Earning the nickname

The fight between girl and arch mage started. The mage would start to cast, Rosa would fire a flurry of iron pellets at it. This would interrupt the spell. After the fifth time, the goblin started swearing at her in their language.

No Rosa didn't understand goblin, but no one could mistake those gestures.

"Don't repeat that." Aaron pled as he watched the goblin get angrier.

"Kay." Rosa replied absent-mindedly; she was more focused on her self appointed duel with the mage.

"+5 damage to-"

Rosa ignored the system messages for now. At the seventh spell interruption, the goblin arch mage threw down his foci in frustration. There was waving hands, stomping feet and full on screaming.

The other monsters looked on, a little amused.

Rosa had no mercy for temper tantrums.

After being shot again, the arch mage got smart. It grabbed it's foci and hid behind the tall and arrogant goblin commander. This time she wouldn't be able to interrupt the spell, but Rosa had been waiting for this.

"Setting up a BBQ." Rosa called out. The rest of the mages called out in compliance. Three shots of oil peppered the goblin commander, much to his disgust.

"Thbbb." Rosa let out a raspberry that echoed everywhere. Enraged, the goblin commander roared as he ran forward to the front line. The smaller goblin following close behind him. The cyclops just yawned and began to walk forward. The spell cast by the goblin arch mage went off. It buffed the trio that began their attack.

"That's the last spell you get off." Rosa peppered the goblin arch mage with poison pellets. Spells would be interrupted by poison now.

While she was busy doing that, the fire mage hit the goblin commander with a fire spell. The result was a fireball lighting up the monsters around the general as he burned.

"Scree!" Rosa ignored the scream of pain and focused on her next target: the cyclops.

"Does anyone have reverse healing on standby" Rosa asked.

"I do. What's the target?" Tarbin asked.

"Cyclops." Rosa loaded the acid shot. Ravvits were harder to hit than his single eye.

Her shot hit it's mark as did the spell.

"Rah!" The now blinded monster shrieked in pain. A monsters natural healing was turned against itself. The cyclops dropped It's weapon, instantly crushing a rodentia, and clutched at it's face.

Rosa wasn't done yet.

Two oil shots graced the immediate area around it's feet. The cyclops took a step back in it's pain and slipped. The crash was thunderous across the battlefield.

"Cyclops down at C5. Use all arrows!"

The cyclops looked like a porcupine. Normally, arrows did so little damage to creatures with fast healing like ogres, oni and cyclops that it was a waste. Reverse healing changed that.

"Cyclops has been defeated-"

Rosa had no time to relax her guard. The goblin mage took out a potion and began to drink it.

The shot she meant to load into the slingshot was an iron pellet. What hit the potion flask was not an iron pellet, it was a fire shot.

Goblin antidotes were flammable. Who knew?

"You have killed-" Rosa stared in disbelief.

'There's no way I just took out the goblin arch mage on my own.' Rosa was incredulous.

"Look out!" Aaron cast a spell the same time Jericho's shield filled her vision.

The goblin commander had taken the smallers goblin short sword and threw it.

Directly at her.

The sword bounced off the magical shield Aaron cast.

"Oh, you didn't-" Rosa started to squawk. Jericho picked her up with one hand. "-hey!"

"Up we go! I think that's enough for one day."

Jericho tucked her under one arm like a sack of potatoes. While under his arm, she chucked one last iron pellet into the monster raid below.

"You have learned-"

"I can still poison the-" Rosa protested.

"Nope." Aaron said popping the 'p'.

"You got the big raid bosses attention. It's time to leave." Jericho said as they descended the stairs.

"At least stop so I can collect my pellets." Rosa growled.

"Alright. Hurry up." Jericho paused while she touched return on the pouch. Aaron looked ahead

"Good timing. It's about to get dangerous here." Rosa followed Aaron's gaze as a group of five people made their way to the gate.

They looked like nobles.

"Who are they" Rosa asked out of earshot. Jericho shushed her as they continued down the busy street.

Aaron finally spoke about halfway home.

"Let this be a lesson spitfire. Pick and choose your battles." Rosa looked at him confused.

"Huh? I don't get it. Why did we leave?" Jericho stopped and heaved his shield onto his back. Readjusting Rosa into a child carry, he explained.

"What he means is, that we left before there was trouble. You know who nobles are right?"

"Yes." This world had a complex social system. What guild you belonged to determined your social status in society. Not all guilds were equal. Crafter were valued over gatherers. Fighting ability was over crafting. Magic wielders were above most groups.

There was one exception to this, the aristocrats. The nobles were in charge of running the country. They were expected to hold a diverse amount of skills in order to serve. They stood at the top and also got certain privileges.

"We left when the nobles came so they could claim victory for themselves." Aaron said with a sigh. "They don't share well." He added after a moment. Rosa, as a seven year old, wouldn't have understood if she was simply seven.

"Oh." The fierce competition, the backstabbing and office politics she had in Iris's memories explained everything.

'We do all the work, they get all the glory.' It had been that way for many projects Iris worked on. She didn't care though. 'We worked hard because someone needed to do the heavy lifting to get back to normal. It's like changing half the requirements the night before a deadline.'

"Life is not fair." Rosa stated firmly. Both men looked at her serious face and nodded.

There was nothing left to say about that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You daughter preformed wonderfully." Jericho's voice boomed as he set her down in front of her mother. They had all gathered in Madame Mulberry's shop again.

"Really?" Eleanor asked surprised.

"Yes." Aaron added with a smile. "She was a great boost to morale and was really well behaved." Both men gave her expectant looks. Before entering, they had coached her on what to say to her mother in order not to worry her.

"They're lying momma." Rosa said with mischief in mind, she hadn't agreed. The two men looked panicked as she continued speaking. "It was so boring that I had to make my own fun. When I finally was having fun, they told me it was time to go home. I didn't want to, so they had to pick me up to take me home."

None of it was a lie.

"Rosa!" Eleanor playfully scolded. "I am so sorry. Children can be difficult sometimes, I hope you understand." Both men gave Rosa a look that said 'You little brat.'

'Ha! Get pranked by a seven year old.' Rosa shot back a cheeky grin. Everyone jumped when Hedi came crashing into the shop.

"Darlings! Did you hear!?! The monster raid is over!" Eleanor stepped forward, took Hedi's hand and ran out.

"We have to inform Madame!" Was the excited yell they heard as they left. The three left in the store shared knowing glances.

"See ya around spitfire." Aaron said as they left.

"Wait!" Rosa shouted when she realized she was in a predicament. "Help! I'm still in armor!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rosa sat alone in her room. She had gotten ready for bed early telling her mother she was tired. She sat in bed, with a nightgown on, perusing the system. The celebration of the end of the monster raid was bittersweet at best, she didn't really want to participate. There wasn't enough time to send out rescue parties to find people yet.

'If there's anyone left to rescue.' Rosa thought grimly.

Looking at her system skills made her feel a bit better.

Aim was level 4 and it added +2 to dexterity when using long ranged weapons per level.

Detect was level 3 and it gave a 10% chance to detect low level prescence monsters per level.

Throw was just learned. It gave a flat rate of +2 damage to things thrown. The real damage is based on range and what item was thrown.

The favorite skill was by far Eagle Eye.

Eagle Eye was level 2 and it gave a 10% to range per level.

That range was applied to all long distance skills. After hanging out with mages today, she was pretty sure she wanted the job. She exited out of the menu and realized she had a small problem.

'Now, what to do about this?' Rosa examined her inventory. It was full. She couldn't get the rewards from the hidden quest because there was no place to put them.

The things she had been wearing had been confiscated by her mother after helping her get out of them. The ribbon was taken out for bed and she'd stashed the leather gloves but that filled up her last remaining slots.

'I only have thirty slots in inventory.' The items she picked up on her stay in the lower city took up the majority of the space. They fit into three categories; tools, weapons and stuff.

'There's a few things that I can't bring out because I can't explain them.' Rosa thought as she poked around in her supplies. The ladder is the perfect example of this. Everything she picked up in the lower city only amounted to seventeen items.

'That doesn't explain where these came from.' Rosa was staring at a silver treasure chest icon. Spirit stones, ravvit pelts, ravvit meat and experience crystals took up the rest of the space. 'Maybe Inventory has an automatic looting function when I kill something on my own?'

"Hm." Rosa hummed as she compiled what she learned today.

Skills are learned faster when fighting monsters. Throw was the proof of that.

'Or maybe skills were learned faster while fighting an opponent.' Rosa cocked her head while thinking. 'More testing needed to be done to be sure of that.'

The system doesn't always give out quests based on what was going on around her. There was the hidden quest that activated when she revealed the hidden raid boss, but no quest activated because she was requested to be a mascot.

'As of right now, quests are given randomly. I think I need more data in order to predict when quests will show up.' It was a little frustrating, she needed more quests to base the logic off of.

The next thing she needed was a place to offload the stuff she looted. She needed to buy an actual, physical chest that locks. That way she can go about her day and not worry about her full inventory space.

The last thing she needed to do was tell her mother what was happening to her. She was procrastinating and hesitant because she was undecided to tell the full truth or not.

'It's probably better to fess up.' Rosa thought as she climbed in under her covers. 'She knows me best, better for her to hear it from my lips than to find out by accident.' She shuddered under the blanket at the thought.