King Kellaran POV:

I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this situation. Seven heirs, each of royal blood, and all are immature and inept. Two would become tyrants, two would be decadent, one bends easier than melted iron, another is locked away in his studies to become a priest, and the final one is only thirteen years old. None are valid choices,

And yet, I’m forced to pick one, as my time as king will soon be over. I will be dying soon, only a few months are guaranteed. How the hell am I supposed to chose? All my available choices are fools and I would rather die than let one on my throne, the only problem being that me dieing would mean they get the throne. Oh God, what am I to do? I turn to my bedside guard, a stout man who bears the blood of the Stone-Kin, as well as the North-Kin.

“Tychus, get me Tor. I need to talk to him.” King

Tychus nods, stern faced as usual. He makes his way out of the lavish and impractical room that has always felt more a prison than a bedroom. Scratch that, everything here feels like a prison.

I wait in silence while musing to myself about what that girl was going to do to me once she found out. I can still remember how happy she was the instant I told her she could leave the capital and politics behind. Oh God she will be trying to kill me the instant I tell her that I’m pulling her back into this game. The sad thing was, she was always so perfect as a successor. She had no arrogance, she would hold even the most esteemed nobleman's words with a grain of sand. But her most qualifying trait, was her ability to act. She always pretended to be a witless, clumsy little serving girl, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. A few days before she left, she gave me a list that held the names of every corrupt official and noblemen that she had ever served for more than a few days. She made people think she was useless, so that she could get at every weakness the nobles left undefended. I was literally about to cry with how happy I was at the new development, made reforming my capital all the easier, though the rest of the nation was something I understood was a feat unattainable for someone such as I.

She just hated it, the political game, which I suppose I should be happy for. People who fall in love with the game often become its greatest evils; but those who hate it strangely enough become the greatest threats to the game itself. Who knows, maybe one day, she’ll break the board. Though I must wonder a single question,

“What is my beloved daughter up to now, I wonder? Hopefully she didn’t go through with that particular… aspiration, of hers.” King

But who am I kidding at this point, my daughter always was a bit of a tomboy. Too much like her mother, acted like a full blown Beast-Kin, despite only being half Low-Beast-Kin, with some Plains-Kin and Wood-Kin blood. Hopefully she tried to become an archeologist and find relics from the time of the Metal-Kin and Eldar-Kin, she was always so fascinated with them.

Ah hell. Cecilia’s probably hunting down bandits, isn’t she?

*********************

My ear starts twitching again, I really need to get it looked at. Though, and believe me I’m not some crazy… damnit, what’s the word again? Anyways, not crazy, but whenever my ears twitch like this, somehow a big decision is made concerning me.

“GRAAH!!” Orc

I dodge another one of the Orc’s sloppy sword smacks. He’s using a Ranger’s Bastard Sword like a club, which is why orcs have a tendency to stick with blunt weapons. Guess it’s tough, losing to rage that easy. I’d feel bad for him *swish* IF HE WASN’T TRYING TO KILL ME!!

I duck under the horizontal slash and use the opening to run him through with my sabre. Nimbleness trumps strength, as my mentor liked to say. I was lucky in this case that the Orc was wearing just a pile of animal skins that were thrown together. Their natural armor is tough as Erkin leather, but on the sternum is a small gap in the muscles, causing a natural tension that is very vulnerable to pointed objects, which is why most where metal plates over that piece of skin, but this Orc was an idiot. Probably thought that he was invincible after going after a few civilians who didn’t know the trick, or couldn’t use it.

Though I can’t get too distracted, a collapsed lung won’t kill him immediately, he’s still got a few moments with which to get vengeance.

I pick up my left foot and get some footing on his abs, immediately using it to jump off of him, not missing a beat from when I ran him through. He clips my side with the blade of the Bastard Sword, but otherwise doesn’t hit me much. The swing sends me off balance, and I plummet into a nearby tree. Thankfully, though, still outside of the Orcs immediate range, meaning he can’t get to me. He staggers back , gasping for air before collapsing as he vomits out a steady stream of blood, finally dying after a minute of pained writhing before life finally left him. I must have scraped his spine, somehow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's always nice to accidently hit your enemies greatest weakness, though I will have to remember that their spines are easier to hit than most people make it sound lilke. They probably have less bone coverage on the front side of their bodies.

I’m clutching my side, I pull out a healing poultice from my bag. Damn things are hard to come by, but the cut smells like shit, which means it’s hit my intestines. The pain is numbed right now, due to the battle rush, but soon it’s going to wear off and I’ll no doubt be having quite a time. I have a pretty good pain tolerance, so the wound alone wouldn’t get to me. No. It’s the poultice I gotta worry about.

The poultice is one of those high effectivity ones, not the comforting ones that the nobles use. I can’t get my hands on the soothing ones. Too pricy. Nope, I got the ones that heal like a flash, and hurt like hell, application and effect. They don’t use your latent lifeforce like the ones people think are good, so I don’t have to worry about taking years off my life. Met one poor schmuck of a warrior, looked older than my uncle despite being half the age. My bosses are still trying to find out who flooded the market with them, but it hasn’t helped stop them.

I pull off my shirt and cuirass, realizing right after that I didn’t actually check the area for bandits or animals. Then again, this area was guarded by a Roving Orc, so animals should know better and bandits are all dead.

“Hooo, hooo, this is gonna hurt like-- ARnnn!” Me

Sticking your hand into an open wound, feeling around your insides, then having to repeat this process is a very, very painful idea. I try to keep my curses quiet, but somehow it lessens the effect a loud one would have. Oh well, should work on that battle trance the older Rangers talk about so often. Separating myself from my body, eh? Wonderful advice, never heard anything better. Who knows, they probably have the mindset of “I actually know something for once, so let’s try pretending to be sages while we get drunk as hell!” I know that’s what I would do. Well, the screwing with the greenhorns would be fun.

Anyways…

I apply the last of the poultice over the skin I was just having my way with, gritting my teeth at the pain. My knowledge of alchemy is fairly basic, I focus more on the best ingredients needed, not the reagents themselves. However, I understand the theory; friends with the alchemist who taught me the recipe, guy could turn tree leaves into a paralytic potion. Well, he used weeds, but that’s beside the point.

Back to the theory. He explained that the ingredients mesh with your body, creating a sort of knock off version of the preexisting flesh so that your body can heal over it quicker, preventing a great deal of tearing that results from even the slightest movements. It isn’t as durable as actual flesh, but it stops bleeding and allows for bodily functions to proceed normally.

I pull out a length of bandage from the other pocket, just to find that it was ruined by the blood. Putting this on is just asking for the rot. I sigh, I only have one other length of bandage on hand, the covering for my breasts. God damnit. Well, gonna have to deal with people thinking I’m one of those noble women adventurers who are trying to look cool for their friends.

Sluts, basically. They look like sluts.

They wear impractical, form fitting, stylish leather garb with glamourous hoods, at least when they start. By the end of the day, they’re wearing ruffed up, torn, unglamorous armor, that was still form fitting to their, usually, padded chests.

My armor had a hood built in, was torn up, definitely didn’t look nice, and my chest didn’t need padding to get big enough to make my armor tight. I had to start putting on bandages so that I wouldn’t have to constantly get my armor refitted, or even new armor all together. Costs too much coin, and I only have so much to spare on constantly having my armor reworked.

I quickly undo the bandage, feeling very relieved to not have my breasts so cramped up. I could do without the size though, they screw with my balance, and goodness do they give me back pains. I’m not even fully grown yet and they’re almost as big as the inn keeper’s at the inn, the bitch. I honestly hate those fucking High-Beast-Kin. They act like normal people around most, a little bit of classism despite most's economic capabilities, but once they see a person with relations to Low-Beast-Kin, they get all high and mighty. The one at the inn, a Cow-Kin, told me I had to sleep in the tool shed for twice the price of her most expensive room. I was lucky that a group of other Rangers threatened to leave the inn and blacklist it if she didn’t give me normal rates.

Say what you will about us Rangers, but we sure as hell look after one another. Plus no Innkeeper would willingly let themselves get blacklisted by the Ranger’s Pact, that’s essentially a death sentence given our nomadic nature and good name. It’s actually worse than pissing off the Adventurer’s Guild of Mercenaries, seeing how hard it was to get blacklisted by the Pact; we took our jobs very seriously, unlike Guild Adventurers, and as such won’t stand for innkeepers who hold our race above our profession.

It took some doing to just get my shirt back on, after that I had to spend way too much time on straps for my cuirass. Still don’t know why other women like to take so damn long with their clothing, or their hair, or just about all of it really. Anyways, this walk is going to be really annoying, in every manner I can think of. Racially annoying, physically annoying, genderlingly annoying, and sexually annoying. Goddamnit.

I slowly start on my way to the village before realising I never grabbed my sabre, or my trophy. I shuffle my way over to the sabre, wincing a little as I realize it’s slightly bent. It wasn’t the best sword out there, so it probably bent on it’s little journey inside of the Orc. Sabres aren’t the most durable weapons in the world, everyone is always telling me to stop using them, too weak for puncturing attacks. Maybe I should try one of those Sea-Kin blades. Nice curve to it and still strong. Then again, sheathing those things is an absolute nightmare.

I prefer my weapons curved, if you wanted to know. It helps with slashing attacks, much better with a curved weapon than a straight one. I place the sabre down next to the body of the orc. After that, I take out a hunting knife, grab one of the Orc’s tusks, and start cutting at his throat. I first cut the arteries to make sure that the blood pressure won’t cause me to get drenched. Again. After making sure that nothings going to get on me, I start cutting. My blade makes several wet noises as it takes some difficulty going through the Adam’s apple and the other bones in the Orc’s neck. Orcs have larger neck bones, it prevents someone from strangling them or snapping their necks. Pretty effective, and also annoying as hell.

Eventually I break through them with a loud chunk sound, then grumbling to myself because now I have to go through it’s spine. I feel around with my knife, looking for a weak point to pry the spine open with. After a few minutes I finally find it, cutting through a small amount of bone and flesh, finally freeing the head from it’s body. I find myself panting, pain and exhaustion making for bad work companions.

Hmph, if dad could see me now. He’d probably ask what I did with the maid uniform. He always said he thought I was cute wearing it.

I stumble my way right back onto the main road, and am surprised by what I see. I recognize one of them being a Ranger Captain, the people in charge of low ranking members of the pact, like myself. Him being here, waiting for me, must mean I picked up my ranking bounty. They way members of the pact rank up, unlike Guild members, is that Captains watch over the Standing Rangers under them. I am a Standing Ranger, essentially meaning that I can only get jobs in his lands and he has to approve them. Ranking up is handled only at the behest of the Captain, so a newbie can become a Captain as long as the higher ups authorize it.

Rank up missions, happen when a Captain gives you a quest ranking higher than yourself, meaning that they will test your capabilities against opponents outside of your presumed capability. If you win, you rank up, if not, the captain has to step in and save your sorry ass.

Most Captains are very straightforward professionals who act with respect.

My Captain is not most Captains.

He smirks as he sees me, opening his arms as if to hug me as he bellows his usual greeting out.

“Moon Cow! You’ve come back to me! And with such gifts for the eyes as well!” Perverted Captain Y’sar

I was tempted, as per usual, to try and kill him, but that would not end well. Y’sar was a Wood-Kin, the most long lived and dextrous of the races. Y’sar was also a practitioner of one of the more annoying martial paths, provocation. There are five martial paths, provocation, ferocity, repentance, blindness, and swiftness. Very simple names, in comparison to the names used by the other nations beyond our own, but that is one of the things that makes us people of Eria; simple but effective.

Y’sar is at the point in provocation and repentance that losing your composure even once is a death sentence. Repentance correlating to attacking in response to another; the path focusing heavily on defensive techniques, counterattacking a religious necessity for its practitioners..

I sigh at the antics of my Captain, then look questioningly at the man to his left. He looks to be a knight, bearing the mark of the academy, a hawk. Above the symbol of the hawk is a… fuck that’s the royal stag! Why did my father send him here?!

Wait, wait, don’t panic Cecil, father would never send me back, he promised. The only reason he would ask me back is if my siblings--

“Sir, I will warn you only because of your position, but please don’t speak to the crown princess in such a way.” Royal Knight

“SON OF A BITCH!!” Cecilia