Blessing of the Vomit Heroine

"Fwahaha!" I laugh, slamming my foot through the crunchy flesh of another oversized creepy-crawly and stamping all eight of its squishy little eyes into the dirt. "Thirty-five!"

Despite its mushy blue brains oozing out between my bare toes, the creature manages one final shriek as its many legs scratch and scramble helplessly across the dirt, before eventually coming to a stop.

Giant spiders. Though they're called 'giant', the ones I've been stomping into the floor ever since Mei-Mei decided to take us off-road and into these woods have only come up to my waist. The ones back home underground are definitely a lot gianter, I think.

"Just admit that you're lost!" Bran complains, attempting in vain to peel the layers of sticky spider's thread out of his hair as he berates the tiny dead dwarf leading the way through the dense wood. "I knew this so-called 'shortcut' was a bad idea, but nobody listens to me! You'd all prefer to listen to the walking corpse with literal brain rot instead!"

"I'm not lost, idiot," Mei-Mei replies, pausing a moment to stub her cigarette into the moist bark of a tree before flicking it into the damp soil amongst a bouquet of colourful mushrooms. "I know exactly where we are on the map."

"What map?! I haven't seen you pull out a map once since we left the city!"

"What are you talking about?" Mei-Mei shoots a condescending raise of an eyebrow over her shoulder as she continues to lead the way forward. "What would be the point in taking one with us? Didn't you see the one on the wall in the Adventurers Guild? I'm using that one. From memory, obviously. It's bound to be a lot more accurate than any other we'd find someplace else."

"What are you talking about?! The guild didn't say anything about giant spiders! We're supposed to be fighting bandits! Bandits! Was it the mould growing inside your head that led us to this damp, bug-infested hell? Or are we finally learning that this smug little runt is actually just as stupid as the people she constantly lords herself over!? We're lost! We're definitely lost!"

"Keh! What does it matter to you if it's spiders or bandits when you're not doing any of the fighting anyway?! The reason I came this way in the first place was because of your incessant complaining about how much your feet hurt or how you can't sleep outside on the dirt! I just turned our four-day journey into a three-day journey and this is the thanks I get in return? Keh! Absolutely insufferable!"

It's only been a day and a half since we left the city and, as expected, things haven't exactly been going as smoothly as they could be. Yesterday was great! After remembering it was my birthday, I did feel a little homesick at first since my Mom and sisters usually make a big deal of it every year, but spending the whole day on the road among friends was super fun too. I noticed Bran was uncharacteristically more considerate than usual, and Mei-Mei only called me an idiot twice! But things have quickly started to fall apart on the second day, with Bran realizing his body isn't really a fan of extended physical activity, and Mei-Mei clearly still upset over the fact that I fell asleep during my turn to keep watch after we set up camp on the first night and a wild animal ended up dragging her out of bed and into the woods for a bit. I didn't even realize it had happened until the next morning when she wandered back into camp covered in blood and fur, looking really really pissed off. I'm not gonna complain though. This kind of chaotic tension is just as fun too!

The reason we're on this journey in the first place, of course, is to complete a quest given to us by the Adventurers Guild. Our first quest as first-time adventurers! From what I've been told, a group of bandits set up camp a little ways from the city and has been robbing people travelling along the main road, and our job is to wipe them out. Most exciting of all is the fact that all of these bandits are women too! Cute women! Well, I don't know if they're cute or not. But it's more exciting to fantasize that they are. Apparently, they've only been attacking men and large-breasted women on the road, but they seem to avoid causing any serious injury to their victims, which is why a bunch of F-Ranks like us were able to scoop up such a dangerous-sounding quest. The Guild lady warned us that this quest was only F-Rank on a technicality, and they were waiting for approval to have it moved up to 'C' instead, but I'm not really bothered about ranks and stuff. From F-Rank to S-Rank, everything bleeds when you punch it hard enough!

Though I wonder how they figured out people were being attacked based on chest size. That feels weirdly specific, doesn't it...?

"Hey, aren't the details of this quest kind of weird?" Bran comments, seemingly on a similar train of thought to me. "A group of bandits who only attack men is believable enough, but adding 'large-breasted women' to that list feels like something one of their victims did as a really petty form of payback. I don't think that's actually a thing."

"Oh?" I smirk, giving Bran a playful little shove. "Worried about me, are you?"

"..." Bran doesn't respond. Instead shooting me a blank side-glance before silently continuing on behind Mei-Mei.

Fweh...? What kind of reaction was that? Why did I sense a feeling of pity in that glance...?

The budding atmosphere of awkwardness is quickly quashed by the rustling of nearby bushes, followed by a fluffy flash of white suddenly emerging from the brush.

"Fwah! It's Biscuit!"

It's Biscuit. As the memories of the little white-haired wolfgirl flood back into my mind, so does the fact that she had only been gone a few minutes because she smelled something strange further up and went to go scout ahead a little.

"Shh." Placing a finger to her lips, Biscuit gently shushes us and quietly nods towards the direction she had just come from. "There's p-people up ahead. I think it's the ones we're looking for."

Mei-Mei immediately shoots Bran a very 'I-told-you-so' look, while our designated bag-carrier simply rolls his eyes in response.

With Biscuit leading the way, the four of us quietly push on ahead. As we do, I notice the forest surrounding us becoming thinner, and the dense hell of insects and fungal growth gradually shifting to one less sticky, stinky, and wet.

It isn't long before Biscuit stops us, her ears shooting up in the air as if suddenly being alerted to some kind of noise further up. Flexing my own muscular ears, I manage to pick up the sounds of something too. In the distance, a conversation between women can be heard.

"Are you sure?" I hear one voice ask. "Are you sure it's people? Could it just be another dead goblin the spiders have strung up again?"

"It's... It's a little hard to tell, Boss," another voice responds. "There is a faint smell of goblin, and maybe something dead as well, but I can definitely pick up the pungent stink of man out there. I think there might be a woman too, but it's difficult to place what her scent is. Smells like a group of three, maybe four, but again it's hard to tell..."

Ah. I guess we're not the only ones with a sensitive nose on our side. Of course, if Biscuit can smell them, then it wouldn't be weird for them to be able to smell us too.

"You think they're coming for us, Boss?" a third voice chimes in. "I mean, you'd have to be an idiot to cut through the Wetwoods like that though. What with it being impossible to navigate, even without all those damn spiders."

"An idiot..." the one known as the 'Boss' replies. "Or someone who knew it was the best way to catch us off-guard since most of the gang is out scouting the main roads. Dammit, if they really have cut through the Wetwoods then it's not the knights coming for us, it's adventurers. Seasoned veterans too. I'm guessing A-Rank, judging by the size of the group. Maybe with an S-Rank mixed in, if we're lucky."

"S-Rank?! I-Is that really okay, Boss? Even the thought of a few A-Ranks is a little intimidating, but S-Rank..."

"Don't worry. I want all of you to fall back to the hideout and let the others know what's going on. I'll meet you there soon. If I'm not back in thirty, I'm putting you in charge. I trust you to make any right calls if I'm not there."

"A-are you sure, Boss? I mean, I'm not doubting your abilities or anything, but I don't feel great about leaving you here to hold off a group of A-Ranks on your own either..."

The woman's concerns are met with a confident chuckle in return. "I told you, don't worry. I've been holding back a bit since we've only been robbing people, but I'm not so stubborn that I won't break my no-killing rule if I need to get a little bit serious. I don't know how I'll fare against an S-Rank if one does show up, but I sure as hell won't make it easy for them."

"If you say so, Boss... Just don't do anything too reckless. The Sisters wouldn't be the same without you leading us..."

"Of course. Ah, before you leave..." During the sounds of the group's dispersal, the Boss' voice drops to a hushed whisper and I have to flex my ears even harder to hear her next words. "Here, let me borrow your axe for a moment. Mm, that one. Thanks."

From our squatting spot in the woods, Biscuit turns her attention back our way. "It s-sounds like they know we're coming. Their boss is staying behind to stop us while the others f-fall back to their hideout, I think. What should we do?"

"Mm, I heard 'em too," I reply, placing a hand on top of Biscuit's fluffy white head. "I think the first thing we should do is..."

Ruffling the wolfgirl's hair, I take the opportunity to gently push her to the side, shifting her a couple feet to the left. At the same time, I whip a foot around to connect with the back of Bran's ankles, sweeping him clean off his feet and causing him to collapse to the floor.

"Why?!" Bran complains in response. "What the hell was that fo—?!"

Before he can finish, Bran's complaints are cut short by the loud buzz of a metal blade whirring above his head, before loudly embedding itself in the tree behind him with a sharp crack. The tree immediately splits down the middle, leaving the two halves to snap from their base and collapse across either side of the wooded brush around us in a shower of leaves and splinters.

As the debris continues to rain across our surroundings, I punch a hand through the remaining base of the tree and pull out the embedded cause of the destruction.

"Fwah! An axe!"

It's an axe. It doesn't look like a particularly battle-worthy one either. Just a normal one for chopping wood and stuff.

I let out an impressed whistle as I look towards the direction the axe came from. That was a good throw. The fact that the axe split the tree in half is impressive enough, but what's even cooler is how it curved. Whoever threw it managed to line me, Bran, and Biscuit up, as well as mask their own location all by putting some crazy spin on this axe and having it curve through the forest at us from a weird angle. That takes accuracy!

"I'm going on ahead!" I tell the group, throwing the axe over my shoulder and back into the brush. "See you guys there!"

And then, not giving the group a chance to complain back at me, I immediately shoot off in the direction of our ranged assailant. Though they did a good job of masking their location with that curved throw, unfortunately for them, my jacked ears and throbbing back muscles are leading me right to them!

Licking my lips in eager anticipation, I follow the previous sounds of the conversation I was eavesdropping on before, as well as the feeling of my battle-sensitive muscles pointing me in the direction of another strong opponent.

Speedily trampling through the wooded overgrowth along my path, I quickly find myself approaching a clearing amongst the trees.

"Fwahaha!" I laugh, bursting from the leafy brush and into the well-lit clearing.

"—?!"

A lone woman stands in the clearing, a short blade held in each hand. A look of surprise momentarily crosses her face at my entrance, before she quickly regains composure and readies her weapons in a fighting stance.

"Damn. She's fast..." the woman mutters under her breath. "Maybe they did send an S-Rank after all. This might be a problem..."

Ah, it looks like my intuition was right in leading me this way. No— Not just in leading me this way, but leading me to this quest in the first place. Of course, hunting down bandits sounds fun and all, but that's not the only reason I was drawn to this quest. The thing I was most looking forward to was...

"Fwah! Cute girl found!" I shout, pointing a finger at her and then assuming my own stance. An open-palmed stance with arms raised and hands held out in front of me. It's not exactly a fighting stance, but it's the optimal stance in preparation for grope— for grappling with the woman should she enter my range. Grappling.

The thing about outlaws is that they exist outside of the law. I don't really understand all of these 'laws' and 'rules' and stuff—and I'm not really one for following them either—but my understanding is that doing things that break these laws is 'bad'. But, because bandits exist outside of the law, doing bad things to them doesn't count as 'bad' anymore. I can do whatever I want to them and the law says it's fine! Ever since my time in the Spire, I've been a lot more conscious of my actions towards other woman. Mostly just having my reserves about sexually harassing them and stuff. But the law says, when it comes to bandits, I don't need to have those reserves at all! Sexually harassing bandits is perfectly fine! In fact, it doesn't even count as sexual harassment since they exist outside of these rules in the first place! Although I still struggle to wrap my head around it sometimes, letting the law decide my morals for me is super convenient! I can grapple all the bandit women I want, as much as I want, and not have to feel bad about it one bit!

Though, unlike the supposed reports of the victims these bandits have been targetting, this woman in front of me doesn't look to have much to 'grapple' in the first place. Not that I particularly mind, of course. Smaller is cuter, after all! Even if it's just her figure that's small. In terms of height, she probably stands about a head taller than me. And despite her slim physique, there's some serious muscle definition in those slender arms of hers. I'm willing to bet her body is impressively toned beneath that light armour too. I'm sure I'll be able to find out once I peel it off of her...

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Fwehehe..."

As the exciting thoughts flutter across my mind, I'm abruptly pulled from my daydreaming by the woman pointing one of her blades my way.

"Hey," she calls from across the clearing. "The Guild sent you to stop us, right? How about joining up with us instead?"

Sucking back the drool I was inadvertently leaking from the side of my mouth in my happy little trance, I blink back at the woman in confusion. "... Fweh?"

Join her? Is that an option?! I didn't realize that was an option!

Sliding her blades back in their sheaths, the woman combs a hand through her short brown hair, sweeping any stray locks from her freckled face as she carefully eyes me up and down with a scrutinous glare, before silently nodding to herself in approval.

"Don't you think it's unfair?" she continues. "The world, I mean. You hate it too, don't you? I can tell. You're one of us, after all. You're obviously a lot more well-off than some of the less fortunate like me, of course. But at the end of the day, you still face the same struggles. The same challenges. The same prejudices. All because fate made you the way it did, and the world decided that was something to be mocked and belittled for. We share the same pain, you and I. That makes us sisters. Sisters of Struggle. Together, we can right the wrongs of this world, and punish those who deserve to know what it feels like to share even a fraction of the pain that we face every day. All of those loose tramps who flaunt their privilege at every opportunity. All of those male pigs who rejected and ignored us. You feel the same way, right?"

"Uh..." I drop my grappling stance to scratch awkwardly at my head in thought. "Not really? I mean, I like this world a lot. Every day is lots of fun, and so is everybody I've met so far. I like the way I am, and the only pain I've felt recently was when I was fighting Lust. Also, the thought of 'loose tramps' excites me, and I have no interest in men in the first place so I don't care what they think at all. I like the idea of punishing people and fighting against the world though, but apart from that, I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry."

"H-huh? A-are you sure...?" Clearly taken aback, the woman squints across at me as she mumbles aloud to herself, her gaze drawn towards my chest for some reason. "That's weird... I mean, technically she has a big chest but... That's definitely all just muscle though, right...? Surely, she should still be in the same boat as us. There's no way she hasn't realized it yet..."

"..."

"I mean, if I was being generous, I'd say she was probably a B-cup, but—"

—I retake my fighting stance.

Though still visibly confused, the woman reacts in turn, immediately drawing her blades once again at my act of violent intent.

"D-damn... Looks like I'll have to fight after all..." she mutters. "Better wrap this up quick before the rest of her party gets here."

And, without further delay, the woman makes her move.

Sprinting across the clearing at tremendous speed, she moves low to the ground, her body bent forward and her blades tucked at her sides to obscure their movements from my view. Within a single moment, she's already entered my range.

Reacting on pure instinct and muscular intuition, I thrust a foot out towards the approaching blur with the intention of punting it back across the clearing where it came from, however—

The moment my foot passes through the air, the woman immediately stops in place—instantly killing all of her momentum—and swings her blades up in front of her, tearing them across my bare leg.

"Fwuh—?"

The blades slice across my calf, leaving behind a small trickle of blood and two shallow red marks along their path. The bandit woman, on the other hand, is completely unharmed, coming to a complete stop before my foot could connect with her.

Fwah! She's fast!

"... Huh?" After striking my calf, the bandit woman immediately takes a startled leap backwards, her gaze shifting between my leg and her weapons. "Why didn't it cut— D-did I miss? No, it definitely felt like I hit something. My blades can't be going dull already, can they? I just sharpened them this morning..."

Yeah, I can tell! Those things are sharp! Even if it was just a trickle, it's rare for me to bleed from anywhere that isn't my nose. It's true that I've been a little low on protein since leaving the city and only having rationed jerky and the occasional poached morsel from some wandering wildlife to snack on, but grazing my calf like that still isn't an easy feat. Even sharper are the skills of the kind of person who could do something like that in the first place. As I thought, this woman is strong!

Using her momentary confusion as an opening, I lunge towards the woman in an attempt to grab her. However, she once again dips deftly out of reach, using the opening from my attack to strike at me with her blades.

"... H-huh?" Once again, the woman is left in confusion as her blades glide harmlessly across my forearm, leaving little more than a few scratches across my skin.

Not letting up, I lunge at her again.

Ducking into my attack, the woman steps towards me this time. Switching the position of the weapon in her right hand with a quick flick of her fingers, she swings it down in a stabbing motion, plunging the tip of the blade directly into my exposed neck. However—

The heavy thunk of metal against muscle rings out as the blade bounces off of me, repelled by the full force of a flex from my chiselled neck.

Just as I had hoped. She fell right into my trap.

"Wh-why can't I cut—?! Huh—!?"

Before she can slip away from me again, I immediately wrap my arms around her, firmly squeezing her slender body against mine in a tight hug. With her arms bound tightly at her sides, she no longer has the wiggle room to do any kind of damage with the blades still held tightly in her hands, and instead can only fruitlessly flap them against my thighs in desperation.

"Fwah! Cute girl caught!"

Unlike my fight with Lust, I quickly realized this wasn't going to be a contest of brute strength. However, I'm a firm believer that brute strength can overcome absolutely any situation. There isn't a problem that exists that can't be solved by having the biggest muscles in the room. Being a slippery little bandit with the acrobatic skill to outmanoeuvre your opponent doesn't mean anything if your counterattacks can't penetrate the full flex of hardened muscle. Once I realized what her game was, defending myself while baiting her into coming close was easy work! In fact, speaking of Lust, I'm pretty sure this was the same tactic she used to bait me into getting grabbed by her back in the arena as well.

Now... What should I do with this woman...?

The last time someone got too close and tried to stab me in the neck, Mei-Mei ended up blasting a hole through their face with something called a 'gun'. Blasting a hole in this woman's face seems like a waste though, so I'd prefer something like that not to happen this time around.

"Why are you... doing this?" the woman asks through laboured breaths, struggling in vain to break free from my grasp. "You're definitely... one of us. We should be fighting against this unfair world together, and not... each other."

I don't know what she's talking about but I find it oddly irritating for some reason so I squeeze her a little harder.

Because she stands a little taller than me, I've found myself in the fortunate position of having my nose buried in the base of her neck. Her body smells faintly of damp fruit and rotting wood, while the hot breath against my forehead from her strained panting carries a strong scent of milk and cheese. It's nice.

As I enjoy the pleasant scents of her skin and the sensation of her slender muscles being pressed against my own, a rustling from the nearby brush signals the arrival of my adventuring party.

"Oh, looks like Pepper already caught one," Bran comments stepping out from amongst the trees.

"Still alive too," Mei-Mei adds, joining us in the clearing. "Good. We might be able to extract some useful information from her. It'd be useful to know exactly how many of them there are and how well-armed they might be."

"You'll have to get it from my dead body!" the woman spits from beneath my grasp, before hurling one final accusation both me and Mei-Mei's way. "Traitors!"

Again, I don't know what she's talking about, but it's still a little irritating for some reason.

"Keh-heh!" Mei-Mei cackles, pulling a small, thin knife from her coat. "Unfortunately, I'm not able to do that. Believe me, I've tried to extract information from a dead body and it just doesn't work. However, I've never tried this experiment on a living brain before, so I'm eager to find out if the outcome is any different."

A sour look crosses Bran's face in response. "Well, I'm not exactly eager to be around when you do that. So I'd really prefer that you didn't. I think we should just take this woman to the Guild and call it quits. I mean, this much should be enough for a group of our rank, right? We shouldn't have even been able to take this quest in the first place."

The bandit woman's face goes red at Bran's words, and she snaps back at him in reply. "I—I don't need your sympathy! Especially not from some male pig!"

"Huh...? Symp—? No, I just meant that— Ah, sure. Whatever..."

Sorry, but I'm fairly certain he just doesn't want Mei-Mei poking around in your brain because he's squeamish. And he'd prefer to turn you into the Guild because it gives him an excuse for us to go back to the city as soon as possible without having to deal with any more bandits. I'm not sure Bran is even capable of 'sympathy' to begin with.

"Um..." a quiet voice squeaks by my side. Appearing suddenly out of nowhere—like usual—Biscuit makes herself known, drawing everybody's attention towards her. "I—I found where the others are. There's an old building up ahead that they're using as a hideout. I counted eighteen of them, b-but it sounds like there might still be some others who're away on some other mission at the moment. Right now they're deciding whether to take a defensive position in their base or come and help their b-boss. I think that's the one big sis Pepper has now..."

Fwah! The bandit boss, huh? Looks like I already caught the biggest fish right out of the gate! Not that it changes anything though. Whether they're a bandit leader or some two-bit goon, at the end of the day, there's still a cute girl sandwiched in the space between my pecs and forearms, and that's all I really care about.

However, as nice as it is to just stand here rubbing up against her like this, there's still the matter of what to actually do with this woman though...

As I begin to fall into another indecent daydream, I can hear the captive woman mutter something inaudible to herself under her breath.

"Fwehehe— Fweh?!"

Suddenly, my daydreams are unexpectedly cut short by a sharp exhale of air by the woman in my arms, immediately followed by the feeling of a woman no longer being in my arms.

Using my moment of idle fantasizing to make her move, the bandit leader ducks beneath my grasp, slipping free from my hold using nothing more than the slickness of the sweat running down our bodies, and the momentary constriction of her already-slender form.

Dropping to the floor, the woman immediately breaks into a low sprint, clawing across the dirt with her dual blades to give her a burst of speed and propel herself forward and away from me.

"If I can just take out one of them..." she mutters, tearing across the clearing. "Maybe those girls will still have a chance..."

At first it looks like she's running toward Mei-Mei, but a sharp pivot around the dead dwarf makes it clear who her real target is...

"And if I'm going to take out one of them..." she continues. "Then it has to be—!"

With a total lack of survival instincts or battle reflexes, a tired-looking Bran stands idly at the edge of the clearing, his poor reaction speed leaving him completely unaware of the bandit's sudden change in movements, too slow to even register the fact that she's even left my hold in the first place.

"Fwah! That's bad! Bran, watch out, she's—!"

As the woman sprints towards the oblivious man—

"—it has to be you!"

—She lunges at him, sweeping both her weapons forward. Both blades hit their mark, and tear clean through Bran's shirt and across his chest.

Expecting the sound of Bran's pained screams followed by a fountain of blood, instead, a sharp, metallic clang rings out across the forest, and the startled man simply stumbles back several feet before backing into a tree.

...

Everybody in the clearing stands in stunned silence for a moment, allowing the metallic ring to echo off into the distance, before finally drifting out of earshot.

The silence is eventually broken by a hesitant Biscuit, a mix of confusion and concern in her voice.

"B-Bran, are you okay...?"

"I—I'm not sure..." the man responds, rubbing the back of his head with one hand while the other holds together the torn fabric from the shirt that was just run through with two sharp blades. "My head hit the tree pretty hard just now and I think it's definitely going to leave a lump..."

"She doesn't mean your head, idiot..." Mei-Mei is the next to comment, an uncharacteristic tinge of concern to her tone as well. "Were you... cut just now? Do you need me to check it...?"

"N-no. I'm fine..." Bran looks away awkwardly, now holding both hands in front of his chest. "She missed, so don't worry about it..."

"Well, it definitely looked like she hit you, so—" Mei-Mei begins to argue, but is quickly shut down by the awkward side-glare of a man repeating himself once again.

"She missed, so don't worry about it."

"Bran..." The next confused stander-by is me, also voicing my puzzled concerns. "What was that noise...? It totally went clang when she cut you just now."

"She didn't cut me, so—"

"No, no, she definitely cut you. I saw it happen. But it looks like she hit something hard that got in the way of her blades, and a weird noise came out instead. What was that...?"

"I didn't get—" Bran begins, before looking away awkwardly once again. "J-just don't worry about it. I'm fine..."

"Huh... It sounded like she hit something metal under your clothes, didn't it? Is there something metal under there? Why would you be hiding something metal under your clothes though? Oh! Is it armour? Did you end up finding some armour after all?"

"..."

"Huh...? But it doesn't look like you're wearing armour under your clothes. If you were, it'd have to be something really small and unnoticeable. Something that only barely covers your chest where you got hit. But what kind of armour could you wear under your clothes that only covers such a small area of your chest though...? I'm trying to think..."

"..." Bran doesn't reply. Instead, his face only becomes redder while he refuses to look me in the eye.

I don't know why, but Biscuit and Mei-Mei have also started acting a little weird too. Like they just figured out something that I haven't and are awkwardly waiting on me to just drop the subject altogether.

Well, I suppose the reason why Bran isn't hurt doesn't actually matter, as long as he's still in one piece and not bleeding out across the dirt, I guess...

With trembling blades, the bandit leader is the next to voice her concerns.

"I—I can't even take down a single one. It's hopeless... The other girls don't stand a chance..." Panic has started to wash over her face as she rapidly flicks her attention between the four of us in apprehension. However, as she does, something sitting on the dirt seems to catch her eye, drawing her full attention. "Huh? This is...?"

Sheathing one of her blades, she carefully reaches down to pick the object of her focus off the floor.

"Ah." It seems to catch Bran's attention as well, as he too reaches out to grab it. "Wait, that's my adventurers card. It must've fallen out of my breast pocket when you—"

"Wha—?!" Snatching the card out of the dirt, the bandit leader lets out an audible gasp as her eyes scan over the engraved text. "This is—? But how—?"

With trembling legs, the woman drops to the ground, unable to take her eyes off the card held between her trembling fingers.

"To think a man could be... could be..."

With tears forming in her eyes, the woman lets out one final gasp—

"... a fellow A-cup."

—Before collapsing unconscious into the dirt.