The Pinnacle Warrior

As Astrid apologized, she broke the fleeing captain’s leg. He was, she guessed, around level 80, so the remainders of the Duchess’s army couldn’t reliably keep him down. For her and the rest of the Wanderers, a man ten levels lower than them, and having, at best, a rare quality Class, could do nothing. Instead, he was just a small gnat that required slightly more consideration before moving onto the next. She and the rest of her party’d already known that they were outstandingly powerful for their levels, but now they were seeing it in action.

“That’s it,” Felix declared. He stood just a few strides away, his hands on his waist as they looked over the army that the five of them had quite easily defeated. “If there’s anything else that needs doing over here, Muti and I will take care of it. You need to get back to the others and see if there are any lives you can save.”

Astrid didn’t disagree, turning and jogging back towards the people she’d left behind under Benedict and Skandr’s protection. Neither of them had finished their evolutionary quests just yet, and were thus “only” level 90. Going off of the quality of the soldiers found on both sides of the battlefield today, Skandr or Benedict alone could have swayed the entire balance with their presence alone.

Once she was back beside Benedict, Astrid looked at Jan. It had been years since she’d seen him. She hadn’t been back home since she was level 6. It had been a lifetime, basically, but she still managed to recognize him through his armor. It was a close thing, but since he didn’t have a mask on his helmet, she could see his face. At least, she was pretty sure it was him, and she wasn’t going to say anything and possibly be completely wrong since she wasn’t positive.

Benedict had continued going around the battlefield, selecting the people who were worst off as she’d commanded, but still alive. Looking, Astrid could see that there were currently twelve people whose breathing was ragged and blood was pooling underneath them while he ministered to their injuries.

“Take care of whoever I can’t,” Astrid stated as she stepped to the two nearest people, placed her hands on their chests, and triggered Meteoric Regeneration. She herself was basically untouched from the fight and journey, so she received no healing herself, but the wounds of her targets covered her body. One of them, a man with half of his chest caved in, suddenly took a deep breath as his eyes flew open. The other was a woman with a deep cut that had managed to slice through the chain mail on her neck. Her blood had already spread all the way down past her breasts, and her barely fluttering eyes settled as Astrid healed her.

For the first time since she’d gotten Immortal Champion’s Physique, Astrid was using her Skill to heal someone significantly weaker than her. She’d noticed this with Skandr and Benedict, even Muti, to a lesser extent, that the wounds which threatened their lives were instead only painful or debilitating instead of mortal when transferred over to her. Compared to the man whose collapsed lungs left him entirely unable to breathe, Astrid simply felt as if she had the wind knocked out of her as the soldier’s ribs resumed their previous position, and though it was painful, the cut on her neck would barely merit her attention in an ordinary fight.

Then, she was whole and healthy again, the few wounds she’d just gained forgotten. Seeing that the two people she’d taken care of were recovering, she glanced at Benedict.

“Leave those four,” he said, pointing at a few people. “Gentle Touch will work better on them than the others, so I’ll take them.”

Astrid nodded, turning her attention back down to the ground, where the few who were coherent stared at her with confusion and amazement. She was about to dismiss her helmet to show a not-so-draconic visage to these people, but she remembered better before she did so. Sure, she’d saved these people’s lives, but if they thought that a bunch of Barbarians were capitalizing on this opportunity to take slaves, it would be more trouble than it was worth.

“Who are you?” the next person she was healing asked. Evidently, he’d been one of the standard bearers, going off of the livery decorating his armor. It was lucky for the Wanderers that there’d been such an obvious distinction between the Duchess’s forces and the Marchioness’s. If they hadn’t seen the Duchess’s standards borne within her army, Astrid wouldn’t have known what to do when they chanced upon this battle. The wounded man’s left arm, the one to hold the standard, had been broken at the elbow to twist almost entirely back, so his hand was touching the back of his shoulder. Beyond that, blood covered his lips, and one of his legs was mangled by something.

“My name is Astrid Warrior. I’m here to support you in the battle against Humanity’s enemies.”

She still wasn’t sure what to say her Class’s name was now, but that was only a distraction from what she had to do. He started to try to ask something else, but Astrid carefully reset his arm where it was supposed to be, prompting a scream of pain as she realigned the bones. She didn’t leave him suffering, placing a hand on him and another on the wounded beside him, activating Regeneration for the second time.

Evidently, this man was higher level than most, and Fortitude was one of his highest attributes, because Astrid grunted in sympathetic pain as his wounds and the severe burning on the other man’s face and body were transferred to her. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and she thumped him twice on the chest as she stood.

“Sit tight. Benedict will be able to keep healing you. It’s less immediate than what I’ve done, but the longer you hold still and let him work, the better it’ll be for you.”

He seemed to want to ask her more questions, but was also aware that she wasn’t exactly beholden to him in any way. Not trying to talk at all, Astrid took care of the other four people in short order, the taste of blood filling her mouth on the last one as she healed a woman who had taken an arrow into her mouth and out the back of her head. Fortunately, that wound had been on a Healer of some sort, so breaking the shaft, extracting the arrow, and healing the woman hadn’t taken long while her relative Fortitude was much lower than Astrid’s. Then, coming back to consciousness, the Healer woman nodded her thanks and immediately set to healing her allies.

Standing, Astrid saw that Benedict had already tended to the others, who were stabilized, if not in great shape.

“Skandr,” Astrid called out, looking at the man. He had precious little he could do to help the survivors, and had been looking at the prisoners to make sure nobody was recovering and able to do anything to harm the survivors.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any idea who’s in charge here?”

“Nope.”

She gritted her teeth for a moment before turning to the two soldiers she’d seen in the beginning. She was more and more convinced that the man was Jan, who stood in front of her, and he seemed to be stuck in thought before he finally shrugged and waved.

“Hey there, Astrid,” he said. Somehow, the tone was more outgoing, and yet more nervous than she remembered. At that, she chuckled, walked towards him, and took him into a hug.

“I saw you keep fighting even when the tide of battle turned against you. Good job.” She was careful to be gentle with her embrace, though he still grunted in discomfort as she did so. Obviously, he wasn’t quite healed just yet.

“I have to ask,” Jan said, “you are Astrid Brighiddotter?”

“In the flesh,” she replied, nodding. “I suppose it’s worth making sure.”

“So you weren’t lying when you said that she’s your wife’s best friend?” Benedict confirmed, raising his eyebrows.

“We were when we were growing up,” Astrid answered instead of Jan. “Now, we can catch up and socialize later. For now, Jan, who’s in charge around here? What’s the chain of command?”

“The man you healed right over there is our commander,” Jan said, pointing at the standard bearer. He seemed trapped between going back to acting like an eighteen-year-old talking about what they would do after they got Classes and a twenty-three-year-old father and soldier.

“Sounds good. The same goes for you as for everybody else—stay close to Benedict and you’ll keep healing. He can keep it up until everybody’s ready to keep moving.”

After saying that, Astrid turned to the commander of the army. Now that he was closer to being in good shape, he was sitting up and looking around the battlefield. After taking in the losses on his side, as well as the people slowly coming back to their senses, he instead looked at the opposite side of the battlefield. There, Muti and Felix were continuing to make sure nobody started to try anything. Once, a magic caster of some sort started to try to channel a Skill, only for Muti to teleport behind them, cover them with her own shadowy mana, and then silence them. By the time the flash of mana was gone, there was only an unconscious person and a seemingly even more excited Barbarian left behind.

“You’d think they would know not to even try against someone strong enough to have wiped out their entire army,” Astrid said, drawing the commander’s attention back to her.

“Most people here, regardless of which side they stand on, would prefer not to be fighting at all. They don’t have a choice as to whether they make a wise, moral, or practical decision. They only do what they’ve been commanded to do,” the Commander said. He couldn’t keep a measure of bitterness from his voice.

“Is this something to do with the contracts they’ve been forced into?” Astrid asked, even though she knew what the answer was going to be.

“As long as they’re able, they will never willingly submit to any type of imprisonment,” he confirmed. “If they aren’t able to do what they’ve been commanded, whatever their task is, they fight until they die or until they’re released from their contract. There is no rationality, reasonability, or anything else afforded to the poor few who managed to escape. They’re nothing more than slaves.

“However, now isn’t the time to be simply thinking about the bad,” he said, asking for a hand to help him up. When Astrid shook her head no, he chuckled to himself and remained sitting, looking up at her. “I’m Aaron Commander, the leader of this company. All of us owe our survival and continued freedom to you.”

“Astrid Warrior,” she replied, reaching a hand out and shaking the one he’d offered. “I’m glad we could help.”

“I haven’t heard your name or seen you before,” Aaron said, seeming to try to see through her helmet’s mask. “Are you new recruits?”

“I guess you could say that,” Astrid chuckled. “We recently heard of the war that was happening around here and decided that we should fight on the side of the people we care about.”

“And who exactly is ‘we’?” he pressed.

“Ah, yeah. We’re a delver team. The name is the Wanderers.”

“Forgive me, I have never heard of you. Considering how strong you are, that’s honestly a little bit worrying. How is that? A high Steel tier party is entirely unknown? You must’ve been around for at least a decade at this point. How could I have no idea who you are?”

“Sir?” Jan interrupted. When Aaron turned towards him, he glanced between Astrid and the commander before saying, “I know that Astrid is younger than 24. I don’t know how old the rest of them are, but she, at least, is my same age. We were at the Bestowal together.

“You know them? Where have they been delving?” Apparently, Aaron wanted to hear information from somebody he had some measure of personal knowledge of, and he ignored Astrid as he made his demands.

“I don’t know about where they’ve been for the last year and a half,” Jan shrugged, “but her parents said that they were the winners of the Wandering Trials a few years back for Bronze tier. Any questions you want answered will have to go to her, sir.”

“You all earned the boon?” Aaron asked, his voice rising in surprise as he turned back to Astrid. “Everyone’s heard stories about the Wandering Trials, but how did you get there?”

“Being the right level at the right time and knowing the right person to introduce us,” Astrid shrugged. “An old Druid named Greely in a city called Purcell happened to think we could perform well. Turns out, he was right.”

“You know Greely? Would he vouch for you?” Aaron’s disbelief just seemed to continue to grow as Astrid continued speaking.

“You know him? Has he joined with the Duchess?” Astrid had complicated memories of every leader she’d had real contact with back in her home country. She found herself disliking the Golden Fist and not being too fond of Klara in the wake of Anders trying to take Astrid and the rest of the Wanderers captive. Though, in retrospect, she also knew that the woman was weaker than Astrid herself was now. Taking care of protecting a city, guiding at least a hundred rookie delvers, and coordinating every aspect of the Guild within the town? It was an admirable amount of effort, and she had double agents stabbing her in the back throughout. 

Then, Astrid wanted to like Greely, despite everything. Though he hadn’t given her and her party all the information that she would have liked to have received prior to the Wandering Trials, now that the nobles had risen up in total rebellion against the Duchess, she couldn’t blame him as much for only giving oblique warnings about what the nobles would inevitably try to do to her and her party. He was hoping to prevent exactly what’d happened, and that wasn’t a bad thought, though he could and should have taken steps to warn the other delvers who weren’t his charges. Was it his responsibility? No. The Guild representatives who’d brought them should have done or said something, but they didn’t. Neither did the Golden Fist, or any of the delvers who’d come to compete for the Iron, Steel, Mithril, or Adamantium tiers. 

It was all broken, everyone allowing the youngest and weakest to pay the price for the elders’ fear and cowardice.

Her feelings regarding every leader in the Guild were complicated, but now wasn’t the time to lose herself in thinking about it. Instead, she listened to the man standing in front of her.

“Yes, he’s one of the Adamantium tier supporters she has,” Aaron said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but how is it that you know about the existence of the war but don’t know one of the most famous people who are on our side? Everything you’re saying just doesn’t add up.”

“He could tell you as well as we could why that is,” Astrid replied, fighting to keep her frustration from her voice. “We haven’t been around, because we’ve been in the Verdant Sanctuary, avoiding the wrath of a few nobles ever since the Trials ended. Now that we’re as high level as we are, though, we were going to be coming back here anyways. Turns out, we can also join the war and fight against the people who tried to turn us into slaves in the first place. Not a bad turn of events.”

“I certainly hope that’s the case,” Aaron said, seeming to come to the decision to stop questioning her. “I appreciate you saving us, but before we go anywhere, we need to check on the villagers here, see who might need healing, or any such assistance. Would you be able to help us with that?”

“I’m not a medic or anything, Benedict’s your guy for that,” Astrid said, turning to the Bard. “My ability to heal is much more limited than his. For now, I guess it’s probably much better for me to stick around here and make sure nobody hurts themselves while you’re off taking stock of the villagers. Either of these two ‘ll be better than me for that.”

“You call what you did for me not being a Healer?” Completely overwhelmed, Aaron didn’t seem to have any energy to muster other than disbelief at this.

“I’m a finisher, not a healer. I’m not even a support, I just have one Skill that can heal other people.”

“And other Skills that can protect them,” Benedict added while Skandr laughed.

“Yes, I have multiple Skills. That’s not really the point,” Astrid waved him off. “I’m a finisher, not a healer. If you’re going to help people, these two guys can do a whole lot better than I can.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Aaron said, seeming to decide it wasn’t worth fighting with her about it. “I’ll only take... What was your name?”

Reaching a hand out, Skandr shook it. “Skandr Wizard.”

“Yeah, I’ll just take this one and a few of my guys,” Aaron said, getting up and quickly quaffing a potion. Going off of how his face grew visibly more healthy as soon as he took it, it must’ve been pretty high quality.

“Will you be leaving before we return?” Aaron asked as he collected the Healer woman whose neck had been sliced and two heavily armored soldiers.

“That wasn’t the plan,” Astrid shook her head. “I don’t think that you’ll be able to keep control over this many hostile prisoners for too long without our help.”

“We do appreciate that,” Aaron said. “However, going off of what information we had about our enemies this time around, I suspect that our friends about a hundred away either need your support or will be coming here soon to help us.”

“If you’d like, a hundred kilometers isn’t too far for Muti to make it there and back in an hour. It might be better to send me, though, given who she is, and I wouldn’t take too long either..”

“She’s not very personable?” Aaron asked, looking at where Muti continued stalking between the prisoners and reacting with extreme prejudice to any attempts to escape.

“That and the fact that she’s a Barbarian probably isn’t a great introduction to make without any Humans around to corroborate her story,” Astrid shrugged. Going off of the reaction of many of the nearby soldiers, Astrid had dropped a startling and potentially terrifying revelation on these people. Yeah, she was back in Humanity’s Bulwark again, and there was something else she needed to do as well. With nothing to do but continue talking, she sighed and dismissed her helmet.

Without anything covering her dark skin and bright hair, people’s reactions were immediate, gasps and whispers of “Barbarian” immediately spreading through the soldiers. Jan was one of the first to start speaking in her support, which she appreciated, and Astrid grumbled to herself as she was reminded of how much drama she had avoided by simply not being around her fellow man.

“No, I’m not a Barbarian,” she said, one hand subconsciously going up to her hair to see if any of it had been pulled from her braid. As always, only a few strands had, a testament to Muti’s experience in war braiding. “I was born and raised in the same city as Jan here, and I’m a Human. The ears and the teeth are the easiest way for all of you to tell the difference and know that I’m Human. I’m not going to explain myself any further.”

Frustrated as she was, Astrid didn’t voice any more of her displeasure. Instead, she sat there beside the rest of her party, minus Skandr, who went off with a nod to support the Commander in whatever it was that he thought needed doing in the town.

“You said your name is Astrid,” Jan’s companion asked, coming closer, her face excited, to say the least. “Mine’s Rebecca Hammerwoman!”

“Hello,” Astrid replied with a smile. A total lack of fear was nice, and she wouldn’t mind answering whatever questions this woman had for her. “What can I do for you, Rebecca?”

“I just want to know what kind of hammer you’re using,” she said, unabashed. “I saw you had it, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It was glowing and everything, so I just… I wanted to see it, to touch it, you know?”

“I don’t mind telling you about it,” Astrid said, shrugging in apology, “but I don’t think I can let you touch it.”

“Okay,” Rebecca’s face fell. “Is it like a family heirloom?”

“No,” Astrid laughed. “It’ll probably give you mana burns, though. What level are you?”

“32,” she replied, squaring her shoulders.

“Yeah, a Mithril tier hammer isn’t going to be something you can even touch for long, if at all” Astrid chuckled. “I can tell you about it, though.”

As she said it, a ripple passed over the people nearby, disbelief filling the air. Some of the fear and distrust bled away at that, and Astrid allowed herself a smile. Maybe she could overcome some prejudice even before other people vouched for her.