In the end, I decided against it. I had enough bad luck for one day, and I just washed myself down recently.

Recalling the scolding I received from the commander and Emrum was just another reason for which I decided to postpone the procedure.

My gear was packed up, and there was nothing else to do while still having a few hours until bedtime. I was heavily contemplating what to do when a sudden idea popped into my head.

Should I try out that my newly acquired spell, the legendary creation magic? The answer was a resounding yes.

“But… what should I create?”

I attempted to find an easy but useful item to make among my memories from Earth. It proved to be a surprisingly hard task. Partially because of the wide variety of possibilities. Well, there were a lot of things that came to mind, but few among them were actually useful in my current predicament.

My choice eventually fallen on a toothbrush.

A simple but immensely useful item.

I have already experienced once what it feels to live with an annoying lack of teeth. I don’t intend to live an eternity in the same manner inside a world where dentists weren’t invented yet.

Regarding the toothbrush. I wanted it to be as organic and simple as possible. Converting already existing materials from this world and molding them into fresh forms instead of materializing them with magic drained a lot less magic from my reserves.

For that purpose, I headed over to the dining hall, walked inside the kitchen and requested a small piece of wood from my newest beardless acquaintance. Providing the simple reason that I wanted to carve something out of it.

Yulmulir gave me one without batting an eye. Then chased me out of the kitchen, since I clearly didn’t intend to peel potatoes.

After getting back to my room and sitting down on my bed. I placed the small piece of firewood in my lap, thinking about what to do next. Only then did the realization dawned on me. I never even attempted to use this spell before, and not having an incantation, I was unsure how to even begin the process.

In the end I tried a few different approaches like.

Stating my intentions out loud to create a wooden handle of a toothbrush. It didn’t work… that was a no go as I expected.

Next, I attempted to imagine carving out a toothbrush handle from the wood at hand. I was expecting something to happen that time, but to my disappointment, it didn’t.

Just like that, all the two ways I was familiar with to cast magic were exhausted.

I huffed and dropped backwards on my bed, exhaling. — “Damn it, how the hell does this work?” — I mumbled dejectedly.

It was clearly not the right way to use it.

On a sudden whim, I straightened up, then kneeled down beside the bed, my knees scraping against the cold floor. I hastily intertwined my fingers and closed my eyes, taking up a typical praying posture.

“Lord Axis, I wish to wield that power you graciously gifted to me. Yet I do not know how. Please, if you deem me worthy, offer me an explanation.” — As I spoke the prayer, I felt the familiar sense of warmth lingering around me.

I waited for a few minutes, my body completely still. My knees were starting to hurt, since I was not exactly used to kneeling on the hard stone floor. I didn’t care about it, though. I was attempting to convene with a God. Who would complain about such things right now?

Then I sensed a wayward thought. It was almost like a burst of intuition entering my mind out of nowhere. If it wasn’t happening in a moment of acute awareness, I wouldn’t have noticed how out of place it was.

When I focused on this thought, a series of images filled the forefront of my mind, providing a unique understanding to the process of drawing certain types of runes. Runes filled with magic to serve as a conduit to my will.

So that was how I was supposed to do it! By drawing runes, of course, I should have thought about it… still, there was no way I could figure out these particular runes.

“So my only option is to draw these runes as a medium… first? Then place the materials in the center… yawn… Then channel my will and magic into the formation… yawn… I guess I figured it out. All thanks to Lord Axis. Anyway… it’s… I have suddenly grown strangely tired…”

I climbed into my bed, my limbs feeling like long bars of jelly. I must have been more tired than I expected..

“I guess… I should sleep…”

My fuzzy consciousness slipped away the next second I stated those shaky words.

Heavy sounds of knocking against a metal door. Followed by a frustrated shout of a man was the next thing I remembered.

“Lass, if you don’t wake up, I will have to kick in this damn door! Do you hear me?”

I shook, groaning in frustration with a lingering sense of tiredness. The memories of long years of work coming to the surface of my mind. Waking up early, washing my teeth, eating and drinking that morning coffee trying to not be late from work.

The power of routine was not something to underestimate.

I slowly pushed myself up, the layers of blankets slipping off my sluggish body. Drowsily crawling out of the magnetic warmth of the bed, I stepped on the revoltingly cold floor. A shudder running through my whole body.

Awoken from the ungodly cold. My eyes jolted open as I glanced around the barren room, confused.

Realization slowly came to me. It was not a visit in the hospital wing, no… For a moment, I thought that the entire hospital thing was just a bad dream, and I was still back in middle-school. It was a possibility since I wasn’t in the hospital bed and my waist wasn’t killing me at the moment.

Then I looked down at my body, and I saw two gentle swellings under the thin layer of white chemise. I blinked, then the memories slowly flooded my mind.

… Ah… yes… This was… the dwarven outpost… yes, I remember now…

My thoughts slowly clearing from being rudely awoken from the deep state of sleep. I heard a familiar voice shouting into the room once again. Now I recognized it as belonging to Emrum.

“Selora, wake up! We are going to have breakfast in the outpost and then march out. I hope you made the preparations yesterday as we suggested? Right?”

I absentmindedly listened to his words while searching for my left boot, which I somehow managed to kick off in my sleep. Quite an achievement if we take into account that it has a knee high shaft.

I snorted, finding my target entangled in one of the blankets. A chuckle came to me as I heard Emrum’s worried words… Is it just me, or Emrum starting to sound like my dad or mom? Probably both.

Where was the last time I really thought about them, my parents? If I am not mistaken, it was around my time of death… Remembering their passing helped me prepare myself for the inevitable.

Seems like that was ages ago now… But who would have expected that I would be remade like this? They would surely faint seeing me like this. I can’t really blame them for it. I was close to do the same when I arrived here too.

I wonder what happened to my parents? Did they go to heaven? Or are they living their new lives on different planes of existences like I am? Well, for some reason I doubt that… It definitely didn’t feel like the standard procedure.

I will make an inquiry to Axis about that and… Well… that and maybe ask if what Regmir said was true or a complete nonsense… no forget the second one… I am not willing to ask something like that from a God. I would die from shame… Still, if looking at it from a purely mathematical perspective… I only have four weeks of anguish in a year, that’s definitely less trouble all in all compared to enduring it for a week in every month.

My thoughts were interrupted by another wave of impatient knocks.

“SELORA WAKE UP!”

I shuddered sitting on the side of my bed and shouted back finally. — “Okay, okay I am getting ready stop screaming at me! Jeez!”

I heard some half coherent grumbling coming from the corridor, then another shout.

“Get dressed then I will come in to check your gear, just in case…” — The man stated.

I rolled my eyes. — “It’s fine. It’s not like I have anything to pack aside from food, water, and some blankets to sleep on.”

“Alright then… I leave it to you, girl. Get dressed and come to the dining hall. Bring all your things. The kitchen staff will pack the rations while we eat. I will be there.”

Seriously… if he tells me one more time to get dressed in this minute, I am going to slap the shit out of this idiot. Those were my thoughts at the time. — “Okay!” — I shouted back, already in the process of preparation.

Ten minutes later, I joined the others in the dining hall. There were at least a hundred dwarfs eating and talking boisterously. I looked for familiar faces and soon enough found Emrum sitting with Tum, Skod and Tymur. And to my surprise, Regmir, along with a few unfamiliar dwarfs.

I walked up to them, quickly exchanging greetings and small pleasantries.

I set down on the last free chair and dug in to the already prepared food while glancing around the hall, and most importantly, our little section of it.

“I see that the witch finally decided to deem us worthy of her presence.” — Came the sarcastic remark. I did not even look up from my plate, already knowing who said it.

“Regmir… I see that stick is still stuck up in your ass?” — I told him to fuck off absentmindedly, eliciting a few half-hearted chuckles along the table.

It was apparently not an ideal time for jokes. I could feel the tension in the atmosphere. It was rare to see so many serious expressions in the generally jovial dwarfs.

The big backpacks armors and various types of weapons showcased around the hall weren’t exactly normal, either.

The excitement strangely enough reminded me of my childhood. This felt like we were going on a school trip, only more deadly.

Emrum, finishing his portion of the food, then immediately started to explain the basic strategies.

“Captain Lavacoat, who is responsible for the success of this expedition, decided that our group will travel at the middle of the formation. It is the safest place. We are tasked with protecting Selora throughout the entirety of the mission. She is our only means of closing the entrances and quickly solidifying the new outpost, making it defendable in the long run.”

He stopped there, slowly looking over our ten person sized unit.

“Do any of you have questions?” — He added eventually.

There were no questions asked.

As I sat there, eating my fill. I slowly started to realize something. Something that didn’t sink in until that moment.

My presence here is the reason why all these dwarfs are going on this expedition. Meaning… if I mess this up, I am practically risking the life of eighty to a hundred dwarfs?

I gulped drily as a sense of discomfort started to build up inside me.

What if I mess up the incantation? That never happened before, but could that actually result in some unexpected side effects? I thought about it, imagining blowing up myself, stupidly losing control over some powerful spell.

Aside from that, the thought of sending such destructive energies into the lines of living intelligent beings was quite worrying.

I served as a soldier, but never actually participated in a war. But even if I would have… There is a waste difference between shooting at someone from a distance with a gun or cannon, not seeing the consequences; or having to bludgeon them to death with a mace while being close and personal.

A difference which I was very aware of after the encounter with those goblins.

Burning them alive with firebolts isn’t going to be any prettier. Still, I had little doubt what I would choose between being eaten or worse… and setting them on fire.

I was getting used to this new life, and wasn’t going to give up on it just like that. An eternity was too precious to waste as a meal for some stupid goblins.

In the end, there was not much talking through the breakfast, and after we were finished a loud shout resonated through the hall, ordering us to get in position.

Emrum stood up decisively, looking at us one by one. His gaze lingering longer on my form, which was standing out of the bearded lines of dwarfs like a sore thumb. I could see that he wanted to say something, but decided against it in the end.

“Follow me.” — He ordered, and we stood up simultaneously.

The day of the expedition has finally arrived.

About half an hour later, the small army of dwarfs was standing in an orderly manner right in front of the outpost. It took that much time for us to get outside through the thin corridor, which served as the official entrance to the underground base.

It turns out that the incredible defensive structure of the outpost had a deep flaw, too. Namely, it was impossible to evacuate in large numbers.

I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised by this revelation… Still, the thought of being stuck in there. While hordes of monsters were taking siege to it. Is going to shadow my dreams in the future.

When the last unit of dwarfs left the outpost and took their position in the formation, a familiar voice resounded once again. It was the same one that gave the order inside the dining hall. It must belong to the grim-faced and blond-haired dwarf Lavacoat, or what was his name. He was our leader for the time of the expedition.

“MARCH FORTH!” — Came the simple command.

We were finally ordered to move. It was quite a sight, seeing a long armed military formation parting the darkness with their numerous torches. Heading right into the depths of the unknown.

Well, I knew that the dwarfs were well aware of the place we were heading to. It was even supposed to be scouted and explored in great detail.

However, for me, it definitely felt like going into the unknown.

We marched through the cave systems at a comfortable pace. The people seemed relatively relaxed for now; we were still close to the outpost. I believed that to be the reason.

Still, there were almost no conversations happening around us. Something that seemed to be in contrast to everything I learned about the noisy bunch.

Dwarfs loved to gossip, however stupid that sounded. It was the truth. Seeing them in such silence and seriousness was a new and worrying experience.

It made me feel the reality of the situation, made me remember that the dangers that were supposedly hiding in the cover of this darkness were very real and not mere tales designed to scare misbehaving children.

The memory of my fated encounter with those goblins left a deep impression on me. Luckily, Regmir said that goblins normally don’t attack large formations.

Let’s hope that he was spot on with that statement… Because through all the noise created by the marching dwarfs. I wouldn’t be able to spot any ambushes this time around.

We traveled without events for the next four hours. The initial excitement has mostly lost its shine to the constantly repeating dull sight of empty and dark cave walls.

I normally enjoy traveling on foot, taking long walks in nature. I never really thought about how much of that enjoyment came from the changing sights along the road.

Something that was basically nonexistent here. Everything seemed to look the same, rock upon a rock upon different layers of dull rock which I had no way of differentiating.

Therefore, my thoughts eventually started to wander around, while I monotonously followed along with the column.

At least my feet didn’t hurt that much. Being young again definitely came with its unique perks.