With her new rank, Ranthia finally—at long, long last—had access to the fancy job board. The materials involved in its construction were the same, but the number of zeroes on the number of rods each job paid out made it fancy (at least in Ranthia’s own mind).

  Tatius and Pupius had once had access to this board, but they had reached Rank A at the same time that she… stepped aside from Adventuring for a necessary period of (oh-so-literal) self-reflection. In a way, it felt like she had finally caught up to the men—to her fathers. She knew that they would be proud.

  And she was absolutely not going to start crying while she stared at the job board damnit!

  She was fine! She was an A-Ranked Adventurer—the apex tier that few ever achieved. She had the best, hottest girlfriend in Remus. Her armor had been restored and looked as great as ever. And she was oh-so-close to her eighteenth birthday.

  Surprisingly, she got a handle on her emotions and seriously checked the jobs. There was a lot less competition for A-Ranked jobs. The Guild had lost many of its A-Ranked members in the same incident that had claimed her true family and roughly a year and a half was not enough time to replenish their ranks. Plus, most of the jobs tended to be a bit more of an involved commitment. There was even a security job that was scheduled for 4810—a bit more than five years away—that would last a guaranteed three years at a minimum.

  A-Ranked jobs tended to write their details on the job itself, since it was expected that Adventurers of that tier would have at least some level of familiarity with the written word. Ranthia’s studies didn’t make her an expert, but she was able to parse out what she needed to. Monster hunts were rare on the board since few threats were restricted to A-Ranked Adventurers (and those that were tended to get Sentinels or full Ranger teams thrown at them instead). Most jobs fell under three categories in Ranthia’s eyes: security details, investigations, or “this is really weird.”

  Ranthia mouthed a silent apology to Hexara as she picked her first A-Ranked job. It was going to take her a while, but she was optimistic that she’d make it home in time for her birthday.

  The first step of the job involved joining up with a merchant caravan as part of its security detail while she established her cover. This extended her travel time to a bit more than 88 days, but it ensured that she wouldn’t stand out. And blending in was the most important thing if she hoped to resolve the job that she had selected.

  The job was an opportunity to do a lot of good, show up a bunch of so-called experts, and probably cause a lovely bit of chaos. People had been going missing in a small town, one of the in-between places that saw quite a bit of travel as people crossed through it on the way to larger destinations. Some of the missing had since been found dead in high-risk positions as slaves. Two Ranger teams had checked into things, but they found nothing out of the ordinary. Officially speaking, it was written off as foolish travelers getting drunk and disorderly, then being unable to pay the fine and reimbursements for the damage that they caused. They were either unable or unwilling to involve others and had chosen more hazardous work to pay off their fines through perfectly legal volunteer slavery. The legalese was purportedly immaculate.

  But one merchant family refused to accept that explanation for their son’s best friend, a young woman who was one of the dead victims. They were absolutely certain that there was no way that she would have ever gotten so drunk and dangerous. The merchant family put their money where their faith was, at least. The job promised to pay a small fortune if Ranthia could find evidence of wrongdoing, she wasn’t even required to resolve anything.

  It took the bulk of the season, but at last the caravan rolled into the town in question, late in the evening. Ranthia waved to the other members of the security detail and wandered off to ‘explore’ the town before she settled in for the night.

  It took Ranthia a while to find a hiding place. The town had opted for a fairly sprawling layout to enable large roads and easy navigation even for the largest of convoys, which made for a dearth of little secure places to stash a body. Finally, she just climbed onto the roof of the more-suspicious tavern (there were only two in town and the other closed the bar when it got dark, which had to be the most idiotic business decision any tavern owner had ever made). [Shadowed Steps] kept her stealthy while she moved around on the roof in the dim light of the waning moons. Which was apparently fairly novel, as far as the skill was concerned.

  [*ding!* [Shadowed Steps] has reached level 100!]

  Once she was confident that her true body was out of sight, sheltered, and not in danger of rolling off the roof, she created a mirror image and, one channel later, shifted to it. ...Then tied her body to the building just to be safe. This meant that she would have to free her own body come time, but that was infinitely preferrable to suddenly dying without ever knowing what had gone wrong!

  Ranthia climbed back down to the street with her mirror body, then strolled into the tavern. The armor-clad 17-year-old had established her cover, which the other members of the caravan would corroborate since they had every reason to believe that it was true. She claimed to be a runaway bride that had become an Adventurer and traded her dowry for some used armor (traveling for so long in an ill-fitting suit of cheap leather armor—designed for a man’s build—had sucked, yes). Her real gear was secure in the oversized pack that she left with her body. She was as far as anyone knew a fairly standard newly minted C-Ranked Adventurer, albeit a prickly one with a temper.

  Of course, it was… odd to see a newly minted level 200-ish [Mage]—not that most people seemed to be very skilled at recognizing specific colors, weirdly—C-Ranked Adventurer who was a runaway bride. The solution was easy though, Ranthia just acted exactly how they expected. When she had to deal with threats she went for her sword. She refused to explain herself and allowed every man and woman in the caravan to come up with their own explanations for the oddities. People could be remarkably skilled at explaining away things to meet the reality that they experienced, and Ranthia had learned from her stint in the order temple that it was best to establish a simple lie and let other people fill in the blanks for themselves. It still seemed counterintuitive, but gods and goddesses it was impossible to deny how reliably it just worked.

  And so, Ranthia let herself get drunk and loud, just like her persona would have.

  “The ale may be cheap, sour crap, but at least it’s not mead!” She called out boisterously. Several other drunken men around her cheered, as they egged her on.

  Not that she had any idea what that even meant; mead was just fine! It was all too easy to blabber nonsense while drunk, especially since she willfully released her own inhibitions.

  A short time later, yet another man tried to cop a feel (as if he could feel much of anything with the armor that she was strapped into). She angrily swatted his hand away with clumsy force.

  “Ah’m a Scheee-Ranked Adv… Ad’turer! Get yer hands off or ah’ll off them off!” She slurred.

  Maybe if she took that short sword that she carried to the man it would progress things? He probably deserved it.

  The thought made her decide to lower her head onto the counter while she took a moment to shift back up to her real body. She’d been nervous about her ability to channel while drunk, but oddly it felt surprisingly easy to focus on the channel no matter how much she drank; if anything her ability to fixate on the process had improved. Immediately her head cooled, and her thoughts returned to normal. It made it easier to prevent the alcohol from affecting her judgment too much, but it was a tricky balance. She never dared stay in her real body for too long and she couldn’t let her mana dip too low. Nor could she risk passing out for real though; she had never found a way to keep an image intact while she was unconscious or asleep.

  Why the drunkenness from alcohol didn’t transfer, she had no idea. But she was grateful for that quirk of her Skills. It gave her an opportunity to take a break in a calmer head, which was important since she needed to stay coherent for as long as she could. If she was right about the situation, sooner or later a corrupt guard was going to show up and arrest her or one of the other men for ‘wrecking the place’ while everyone else was drunk enough to be convinced of the lie. That would be her cue to… well, she would see what the situation required when the time came.

  Deep into the night Ranthia was handed a fresh mug of ale, then the instant she took a heavy swig of it the world started to spin out of control. Her head hit the counter again… but this time it wasn’t intentional!

  Ranthia desperately clung to her consciousness as the world spun and swayed in a sickening array of colors and cacophonous sounds. Something was horrendously wrong! She struggled and fought while her vitality clung gamely to the veneer of consciousness that she maintained. She had no idea what was even happening anymore, and she couldn’t even figure out how to shift back to her true body.

  At some point, after an indeterminate period of terror, Ranthia finally started to recover. The world once again started to make sense. Her head pounded, she felt horrible, and the inside of her mouth tasted strongly of stale vomit... but she finally understood these things once again.

  She tried, and failed, to get up. In the aftermath of that failure, she forced herself to take a moment to process where she was. Her thoughts still felt sluggish, but she figured things out quickly enough.

  After all, she was naked and tied up somewhere dark. There weren’t exactly a ton of details to process, other than the fact that the rope was uncomfortably tight. There was nothing to indicate to her where she was and there was nothing to see.

  ...The System didn’t deign to offer her a Skill to see in the dark either, not that she had a spare General Skill slot for it. Class skills never came quite so readily.

  As soon as she could manage, Ranthia held her breath and tried to return to her true body. Her first attempt at channeling failed—thankfully early in, so the mana lost wasn’t too bad—as did the second. But on the third attempt she finally succeeded. Thank Xaoc, it was still exactly where she left it—and was actually in range—and Ranthia threw out another mirror image and went through a slow process with [Reflective Motility] while she tried to guide the image through freeing her true body.

  “Okay, never doing that again...” Ranthia promised herself once she was freed.

  She hadn’t expected to get drugged, and it was pretty clear to her that something had been added to that final drink! She had gotten blackout drunk a few times, but that had been completely different. At least this meant she was on the right path to her lovely payday, but she hadn’t expected to risk her life quite so intensely. Had she lost consciousness...

  Ranthia shuddered one last time before she grabbed her pack. They had stolen the crap gear that she wore for her disguise, but she still had her real armor along with her real belt. And that meant she, at long last, had the knives that her [Warrior] kit actually worked with. And she had her arcanite, which she immediately drew from to replenish what she had spent.

  She was ready to figure out what the hell this disgusting conspiracy truly was. And she wasn’t going to be gentle about it either.

  Once she was geared up and her mana was recovered (and her true body was once again secured with the rope), she shifted back down to her drugged and imprisoned body. Even with her head partially cleared by the time spent in her real body, the lingering effects of whatever shit the bastards had slipped her made it a challenge to channel, but she finally succeeded in getting a new geared up image placed nearby and shifted… back to her body. There she drained what was left in her arcanite, so she could shift to the new image.

  Freed from her bonds and fully armed and armored, Ranthia began her investigation. There were no windows and the slightly cool and damp feeling suggested that she was underground, but she wasn’t in a cell. The door to the small room her drugged body had been tossed into didn’t even latch, she just walked straight through it after she dismissed the drugged image. There were a few other naked, tied up people in other rooms, all men. The men seemed to be more coherent than she had been, since most of them thrashed angrily at their bonds when they saw her.

  Ranthia silently apologized, but she left them where they were. Freeing them at that point would have been idiotic; they were—for the moment—safer in captivity.

  Finally at the end of the dim corridor, Ranthia found several armed men in casual conversation. Ranthia carefully crept closer using [Shadowed Steps] while she listened, hoping to learn something useful. Surprisingly, she wasn’t disappointed.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The men in the room were just hired thugs though, it seemed. The highest leveled man among them was just barely over level 100 in his [Laborer] class. Honestly, not one of them amounted to much of a threat. But they provided her with all of the information that she needed, just from listening to them for a short while. Seriously, had none of them ever heard a single bard’s song about incompetent hired help? Because, somehow, they embodied the worst of it.

  The men had been hired by the man that owned the tavern. The whole thing was a neat little setup that involved literally every guard in town and the mayor himself, but—at least according to these idiots—it was the tavern owner that was the mastermind. One of the hires was new, so the more veteran members walked him through how the conspiracy worked! Why anyone would give the hired help full details of their evil machinations was beyond Ranthia, but apparently the plot was that the group would drug and capture 2-3 people periodically: the last to leave, those who got drunk enough to pass out, or occasionally ones they thought they could get a good price for.

  Ranthia apparently fell into the third category.

  The governor in one of the nearby larger cities—though the thugs weren’t sure which, which was honestly surprising at this point—was also in on everything. He bought the new slaves from the tavern owner, then the tavern owner split the proceeds with the mayor and guards, with bonuses that made it down to the hired help. Captured men and women that caught the governor’s eye would never appear on the books though, he had a “special” place to hide them for his own amusement. The rest were reported to have destroyed part of the tavern in a brawl. Everything, officially, looked like they were sold into slavery normally, but they were actually exclusively sold off to unscrupulous businesses and individuals for deadly work.

  While everyone in the room was involved in the conversation, it was one thug in particular that tended to monologue about the minutiae of the plans. He was vocally angry because he wanted a bigger piece of the money along with “a hot slave or two” of his own. He deserved it since he had been with the group since the very beginning, or so he claimed.

  Once the conversation turned far more... rape-centric, Ranthia decided that she had heard enough. Ranthia threw three mirror images into the room, then as fast as her stats allowed, she charged into the room while the thugs were distracted and slashed the throats of every man in the room… with a single exception. She ended her brief bit of violent brutality with the tips of both of her knives pressed under the talkative thug’s eyes.

  She was much, much faster than she used to be, which meant that none of the thugs even got a chance to react with the sheer difference in level and class quality.

  “So, you seem to know a lot of dangerous things that they should never have let you learn. How about this? You help me find evidence and take down this operation and snag aaaaall of your superiors. And, in return, I’ll let you walk away. As far as anyone will ever know, everyone that had been in this room died. Sound good?” She made sure her tone was coldly chipper, positively dripping with the threat of further violence.

  The man made terrified noises of affirmation, unable to even slightly move his head without blinding himself on her knives.

  The hour was beyond just late and Ranthia faced few obstacles as she travelled about town with her helpful thug. It seemed that neither the tavern owner nor the mayor had been able to trust anyone else, since each man kept detailed records that condemned everyone else involved. Even better, the governor was obviously a complete idiot, since there was a completely damning copy of a [Signed] contract that bore all three of their names. A contract to provide slaves at a certain quota per 24-day period for the governor to dispose of or make use of as he saw fit, with certain price minimum guarantees. The thug that escorted Ranthia had known, at least generally, where to find records and even helped her avoid patrols and traps; the man was going all out to prove himself useful.

  And honestly, Ranthia had far lower expectations for any evidence. Still, now that she had what she needed to crush the conspiracy, it was time to act quickly before her presence was discovered.

  First, Ranthia coldly drove her knife through the heart of the helpful thug. There was no remorse in her—he was a kidnapping piece of shit that she had been forced to listen to while he whined about not being allowed to have his way with her unconscious body. She had never intended to honor the deal that she made.

  Second, Ranthia carried the evidence up to where her true body waited and carefully secured it into her backpack. Carrying it on her person sounded like a terrible idea for so many reasons.

  With that done, she was ready to capture the parties involved. The tavern owner was easy to grab, the man was out like a candle and had no personal security. Ranthia grabbed him then hit him with the various powders that he kept in his room until she finally found the one that was presumably used to drug her. Once he was unconscious, she dragged him out to the mayor’s manor and found a reinforced, enclosed wagon that could be sealed from the outside; most likely what they used to transport the slaves that they kidnapped.

  And because things had gone far too smoothly, while she was in the middle of throwing the tavern owner into the wagon four of the corrupt city guard showed up, naturally.

  “Hold it right there and unhand the citizen!” The highest-leveled guard—level 180 and level 121 was actually kind of impressive for a small-town guard—demanded.

  “Yeah, I already know you’re all guilty and involved in this damned slavery ring. Counter-offer: surrender, disarm, and get in the damned wagon of your own free will. I’m not feeling particularly merciful right now.” Ranthia retorted icily, even as she drew her knives.

  “Guilty? Around these parts we make the rules, and we say you’re the guilty one!”

  Honestly, as far as final words went, Ranthia had heard better. The men charged her, batons drawn, while she sent an image behind them. None of them noticed, but she hesitated before she got very far into her channel. [Reflections of Reality] was expensive, her arcanite was tapped out, and there were likely far greater challenges remaining.

  That or she just wanted to see how she fared against the four guards. The idea of being entitled to draw her blades on those that were in Pallos’ worst occupation brought a smile to her face as the clash was joined.

  Instinctively, Ranthia went with her dance-inspired movements as she parried the first baton. Her footwork brought her clear of the arc of the second, which allowed her to press her attack on the highest-leveled guardsman.

  It was easier than she expected. She had even managed to disarm him before his fellows drove her back. The man even lacked the sense to go for his baton and tried to throw a kick her way instead.

  Ranthia, quite reasonably, stabbed his leg in response.

  The man screamed and Ranthia hurriedly smashed his nose with the butt of her other knife to silence him.

  [*ding!* You have slain a [Corrupt Guardsman] (Wood, level 180), [Easily Bribed] (Metal, level 121)!]

  She hadn’t meant to kill him with that (it was a stunning blow!), but it wasn’t like she felt guilty either—even before she saw his classes. At least that explained why he was so awful at being a guard.

  Ranthia wove between the other guards while they pressed the attack. [Blades of Darkness] let her cleave through the lowest leveled guard’s baton. He instead tried to hit her with the guard buff, but Ranthia ignored it while she pressed the attack on another. At the moment neither the vitality nor the decrease in her mana regeneration really mattered to her; she was fighting efficiently, and they didn’t have the numbers to overwhelm her with buffs.

  Before the last guard managed to become a nuisance, she had knocked out—properly that time—the man that she had aggressively attacked. The last guard tried to take her out with a Skill-empowered strike, but she danced clear and disarmed him while his swing carved through the air.

  Though perhaps she could have phrased it as unhanding him, given his wrist ended in a bloody stump once she was done.

  “Sooo, you two want to push your luck, or will you go ahead and surrender now?” Ranthia offered to the two men that were still on their feet.

  The wagon was very full. Ranthia had located plenty of rope and so everyone that she captured was tightly bound and gagged, nice and secure, within the wagon. Every surviving member of the town guard, the tavern owner, and the mayor’s private security detail (that swiftly decided they were not being paid enough to fight an A-Ranked Adventurer) were already secured within the wagon. As dawn broke over the city, Ranthia approached the wagon with the mayor.

  “You can’t do this to me! I am the mayor and on my authority—granted by the Senate!—I demand you release me immediately!” The man snarled impotently.

  “Oh! What an impressive show of power. ...Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be very effective. I mean Xaoc isn’t telling me that I need to comply and I’m pretty sure the Senate’s going to revoke whatever paltry authority you possessed soon enough. So... good luck in there!” Ranthia quipped moments before she unlatched the wagon and punted the overweight man into it.

  She could have gagged him, yes. But she was reasonably certain he’d just piss off his former allies if she let him flap his gums. It was petty, but she was in a petty mood.

  With that, she had everyone that was involved in the plot—to the best of her knowledge—in her custody… at least for this town. Next, Ranthia returned to her original body before she paid a visit to the tiny courier guild and, to get them focused, offered 8 rods to send their fastest runner to find the nearest group of Rangers and give them a letter that she wrote. The letter asked them to meet her in the governor’s city and explained the full situation, with a quick summary of the evidence that she had. Along with a charcoal rub of her guild symbol, since she was optimistic that at least one of the Rangers would be able to recognize that she was A-Ranked and, ideally, find that compelling.

  Continuing to learn how to read and write had finally started to pay off! She probably could have written the letter more concisely or clearly if she was a bit better at it, but at least it was (probably) coherent.

  With that done, Ranthia rounded up a couple of horses, hitched them to her prisoner wagon—after ensuring her captives were still bound and back there (and hey, they hadn’t even killed the mayor yet, surprisingly)—and set off for the governor’s estate.

  Ranthia hyped herself up for a big showdown with the governor as she single-handedly stormed his estate and carved her way through until she reached the archvillain. She had dinged level 128 in [Sudden End]—finally—while she fought the group of guards, but a ballad-worthy feat like that was certain to improve her class qualities.

  Naturally, the Ranger team that received her letter had arrived ahead of her.

  Somewhat grudgingly, Ranthia turned over all of the evidence that she gathered and walked them through it. Then she had to transfer her prisoners over to the surprised—or maybe slightly annoyed—Rangers. Then the grim-faced group of seven men geared up while they negotiated with and, ultimately, paid her (a somewhat insulting amount, honestly) to guard the prisoner wagon along with their own while they handled the raid of the governor’s estate.

  But at least one of them tossed her his Ranger badge when she asked what she should do if the city guard tried to get involved. She could invoke their authority! Which meant any guards that tried to force the issue could be handled as she saw fit.

  Which meant that Xaoc truly smiled upon her. She had been granted the right to fight guards for a second time!

  Ranthia watched while the group of men—and two wolves—headed for the governor’s estate, then braced for her own fun. She was certain that the governor had loyalists that would seek to undermine the raid and she was ready to take them on.

  Instead, no one—guard or otherwise—approached her until the Rangers returned. All too soon the governor was in a cell and the Rangers launched into an investigation of the local guardsmen. The leader of the Rangers was distracted, yet he still took the time to sincerely and very officially thank Ranthia for her service.

  Sadly, he wasn’t quite absent-minded enough to let her walk away with his badge. It would have made a great souvenir.

  The Guildmaster debriefed her himself and seemed impressed by the speed with which she resolved the incident. Even if Ranthia was a bit distracted by daydreams about how many rods were being added to her vault while they spoke. She was rich! ...Okay, she was wealthier than she had ever been, at least.

  …The only downside was that the report made it obvious that she had forgotten to go back to free the men that the slavers had captured. At least the Rangers knew about them and (hopefully) took care of them.

  Technically speaking, it hadn’t been her job; though she still felt a bit guilty.

  “What will you do now?” The Guildmaster asked once the debriefing was concluded.

  “Going to take a bit of time off, I think. My birthday is in six days and it’ll be good to spend some time with my girlfriend after I was gone for so long. Also, I just hit 128 in my second class at long last, so it’s time to class up and see what else I can get in my kit.” Ranthia answered casually.

  “Oh, what fortuitous timing. I still need more time, so I hadn’t said anything yet. But I recommend that you hold off on classing up. I have been negotiating something that promises to offer significant class quality improvements for you and some of my other candidates.”

  With those ominous words, Ranthia left his office.

  Hexara wasn’t big on gift giving, yet for Ranthia’s eighteenth birthday she gifted Ranthia a choker—dyed a beautiful shade of green—that had a single arcanite stone set in it.

  “To help keep you safe.” Hexara had proudly explained.

  Ranthia wasn’t going to be the one to tell her that the tiny stone only offered a small bit of extra mana; she appreciated the gesture for what it meant. She loved… the gift.

  The fallout from Ranthia’s job became quite a big deal. The news spread far and wide of the corrupt governor and the town that had turned predatory. Along with it, word spread that it was an Adventurer that cracked the case and that the Rangers had already written it off as the situation being above-board. Even the Emperor got involved and, apparently (not that Ranthia bothered to listen to it), gave some huge public speech about governors abusing their stations and the promise of new safeguards and inspections to ensure such abuses never occur again.

  Much more personal and weird though, was when Ranthia heard her name on the lips of a [Bard] that sang a song about the case. It wasn’t a particularly heroic or epic song, nor was it particularly catchy, but... she was in [Bard] songs, and she had no idea how to feel about it.

  Not that the song got popular enough to last very long.

  Once again, Ranthia found herself in the Guildmaster’s office. She was just checking the job board idly; she hadn’t even been certain if she wanted to take a job at the moment!

  “Tell me, what do you know about the Rangers?” The Guildmaster asked once the door was closed.

  “The scourge of Adventurers. Every time a team rolls into town everyone pulls their jobs—as if Rangers are going to help with rats in your storehouse or other minor things.” Ranthia replied flippantly.

  “I’m serious, what do you think of them?” The man replied.

  “They’re what keep the peace, I guess. They travel throughout Remus and resolve major incidents. Yeah, some of it is stuff Adventurers rightfully should get a crack at, but even as an A-Ranked I didn’t want to try to do something like bring that governor to justice myself. Rangers are the best answer we have to things like corruption or other abuses.” Ranthia admitted stiffly.

  “I see. Thank you for your time, that will be all for today.” The Guildmaster finally announced after an awkwardly long period of silence.

  What on Pallos had that been about?

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.