three years later

“Father Sinatre! Guess who?” I greeted as I burst through the doors of the chapel.

He heaved a heavy sigh. “Are you here to check your stats?”

“Of course! I’ve been working hard this week!”

“My lady, usually stats are not checked every week. The next stat check should have been your coming of age ceremony.”

“How will I know if my training is effective, otherwise?”

“There are better ways to measure your progress.”

To him, maybe. But to gamer trash like me, there was no better way to judge my progress.

“I tried a new training method this week. I’m focusing on rotating between strength, magic, and agility. I’m hoping it causes an exponential growth!”

“I hope it does as well, for our sake.”

He placed his hand over my head.

I shut my eyes and waited for that familiar warming sensation and bright light. Unless I wanted to get soaked in the water, I would have to trust what he says my stats are. As much as I hated that, getting wet was also not something I wanted to do.

“You are still level 7. All other stats remain the same.”

I stomped my foot on the ground. “I’ve been stuck at seven the past year!”

“My lady, most people are not level seven until they are thirteen years old. After your coming of age ceremony, you will find that you gain levels easier.”

Coming of age meant two things in my world. One, I would be considered “marriageable” to Alexious. Two, I would be expected to pick a specialization to study. That was the growth he spoke of. After the specialization burst typically people gained a level a year. My level goal, of course, is nothing less than max!

“I wanted to gain another level before my birthday tomorrow.” I frowned. “That was my goal.”

“You will surely gain many levels in your lifetime. There is no need to rush.”

He wouldn’t understand the reason why I needed or wanted to rush, so I left it at that. “Thank you, Father Sinatre. We’ll meet again for devotionals on eve of the Floral Moon.”

The world seemed to turn to shades of gray. Not meeting goals sucked big time.

Judging from the lack of progress, I hit that point where everything I currently did gave 1 EXP and unless I found a way to increase difficulty it would remain that way. There were a few low level enemies around, such as lytes, small squirrel-like green beasts that lived in treetops, or dynas, which was basically the standard slime monster found in every game. I particularly enjoyed battling dynas because their susceptibility to magick meant I could practice casting spells and take advantage of my high magick stat. Unfortunately, there weren’t any mid-range leveled enemies in this area; in the game itself, the progression from here to Oranhail provided the increase in difficulty and by time the player rounded back this way they leveled sufficiently enough to battle the higher leveled foes.

I trudged back up the stairs to our manor. Even though I snuck out to visit Father Sinatre and train, the depression of being forever level seven erased any fear of consequence for sneaking out.

“Afternoon, Weduri,” I greeted.

“My lady!” he yelped. “You escaped again?”

“Tell Captain Klaus better luck next time.”

He groaned and opened the gate. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this to Duke Maelle.”

“I know, I know.” I sighed and continued my weary trek back to my quarters. I would have to change out of my leather armor set and ready myself for dinner if I also didn’t want to hear my mother whine about my lack of royal manners.

She didn’t seem to quite understand that I intended to break off the engagement at the proper time and learning royal etiquette was a waste of time that could be better spent training.

At least, I used to think that until I hit a wall of experience gain. Maybe I could convince my parents to take a day trip out to the countryside or something…

More frustratingly, I hadn’t quite figured out exactly how magick spells worked here; after all, it’s not like I could just say please teach me how to cast blizzard, because those distinctions didn’t seem to exist. Instead, it seemed to be a measure and extension of the caster’s ability. Perhaps a proper teacher would have some sort of technique or theory but I had yet to convince my parents to hire me an actual tutor. The double digits I was born with? Good baby-making stock is all it was worth!

Amelie was waiting for me outside my room, glaring with her hands on her hips. “Lady Lucina!”

“Good afternoon, mistress Amelie.”

“Don’t you good afternoon me! Where have you been all day?”

I held up my sword. “Training.”

“What have we told you about sneaking out?”

“I can handle myself just fine.” I pointed to the neat row of potion bottles around my waist like a decorative belt. “I always have at least five potions and ethers if I get in danger.” Even in my old life, I always had to have my healing items in multiples of five. The fact that it maxed out at 99 instead of 100 stressed me greatly.

“Your mother—”

BANG!

The ground rumbled and shook before turning into a wave, as though it were made of water.

Amelie yelled, “Float!”

Both of us floated in the air to the ceiling. Below us, the ground became spikes.

If my armor wasn’t binding my chest it feels like my heart would have fallen out from shock. “What’s—”

“Quiet!” Amelie hissed. “We’re going to go in your room.”

She canceled the spell and we gently landed in between the huge spikes of earth. Though a spike had gone through my door, we were able to climb on top of it and go inside.

“Thankfully you’re in your armor,” she muttered as she dashed to my trunk. She pulled out a small gray velvet bag and went to my vanity and began stuffing jewelry inside.

“What are you doing?”

“If you need money, you will have to sell these. Get as much as you can for them. Even a single ring should be enough to buy you passage to Oranhail.”

“What do you mean?” My voice shook.

Amelie grasped my shoulders. “You are strong. You will survive.” She shoved the bag into the gap between my armor and undershirt.

“What about Mother and Father?”

“They will meet you in Oranhail.” She dashed to my dresser and in a clean motion, pulled it back and knocked it to the ground. A single door was behind it, plain with a small brass handle covered in dust. She opened the door and peered inside. “It seems like the passage is still intact. We’re lucky.”

Tears began flowing down my cheeks. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”

“We’re under attack.”

My chest became tight and air refused to enter my lungs properly.

In the game, Lucina was an orphan…

My body trembled. “They’re going to die.”

“No, they’re not. But you will if you don’t get going!” Amelie pushed me into the passage. She grabbed a wooden torch next to the entrance and snapped her fingers, casting a small fire spell to light it. She handed it to me. “Go!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you. I am going to ensure they will not be able to enter this room and follow us. That passage will go out to the back of the manor. You’ve snuck out enough times to know how to not be caught.”

“But—”

She gave me a warm smile.

Would this be the last time I saw those soft honey eyes and beautiful freckles?

Her gentle hands cupped my face. “I’ll be right behind you. Go.”

I don’t remember my legs moving but they were. The cold trails of water on my face and stinging eyes were proof I moved fast. A loud boom sent my flying forward to my knees. The torch flew out of my hands and died. Amelie! Chunks of dust rained on my head. I stood and dusted my head off. I had to keep going. With one hand on the wall, I continued running in the dark.

“I’m here,” Amelie announced as she scooped me up in her arms, carrying me the rest of the way through the narrow tunnel.

Normally I would have fought and insisted on going myself. But the strength drained from me. Game Lucina is an orphan. That fact repeated over and over in my head as though it were the BGM for this segment.

We reached the exit door but it was sealed shut.

Amelie set me down. “I need you to be prepared to defend yourself if need be. We don’t know what’s on the other side of that door.”

I nodded and gripped my sword. Though my magick was stronger, I could count on my sword to kill.

Kill.

Monsters were one thing.

Humans were another.

Could I do it? Could I drive this sword into another human? In the game, I did it thousands of times. But this was real life. My new life barely began years ago. If I had to, if I had to...

Amelie used a wind spell to push open the door. It splintered and burst.

The area of the manor we were in was close to my usual route of escape. No one was around, but we could hear swords clanging, men and women screaming, and the sounds of elemental magick being cast the front of the manor.

“We need to move,” Amelie said as she gazed to the direction of the noise.

My body refused to budge.

In the game, the war didn’t start until Alexious ascended the throne. Who was attacking us?

“My parents—”

“The duke and duchess are both capable magick users. By the Daughter’s wrath, if only we had an exodus!”

“I sneak out over there,” I said, voice steady despite the inside of my body feeling like it was in a blender. Yet, my feet rooted in the ground, unable to start.

“Show me.”

When I didn’t move right away, she seemed to sense my fear. She gave me a nudge and the forceful motion allowed my feet to go. Somehow, I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to start up again.

The grass crunched under our feet. Plumes of black smoke rose into the air, taking over the white clouds.

As we approached the city, sounds of crackling fire and wailing screams carried on the wind. The smoke made it difficult to breathe but adrenaline carried me forward in spite of it.

The spot I went out was a rusted patch of fence. The hole accommodated me but it would not do the same for Amelie.

She leaped over the fence. Her brows furrowed as she turned in a slow circle. “We need to get a boba. We can’t go by foot.”

“But it sounds like there's fighting that way.”

“I know.” She pressed her lips together and took a long breath through her nose. “It’ll be too difficult to bring two back myself. You’re going to have to come with me.”

Where there’s people, I may have to…

“I know you must be scared. But we must if you are to survive.” She motioned to follow her and we crept along the walls. Each time the potion bottles sloshed or clinked, my heart would leap to my chest, as though those soldiers could hear them.

The soft golden wood stables came into view. Thankfully, they weren’t on fire and the mixture of roars, squawks, and shrieks of the animals made a cacophony of terrifying sounds but proved they were alive. Dragon Fantasy had a multitude of mounts available to the player. There was even a minigame that allowed the player to breed and raise different mounts (all for the sake of getting a rare, of course).

The easiest to raise and most popular in the general populace were boba birds. The design was obviously ripped off of dodo birds back on earth, but larger than an ostrich and able to be ridden like horses. They could not fly, however.

Nobility and the military did not usually ride boba birds. My father had a griffin and my mother had a pegasus. Both animals were still inside the stable. The discovery choked me. I tried to control the onslaught of tears that threatened to flow. Their mounts being there meant they had yet to escape.

“Pick a boba,” Amelie ordered as she grabbed saddles.

I had yet to properly learn how to ride a boba, so I didn’t have a favorite. The standard shade for boba in this region were sandy beige or the gray of stormy skies. I opened the stable door and a gray bird came up to me first, so that was the one I picked. At least that one seemed like it wanted to leave and that instinct to flee may help me also flee.

Amelie threw a saddle on it and tightened it. She then lifted me up and placed me on it. My feet couldn’t reach the stirrups. She stroked the crest of the boba bird and stated solemnly, “You behave, understand? Take care of my lady.”

A loud whistle jolted us. The bird flapped its wings. I wrapped my arms around its neck and tried to stay on the saddle. The roof above us crackled and groaned.

“Rub the chest,” Amelie ordered.

With my small arms, I could barely reach around the neck of the boba, but I rubbed it all the same as instructed. The thick soft down tickled my fingers as the bird stopped dancing in place and returned to a normal stance.

The smell of smoke became stronger. The whistle! Now I knew where I remembered that sound. A fire arrow spell! “Fire!”

“We have time,” Amelie said in a tone completely devoid of danger, as though we prepared for a leisurely stroll.

“But the stable is on fire!”

“It will not burn down in an instant.” She looped the muzzle around the curved beak of the boba and handed me the reins. “Kick the side twice with your feet to go. Kick once to stop. To go faster, spank the hindquarters.”

I kicked the side twice. The boba trotted out of the pen. So far so good.

Amelie geared up a second boba, climbed on, and stood next to me.

“Run, you hear? Push it to its limit if you have to.” She slapped the hindquarters of my bird. “Hah!”

The boba took off into a sprint out of the stables. I yelped as my body nearly bounced off the saddle. I let go of the reins and wrapped my arms around the neck. My body practically floated above the saddle.

A loud whistle. A fire arrow! It hit just in front of me. The boba cawed and abruptly took a turn. I gripped onto the feathers for dear life as my body went off the saddle completely.

Amelie came beside me and grabbed the back of my armor, lifting me back onto the saddle. “Keep going!”

More whistles.

A searing heat grazed my arm. I cried out and lost my grip. Bad mistake. I fell to the ground in a rolling heap. Amelie stopped her bird and unmounted to pick me up.

A neat line of flame arrows hit in front of us.

No one behind us. I looked up. Shining silver armor on top of a black pegasus. Around the pegasus’ neck was a banner of orange and blue and a crest of a griffin’s head.

Poran? The hero came from Poran. At the game’s start, Poran was trying to defend themselves from the empire! Why are they attacking us?

The pegasus knight drew their flaming bow.

I covered my face.

My body fell to the ground. Cooling wind swirled around me.

Amelie cast a whirlpool of wind around us, snuffing out the arrows. She directed the air into the sky to the pegasus knight. The knight took the blow directly and flew backwards. The crunch of the armor hitting the ground sent chills through me.

Amelie put me on her saddle and mounted it behind me. She wrapped one arm around my waist, took the reins in the other, and slapped the hindquarters of the bird. It lurched forward. We looped around the perimeter walls to the main road. A mixture of bodies of civilians and soldiers littered the roads and thick blood soaked the cobblestones. The boba leaped and catapulted off the corpses in the road in order to move forward.

In any normal situation, this would shock and sicken me. My mind detached from it all. I knew all this was something horrifying. But I couldn’t feel anything. They may as well have been textures rather than those whose lights had been snuffed far too early.

At the side entrance of the town, Porian soldiers were amassed, though none of those were fighting, instead, waiting in a standard phalanx formation. They really sent an entire force to our meager duchy. Multiple pegasus, griffin, and sphinx knights dotted the air, raining red streaks of fire arrows to the city.

There weren’t any places to hide; only open fields surrounded us.

Please, Mother of Us All! Don’t let us be seen!

My chest tightened and I grasped the reins with an iron grip. None of us had a hope to survive with that many soldiers. Even in the game, that would be the sort of fight that had a survival time limit instead of vanquishing all of them.

“They’re going to send a group after us,” Amelie stated in a grave tone.

Of course. They wanted no survivors.

“I’m going to tell you exactly what to do and you must follow it to the letter, understand?”

No words wanted to come out. I nodded.

“When they catch up with us, I am going to dismount. You will ride ahead of me. And you will not stop or slow down. If the boba is tired, feed it one of your potions and keep it going. Push yourself beyond your limits. I know you’re capable.”

Tears lined the edge of my eyes. I nodded again.

“I will be right behind you,” Amelie reassured in a steady and calm voice. It sounded confident. While the child in me trusted those words, the older me knew them as a masked lie. She was going to sacrifice herself for my life. Mother and Father were probably already dead as well.

“Warn King Yuri of the Porian invasion. You are a duchess. You will be taken care of.” She pulled my waist tight, hugging me to her chest. Her lips pressed against my hair. “You are the most precocious ward I have ever taken. I have all the confidence you will make it to Oranhail.”

I tried to look behind us, to see how much longer I had before I lost Amelie, but she reinforced her grip, preventing me from looking.

“I can fight too.”

“My lady, you are only level seven. I’m certain even the most inexperienced soldiers in that lot are level twenty.”

“But you—”

“If the Mother deems me blessed, I will survive the encounter easily.”

No one ever spoke of their class here as it would have been stated in the game. However, from Amelie’s dress and magick abilities, it was obvious she excelled as a mage class. Mages never fared well in close encounters.

“They approach."

She slowed the bird and jumped off. For a brief moment, she stared ahead at the four soldiers rushing to us on armored steeds.

Someday, I wish to have the courage to stand with the same composure. Her beautiful auburn hair swayed in the wind, exposing the freckles on her neck. An aura of dignity and pride emitted from her straight shoulders. She turned to me and those green eyes, full of confidence and resolve, imprinted on my soul.

She handed me the reins and wedged my feet into the stirrups. I took an ether from my belt and held it out to her. "Take it."

She didn't argue like I thought she would. Her slender fingers wrapped around the bottle and took it from me. She didn't smile. I wish she had.

"Survive, Lucina." She slapped the rear of the boba.

The boba flew forward at breakneck speed. I couldn’t look back. It took all my strength to stay on the boba and steer him properly.

The wind howled behind me.

I had to trust she would follow.

I had nothing else left to trust.

The smoking plumes of my scorched home started to creep to the sky in front of me, as though that evil darkness also won against the daylight.

I didn’t know how many nights it would take to get to Oranhail. The Poran force would surely march to Oranhail next, however. The faster I went there, the better prepared they would be.

By nightfall, I had already given the boba bird three of my five potions.

My body ached, especially my thighs and calves, but I could not bring myself to stop and rest. If I slept, who knew how long I would be asleep? And what if those soldiers that tailed Amelie also tailed me?

I couldn’t let her sacrifice be in vain.

If the Mother allowed a reunion, it would be in Oranhail.

The boba slowed to a steady trot. With only two potions left and diminishing returns on each one, letting the boba go until it decided to stop would be best. When the boba rested, I would rest too. From there, we could start again on these lonely roads.

I could only hope that it wouldn’t be too late.