“How is the training going?” Eileen asked the two men sitting on the soft couch in her meeting room.

The two of them were sipping hot cups of tea. Quincy wore his usual ruffled and dirty robes and looked like he hadn’t slept in days while Siegfried was dressed in slacks and a t-shirt that showed off his well-defined muscles.

“I don’t even know where to start…” Siegfried mumbled.

Quincy nodded in agreement, his eyes sparkling as he recalled his new prodigy.

“Her latent potential is absolutely phenomenal! She has only been practicing enhancement magic for a few weeks and she can nearly perform a practical durability enhancement on her entire arm! Her control of the flexibility still needs some practice but yesterday she successfully managed to get movement in seven joints!”

“Is that good?” Eileen asked. “I’m not well versed in enhancement magic.”

“For reference, how long did it take you to get that far, Siegfried?” Quincy redirected the question.

He grimaced.

“Three months, give or take. I was on the fast side.”

Eileen whistled in appreciation.

“What about her training as a guardian?”

Siegfried spat out his tea as he started to laugh.

“You call that a ‘guardian’? I sparred with her two days ago and she snapped her sword and bent my shield in half by ‘accident’! I’ve given up on teaching her how to use a shield. Who needs a shield when you can just give that lady a bunch of big, heavy weapons and she’ll break anything or anyone you point her at?”

“I wonder what she’ll be like when she completes her durability enhancement and starts working on enhancing her muscles…” Quincy mused.

Siegfried stopped laughing and turned to stare at Quincy.

“Are you trying to kill a god?”

Quincy met his gaze with a soft smile.

***

“Wait!” Ray called out to the bandit leader.

Ax flinched.

“Why are you still bothering me? I did everything you asked me to!” he cried out without turning around.

“What are you talking about?” Ray asked, raising an eyebrow. “I never asked you to do anything.”

“Bullshit!”

His knees were slightly bent, and he was poised to run away at a moment's notice. He desperately waved off his subordinates as one of them tried to draw their weapon.

“You crazy man! You wanna die?!”

Ray felt someone tap her shoulder and she turned to see Jantzen towering over her.

“Do you know him?” the fat priest asked.

His eyes were full of suspicion.

“No idea,” Ray shrugged.

“He seems to know you though.”

The other members of the party kept their eyes on their surroundings, but Ray could see that they were surprised and a bit suspicious about this development. Even Lexi seemed a bit curious.

Ray shook her head.

“I only know him from the wanted poster. I think he’s mistaking me for somebody else.”

As if. He was on the mountain. This man knew who she was before the ritual.

“Are you Ax the Pony?” Jantzen called out.

Ax shook his head.

“I don’t want to fight you anymore. You are exempt from the toll. Please, just leave and let us be.”

“We were looking for you. Will you come peacefully, or do we have to fight?”

Ax flinched again. His wavering eyes focused on Ray and he grimaced.

Whoever Ray was before the ritual, this guy was completely terrified of her.

It was somewhat refreshing.

“I… will have to choose the third option. I have no desire to fight you, but I can’t be drawn into the human kingdom yet. I still have to finish my job before I go there.”

Third option? His job?

Ax pulled out a small object from a bag on his belt.

“Stop him!” the voice in her head shouted.

Ray leapt forward and swung her sword at the object in his hand.

But she was too late. The object flashed brightly, and Ray covered her eyes. When her vision returned, Ax the Pony was gone. The boulder next to him was also gone and there was a small crater in the ground where they had been standing.

Half of Ray’s sword that approached the bandit leader was also gone. Everything within the radius of a sphere had completely disappeared.

Losing a weapon didn’t bother her too much. She kept a few spares in her enchanted bag ever since she started breaking them in practice.

“Ah, I should have expected that. It was so cliché!”

Lexi came up behind Ray and tapped her on the shoulder. She held out a dagger with a note attached to it.

“He threw this at me during the flash of light,” she reported softly.

Ray accepted the note and quickly memorized the contents before hiding it in her bag.

Because the throw was masked by the blinding light, nobody else noticed the dagger or the note.

“How are you not injured?” Ray asked, noting that she didn’t see any blood on the dagger.

“I caught it.” Lexi deadpanned.

She revealed her sharp canines.

“You could say that I have cat-like reflexes.”

“...”

Ray stared at her with a dull expression.

“Was that supposed to be a joke?”

Lexi shrugged.

Ray covered her face with her palm and sighed.

The group carefully checked behind each of the boulders but there were no more bandits. Since the other four boulders were all still present, they had to have escaped using different methods but neither Helen nor Ven were able to find any tracks indicating the direction they moved.

“These were not normal bandits,” Helen observed. “Their skills and resources are far beyond our expectations. That thing they used to escape was a spatial grenade. Those things are expensive!”

Ray ignored the conversation of Jantzen’s party members as she thought about the contents of the note:

‘My Lady. As we feared, it seems that your memory was a bit scrambled by the purification ritual. If it is answers that you seek, ask your god. It may take some time, but he can lead you to the truth.

Oh, and I quit. This is my letter of resignation.’

Her god? How did he know about the voice in her head?

“Is he talking about you?” Ray asked.

“Uhhh, I’m not sure, honestly. That’s the only explanation that makes sense though, right?”

It was the only explanation they had, at least. He and the other four Overseers were the only ‘gods’ she knew of. Amongst the five, he was the closest one to being considered ‘her’ god. He gave decent advice from time to time.

So, if she wanted to find out more about the truth of what happened, she needed to work with the voice in her head.

“Ray, what do you think?” Helen’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

Ray jolted to attention, realizing that the others were now focusing on her. She scratched the back of her neck, flushing slightly with embarrassment.

“Erm, about what?”

“We still have the rest of today and all of tomorrow to find the bandits. I don’t think randomly wandering around the mountains is the best idea. We were discussing the best way to go about it,” Helen explained. “Any thoughts?”

Ray rubbed her chin as she studied their surroundings for something that might spark an idea.

“What do you think?”

“Hmm, this is a bit of a tricky one. Since I have no experience with using spatial magic to hide, I don’t exactly know how far away they could be. When my group and I used to run and hide, we would usually have preset hideouts scattered throughout the area. If they were able to move large distances with that spatial grenade, it may be impossible to find them. If not, they are probably hiding within a few miles of this location.”

“How far is it possible to travel with a spatial grenade?” Ray asked.

“It depends on the maker, but they can only move to a preset location. The kingdom uses them to capture criminals by teleporting them into prison cells. Since each city has a prison and the grenades work anywhere within the city and the surrounding farmlands, I would guess that anywhere within a few square miles is fair game.”

“It’s a bit of a large area to search for only two days but if you search for caves, you might be able to find them.”

“Caves…” Ray muttered. “We should probably look for caves on this mountain. If we cover this whole mountain and don’t find them, they either moved while we were searching, or they were able to move further than we expected. In either case, we won’t find them.”

Jantzen went to climb back into the cart but Ray reached out and grabbed his wrist. He turned and looked down at her with an annoyed expression. However, when their eyes met, Ray squeezed his wrist. Jantzen’s eyes looked like they might pop out of his head as he groaned from the pressure.

“We don’t need the cart anymore,” Ray asserted.

“B..but…” Jantzen stammered.

His face flushed red as he tried to break free of her grip. Unfortunately for him, she was just a little bit stronger. Her grip was firm, and he was unable to pull his arm away.

Ray clenched her teeth as she repeated her previous statement.

“We. Don’t. Need. The. Cart. Anymore.”

Jantzen shrunk back, cowering against the side of the cart. Ray released his arm and he collapsed to the ground.

“Be careful. We still don’t know what made them so confident. They might try something soon. If the consequences are acceptable, then we need to let it happen and then react to it. We can’t punish them for sins they haven’t committed yet.”

She stepped aside and motioned for Lexi to follow her. She wasn’t fully sure if she agreed with the voice’s idea here, but she decided she would give it a go. It would be the first ‘step’ in their partnership. She would make use of him at least until she found out the truth about her past.

“If they try to do anything to me later, ignore it until after they make their attempt.”

The catgirl nodded with a slightly confused expression but she didn’t ask any further questions.

“Let’s go!” Ray called out as she continued up the path. “Let’s get to the peak and decide which direction to go from there.”

***

They split into three groups of two, Jantzen and Peter ‘guarding’ the cart while Helen and Ven continued following the rocky trail towards the next peak. Ray and Lexi moved around the side of the mountain, exploring off the beaten path.

Whereas the trail had shown signs of relatively frequent travel, the rest of the mountain was dotted with melting snow, budding flowers, and trees that were starting to show green. Here and there, Ray noted some strange claw marks on the bark of trees and small imprints in the half-frozen mud moving in all directions.

‘Looks like there are creatures moving about. Whether they are normal animals or wild monsters though, I couldn’t say,”

“Lexi, do you know anything about the monsters in this area?”

The catgirl shook her head.

“My home was in the fertile flatlands between the ocean and a desert. If I had to guess based on stories... maybe mountain yetis, cave trolls, lesser rocs, goblins, dwarves, and vampiric rabbit-bears? Ah, and we aren’t that far from the Federation, so it should be possible to encounter orcs or trolls as well.”

Many of her guesses lined up with the info that Siegfried had supplied. Ray silently raised her internal measure of Lexi’s deductions. Looking around carefully, she tried to compare the tracks and scratches with the faint memories dancing at the edge of her recognition. Everything seemed familiar, yet distant. The answer was at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t reach it.

Biting her lip in frustration, Ray stomped further into the trees, scattering rocks and twigs and covering her pants in mud. Lexi followed her more carefully, making sure to avoid stepping into deep patches and dirtying the clothes gifted to her by the temple.

A few dozen minutes of searching later, Ray felt a strange sensation envelop her. She stopped and immediately began to search the area for the source of the disturbance.

Lexi paused as well, tilting her head curiously. A moment later, she realized Ray had sensed something and her triangular ears perked up as she focused on their surroundings as well.

A small, black bundle blitzed by. Ray barely noticed it in her peripheral vision. She turned and attempted to follow the shape with her superior kinetic vision. She focused her eyes on the creature and its shape blurred into view.

The little beast was small and strangely colored. The top half of its fur and its long, bushy tail were pitch black with a small white circle in the center of its back. Its belly was pure white with a small black dot in the center, exactly opposite of the white dot. The fur on its head was split horizontally, its left half being black with white around its eye while its right half was white with black around its eye.

Ray began to quiver. Her instincts warned her to flee with all her might.

However, she had already resolved to push through her instincts and discover the truth hiding behind her forgotten memories.

“A squirrel...? It kind of reminds me of the yin-yang symbol.”

Ray pointed at the creature as it leapt between two branches and zipped up a nearby tree.

“Is that a monster?” she asked.

Lexi followed her finger and noticed the small creature. Her eyes widened and then began to shake.

“A karma squirrel…” she muttered in awe.

Before Ray could ask if it was dangerous, the creature hissed threateningly, glaring at them with its beady eyes.

The squirrel looked relatively harmless. Ray pushed back the instinctual terror welling up within her and took a step forward. A vague memory danced just outside of reach. Beneath the overwhelming fear, she felt a deep well of sorrow and regret tied to the memory.

“Wait…!” Lexi attempted to call out, but it was too late.

The black and white squirrel launched itself from its perch, claws extended as it flew towards Ray. She took a step forward and firmly planted her feet on the ground as she drew her fist up.

She struck with all the strength that she could manage.

The karma squirrel exploded, covering Ray and their surroundings with red paint and chunks of bone and gore.

“DAMMIT!” Lexi wailed.

Ray moved as if to turn towards her friend but froze as a strange pressure rose inside of her. Pain comparable to a snapshot of her time on the mountain filled her body and, as she opened her mouth to scream.

Everything went black.

After an unknown amount of time, Ray felt her senses returning. Agony surged through her and she tried to scream but she couldn’t move her body yet. A horrific wail filled her ears, momentarily drawing her attention away. As the sensations across her body slowly grew stronger, she managed to twist her neck and open her eyes.

Lexi was covered from head to toe in blood and kneeling over Ray, arms folded over her face as she sobbed into her chest. Ignoring the pain, Ray gently lifted an arm and stroked the back of Lexi’s head.

The catgirl stiffened, her cries abruptly halting as she turned to search for what was touching her. Ray fought the urge to cry and instead offered a weak smile.

“R...Ray…?! H...h...how?!” Lexi spluttered, tears streaming down her cheeks. Ray could practically see her friend’s mind reeling.

She propped herself up onto her elbows and took note of her surroundings. With her as the epicenter, there was a circle of blood and gore. Her clothes were in pieces and bits of flesh and bone could be seen scattered about.

“Most of what you see here is ‘you’. You exploded, and quite spectacularly.”

“W...what…?!” Ray coughed out, her mind reeling as she collapsed back down to the ground. She felt her regeneration moving towards completion as the pain began to dull.

Lexi wiped her nose with her sleeve and smiled. Her eyes revealed a dangerous glint.

“Karma squirrels are considered creatures that should be avoided at all costs. They have low combat capabilities, but they have a natural property that returns all injuries to their opponent…”

Ray’s eyes lit up in understanding. “So, I exploded because I exploded the squirrel?”

Lexi nodded in affirmation, her ears twitching.

“Now, you have something you need to explain to me.”

Ray shivered as she reached for her bag to find a new pair of clothes. Swearing that she would never again disregard her senses, she opened her mouth and began to explain.