Neither Helianna nor Yosh were capable of performing the proper death rites for Eann, so they slung his body over one of the horses. Death rites pervaded every culture throughout the planet, but people believed if they weren’t performed differed. Here, people believed that without the rites, the person’s soul would wander the planet until their mana eventually died out. Personally, Helianna didn’t care what they believed the rites prevented, as long as they performed them.

As two of them rode back to town, conversation was sparse and she had plenty of time to think for herself. She thought about how her decision resulted in Eann’s death and found herself… disappointed. He had been useful and it was a needless death. However, she couldn’t bring herself to feel any more about him.

She knew it was wrong and she should care more, but she just didn’t. She wondered when that happened and how? She hadn’t killed much for The Academy yet so it wasn’t just an oversaturation of death in her life. Yes, they had required her to kill a number of times in various ways, including defenseless people, but that didn’t justify this lack of feeling.

Maybe they had been manipulating her like the other ithrax, but in more mundane ways. Changing her into a mindless killer. At first, that seemed likely. However, Jayen and his team should have been affected by that as well then, right? If they were being manipulated both emotionally and magically, there’s no way they would be able to see through it. That left a final option, one that she didn’t want to think about. Maybe this is just who she was, and The Academy simply brought it to the surface.

She tried to keep these thoughts out of her mind, but Yosh was not very communicative and provided no helpful distractions for her. It appeared as if he had never had an ally die before. The ride remained suffocatingly silent until they neared the city. As they were approaching, they heard screaming and they immediately sped up without a word. When they arrived at the scene, Helianna saw something before her that she’d never witnessed.

It was clearly a monster from the dungeon break as the creations within dungeons did not match any creatures of the real world. It had its back to them, the hulking figure standing at easily a dozen feet tall. It had pale but perfect skin that any model would be jealous of, which was covering bulging muscles. Despite being unable to see the front of the creature, she immediately knew what it was. While dealing with dungeons was unlikely given her position, she had still been taught all of the different dungeon creatures and how to counter them. This one was a troll.

Trolls were unique creatures. They had enormous strength, but were slow to use it. For humanoid creatures, they were fairly simple-minded, but that automatically made them smarter than the average dungeon beast. Their biggest danger was their insane regeneration. While their body had little defenses, they regenerated quickly and flawlessly, supposedly the reason for their perfect skin. Fighting them was typically fairly easy for a trained fighter thanks to their slow and telegraphed swings. If you lost focus and got hit, that was another story. Killing them often took so long due to their regeneration that people inevitably screwed up, which is how trolls got their notorious reputation. Fighting them solo was considered somewhat suicidal, but thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about death like most people.

The information flew through her head as the carriage careened down the street. She climbed atop the carriage and pulled out her daggers, horrible weapons for fighting a troll, and prepared to jump. The carriage screamed past the troll but she had already jumped off and had latched onto the troll’s shoulders. She used the momentum of her flight to bury her daggers deep in the back of the troll’s neck, instantly severing his spine.

He instantly collapsed to the ground and she rode his body down, hoping the people he was attacking got out of the way. She jumped off as he neared the ground, being sure to clear the people prone below her. Unfortunately, not everyone got out of the way and several people were pinned underneath the troll. Seeing her knives still sticking out of his neck, she rushed towards the troll.

His regeneration was hard at work and her knives were already being pushed out of his body. She pulled out two more knives and started repeatedly slashing his neck, hoping to keep him immobilized while draining his regenerative capabilities. She knew she didn’t have the strength or leverage to break through his cranium and attack his brain, so the next best target to sap his regeneration was his neck. Her knives scored several damaging strikes, but they weren’t enough and he got his full movement back.

The troll swung a meaty arm straight at her legs, and Helianna jumped, barely clearing the swing. She threw in her knives in quick succession, burying them in the eyes that were now locked on her. A roar reverberated through her, hiding the sound of her first two knives finally clattering to the ground. The beast stood up as he took another swing at her that she barely ducked under. She dove between his legs, slashing the backs of both heels and continued running, ensuring he didn’t have a chance to stomp on her.

As she turned to see him, her eyes widened. While still on his knees, the troll had picked up two people who had been squashed beneath him in Helianna’s initial attack. Their screams rose in volume as the troll threw them in random directions, unable to see where Helianna was. A person nearly collided with Helianna, but she managed to dodge and tried to ignore the gruesome sounds of people slamming into walls at high speeds.

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Hoping to take advantage of the troll’s blindness, she rushed towards him and stabbed him several times in the sides. Unable to dodge the resulting elbow, she flew backwards with a quiet crack of her ribs fracturing. A resounding ‘oof’ escaped her mouth as the wind was knocked out of her and she rolled for several yards.

It took her a dangerous second to come to her senses and breathe again, only to see the troll also regaining his eyesight. His eyes locked on her once more as she stood up and he roared again. He picked up another injured woman and threw her at Helianna. Unable to dodge the flailing limbs fast enough, she received a blow to the shoulder from a swinging arm, a hit that she could feel reverberate through her body and exacerbate her broken ribs. She ran towards the troll and threw a knife at his face, prompting him to block it with an arm. Taking advantage of his line of sight being blocked, she picked up her first two knives off the floor and stabbed up into his crotch.

His instant reaction was to slam his legs together and bring his arms down, which she only partially dodged. The unintentional blow rattled through her skull and her vision instantly swam. It knocked her to the ground, and she was certain it was over. As her vision cleared however, she saw the troll still bleeding and wheezing from her previous blow and she realized it was nearly over. He must have taken damage before she arrived and combined with her severing his spine in the beginning, his regeneration was running out. She quickly stood up and retrieved her daggers, but she immediately regretted her hastiness as her vision swam once more and she nearly lost her balance. After a moment to regain herself, she took the time to aim and threw her knife, aiming for his neck.

Her aim failed her however thanks to her injuries and it nailed him right in the cheek. Thankfully, the pain still irradiated from his crotch and combined with the new hit to the cheek, he fell to his knees once more. Helianna shakily walked up to him and slashed his throat. He swung at her one last time and in her addled state, Helianna never saw it coming. Thankfully, the swing was weak and sent her to the ground instead of across the room again. The troll was no longer able to regenerate, but still wanted revenge.

It stumbled to its feet, barely able to walk from the pain and weakness of blood loss. He took one painful step forward before someone tackled his legs from behind, sending the troll to the ground. There he laid as he bled out from his wounds. Meanwhile, Helianna was still trying to recover from the final blow and barely noticed what was happening. She had little experience fighting monsters, mostly focusing on humans and it showed. She struggled to form coherent thoughts as a voice rang through her skull.

“Holly?”

It took her a moment to realize someone was calling for her. That was her alias. She slowly turned her head to look at where the voice came from and saw Yosh standing over her.

“Took… your time… didn’t you?” He hesitantly nodded before leaning down and helping her to her feet.

“Let’s get you some help.” She started to nod, but instantly stopped when the vertigo returned.

“Yeah. Whatever… ithrax… was sent to fix this… failed.”

Yosh nodded and the two of them started stumbling forward, moving to reunite with their carriages. However, after only a few steps there was a thunk and Yosh suddenly collapsed to the ground groaning, taking Helianna with him. She slowly turned to Yosh and saw blood coming from the back of his head and turned further. There stood two men, one holding a slightly bloodied brick in his hands. The one holding the brick looked human, but she could have been convinced he was davraki given his enormous size. The other was a much more normal human and despite her vision still addled, she could see the leer on his face.

“What? Why?” Helianna asked. The larger man smiled in a way that made Helianna distinctly uncomfortable, but it was the smaller one who responded.

“Because we can.”

The large man moved forward and she snapped her leg out, catching him on the inside of the knee. He grunted and dropped to a knee, but when she tried to scramble to her feet, she stumbled due to her lack of balance. The man took the opportunity to push her hard, knocking her to the ground where she hit her head again and groaned. At this point, it would be a miracle if she had a simple concussion. The man moved forward and kneeled down on top of her, pinning her legs with his body and her hands with his own.

“Why now? The city is in danger… and I can clearly help.” The small man kneeled down close to her face and she recoiled from the smell of booze.

“Why now? Now’s the perfect time. Sexy bitches like you are tired and weak and there’s nobody else around to stop us. Now…” The man bent down, mockingly puckering his lips as if to kiss her. In response she headbutted him in the face before laying back, her vision red. The man stumbled back and yelled.

“Piece of shit!” Now angry, the large man yanked her arms together while she was still stunned so he could hold them with one hand. A domineering smile filled his face.

“Please stop,” she begged with her eyes shut tight. She was trying to fight back but between her current weakness and his massive size bearing down on her, she couldn’t do anything.

As if he had listened to her command, his grip instantly loosened. She opened her eyes to look at him and instead of the same evil smile, there was emptiness. His body instead sported a headless stump where neck should be.

Completely unaware of where his head was, she looked around and saw the other man dying as well, a sword going through his heart. She followed the path of the sword and saw two people standing there that she recognized. It took her a few seconds to place them due to her slow thoughts, but then it hit her like a carriage. It was the same two ithrax that she had saved on her previous mission.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered as she passed out.