“I shouldn’t do this again,” I muttered to myself, trying to suppress the burning pain all over my body.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” Thea agreed with a grimace. “But you will do it, anyway.”

“What can I say? It was the right deci- Be more careful!”

I gave a wince of pain as Thea cleaned another wound on my back. Although cleaning only involved scraping the dirt out of the cuts with a boiled linen cloth. No medical care, but only the bare minimum. The few available herbs had been used for the urgent cases, so my body needed to fend any infection off on its own.

I sighed and shifted my body on the uncomfortable bed of pricking straw and dirty linen. Another point for the Earth’s medicine.

Five, maybe ten minutes.

That was the effective period of my new Fortress skill. At least according to Thea and Drew, who had watched over my body. The duration until I kicked and moaned despite my unconsciousness. Given the distorted perception of time on a battlefield, I settled on five minutes.

Five minutes of invincibility.

But also five minutes of lurching around.

Fortress only activated when its owner would die otherwise, but by this time one would have already used up all other possibilities. Heightened stamina was only a drop of water in the desert of consumption.

Two more Heavy Strikes, a few steps towards the Púca, and some forced poses and cries. A minute of drama was enough to scare the Púca away. And the remaining leprechauns followed. Hence my slaughter had ended with only three more leprechauns before I fainted, leaning against a wall.

And had it not been for Drew leading a few of the farmers in a pursuit, the leprechauns might just have turned around and killed my defenseless body. Although their chase ended at the village’s border with no further kills, it displayed enough dominance and obscured my collapsed body.

The leprechauns were gone. At least for now.

I didn’t know when they would return.

And I also didn’t know when I could use Fortress again. An unknown cooldown for a life-saving skill. Talk about dangerous. And I would only understand its limitations after I died to an attack. That wasn’t really… reassuring.

So for all upcoming plans, I still had to act like Fortress didn’t exist. It would probably be fine in a year, but would it work after a month? A week? A day? Even a few hours during large-scale battles?

I lacked information. Not only with the skill, but with everything. What was with the discrepancies between this world and the game’s storyline? Why would the sword maiden appear in this unknown city? And would the monsters continue to behave like in the game? Would magic follow the same rules and limitations? There was too much I didn’t understand. Even my location on the world’s map was a mystery.

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Furthermore I also didn’t know whether this group of leprechauns was a scouting or a raiding force, so our problems were merely postponed.

Bought time, payed with the lives of fourteen farmers. Eleven more wouldn’t survive the coming nights. And another twenty became crippled, someone even losing an arm.

A brief postponement, bought with the everyday life of nearly half the men.

The only time I was happy about the interface’s absence. A joyful victory tune wouldn’t feel appropriate.

Heavy foot steps entered the hut I and the other slightly injured rested in.

“Leader,” Drew still addressed me the same. “You have a visitor.”

Another set of footsteps. Light, even weak.

“I rushed here with all my might,” a familiar voice greeted me. “But it seems you managed without me.”

“Master Bernier.” I forced myself to sit upright, signaling Thea to halt her work. “Why are you here?”

Shouldn’t he guard Gladford? Or help the mercenaries at their outpost?

“I also wonder about that,” he answered with a sad smile. “It seems I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?”

“An apology.” He nodded. “My Freiherr Houdin ordered me to follow you, supporting you during this struggle. I left just a day behind you, but I am not familiar with the southern villages. So I wandered around aimlessly, asking for directions, but the other villages had never heard of you. I could only rush here after I had learned of this village, but it was too late. It is my fault that so many innocent men had to die here, I’m truly sorry.”

Master Bernier, an Ablazed One, bowed deeply in front of me.

“No, no, you don’t have to.” I tried to stop him. “Your thought alone honors us.”

A natural gifted magician like Master Bernier was a reservoir for nature’s soul, the game’s version of mana. It would allow those rare individuals to connect with the laws of the world and change them temporarily, bringing change to their surroundings. Their magic dwarfed both skills and the mystic cards players used. But in exchange, each strike would consume the energy they had collected.

As a natural fire based magician, Master Bernier could create fire in any shape or form. But to create one gram of fire for a single second would consume energy proportional to the radiated heat. Energy that had to be consumed first. But while a campfire could emit massive amounts of heat, only a tiny amount was absorbed by the human body. Hence creating a single magic attack would require endless hours of sweat-soaked meditation.

Each move of a natural gifted magician was akin to a one-hit kill with a sheer endless cooldown. A disadvantage that the sword maiden solved when she trusted an outlawed maniac, introducing the card system in the game.

I frowned.

Master Bernier assisting us in battle would waste weeks and months of preparation. And Freiherr Houdin wouldn’t be willing to pay that price for a few farming villages. He had already shown his disregard with the recruits’ positioning. There had to be another reason.

So why would Master Bernier stand before me?

“Rhoslyn told me about you,” Master Bernier responded with a smile. “So it might have been my honor to fight along your men.”

Why would he bring up Rhoslyn? She couldn’t command him. And her words shouldn’t be enough to sway Freiherr Houdin either. Did they know about our connection? If so, was this their attempt to control me? Would I become his target if I didn’t comply?

“Then I must thank her.” I answered, forcing another smile. “And Freiherr Houdin, too. May I ask you to convey our feelings of gratitude?”

“With the danger gone, there’s no reason for that.”

He fixed his posture and addressed me with a solemn gaze.

“Vinetar Aki. You are hereby ordered to follow me back to Gladford. Our Freiherr Houdin wants to see you.”