“Is this about the idiots we beat up who were trying to lynch a random beastkin?” Mia asked the moment she laid eyes on the haggard-looking Colonel Zeigler.

  The man looked to be the manifestation of the word ‘exhausted’ with deep dark circles around his eyes and a deep hunch to his back.

  “What?” The man asked, his tone lacking the usual sophistication and politeness. He stared at them, bloodshot eyes showing through greying locks of hair hanging off his skull. “No. That doesn’t matter one bit. The General is dead.”

  “Eh?” Mia froze, staring at the older man. “How? What?”

  “The main force of the army broke under the monster assault.” Zeigler massaged his temples, the dead-eyed stare held throughout it though. “I’ll need your group or anyone else with even just a bit of power to help out or we are all going to die.”

  “No reinforcements are coming?” Carmilla asked, rubbing her shoulder into Mia’s comfortingly.

  “Not for a while,” Zeigler said, almost laughing as he did. “Apparently, a horde of lizards called ‘Earth Drakes’ are assaulting Salzburg and the Marshal has personally departed with the majority of his troops to deal with them. There are only enough troops left behind to protect the capital.”

  Mia glanced over at Carmilla, worry clear in her eyes. If they wanted to run for the capital, now was the time.

  That’d mean consigning thousands of people having survived till now in this monster infested city to death though, and that made Mia hesitate.

  Running was the smart choice, the obvious choice if she wanted to stay safe and alive. There was even an Obelisk in Vienna that they could use to Rank Up so it’d even speed up their progress that’d halted for a while.

  But the people … I have all this power, it’d be a shame to not at least give saving this city a try. Fuck, this is my home, I grew up here. The least I can do is give an honest shot at fighting back the monsters before running for the hills.

  “We’ll have to discuss that with the others,” Carmilla said diplomatically. “One of our teammates is still injured. We can’t fight safely without hi-“

  “Kelvin,” Zeigler barked and his half-asleep aide jumped to his feet. “The minor healing Elixir. Now.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Kelvin nodded after a moment, visibly debating whether to say something. But he seemed to come to a decision and ran out of the room.

  “I’m giving you something from the stash that’s supposed to be going back to the Marshal,” Zeigler explained. “But he isn’t getting shit if we all die here anyway. It doesn’t matter. Any other excuses? Thousands, tens of thousands of lives are at stake. I know you are not soldiers, and probably didn’t want this thrust upon you, but we need you to fight for us.”

  “I’d be willing to do my best,” Mia said after a moment, glancing over at Carmilla who gave an easy shrug.

  “I’m with you,” the vampire said. “Whatever you choose.”

  “That makes two of us,” Mia said, turning her gaze back at the desperate commander. “We’ll go back and ask the rest. I’m … fairly confident most of them will choose the same. Especially if that Elixir of yours heals Brent.”

  “It will,” Zeigler nodded, leaning back into his chair with a sigh. “Once you are done, head straight for the barricade. I’m having whoever I have strengthen it up and have everyone in reach evacuated into this district. You’ll be needed there to protect it once the goblins are done playing around with the remnants of Eisenfaust’s army.”

  “Alright,” Mia said, then when Kelvin came running back in with a nondescript vial, she took it and turned to leave.

  “We are counting on you,” Zeigler said as she and Carmilla reached the door.

  Mia gulped, but pushed the hint of apprehension down. She strode out of the office, then made her way out of the building with Carmilla hot on her heels.

  “That was nasty,” Carmilla said once they were out of earshot. The redhead had an irritated look on her face as she glanced back towards the building. “He was trying to guilt-trip you into risking your life pretty hard back there.”

  “I know,” Mia said, her voice thick with annoyance. If Zeigler wove even just another drop of emotional manipulation into his words, they’d have been drowning in it. “But I’ve decided to try fighting already … if everyone else agrees too. Still, that was … “

  Mia shook her head, sighing. Her respect for the old soldier took a nosedive with this meeting, even if she knew he was just doing whatever he could to protect as many people as possible.

  At least he didn’t stoop so low as to threaten her, though that would have been a quick way to have her do anything but help him.

  Her thoughts quickly went towards the fight that was to come. Mia was fairly certain most of her team would agree to at least attempt to fight like she had, she knew them well enough to tell that.

  Mark was … he was a weird one, looking cowardly at first but somehow always being the first when it came to fighting.

  He saved her with the bird, chose to become a tank to protect them and then ate up lethal attacks coming their way one after the other.

  That was courage, and Mia was proud of her distant cousin and ex-roomie. Even if she suspected his new dwarven nature’s aversion to showing fear and quickness to throwing fists she’d read about had something to do with it.

  Pot calling the kettle black. I only went fighting at first because of my Fae flares of pride.

  Lina, Carmilla and Brent were obvious. The blonde was only all too happy to fight, Carmilla already agreed and Brent was that stupid heroic sort from what she’d seen of the older man.

  Mom might be a problem, but if I ask nicely … Mia grimaced at the thought, wouldn’t that just make her the same as Zeigler who tried to emotionally manipulate her? Just the fact that I’m going to risk my life would count as manipulation, she won’t be able to let me go without coming with.

  Mia felt guilty about that, knowing she was giving her mother little choice, but she wanted to fight at least. Make use of her power for something purely altruistic for once.

  It shouldn’t be too dangerous, so it would be fine. Saving some lives, feeling good about myself and then leaving if things get too dangerous. Sounds like a plan!

  Maybe we’ll even get to dive those Rifts that the army had under lock and key now, that’d give us some possible rewards too.

  But that could get super dangerous. Hmmm.

  Mia kept to her thoughts on the whole sprint back to the house, not even bothering to watch the still bustling district filled with people who didn’t even know they might not live to see next week. Or even just tomorrow.

  *****

  “It’s not worth it!” Lina shouted, pulling at her hair as she looked between the others. “Even if we somehow survive this, it’ll have been barely worth it in the end. Especially if one of us ends up as monster chow.”

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  “We’d be saving lives,” Mia said, though it sounded hollow to her with how many times she’d said it. “And we don’t have to risk ourselves too much. If it gets too dangerous, we can run. I’m just asking you to come with and at least try.”

  Mia had never expected Lina of all people to be the biggest opponent of going out to help fight back the goblin horde.

  Carmilla had run off to ask whether Avery and some of her friends wanted to join in on the fight at Mia’s request. The idea was that her Fire magic could come in clutch against the powerful Troll and its healing, but now Mia was missing the reassuring presence of the girl.

  Mark was willing to fight, but he also looked willing to run for the hills if he got outvoted. Hell, he looked to be hoping to get outvoted, but some strange sense of dwarven pride or whatnot wasn’t letting him to actually vote for running.

  Helene was neutral, looking like she’d be wanting to convince Mia to decide on running, but not willing to pour cold water over Mia’s newfound enthusiasm for playing hero.

  The shouting match came to a stop as the stairs creaked dangerously, everyone looked over and saw a fully armoured Brent standing there with his arm on the wall for support.

  “I’m fighting,” the man said gruffly, his bed hair still in place and a hint of dizziness still lingering in his eyes. “If you want to run, you probably should. We might not survive this if we aren’t fighting with our all.”

  “You really shouldn’t be up and about,” Helene said, hurrying over to Brent to look him over like he was one of her children trying to go out and play ball with a fever. “You still look wobbly. What if you fall on your sword or stumble in a fight?”

  “Whatever you fed me is still in my blood,” Brent said, shaking his head to chase away the dizziness. “It’ll heal me fully by the time we get there. I heard the barricade is still standing?”

  “Yeah,” Mia said. “Zeigler is making people reinforce it while the goblins are hunting down the remnants of the General’s army.”

  Brent didn’t question any of her information, merely taking it all in with a nod.

  “You are all so stupid!” Lina shouted, a hand clenched up in a fist that she looked ready to send into someone’s face. By the look in her eyes, her lead candidates for targets were Mia and Brent at the moment. “You don’t owe anything to these people. Why do you have to play hero? We only have one life.”

  “You don’t have to come, Lina,” Brent said. “I’d never force you to-“

  “Shut. Up.” The blonde girl glared up at the older man so severely that even the ex-soldier looked stunned for a moment. “If you all are staying, so am I. Which is why it irritates me so much that you are being so- so … dumb. Urghh.”

  Despite the numerous derisive comments questioning their intelligence and the continued murmured swearings Mia caught from the blonde, her words put a smile on Mia’s face.

  The girl was willing to stay just because they did, despite knowing the risks and not wanting to touch the fight to come with a ten metre pole.

  “It’s your decision,” Brent said after a moment, his voice softer than before, which earned another glare from the grey-eyed Air mage. “Where is Carmilla?”

  “She’s seeing whether Avery and her friends want to join the fight,” Mia said helpfully.

  She tried to not look at her mother’s increasingly grim face. Helene looked like she was seeing her only child off to war, already expecting to have to bury her.

  It broke Mia’s heart a little, this was exactly the kind of experience she’d promised herself never to put her mother through. Not after Gabe. Having to bury one child was already one too many for any mother.

  That’s a promise I’m not sure I can still keep in this new world. Risk and rewards go hand in hand and if I don’t want to be at the mercy of stronger people to protect me from monsters, I’ll have to take those damned risks.

  Risk and rewards would have to be calculated of course. A fancy new artifact or spell wasn’t worth shit if overconfidence had turned her into a corpse already.

  Taking a deep breath, Mia slipped past the now stoic Mark practically radiating fatalistic acceptance and Lina who was still murmuring about everyone other than her sharing a single drunk brain cell.

  Mia wrapped her mother up in a hug, which Helene returned with a tight embrace. Mia knew her mother wanted nothing more than to fly off with her right now and never look back and the tightness of her hug reflected that.

  “I’m sorry Mom,” Mia whispered into her mother’s hair. “I … I want to do this. I just don’t think I could live with myself knowing I could have saved thousands of lives if I just tried. I have to do this.”

  “I know,” Helene said softly, letting out a morose sigh. “And I’m proud of you, God knows I am, but I’m worried to death. I know you think you almost killed that Troll, but what if you weren’t so high up? What if it bursts through the barricade when you’re standing on it? One swing of its club and you’re dead.“

  Mia held her mother tightly as a tremble ran through Helene’s body. After a deep breath, the older woman steadied herself and pulled back, holding Mia at an arm’s length.

  Mia stared into her eyes and was mesmerised for a moment at the cascading blues and flashing yellows in the grey of her eyes. It was like a ruinous storm was brewing in her irises.

  It was so different from the hazel eyes her mother had before, her now ashen hair ending in azure tips also contrasted heavily with the grey-streaked raven hair she had. If the dimpled smile and the gentle look weren’t all so familiar, Mia feared she wouldn’t have recognised her mother anymore.

  “Be careful, keep behind Mark and Brent and run at the first sign of something you can’t handle,” Helene said, her fingers tightening on her shoulders. “With your Amulet and Familiar you should survive even that Troll long enough for me to come and fly you out of there. Just make sure you stay alive, okay?”

  “I will,” Mia said, giving a serious nod to Helene.

  Helene stared into Mia’s eyes deeply for a few seconds, then returned her nod. “Good. Get ready, Brent looks to be aching to get going.”

  The group set off a few minutes later, walking with grim faces as they passed by the still clueless people on the street.

  Mia, to stop herself from thinking about just how many people must be dying at the hands and claws of monsters at that very moment mere kilometres away from her, turned her mind towards preparing instead.

  She had a fresh Familiar sitting on her shoulder, one without a speciality again, and she had both her Ring and Amulet on her, along with her wand hanging by her hip. The fanny pack was tight against her waist, the remaining Elixirs she had secured inside.

  She thumbed the knife’s pommel attached to her thigh. Still there. Everything’s there.

  Sighing, Mia lamented how if the General could have lasted another week or two, she would have been able to make use of the two new kinds of Runic Lexicons she had.

  Warding and Abjuration. She had two of each, along with one of both Conjuration and Summoning. The latter would only be helpful when she got to Rank 1 and had to upgrade her runes from Rank 0 by merging twos of a kind. According to Leondrus’ Guide for Junior Mages anyway.

  The Warding and Abjuration though, hurt much more. That was six spells just lying there, unable to be made use of.

  Though absorbing all of them hastily could have brought on another problem of its own, she now realised. Her Spell Tome wasn’t endless. With all the spells and variants she had inscribed into it, there was only a single empty page remaining. It was growing full. As was her runic-model.

  If she absorbed every single rune from all six Lexicons, she’d reach the 100% mark for a Rank 0 runic-model by her estimations. Maybe even before she could absorb every rune included in those Lexicons.

  Those are worries for later, for now, I’ll make do with what I have. Mia reaffirmed her resolve. She had a number of spells already, almost all useful and powerful and a friend to help out with anything she had no spell for.

  Mark would serve as her barrier while she couldn’t cast the spell herself for example.

  Mia glanced at the dwarf and felt a surge of guilt at his stoic, distant look. He walked with purpose, but his face spoke of how little he thought of his chances of coming back. He always drew the shorter end of the sticks. I barely got injured since the awakening, but almost every monster chewed him up and spat him back out.

  “Hey,” Mia whispered, slowing to walk next to the fatalistic dwarf. Come on Mia, say something good. “Never thought you’d die fighting side-by-side with an elf, did you?”

  Mark looked at her, his mouth curving into a grin as a little life returned to his eyes. He held the silence for a bit, likely enjoying how Mia squirmed from the uncomfortable silence even more than her lame attempt at cheering him up with a reference.

  “No,” he said finally. “But I could make do with a friend.”

  Mia smiled, feeling better about herself at the cackle Mark let out.

  “How’s your earth mecha project going anyway?” Mia asked, glancing at the now silly-looking chest armour he had on and the small mace hanging from his hip.

  “Pretty great, all things considered,” Mark said, patting the mace lovingly. “I put four charges of my Armaments into the armour, that’s half of my Manifestation times four in defence. I’m as hard to injure inside it as an Earth Golem with 22 points in Body.”

  Mia whistled at that. “That sounds powerful, but can’t you make the armour out of something stronger than … clay? Wouldn’t that make it tougher?”

  “This is not clay,” Mark huffed, knocking the chest plate he had on with a knuckle and, as he said, it sounded like knocking on a brick. “My mana makes it malleable like this. It may look like clay, but it's as hard as compressed earth and then onto that comes the magical reinforcement of my Armaments Subskill. I’d wager it's tougher than a medieval steel plate, even in the form it is right now!”

  Mia continued chatting with Mark all the way to the barricade, with even Lina chiming in now and then. It was partly to take his mind off of the upcoming fight by letting him geek out about his magic and System stuff, but in the end Mia needed the distraction just as much as Mark did.

  By the time they reached the barricade, she was as calm as she could be under the circumstances.