No matter how many times she'd chanted it to herself, Ambroise couldn't shake the feeling that her skills were out of their element for this particular mission. Even after she had come to realize the caution that had been implanted into her life from outside, brought on by her parents' worry, it still didn't seem right that a mage of her type was being sent to be rid of a single [i]serial killer[/i]. Willing as she was to kill such a stain on society, it felt wrong to send a cannon to fell a rat. Was she not more suited for engaging entire bands of bandits and cutthroats?

It must have been the millionth time she sighed to herself audibly during the trip, but the first time she worried the other three accompanying her would hear it. Surely they must have gotten tired of her soft and clearly muffled demeanor. Stepping down the mountainside, she gave a brief glance upwards where the other knights were before her; habit had her standing at the back lines, even in casual travel.

Three men her junior, but no less capable. In her soft-hearted mind, she would imagine they were her seniors in skill. Instinctively, she gripped the pommel of her sword, as if trying to remind herself she actually had one and knew how to use it. Though all three of them were Astopolian, she couldn't help but feel slightly more distant from them, as if the outcast of the team. Did they see one another more favorably than her?

Undoubtedly the worry stemmed from the storm of quotes that plagued her kind.

[i]"Undeserving of those knights' lives."
"Too little use for too much effort."
"Useless in comparison to the faster casters."[/i]

Superior as the Jeulian Empire proved itself to be, long-channel casters such as herself were nevertheless seen unfavorably during the war, unable to prove their destructive worth when even the efforts taken to keep them protected resulted in no better a rate of survival. For the knights that protected them in battle, it was a greater death sentence than any other position. It was as if their chances of death were one-hundred and ten percent.

Too late to enjoy the boons of Talentium, her now-gone siblings never got their chance to show their worth, and so the spite continued. Ambroise couldn't help but imagine the three before her may harbor the same distaste.

Hector von Helbrecht. A young man with determination in his eyes befitting of the hate that loomed behind them.
Jacque Raynes. Likely one of the most noble men she'd ever encountered in her life. A spitting avatar of Astopol.
Notia Cragsky. A soul she'd become sure of by then was more than the quiet exterior he tended to put off.

If they had any semblance of kindness, they'd tell her they had no issue with her presence regardless of their true feelings, but Ambroise knew she'd find it difficult to trust them regardless, and so she left it to linger in her. Endure and accept. That's all there was to it. She'd done it for years already, and she wasn't about to crack then. Not in so simple a mission. To keep her mind off of the pointless and inevitable, she choose to speak up in the quietness of the forest.

"Displaced as I find myself to be for this sort of mission, I do find it odd there are four of us being sent. I know little of the 'Virtuoso' killer beyond their kill count. Should we expect someone dangerously skilled?" she asked.