"To Brimbrom? Who are you, are you an adventurer?" she said with a cautious expression and a tone that tried too hard to imply fear. Really? After being kidnapped by orcs, and possibly tortured or raped by them, she was afraid of one guy who clearly had fought against the orcs and was offering her food? What a cheap trick. She was playing the victim so hard that I almost mistook her for a feminist. She wanted protection and was using her feminine tactics to gauge my disposition, so I made it clear for her:

"Yes, I am adventurer. Rescue you, take you to Brimbrom, get reward. Orcs kill my friends, kill your father, we try to save you."

"My father, what do you mean?!"

"I mean your father dead. Orcs kill him. Not complicated."

"By the Light, I... I understand. Where is his body? I must at least bury him properly."

"Can't do, too many orcs. They capture you again, I not save you again."

"Please! You have to let me see him! I'm begging you," she said, clinging to me like girls do in dramatic anime scenes.

"You can go alone. I go to Brimbrom," I replied, and she kept on the teary face for only a few more seconds before shifting to a cold expression in a single heartbeat. I turned around and started walking back, making my way to the outside of the temple through a passage and a room where the first defensive line of the orcs must have been. The girl stayed where she was, and I wondered if she'd really go and open the bloodgate again to check on her father. It was a worrisome thought not because of her safety, but mine. What if the guardians, whatever they were, came out into the open? What if the orcs had managed to win and were looking for vengeance? What if Bastian wasn't dead? He could tell the people of Brimbrom that I betrayed him, or come looking for payback. I was an evil bastard now and I had to start planning like one to survive, but what was I to do? The girl was my only hope of learning the secret of that underground chamber, so killing her would be a waste. Besides, her magical powers were still unknown, so I couldn't just risk getting obliterated before even spending the gold I'd collected in this adventure!

Thinking about such things I made my way back to the mountain path and stopped briefly to look at the sky and prepare my mind for the journey. I'd just have to take the same route, but backward. Easy, right? The weather was pleasant, the sky was bright and blue, the weeds were swaying in the wind like nothing had even happened. I knew this was a victory for me, but a subtle hint of doubt kept swirling in my head. I decided to enjoy this wonderful world while it lasted and continued walking. No more than a minute later, I heard footsteps far behind me and knew by pure instinct who it was. Of course I turned my head to check, no adventurer can be so careless and I didn't intend to let myself get ambushed in the wild. The girl had come running and when she caught up to me, she said:

"Mister adventurer! I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking properly back there. What's your name?"

"Your name first," I said after giving her an annoyed glance.

"Oh, right, how silly of me! I'm Sabrina, pleased to meet you."

"I am Bawb."

"Bawb, thank you for saving me. I was just scared and... confused, you know? It's still a shame that I can't even bury my father, but I understand."

"Your father brave, he kill many orcs. Be happy."

"Right, you're right. Are we headed back to Brimbrom now? I'm exhausted, to be honest, but anything is better than the stinky ruins full of corpses."

I wanted to say 'you couldn't be any more generic even if you tried,' but my lexicon hadn't reached that level yet, so I settled for "Yes. You are sorceress?" and you already guessed what she did in response: her expression hardened, she clutched at her chest as if trying to supress the painful memories and looked away before answering:

"I am. It is my curse. I never asked for this magic, you know. Never asked for any of this."

"Magic is good. It kill orcs."

"No, it's not. We shouldn't be killing anyone, orcs, humans or else! The only thing magic has done is destroy my life, and now my family too."

Oh, she certainly was a sorceress. Just listening to her made me feel like she'd cast a debuff on my intelligence, I could almost taste the soy frappuccino in the air.

"Then stay with orcs. Is fun, yes? Orcs is your friends," I said laughing. She went into a rage, stood in front of me to cut me off and pointed a finger at my chest.

"The only reason this happened is because of that damned magic! Because of something I didn't choose, now my father is dead along with the townsmen who tried to defend their homes. You have no idea of what I went through, what I'm still going through, so don't you dare mock me!"

Yes, the experience was probably painful for her and a veritable tragedy for those other people involved, including my short-lived adventuring comrades, but magic was an absolute marvel and nobody would convince me of the contrary. This world was my playground, whether I succeeded or failed, lived or died, suffered or caused suffering, it didn't change a thing. And since I was already a wanted laboratory abomination and the thrill of battle still had me high, letting some wench shout me into submission was not an option. I made to walk around her and continue on my way, but she stepped in front of me every time and grabbed my arm.

"Let go. I warn you."

"I don't care! I was trying to be nice to you because you were supposed to protect me, but now I see you're just a heartless monster who only thinks about killing!"

That wasn't true, I was also interested in looting. I tugged my arm away from her and kept walking, saying:

"If I am bad, you go back to Brimbrom alone. Good luck."

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After taking a few steps, I heard movement on the ground behind me and turned to look just in case. Couldn't let the teenage girl throw a rock to the back of my head now, could I? It shouldn't have surprised me, but it still did: she had dropped to her knees and begun crying. Soon it became no less than a tantrum, with screams and kicks to the air while rolling on the ground. I kept walking and, of course, she got up and chased me.

"You're not going anywhere, you can't just leave me here!"

"I can. I do."

"You monster! Bastard!" she screamed, and in that moment I turned around by pure instinct as if a jolt of current had startled me, just in time to see her eyes glowing pink as a wave of colorful mist sprayed forth from her hands. I knew that spell, and it was nasty. I wasn't able to dodge, and the mist passed through me like heavy drops of water. I made my best effort to resist it, but it wasn't enough. In an instant my vision went black.

When I regained consciousness, I still couldn't see or move my body. Was I dead? Was it Game Over? Sleeping hadn't sent me back to my original world, but if the girl had decided to slit my throat like I did to those orcs, it'd be reasonable to think I might have gone to the endless void, or to Hell. It must've been only a few seconds, but the uncertainty made me anxious to the point where I started to plan how to return to this world in case I got sent back to mine. Slowly I recovered my vision and saw the blue sky above, then my entire body began to respond and I got up faster than expected. My armor was in place and I still had my club, but my spear and my bag were gone. I looked around immediately and saw the stupid girl running further down the path with my spear in one hand and my bag hanging across her chest.

Such foolishness. She must've wanted me to kill her, why else would she provoke me like that? I started jogging in pursuit, knowing that she would get tired much sooner than I, so as long as I kept her in my sight it was impossible for her to escape. Luckily, the terrain favoured me with good visibility. I grabbed a pebble and threw it at her with the full intent to hit her in the head. However, my throw missed by a considerable margin. No matter, the road to Brimbrom was more than long enough.

As I ran, a powerful burning sensation spread throughout my body and made itself hard to ignore. It was pleasant and much more intoxicating than the normal feeling of excercise, so I wondered if it sprang from some primal instinct of the hunt or it had anything to do with my prey being a woman, hormones and all. I sensed the pulsating energy of the entire world as if I had reached a higher level of awareness, an unbreakable connection to the ether. Was this what monks felt after years of meditation? Maybe that spell had short-circuited my brain and was causing some trippy side effects. Whatever it was, it made me feel even stronger than before and all I did was hope that this powerup would last.

Exactly as predicted, the girl's pace began to slow down sharply soon after arriving at the foot of the mountain. Catching up to her was inevitable now, and she knew it. Even if she entered the forest, her only chance to escape was to beat me in a fight, and that wasn't going to happen. She suddenly started rummaging through my bag, still trying to run at the same time, and I took offense. I sprinted and tackled her before she could pull anything out of the bag, and we both fell to the ground violently, with me on top. I made no effort to cushion her fall, being both angry and focused on retrieving my stuff. I pinned both of her arms above her head and she started screaming for help, which made me act rashly to silence her. Up in the mountain it didn't matter if she screamed because nobody was around to hear it, all thanks to the orcs, but out here near the forest it was a different scenario. Adventurers, hunters, animals or new monsters, I couldn't just let her attract that kind of attention. So, as any reasonable gentleman would, I headbutted her.

My blow broke her nose to the side, but it wasn't enough to shut her up. For a brief moment I got distracted with a peculiar thought: how come the orcs hadn't broken her nose already? If she was struggling this much just to get away from me, a human who had saved her and only said a few mean things, it was only natural to assume that she'd put up an even fiercer fight against a band of killer monsters. Perhaps the orcs hadn't cared about her screams and thus felt no need to use much violence, but that seemed to be an incomplete argument.

"Give bag, or I hit you again," I said, trying to look around without letting her notice it. If she knew that her screams made me the slightest bit nervous, she'd never stop.

"Let me go! Let me go, you monster, you fiend, you despicable rapist!"

Rapist? Where had that come from? Perhaps this wench had some unfortunate fetishes; that would actually answer a few important questions. Whatever the case, this girl had an overblown image of herself if she thought that I was interested in raping her. As insulting as her assumption was for me, a sudden urge pushed me to take a step in a dangerous direction: I laughed and said to her "I not rape ugly wenches, only pretty wenches. Give bag, ugly pig." If any do-gooder adventurers had heard me, they would've surely attacked without hesitation, but luck was on my side.

Like a seesaw, she suddenly flipped into her other mode: crying. She surrendered and let go of the bag while sobbing and snorting, slowly babbling on "Please... please let me go. Just let me go. Please! Let me go..." I was going to take her back to the town, until she decided to act like an insufferable brat and I decided to treat her as such, but now she was trying to paint me as her captor? The sheer annoyance of this idiot made me want to kill her for real, and when the thought crossed my mind I somehow committed to it and began to see it not only as a possibility, but a good solution. After all, she knew my name and would probably spin a crazy lie once I brought her back to Brimbrom. I had gone there to avoid capture in Surom, but the news would soon spread and the lies of a woman would only make everything harder.

Could I just forget about Brimbrom and travel in a random direction? Could I take the girl with me to avoid killing her? It would also be harder than simply ending her now, because I'd have to keep constant watch on my belongings and sleep with one eye open. Bad idea. Something was pulsating. The bag, I could feel the magic inside of it. I grabbed my spear and held it to the girl's throat, still sitting on top of her. With the other hand I checked the contents of my bag to make sure nothing was missing. The scrolls, the potion of protection, I felt their magical power as clearly as the heat from an oven. There was another thing, a silver brooch that I had picked up from Holdreda's corpse thinking it'd fetch a good price. It radiated magical power!

How had this happened? That spell had given me the ability to perceive magic. Was it some sort of side effect? An awakening? Yes, that had to be it. As soon as the thought appeared in my mind, I felt absolutely certain of it: I was a sorcerer. Whether it had always been in my blood or it was caused by something else, I didn't know. For now I didn't need to know where the power came from, only how to use it. I closed the bag and hung it securely across my chest, then I stood up and said to the sobbing woman:

"Teach me magic, I let you live. Teach not, I kill you now."

"What? I can't teach you magic, I'm a sorceress. I don't even know how to control it!"

"You used spell, tell me how."

"I don't know. I don't know!" she started, and immediately went back to crying when I pressed the spear lightly against her neck.

"One chance. Tell me."

"Please, I don't know! Please. I just feel when it's about to happen, then it happens, that's it."

"You feel? No control?"

"No, no control! So please let me go."

Useless. I stabbed the woman's throat and held her down until she stopped writhing. Looking at her limp body I felt nothing more than a trace of worry, which vanished when I looked around and saw nobody. Thus the mission was officially a failure: treasure sealed, comrades betrayed, maiden murdered. At least it was fun and I managed to get a nice pile of golden coins that made me wonder about its purchasing power. Would I be able to buy tasty food with it? Perhaps a better suit of armor.