The roads weren’t kind to a child, but I was a child with a sword, so the roads could suck these cheeks. That right there was a motto to live by, I should get myself quoted saying that. Become one of those old scholarly fucks and choke on my dwindling relevance to society, that’d certainly be the life.

  Instead I had to deal with this shit, bunch of dead goblins and their ears. I didn’t have to cut them down but…well, my new connection kind of told me where they were, and I had something of a duty to rid their kind from the world. Turned out they did fight back if I attacked them! Didn’t matter to me though, if it was too big of a group I just left them alone.

  My new spell was mighty useless when using a sword, considering a stronger swing just led to a duller blade. Which was starting to become a problem. Sure, between destroyed villages (of which there were many, good job Arr’koro! You rancid cunt.) there were smithies where I could maintain or replace my weapon but eventually I would need to pay for that. When I got somewhere that wasn’t overrun.

  I was of half a mind to just start being a pugilist, if only to save the effort. Maybe my spell would actually be useful beyond studying then? It only made me…twice as strong if I pushed all the mana I could into it? I didn’t really know, measuring strength was difficult when I had nothing convenient to help figure it out.

  Maybe when I got older and can handle more of a burden, then I could forgo a weapon. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?

  Little old Yir, punching off heads like a fucking idiot.

  Fuck I needed to find other people, if only for the sake of my sanity.

  I cleansed my blade of goblin blood and headed back on the path, Anik was supposed to be to the north. Somewhere. So that was where I was heading! Sifting through destroyed villages for food to fuel my career as an intrepid vagabond. I planned on joining one of the guilds, hopefully there was a delver's guild but I’d settle for the hunters if I had to.

  I might’ve been young but well… I wasn’t that young, all things considered, and I didn't really have much of a choice. Not if I still wanted to survive Armageddon. Besides, I probably hit twelve sometime in the last few weeks.

  Happy birthday to me? I didn’t know.

  I didn’t know a lot those days, but that was just part of life, I didn’t even know where I was going if I was being honest. I might’ve been looping back and forth, crisscrossing the same terrain as I wandered and killed and trained. Or perhaps I was actually getting closer to my destination, or maybe I was past it. Who knew really? Not like I had a map, and I couldn’t exactly read the signs.

  Something I had to remedy.

  Fuck, I was starting to sound like my mother.

  That…brought unpleasant memories, so I chose to think of something else. I’d been doing some physical conditioning, considering I didn’t have the smithy to do it for me anymore. Every morning and every night, just burpees, the best exercise. Well, best for my body. Worst for my sanity. So there was that.

  The frequent encounters with goblins had been good practice for my swordsmanship, alongside the occasional dire wolf. Those tended to leave once I nicked them, smart buggers. A part of me had been dreaming of finding a dungeon somewhere out there in the wild and just going to town. That part of me was an idiot. Just ‘cause I could actively manipulate my mana and had a spell didn’t mean I was any good with proper monsters.

  I sensed a few of those, light suggestions on my mind that I chose to heed rather than ignore. The first was a Rondu Boar, which was named after some fuckface named Rondu. I’d run into a few of those but the first was on fucking fire and somehow not burning down the whole forest.

  Then there was the Dollman, a caricature of a person with no face and skin of clean porcelain. I only found one and holy fuck did I hope to never find another. Those things were mid-game enemies, and could take on a Junior Knight. Not something I stood a chance against.

  Scale wolves were exactly what they sound like, a chimera dog of reptilian persuasion. Looked more like a mastiff than a wolf but whatever. Kit’s even showed up a few times! Cute little rabbit. I was honestly surprised that the thing was still alive.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  So, needless to say, I had plenty of opportunities to fight something truly dangerous, and I avoided them at every turn, because fuck that!

  So I travelled, the final destination squirrelled away in my mind with no real compass but the sun. All that mattered was my training, all that mattered was getting stronger. So it was to my surprise when I crested a hill and found grand walls of limestone in the distance. Organized into something resembling a prism to surround houses and bodies alike, keeping them safe in the embrace of society.

  I found a city, and notably there weren’t any goblins.

  Now, if this was the city I didn’t know, but a city’s a city’s a place to stay. Didn’t have to be Anik, though it most likely was. For a traitorous moment I wondered if I should turn around, go back to wandering villages full of corpses and continue my training. I wouldn’t have to deal with people, wouldn’t have to think of consequences. I could rove for as long as I liked until some semblance of civilization returned to the countryside.

  The city would have plenty of questions for how I survived, ones I should have thought of before now but…well everything had been a bit of a haze honestly, and I kind of liked it that way. The sight of the city was giving me some unwanted clarity.

  But it was weakness that wanted an escape, it was cowardice that refused to see.

  So I walked down the road, multiple coinpurses filled to the brim with the bounty of my scavenging that would last me plenty of time before I had to make any true decision. And I could sleep on a bed! I’d heard from Bronco that cities actually had those. Fucking shithead. Seeing his face wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world right now.

  I whistled as I took a step forward, making my way towards the big fuck off testament to humanity in front of me.

  I watched as a bunch of children tackled each other into the dirt to get a ball, carrying the sheath of my sword in one hand as the other held a sac filled with coins over my shoulder. The guards at the gate were kind enough to give me one after their surprisingly light questioning. I was prepared to be grilled, but I barely got seasoned. All the better for me! Now to find an inn to stay in and slumber for a few days. Maybe even cry, who knows?

  But at the moment I was watching children, happy little children. They were playing a simple game of harpastum, where they tested the durability of their bones by giving each other an excuse to beat each other in the dirt for a small leather ball. I played it more than a few times back in the village, in what felt like an age from now.

  It was funny to think of them as children, technically they were older than me, at least physically. But I was far and above their senior in both countenance and mind, the burden of the reincarnated. Still, it was pleasant to watch them have their fun.

  Even if pain was part of the process.

  Where couldn’t a person find pain though? It was everywhere if you looked hard enough, simple signals warning of something that shouldn’t be done, or the consequence of an action already completed. If your definition was broad enough then anything could be called pain. Whether physical, mental, or…emotional.

  “You can join them, you know?” an elderly woman said from beside me, giving me a kindly smile that I didn’t much care for.

  “Who says I want to,” I scoffed, turning slightly to the woman. “Besides, they wouldn’t have me, I’m a vagabond, a stranger. None with half a brain would engage with me unless they had to.”

  “How definitive, do the young have that tendency these days?” the old woman chuckled.

  I grumbled, turning a little red from embarrassment. “The smart ones, maybe. I can’t speak for them though.”

  That earned me a full laugh from the belly, the woman tapping her cane in mirth against the ground and I couldn’t help but feel a little infantilized by it all. I scowled and huffed but didn't do something so childish as respond to the merriment.

  “Come now, don’t be like that. I’ve seen plenty of kids try and act like you, all it does is steal the precious time you have as a child. Even elves don’t get forever to act like idiots and enjoy life so fully.”

  “I’ll enjoy life when it’s safe,” I mumbled.

  The elderly woman softened her gaze. “Survivor of the horde?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re lucky then,” the woman shrugged, and I turned to scowl at her. “Don’t give me that look girl! The gods have given you another chance at life. Even if you lost what you had, there’s still plenty to gain if you’re willing to take a chance.”

  “Take a chance huh?” I said. “Did that once, it didn’t work out so well for me.”

  “Well, you’re alive aren’t you?”

  “Some wouldn’t consider this living,”

  “Oh, stop with the melodrama. All you’ll be is embarrassed once you're older and look back at the past. I hear elves have excellent memory too, so you won’t even be free of the biases that come with looking back.”

  I looked sharply at the woman. “How do you know about that?”

  The elderly woman’s smile quirked a half inch higher, but she just chuckled instead of answering. She turned and hobbled away all mysterious to leave me staring at her back. Maybe it would’ve been best for me to leave.

  Immediately.