There weren't many preparations to be done but that could all happen another day. Riza and Lefie were exhausted and so made their way back to the safe, familiar, patrol house.

The heavy door swung open, the floorboards creaking under their feet as they slunk into the dark interior. The air was stale and the building quiet. No one was in the cafeteria when they entered.

The food was cold by now but still edible so the pair chowed away in silence, nothing but their mastication being heard.

The world felt weighty. There was no delaying or pretending what had happened hadn’t happened. Decisions were made and Riza’s body felt almost mechanical in its motions, as if following along an orchestrated path.

They left and retreated to the house they had taken up residence in, swiftly falling asleep.

Not once, after their encounter with Meren, did they see a single other person.

Riza’s head was heavy. She shifted under the weight of Lefie as her eyes adjusted to the light streaming into the room, the window wide open and her arms bumpy with chill from the fresh, morning air.

It had felt so nice last night but now, she hastened to cover up, sliding her jumper up over her head and covering Lefie as best she could while the girl still slept.

Sitting on the edge of the old, creaky bed, Riza took one last look at this room. She’d never see it again.

Relatively sparse, but it was home for the past two weeks or so.

Walking over to the single piece of furniture, a rickety old dresser, Riza undid all her pouches and accessories that were lying around, organising and seeing exactly what she had.

Her mainstay weapon, her dagger, was of course there. She had gotten a sheath specifically made for it that wrapped around her thigh.

Next was a drawstring bag containing all of her wages. She had only spent a small portion so what was here accounted for the vast majority of what she had earned. Counting them out came to 63 misshapen coins. Perhaps her standards were too high; she was so used to machined currency that these felt horriblly amateur.

Plopping the coins back into the bag, she pulled the string taut and attached it to a relatively simple belt she wrapped around her waist. Thankfully, the jumpsuit she wore had loops around the waist and so after a fair bit of explanation, she had managed to get a simple belt made for her.

Riza stared briefly at the ring adorning her finger before shifting her gaze to two other mostly-empty bags that she also tied to her belt.

Her last two items were a small quiver containing a modest collection of well crafted but simple arrows and a rustic shortbow. It was nothing more than a bent bit of wood with a string between two ends but it seemed to work. Somehow.

They weren’t technically hers–they were essentially lent out by the hunters for as long as you hunted–and Riza couldn’t see much use for them in her future. At best, she could sell them but they were so simple that anyone who needed them would already have bought or made their own.

Lefie was starting to wake at this point, groggy groaning filling the quiet room.

“Morning, slug,” Riza greeted, pulling out her thick coat and slipping it on.

“Uh,” Lefie mumbled incoherently, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she sat up.

“I’ll be outside. Come out when you’re ready.”

“Uh-huh.”

The village had turned into a ghost-town seemingly overnight. No signs of life in the street but barrels, crates, and even the occasional wagon left lying about made it feel like she was in a dystopian movie.

Riza had finished implanting parasites in many of her critters to make up for what was lost. The skill had long since levelled up to level 10 and Riza now finally had an excess of point she could think about spending. Not yet, however, as there were far more pertinent tasks ahead.

Lefie had joined her not long after and they quickly arrived at the empty stables. Empty of people, but not of horses. Riza had seen Tarrek deposit the horses they’d take to the forest a few times here.

The wagon was still here from yesterday, completely untouched like everything else.

Riza tapped her foot for a bit, thinking about what to do, before deciding.

Most businesses here were set up in houses and if any additional equipment or room was needed, they were simply additions onto the house. It was rare for someone to have a separate building of work.

Therefore, Riza knocked politely on the door to the stables. They were on the outskirts of the village, where the stables opened up into a large, fenced field for the horses. This part, close to the village proper, houses the sleeping area for horses as well as where the stablemaster lived.

No response. Riza frowned and crossed her arms, quickly uncrossing them before sending a message to a circling bird overhead. Like vultures, she had a small army of avians flying above her.

This crow flew out for a little bit before suddenly swooping down, catching something in its talons, before climbing and flying back to Riza.

It deposited a squirming, disorientated mouse on the ground which was quickly killed with [Leech]. [Animate Critter] didn’t trigger but that didn’t matter as Riza used [Reanimate] instead and sent the mouse scurrying into the building, co-opting its vision as she scouted out the place.

Sure enough, there were people inside, huddled in the corner and desperately hoping Riza would leave. They didn’t seem to have noticed the mouse or, if they had, they didn’t care.

Riza knocked again, louder this time, now that she knew there were people inside. Still nothing.

She sighed.

“Maybe they’re not in?” Lefie posited.

“No, they are. They just don’t want to deal with me.”

Lefie had a sad look on her face but didn’t say anything.

They’re scared of me. Should I use that? Try to intimidate them? I’d feel pretty shitty afterwards.

Riza took a step away from the door.

They were shitty first. Especially after I saved everyone.

With a more forceful pounding, Riza let her irritation show through her actions.

“I know you’re in there. You and your family. Come outside or… I’ll go in,” Riza said loudly through the door, cringing at how immature she sounded. Like a child threatening an adult.

She slipped into the mouse to watch what was happening.

They were whispering quietly to each other. Not for long though as the oldest looking one–presumably the father–hesitantly got to his feet and gingerly walked to the door, as if he would be attacked at any second.

With a wide smile on her face, Riza waited for him to open the door.

“Hello!” She greeted him enthusiastically, channelling Lefie. “I need two horses attached to this wagon,” Riza said, stepping back and gesturing towards it. “How quickly can that be done?”

“Er, er… quick, quick. Not long,” He struggled for words.

“Excellent! Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Be back soon.”

Riza didn’t even wait for a response before hurrying off, Lefie in tow, the smile on her face quickly dropping. Her heart was beating fast just from that little interaction, and she longed for the desolate streets again.

“He was very rude,” Lefie commented once out of earshot.

“Yeah, well. It’s fine. We’re leaving soon, anyway.

“But still. That’s no way to treat a customer!” Lefie pouted.

The patrol house was empty, again, when they arrived, but unlike everything else, it had clearly been touched since they were there yesterday.

The pair weren’t interested in the place that much except for the armoury. Riza hadn’t been there yet but Lefie had picked up a crossbow yesterday and it was where everyone else took their equipment from.

The room was a bit past the training room and locked. The key was nowhere to be found but that wasn’t a problem; a few, strong bolts of lightning punched the door off its hinges and allowed for Riza to shove it open.

Only the hallway light illuminated the room. Shelves were filled with weapons and armour, wooden plaques with names engraved onto them. Chests contained a miss-mash of equipment; everything was in various states of decay. Nothing was new or shiny.

Was this technically stealing? Yes, but judging by the cobwebs and the old, dusty smell permeating the air, there was more than what was needed.

Riza sifted through boxes, chests, and shelves, picking up what looked useful and what could fit her. She found a small coat of chainmail that fitted nicely under her jumper–nice and inconspicuous. In addition to that, there was a helmet that fitted on her head well without any adjustments but that was about it in the armour department.

No full plate. Absolutely nothing for the legs. There wasn’t much in here for protection outside what she had already found.

I suppose plate armour is expensive and helmets are by far the most important bit of equipment. That explains why there’s more helmets than anything else.

As much as Riza loved her dagger, she knew there were better alternatives, The only thing it had going for it was its enchantments. Seeing how they’d have a wagon soon enough, she didn’t have to limit herself to things she’d be fine carrying around with her 24/7 so Riza picked up a nice and large shield as well as a sword.

The shield strapped up around her arm and the sword had a sheath she secured on her waist and, with that, she was done.

Lefie had retrieved her crossbow and quiver of bolts from yesterday, as well as wearing a too-large shirt of mail and a slightly-too large helmet. Still, better than nothing.

“Not picking up a sword?” Riza commented, taking in the new visage of her friend.

“Nu uh. I’d die if anything got close enough for that,” Lefie hefted up her crossbow. “This is much better.”

“Well, you ready?” Riza asked, hand fidgeting with the straps to her shield as she adjusted them slightly. “Wagon should be ready by now.”

It took a while before Riza felt somewhat comfortable with having the horses trot at a slow but steady pace. She’d never ridden a horse before, nor sat in a wagon drawn by them, but had sat alongside Tarrek once or twice and watched carefully. Most of it looked instinctively; his hands moved smoothly and intentionally but he kept his eyes ahead.

This was not the case for her. Her arms pulled and pulled the reins, drawing annoyed grunts and huffs from the horses and eventually, complete disobedience.

“I don’t know how people deal with these things,” Riza commented, hopping down from the wagon without even being out of eyesight of the stables yet. Lefie leaned forwards, watching her.

“We never used horses. Some of the stronger guys would carry everything when we moved.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got an idea.” She said nothing more as she slowly moved up to the horse's flank, taking ginger steps to not frighten it. It was watching her warily but she apparently hadn’t done enough to piss it off yet.

Probably just stubborn.

Reaching out with her hand, fingers extended, she felt the tips connect with the pliant flesh beneath before resting her palm flat against the flank.

Gently, she stroked, trying to calm it down as her other hand came into contact, caressing the horse’s side and slowly stroking up towards its head.

It was growing more agitated and when her hand drew a bit too close, the slightest bit of sudden movement was enough for Riza.

Instantly, she shot a full power [Leech] straight into the horse, her feet sliding through the dirt as her arm slipped under the horse head, cradling it as the heavy body pulled itself to the ground.

Fuck.

The other horse suddenly began to move but Riza quickly nipped that one in the bud before it could evolve into a full-blown panicked rush.

As the second horse collapsed far less gracefully than the first, Lefie commented:

“They’re dead?” She sounded more confused than anything else.

“Oops?” Riza said with an exaggerated shrug. She look at Lefie for a moment before back at the horse, resting both hands against it as [Reanimate] got to work.

[Reanimate] (6/10) -Learned

Raise a corpse into a level 1 zombie

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 1 es/sec

Requirements: [Animate Critter] (5/10)

Two minutes later, both horses were back on their feet, right as rain.

Riza shoved all stat points into power as she normally did with her spiders before realising, given the horses jobs, that might not be enough.

Oh well. I’d need to do some experimentation.

Her initial thoughts of undead horses working tirelessly may not be the case; they still had stamina that was expended, after all.

A chuckle escaped her as she realised something.

Humanoid demons would probably make better horses than horses. They could take skills to boost their stamina and regeneration, after all.

“Was that necessary?” Lefie asked as Riza swung herself back up and onto the driving seat, gripping the reins once more.

“Should make things easier,” she explained.

“Go!” She ordered them, provoking the horses into walking forwards. The wagon shifted under them, wheels rattling against the loose stones and dirt before the roads transformed into cobbled pathways closer to the heart of the village.

Riza tested out the reins, pulling from side to side to direct travel. Useless at first, but a few commands installed the correct reactions and, before long, she had obtained fine control over the direction of their travelling, much like real horses.

Faster to train and complete obedience. A big improvement, if I do say so myself. She smiled.

The streets were empty as always, silent except for the rattling of wood and the clip clopping of the horses as they slowly pulled the pair through what used to be a lively hubbub.

Lefie sat back, staring at something Riza couldn’t see.

The market stalls were still up and undamaged but completely deserted. All the doors to the houses were closed, window shutters up and hiding the inside. Half-open crates and barrels were scattered around, piles of produce and products still wet up and on display.

The whole village felt eerie to travel through and Riza urged the horses to speed up slightly.

It didn’t take long before the roads transformed back into the rough, uneven dirt ground as the houses drew away and fields of grass and wheat and other crops began popping up. A large swath was cut down while the rest were still awaiting to be harvested soon.

The field of corpses was still here, none of the demons having been removed by man or demon. The sinkhole was still there, having eaten up the landscape permanently. Half-burned and destroyed fences were dotted about, and a bit off in the distance, a figure stood.

Riza couldn’t quite make them out but felt out her dagger on her hip as the horses carried on.

It didn’t take long for the figure, who must’ve been observing the colossal demon corpse, to have noticed them. It began running over as soon as it did.

“Woah, slow down. Stop,” Riza said, still getting used to the commands. Her arms were tense as she squinted. The face felt familiar,

“Huh? Why’d we stop?” Lefie abruptly said, looking around confused before noticing the person. “Oh! There’s someone there. Wait… that looks like Meren.”

She was right. Wearing the same armour as before, the tall woman came bounding up to the wagon, barely even breaking a sweat.

“Hello, Meren,” Riza said coolly as Meren came to a stop, barely needing to look up at the pair.

“Look, I-I-” Meren stuttered awkwardly, unsure what to say. “Sorry for what I said yesterday. I-you… you saved countless lives and… thank you,” She finally said. She sounded earnest.

“What do you want?” Riza, however, had no time for pleasantries. Her bluntness stumped Meren for a second.

“I-I…” She swallowed. “I want to join you.”

That… was unexpected. Riza didn’t know what to say.

Join us? After everything she said yesterday?

“Why would you want to join us?”

“Wha-why wouldn’t I? Look at you! You did all this!” Meren turned away, gesturing at the sea of bodies. “You saved this village single-handedly. You could help me to become that strong. I don’t want to be a blacksmith’s daughter forever. I want to be able to do something!”

Riza sat back a bit, raising her gaze from Meren to the results of her strength.

“You want to be strong?”

“Yes, but not just that!” Meren hurriedly added. “I can’t do more than kill a handful of demons at most. I want to help people, and getting stronger is a way to do that.”

“Why not join the Chosen, then? Can’t they make you stronger to help people?”

“The Chosen weren’t here. You were. Didn’t your village get destroyed because there was no one to help?”

“What do you say?” Lefie whispered into Riza’s ear. “I think we should let her join us.”

“What? Why?” Riza whispered back, turning to face the teenager.

“She could help us! You’re always worried about being too weak. She can help with that. Also, I like her.”

Riza sighed, thinking it through.

We don’t need anyone else. We’re strong enough as a pair; there’s no reason to change that.

She shook her head. Why do I care about strength? I want a quiet life, don’t I?

Except I can’t have a quiet life anymore. People will tell the Dominion about yesterday. Even a small bit of essence used without permission is a crime. I used enough to kill a village’s worth of demons in minutes. They won’t allow something that strong to be out of their control, surely.

What would they throw at me? Level 5’s? No, that’s silly. They’re smart; they’d hit me hard to snuff me out on the first go.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Will they actually do that? Riza was staring at the cloudy sky as realisation struck. Why does everyone want to kill me!

She shifted suddenly, startling Lefie, as she turned to face Meren.

“Okay. If you join us, you can’t have a normal life anymore. There’s no more living peacefully. Every day will be dangerous and you will live on the edge of death. We leave the moment you make your decision. Understand?”

“I can’t even say good-” Meren began

“No goodbyes! We’re leaving now. Are you joining us or not?”

Meren looked back at the village, holding her gaze for a few seconds as she maintained her stoic expression before looking back at Riza.

“Fine. I’ll join you.”

“Hop on.”

She trailed round to the back of the wagon, quickly climbing on with ease and settling herself down amongst the equipment. A few bed rolls, furs, firewood, amongst other items useful for camping and travelling.

As soon as Riza took note of her sitting, she spurred the horses on at a quick pace. The command was to follow the dirt track quickly.

Riza sat in silence but Lefie quickly clambered over into the back of the wagon and began to strike up a conversation. Her voice was jovial and light, just like the conversations they used to have over dinners.

Riza’s hands were shaking as she listened along. She clenched them as she closed her eyes, focusing on [Meditate] to calm her beating heart.

Did I do the right thing? Saving the village? The Dominion will be after us and we’ll likely have to go underground again. We’ll have to hide and grow stronger but we’ll be on the run. There’s no chance of a normal life unless we completely disguise ourselves.

Fuck, I should’ve just let them kill everyone. Take Lefie and run into the woods to hide. Kill anything that approaches and camp out for a few days until the whole thing blew over. Fuck! That was the better decision.

Lefie would’ve hated me but so what. We’d both be alive and could try again in a new village.

Riza was clenching so hard she was drawing blood. When she noticed that, she breathed deeply and carefully, trying to ignore all these emotions and just focus on the rhythmic nature of breathing.

In. Out. In. Out.

[Meditate] is a life saviour.

It took a good few minutes before she felt good enough to begin thinking about anything else. Neither Lefie nor Meren seemed to have noticed her contained breakdown.

Don’t focus on the past; think about what you can do. Lefie can level up to 25 and get a boon. I already have access to a boon. We can easily get Meren to level 15 by sticking her in a party with Lefie if we find a greater demon.

Already feeling a little bit better, Riza hopped into the back with the rest of them, searching through the bags for the ledger she had taken.

“Hey, who’s guiding the horses?” Meren asked, perplexed.

“It’s fine; don’t worry about it,” Riza answered as she found the book alongside the sticks of charcoal. Not the best but it’ll do.

Opening up her stats screen, Riza navigated to the plus sign next to her level, seeing all the boons she now had access to.

You have reached level 25 and can now choose a Consolidation Boon

[Boon of Labour]

Effect: Non-combat skills level up twice as fast

[Boon of Body]

Effect: Physical skills level up twice as fast

[Boon of Mind]

Effect: Non-physical skills level up twice as fast

Hidden Boon

[Source of Spirit] -Consolidated

Requirements: Spirit is 2 times greater than any other stat

Effect: Spirit is multiplied by 3

Hidden Boon

[Lone Wolf] -Consolidated

Requirements: Have never been in a party

Effect: Intensity of all skills is multiplied by 2 when not in a party

Hidden Boon

[Way of Life]

Requirement: Two Life skills (10/10)

Effect: All Life skills are 2 times as effective

Hidden Boon

[Way of Primordial Magic]

Requirement: Two Primordial Magic skills (10/10)

Effect: All Primordial Magic skills are 2 times as effective

Hidden Boon

[Touched by Essence]

Requirements: Spend 24 hours submerged in pure essence

Effect: Essence regeneration is 1.5 times as effective. Ability to see and sense essence is enhanced

Hidden Boon

[Way of Metamagic]

Requirements: Two Metamagic skills (10/10)

Effect: All Metamagic skills are 2 times as effective

Hidden Boon

[Summoner's Choice]

Requirements: Summon 100 entities

Effect: Choose One: All summons are 50% more effective OR All summons are 50% cheaper

Okay. Some new ones. [Way of Metamagic] is to be expected but still, only three way skills. I really haven’t branched out that much, huh.

[Summoner’s Choice] is really interesting. A boon where I can choose the effects? That has to be pretty rare, then.

Time to do some maths.

Riza began writing in her ledger, after skipping many pages of unintelligible words to find some blank space.

[Touched by Essence] is pretty simple so let’s start there. I regenerated 13 essence per second. That becomes 19.5.. Translating that to levels with [Raise Dead] means level 19.

[Summoner’s Choice] next. 50% stronger would mean the level 13 becomes level 19. 50% cheaper means 0.5 essence for 1 level. That’s level 26. That’s higher than my current level. Holy shit. 0.5 essence for each level.

Wait. I’m getting 0.7 essence regen every level, aren’t I? No, that’s increased with 15 stat points per level. What was the difference between level 24 and 25?

726 per minute and now it’s 791. That’s 64 a minute so I’m getting about 1 essence per second every level up.

Wait wait wait. Is [Essence Monarch] actually viable now?

I can just copy my own boons and skills and at level 25, they regenerate 13 essence per second. 20% of that is 2.6. Riza did a quick bit of scrawling, jotting down numbers and doing some calculations.

With 11,300 essence, that’d take a little over an hour for me to regenerate naturally but I can get the summon to take [Heal]+ which would speed it up and they’d regenerate their essence much faster.

My level cap is 29 which isn’t that far from 35. What’s my essence regeneration at 29? It’d be 6.6 excess. That’s about… half an hour to regenerated to full then.

That also means in another 6 levels, I could get another level 25 summon. That’d give me only 2 essence per second regeneration again but I’d have two level 25 summons to control, in addition to the aid of Lefie and now Meren.

6 levels is 35, which means another boon. [Touched By Essence] would be an instant increase to 3 level 25 summons.

[Essence Monarch] is viable. This is a turning point.

Riza’s heart was beating fast but for a much different reason than earlier. She could hear the blood rushing through her ears, sweat trickling down her arms as everything felt so, so, so much more real.

[Way of Primordial Magic]. Doubles [Well of Spirit], [Well of Essence], and [Knowable Essence]. Fuck me, this will be a lot of maths.

Things were a bit obscure with so many variables that Riza struggled to remember and work out how everything interacted. It took a bit of trial and error but in her excited state, it didn’t take very long at all before she got to what she believed were the right numbers.

Okay. Spirit is now… 5460. Fuck me, that’s massive. That’s… 26.5 essence per second. Same as [Summoner's Choice] which makes sense as they both effectively double my essence regeneration.

However, my essence becomes 2210 which means a full tank is 44,200 points of essence compared to my current 11,300. Big fucking increase there.

Not to mention, this boosts any future primordial magic skills I take as well.

This means a level 25 summon and-wait. I didn’t take into account the level 25 boon for the summon. That 2.6 figure earlier becomes 5.2 if it takes [Way of Primordial Magic]. Level 29 would bring me to an excess of 9.2 essence.

Another way of looking at it is that a level 25 summon only costs 19.8 essence. Huh. That’s far more than I thought.

But if I took [Summoner’s Choice], it’d only cost 7.3 essence per second. My total regeneration at level 29 would be 17. 2 summons with 2.4 essence left over. 4 more levels to the next summon.

How does [Way of Life] work out? Doubles the effectiveness of my skills which includes [Essence Monarch] as well. That’s 40% of the regeneration.

So, 12.5 essence to obtain a level 25 summon, leaving me 0.5 in excess. That summon would have 26.5 essence per second. 40% of that is 10.6. That can’t be right; that means a level 25 summon would only cost me 1.9 essence per second!

If I took [Way of Life] and [Essence Monarch] and trained [Essence Monarch] to level 10 right now, that means I could have 6 summons under my belt while still at level 25. 6 summons that are also level 25.

Riza found herself breathing fast, struggling to comprehend this.

No, no. My maths has to be wrong somewhere.

What about [Way of Metamagic]? That buffs [Maximise Mastery] which buffs [Meditate]. Her handwriting was scraggier, her hand smudging the numbers she had previously written down.

She didn’t care.

1583 per minute. About 26.4 a second. Similar power to the rest.

Her hands finally grew calm as she just stared at the cloudy sky above for seconds. Minutes, mind drifting away.

“-Za. Riza.” Lefie was calling her name, Riza finally realised.

Her neck felt stiff as she craned it down to look at her wagon companions.

“What’s wrong? You were looking up at the sky for ages!” Lefie huffed.

“Sorry. Just… I did some maths.” Lefie’s face grew expectant.

“For your new boon?”

“Yeah.” That caused a smile. “They generally had similar effects apart from one. [Way of Life]. It’s…” Riza shook her head, coming back to Earth. “I didn’t think I’d reach this moment so quickly. I expected it’d take at least until the 40s but apparently not.”

“What does it do? Tell me already!” Riza chuckled at her impatience. Meren was noticeably quiet. Riza watched her out of the corner of her eye.

“You know what, I think it’d be better for me to show you, but not now. Lefie, we need to go back down. We need more humanoid demons.”

“But, why?” “Humanoid demons?” Lefie and Meren asked at the same time. The woman’s curiosity grew too large to restrain.

Riza softly chuckled, feeling amazing.

“Meren. There’s far more to demons than you ever realised.”