I should say I was surprised by what I saw at the spot where Mary fought off the contingent of bandits sent after her. I should, but honestly I caught the general gist of what went on from the commotion I heard earlier.

The ground was pockmarked by several craters, with fresh dirt thrown out from the epicenter of the explosions that occurred. A few smaller trees were knocked down, but oddly enough it seemed like the locations of the blasts were chosen to avoid damaging the plants that grow here. A few of the trees still had the tell-tale marks of white phosphorus burns, but curiously it seems as though the usually pernicious burning from Willy Pete had stopped.

Or not so curiously. She often seems irresponsible to me, but Mary is a witch dwelling in the forest. That’s one step away from being a Dungeons and Dragons druid character, albeit one with a weird penchant for explosives. It only makes sense that she would have some way to put out the warcrime-in-a-bottle she claims is an ancestral weapon.

Churned up dirt and residual burn marks aside, she really did a number on the bandits. And not in the “bruises and running away screaming” sort of way they show in family friendly shows. The best way to describe it without going into graphic detail is the end results was similar to some of the footage of airstrikes I had seen in my previous employment. There were a few bodies closer to the path that seemed more or less intact, with only a few burns visible, but I’d be unable to even tell how may bandits there were without looking for tracks.

Mary’s foot prints were relatively easy to make out, near the path, and with a slight heel to her boots making an easy to read impression. There was also a set with a much deeper impression from the heel. I can probably assume that the owner of those was also the girl who screamed earlier. The tracks seemed mostly concentrated in a few square feet of the path, which also overlapped with a few larger, rougher boot prints. Probably belonging to the bandits with the burn marks. The distance between the two women’s foot prints going further down the path at least seems to show Mary got away, rescuing the bandits first attempted victim.

Just to be safe, I slowly walk the perimeter of where the fight had occurred looking for spore. It’s probably best to gain a better idea of what occurred, so I should check on that. Sure enough, I see an estimated 10-15 different sets of boot prints heading towards the spot where the encounter occurred. But, near the edge of one of the blasts, I see a few splashes of blood that didn’t have a corresponding body part matching up with them. Instead, there were two sets of foot prints leading away from the site, with the occasional drop of blood showing these prints belonged to a bandit who faced off against Mary.

Shit. I though.

I can’t fault Mary for letting them go. She was dealing with trying to protect someone, and she likely made a decision to prioritize that person’s immediate safety rather than getting rid of the bandits. But, as the leader of the group that attacked me implied, leaving them alive means they can tell their whole band what happened.

The real question is if I should trail the bandits, or follow Mary and the other girl. It might be better to follow the bandits, especially if I can gather intel on their camp and numbers. Ideally I should be able to sneak fairly close to their encampment, and if their numbers are small enough I could even get the drop on them and take them out myself.

Except that’s stupid. I may have lucked out previously with the bandits, but I still got injured and almost shot through the head. If it wasn’t for the bag of mercury fulminate and that strange power, I probably would have died.

Well, calling it a “strange power” seems kind of stupid itself. I’m already in another world, and have had people talking about magic and even joined the Magicians guild. I never new magic would be that instinctual though. Actually, if it’s that instinctual then why did it never occur back in my old world? It’s probably something to do with coming to another world, but Mary mentioned….

Shit. I really should actually focus.

So, since the idea of dying or getting captured by bandits doesn’t appeal to me, I’ll just follow Mary’s tracks. After a mile or so the pace slows down, going off the spacing of the foot prints.

Rather predictably, the foot prints led back to Mary’s house. By the time I got there, it was dusk, with a faint glow from the windows showing that Mary was presumably waiting for me.

A faint ember of annoyance started to grow. A more rational part of me knew she was rescuing someone when she fled back here, but why did she have to leave me alone? She could have tracked back a bit to make sure I was okay. I was just left alone, having to deal with all of those bandits on my own. I could have been killed! I almost had been.

She was likely having the time of her life committing war crimes against those bandits, and I was stuck relying on half-remembered skills from a fencing class I took a while ago. Honestly, I’m still not sure how I’m alive.

As I walked up to the door I could feel this ember fanned into a flame, and the door swung open as I walked through it. I guess this is the same “phenomena” that happened during the fight. Turning the left into the library, I saw Mary seated with a cup of tea next to a rather bewildered-looking girl.

“Welcome back.” Mary said with a calm, but irritatingly cheerful tone.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I almost died. A metric fuck-ton of bandits attacked me as soon as you left, and you just left me there. A half dozen gross, disgusting, unwashed bandits, and you didn’t even think to check up on me! Aren’t I supposed to be your apprentice? You just left me off in the woods all on my own!”

“Well, you’re alive, aren’t you?”

“…”

“If you had gotten injured I would have made sure to rescue you.”

I paused a moment, shocked.

“But I did get injured.”

“That’s barely a scratch. I could heal it in a second”

“That’s not the point.”

“I didn’t pick an apprentice who would get worked up over something so small. Compared to yesterday and how you were coming into this world, I thought you had acclimated enough to have a bit more level-headed view on things.”

“Ugh…”

“You survived, didn’t you? And it even kick-started your awareness of your magic potential.”

“Why do you even know that turn of speech?”

“Now, sit down, we need to discuss what to do about these bandits. Have some tea”

Reluctantly, I took a seat between Mary and the as of yet unintroduced woman who seemed all the more worse for wear after seeing the exchange between Mary and myself. Settling into the chair, I took the liberty of pouring myself a cup of tea from the pot. The tea I grabbed, thankfully, had the same taste of brandy that she had served previously. It was doing a good enough job calming my nerves, but I still had several concerns.

“I saw the aftermath of what you did to them, but was it really a good idea to let some get away?” I asked.

“There were more pressing concerns. I’m surprised you didn’t track them down yourself.”

“You seem much surer of my competence then you really have any right to be. What happened to calling me foolish?”

“You’re adaptable. I knew I made the right choice in apprentices.” She paused. “Rose?”

“Yes?”

“You’re getting blood on my chair.”

“I told you I was wounded, didn’t I?”

The girl who was up until now followed Mary’s gaze, and gave a small shriek at the sight of the blood. Looking over her, it became apparent why she was targeted by the bandits. She was wearing a dress with a rather rich fabric, albeit plainly cut. The linen on the shift peaking out around her collar and at her cuffs was very finely woven, though marred with specks of dirt. She was rather pretty, with blond hair and eyes that on closer examination were heterochromatic, though with one being green and one being a light brown it was hard to notice at first glance.

These eyes, at the moment, were rather large, set in a face displaying the flattened affect of someone that had gone through a severe trauma. While a wide manner of guesses could be made as to the nature of this trauma, the simplest answer would be from having seen what happened to the bandits Mary faced off against. Besides her facial expression and eye color, the most striking thing about her were her ears.

They were pointed.

She was an honest-to-God elf.

“Mary?”

“Hmm?”

“Who is this girl?”

“This is Lady Elizabeth Porte. My niece.”

I’m starting to see why she could get away with so much in town.