The morning sun filtered through the curtains of my old bedroom, casting long, dusty streaks of gold across the floor. When I reached up to touch my face, I didn't feel the rough, temporary gauze from the infirmary. Instead, my fingers met the smooth, cool surface of a black leather eyepatch.
"Huh? An eye patch."
Mya must have stayed up late, carefully fitting it while I was lost in a dreamless, exhausted sleep.
I sat up, the movement still sending a dull ache through my ribs, and caught my reflection in the vanity mirror. The eyepatch gave me a hardened, predatory look… a stark contrast to the girl who used to brush her hair here just weeks ago.
"Roxy, good morning you sleepyhead."
"Morning, Plasma."
I looked down at my left arm; the skin was sealed, but the muscle beneath felt tight and foreign, a constant physical echo of the torture I'd endured.
I stood up, dressed in a simple linen shirt, and made my way to the kitchen. Mya was already there, her tail twitching rhythmically as she sipped from a cup of lukewarm tea. The steam rose in thin, lazy spirals between us.
I pulled out a chair and sat across from her. For a long time, the only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.
"Is it true? That you've quit being an adventurer?"
I stared at my scarred hand resting on the wooden table.
"I'm done, Mya. I'm done being a hero."
My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears.
"My eye, my arm... those were the sacrifices for a town that doesn't even know how close it came to falling. I've lost enough. I'm just... tired."
The silence returned, heavier this time. Every time I closed my eyes, the images returned: the cold, unmoving faces of the maids, the smell of smoke, and the crushing weight of the basement. But most of all, I thought of Miera. She had been more than a friend; she was a part of the life I thought I was building. To lose her on the same day the manor felt like the world was deliberately stripping away everything I loved.
The trauma wasn't just in my scars; it was a permanent coldness in my chest.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I shouldn't have reminded you of..."
"It's fine, Mya. You didn't remind me. I never forgot. I don't think I ever will." I interrupted
I looked out the window at the peaceful streets of Town Allure. People were walking to market, children were playing, and the sun was shining as if nothing had happened. They didn't know about the blood in the flour or the bodies in the basement.
I was no longer an adventurer. I was a survivor, living in a house full of memories, guarding the little bit of peace I had left with the one eye I had remaining.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Three knocks for my morning interruption, even three knocks will make my morning worse.
The quiet of the morning was shattered by a firm, rhythmic pounding on the heavy oak door. I set my tea down, the porcelain clinking against the wood, and exchanged a wary glance with Mya.
I pulled the door open. Standing there were four city guards in polished steel breastplates, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords. Behind them, an ornate carriage draped in royal blue velvet waited in the cobblestone street.
I took a slow sip of my tea, my one green eye tracing the crest on their shields.
"What is it?" I asked, my voice flat.
"Lord Phillip requests a word with you at the Bureau immediately," the lead guard stated, his voice formal.
I leaned against the doorframe, my scarred left arm thrumming with a dull ache.
"Sorry, guards. I'm exhausted. I've been in recovery since yesterday, and I have no intention of moving today."
"I'm afraid it isn't a request, Roxy," a soft, commanding voice interrupted.
The guards stepped aside, and Snow walked toward the doorstep. Her presence seemed to brighten the dim hallway. Remembering her status and the weight of her grace, I immediately dropped to one knee, my head bowed.
"Your Majesty... why are you here?"
"Stand up, Roxy! What a house you have here. To think a hero of the town lives as a commoner."
Snow said, a delightful, almost playful lilt in her voice as she looked around the modest foyer.
Her expression then shifted, turning grave as she stepped closer.
"Roxy, you need to go to the Bureau. It is urgent. It concerns the Bronze Coin Guild."
The name sent a chill down my spine. The Bronze Coin, the very organization that backed Dominik. The group responsible for the blood and deaths in the basement.
Mya appeared at my side, her tail puffed out in distress and her ears pinned back.
"Roxy? Who are these people? Why are you leaving?" she asked, her voice trembling with worry.
I looked at Mya, then at Snow, and finally at the carriage waiting to take me back into the world I had tried to leave behind. I reached out and squeezed Mya's hand, my expression hardening behind the leather eyepatch.
"It's our final mission, Mya. One last task. Then I leave it all behind for good."
I stepped out into the bright morning air and hitched a ride into the carriage. As the wheels began to grind against the stones, I looked out the window and waved a silent goodbye to Mya, who stood small and anxious in the doorway of the Rynd Household.
We made past the Merchant District all the way to the Central Plaza, as expected, it is filled with people and adventurers out there. Whenever they saw me, riding with the carriage. They all waved at me like I was a celebrity.
"Is that the great adventurer, Roxy! Who saved the plague?"
"Indeed, she also was involved in the Easter District."
"Look at Lady Roxy, her eye had gouged out. And she's wearing an eye patch."
I didn't bother them, I was tired of playing. I'm tried of becoming a hero. I only wanted revenge, that's it.
The carriage wheels groaned against the cobblestones, but the sound was drowned out by the pounding of my own heart. I leaned my head against the velvet interior, the cool fabric pressing against my eyepatch. Every bump in the road sent a jolt of phantom pain through my mutilated arm, a reminder of the price I had already paid.
The Bureau loomed ahead… a cold, grey stone monolith that felt more like a tomb than a government office.
The receptionist didn't bother thanking me, she even greeted me with all her might, even respecting my lost body parts from my heroic act of mine. But I didn't bother her, I went straight to the bureau's office to meet Lord Phillip.
"Step inside, Roxy," Snow whispered we arrived at the office's doorstep. Her hand rested briefly on my shoulder, her touch light but heavy with the shared weight of our trauma.
Lord Phillip was waiting in a high-ceilinged chamber filled with the scent of old ink and wax.
"Greetings Lord Phillip."
"A powerful morning, Roxy."
He didn't look like a powerful official today; he looked like a man who hadn't slept since the manor burned. When he saw me… the eyepatch, the scarred arm, the hollow look in my remaining eye… his face crumbled for a split second before he regained his composure.
"Roxy, I know what I am asking of you is cruelty. You have given your blood, your flesh, and your very sight to this town."
He spread a series of charred documents across the desk.
"These were recovered from the ruins of the Bronze Coin's local hideout. They are bandits, Roxy. and they've marked you. Dominik wanted to break the symbol of hope you represented."
I looked at the documents, but the words blurred, even in this world, it still have photography. The magic that uses photography is called mirroring spell, it acts as a camera lens that shows a detailed print from that image. Lord Phillip gave me some disturbing sightings.
"Hmm… interesting."
The photo was taken from the place I known of, but I didn't seem to remember. I remembered this town months ago.
All I could see were Miera's eyes as the light left them. All I could feel was the coldness of the basement. Phillip continued, leaning forward.
"The guild is moving. They are purging their failures… including the survivors of the manor incident. If we don't act now, the blood of the maids won't be the last. I need the hero one last time, Roxy. Not for the town, not for the crown... but to ensure that what happened to Miera never happens again."
I stood there, the silence of the room ringing in my ears. I thought of Mya back at the house, sipping her tea and waiting for a friend who might never truly come home. I thought of the empty socket behind my leather patch.
The grief I had been trying to bury flared up into a cold, steady flame. It wasn't heroics that moved me. It wasn't my duty. It was the realization that as long as the Bronze Coin existed, the ghosts of my friends would never know peace.
"I told Mya this was my final mission, in fact. I wasn't lying."
I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, yet cutting through the room like a blade.
I looked Phillip directly in the eye, my green iris glowing with a faint, dangerous light.
"I will dismantle them. Every coin, every blade, every man. Not because I'm a hero. But because I'm the only monster they have left to fear."
Snow let out a shaky breath, her eyes brimming with tears. She knew the cost of what I was saying. To finish this, I would have to give up the last of the girl I used to be.
Lord Phillip's hands trembled as he slid a final, blood-stained map across the heavy oak desk. His finger landed on a remote point far to the east, nestled in the jagged shadows of the forest.
"Our scouts died bringing this information back, the Bronze Coin guild isn't just a band of mercenaries anymore. They've consolidated. They are burning their records and preparing to vanish into the deep territories, taking their secrets…and Dominik is with them."
I leaned over the map, the leather of my eyepatch creaking as I squinted with my remaining eye. The location was a place spoken of only in hushed warnings by merchants and weary travelers. It was a place where the law of the kingdom didn't reach, and where the sun felt cold even in mid-summer.
Snow walked to my side, her hand hovering over mine, though she didn't dare touch the scarred, mutilated skin.
"If you go there, Roxy... there is no guard to call for. No infirmary to retreat to. You'll be stepping into the heart of the rot."
I stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the stone floor. I didn't look at the map anymore. I didn't need to. The name was burned into my mind, a final destination for the hero and a final resting place for the girl who lost everything at the manor.
"I don't need a guard, I just need to finish this. For Miera. For all of them."
I said, my voice cold and hollow, resonating with a finality that made the candles flicker.
I turned my back on the light of the Bureau, walking toward the door with a steady, haunting gait. My final mission had a name, and it was a place where the shadows never truly lifted.
"Where are they?"
Snow called out, her voice filled with a desperate, lingering hope that I might turn back.
I paused at the threshold, the silhouette of my one-eyed gaze cast long against the stone wall.
"The Town of Tata."