Joan watches as a bunch of non-human travel on roads, they look exhausted and hungry.

Thinking of this, she immediately contacts Zoltan through the telepathy…

-

Zoltan looks vacant as he looks outside watching pebbles and dust on the road as the caravan pass by.

“Zoltan”

Zoltan became startled and heard the familiar voice and look at the peaceful lying girl in surprise.

“Your awake!”

“…Yes I just woke up.”

It will be awkward to say that she’d been awake for a year and just hiding in her shell while some people take care of her needs every day.

“Can you tell me what’s happening?”

Zoltan's looks became a grimace.

“What?”

“It’s a long story”

“You think I will go anywhere with my state?”

“True”

Zoltan scratch his beard and told her a story of their current situation.

-

It started three months ago, the Nilfgaard Empire and the Northern allies has made war once again but this time, it’s different;

Due to the incident on Thanedd island, the sorcerers became wary of non-humans. Since the incident, the relation between sorcerers and non-human was dropped to the freezing points.

So the non-human across the kingdoms was forcefully conscript into soldiers as a punishment. If they didn’t comply with the sorcerers' command, they made a way that the non-human can never refuse; the created a device, some sort of circlet, that has a magic spell that forcefully controls the mind and make them obey the order from the mages controlling the device.

Due to this, those who don’t want to join the war escape into mountains and forests to avoid the pursuits of the northern kingdom.

But the northern army has been galloping across the country, chasing and catching them one by one, even a child and old was not spared.

Due to this, the remaining non-human seeks shelter in the wilderness and looking for a place for safety. Sadly, it seems the world was against them that even the Nilfgaard Empire has not taken a stand when this is all happening and silently watch as an observer.

Right now, a group of refugees was on their way to Vizima temple to seek shelter.

They have heard that the temple doesn’t discriminate against non-humans and allowed to shelter to those poor souls.

Vizima temple or temple of melitele is the goddess of offspring who believes she cares for all her children whatever race they are. That’s why it's popular to non-human and accept them as their faith.

Joan silently listen to all these events and frowns. Since the original timeline was changed by her, her option now was very limited.

“Vizima temple…”

According to the original storyline, this place will be one of the non-human rebellion events, but right now she can't do anything because of her condition. She can’t still move her body and the pain…It was fucking unimaginable how painful it was. She can feel the phantom pain of her body shredding her skin every second. Just the thought of it give her cold sweat.

“I need to adapt to the pain, this is only the delay information of the body to the brain before it goes offline. My body is like a computer, it needs to send data on the brain (motherboard) to start working, but the data was currently on hold due to the processing unit (Meaning brain) was not working properly due to lack of energy. Now that the energy running smoothly in the body since the pathways have been repaired, I need to start receiving the information of the body to officially start adapting (update).”

But since the feeling of pain was terribly a bad experience, she got a feeling she will wake the forest creatures by shouting in the middle of the march and it can be very awkward.

“Zoltan I need a favor”

“What is it?”

“Can you grab a clean towel and put it on my mouth?”

Zoltan looks at her strangely.

“I can already open my eyes, but I can't still move my body. I can feel immense pain when I try to open my senses so I need your help. Can you cover my mouth with any towel? I don't want to bite my tongue in pain."

“I’ll see what I can do”

Then Zoltan searches the dirty brown sack on his side and opens it, he searches inside before pulling a loincloth.

“…”

“…is it clean?”

Zoltan sniffs on it and shrugged.

“Well…it can’t be bad”

“Cough” Zoltan embarrassedly put it back

“Do you bring any clothes for me? Where’s my bag?”

“Sorry lad, I forgot to bring your bag when we escape from Rivia, it was a mess at that time.”

“…Forget it, try to find me even a dirty rag, just wash in cleanly.”

“Sorry but our water was very scarce right now, I don’t think I can give you that”

Joan just sigh

Zoltan chuckle and put his hand on his dirty shirt and torn a piece on it.

“Can this be used?”

“Yes, thank you.” she sighs in relief

“So how should I do this?”

“Just put the cloth in my mouth to make sure I didn’t bite my tongue.”

He arrives on her side and opens her jaw, he crumbles the cloth and put in her mouth.

“Done.”

“Can you also try to tie up my hands and feet?

Zoltan gawked and look down at her.

“What for?”

“I'm going to be a mess when I woke up, I have a feeling I'm going to hurt someone near me if I trash around"

“Well…”

Zoltan looks at his worn-out cloth and sigh. He removes his cloth and starts shredding them.

Suddenly, he felt someone approach behind him, he stops at what his doing and looks behind. A dirty dwarf looks at him with a hungry and demented gaze as he wipes his mouth looking at the sleeping girl.

“Friend, I can help you! Just give me a piece!”

“Fuck off!” Zoltan growled loudly while he grabs the ax on his side ready to strike.

He also felt other people around him ready to make trouble.

The dwarf hesitates but in the end, he backs off unwillingly.

“Hmph, coward.”

Then without paying them attention, he starts tying Joan's hands and feet according to her instruction. He can still feel their gaze behind his back.

“Done”

Joan's hands and feet were now tied up with knots.

“Okay, thanks.”

She grits her teeth, and open her senses-

Her eyes suddenly open wide

“Hhhhmp!!!”

Her body starts twitching non-stop

Zoltan looks at the body of Joan who was currently twitching.

She was like a fish, keep flapping her body loudly on the wooden floor. Her hands and feet were getting tight as she struggles more, suddenly the knots were torn to pieces freeing her hands and feet.

“Fuck!”

He suddenly approaches grab her shoulder trying to contain her.

He can feel her great strength making him frown.

“How the fuck this girl is so strong?!”

Then he almost shouts in abuse when her hand accidentally bumps to his “thing”

He almost lost it and swore, but he gritted his teeth holding the pain and keep holding her while she twitches. His face was almost pale as beads start to cover his forehead.

Soon the twitch became less until she stops moving.

After making sure she was okay, he releases her and hold his groin and groan loudly. He put his head on the wooden floor and twitch trying to withstand the pain the only man can understand.

He has a feeling everyone was looking at him with sympathy but he didn’t say a word and just keep grunting every second.

-

Joan wakes up, it was already midnight when she opens her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the clear sky of the night. She felt the warm temperature of the bonfire near her.

She tried to sit up only to groan in pain when her body still sending the painful signal. Although she can now open her eyes and mouth, she can’t still use her body in full operation.

Her brain needs to adapt to the newly healed body and accept all its signal to start working and adapt to its senses. After the pain subsides, the second process of healing is trying to adapt to her body.

“Your awake finally.”

She looks sideways and sees Zoltan sitting near the bonfire. She also saw other non-human eating with frantic expression. In the middle of the bonfire was a steaming cauldron.

“Hungry?”

“Y-y-yes,” she said hoarsely

She coughs, she felt like some sands were stuck at her lungs making it hard to speak.

“You’re just starting to recover, try to eat some soup to warm your stomach.”

She just helplessly nods. She was ashamed of this dwarf for taking care of her until now.

Zoltan grab a wooden cup and pour a broth in it, he then arrives at her side and raise her head, he slowly let the broth sip inside her mouth.

“Cough” Cough”

Zoltan removes the cup and wipes her mouth. Then lay her down again.

“T-thanks” right now, her cheeks were blushing. Fuck, this is embarrassing

Zoltan just shrugged and sit near her. She sighs and decided not to push it. She rather uses telepathy to talk.

“Thank you for taking care of me “

She can’t help but cough.

“No problem lad.”

She sighs and looks at the sky

“Why do it?”

“Hm?”

“Why bring me along and save me? Although Geralt gave you some gold, I’m not sure it’s enough to make you do this kind of effort.”

Zoltan chuckle and lookup.

“I don’t know…maybe because you reminded me once.”

"What do you mean?"

"Well, before I was a dwarf doing business, I once was mercenary. In my adventure, I met different people, good folk, bad folks, aye you say it, I met all kinds of blokes out there. But the most I remember when I was in danger during my mission, no one was there to save me, I thought finally, the death has come to visit and whisk me away, but no, someone has arrived on time-saving me from deaths touch. Although it's just meaningless to him since its part of his contract, to me, it was my second life. That's why I decided to do business and not to be a mercenary anymore, because I value my life most. That is the reason why if you're not at death's door yet, I'm going to put the frying pan in your head to wake you up lass."

She just chuckles at that

“Where dandelion by the way?”

“Dunno, separate our ways during the mess, I’m sure he was alright, he always finds ways somehow.”

“Did you hear about Geralt?”

“Nope, it’s been a year since I heard of him”

“What is?”

Zoltan frown and thought about last year's event.

“I heard some kind of group were chasing them, according to the rumors is they been missing recently.”

“Missing?”

“Yes, I heard they being chased by a group, Geralt didn’t tell me about them, but last I heard, they create quite a ruckus.”

She just stays silent, thinking of ways to get out of this situation but come none. The price of overusing her body came a heavy price by disabling her body for almost one year and a half and she is still not fully healed yet.

The feeling of helplessness while watching other people take care of her was a shame she will never forget, and if one day, her enemy found her looking like this, she doesn’t dare to imagine what would they do to her.

She doesn't want to experience this kind of situation again; its gain was not equal the loss. She only managed to kill the side-boss and the main boss managed to escape, making her sacrifice in vain.

Next time, she won’t be lucky and hit him again a second time. They will be more vigilant; they are not those retard NPC that just waiting to be hit. No sir, what they are going to do is attack her nonstop, set up traps, and strategize her demise like a proper villain in the story.

“Go to sleep, tomorrow we will start our journey again. It will be bumpy that one.”

She nods and closes her eyes but didn’t sleep. Since she was still in this condition, she must enhance her vigilant by 200% and the only one she can trust right now was the dwarf seeing no one else can be trusted.

So, if one day Zoltan does something funny for example kill her or rape her…Well that’s it, it’s not like she can do anything about it, she’s currently disabled for crying out loud.

Just make sure Zoltan didn’t make her lived after he does his deeds because he’s going to regret doing something bad and taking advantage of her situation. If she lives and came back to life, she’s going to torture the life of him if that time comes.