“Hey Myr, going again?”

Myr nodded at the gate guard. “Mhm. You know how it is.”

The guard stared at Myr’s basket. It was brown in color and woven from strips of wood. Yet, it looked battered. “You should probably replace that.”

“...You know I can’t afford that.”

“M-My bad.” The guard scratched the back of his helmet. “Guess I gotta let you in on some insider info for compensation now.”

Myr leaned in closer and strained her ears; almost as if she didn’t want to miss it.

“Some Hunters just passed by to upgrade the threat level of Icean herb collection requests. Apparently, they’d been harvested so much that you can only really find them in the deep forest.”

Myr suppressed an embarrassed cough. “M-My bad.” She knew that she contributed at least twenty percent to the eradication of Icean herbs near the town.

“Don’t be.” The guard laughed. “No one can blame a girl for doing what she can for her sick mother. Now go. You got four hours before dark.”

“Thank you.” Myr smiled. Leaving the guard and the town behind, she made her way into the forest.

The guard was right. The edge of the forest contained nothing but sparse trees and wildflowers. No Icean herbs… I really have to go deeper.

Myr gulped. The deep forest was home to creatures. Scary creatures; including but not limited to man-eating wolves and spiders with legs as big as Myr’s arm.

Come on, for Mother! Pumping herself up, Myr picked a stick up from the ground for self-defense. As she went deeper into the forest, the trees grew thicker and denser. The atmosphere got more ominous. And the worst thing was, it was getting darker—either due to time passing or the trees blocking out the sunlight.

Being just a young adult—nineteen to be exact, Myr didn’t really have a lot of stamina. After just an hour of walking, she was starting to get tired. Luckily for her, she found a glade just as she was about to pass out from exhaustion. How convenient! Nanthos must be looking over me!

She rushed over to the glade and threw herself in the water. Wet clothes be damned! A simple Cantrip would dry them anyways, and Myr was more proficient than most at using Mana.

Myr let herself float in the water and relaxed. When she felt bored of it, she slowly trudged back to shore and stared at her own reflection in the water.

Mother always told me that I’m a bit of a narcissist. Can’t say she’s wrong.

Common and even more common. Soft brown eyes and light brown hair. That combination was what made Myr so mundane, especially in the eyes of experienced Hunters who had traveled the world and back.

She took most pride not in her normalcy, but in the two stubby horns that protruded out of her forehead—the proof that she had Draconic blood flowing inside her veins.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good thing when combined with her scaly black tail, which had a stinger attached to its end.

It told everyone that instead of laying with a polymorphed Dragon, Myr’s mother did the deed with a lowly Wyvern, whose only form was a monstrous scaly lizard with wings.

Mother never tells me how she and Father met… But Myr could figure out a few things. First, her mother would have to be really stretchy. And Wyverns were only as intelligent as dogs, so umm… Love is love, I guess. I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Striking her image in the water with her stick, Myr stood up and dried herself with a Cantrip. Now invigorated by a good rest, she continued further into the forest.

It didn’t take long for the first sign of Icean herbs to show itself.

“Frozen ground! There it is!”

She gleefully followed the frozen trail and soon found a field full of sharp blue herbs that radiated coldness. Wasting no time, she picked them up—barehanded. She was used to the cold, so she didn’t think much of it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She continued until her basket could hold no more. Patting it in satisfaction, she decided to call it a day.

However, Myr was so absorbed in picking the herbs that she forgot the passing of time. It was already night. Gulping a mouthful of saliva in nervousness, she quickly tried to find a safe place to stay the night.

But Lenthos wasn’t on her side.

From behind the tree lines, Myr could hear the rustlings of bushes and a few menacing growls.

“W-Wolves!?”

Three of them. Each twice as tall as Myr, and ten times more deadly. Their golden eyes pierced through the darkness and fixated on the poor Wyvern girl.

Myr slowly backed away while maintaining eye contact with the Wolves. But with each step she took, the Wolves got a step closer. She was forced to take in every last bit of detail on the Wolves' bodies.

From the minor differences in their fur color to the blood dripping from their sharp canines, everything terrified her. Cursed be her useless attention to detail!

Inevitably, the Wolves got bored of playing around with their prey and began giving chase in earnest.

But Myr wasn’t going to just let herself be eaten. She ran. Ran as fast as she could. She grabbed a fistful of Icean herbs and crushed them. “Take this!” The ball of crushed herbs exploded in a Wolf’s face, freezing its head. Never had Myr been so grateful for having learned about the volatile nature of Icean herbs the hard way. Enduring the walk of shame back home was more than worth it!

She threw fistful after fistful of herbs, but the Wolves weren’t stupid and dodged them all. They saw what happened to their brethren, and they weren’t too keen on receiving the same fate.

When Myr ran out of herbs, she threw the basket away—barely stopping the Wolves for a split second, and ran away as fast as she could.

A Wolf soon caught up to her. Feeling the hair on her neck standing on end, Myr spun around and whacked the Wolf’s head with her stick. She then stabbed the Wolf with her stinger, injecting it with her poison.

“L-Little doggy,” Myr panicked as her stinger got stuck in the dead Wolf’s corpse. “y-you aren’t mad at me or anything, r-right?”

She was wrong. The only remaining Wolf was really, really mad. So mad, in fact, that it blindly lunged for the kill.

Myr quickly reacted by raising her stinger up and letting the Wolf tear into its comrade’s body. This somehow freed her stinger. Just run! I’m not questioning it!

And ran she did. Like a headless chicken, she ran without a goal. But as if Nanthos was cheering for her, Myr soon came across an abandoned church. “PRAISE NANTHOS!”

She dashed inside the building and closed the only entrance shut. Quickly scanning around the room, she found nothing of use. Just a few half-rotten wooden chairs that were only good for blocking the door.

Right as she finished pushing the chairs against the door, she heard banging sounds. The Wolf’s here already? She looked around the church again—this time with more scrutiny. Soon, she found a longsword embedded in the stone floor before the wooden pulpit. Its blade was a slick white and brilliantly reflected the moonlight.

“A weapon!”

She tried to pull it out, but it just wouldn’t budge.

Out of options, Myr got down on her knees and prayed. Aside from the Wolves, lucky things kept happening to her today. Perhaps Nanthos was really watching over her?

For the first time, Myr sincerely prayed to Goddess Nanthos.

“Oh Goddes Nanthos, please listen to my woes.”

The banging on the wooden door only got louder.

“I’ve sinned. I’ve looked at men and women alike with lustful eyes.”

A few chairs got knocked away.

“But please, let me live! M-Mother will die if I can’t come back!”

The only thing that separated Myr from the Wolf now was the wooden door.

“A-And if I die, p-please use the soul of this sinner to heal Mothe—”

[The Light of the White Moon calls upon you now, little girl. Cease your useless prayer and pull me from the ground.]

Myr jumped up in surprise. “W-What? Goddess Nanthos?”

[No, the sword.]

Myr quickly turned to look at the silver blade. It was hard to imagine a blade talking, but she had no time right now!

“W-Will I be able to save Mother if I pick you up?”

[You can save yourself, that I can say for sure. As for your mother…] The sword paused for a bit. [...That is up to you. Prove that your prayer wasn’t a desperate lie in the heat of the moment.]

W-Why do I feel like the sword’s smiling? Myr quickly shook her head. Unimportant details. The sword’s previous words were all the confirmation she needed.

She pulled the sword out just as the Wolf tore the wooden door apart and rushed toward her.

[Wield me! Be one with the Moonlight! I will only show you once, so watch carefully!]

Myr could feel some sort of mysterious force taking control of her body. The Moonlight around her hardened into a scabbard on her waist. Placing the sword neatly into the scabbard, her mouth opened by itself.

“[Quick Flash]”

The sword left the scabbard at a speed so great that it might as well have turned into a white streak of light. What Myr had performed was a simple one-dimensional stab, yet she’d pierced the Wolf’s skull without any resistance.

Myr was given back control of her own body. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. Staring at the bloodied blade in her hands, she stuttered,

“W-What was that?”

[Your new destiny.]