Cursed Explorer of the Arcana

“Is it finally over? Did I get out?” I stumble past tree after tree with hope in my tired eyes.

It revitalized me, seeing the flames that burned a path for days now in front of me quickly lose their size before disappearing below what remained of the canopy. There was little planning involved when I first lit fire to the forest and what I’d do after reaching the end of the treeline was definitely not part of whatever I had in mind back then.

Surprisingly the notifications have gone silent for about an hour now, no longer informing me of the literal massacre I’ve committed. While I do feel a little bad for all the trees and homes destroyed I’d do it again any day of the week. This was the easiest and most fruitful way out.

“Do I even want to leave the forest?” I’ve only scratched the surface of this question every time it popped into my mind and the answer was always the same. It depends.

Without the predatory trees and cursed blue fruits? Yeah, I guess this place is pretty okay and at least the food is free. IF however I had to put up with the trees and other forms of danger I’d much rather try my luck in civilized lands. I’m more used to dealing with humans than anything, as irritating as they are.

As I walk closer and closer to what can only be the edge of the forest the unmistakable sound of combat grows ever stronger. And it’s not just claws, flesh, and roars that I’m hearing. People, clearly quite a number of them putting up a valiant fight against what sounds like an absolute horde of beasts.

The tug of war between caution and curiosity is quickly decided when I deem the whole shebang too much thinking and just walk toward the source of combat anyway. The ground is still smoldering in a few spots where the flames finally went out and the smoke constantly rising from the ground makes it hard to breathe. Nevertheless, it acts as a veil, covering my approach but also making me rely on my hearing alone.

Intense fighting with orders echoing above the carnage… Could it be the shadows? No, they have no reason to fight the beasts and there’s no way they crossed the wall of fire and missed me in the process. But then who?

Wait… this is because of me isn’t it? The beasts are pushing to the north all because of the fire I started and… too much thinking. Can’t.

If the situation is pretty stable I’ll probably throw my weight behind the humans to ease my conscience and maybe earn their favor. I need all the help I can get. If they’re losing pretty badly I’ll honor their sacrifice and get as far as I can… Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

Soon my half-blind tumbling turns into a full-on crawl to avoid tripping on something and kissing the ground nose first. Slow and careful not to put my hand into a patch of embers I make my way forward relying mostly on my sense of touch since I can’t really see past the bubble of air around my head helping me breathe.

More than once I hear something rushing past me, clearly using all four of its legs and likely injured if the whimpers mean anything yet to my surprise none of them stop to take their chance against me. Then finally I touch grass, fresh green grass.

I’m out, and whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.

The veil of smoke is already dispersing so it only takes a little puff of air from me to clear my view and back off right away after observing the events for just a few seconds. There are humans alright, and beasts, a buttload of beasts and… slaves.

“This is the worst.” I hiss, crawling backward as fast as one can crawl backward.

A lone girl lost in the forest, wary and tired… ripe for the taking. Call me paranoid but I’ve heard enough terrible things from Mom and Dad, besides seeing with my own eyes how some slaves are treated, so thank you but no thank you. To make things worse the humans seem to be winning, more or less.

Their forces are mostly scattered, fighting in isolated pockets instead of one coherent unit but they seem to have brought down two colossal beasts likely acting as the core of the charge. Morale is not just a thing specific to us Wielders, animals too can be discouraged from fighting.

Beasts don't possess Identify so size and one’s general aura of danger are the only aspects they can use to judge someone’s strength. Seeing the biggest and badest beasts acting as damage sponges fall probably isn’t too encouraging.

It’s pure chaos.

“Don’t let it escape!” Someone bellows from my side, way closer than I’ve expected any human to be.

Hold up, are they talking about me?

For a moment I hesitate with indecisiveness halting all actions. Should I run, hide? What about fighting back? But thankfully the world solves that problem of mine when a white-haired girl gets dragged out of a crumbling husk of a bush not five paces from me by a soldier in armor clearly flashier than the rest.

“Have I not made it clear? The Battle Queen won't tolerate it if you’re not delivered!” The man treats her like a ragdoll, with furious eyes and not a speck of kindness despite the girl being only a year or so older than me. A slave in the hands of its master.

The soldier simply grabs her by the back of her neck and lifts her off the ground like a dog before turning back to his troops. She struggles in the iron grip, fighting back with desperation and sadness in her glimmering blue eyes, clinging to the even still-burning trees in hopes of pulling herself towards freedom and preventing her capture.

I won’t lie, I respect that. Criminal or not, beastman or gnome, I learned to recognize the beauty of the fighting spiriting and hers is especially bright. And then there’s some pity in me. I know well criminals are more useful alive than dead or locked up in a cage but I just can’t stop imagining myself in her stead. A cruel fate but at least she’s feisty, she might even fight well…

Or… she could be useful to me.

It’s very dangerous, it’s very dumb, and probably very illegal… So I move very carefully.

Maybe due to my utter lack of sleep or something else inside urging me to stop watching things from the sidelines, I don’t know but I feel like if I were to walk away now I’d regret it. I’m on my last leg and falling asleep all alone in the middle of a wilderness is basically a death sentence… I need her.

Swift and silent like a cat I begin to approach the man behind his back, making sure to mask the noise of my movement as much as possible and stay out of everyone’s sight until the last second. My senses sharpen as my poor little heart gives me one last push, one final hurray to allow me to operate in top condition as I resolve myself to strike.

It’s not that hard really. Malor has received many new residents with me as the sender and I don’t regret any of my kills. I’ve also faced countless humans before, hurting many of them and never pulling my punches just because it seemed mean.

Neither do I this time around.

Besides, I don’t like how cold and rough the soldier acts, slaves are still people, just serving their punishment.

The man suddenly halts his steps when I get within arm’s reach but it’s already too late. He must be a flimsy fighter in general or his Class is closer to a support type like Commander than to an actual Warrior, either way, only a miracle could save him right now.

[Leader lvl ???]

That makes this all much simpler.

With my arm reached out I have the butt of my knife firmly planted in the palm of my hand with its tip pointing straight at the gap between his helmet and chestplate. This is not the time to be cautious and try to keep the damage to the minimum, to worry about his life when my own is on the line. It’s all or nothing and I’d rather take his life than endure what follows after my ambush fails.

Just as my magic gathers in my palm the man’s head turns ever so slightly until from the corner of his eyes our gazes meet and the flash finally goes off. An explosion, as violent and devastating as my stats and Skills allow me to create… It destroys the bottom of the knife I scavenged from the knight and launches its blade at a speed I can barely comprehend straight into the back of the officer’s neck.

The weapon is of decent quality, I aimed for an absolute weak point and the execution is flawless. The metal pierces the skin just as I hoped and keeps going until the tip of the blade finally digs through the entirety of the neck and appears on the other side. A lethal blow.

Not lethal enough for a notification though.

The armored body goes limp, like a puppet with all its strings cut, releasing the girl and crumbling to the ground without a noise.

“Wha-” I slap a hand on her face before she can make any inappropriate sounds while stealing the satchel of the body lying at my feet.

[Warrior lvl 74]

I can deal with her if things go south.

“Keep yelling and follow!” My voice leaves no room for disagreements and probably my face only reinforces that. I’m dead serious.

To her credit, the girl only hesitates for a second before pulling my hand away and returning to grunting and making all their weird noises of futile resistance. With some subtle use of wind magic, I open up a path through the smoke back to the depths of the forest while also closing the curtain behind us to hide the body and our escape.

“Run like your life depends on it!” The girl is off before I even finish the sentence, outpacing me by a lot and making me look like a clown.

When we finally leave the dense smoke after a few tense moments of all-out sprint in a weird twist of events we find ourselves in the company of three other individuals, all wearing ugly accessories similar to the girl and all with a nasty grin on their faces. Unlike my new pet, they have something invaluable, a large bundle of contracts, their freedom.

Without much concern for us, they rummage through the papers before seemingly finding what they’re looking for as disturbing grins crest their faces.

“Keep running!” I instruct the girl watching them wide-eyed because I don’t want to be around when they learn about their mistake.

The contract is what empowers whoever possesses it to issue commands for the collar to enforce. That’s it. Destroying it means the tool to control is gone, but the same can’t be said about the collar, the brand of a runaway slave.

Soon after we leave the men behind and completely lose the line of sight, clearly human roars of frustration fill the forest, truly music to my ears. And a place I should avoid as far as possible.

We run for minutes, passing trees reduced to ashes and burned corpses in the dozens. Every time I slowed down a little, every moment of hesitation brought me closer to finally finally collapsing and I think my body has reached its limits.

“Move left!” I give directions again but instead of following like she did before the girl now turns on her heels and launches a surprise attack.

She tries tackling me, using my own momentum to deliver a devastating hit yet something is not quite right. Premonition confirms my suspicion right away, the thing I find baffling about her attack… It’d only knock me down, I wouldn’t even break a bone.

Of course, one needs to be a lot more shrewd than this to take me by surprise and going easy on me… big mistake.

Since bashing into a heavy Warrior would yield little results I instead move the ground beneath her feet, pulling it out like a carpet and making her lose balance just as our noses are about to touch. I grab onto her collar and drag her to the ground while discharging lightning into the ungrateful thing and finishing things off with a cocoon of earth embracing her right after the impact.

“That’s not how you say thank you.” I take a few conscious steps back just in case. “Don’t do anything stupid, you should know after hearing those idiots that you can’t get rid of the collar just like-”

“Liar!” The white-haired girl’s words are filled with hate. “Humans and elves, liars all. All you do is steal and take until you end up fighting amongst yourself because there’s nothing else left to plunder!”

My heart skips a beat when her eyes, those blue balls filled with immense hatred gaze deep into my soul and the girl begins to struggle with the roar of a wild animal. Her efforts quickly bear fruit as the earth keeping her captive begins to crumble even with me sparing some control to hold her back.

But instead of wasting my mana and engaging in a fight, I have no confidence in winning my hands dig through the contents of the bag.

“Whatever you went through blaming an entire race is not the answer.” I try to stall as she pushes herself up, despite the immense weight pushing her down.

“Like I should care!” The air around her begins to vibrate along with literal steam escaping her mouth. “They never cared!”

Thankfully I turn out to be faster.

I pull my arm out of the bag with a bundle of paper rolls in my hand just as the earthen shackles finally crumble and the savage beast in human skin is about to charge at me.

“Stop, don’t make me use this!” Her contract should be here in my hand meaning this isn’t a fight she can win.

As expected the girl hesitates, her shoulders slumping and eyes losing some of their furious gleam as the hammer of reality delivers a crushing blow to her. Right now, at this moment, I own her.

“I’m not like them,” I try to reassure her. “I won’t make you do anything and once we’re-”

“Why?” Oh no, are those really tears? Can we just not? “Just when I finally escaped, when freedom, my future was within arm’s reach you took it from me!” Even her voice is so hollow and saddened… She really is making me feel bad. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Ask the law not me. Here in the Northwest people rarely get enslaved just for the sake of it. More importantly… why is the world turning murky?

“Tearing the contract won't make the collar fall off and killing me won't get you revenge against whoever hurt you. Just please…” I pull the contract closer to my chest, frowning at what’s about to come out of my mouth. “I order you to stay and protect me!” I really hate this. “I’ll free you,” My words are no longer dictated by reason, but the whispers of the heart. "I swear.”

Words I rarely, if ever use.

My knees finally give out and the ground approaches fast, whether I wake up alive or we both die is up to her and her alone.