We picked up our horses along with some rations that the villagers had provided, and departed before sunrise. Over the past few days, Sally had been talking with the village’s hunters and acquired a great deal of knowledge about the surrounding roads, so we took an unintuitive route up a steep hill that led through an unmarked path.

“This is kind of suspicious, don’t you think? Why would we have to go here in order to get to the volcano?” I glanced at the trail ahead, unsure of whether or not it was best to trust Sally’s judgement.

“Apparently this route leads to a tunnel that will get us out of the mountains. The villagers haven’t been able to access it for the past ten years because the terrain isn’t fit for travel without a horse. Plus, knowing your luck, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Er, yeah… I’ve just been out of my element lately, I guess.”

“Is your luck dependent on health or something?”

“Nah, it’s just hard to notice when it’s a constant. It was different when I just got to this world because it was a different breed of luck than usual, but now that I’m used to it it’s just become the day-to-day.”

“Odd… haven’t you always been lucky though? What exactly do you mean by it being a ‘different breed’ of luck?”

“The place I came from was a lot safer than here. There were no demons or monsters or anything like that, and so I had to go out of my way to enter sweepstakes if I wanted any thrills.”

“So it’s different when the thrills come to you then?”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

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We walked until the morning sun shone brightly in our eyes. Finding ourselves at the mouth of a  low tunnel, we got off the horses to avoid hitting our heads. Sally took the lead, followed by his horse, and then by me. It was difficult to make our way through the dark, but thankfully Sally had the sense to get a lantern from the villagers before we’d left, so we could tell where we were going.

After a bit of walking, we came to a violent stop.

“What’s the hold up?” I called out to Sally, who had turned off his lantern.

He gave me an aggressive “shhh!” and whispered that he’d heard some soft footsteps coming from ahead. I hadn’t heard anything, but I guess being an elf was supposed to give him heightened senses or something.

“So... what should we do?” I whispered back.

“Let’s just lay low for a bit, I’m sure they can’t see in the dark.”

“What did I say about genre-blindness, Sally? It doesn’t matter what we do, nothing could possibly happen to us no matter what, so we might as well just keep going and make quicker progress.”

I nudged our horses to head forward, then Sally and I followed after. Whatever was ahead was still quite far away, though it seemed like I could make out more than just a few pairs of feet.

Eventually, we got close enough to hear a choir of grizzly voices that reminded me of the Devil King’s. A few voices that were deeper than the rest stood out.

“Ay, I ‘ad ‘em runnin’ for their lives back there! You should’ve seen ‘em squirmin’!”

“You didn’t do not’in but raid tha’ tavern an’ drink they’s booze! We were ou’ raisin’ hell while ya skunks got ya’selfs drunk!”

“Excuse me, but I don’t think the Devil King sent us on a job like this just to boast about who made the biggest mess. We’re supposed to be assassins, you know, and we were going to split the reward evenly. Save the shouting for the celebration back at the palace.”

A lucky encounter, I guess. Sally, still frightened, went back to crying on the ground or something, so I left to go approach them by myself, and I was able to get awfully close before they noticed, thanks to the cave’s dim lighting. Eventually, one of them did catch my silhouette: the largest one, with hands the size of trashcan lids and legs like tree trunks, cut in front of the legion and drew a crude-looking hammer.