Hilda sends a message to my sister and Nikki while we leave the bandit behind, bound to the tree. It doesn’t take long at all before we meet up again.

“Wow Sam, is that really you?” My sister starts smiling when she sees the tanned catgirl next to me holding my hand.

“Yep! It’s a little bit of a change of pace. Plus, if my girlfriend is a catgirl I kinda want to know what it’s like to be one myself.” She squeezes my hand.

“Well, you definitely look fantastic, although I’m a bit miffed you are taller than me now.”

Nikki talks behind the back of her hand. “Her insecurities are going to start acting up again.”

“Haha, thanks.” Sam smiles. “So, where are we heading?”

Hilda takes out her map and shows it to Sam. “The city of Skaok, the capital of Reykland, right now we are over here, at Sinmaa.” She points at our location.

“Wow, that’s still quite the distance.”

“It definitely is.” Hilda puts away her map again. “The new players will mostly be spawning in the Vinavian Empire so we wanted to get out there to avoid the rush.”

“And we’re going to explore a new continent!” I enthusiastically tell my girlfriend.

“Oh, that sounds cool.” Sam squeezes my hand.

“Yep, and in the meantime we might be able to figure more things about Ami’s skills and let her try to learn how to control it. Speaking of which,” Hilda looks at me. “Did you notice anything when you saw the bandit?”

I think back about the little encounter from earlier. “Uh, not really? Sam already solved it, so...”

“So it doesn’t get triggered by just seeing a bad person… maybe if he had hurt Sam…”

The situation flashes before my mind yet again, this time with the bandit standing over my girlfriend, a gash in her arm. My mind gets clouded by a red mist, and I can feel my muscles tensing up as I ball my fists.

“Ami.” Sam places her hand on my shoulder, which almost immediately calms me down again.

“Whatever you were thinking about, it was working.” Hilda comments. “The entire area around you was getting incredibly menacing.”

“I was thinking about Sam getting hurt…”

Sam gives me a quick hug.

“And the other times when it happened also involved Sam, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“So the skill also gets activated because of your will to protect your loved ones.”

“I think so too…”

Hilda smiles and pats my head. “So that’s at least one thing we know. Let’s carefully test out other possibilities when we get further away from this place.”

“Yeah, we don’t want to stay here for long, we don’t want to take our chances with these bandits.” My sister rests her hand on the pommel of her sword.

“Let’s go then. We’ve got a lot of walking to do today.” Hilda takes her hand off my head and starts walking back to the road. “The next stop is at a village called Parma.”

“Hmm, maybe they have some special ham there.” My mouth starts watering.

Hilda chuckles. “I doubt it, but we can always ask.”

Our group starts following the road on a fairly uneventful hike towards the village of Parma, until after a couple of hours Hilda veers of the road and stops next to a white stone.

“Hey Ami, look at this.”

Sam looks over to me with a questioning look on her face, which I respond to with a shrug.

The two of us walk over while Nikki and Élise sit down to take a small break.

“Is there something special about that rock?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Remember when I talked about the autonomous area that was created after the big war?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Well, this is the border marker.”

“Aaah.”

Sam still looks a bit confused so Hilda gives her a small overview of what happened here.

Sam puts her hand on her chin. “Hmm, interesting, but I would expect border guards in such an important area, no?”

“That’s true but they might have pulled those back to avoid relighting the conflict.”

“Fair, I guess. So are we taking a break now?”

Hilda looks over to Nikki and Élise. “Well, it looks like it.”

“Hey, keeping your tank filled is very important for adventurers!” Élise is talking with her mouth full. “Want some beef jerky, sis?” She sticks out her hand with a very nice looking piece.

“Yesh please!” I rush over and take it from her hand.

Hilda and Sam are giggling behind my back. “Alright, but let’s head out again in 10 minutes ok? I would like to get to Parma before it gets dark.” Hilda sits herself down on the bordermarker and takes her water flask out while handing Sam some of her rations.

Exactly ten minutes later we are back on the road again, although this time still nibbling on some super tasty beef jerky. According to our glorious leader Hilda we should be able to get to Parma in two to three hours.

“This party has a pretty high pace, doesn’t it?” Sam asks me.

“Hmm, yeah, Hilda likes getting a move-on. Are you getting tired?”

“Not really.” Sam smiles. “This body has quite a lot of endurance luckily enough, and I like the extra agility you get too!”

“I know right!”

“So now I know why cartwheeling comes so easily to you.” Sam boops my nose to which I can hear Nikki and my sister starting to giggle.

“Buuu.” I pout. “It’s better than falling on my face.”

“That’s true, sweetie. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” She quickly kisses my cheek, making me blush.

After approximately another two hours, something catches the attention of Sam and I: the distinct smell of fire.

“Do you smell that too, Sam?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?” Hilda asks.

“So I wasn’t the only one…” Nikki comments.

Both me and Sam look over to Nikki.

“Sam and I are smelling fire, what about you?”

“For the last five minutes I’ve been getting a distinct sense of blood coming from that direction.” She points towards a bit to the left of the road, through the trees.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Élise puts her hand on her sword.

“I wasn’t sure what it meant, I’ve not encountered it this strong before, but now that these two are smelling fire…”

“Parma is under attack…” Hilda finishes her sentence and starts jogging, the rest of us follow.

We round the corner in the road, overlooking a valley in which Parma is situated. a dozen or so houses are on fire with almost just as many already burnt down to the ground. It’s clear, even from here that people are still fighting in the streets.

“Let’s go!” Élise takes the lead, our entire party running behind her towards the village.

We arrive at the outer edge of the village and find a bloodied guard fighting a bandit who is wielding a two-handed axe. The bandit takes a swing and manages to knock the blade out of the hand of the guard, but before he can finish him off, Sam quickly takes him out with an arrow to the throat.

The guard collapses to his knees. “Thank the gods.”

I look over to Hilda and she gives me a nod, I immediately start casting a couple of healing spells on him.

“The rest of the bandits just ran past me into the village, go help them, I’ll be fine.”

“How many of them are there?” Élise asks while running past him.

“Too many to count.”

After my healing the guard takes his sword again and starts following us, be it a bit slower.

On the way to the village center we find a couple villagers who have been hurt in the attack, who I promptly cast a healing spell on, but others weren’t quite that fortunate. People of all genders, races and ages have been hurt indiscriminately. For a second I stand still with an elderly couple who had been slain in the middle of the road, my fist clenching my staff in anger.

“If you start casting resurrection spells now you won’t be able to help the others…” Élise comments with a sad tone in her voice.

“I know, that’s what pisses me off.” I grit my teeth, a familiar red haze clouds my vision yet again, however this time I feel a lot more in control than last time.

“Ami?” When my sister calls out my name the rest of the group looks back at me.

“Go on, I’ll be heading in first…” I feel my wings fold out of my back as I hear the clanging of the black armour plates on my body. Last but not least my staff gets surrounded by dark aether and takes the form of a dark longsword, after which I take off to the skies, where I can behold the destruction even better than before.

-I will put a stop to this madness… -

A group of seven bandits is pushing around a little Nekote girl only 150 meters away from me, toying with her as if she were a doll. The little girl is crying and has blood on her dress.

“Who's going to save you now, huh, your daddy?” They laugh and point at an adult male Nekote lying on the floor next to her.

I dive down with meteoric speed and crash into the bandit right in front of the girl, sending him flying against the wall of the village temple with a satisfying thud.

“I am, and it is now time to pay for your sins.”

The bandits appear to be frozen in fear, so I kneel to the little girl and give her a comforting headpat. “Close your eyes and cover your ears, will you, sweetie?”

The girl nods and does as I asked.

I stand back up again and raise my sword with a malevolent grin on my face. “You will regret ever having set foot in this village.”