EeDechi wandered aimlessly along a narrow forest path, sunlight slipping through the gaps in the thick green leaves, casting dappled shadows on the bumpy dirt road.
It had been two months since EeDechi was born from the Taoist priest's altar and crossed over into this strange new world. She'd given herself a random name—EeDechi—just for kicks.
Over those two months, EeDechi had pretty much figured out how this world worked and got a handle on how the different races lived.
This was a fantasy world you could barely call high-magic, packed with humans, elves, orcs, dragons, and a bunch of other races. Humans had carved out a ton of nations across this continent.
Of course, EeDechi didn't give a rat's ass about what the locals here looked like. Her main gig in this world was to take down the so-called protagonist—a dude named Ainz Ooal Gown.
She'd crossed over in such a rush that all she knew was his name, "Ainz Ooal Gown," and something about a "Great Tomb of Nazarick." Beyond that, she was totally in the dark.
Tracking down a guy with just a name in some random isekai continent was a pain in the neck, but Ainz Ooal Gown had gone and built himself a whole freaking country. It sat smack between Baharuth and Re-Estize, called the Sorcerer Kingdom, and he'd crowned himself the Sorcerer King.
Word on the street was that Baharuth had already bowed down to the Sorcerer Kingdom, but EeDechi couldn't dig up the full scoop. After all, for the folks living on Baharuth's border, it didn't make a damn bit of difference who was sitting on the empire's throne.
Ainz Ooal Gown—this guy was a total show-off, EeDechi thought to herself.
So, if she wanted to track down Ainz Ooal Gown and yank him off his throne for a good ass-kicking, all she had to do was head straight for the Sorcerer Kingdom. That was EeDechi's plan—simple, brutal, and damn effective.
But here's the kicker: when EeDechi crossed over, she landed in some random corner of the City Alliance, stuck on the opposite side of Baharuth's border. That meant she'd have to hoof it across the entire freaking Baharuth just to get to the Sorcerer Kingdom.
In this world where she didn't know jack about anything, eating cost money, crashing somewhere cost money, and traveling cost money too. EeDechi had to figure out how to keep herself alive first.
Lucky for her, she was a badass in a fight, so she signed up at the Adventurer's Guild, turning herself into an adventurer who took on jobs for cash.
In this world, supernatural powers came in three flavors: magic, Martial Arts, and Innate Talent. Magic itself split off into different vibes like Arcane Magic, Spiritual Magic, Divine Magic, and a bunch of other stuff.
Over the past two months of adventuring, EeDechi figured out she had a killer knack for Arcane Magic. So far, she'd nailed down three or four low-level attack spells.
But since her magic was still pretty basic, EeDechi's go-to in a fight was to yank the giant sword off her back and hack her way through with plain old brute force.
Adventurers in this fantasy world were the ones who dealt with monsters, magical beasts, and weird-ass incidents. They were like jack-of-all-trades mercenaries, with an unwritten rule to stay out of the big human society drama.
They were all managed by a loose, border-crossing outfit called the Adventurer's Guild. To rank their strength, the Guild handed out metal tags that showed off status and power, going from low to high: Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Mithril, Orichalcum, and Adamantite.
EeDechi had no clue where she stacked up in this whole isekai world, but in two months of fighting, she hadn't lost once—not even close.
Whether it was the red-scaled subdragon that left Baharuth's knight squads scratching their heads or the Dire wild boar that chased an entire village's worth of folks out of their homes, nothing could stand up to her for even a single round. So, EeDechi's adventurer rank shot up fast—now she was a mithril-level badass.
…
Under a blazing red sunset, a brutal fight was going down on the grassy forest clearing. Nah, scratch that—it was more like a one-sided massacre.
One side, judging by their gear and outfits, was a cavalry patrol from a nearby town. Eight guys total, and six were already sprawled out in pools of their own blood. The last two were barely hanging on, their half-body armor busted to hell, bodies slashed up, still trying to tough it out.
The ones jumping them? The infamous "Black Scorpion" bandit crew! These assholes were into murder, kidnapping, robbery—you name it, they did it. They'd racked up dozens of crimes, big and small, all over Baharuth.
After drifting into this backwater border town, they'd pulled off a few more hits. Now, running into the empire's patrol squad, they decided to go full psycho to keep their tracks covered.
Baharuth's cavalry were usually decked out with top-notch gear and trained like machines, but the Black Scorpion gang had a Magic Caster who could sling 4th Tier spells.
Even with Martial Arts boosting them, the cavalry's flesh-and-blood bodies didn't stand a chance against magic.
Captain Aaron swung his two-handed sword, kicking off his Martial Art: "Invulnerable Fortress." He barely deflected a short axe, then twisted to the side, driving his blade through a gap in some bandit's leather armor, straight into the bastard's heart.
Dropping one enemy didn't lighten his load any, though. He caught sight of his last buddy—George Wells, a young man who'd been with the patrol squad for less than three months—getting nailed by a fireball the Magic Caster chucked like it was nothing. The poor guy turned into a screaming torch right then and there.
George, covered in flames, let out a gut-wrenching scream, his limbs twisting as he charged at the Magic Caster, swinging his steel sword like a madman, hell-bent on taking the bastard down with him.
But that Magic Caster just smirked like a creep and flicked a finger, sending George flying like a goddamn human kite on fire, silent as the grave.
"Down to just me, huh?" Aaron yanked his longsword out of the bandit's corpse, raising the notched-up steel knight's blade. He sucked in deep breaths to steady himself, standing tall and firm.
Even if he was going down, he'd die with a knight's honor. But with the odds stacked this high against him, did holding on like this even mean jack?
Five or six bandits with one-handed broadswords and oak shields were closing in slow, circling him. Meanwhile, the Magic Caster tucked away his staff, all chill, ready to watch Aaron squirm in his last moments.
Suddenly, the "clop-clop-clop" of hooves echoed from the other side of the woods, getting louder fast before stopping dead in the clearing.
The bandits, gearing up to swarm him, and Aaron, ready to fight to his last breath, both froze. From the sound of it, only one rider was coming. Wasn't that just begging for a death wish?
Everyone turned toward the noise. Aaron squinted and saw it wasn't some lone dumbass cavalry charging in to die. Nope, it was worse—a girl with short black hair.
She was decked out in black linen clothes, a gray wool-knit shawl slung over her shoulders, and strapped to her back was a giant sword that looked way too big for her frame.
The black-haired girl hopped off her horse, her riding skills clearly garbage. The horse towered over her by two heads, stomping its hooves like it wanted to bolt.
But she didn't care—she brute-forced it, yanking the reins with one hand and tying the thrashing brown beast to a larch tree in the woods.
The newcomer was none other than the still-awakening EeDechi.