A hob-goblin was left on the ground, its breath ragged, spewing blood from its lips as its green hand grasped for something unseen in the air.

  My hand grabbed his and his nails dug in as I squeezed. I pushed my blade into his chest, and those dark orbs stared at me while the curtains lowered.

  It seemed that those gravely wounded did not get a way home.

  A tear rolled down my cheek.

  “It’s just a monster, Joan,” Serina muttered from beside me.

  Replace “monster” with “English,” and I’d heard this before.

  Points of light rose from the dead and drifted over to me.

  “It had a soul. They called to each other with words, and I’m sure they laughed and cried and loved, in their own way.” I wrenched my sword free, leaving a wet suction sound, then I let go of his hand. “They fought bravely, and now they died, alone, in a foreign land.”

  I no longer had prayers to offer the dead.

  “Evil deserves no sympathy, My Lady. No matter how kind and old your soul is.” Zadina was quick to assert.

  “Heretic! Witch!”

  The voices of the mob echoed in my mind.

  Should I tell her that Evil is in the eye of the beholder? That the church decides based on the whims of self-interest…

  After all, the priests who interviewed me… I could tell from the way they averted their eyes and their shuffling feet that they knew I was faithful.

  But they burned me anyway.

  The conviction in Zadina’s eyes would allow no dissent. I knew her kind of people.

  Perhaps, her god is different. But in the end, it’s not gods but people that matter.

  “Lass, your wounds?” Gorian walked up beside me, his arm steadying me.

  I looked down and beneath the tattered leather, blood dripped from the seams that were opening up over my flesh again. Pain seeped in.

  I guess the HP gained from [Drain Touch] was only a temporary thing. Way to go, vague descriptions…

  With my arm around his shoulder, Gorian supported me out of the chamber.

  “Let’s break camp somewhere else.” He took one last look into the dark, foreboding chamber, strewn with corpses and fallen columns. “I don’t like the look of this place… not one bit.”

  His eyes settled on my blood smearing against his polished armor. Pain spasmed with every step. “Kamuel, patch her up once we get settled.”

  Zadina slipped in between us, lifting me up into her arms. “Tell me, what was your plan for getting her safely down to the final floor?” Her voice was a cold growl.

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  As Zadina moved down the hallways, the bob of her steps pulled a hazy veil over the waves of agony.

  —

  Another lifetime, and another victory at Jargeau. The men were celebrating, cheers crested in waves accompanied by songs, and drinks were sloshed with clinks of mugs. I was sitting on a log far from the celebration, and far from where the wall and tower had been demolished, where the dead still lay strewn about.

  I had done my duty as the [Virtuous] condition dictated. I gave rites to the dead, comforted the wounded, and shed the obligatory tear. Now, I just wanted to be away from it all.

  Another run, more battles, more blood…

  “Jehanne, Jehanne! Can you believe it? We won! You really are divinely sent!” A tall and slender man appeared stumbling around a nearby tree. His ruddy face contrasted sharply with his dark hair and eyebrows.

  Many had called that face pretty. In fact, even I had called him Beau Duc—Fair Duke—in the early runs. I had naively believed back then that his belief in me could somehow save me.

  More betrayals…

  “Many more to come, My Duke.”

  “Yes, more victories. Can you believe we captured the great de la Pole!” The fair man stumbled forward another step. His breath reeked of beer.

  My Fair Duke, who believed in me the most, and yet, not enough in the end.

  “He would just be released anyway.” In a few lifetimes, I was captured late enough for it to happen.

  The Duke of Alen?on waved it off, with an elegant twist of his hand, the way only a true noble could. “Ah, yes. He’ll surely be ransomed. But still… today is our day of Victory!”

  “For…?”

  The Duke blinked, tilting his head, looking disoriented. “Like you said. We fight for our homeland, for France, for the king, and for God!”

  That last declaration made me want to laugh bitterly at him—even though the words had been my own. My shoulders slumped.

  When the Dauphin had first introduced us, he still had lingering doubt in his eyes, but after Orléans and now this, his eyes were now brightly lit orbs of fervent belief.

  He knelt down and grabbed hold of my hand. “Please, young maid, lead us to many more victories to come. I know together there is hope.”

  With the Bastard, I knew there was no hope. He was too smart and conniving to break rank for someone who was already lost. But staring up at the eyes of my Beau Duc, I was always tantalized and tortured by that last faint glimmer of hope.

  That he’d gallop down from that hill and come to the rescue of me and my men.

  One last delusional hope before the flames.

  —

  Soft cloth dabbed at the corner of my eyes, ripples upon the surface of consciousness. Warmth brushed up against my cheek, accompanied by the soft flickering light, and the crackling of flames. The sharp tang of metal surrounded me. Voices came from beyond the surface.

  “Is she in pain, Sister?” Kamuel’s voice asked gently, laden with concern.

  “No, I do not believe her tears are from the pain, not physically at least,” Zadina answered from above me in a low whisper. She sounded close. Her breath touched my forehead.

  “That’s what Winthrop said last time as well,” another voice muttered. It was a little further off, raspy, perhaps Justin, surprisingly, lined by bitterness. “There were tears on her face all the way back…”

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  “What do you think she is? She isn’t normal.” Serina asked, sounding like she was on the other side of the crackling fire.

  “No, she is not. She has depths no five year old should. Her composure, her gaze… Not to mention her physical prowess. What did all of you think of her?” Zadina answered with a question of her own.

  “My jaw dropped when Winthrop told me she was three when we first saw her. We couldn’t believe it.” Gorian’s low voice rumbled. “Even more shocked when we saw her fight. But you saw how she was…”

  “Kamuel must’ve told you, she spoke the ancient tongue. Forget five, she’s beyond most adults. Is she possessed, Sister?” Serina asked with an edge of urgency.

  She did say she wanted to take me somewhere… Lodindale.

  “I don’t sense that through my gifts. I can’t deny her strangeness, the age in her eyes, the disturbing magic and skills. But what comes across most from her is sadness and an overwhelming, divine… purity.”

  “Shit…” Justin muttered, and the voices fell silent, giving way to the hum of the flames.

  My eyes fluttered on their own.

  “My Lady?” Zadina whispered softly down at me, cradling me in her arms like an infant.

  She wiped at my eyes again, but I pushed against her arm. “Thank you, but can you please… let me down?”

  It felt wrong. No one but Mama should hold me like this.

  “My apologies.” Zadina lowered me onto a seat.

  The robe that I was in felt way too loose. I realized then that I wasn’t wearing a robe before. I didn’t remember bringing a green one like this either.

  “It’s my robe. Your clothing was shredded, and we had to pull them apart to get at your wounds.” The flames flickered, casting light and shadow over Serina’s face on the other side of the fire.

  The collar of the ill-fitting robe came loose easily enough. Underneath, my pale skin was marred by angry red lines, still moist, but they were closed. I wasn’t wracked by spasms anymore.

  “I healed you the best I could. The wounds closed like before, but I wasn’t sure if I’d need to do anything else to prevent… permanent damage.” Kamuel spoke up from beside Serina, his voice was hesitant, accentuated by the flickering shadows over his tilted face. “Your house healer… he did marvelous work with your back.”

  I could guess his concern.

  Appearance is apparently everything for a lady. But it’s not like anyone would look there anyway. Besides…

  “I don’t scar.”

  “Oh… That’s...” His eyes sparkled over the flames. A long uncomfortable silence followed as his hand carefully stroked his chin. “That is certainly… convenient.”

  I didn’t need to look over to know that Zadina was observing me with the same intensity.

  No need to state the obvious, I wasn’t human.

  Gorian huffed and blew out a ring of smoke after taking a deep drag on his pipe. “So… like I was telling the Sister here, we had no idea that things were this bad. This is… or at least used to be a copper ranked Dungeon. The first levels should be a breeze. Goblins, yes, but not this many. And certainly not those big ones or the exploding ones.” He slowly shook his head. “It seems that we have to turn back.”

  “What would happen then?” Winthrop had mentioned something about them being afraid of the Dungeon being “broken,” none of the textbooks mentioned much about it. So it was probably a rare occurrence.

  Raising a steaming tin cup to his face, Gorian sipped from it, his face wrinkling in dejection. “We’d have to call on the Duke, the King… or the Church?” He shot a glance over at Zadina.

  “Yes, something of this severity would warrant a break order.”

  “What does that involve?” It seemed like Zadina was quite knowledgeable about this. Was that why she came? A silver-rank adventurer for a copper Dungeon seems a bit much.

  “A regiment would come with siege and demolition engines and they’d raze the dungeon down to its roots. One wouldn’t want corrupted monsters running loose.”

  “Then the adventurers in town…”

  Justin handed me a tin cup with wisps of steam rising off of it. “We’d be shit out of luck! Have to go find another town with a dungeon that isn’t crowded, is at the right level, and has decent drops.” He scowled down at the cup in his hand and then patted the wall behind him. “This place had been good to us, until this happened.”

  I thought of Nathan, Gary and everyone else at the Guild. Winthrop had told me, this was their livelihood. When we first walked into the room, there was a flicker of light in their eyes.

  They were waiting for me…

  “I told them to believe in me.”

  Justin raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  It’s not just them, but the townspeople as well. The armory wasn’t the only shop that catered to adventurers, even the bakery had rough looking adventurers in gear lining up. Those shops would be empty once the dungeon goes away. All the townspeople smiling at me and Ben as we dance, the joy in the festivals…

  “I told everyone back there that I will advance, I will persevere, and that I will prevail.” I matched gazes with each person sitting at the fireplace, ending at Zadina. “I’m going on.”

  [Virtuous] or not, there is, of course, an ulterior motive for my need to go on. If they destroyed the dungeon, then the [Tiara of Solace] would surely disappear along with it. And along with that my main hope of countering the [Dark Binding].

  “As will I,” Zadina declared calmly, as if she expected this all along.

  “Are you out of your mind, girl… Liege?” Justin withered under Zadina’s stern gaze.

  “We can’t guarantee your safety, Joan. We promised Winthrop we’d keep you safe.”

  I waved off the comment. “That was me being overzealous.”

  “Zeal that was called for. If you didn’t take down that thing, we’d be overwhelmed.” Zadina looked like she was about to snatch the banner and charge.

  Not at all helpful. We need to calm their nerves first…

  “Perhaps… but I have a feeling that’s an aberration.”

  There was only one Celtic Druidess in the game, and she was only a problem if you left her alone for too long in a fight. That said, she wasn’t a goblin, and she was a pushover up close.

  The one here could fight.

  “Is there normally a goblin boss around this or a nearby level? One that’s a melee fighter?”

  Serina nodded. “Yes, a goblin brute is the usual gatekeeper down at the third level. But it looked nothing like that thing, and it only commanded five goblin warriors.”

  “And definitely no siege engines! I never heard of monsters using siege weapons in a dungeon.” Justin added hysterically.

  Well, I knew a game where siege engines were common, along with sappers for that matter.

  It seems that there might be other beings that were brought over from the other game and merged like me. The Celtic Druidess definitely couldn’t have blocked and fought like that, and she wasn’t a goblin. So she was brought over and merged with the goblin brute…

  But why? Was I the culprit? Did my stabbing myself with a bugged sword bring over beings from the other game?

  I checked my status. I had recovered a few HP, and the pain was gone.

  “I know all of you are worried about me, but I will be fine.” I pushed myself to sit up straighter. “My wounds are healing thanks to Brother Kamuel. So let us explore a little further down? This could be… just a coincidence. We owe this to them, do we not?”

  Gorian blew out some smoke and set his pipe down. “You’re right. The others are counting on us. Let’s give it more of a try.”

  “Just as long as we don’t get lynched.” Justin just had to be snarky.

  I took a sip from the cup and promptly spat it out, spewing chunks into the flames. “What is THIS… sludge?!” I choked out the words.

  Laughter erupted around the fire, even Zadina joined in.

  “It's desiccated traveler’s ready-to-eat gruel. Just add hot water, and you’re good to go.” Justin laughed as he took another sip from his own cup. His face scrunched afterwards. “Yeah, it’s famous for being light, nutritious and packing a punch.”

  The thick coat of grease and salt clung to my tongue, no matter how much water I sloshed. I gagged, trying to spit it out.

  Everyone kept laughing. It reminded me of all the hazing I had seen the men inflict upon the new recruits.

  It’s finally my turn.

  I know I have gone soft but…

  “That’s not edible.”

  Even my past cooking was less toxic.

  “You just got to get used to it. It’s the adventurer’s staple, right?” Justin pointed his chin at Zadina and received a begrudging nod in reply.

  “Yes, even the Sisters pack these for our travels.” She picked up her cup and casually sipped from it, as if it was just normal soup. “It’s a necessary evil.”

  I could almost smell the awful taste in the steam wafting over toward me. “No, I’m not having any of that.”

  “Hey! Don’t waste it!” Justin protested sharply as I emptied my cup into flames.

  I mentally opened up my bracelet’s inventory slots, pulling out the box of spices, the sack of vegetables that the kitchen staff had prepared for me, and of course one baguette from the nearly full stack of them in one slot.

  To get everything set up, I brought out the cutting board and unwrapped the wide leather strap that was tied around it. A few cooking knives that Chef Borin had given me were sheathed in the leather. I pulled out one of them and set it on the wooden board. My hand reached for the pot and then froze. There was no way I was going to cook anything fresh in a pot that contained something that awful.

  I pulled out my [Magic Stove].

  It was then that I noticed how quiet everything had gotten around me. Everyone was staring at me in stupefied silence.

  “What… What is all that? Where did it all come from?” Serina’s voice cracked, her fingers quivered as she pointed at the items arrayed around me.

  “From my inventory slots of course,” I tried to reply as innocently as I could.

  Gorian buried his face in his hands.

  Of course… not everyone has inventory slots.