Mally led Rat alongside the carriage, looking around the area in concern. The foliage here was thick, and it was prime real estate for bandits. If they were going to attack a carriage, this would be the place they did it.

“You seem nervous,” Artesia commented, and Mally looked back at her. She had picked up on their anxiety, and her hands were fisted in her robes. She was nervous, too. She was looking back through the window in the back of the carriage, as if to watch for Edwin’s carriage, and Mally gave her an easy smile.

“Sorry, my lady,” they said. “Just listening for any weird sounds.”

Just like clockwork, there was a snap in the forest, and Mally’s head whipped around as they reached for their sword.

“I’m going to check it out,” they said and swung off Rat, and suddenly, figures emerged in front of the carriage.

“Why, hello there,” the bandit leader purred, and Mally inhaled slowly and exhaled. They had already killed a body. A dead body, but a body. They could do this. “We don’t want no trouble. Just hand off the lady in the carriage and the valuables and you can go.”

“We can’t do that,” said the lead paladin and drew his sword.

“Oho? That important, is she?” the bandit leader asked, and Mally drew their sword as they circled around Rat. There were three bandits to their left, and they grinned at them.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Mally asked, and the three bandits exchanged glances.

“You’re a kid. What are you gonna do?” one of the bandits asked, and Mally activated their spores.

For a moment, there was no reaction, and then one of the bandits had the veins blacken in his face. He coughed, took a step forward, and started foaming at the mouth. Mally stepped forward and slashed his throat, and blood splattered over their face. There was a muffled gasp from inside the carriage, and Mally tried to ignore that. This would be her first experience with death. Mally had been taken down to their father’s torture room at the age of seven. They knew people had to die, and sometimes, they had to kill them. That was all there was to it.

Of course, they had thrown a fit about that, unable to do much else, and went on a hunger strike for three weeks until they were force feeding them, but…

Unpleasant memories rose up, and they increased the output of the spores, poisoning the bandits thoroughly. Apparently, they had no magic that made them poison resistant. That was good to know.

One collapsed on the ground, foaming at the mouth and seizing, and the other rushed them, swinging his sword high. They blocked it, and, with a neat twist, sent the blade flying and skittering over the hard packed earth. Another neat slash across the throat, and he was down, spewing blood all down their front.

The spores pinged with danger, and they spun, blocking a strike from behind, and they watched as he inhaled the invisible spores and went down, choking on his own spit as the mycelium blocked his airway. Another man came rushing at them, but a paladin rode up on him, stabbing him through the back. They nodded in thanks, and then they danced back from another strike. There were about thirty bandits, and not many of them, so this would be messy. They had to make sure not to get cut.

He swung at them, and they blocked it and shoved him back with a forearm to the chest. He stumbled back, and they spun their sword around and slashed his face, carving a line through his eye. He dropped to his knees and screamed, covering his eye, and Rat was probably the most amusing in all of this. Whoever had trained him had made sure this horse was bomb proof, because he was munching on the grass at the edge of the road.

Another bandit came running at them, and they blocked his first strike and pushed the spores. He began foaming at the mouth, eyes wide and terrified, and swung at them again, but they blocked it again and counterstruck, scoring a long strike against his chest. It was a good thing they designed this body to the same proportions as the last one, with a more masculine face, or they would be having a hell of a time.

And the tits.

They got rid of the tits.

He charged them again, and they skewered him through the chest. A horse screamed in pain and went down, spilling off the paladin, and Mally stepped forward and blocked a strike before he could get his head chopped off. The horse rolled to its feet, fine, and they pushed back the bandit and slammed their foot into his knee. There was a crack, and then the calvary came in.

Thundering hooves sounded on the dirt, and Edwin Harwith himself came charging in, lopping a man’s head off with a clean blow. His knights were charging behind him, and Mally ducked under a strike and blocked another. It was chaos now, and they danced back, their feet scoring lines in the dirt as they blocked another strike and counterattacked, slicing the man’s arm off at the joint of his elbow. He screeched, and they cut his head clean off his shoulders.

Edwin was hacking and slashing through the men, his patented warhorse beating them down with his hooves, and Mally shuffled through the dirt and ducked under a slash, blocking a second and twisting their sword so the sword was sent scattering across the earth. They chopped off a man’s hand, and then they stabbed another through the chest. He tumbled to the ground, and they leapt back to avoid a slash to the chest. They blocked another strike, now covered from head to toe in blood, and a slice they couldn’t block in time glanced off their side. A shallow cut opened, and they slashed the bandit down as the mycelium knit itself back together. Their whitish blood was leaking out, and they spun and lopped off a man’s head.

Suddenly, the bandit leader was on them, and they blocked his first strike, then his second, and he slashed at them. He was a bit more advanced than the others, and they abruptly decided they didn’t want to deal with it, so they pushed their spores, closing up his airway. He stopped, gasping for air, and they sliced open his throat at such an angle to hide the clearish white liquid that had soaked into their shirt with the spray of his blood. He collapsed, and Mally abruptly decided this was taking too long.

One after another, the bandits collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth as they thrashed and kicked for air. Mally closed up their throats and poisoned them thoroughly, letting the rot seep into their bodies, and their eyes rolled back in their heads as they all went limp.

It was over.

Blood had soaked into the hard packed earth, and Edwin was staring at them with hard eyes. They stared back at him, and he opened his mouth, shut it, and Mally turned aside.

“You. Adventurer,” he called, and Mally turned back to him.

“It’s Mally, my lord,” they replied, injecting as much politeness into their tone as they could. “Mally Mack.”

He frowned at them, and then he gestured to all of the dead bodies around them.

“What magic was that?” he demanded, and Mally was silent for a moment.

“Fungal magic, my lord,” they replied, because lying was probably going to do them a disservice.

“I’ve never heard of such a magic,” he said, flat, and they tilted their head in confusion.

“You’ve never heard of mushrooms?” they asked, deliberately misunderstanding him, and he frowned at them.

“Is it a subsect of woodcraft magic?” he asked, and they blinked.

“Well, I don’t know, my lord. All I know is I have it,” they lied. It was a subsect of life and death magic, but he didn’t need to know that. They were never going to meet him again after this, anyway.

“Hm,” he said with a frown, and then he looked them up and down. “Don’t let the lady see you like that.”

“Understood, my lord,” they said and clicked their tongue for Rat to come. The horse trotted over to them, and they swung atop him. “I’ll find running water so we can clean up.”

“I’ll go with you,” the little lord said, and Mally bit back their irritation. “There may be more bandits in the woods.”

“All due respect, my lord, but I can handle a few more bandits on my own,” Mally said and spurred Rat on. “Thank you for the offer.”

With that, they pushed onto a game trail, and Edwin spurred his horse after them. So, he wasn’t going to listen? Okay, then.

“My lord, you can’t go on your own!” one of his knights called, and Edwin held up a hand.

“It’s fine,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Mally really needed to bathe alone, considering the fact that they didn’t have a fucking penis, but they could just strip down to their undergarments. It was fine, right? Yeah, it was fine.

Edwin followed them into the forest, and they led their horse down the trail as Artesia was left alone to presumably have a mental breakdown in her carriage. The trail sloped downward, and they followed it, listening for the sound of running water.

“Alright,” Edwin said after they made it a fair distance away, “why do you know Imperial swordsmanship?”

Mally froze, staring straight between Rat’s ears with wide, wide eyes, barely breathing as they tried to think their way out of this one. What did they say? What were they supposed to say here? They…

“An old knight picked me up and trained me,” they replied, “about ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago? How old are you now?”

“Fifteen,” they replied, and Edwin was silent.

“Why did he choose you?” he asked, and Mally was quiet.

“I guess he liked the look in my eye,” they replied. “Someone that didn’t want to go down without a fight.”

They were lying, but what else were they supposed to do? Tell the truth? No, it was better this way. They couldn’t very well say they were a runaway noblewoman, and it wasn’t like they would ever encounter these people again. They may run into each other at the capital, but it was unlikely. It was highly unlikely.

“Hm,” Edwin said, and Mally’s practiced ear picked up the sound of a river.

“We’re nearly there,” they said, and spurred Rat on. The horse picked around the stones, and Mally rode them easily.

“Did he also teach you how to ride a horse?” Edwin asked, and Mally thought back to Captain Tres. He had loved them more than their own father ever had. They should have told him goodbye.

“Yes,” they replied as Rat slid down a stony portion of the path. “He did.”

“And your magic?”

“That I figured out on my own,” Mally replied, and looked over their shoulder. “You don’t have to be so suspicious of me, my lord. I’m just an adventurer. There’s no need for so many questions.”

Edwin stared at them in silence, and they came out of the trees to face a passively drifting river. Mally swung off their horse, and glanced back at him.

“I do have one secret, though,” they said casually. “So, you shouldn’t look at my body carelessly.”

With that, they stripped off their cloak, soaked in blood, and then began to strip their clothes, down to their underwear. Edwin stared at them in confusion, and they waded into the water, sure that when they got wet, it would become apparent.

“I paid a mage to transfigure away my breasts,” they called over their shoulder, and Edwin’s eyes bugged out of his skull before he looked away, turning bright red. “It’s easier to be known as a man, don’t you think?”

“You could have warned me,” he hissed, and Mally laughed as Rat bent his head down to drink from the river.

“Why? I’m not a woman, not anymore,” they replied. “There’s nothing to look at, though your chivalry is cute.”

With that, they dunked their clothes into the water and watched as the blood washed away.

“Should you go get the rest of the men to wash up?” they asked, and he flushed deeply.

“I’ll be back… in an hour to give you your…” he mumbled, and they grinned before they dunked their head underwater and came back up, the blood thoroughly washed away now.

“If you must,” they said teasingly, and he turned and spurred his horse on to march away through the forest. Men. Really, they were so sensitive. Dear gods. He acted like his chastity was challenged.

Cute, though. They could see the appeal of the ML. They almost forgot he was only fifteen here. In four years, he would be a much different man.