle repeated everything she had said to Amber.

  “I guess you have a point. It’s pretty heavy stuff, but we can’t carry on like this.”

  She nodded. “Could you grab Luna? We should all have a talk with her.”

  “Sure thing.”

  After Sarah left, Amber asked, “How should we tell them about us?”

  Michelle shrugged. “Just say it? No need to make a big deal out of it. It’s not like we’d be able to hide it for very long anyway.”

  “That’s true. Once the heavy stuff is out of the way, let’s tell them.”

  Sarah soon returned with the young elf and wolf, who had been doing their own thing nearby. Luna sat next to Michelle, and the two hugged each other. Diamond squeezed herself between them to join, too.

  The three adults then explained everything they had been talking about. Michelle had already told some of this to Luna, but this was the first time they’d been able to have a proper conversation about it.

  Sarah shook her head. “It should’ve occurred to me sooner that we should act as a support group for each other. These past few weeks have been rough…”

  Amber commented, “None of us could’ve been prepared for what happened, but we’re here now, and know to help each other through this kind of thing.”

  She nodded in response.

  What followed was several hours of just talking. At first, it was about the night with the bandits, but it gradually became more lighthearted as it progressed. They had needed the release from the mental burdens they’d been carrying.

  After several hours, everyone was feeling relaxed and in a good mood for the first time in far too long. It wasn’t as if what had happened that night had gone away, but they could actually begin processing it now.

  “I feel so relieved,” Sarah said. “If we can do this kind of thing in the future, I feel like we’ll be able to handle all kinds of problems.”

  “Yeah,” Michelle responded. “By the way, Amber and I are dating now.”

  Amber remarked, “You said that in the most sudden and nonchalant way possible.”

  “Congrats,” Sarah said, smiling. “I was wondering if you two would get together.”

  Diamond got up and licked Michelle’s cheek, the Amber’s.

  Sarah laughed. “Diamond kissed you before you could kiss each other! Good job, Diamond.”

  Amber shrugged. “Eh, I can appreciate a wolf kissie.”

  Michelle nodded. “Mhmm, mhmm.”

  Amber then kissed Michelle on the cheek Diamond had left untouched. She was surprised, and retaliated with the same move.

  Sarah coughed to get their attention. “Since we’re more or less doing better mentally, we should take the rest of the day to go through all our stuff and just relax a little more and de-stress for this final stretch of the journey. We’re so close now.”

  Michelle gave a relieved sigh. “Aaah, I can’t wait. What a tumultuous year it’s been.”

  “Has it really been that long?” Amber asked.

  I haven’t been counting, but it feels like longer.

  “Sounds about right,” Sarah agreed, then started calculating. “Ten months, two weeks, and three days.”

  Amber groaned, “Ugh, I don’t want to think about all the things I would’ve done in that time had I not ended up here.”

  “Same,” she grimaced.

  Amber went back to her task of fixing up everyone’s gear before the day was done.

  Looks like nobody was maintaining things properly, though I can’t really blame them for it. This ability really is convenient.