It wasn't much of a fight.

Raymond had seized the initiative and initiated the first strike.

As she stepped forward she shouted:

“Power Strike!”

Her fist glowed purple as it struck the fighter’s quickly raised shield. The shield held though the man’s strained expression betrayed the amount of effort it took to remain in place. Raymond’s right hand, however, was a bloody mess.

She wasn’t done though. She grabbed the rim of the shield with her bloody hand and pulled it aside, hooking her left fist towards the man’s armored chest.

“Devastate!” she growled.

Her left hand glowed with a dark red energy and she released her grip on his shield as it struck the man’s chest, denting his armor and blowing him back.

He slid a few feet backward, maintaining his stance.

And then an arrow slammed into her lower back.

Raymond stumbled forward, turning to see the dagger-user carefully approaching while the bowman knocked another arrow. She reached back, fingering the shaft of the arrow while her eyes moved back and forth rapidly between each of the four humans.

She pulled the arrow out, grunting in pain as she held it in front of her.

“Little vamp, if you give up, we won’t hurt you anymore.” Jonathan said.

Raymond laughed derisively. “You don’t have to hurt me in the first place.”

The man scowled. “The buyers don’t like damaged goods.”

“I don’t get it. You guys were fine to let me go until you found out I’m a True Vampire and now suddenly I’m for sale? What kind of twisted logic is that?”

They paused, looking at each other. "True Vampire? Right, and I'm mythical." Jonathan replied, laughing to himself.

“You’re not human.” Suzy sneered, “Monsters don’t get humane treatment.”

“And who said I’m a monster?” Raymond countered, turning to look at her. She felt the wound on her back slowly closing while her knuckles inched back into their natural positions. She decided that health regeneration was a beautiful thing and she would try to get more of it, later.

“We say, the gods say. Monsters are forsaken by the Overseers, rejected by your own creators and inferior to humanity. Your only place is under our heel.” Suzy responded.

Raymond, for her part, had no idea how to respond to that. Mostly because she had no idea what Suzy meant by any of those three points. She shook her head. All that really mattered was that she disagreed.

“So where does that leave us, then? I'm not going without a fight.” She warned them

“Don't worry about that. Johnny here is a Rogue. He's got all kinds of ways to take someone down without external injury.” Jonathan said, motioning towards the dagger user.

Johnny nodded silently, pulling a black rope out of thin air. He raised the rope and it extended towards Raymond.

She sliced at the rope with the tip of the arrow, taking a step back to distance herself from it.

A searing pain struck her side and she looked down, seeing a faint glowing light resting on her cloak. Though it did no visible damage, it burned!

Raymond grit her teeth as she ran, launching herself at Suzy before she could fire off another spell.

A glowing shield entered her vision and sent her reeling into the ground. Raymond spit out a glob of blood, baring her fangs at the humans.

Yet inside, she continued to desperately look for a way out.

She couldn't find one.

The rope latched onto her wrist and slowly started to wrap around her. She grabbed the rope with her free hand and tried to break it but another white light struck her chest, causing her to hiss in pain and relax her grip on the rope.

The rope promptly latched onto her other hand and pulled her hands together. A second rope latched around her feet and Raymond lost her balance, falling face first into a pile of bloody snow.

She felt a firm grip reach under her and then she was moving through the air as Jonathan picked her up with one hand and slung her over his shoulder.

“She's a feisty one. A lot weaker than I was expecting for a vamp though. Her Power Strike didn't even scratch my shield.”

“She took a hit from a normal arrow too.” Bill added.

Johnny shrugged. “I'm not one to question the god's gifts.”

“Who cares if she's weak. All monsters are the same. The gods have forsaken them. No matter how strong they are, someday they will all die.” Suzy said, her tone rising with vindictive fire.

Raymond listened in silence. Her mind taking every detail to form a plan of escape. All she needed was one moment.

She didn't know when the moment would come, but when it did, she would be ready.

***

Honestly, I was starting to think some sort of mischievous higher being other than myself was doing their best to make Raymond’s life difficult. Naturally, I’d watched the entire encounter with a bit of anxiety. I wanted to help her and I was getting pretty frustrated at not having enough power to do so. I could have performed a lesser miracle, but that wouldn’t have done too much. The level difference was just too big.

I couldn’t help but compare it to the one-sided slaughter I’d seen before the ritual. Back then, Evelyn had utterly dominated the four adventurers. This time, Raymond stood no chance. Losing her classes, skills, and racial pathway had severely reduced her strength.

Either way, the humans carrying her like a doll pissed me off.

I remembered the things that the healer had said about Overseers.

“Hey Auto, what did she mean when she said monsters are those forsaken by the gods?”

“Since the arrival of Overseers on this planet, they have exclusively blessed and interacted with the human race. It is their divine mandate that other sentient races be termed ‘monsters’ and enslaved or eliminated.”

“Are you kidding me? All of the other gods are human supremacists? The hell is with the unfairness?”

“Fairness is an illusion conjured by childish minds that refuse to accept reality.”

“Fairness and equality are merely constructs, that is true. Nevertheless, we cannot stop striving for them. It’s when we stop seeing others as ‘people’ that we lose sight of right and wrong. Slavery and genocide are wrong no matter who or what you are talking about.”

“Objection. That is an absolute statement. Your ‘morals’ cannot apply in every situation.”

“It’s a pretty absolute concept. They can and do apply always.”

“You are rather stubborn. It seems that you are forming the basis for your Tenets. This is good. When you have followers, you will need to issue them Divine Mandates and Tenets that they can follow to increase your influence and spread your name.”

“... did you just antagonize me to see what kind of ‘commandments’ I might make?”

“Affirmative.”

“Damn you, you stupid robot.”

“I take offense at the comparison to a mere ‘robot’. Also, ‘stupid’ is a rather vague term. Please define…”

“I’m done with this conversation.”

***

After several hours of travel, Raymond had decided on a plan. It was a stupid plan and would probably end with her body in a ditch somewhere, but even that would be an escape of sorts. She just wanted to see if she could get out of this without having to spend another several days unconscious.

They camped for the night. She’d overheard Jonathan mentioned that they would reach Cairel by noon the following day. It was roughly three hours away but they considered it too dangerous to travel by night. So they camped.

Raymond had been tied to a wooden stake they had drilled into the ground. They went about setting up tents and making food. Raymond caught a whiff of the cooking meat and grimaced. It smelled terrible. Do humans really eat that stuff?

For her part, she wasn’t particularly hungry. She didn’t really know how often she needed to eat, but despite sleeping for several days straight she still didn’t feel like she needed more blood. Or sleep for that matter, but that might just be because she’s had an overabundance of it recently.

So Raymond waited patiently as the four humans ate their food, laughing and joking like friends who had traveled together for a long time.

Which, in all likelihood, they probably had. Their teamwork was pretty good.

Eventually, they decided on a watch order and Raymond listened carefully. She smiled when she discovered that Suzy was up first, then Johnny, Jonathan and the final watch would be Bill.

Raymond continued to wait, feigning drowsiness. The night came to life as various insects came out. The red and black moons were visible in the sky, but the azure moon was hidden from her line of sight.

Occasionally, Suzy would glance at her but she seemed satisfied with Raymond’s performance.

Suzy’s watch came and went and Johnny replaced her. Raymond slowly experimented with the rope binding her wrists. She prodded it and noted that it didn’t seem to conform to her wrists without its master’s orders. Perfect.

Throughout Johnny’s and then Bill’s watch, Raymond focused on working her hands through the rope. She ignored the pain as the bones ground together. At one point, she had to bite her lip to stop herself from making any sound as a bone in her hand cracked. Her lip bled, but the tiny sting was barely even a blip on Raymond’s radar at this point. She was getting used to pain.

Apparently, the blue screens agreed because they came back with a welcome notification.

Unique Trait - Body Shifter

Through extensive tearing and shifting of the placement of muscles and bones in your body, they have become less resistant to shifts and changes.

Higher ranks of this ability allow greater control over one’s body.

Huh. That was almost worth getting eaten alive by a bird. Except not really.

Regardless, it was a huge blessing. She had planned on breaking every bone in her hand if she had to in order to escape the ropes.

She put her new ability to the test. She willed her hand to condense into a smaller, thinner form and felt the ropes loosen as they lost their hold and fell.

She smiled.

The next part of her plan required her to wait just a little bit longer. Jonathan finished his watch and Bill started his, but Raymond didn’t want to try and run when there were two of them awake.

But then she was given an unexpected boon.

Bill fell asleep.

Raymond had been planning to sneak out but the opportunist in her couldn’t pass up such a golden opportunity. She slowly stood up, inching forward across the camp as quietly as she could.

“You have learned the skill Sneak!

Sneak is now Level 1!

Raymond waved the window away. She didn’t need any distractions now. She grabbed the cooking knife by the fire and moved over towards the sleeping form of Jonathan. He had elected to sleep outside, under the stars.

She would take him out first. Despite the ranged abilities of the others, she felt more confident in her ability to take them on. Jonathan had a similar, more developed class to her own so their battle would be more affected by stats and experience, both of which he had significantly more of than her.

She bared her fangs in a feral grin as she plunged the knife into Jonathan’s throat.

You have done Fatal Damage! Target hp reducing by 20% per second.

He woke instantly, gargling on blood as he choked. He tried to reach for the knife protruding from his throat, but his fingers failed to respond properly as he tried to wrap them around the hilt of the weapon. Slowly, his arm descended to the ground and he died.

Level Up!x3

Congratulations! You are now a Level 8 Fighter!

Fighter skills: Deflect and Uncanny Accuracy have been unlocked!

You have learned the skill Sneak Attack!

Sneak Attack is now Level 2!

Unfortunately, Bill woke up when he heard the sound of Jonathan’s dying struggle. He saw the swordsman die and stared in shock for a moment, his mind trying to process how it could have happened.

However, he didn’t freeze for long. He was an experienced fighter, after all.

“Suzy, Johnny, wake up! Jonathan is dead!” he shouted.

Raymond frowned. She had hoped that she could get at least two of them before somebody noticed but she was altogether too inexperienced with this kind of thing to pull that off.

She pulled Jonathan’s sword out of its sheath and verified that she still had the bag of holding under her cloak. Time for the addendum to plan A. She called this part ‘mental warfare.’

This part of the plan relied on an assumption she had made regarding the relationship between Suzy and Bill. Suzy knew Raymond’s clothes came from Bill’s bag of holding, so if her guess was right, Suzy wouldn’t be too happy to find out one of Bill’s secrets.

Johnny and Suzy were wide awake and scrambling for their weapons. Suzy was wearing a sleeping gown while Johnny had simply gone to sleep in his leather armor. They had confused expressions on their faces as they took in the sight of Jonathan’s bloody corpse.

Raymond crouched over and yanked the cooking knife out of the dead human’s throat. She had a new ability to test and she’d rather throw the knife than the sword.

She turned and faced the three humans, grinning and baring her teeth.

“How the hell did she get out of the ropes?” Suzy shouted.

“How should I know?” Johnny replied, “Nobody’s ever broken my knots before.”

Raymond crouched down slightly, allowing the wind to catch on the cloak and billow it outwards. The three humans saw her scantily clad appearance underneath. Bill and Johnny flushed slightly while Suzy flushed for an entirely different reason.

“Th..that’s my missing underwear…” she stuttered. “H-how…”

Raymond fingered the bag hanging from her waist.

“Found it in Bill’s bag.”

Raymond could almost see her mind fighting a violent battle as several emotions crossed her face. Surprise, anger, hurt, anger, anger, anger.

Suzy turned and faced Bill, pointing at him with a quivering hand.

“Y..you pervert!”

Bill raised his hands, taking a step back, away from his angry teammate.

Raymond cheered inwardly, her guess having been correct. She hadn’t sensed any special relationship between the two, so she assumed that he shouldn’t have had the underwear.

“Uh, guys. This isn’t really the time…” Johnny started.

“Shut up, Johnny. This is important.” Suzy growled as she stomped towards Bill.

Raymond capitalized on the confusion by using her new skill Uncanny Accuracy to throw the bloodstained knife. It caught Johnny in the leg and he yelled in surprise.

Raymond ran forward, swinging the sword. Johnny barely raised a dagger, deflecting the strike.

“Devastate!” Raymond shouted as she hooked her left fist into his gut. She heard an audible crack and then Johnny coughed out blood. He collapsed to the ground.

Suzy paused, staring at Johnny’s crumpled, bleeding form.

Her gaze switched to Raymond. “Y...you... “

Raymond met her gaze, unwavering.

“Me.”

She stabbed her sword into Johnny’s head.

You have inflicted Fatal Damage! Your target has died!

Level Up!x2

Congratulations, you are now a Level 10 Fighter!

Fighter Passive Skill Art of War has been unlocked!