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Your name is <span class="mu-s">Mona mac Muirgen</span> and you've a problem on your hands.
Six problems, specifically, of the goblin variety. You don't make a habit of dealing with the knobbly, nasty creatures that adventurers get paid to exterminate like rats. The <span class="mu-s">Water Magic</span> that you specialize in suits the battlefield just fine, but you've <span class="mu-i">read</span> all of the bodice rippers and have <span class="mu-i">zero</span> intention of turning out like one of those girls. As a mage with confidence in her own abilities, and the celebrated town beauty of your (rather small) hometown, you're halfway there to suffering a terrible fate at their hands.
If had larger reserves of mana - and the generous figure that women gain from such power - you'd be one careless declaration away from a humiliating defeat. The only thing worse than a powerful mage saying something like "I won't lose to mere goblins!" would be a fully armored lady knight with a high, blonde ponytail calming asking the rest of her party to go on ahead, for she will handle these louses. They <span class="mu-i">never</span> handle the louses, and <span class="mu-i">always</span> lose to the goblins, that's a rule set in stone.
As fun as it is to read about that sort of thing in your spare time and comfort yourself to a daydream about being such an unfortunate heroine, you don't really care to live the experience. Though honestly, goblins are more likely to eat you than do anything <span class="mu-i">untoward</span>. They're barely sentient and don't even have the right equipment for it.
"Why am I even thinking about this...?" you grumble to yourself.
The goblins are honestly as shocked to see you as you are to see them, staring at you slack jawed with their wooden clubs held loose in their hands. If it wasn't that superstition born of reading too many trashy novels, you honestly could drive them off just by waving your staff around hard enough. But on the <span class="mu-i">off chance</span> that one of the local dungeon cores gained intelligence and created designer goblins that were the enemy of women, you'd rather not risk it. Same with orcs, though those things are actually dangerous if you're not careful.
Fortunately, you have just the thing to avoid fighting goblins. Well, to avoid fighting most carnivorous monsters, at any rate. Grade D, saved in bulk from a time when you and that <span class="mu-i">damn womanizer</span> hunted down a Terriboar last year, barely worthy of human consumption but still good enough for cheap emergency food. You pull out a large flank of meat from the [Abyssal Water Jug] you crafted to keep odds and ends within easy reach.
The goblins stiffen, their eyes locking on the prize. You puff out your meager chest with pride, knowing that you've won without doing anything that checks any of the cursed bodice ripper boxes. "You want it, boys~? You want it~?"
The goblins salivate, but they're still a bit afraid to approach you - just as you're a bit afraid to fight them. With a bright smile on your face, you spin about with a heaving motion and throw it far down hill. "Go get it~!"
Six problems, specifically, of the goblin variety. You don't make a habit of dealing with the knobbly, nasty creatures that adventurers get paid to exterminate like rats. The <span class="mu-s">Water Magic</span> that you specialize in suits the battlefield just fine, but you've <span class="mu-i">read</span> all of the bodice rippers and have <span class="mu-i">zero</span> intention of turning out like one of those girls. As a mage with confidence in her own abilities, and the celebrated town beauty of your (rather small) hometown, you're halfway there to suffering a terrible fate at their hands.
If had larger reserves of mana - and the generous figure that women gain from such power - you'd be one careless declaration away from a humiliating defeat. The only thing worse than a powerful mage saying something like "I won't lose to mere goblins!" would be a fully armored lady knight with a high, blonde ponytail calming asking the rest of her party to go on ahead, for she will handle these louses. They <span class="mu-i">never</span> handle the louses, and <span class="mu-i">always</span> lose to the goblins, that's a rule set in stone.
As fun as it is to read about that sort of thing in your spare time and comfort yourself to a daydream about being such an unfortunate heroine, you don't really care to live the experience. Though honestly, goblins are more likely to eat you than do anything <span class="mu-i">untoward</span>. They're barely sentient and don't even have the right equipment for it.
"Why am I even thinking about this...?" you grumble to yourself.
The goblins are honestly as shocked to see you as you are to see them, staring at you slack jawed with their wooden clubs held loose in their hands. If it wasn't that superstition born of reading too many trashy novels, you honestly could drive them off just by waving your staff around hard enough. But on the <span class="mu-i">off chance</span> that one of the local dungeon cores gained intelligence and created designer goblins that were the enemy of women, you'd rather not risk it. Same with orcs, though those things are actually dangerous if you're not careful.
Fortunately, you have just the thing to avoid fighting goblins. Well, to avoid fighting most carnivorous monsters, at any rate. Grade D, saved in bulk from a time when you and that <span class="mu-i">damn womanizer</span> hunted down a Terriboar last year, barely worthy of human consumption but still good enough for cheap emergency food. You pull out a large flank of meat from the [Abyssal Water Jug] you crafted to keep odds and ends within easy reach.
The goblins stiffen, their eyes locking on the prize. You puff out your meager chest with pride, knowing that you've won without doing anything that checks any of the cursed bodice ripper boxes. "You want it, boys~? You want it~?"
The goblins salivate, but they're still a bit afraid to approach you - just as you're a bit afraid to fight them. With a bright smile on your face, you spin about with a heaving motion and throw it far down hill. "Go get it~!"
