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The Unawakened world’s winter was cold and manaless. Brigid activated her armor’s protections several times, but it burned Mana like no tomorrow. Half an hour was all she could afford, with a long pause in between.

In the morning, she was miserable, and her nose was running like a broken faucet. Then trams started to work, and the subway. She took shelter there, dismissing her helmet and washing her face in a public toilet, staring horrified at her reddened eyes and dried skin.

Two men tried to hit on her. She broke one’s nose and the second’s wrist. Her stats were working, albeit reduced to a non-algorithmic progression. A hundred in Body, and she still had a running nose. Her Knightly Healing worked only on wounds… and now she was alone, a too-specialized warrior without support.

She was tired but dared not sleep… that world was dangerous. Getting out of the subway when the shops opened, she toured the city. It was beautiful, nicer than the Pragwyn from her world. There were no armor shops, though… And she was stuck in her combat armor, without any decorative spurs or high-heels… worse, like a squire… no, a servant.

There was nothing to do there, but hope was not lost. Maybe there was a way to care for her cracked skin, after all. She had the full package of the Universal Language unlocked. Brigid asked to borrow a pencil and a large piece of paper from a bookshop and wrote on it: Princess in distress, please spare a gold coin for me to buy skin care. I’ll pray for your health.

Sitting in front of a cosmetic shop, she dismissed her helmet, adopting the sweetest puppy face she could. With her blue eyes and blond hair, she was at least pretty, and teary eyes and puckering lips added to her charm. Everything was allowed in war and love, and although she had not known love yet, war was her element.

Passersby laughed at her sign. Men tried hitting her again, and she had to kick one in the balls. Finally, an older gentleman gave her a bill. Paper money.

“Is this one of those hazing dares students do?” he asked.

“My fate is cruel,” Brigid lowered her eyes, telling the truth and a lie at the same time.

Rushing into the store, she asked for the most moisturizing moisturizer. She spread it over her face without caring if people were staring at her. The sensation was glorious! Unawakened Earth had such good beauty products!

Feeling still bitter but a bit better, she proceeded to the upper city, aiming toward the castle. After all, her princess’ morale was supposed to be uplifted in places where nobility was the code word. She still had some money left and paid for a ticket to visit the church and the castle.

Signs were pointing to a hill nearby, about a bout display, and she followed them to a lawn about a hundred yards long. Stubborn thoughts about meters jumped around in her brain, which she ignored.

The show was poorly done. The horses were big and slow, and the knights' moves telegraphed. A sign asked for public donations to buy equipment, saying something about a talent show—whatever that was—and those knights being the only team able to beat Vincent Valaška.

The name made her blood boil. Not only did he murder her grand grandmother, but he humiliated her, taking Brigid by surprise. She had seen movement skills before, but none of that level… and that he used only his fist had surprised her.

Elbowing her way onward, she approached the sign and the massive man near it, a mountain of a warrior.

"Hey, a fellow re-enactor!" he saluted. "How can I help you?"

"By allowing me to enact revenge on Guildcher Vincent,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“I will take your team under my wing and help you win that duel you spoke about.”

“Sorry, kid, but—”

She interrupted his words by pressing a finger on his lips. Then, she pressed her index on her thumb on both hands, resting her left on the man’s forehead and the right on the wooden board.

“Look,” she said, flickering her index on the board, which exploded into pieces. “I could kill you with a flicker. Give me a horse, a lance, and your best man to bout against, and I’ll show you what true skill is. If afterward, you refuse my guidance, I so swear I’ll kill you all, for you’re a disgrace to everything a knight represents.”

“Wow! Deep roleplaying, huh?” the man widened his eyes. “Duncan, bring the lass a horse and a lance. She’s auditioning for a spot on the team!” he yelled.

“Aye, captain!” a squire yelled.

“You’ll be going against me, Milady,” the man made a reverence. At least he was polite.

While preparing for the exchange, Brigid changed her class from Graceblade to Kinetic Warden. In the first class, she had skills for speed and was capped in Spirit. In the second, her Body and Mind were at cap level. With a pool of ten thousand Concentration Points, she could maintain her Preemptive Stance for thirty seconds. A steep-priced skill but invaluable.

Everything in the opponent’s movements was now predictable, from his horse’s gait to the grip on the lance or where his eyes would look. She knew he was going to try to go soft on her.

“Heya!” she spurred her horse first.

That made the adversary hesitate for a split second. Making the horse jolt from the pressure of his knees, a sign that the two were well-versed in fighting together, he aimed his lance at Brigid’s left shoulder to unbalance her.

Galloping forward, she slid the tip of her weapon over the man’s lance, pressing it down so its lateral side, not the tip, would meet her armor. With her hundred in Body, such a weak strike would not make her flinch. Instead, the man’s lance transformed into a lever against his own motion. Brigid’s lance struck the same spot he was going to hit on her, and after a somersault, the man crashed in the snow.

“The fuck!” he yelled, struggling to rise to his feet.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You slipped?” another knight asked.

“NO! She’s a monster! That was like Aikido on horseback! Miss… You’re in!” he shouted, offering a handshake. “What’s your name?”

“Princess Brigid Gearheart,” she grasped his forearm with hers into a proper knights’ salute. “But you can call me Chief.”

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Scoundrell woke up when somebody tried to undress him, pulling on his tactical vest.

“Putain bordel de merde,” he cursed, instinctively moving to grab the thief’s neck into a submission position, holding the other’s body in front of him like a shield.

His left eye was clogged by dried blood, his left leg broken, and everything ached. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going into oblivion without a fight. He was stretched on an improvised bed in the open, surrounded by bandits… or rather medieval-looking troops, staring at him in disbelief, stupefied he wasn’t dead. The second plan was a row of tents. An enemy camp. No ally of them had such rags as uniforms. Why he was brought there instead of being stripped of his belongings and killed was a mystery.

“Call the Druid!” a bandit blurted, and a young girl, barely sixteen in Scoundrell’s estimation—darted away. “Milord, please spare my brother,” the man prostrated himself on the ground. “We were just trying to help, checking you for wounds… The healer will tend to you shortly.”

“I won’t kill him… for now,” Scoundrell said, keeping his grip on the thief’s throat. Strangely, the man was not offering any resistance. He profited from the respite to gather his thoughts and energy. Now, he regretted not investing his tokens in some sort of healing…

“Merde…” he whispered. Hearing Scoundrell speak, the captive jerked.

How did they survive? How far are we from the epicenter?

Scoundrel was the one who detected the ambush while scouting ahead. The troops waiting for them—in the hundreds—had Stealth… yet for a trained eye like his, the smallest detail, from a twitching leaf or the smell of bad cologne, were dead giveaways. He called a double orbital strike on his position, throwing his radio on the ground as a marker, then ran back as fast as possible… Yet not fast enough.

He summoned his Menu over his closed eye to see if he had leveled or not.

Name: Étienne Valoré Age: 35

Class: Scoundrell (bespoke) Level: 80

You have refused to take a well-trodden path and chose to make your own way. While benefiting from more System assistance than a Declassed, you keep some of the latter’s freedom. The skills you buy come at double the cost and one tier higher than normal.

Body: 60 Mind: 60 Spirit: 60

Available tokens: 1

Shit… Only one level… Basic Healing is two tokens for me…

Skills:

Venom: You can use Mana to create a deadly venom to coat your body or weapons. This skill can evolve into Curses at level 100. Consumes 60 Mana per use. Current level: 79

Phase Strike: Consume 10% of all your resource pools to deliver an attack that ignores all armor and resistance. This attack cannot Critically Hit and has low damage, but the damage increases with your and the skill’s level. Evolvable at levels 50 and 100. Current level: 20.

Infiltrator: You are a natural-born spy, and people will take even the most obvious lies you tell as truths.

Provoker: Using witty words, you goad your adversaries into villain monologues or stupid actions. Instead of cutting your throat, they will try to kill you with complicated domino contraptions with light beams, counterweights, and other things of the sort, losing precious time and allowing you a chance to escape.

Saboteur: You can make most tech malfunction by touching or inserting foreign objects. The said objects will detect and destroy the critical part of any mechanism by moving by themselves as long you feed them Mana. Range: 100 yards. Consumes 20 Mana/second.

“Is he awake?” a middle-aged woman arrived, interrupting Soundrell’s daydreaming.

“It’s a prince, ma! A prince!” the tomboyish girl sent to bring the druid clamored, shifting weight between her feet, obviously excited. “He swears like royalty!”

The older woman was in her early forties and still looked good. The staff in her hand was sturdy and straight, nothing like the wavy, crooked branches in fantasy movies. She touched it to Scoundrell’s hurt leg, and he let her do it. A wave of pain but also warmth crawled under his skin, and he groaned and bit his lower lip.

“Please release my husband, sire,” the woman said. “You will be fully healed in minutes.”

“You want me to trust you?” Scoundrell asked. His main gun was lost, and his side one was out of reach in his ankle holster. A bit of a risky grab in his condition.

“You’re sure you heard him speak French?” the woman asked, looking at her brother-in-law. “His gear is outlandish, and he speaks nonsense.”

“They sent gifts to the Queen before the war,” the girl said. Scoundrell remembered his gear, enchanted in Krivoburg in one of the factories, was considered the second-best quality on the Realm: Elite tier. Mythical one was for artifacts, unique stuff, immensely expensive and rare. It was probably the cause of his survival.

Another recollection hit him. French was nonexistent on Stellarterra but had become a sign of education and exclusivity for the Celt nobles after a French Summoned spread it. The ones there thought he was a noble because he spoke French. Scoundrell was French Canadian, after all.

“Maybe he thinks we went rogue,” the prisoner spoke for the first time. “We’re simple auxiliary troops, sir. We stayed behind to avoid being detected… The enemy took out our nobles… You’re the only survivor… Please assume command, sir. We don’t know what to do next. Everything is in chaos…”

“Merde…” Scoundrell whispered. He was locked in a bad situation. They believed he was some sort of officer.

“See? Told you,” the girl jumped up, clapping. “He’s a prince!”

“Oui,” Scoundrell said, releasing his captive and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Tell me about the situation.”

The druid’s husband took an ‘at attention’ pose. “Sir, we are the fifty-six auxiliary regiment. We were tasked with setting camp on our side of the border while the shock troops went to ambush the enemy. Then we saw a huge explosion, and when we searched, the enemy had broken free, and all our troops were dead, including the crown princess, the first in line for the throne. The forest—what remained of it—was full of bits of bodies and mangled remains.”

“She didn’t take her armored suit,” the girl said. “That can’t be stealthed. It was I who found and brought you here. Will you marry me for saving your life?” Her open mouth and widened eyes beamed with anticipation.

“You’re what, fourteen?”

“Fifteen!” she proudly uttered. Scoundrell noticed that she had a lot of freckles and grimy fingernails.

“You belong in school.”

“I’m a squire!”

“What else?” he ignored her.

“We have a radio, sir, but it spews nonsense. Every army has declared their general King or Queen, and there are revolts in the periphery. A new System asked us to accept an update… we didn’t dare to do it without a superior officer. Please, sir, will you lead us?”

Scoundrell looked around and saw not only a couple thousand people but also potential. He stepped up on the bed to be seen by all. “Ecoutez!” he bellowed. A choir of Ahs! washed around the camp in a wave of gasps. “I’m Etienne Valor, prince of… Canada! From now on, I will lead you. And from this day on, you are officially nobles, too. Repeat with me: Ecoutez! It means to listen.”

“Ecoutez!” everybody brayed.

“Now say Bonjour. It means hi, or have a good day!... Now Bonsoir… Good evening…” All around were bright eyes and hopeful faces. He could work with that, even if they looked like the most ragtag bunch he had ever seen.

“You are not to accept the new System,” he shouted. “Reject it and close all communications with it. It brought only disasters. It tricked our Queen into attacking a friendly country and led her to her death. We’ll stay loyal to the Old System until it’s restored.”

“Huzzah!” the choir of cheers replied.

“Bring me your commander armor and the radio,” he asked, stepping down. The next step of his plan was to have access to powerful weaponry and a way to talk to the rest of the band.

“If I may, sir,” the druid raised a hand. “The guys are curious… Which faction will we support?”

“Mine, of course,” Scoundrell shrugged.