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The sparring ring behind the Crossroads Inn stretches before me like an arena from the adventure stories I’d devoured as a child. Stones mark the boundaries, while torches mounted on poles cast dancing shadows across the packed earth. A crowd had gathered—mercenaries, traders, and inn guests drawn by the promise of entertainment or the chance to witness a spectacular failure.
Ruleg’s borrowed training harness presses tight against my ribs with every breath, the battered leather-and-iron contraption cinched beneath my heavy chest creaking at the buckles as it strains to hold me in. The two-handed greataxe in my hands feels substantial but foreign, its weight distribution nothing like the tools I’d wielded in Father’s workshop. My first life provides no guidance here—as Ashley, I’d certainly never fought with an axe.
A translucent screen materializes before my eyes, its golden text shimmering with otherworldly authority:
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