The road south was nothing as I imagined.
In my head, exile looked somewhat dignified.
A lone prince walking into the horizon, jaw set, eyes forward, the kind of image that made for good paintings.
What I got instead was forty minutes of walking before my left boot started rubbing a blister into my heel, and the armour, yeah, the full ceremonial plate I had grabbed because it looked the most protective, turned out to weigh approximately as much as my body.
'Who designed this thing?' I thought, shifting the shoulder piece for the third time in an hour.
'Who looked at a human body and said yes, solid metal rectangles, perfect fit for travels.'
By mid-morning, I was drenched.
Not the dignified kind of sweat either.
The kind that pools in places you don't discuss in polite company. The chest piece had been grinding against my collarbone since the first hill, and my stamina bar, which I had been carefully not looking at, had dropped to nine out of fifteen.
Walking had taken me down to nine.
'I am going to die before I see a single monster,' I thought.
I lasted until noon before I pulled the chest piece off and left it beside a tree at the edge of the path.
It sat there looking expensive and useless, which felt appropriate.
I kept the pauldrons because taking those off required help, and I kept the sword because leaving it felt like giving up entirely on the journey, even if I could barely lift it properly.
What I actually felt, standing there in half-armour with my blonde hair stuck to my forehead, was something I hadn't expected.
Relief.
Not the palace kind, where relief meant a warm bath and Mina bringing tea, where I bang her.
This was smaller and stranger, the feeling of a decision already made, a door already closed behind you.
There was nothing back there worth turning around for.
My father hadn't come to the courtyard, nor did Damon care about it.
The palace windows had been empty.
'Fine,' I thought again, the same word I had said that morning, and I picked the sword back up and kept walking.
Suddenly, a wolf came out of nowhere.
One moment, the path was empty, just dust and tree line and the distant sound of birds.
The next, something large and grey hit the road in front of me with a sound like a dropped sack of grain, and I had approximately one second to register that it had too many teeth before my body made a decision entirely without consulting me.
I dropped the sword instinctively.
The wolf's ears went back, confused at what this stupid human was doing.
Before it could lunge at me, I threw the rope.
It left my hand before I had consciously decided to throw it, just pure reflex, the kind that bypasses thinking entirely, and the moment it left my fingers, something changed.
The rope stopped being a rope.
It moved the way water moves when you pour it fast, fluid and purposeful, and it wrapped around the wolf in three clean passes before the animal could even finish its crouch. A
round the muzzle first, then the legs cinched tight in a knot I could not have tied on purpose if I tried.
The wolf let out a cry and hit the ground sideways.
It made a sound, muffled, frustrated, and then went very still.
I stood there with my arm still outstretched and my heart trying to exit my chest through my ribcage.
'...What,' I thought.
The notification appeared.
[Bondage Mastery Lv. 9 activated.]
[Target: Dire Wolf - fully restrained.]
[Enemy immobilised.]
[Finishing blow available.]
I looked at the wolf.
The wolf looked at me with an expression that, if wolves could have expressions, was something close to disbelief.
'That makes two of us,' I thought.
I picked up the sword, took a deep breath since it was my first kill and did what needed doing, quickly.
[+180 EXP gained.]
[Stamina +1 from combat.]
I sat down on a rock beside the path and just breathed for a while.
So the skill was not decorative.
I had assumed, in the vague way you assume things you don't intend to test, that Bondage Mastery was something contextual.
Useful in specific circumstances.
What it actually was, apparently, was a targeted magic system wearing the costume of a physical skill.
The rope responded to intent.
It didn't need throwing techniques or practised knots, but a target and a decision, and it handled the rest with a competence even I couldn't comprehend.
'Any target,' the system had said.
'Any target,' I thought, and looked down the road south, toward wherever the cave eventually was.
I thought about the wolf, how fast it had gone from threat to problem-solved.
'They can all be tied up,' I thought.
It was not confidence exactly.
My strength is still low, and a stamina pool that a brisk walk could halve.
I still had no affinity and combat skills that amounted to drop sword, panic, or throw rope.
But there was something there now that hadn't been there this morning. not courage, nothing that dramatic, just a small and stubborn sense that maybe the numbers weren't the whole story.
The inn appeared at the edge of a village as the sun was going down, warm light spilling from the windows onto the dirt road.
I walked in, paid for a room with coins from the purse Damon had quietly left in my bag without mentioning, the one decent thing he'd done, and sat on the edge of the bed in the quiet.
[Day 1 complete.]
[EXP: 180/2000]
'Long way to go,' I thought.
I lay back and looked at the ceiling and thought about the rope and the wolf and the way the skill had moved like it knew what it was doing even when I didn't.
'Alright,' I said to nobody in particular.
'Soon I will use that rope effectively. In both battle and bed.'