I Acquire Overpowered Traits Just By Taking Damage

As the battle moved forward, the rearguard began its grim work of retrieving casualties from the now-abandoned slopes.

For a fight against orcs, it was impressive how no more than twenty had been put out of action. Most bore only minor wounds, limping or being carried on the shoulders of comrades. One poor fellow seemed unhurt entirely, just pale and trembling, scared straight by what he'd seen.

But there were still a handful brought back by cart, their injuries too severe to walk. The worse the state, the faster they were rushed to camp. The priest moved among them, praying more than chanting, his meager healing power doing little more than slowing bleeding and easing pain.

A Minotian soldier who had taken a blow to the head convulsed violently, blood leaking through the priest's trembling fingers no matter how firmly he pressed.

The seconds stretched long and cruel until the man stilled.

The priest sighed, and his helpers lowered the body to the dirt. A friend of the dead soldier crouched beside him, shaking silently, tears spilling onto his blood-stained tunic.

He wasn't our first dead. A couple of bodies had been left on the field, marked for later retrieval once the battle was won. He wouldn't be the last either.

Elena was strangely quiet. Normally she'd poke her nose into everything, pestering me with questions. Now she hid behind me, clinging tight to my cloak whenever another cart rolled past. Every jolt of a wheel seemed to make her grip stronger.

That was the normal reaction of someone our age. It was her first introduction to the uglier side of war. She wasn't only afraid for herself — I could tell she was terrified her father might be the one brought back in a cart, too broken for even the gods to help.

I was distracted when the second patient arrived. A knight I recognized from the ship was screaming as his arm was being sawn off. His voice cracked, tearing the air, until I could barely hear myself think. I only noticed too late that Elena had let go of me.

Panic stabbed through me. I spun around, heart thudding, only to spot her by the river's edge. She was crouched low, retching into the grass. Even I felt my stomach twist from the sight and smell of the wounds. For her, it was unbearable.

One might question why her father had let her see such things. But she wanted to be a mage someday, and this—ugly as it was—was part of the world she was stepping into.

"Are you alright, Lady Elena?" I asked, kneeling beside her. Behind me, the knight's scream still carried over the camp.

"No," she sobbed.

"Do you want to leave?" I asked. I didn't even bother with an 'I told you so.'

She only nodded.

It wasn't in the baron's orders. Leaving would mean braving the road alone, with danger at our backs. Still, she had seen enough horror for one day. I figured I could ask a guard or two to escort us.

I had just turned toward the horses when the shouting started. Heads whipped toward the slope. A group of men were running downhill, fast, weapons discarded, shields thrown aside. Some tore off bits of armor just to move quicker.

I knew them at once. The mercenaries. The ragtag band that had held the right flank.

"Run for your lives!" one of them screamed.

They poured down in a panic, not a squad but a full company breaking in wild disorder.

"What is happening?"

"Cowards!"

"What do you think you're doing?"

"How dare you!"

The rear camp burst into confusion and fury. But fury turned to shock when the mercenaries didn't make straight for the bridge — they lunged for our horses.

Too stunned to act, too few to stop them, we watched helplessly as they struck down anyone who got in their way. A guard who tried to stop one was punched to the ground and left groaning in the dirt. My stomach sank as I saw my horse and Elena's taken, hooves pounding over the planks of the bridge without us. My hand itched to draw my sword, but charging in would be reckless.

Our anger didn't last long. Horror followed close behind.

Through the gap on the right, we finally saw what they were fleeing from. The orcs.

For the first time, I saw them in the flesh. Giants. No less than eight feet tall, with wide shoulders and bulging arms. Nothing like the wiry greenskins I'd faced before. These brutes swung massive axes and iron-bound clubs as if they weighed nothing. Despite their size, they charged like enraged bulls, tearing downhill at a terrifying pace.

"The gods have forsaken us!" the priest ejaculated, voice cracking. "Every man for himself!"

Even before he said it, men were already scattering.

The knight who had lost his arm struggled up from the cart, blood soaking through his bandages. He tried to crawl forward, but collapsed in the dirt. His squires hesitated only a moment before abandoning him too.

They all forgot us. Even the soldiers. Two young nobles, one of them the baron's own daughter, left standing while the mob surged for the bridge. In the face of death, we were just more obstacles to trample past.

I grabbed Elena's arm and pulled her close.

"Papa," Elena whimpered, clinging to me. She had every right to cry.

I dragged her into the press toward the bridge. But just as we reached it, disaster struck.

Some idiot tried to drag a cart full of wounded across. In the panic, it snagged, one wheel slipping between planks. The mob clambered over it, desperate to escape. Wood shrieked. Ropes strained. I saw it coming seconds before it happened.

SNAP.

The bridge collapsed with a thunderous crack. Screams tore the air as men and carts plunged into the river below.

The orcs were nearly upon us now. I could smell the reek of sweat and blood rolling off them. I could picture the ground around us soon littered with mangled bodies.

"We're going to die," Elena sobbed into my chest.

I looked to the river. A few had already abandoned the bridge and were swimming desperately for the far bank. The current dragged at them. Even the strongest swimmers barely kept afloat. For a pair of sixteen-year-olds, the attempt would be suicide.

I tightened my grip on Elena's shoulders. "You will have to promise me one thing, Lady Elena," I said.

She blinked through her tears, startled. "What do you mean?"

The water itself wasn't my true obstacle. My eyes drifted to the survivors scrambling along the riverbank — some trying to swim, others pulling themselves out of the water, coughing and gasping. A handful already stood on the far shore, wide-eyed, watching. Witnesses.

I could only hope the chaos would consume their attention, that fear would drown out memory, or that the orcs would finish them before they ever had the chance to speak of what they saw.

The ground shook as the orcs thundered closer. The air was thick with the clash of steel and the cries of the dying. I forced myself to look down at Elena. Her eyes were red and wet, shimmering with panic, yet still clinging to me as if I were the only solid thing left in the world.

"Promise me," I whispered, lowering my voice so only she could hear. "Promise me you will close your eyes — and not open them again until I tell you to."

She hesitated, trembling. Her lips parted as if to question me, but another guttural roar from the slope silenced her. The shadow of the orcs loomed large over the camp.

If she were a little older or less sheltered, she might have been less trusting. But at sixteen, frightened and left without a choice, she only nodded.

Her small hands clutched tighter at my cloak. "I… I promise."