With how exhausted she was, Jessica expected to fall straight to sleep. But by the time the first blue rays of dawn were cracking the darkness, Jessica suspected it wasn’t going to happen. Her mind was turning on too many things.

  Adventurers were top of the list. Morkal was using her toad form as an early warning system, but that didn’t help with the fact that a horde of violent adventurers were coming for her.

  Had she limited herself to harming Min-woo’s companions she might have escaped notice. Harming another adventurer, however, was an unforgivable sin. She would be on the run for the rest of her time in Tushita. For all she knew that meant the rest of her life.

  The other thing which kept her awake was Barleyfield.

  Throughout the night she pressed Morkal for updates. The monstress was initially reluctant to tell her, hoping she would rest without worry. At Jessica’s insistence Morkal finally confessed that Barleyfield had been burned to the ground.

  This was Jessica’s fault. Hers alone. If she hadn’t fought back against Akuhara then Barleyfield would still be standing. The adventurers had burned it to flush her and Morkal out.

  Jessica flip-flopped between being furious with herself and furious with the adventurers who viewed the world as their own personal isekai story. This entire episode had probably been some kind of comic relief to them, slapstick about chasing a monster escalating into burning a hamlet.

  At least one of them wasn’t laughing right now. That was a small comfort.

  Jessica didn’t consider herself a violent person. On the contrary, her roommates appointed her official bug catcher, since she could grab cockroaches, spiders, and moths and chuck them outside without harming them. However, what she’d done last night was horrific. She hadn’t killed anyone, but all of them besides Angelica now had permanent, grotesque injuries.

  Tushita the fantasy world—with elves and magic and quests and catgirls—now had chemical warfare in it thanks to Jessica.

  At some point sleep snuck into her self-pity session and she only noticed when full-on daylight attacked her eyes. Morkal’s main body was up brewing something in a cauldron.

  Jessica groaned and shrugged her blanket off. Heat and humidity had come with the sun and drenched her in sweat. She sat like this in crusty numbness as Morkal handed her a bowl of stewed grains with pine nuts, herbs, and pieces of mystery meat floating in it.

  “Um… Morkal? What’s in this?”

  “Not human,” Morkal replied.

  “Could I get a more positive identification than that?”

  “We stored it away in salted preserves long ago,” she replied, “but it is not from a sentient animal if this is what you fear.”

  Jessica took that to mean ‘not human’ was also ‘not elf or animalar’ and scooped a bite into her mouth. It tasted like chicken. She suddenly felt sick and pushed the bowl away.

  “I’m sorry Morkal, I can’t eat,” she said.

  “Eat the grains at least,” Morkal said. “Drink some tea. An empty stomach will only compound your troubles.”

  She sounded like Melina, Jessica thought. The gruel wasn’t happening but the tea at least went down.

  “You should feel proud,” Morkal said with a toad-like gurgle.

  “Proud of what? I got Barleyfield burned down,” Jessica said.

  “You defended yourself against assailants much stronger than yourself. Adventurers with stats and skills and levels would still have lost to Min-woo, but you won with your alchemical knowledge and quick-thinking.”

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  Really, Morkal being proud of her made her feel worse.

  Up to that point, Morkal had, in Jessica’s mind, represented a kind of justice and wisdom against the insanity that was sociopathic teenagers with magical powers. But she had also been the Demon King’s Chief Alchemist, and while Jessica was willing to believe adventurers had disturbed an equilibrium by killing the Demon King, that didn’t mean he was a great guy either. The native inhabitants of Tushita had built this watchtower for a reason.

  “We can tell you are still bothered,” Morkal said.

  Jessica shook her head but couldn’t manage any words.

  “You did not burn Barleyfield. Nor did you cause these events to come to pass. You merely defended yourself.”

  She wouldn’t have had to defend herself if she stayed in the field. The only reason she met Min-woo was because she wanted to hoard Morkal’s lab supplies. Why? Because she thought they would help her become a main character. Powers or no powers, Jessica was motivated by the same thing as other adventurers.

  Tushita was a literal fantasy world. It reformed itself around your latent desires. For most people that meant fantastical adventures with sexy companions and zany hijinks. But while Jessica had assumed the Tapestry ignored her when she was first reincarnated, what if it hadn’t?

  There was a niche of story, after all, where someone with expert knowledge was overlooked but through cleverness and ingenuity gradually revealed them to be a genius after all. For some weird reason apothecaries leapt to mind.

  Had Jessica subconsciously wanted to be thrown into serfdom? Had she wanted to claw her way out by showing off esoteric chemistry skills? And had she thrown all of Barleyfield on the pyre to live out that fantasy? She was no better than Min-woo or Junfeng or Akuhara in that case. Ultimately, she was still using the native inhabitants of Tushita as glorified props.

  “I need to go for a walk,” Jessica said, standing up against a wave of sleep deprivation and malnourishment.

  “We do not believe that is wise,” Morkal said.

  “You said the same thing last time.”

  “Because it is still unwise.”

  “You’re not gonna stop me,” Jessica said.

  Morkal was silent. At the barred door, Jessica turned around.

  “I’m gonna go find the Serf family.”

  “We do not belie—”

  “I know.”

  The sun outside was full and bright and warm as though last night’s storm had never happened. Despite the sunshine there was a haziness and the scent of wood smoke.

  Surveying Barleyfield from a hiding spot, she could see the adventurers were gone. Their clean, brightly-colored, skin-exposing costumes were replaced by the drab browns and greens of the peasant population. They were sifting through the wreckage for whatever the adventurers hadn’t smashed or burned. The Serf family wasn’t among them.

  Passing the destroyed soap hut on the way down, she found traces of blood from Min-woo’s severed leg. Apparently they took the leg with them. Maybe his boots were magical boots of +4 dexterity. They were definitely not Boots of Explosion Resistance.

  Jessica picked through the rubble for any leftover vials of sodium hydrochloride. Before she found any, her search was interrupted by the sound of a horse. She dove behind the only wall still standing and crouched. The hoofsteps stopped with an accompanying whinny.

  “I know you’re here,” Sir Hayek announced. “I see your hair poking out, stick woman.”

  Jessica mouthed oaths and slurs and stood up from behind the wall with her head and chest poking over.

  “What!?” she said, hoping to put him on the back foot. “I’m tired and cranky. Make it quick!”

  This was a lost cause. Sir Hayek’s face was as cold and rigid as the helmet slung under his arms. Jessica swallowed.

  “You were warned if you continued playing around with alchemy you would be imprisoned and burned at the stake. I have no choice but to place you under arrest.”

  “What!? I haven’t—”

  Sir Hayek pointed at the wreckage of the soapmaking hut.

  “Adventurers did that,” Jessica said.

  “You were also seen carrying a load of strange potions and elixirs out of the woods. Incidentally, this was right before adventurers burned down the settlement.”

  “Completely unrelated! Two phenomena happening concurrently is not enough to establish a causal relationship. They are correlative at best!” Jessica protested.

  Sir Hayek drew his sword from its scabbard and Jessica conceded the point.