Reborn as a Succubus: Time To Live My Best Life!

{Armia}

Two more days. Just two more days and Armia could go back to her actual life, positioning herself on Syux's social ladder, instead of playing soldier out here.

"Yo, scale-butt!"

WHACK!

Fara's hand connected with Armia's back hard enough to make her stumble forward. The dark-skinned soldier grinned up at her, somehow managing to look both completely innocent and utterly pleased with herself.

"The fuck was that for?" Armia grumbled, though she couldn't quite hide her own smile. It was hard to be mad at Fara, with that infectious energy of hers.

[She's definitely helped make all this soldier stuff tolerable.]

"You were doing that thing again," Fara said, falling into step beside her as they brought up the rear of their patrol. "You know, where your face gets all scrunchy and noble-looking?"

"I do not get scrunchy."

"Oh please," Fara snorted, casually lifting the bottom of her shirt to wipe sweat from her forehead. As usual, she wasn't wearing anything underneath, giving Armia another free show of those perky tits.

[Gods...]

"You get this look like someone asked you to explain tax law to a horny darian."

[I suppose she's not wrong,] Armia thought, definitely not staring at Fara's chest. [But, can anyone blame me? I'm so close to being done with this. Of course my head's up in the clouds.]

"Besides," Fara continued, apparently completely unaware of how her nipples were still hard from the brief exposure to air, "you've only got two days left! Then you can go back to your fancy academy and-"

The arrow came out of nowhere.

One moment Fara was talking, grinning up at Armia with that infectious smile, and the next...

Red. So much red.

Fara's eyes went wide, her hand reaching for the shaft protruding from her throat. Her mouth opened but only blood came out, painting her chin crimson as she stumbled.

[No,] Armia thought, her brain refusing to process what she was seeing. [No no no... Where...?] She tried to find the person who shot the arrow. As soon as she looked, more arrows whistled through the air.

"AMBUSH!" Someone called out.

Somewhere ahead, someone was shouting. Metal rang against metal as weapons were drawn.

But all Armia could see was Fara dropping to her knees, those eyes already starting to glaze over.

Then, movement in the trees caught her attention. Shapes emerging from the shadows, scales and feral grins.

More darian skirmishers.

Armia brought her sword out in a flash.

Her sword came free with a sound like tearing silk. Around her, the other soldiers were already engaging the ambushers, steel meeting steel in a cacophony of violence.

"You... You bastards!"

Armia didn't recognize her own voice. It sounded like someone else was screaming through her throat, raw and angry and nothing like the carefully controlled noblewoman she'd been trying to become in the past.

The first darian to reach her had a cocky grin that lasted exactly as long as it took Armia to separate his head from his shoulders. She ducked under his axe, rose up with a long, arching swing, and his head soared up to the air. His body hadn't even finished hitting the ground before she was moving to the next one.

"Ventus, morros, alrea!"

Wind magic ripped through the trees, catching two more darians mid-leap and sending them flying back like particularly scaly ragdolls. One hit a tree hard enough that Armia heard something crack.

[Good,] she thought, blocking a sword strike from her left. [Hope that fucking hurt.]

Her counter-strike took the attacker's arm off at the elbow. He hadn't even finished screaming before her blade found his throat.

Behind her, she could hear the other soldiers fighting their own battles. Steel rang against steel, magic crackled through the air, and the sounds of death filled the forest like some twisted orchestra.

But Armia was focused entirely on the archer. The one who'd fired that first shot.

The one who'd killed Fara.

He was trying to line up another shot, this one probably meant for her. His hands were steady, and after that shot, Armia guessed if she let him get that arrow off he probably wouldn't miss.

It didn't matter.

"Glacies, espada, fulmina!"

Ice magic turned the air in front of Armia into a storm of frozen daggers. The archer tried to dodge, but Armia had spent way too much time practicing to miss.

The ice tore into him like he was made of paper. Red sprayed across the trees, painting the leaves with his life.

[One down,] she thought, turning to find her next target. [How many more of you fuckers want to die today?]

But the remaining darians were already falling back, melting into the shadows like they always did.

Two weeks of this shit - attack, kill whoever they could, then run the moment the tide turned.

[Cowards,] she wanted to scream after them. [FUCKING COWARDS!]

Instead, she found herself looking down.

Fara's eyes stared up at nothing, that eternal smile finally gone from her face. Blood had soaked into the ground around her, turning the dirt into mud.

[She was just... we were just talking,] Armia thought numbly. [She was just giving me shit about being noble, and now...]

"Duskscale."

One of the other soldiers - she couldn't even remember his name right now - was suddenly beside her. His voice was gentle but firm.

"We need to keep moving. They'll be back with more if we stick around."

[Right,] she thought, staring at Fara's body. [This is just what happens in war. People die. Friends die. That's... that's just how it works.]

"Y-Yeah," she managed, her voice rough. "I'm coming."

They couldn't even take the body. Couldn't risk slowing down when more attacks could come at any moment.

[Just another casualty,] she told herself as they moved out. [Just another soldier who didn't make it home.]

One fist clenched so hard by Armia's side that her knuckles cracked. She glared up ahead, at the spot where the arrow had come from.

... Next time those darian bastards showed up, she wasn't letting a single one escape.