I finally got the all clear from the doc and was eager to get on the road. We headed down to Davie’s desk.

“Alright, two pieces of business before you get going. One, I need to update your badges with your recs. I’d say ya earned it.”

Corby and I beamed, while Bea did her usual routine of trying to blend into the background. Corby gave him our badges; Davie did a quick channel of magic into them, gave them back, then looked at Bea.

“Well, what ya waiting for, lass? I ain’t got all day.”

Bea looked around confused, and I grinned. She sheepishly came over to the desk and gave Davie her badge. He did a quick mana channel, then hesitated. “Ya did good work out there, lass. Thank you for your service.”

Bea looked about ready to cry, and Davie couldn’t handle all the emotion, quickly changing tacts. “I got you lot a job. Church of Pallea needs some supplies sent to the capital on the double.”

“Thanks. See ya!” I was already racing out the door before he had even handed Corby the parcel.

Freedom at last!

I started running, then realized that I had to actually wait for the rest of my party, so I doubled back to where Corby and Bea were still walking out of the Guild.

“C’mon, guys. Let’s goooooooo,”

“Settle down. The guards will throw a fit if you try running through the city with your speed.”

“But I wanna go faaaaaaaaast,” I whined. I had been stuck in that damn building for weeks. I desperately needed to stretch my legs.

“I know, I know. You can cut loose once we get out of the city. You can even take Bea with you.”

Bea’s head whipped around to Corby, who just arched an eyebrow. Bea’s head sagged.

Fine, you can carry me for a bit when we get out.

“Yaaaaay! I love Backpack Bea! She’s fun to carry and she makes things go boom.”

Bea blushed and I valiantly resisted my urge to sprint around everywhere. We grabbed a few extra supplies for the trip while Bea put a hand on my shoulder to hold me in place. We then made our way out of the city towards a fork in the road.

“We could stop by the professor’s one last time if you want to see him again,” I suggested.

Already said farewells yesterday. I’m good to go. She gave me a thumbs up.

“I know Corby volunteered you for Nym duty, but you don’t have to let me carry you if you don’t want. I kinda forced you last time.”

Riding you would probably do me some good.

“Oh, really?” I grinned maniacally.

Riding with you, geez! Bea was blushing and was waving her arms, embarrassed.

“Well say no more, your humble steed awaits, milady.” I kneeled down, and Bea hopped on. She was bigger than Corby, but we made it work.

I turned to Corby. “We’re going ahead a bit don’t know how long we’ll be byyyyyyyeeeeeeee.”

And then I took off on the open road. Corby also took off running alongside us, but it wasn’t long before I left him in the dust; he just couldn’t match my speed when I was doing maximum zoomies. It was such an amazing feeling. The wind rushed through my fur with Bea on my back like a weighted blanket. The freedom of running on the open road mixed with the reassuring touch of someone I loved; it was intoxicating.

However, I couldn’t afford to lose myself completely in this feeling and turned my attention to the problem of threat detection. Even if we were faster than anything I thought was out here, I didn’t want to leave a bunch of problems for Corby to deal with solo. Wide echolocation wasn’t really useful at this speed, since I was done before the sound waves got back. It would take a while before I was able to set up a mana zone wide enough to be able to detect things while going this fast.

Maybe Bea could, though.

“Hey, Bea. Can you set a mana zone around us to detect if something is nearby? I can’t make one large enough to be useful.”

Thump.

“Thanks!”

Bea located and promptly exploded monsters as I ran past. It was fun. Corby could find the corpses and loot them on his way.

Unfortunately, it was not all fun and explosions. The sun had begun to set and I was about to slow down and head back to Corby when I spotted a giant billow of smoke in the distance. I slowed down. “Bea, burn a message into the road to tell Corby we’re headed towards the giant smokestack.”

I think he’d know even without the message. This is you, after all.

“Fair, but it couldn’t hurt. Open communication and all that.”

She put her hand out in front of me to give me a thumbs up. As soon as she was finished with the message, I turned my speed back up to maximum, and Bea had to grip me tight to stay on from the whiplash.

Not that I mind the extra grip.

The source of the smoke was a village, an on-fire village, to be specific. That’s probably not good.

Well, maybe it’s a fireworks show that got a little out of hand? Maybe humans just really like fire?

Any pretense of optimism went out the window when I saw someone running away, only to get shot with an arrow.

“Bea, I’m going to get into the thick of things. I’ll slow down and let you off. Pick people off at a distance? Stay safe!”

I slowed down and Bea got off. I already missed the weight on my back, but I had to get my priorities straight.

Even if being around Bea makes me feel anything but straight.

I took off and started jumping to get some height and perspective. I found the archer, and leapt at him, still hidden by my sneakiness. I cleanly decapitated him. My new class was no slouch. I checked the person he shot, and she was already dead. I felt bad that I had to put my foot on their throat to check for their pulse, which even I thought was tactless. And probably looked horrible to anyone who saw it.

I jumped back up to a vantage point. I spotted Bea lurking around a corner, eyes on a target: a human with a sword, looking around for victims.

I can’t spend too much time looking for attackers. I need to start clearing houses for people trapped, too. I spotted one more bandit to my left. It looked like he found a target. I leapt again and jammed a knife into his neck.

The horror of murdering sentient beings was still there, but I was getting more calloused. I wasn’t sure I liked that. Still, these assholes were a threat to the people here and my party. Me wanting to keep my feet clean of their blood took second place to their lives every time.

I looked to where the bandit had been staring and saw a kid and an older girl looking out the second-story window.

“Move away from the window!” I shouted, hoping they could hear the warning.

There was no awning to land on in front of the window, so I took a leap and balled up as I smashed right through it, turning my face away to try to shield it a little. It didn’t help much. The glass stung as it cut and pierced me. I looked over and the older girl had cuts on her as well from shielding the young one.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Good girl.

I kicked at the wall under the window to make a bigger hole. “Alright, both of you climb aboard.” I bent over so they could get on easier.

They latched on, and I jumped out of the building gently; I didn’t want to shake the young one off if I could help it. I landed and they dislodged themselves. “Go into the field that way; I have a party member that should be arriving shortly. If it’s a demon or an otter, they’re a friend. Do you know of anyone else who is trapped?”

They shook their heads.

“Do you know how many attackers there are?”

Another head shake.

“Alright, get going. I’m going to look for more survivors.”

I decided to forego surprise at this point and started sending out sound pulses. I tried to make the sound at a frequency that people couldn’t hear, but I didn’t really know what a human could or couldn’t hear. I kept moving and sending out pulses, fine-tuning the wave as I went. I found another person trapped in the back of a house. This would be trickier.

I held my breath and kicked the door down, smoke pouring out. A bookshelf had fallen over on the guy.

See, this is what a life of reading can get you.

I was in a jam. Well, technically the guy was in a jam. I needed to move the pillar and the guy at the same time. Time to put my magic training to the test, I guess. There was plenty of ambient sound to work with. I concentrated on a spot under the beam and projected the rumble upward. The beam moved up slowly. It was hard to move this much weight with sound alone, but I managed to move it enough to pull the guy out. I felt a little bad, but I kicked him up onto my shoulders. He coughed as he landed, hopefully from the smoke and not my kicking.

Wait, would the smoke be a worse reason?

My vision was getting fuzzy from holding my breath for so long, but I managed to stumble out the door and gasp in some air. I went looking for the next person who needed help.

As it turned out, there were a lot more people to pull out of buildings. Some of the livelier ones complained when I kicked them onto my shoulders, but they had to be alive and breathing to complain. The fatigue and the smoke was getting to me. My feet felt burned and my fur was covered in soot, burns, and scratches. My eyes kept watering, and I didn't have a arm to wipe them with, which was aggravating.

As I went, I’d find bandits, and they tried to investigate the weird noise they were hearing from my echoes. Fortunately, I was able to get the drop on them and then try another wavelength. Eventually, I’d find one they couldn’t hear. Probably.

I stumbled out of the thirteenth house and fell face first into a bush as my human luggage rolled off of me. I rolled over to my back and onto the ground as I caught my breath. I was regaining my bearings and barely noticed the bandit coming at me. I prepared to roll out of the way to give myself a little room to recover, but there was no need; his head exploded with a familiar purple light.

I found Bea’s gaze and gave her a nod of appreciation. Bea had also put out a large section of the fire, though far from all of it. Probably wasn’t mana efficient to put out everything all at once. I checked on the guy I had just carried out. Still alive. Not in immediate danger from wounds. I snuck over to Bea and she started casting.

Taken out two bandits; Rescued 1 civ. Saw 50 bandits more to the West with a lot of civs.

“50?! What’s a platoon’s worth of bandits doing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? What about town guards?”

All dead. The kids are being separated into two groups, and the adults are all being held together at swordpoint.

Two categories for kids? Maybe it’s the kids they’re after then. If it’s two categories, then they’re weeding out the pre-System kids so they don’t get zapped by Pally?

“If they’re separating people like that, it sounds like they want the Tutorial kids. Can't imagine there's a non-awful reason for that. I’ll try to listen in and see why. Can you keep looking for people in the meantime?” Bea nodded and we split back up.

I jumped up to a roof near the main plaza and got a view of the bandits and the hostages. I looked around and saw some of the bandits talking. I focused on the soundwaves coming off of them and pulled them towards me. I tried to make sure I was only grabbing it once it had left their range; they would notice if they suddenly stopped being able to hear one another. It required an enormous amount of focus without the System’s help, but I managed it.

“-ost ready, boss. Toni’s pulling up the wagon right now.”

“Good. I want these twerps loaded and out of here before the Guild sends a response to this damn smoke. The fire got way outta hand.”

“Just the Guild? What about—“

“Don’t worry about it. Ya think you lot would calm down after doing these a few times. Just trust me, runt. I got us covered.” The big one ruffled the other’s hair.

I stopped listening.

They’re leaving soon, and they’re taking the kids. They’ve also done this before, so they may have more kids somewhere.

Option 1: fight them now. It risks the hostages and the kids being hurt in the crossfire. Also dicey when Corby is still on his way.

Option 2: I sneak into the group and go with them. Risky as fuck for me, and Corby by extension. But it hopefully keeps everyone else safe. But they could kill the hostages as they leave. Would they? They’d still have the kids as witnesses; killing the parents wouldn’t accomplish much, then. Plus, would killing every parent in a village and abandoning the pre-System kids piss off Pally? And they’d lose the leverage to force the kids to not run away. Okay, so we do this? We do this.

I searched around for Bea, and I found her pulling another villager out of the fire. I sent her a whisper: “Come up here. I have a plan; it’s a dumb one, though.”

She joined me on the roof and I quickly explained my plan and reasoning. She started protesting, but I cut her off as the wagons showed up. Bandits started loading kids.

“No time to argue. Take my badge and my knives. Hopefully, the Guild can track us down. I’ll protect the kids as much as I can in the meantime.”

She took off my badge and knives, then hesitated.

“Hehe, looks like I’ve been disarmed,” I said proudly.

She giggled and relaxed a little before giving me a serious, yet nervous look..

I’m going to mark you with a skill, but I need permission. Do you agree?

“Is it a death pact?”

No! She looked aghast at that.

“Then fine; I trust you.”

She grabbed my face and kissed me.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—

It’s a succubus skill. Sorry. This will let me know where you are so we can find you. I’d never seen her blush so hard before.

No time to focus on hot girl kisses!

I got up and snuck off to the crowd. As much as I hated it, I could still pass for a kid.

I snuck into a group of the older kids and did my best to blend in. The kids all looked at me in shock, but I activated a silence dome.

“I’m an adventurer; I’m coming along to try to keep you safe and locate any other kidnapped kids. My party has a trace on me and will lead help to us. So keep calm, okay?”

The kids nodded and I released the bubble. Before too long, the bandits loaded us into the van. They were surprisingly gentle, considering it was a kidnapping. I glanced over at Bea from the wagon and shrugged my shoulders. She did not appreciate that.

Oh, Corb is gonna be so piiiiiiiissed. Good luck, Bea.

Name: Nymia

Age: 18

Species: Rabbitfolk+ Lv. 57

Class 1: Musical Medic Lv. 31

Class 2: Student of the Unorthodox Blade Lv. 3

Stats:

Bonk: 104+10

Zoom: 241

Sturdy: 92+9

Senses: 238

Brain: 101

Mana: 138

Willpower: 219+124

Free points remaining: 0

Class Skills

* Sound magic Lv. 31

* Soundproof Lv. 25

* Calming Music Lv. 1

* Healing Words Lv. 31

* Medical Knowledge Lv. 18

Class 2 Skills

* Weird Stabbies Lv 3

* Easy Stabbies Lv. 3

* Studying Stabbies Lv. 1

* Zoom Stabs Lv. –

* Must stab weird Lv. –

General Skills

* More Running Lv. 8

* Dodge! Lv 57

* Barefoot Lv 57

* Sneaky Lv 53

* Stubbornness Lv 57

Species Skills

* Rabbit’s Foot

* Enhanced Senses

* Forage

* Burrow

* Cuddles