Chrysalis

When you spend your entire life learning to kill something, then killing that thing, it’s awfully hard to turn around and refuse those instincts, Morrelia reflected.

Thinking back to her childhood, the long days spent drilling skills with her brother in the practice court whilst Mother watched, laughing at their exuberance. When her father was home he would take them the Legionary fort in Liria and they would practice with the trainees. Even from a young age the two children had been a match for those twice as old. She could remember once defeated an eighteen year old sword apprentice when she was only ten, not yet grown into her class.

Her father had smiled broadly and ordered the trainee to double his practice time before lifting his daughter in one massive arm and kissing her on the cheek. She’d been so proud.

Her brother had shone even brighter, his skills rose so quickly as he trained with such ferocious intensity that he’d been accepted to the Legion two years early, and immediately became the strongest trainee the moment he walked in the door.

When he died it was like the light went out of their family.

Father withdrew, mother left and when the time came Morrelia refused to enlist in the Legion, instead she soldiered around, fighting was the only thing she knew how to do and she was damn good at it. Eventually she settled on her current work, offering her services to villages and small towns on the border to deal with monster infestations. The pay was terrible and the experience was worse, with her skills she could have been a royal guard, but it wasn’t so bad, she felt useful.

When she found a Dungeon entrance out here in the wilds, things had become better. She would sneak out here and delve, on her own at first and then later with her team. The experience had been much better, not to mention the money, it allowed her to take poorer paying jobs helping the more remote villages on the edge of the wilderness and not go hungry.

Now here they were. While she was out fighting, the entire kingdom had burnt to the ground. Father was who knows where in the Dungeon and she was stuck here in a refugee camp that worshipped monsters.

Sitting in her tent, Morrelia sighed and rubbed her temples. By the System she was tired. The berserker rage always took a lot out of her but this was more than just that. The city of Liria had been her home, she knew so many people there. Her classmates, the guards who taught her gambling skills behind her parent’s back, the Legion members she spent so much time around. All of it gone, flattened by Monsters.

It just didn’t seem possible.

Refusing to sit and dwell on it anymore, Morrelia forced herself to her feet and walked out of her tent., pushing the flap aside with one calloused hand. Even if she was only twenty three years old, it had been a long time since she’d been home. She’d been out selling her sword since she was fifteen. The city was gone, the people were here and she’d be damned if she wouldn’t do what she could to help them.

Dianne had set up their camp just outside the village proper. The refugees were busy erecting buildings almost full time but it was never enough, more and more families arrived and they needed the shelter far more than her team did. They had their tents and bedrolls, they’d be fine.

vicious battle only hours before there was a decided buzz about the place. People rushed about, building, cleaning, distributing supplies and caring for the wounded. Morrelia’s feet took her to the large open area those who

and women, on their backs, lying on simple wooden beams placed together to make a raised

she realised the villagers had come out to fight, her first instinct had been that she might have killed some of them. Thankfully not. They’d fought well, the

was here now, by some miracle still standing, moving amongst

She approached him.

he caught sight of her

Morrelia. I had no idea you possessed the Berserker

him to comment on it. Then

always had a temper, it just unlocked

the lie but he let it pass. Instead, he walked closer, drawing her attention once more back to the thing she

is he not? Even acting out to prevent the deaths of humans. I wonder how you will resolve that fact with your narrow

reaction was to

"Don’t call me Miss."

waiting patiently for her to

She sighed.

a tough little bugger and no mistake", Beyn coughed at her disrespectful language but she continued, "the magic it uses is weird, but effective. To be honest, those

stronger than the ant was, which was ridiculous. The gigantic ape bat was clearly evolved from a lightning fist ape but it was a variety that she had never seen.

and stuffing monsters into its seemingly bottomless mouth had been a disturbing sight to say the least. How the ant had managed to defeat such a strange

too, those two pets would flatten the village and destroy everyone in it without the creature having to lift

of the colony were to be as powerful as that one ant...

Eventually she just laughed.