Through the pain and disorientation, the ear-splitting ringing and the shower of falling splinters, Jessica’s first thought was that her reaction might have been too vigorous.

  For seconds afterwards the boom echoed up and down the nearby hills. Everyone in Barleyfield heard it. In a moment she would have to start running again. Fortunately, her reaction succeeded at the primary goal of incapacitating Min-woo. Specifically, it blew his leg off.

  “What did you do!?” he screamed, holding his stump in disbelief.

  On top of taking his leg off at the knee, red and black burn marks marred his skin up to his face. Even she was surprised how effective the explosion had been. There was something arrestingly strange about seeing someone who looked like a manhwa protagonist mutilated by a chemical explosion.

  “Min-woo!”

  “Master!”

  “Sweetie!”

  Jessica looked up to see Min-woo’s three teammates standing in the wreckage. Where they had been before this, she didn’t know, but seducing her way out wasn’t going to work a second time.

  “She— she—!”

  Gasps and sobs of pain throttled Min-woo’s voice.

  The mouse girl, Saengjwi, drew her tiny crossbow and leveled it at Jessica. It would have looked adorable if Jessica hadn’t witnessed that same crossbow put holes in someone. She raised her arms.

  “I— th-the chemicals!” Jessica said, pointing with her raised hands at a bowl full of caustic slurry that survived the explosion by being sheltered behind a barrel.

  Saengjwi’s eyes ping-ponged between her and Min-woo. “What!?”

  Exploiting the moment of confusion, Jessica moved slowly and deliberately down to the bowl, gingerly picked it up, and then, once it was squarely and solidly in her hands, hurled it at Saengjwi.

  A crossbow bolt whined past Jessica’s head. There was a brief moment where no one quite knew what had happened until the solution of lye made its way through the top layer of the mouse girl’s skin and began eating away at her flesh. She screamed in pain.

  Using such horrific means to fight was not Jessica’s first choice. Lab safety was not meant to be weaponized. Not to mention there was something horrificly ironic in turning around disfiguring Min-woo’s party members. But she needed to survive. That meant chemical warfare.

  “You will die for what you’ve done!” Ritva said, her emotions finally rising above dull apathy.

  The wood elf unslung her magical bow and a translucent blue arrow shimmered into existence. Jessica ran.

  Remembering Junfeng’s companion had been hit in the neck first, she waited for the harp-wire twang and threw herself prone. A magical arrow flew over her head and disappeared into the darkness. She rolled to the side and two more struck the ground.

  Out in the dark field, Jessica could only see silhouettes crossing in front of distant torches. Before her eyes could acclimate another pair of arrows shot out of the dark. She curled up out of instinct and an arrow grazed her arm, opening a line of blood. The other pinned her dress to the ground. Ritva walked toward her.

  “I don’t know what kind of bastard attacks another adventurer, nor why Tushita reincarnated such a wretched creature, but it is my duty as Min-woo’s bow to strike you down for your sins.”

  Ritva raised her bow and drew back a glittering magical arrow.

  The ground trembled in a rhythmic thump, thump thump. Right as Ritva was at full draw, she tilted the bow up and shot at something behind Jessica. A giant hand clenched around the arrow. Sticky black blood oozed and fell to the grass in a sizzling puddle.

  “As you have come to our aid, so we come to yours,” Morkal said, her sonorous voice seeming to come from every direction.

  Ritva clucked her tongue. “So you do consort with monsters!”

  Morkal leapt with bestial speed but the wood elf was faster.

  Ritva sprinted along an arcing trajectory, her form moving so fast it left after-images. Jessica realized too late these after-images weren’t just an optical illusion as the two images lifted ethereal bows and fired very real arrows. All three hit Morkal who let out a hissing gasp.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Morkal wasn’t going to win. At least not without taking serious damage.

  Jessica rolled to avoid an arrow and accidentally fell into Morkal’s thick blood. Ice raced ahead of fiery pain down her forearm where the blood clung. Jessica bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming and rubbed her arm on the dewy grass, but she could feel the blood eating away at her skin. Through the pain she had her eureka moment.

  “Morkal! Keep her occupied!” Jessica said, pulling herself into a blind stumble.

  As she approached the ruined soap hut, a ball of light appeared and grew brighter like a train through a tunnel. Something told Jessica to duck and she sprawled down over a pile of smashed planks. The light passed over her, scorching the grass before exploding in a shower of pearlescent fireworks. Sparkles rained down and burned Jessica with a thousand pinpricks.

  “Stay back, you filth!” Angelica screamed.

  Seeing another ball of light growing, Jessica sprinted behind the one remaining wall of the hut. The second lightball exploded closer and was accompanied by the sensation of being momentarily pressed against a frying pan.

  Not wanting to experience a direct hit, Jessica threw herself around the wall while the third lightball was charging. Shock passed across Angelica’s face. Jessica rewarded the cleric’s underestimation by driving her knuckles into her nose. While Angelica was stunned, Jessica tore the tome from her fingers.

  Min-woo swiped at her ankles with one of his daggers. She drew her foot up with a millisecond to spare.

  “You bitch! I’ll pull all your god-damned limbs off, you whore!” he screamed.

  Jessica hadn’t had enough time to explore the power system to know how it worked, but as far as she could tell, Min-woo couldn’t use any skills or abilities which required a leg to initiate. That, or he was too distracted by pain to think. Either way, Jessica backed out of his range and began searching for any leftover lye.

  Angelica snarled and moved toward her.

  “Attack me and I rip this book up!” Jessica said, gripping several pages with the tips of her fingers.

  Angelica froze. “Don’t you dare!”

  “It’s how you cast healing spells, isn’t it?I’ll bet your sweetie down there won’t live long without it, huh?”

  “Give it back!” Angelica screeched.

  “Here’s the deal: You turn your light back on and help me look for the stuff I threw on your rat. Once I leave you can have the tome back. Deal?”

  “How dare you—!”

  “Do it!” Min-woo moaned.

  Angelica’s tone turned desperate. “I need the book to make light!”

  “Then let’s start looking in the dark.”

  As they searched, Jessica expected to have to explain to Angelica what she was looking for. But within a few seconds, the cleric announced she’d found something.

  “This is it, isn’t it? The distilled stuff,” Angelica said, holding a vial full of white powder.

  Jessica reached for it.

  Angelica pulled back. “My tome.”

  “Vial first.”

  Angelica sneered and was about to refuse when Saengjwi let out a heartwrenching mewl. Where the mouse girl’s hands weren’t covering her face there were chemical burns.

  “We won’t forget this. Neither will the adventurer’s guild. You will pay for harming Min-woo. For harming your fellow adventurer. They’ll hang you by your neck from a nice, short drop, you know that?” Angelica said.

  “Yes.”

  Jessica grabbed the vial and threw the tome away like a frisbee before sprinting back toward Morkal’s duel.

  From the dark she watched Ritva’s movements. There was no chance of hitting the elf with powdered lye, but that wouldn’t be necessary if she could figure out when and where Ritva would pass near Morkal’s spilled blood.

  Concentrating on the flash of the magical arrows, Jessica watched the volleys swing back and forth around an axis, as though Ritva had picked a spot to kite Morkal around and was circling it in crescent movements. Morkal’s blood reflected the glowing arrows like an oil slick.

  “Morkal! Go righ—”

  Jessica’s words were cut short by an arrow through her calf and she stumbled. Blue light passed all the way through and shot out the other side of her leg. The initial impact didn’t hurt as much as she expected, but within seconds her calf felt like someone had sewn hot coals into it. The pain was enough to obliterate her entire plan.

  What would happen if she failed? She would die, of course. Same as Morkal. But then either the adventurers or Sir Hayek or both would come for the Serfs. Rosemary, Charles, and John. They deserved better than to die because of her.

  Resisting the pain, Jessica stood.

  As though Morkal had intuited her plan, she cheated toward Ritva’s right, prompting her elven opponent to retreat toward a puddle of ichorous blood. Jessica bit down on the cork keeping the vial of lye closed and with her last bit of strength, pitched the sodium hydrochloride onto the puddle of Morkal’s blood.

  A sputtering shower of burning acidic mist covered Ritva and her clones. The elven archer shrieked, slapping at the acid on her to no avail. This gave Morkal enough time to close the distance. Her claws swung down to maul the acid-drenched elf.

  Ritva tried to leap back, but the tips of Morkal’s claws raked across her face drawing three serrated lines over the elf’s left eye. Before Morkal could finish her off, she fled toward her teammates.

  “We cannot finish this tonight. Adventurers approach too quickly,” Morkal said, raising a bony, blood-drenched finger to the approaching huddle of torches.

  Tired, injured, and with no desire to become a murderer, Jessica accepted a boost onto Morkal’s back and the two retreated under the cover of the thunderstorm.