I pulled the stained glass window open, pointing an arbalest at my unexpected visitors. My face was now hidden behind several layers of cloth and concealed by a thick leather hood and a metal helmet from the smithy. A second set of chainmail sat on my body atop of a few coats to make me appear bulkier.

“Who goes there?” I asked in the scruffiest voice that my young body could muster.

The trio of men looked at me from their mounts. One of them trotted forward, closer to my tree-barrier. The other two followed.

“I am Cecil, we hail from the village Bernt,” the lanky man at the front said, his thin moustache twitching. “A travelling merchant saw from yonder mountain that Svabald lay in ruin and we were sent to investigate. What happened here?”

“We got attacked by a dragon,” I said.

“How many survivors?” Cecil asked.

“Enough to run the pub,” I replied briskly.

I didn’t like the look of the trio. Their scruffy, patchwork armor, sunken faces and greedy glint in their eyes told me that if I took a step outside of the pub, I would be in for a very bad time.

“What is your name?” the man at the front inquired, his voice a bit nasal, as cold air crystallized his breath.

“Ioan,” I replied.

“You should come with us to Bernt, Ioan,” Cecil offered. “This village is lost. You cannot survive here for long. The palisade is gone. We can collect whatever is left of value in the village and…”

“We’ll manage,” I said sharply, not lowering my arbalest. “This is our village and nobody is collecting anything.”

They didn’t need to know that ‘we’ meant Stormy and me.

“I say we rush him from three sides and take everything,” the man on the right leaned in and whispered to Cecil.

It would be impossible for a mundane human to overhear the barely discernible whisper from this distance, but I was a witch who was standing on his domain, which had gradually magnified all of my senses over the past three weeks to the point of being superhuman.

“Look here, Ioan,” the bald man on the right of Cecil growled. “I only spotted one set of footsteps in the snow around the village. You’re here alone. Just come out of the pub and we will take you to safet..."

My heartbeat intensified tenfold.

Time slowed once again as I aimed the arbalest and pulled the trigger. The arrow released from my weapon went right through the bald man’s right eye. As his body started to fall, I pulled the second arbalest from my side belt and shot the man on the left of Cecil.

“Get off the horse, Cecil,” I ordered, pointing a third arbalest at the man’s head.

“Wha…” he blinked, seeing that both of his men were dead.

“Off the horse,” I repeated. “You three ruffians clearly came here to take what is rightfully mine. You can die right now or walk away and let any others know that any future banditry on my property will not be tolerated.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“You can’t just…” Cecil muttered.

“I can do whatever the hell I like to blackguards like you,” I said. “I’m counting to ten and then you’re either off the horse or can enjoy an arrow through the eye. Ten… nine…”

The man quickly jumped off the horse as his face paled.

“Think you can catch up to the merchant?” I asked.

“She will be staying in Bernt for a few days, ye,” Cecil nodded.

“Very good,” I said. “Tell her to bring me eggs and any seeds. I’ll need to replant the fields come spring. Oh... and I want glass bottles.”

“N-nothing will grow here if dragon-flame cursed this land!” Cecil uttered, staring at the corpses of his associates.

“That’s not your problem to worry about,” I pointed out. “Your job is to contact the merchant and tell her to head here. That’s the only reason you’re alive now. Got it?”

The lanky man nodded.

“Off you go then,” I said, pointing at the forest.

“The wolves will eat me,” he said, looking dejected. “I need a horse… I won’t make it back to the Bernt alive if I go on foot.”

“Take the scraggier stallion but leave the bags behind,” I offered. “I’m keeping your mare and stallion.”

“You can’t possibly… survive out here alone!” Cecil blinked. “You’ll just end up eating them!”

“Maybe I’ll have them for lunch,” I shrugged. “None of this is your business anymore. Get on that black spotted horse and be gone from my village.”

I watched as Cecil took the bags off the horse and departed rapidly, not looking back.

“Mrrwl,” Stormy commented from the windowsill.

“Yeah,” I rubbed the back of my head. “I killed someone. I wonder if their souls will head to Zal-Slavi or whatever for being arrowed. Does this count as a battle?”

“Mrrmrm,” the kitten replied, rolling her eyes at me.

“Well, Mrmr right back at you, lass,” I said. “I’ve got horses now. Horses means I can go a lot farther out in my quest for unique specimens. I’m not fishing plants out of the Astral, as I still can’t sense or see the damn spirit world without my Astralscope.”

“Mryaw,” Stormy said.

“Yes,” I sighed. “I know, I’m being impatient.”

In a few minutes I stood over the downed bodies of the bandits, with Stormy sitting on my shoulder.

“You know, now I really feel like an embodiment of a wicked witch,” I told her as I examined the meagre contents of their bags.

“Mrmr,” Stormy agreed.

I slowly approached the nearest horse and offered it some grass from my chest garden.

The horse gobbled up the offered greenery quickly; it looked quite hungry. I fed some grass to the second horse and led both of them into the smithy. The animals turned docile very quickly. Nobody could resist witch-made grass. Stormy nibbled on it herself several times a day, which made her fur extra silky and plush.

I returned to the two bodies and looked at them.

“If heroes can absorb power from the villains they eliminate, then why can’t I?” I asked.

“Mrmrmmmr,” Stormy commented.

“True. I don’t see why the garden can’t eat them,” I said. “From my tests with a few meat slabs from the elk, stuff decomposes extremely rapidly under the assault of the life-rad empowered microorganisms.”

“Mrawr,” the kitten said.

“It’s a dog eat dog world,” I shrugged. “I do feel a bit bad for shooting them, but they would have probably killed or more likely… enslaved me. See that?” I pulled a pair of rust-covered, metal manacles out of one of the saddlebags on the ground. “That’s a collar made for putting on people, my fuzzy friend. In a world without machines people serve as the general workforce. I’m honestly quite lucky that these guys are such piss-poor bandits and aren’t magically augmented like me.”

I had no idea if the kitten understood what I was saying.

I was mostly chatting with Stormy to keep from going crazy. Maybe I was already a bit crazy.

I grabbed the nearest body by its boots and began to drag it into the pub.