Arrows sang through the air like angry hornets, the first volley catching one of Elise's guards square in the chest before he could even register the threat, sending him crashing to the ground with blood already blooming across his armor. The other guards shouted warnings and drew their weapons as bandits poured from the trees on both sides of the road, a coordinated assault.
"Protect Lady Hartwell!" one of the guards bellowed, moving to shield the carriage while his companions engaged the first wave of attackers, steel ringing against steel in that distinctive sound of combat that made Rem's heart pound.
Kaisen burst from the trees on the opposite side of the road, his sword already fully manifested and gleaming with that otherworldly shimmer. he moved with a speed and grace that shouldn't have been possible for someone like him but was absolutely expected for a protagonist with a cheat system. He took down the first bandit with a clean strike through the neck, painting the road red, then spun to parry an attack from another while his foot lashed out to catch a third in the knee with a sickening crunch.
"Get the lady to safety!" he shouted to the guards, playing his role perfectly, Elise had emerged from the carriage with ice already forming around her hands in wild, uncontrolled bursts of power, the sheer pressure she gave off could be suffocating. but she knew it came from pure terror and instinct rather than training, frost spread across the ground like wildfire, making many of the bandits stumble as they tried to close in on her position. She was awakening magic right on schedule, fear and desperation unlocking the power that had been dormant her whole life, and even through the chaos Rem could see the moment when Elise's eyes widened with the realization that she was doing this, that the ice was hers to command.
Elisa had been one of her more better characters, sure she too will soon be in kaisen's harem but she also had individual personality, unlike some of the other girls. She wasn't just fanservice, she was someone rem had constructed carefully, and she was so damn cool.
The bandits were pressing hard despite Kaisen's interference, their numbers and experience overwhelming the small guard detail that hadn't been expecting a fight of this scale, Rem watched another guard go down with a sword through his gut while one of the attendants screamed and tried to run only to catch an arrow in the back. Blood and death exactly as she'd written it, background casualties to make the stakes feel real without actually mattering to the narrative because they were just NPCs.
Kaisen was fighting three bandits at once now, his system gave him enhanced reflexes and strength but not actual combat experience, so he was taking hits even as he dealt them out with each exchange drawing more blood from his arms and shoulders. He needed help, or he needed Elise to figure out her magic fast enough to turn the tide, or else—
The bandit leader emerged from behind his position with a massive warhammer that looked like it could crush skulls with casual ease, he was heading straight for Elise while her attention was focused on the bandits in front of her, damn it Kaisen saw the threat and tried to disengage from his own fight, but the bandits pressing him weren't giving him space to move, and the distance was too great anyway, as Rem watched the scenario play out in her mind exactly as she'd written it—the leader would close on Elise, Kaisen would break free just in time to intercept, they'd fight while Elise's magic surged with emotion and she'd freeze the leader solid in a dramatic display of her potential.
Except the leader was moving faster than expected and Kaisen was still trapped. Elise didn't even see him coming, and somewhere in the back of Rem's mind a voice that sounded suspiciously like her own conscience was screaming that she couldn't just stand here and watch a woman die because the plot said it should work out.
"Fuck!" She burst from her hiding spot before conscious thought caught up with instinct, her sword already drawn and her body moving with the efficiency, she crossed the distance between the trees and the road faster than she'd known she could move. The bandit leader heard her coming and turned with his hammer already swinging it, but Rem was committed now and there was no backing down, so she ducked under the arc of his swing and drove her blade up under his guard hitting between the gaps in his armor.
The sword punched through leather and into flesh with resistance that felt nothing like she'd been imagining, real meat, bone and the wet sliding sensation of steel parting tissue, the leader's eyes went wide with shock as blood bubbled up around the blade. Rem yanked her sword free and kicked him away, her whole body shaking with adrenaline and horror at what she'd just done—killed a man, a real fucking person, not a monster but someone who probably had a life, now he was bleeding out on the forest road because of her.
"Who the fuck—" another bandit started to say, but then Kaisen broke free from his fight too and was there, his blade taking the man down before he could finish the question, the dynamic had shifted from bandits overwhelming guards to a three-way fight with Rem and Kaisen flanking Elise while the remaining bandits tried to regroup.
Elise stared at Rem with an expression that cycled through shock, confusion, and something that might have been gratitude if it wasn't so thoroughly mixed with jealousy and suspicion. "You," she breathed, ice forming more coherently around her hands now that the immediate threat had backed off slightly, Rem couldn't tell if that single word was meant as thanks or accusation.
"Save the talking for later," She said, taking up a guard position next to Kaisen but her eyes remained at the bandits. "They're not done yet."
But they were, or at least they decided the fight wasn't worth continuing when their leader went down by the hands of two people with clearly superior abilities in the fray, so the remaining bandits melted back into the forest leaving the bloodied battlefield eerie silence broken only by the groans of wounded men and the ragged breathing of survivors trying to process what had just happened.
Two guards died, one attendant died, several more were wounded but alive—better than the massacre Rem had originally written where only Kaisen's intervention saved Elise from capture or death, the bastards could not even reach the village in chase, let alone kill all of them here. She'd saved lives today by interfering, but she'd also changed the story in ways she couldn't predict, the weight of that uncertainty pressed down on her shoulders along with the guilt of the man she'd killed.
"How did you know?" Elise asked quietly, Rem looked at her to see the tsundere mask had cracked completely, leaving only the frightened young woman underneath, she had killed several people here and she didn't know how to process that reality. "How did you know they'd be here?"
"I didn't know," Rem lied, which was technically true since knowing the plot and experiencing reality were two very different things. "I just... had a bad feeling when you said you were coming out here, so I followed."
Kaisen was staring at her too, his sword still out and dripping blood, but his expression held questions that Rem really didn't want to answer right now or possibly ever. "You followed us," he said slowly, like he was working through a puzzle but didn't quite like the picture forming. "Just like yesterday in the forest."
"Seems to be a habit," Rem said, trying for casual and probably failing given that her hands were still shaking due to the blood soaking her ruined cloths "You're welcome, by the way."
A notification bloomed in her vision, garish and cheerful in contrast to the carnage around them:
[Story Quest Complete: The Ambush]
[Objective: Be present during the attack - Complete]
[Participated in combat, prevented additional casualties]
[Reward: 400 LP + Combat Experience]
[Bonus Achievement: Saved the Female Lead - +100 LP]
[Current Total: 575 LP]
Five hundred seventy-five Lust Points for helping murder people and preventing other murders in what was supposed to be an exciting action scene but had turned out to be terrifying and nauseating moment, nothing like writing combat felt when it was just words on a page. Rem dismissed the notification before anyone could see her staring at empty air, though given that Kaisen had a system she wont seem as unnatural.
The surviving guards were tending to their wounded companions desperately trying not to look at the bodies they'd have to carry back to the city for burial, while Elise stood alone near her carriage with frost still clinging to her hands, a strange expression appeared on her face, it suggested that she was on the edge of either screaming or breaking down completely. The inspection of the southern farms was clearly cancelled, replaced by a grim procession back to safety.
Rem forced herself to move, to sheath her bloody sword and help gather the survivors, to act like this was something she could handle when really she felt like her entire world had tilted sideways and might never right itself again. She'd changed the story today, yes she saved lives that were supposed to end, but inserted herself into a scene where she wasn't meant to appear, and none of the consequences were clear yet except that Elise kept looking at her with an expression too complex to parse and Kaisen had questions in his eyes that promised difficult conversations in the very near future.
The journey back to the city felt twice as long as the trip out, weighted down by death and injury, the knowledge that everything had changed in ways Rem couldn't predict or control, she wanting to fucking die. By the time the dome came into view, she was so exhausted that even the adrenaline couldn't keep her upright anymore. The gates opened to admit them and guards rushed out to help with the wounded, voices rising in alarm and confusion at the state of Lady Hartwell's inspection party, Rem found herself swept up in the chaos of explanations and medical attention it was just people trying to understand what had happened.
Through it all, Elise kept glancing at her with that same complicated expression—gratitude and suspicion maybe. Kaisen stayed close to Elise's side like he was supposed to, playing the protective hero role perfectly, but even his eyes kept tracking back to Rem like she was a puzzle he was determined to solve regardless of how much she didn't want to be solved.
"Thank you," Elise said finally, snapping rem out of her head. She stood before Rem with perfect posture and careful composure, the mask back in place but visibly cracked around the edges. "Both of you. I owe you my life."
The admission clearly cost her something, pride or dignity or whatever it was that made tsundere characters so reluctant to show vulnerability, but Rem couldn't quite bring herself to brush it off with sarcasm when Elise looked so genuinely shaken beneath her noble bearing.
"Just... be more careful next time," She said finally, which was probably inadequate but all she could manage. the image of her spilling blood was still fresh in her mind
"We should talk" Kaisen added, looking between Rem and Elise like he was trying to figure out what had just shifted in their dynamic. "All three of us. About what happened out there and—"
"Tomorrow," Rem interrupted, because she couldn't handle interrogation right now when her hands wouldn't stop shaking and exhaustion was pulling at her like a physical weight. "I need... I need to go."
She walked away before either of them could argue, her sword heavy at her hip and blood drying on her clothes, heading toward her lonely shed with the promise of solitude, she could finally process what she'd done without an audience. The sun was setting now, painting the sky in shades of orange and red that looked too much like blood, and somewhere behind her she could hear Kaisen and Elise talking in low voices but the words didn't register through the fog of exhaustion and shock.
Rem stripped off her blood-stained clothes mechanically, her movements automatic and disconnected from conscious thought, then only when she was fully free of the bloodied rags did she remember the Recovery Bead sitting in her inventory like a small miracle waiting to happen.
The green orb materialized in her hand when she called it forth, pulsing with gentle light that seemed almost obscene in its cheerfulness, She crushed it without ceremony or ritual because she needed the exhaustion to fade before she could think clearly about anything. Warmth spread through her body like liquid sunshine, knitting together the cuts and bruises she'd accumulated during the fight, washing away the physical fatigue that had been dragging her down and restoring her to perfect health in a way that felt fundamentally wrong. She was still mentally exhausted though
Her body felt fine now, perfectly healthy and rested, but her mind was still replaying the moment when her sword had found flesh and bone, the leader's eyes going wide, the wet sliding sensation of steel through meat that she knew would haunt her dreams for nights to come. She'd killed someone today, ended a life, made a choice that couldn't be unmade, the damn system had even rewarded her with Lust Points like it was a achievement to celebrate rather than something that made her feel sick.
Rem pulled up her status screen with a thought, needing something concrete to, focus on besides the memories trying to overwhelm her:
[Name: Rem]
[Level: 1]
[Class: None]
[STATS]
STR: 8
DEX: 12
END: 10
VIT: 10
CHA: 19
LST: 10
[RESOURCES]
HP: 100/100
SP: 100/100
[LP: 575]
five hundred seventy-five Lust Points and one Basic Strike skill, which somehow felt both like too much and not nearly enough for what she'd done today, she dismissed the screen before she could spiral further into self-recrimination.
She collapsed onto her makeshift bed fully naked, not bothering to blow out the candle because the darkness felt too oppressive right now.
Time passed in that strange way it does when you're hovering between waking and sleeping, consciousness drifting without quite finding rest, Rem might have been lying there for an hour or two hours or five minutes when the knocking started.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Urgent, insistent, Rem jolted upright with her heart suddenly racing and her hand reaching instinctively for her the sword, the other hand covering her modesty which still was not quite familiar to her.
"Who is it?" she called out, her voice rough from almost-sleep and lingering stress.
"Rem, we need to talk...Now."