Richard had noticed it before.
The idea of fight or flight.
He'd experienced it way before when encountering the lake drake in which he had to make the snap judgement of fight or flight, a decision only the weak or the cautious take.
In this case the answer would be flight for most of the bandits, as a majority of them immediately fled, any of the bravado from before having disappeared and now only fear was present.
Those were the first ones he attacked, using thunder spear volley to strike them down. It didn't kill all of them, but it left them severely weakened and in poor condition to say the least.
Richard thought it was a fine first strike. Nothing heavy, but a good judge of where he stood.
Clearly the bandit leader thought differently, as his eyes widened, seemingly coming to a realization.
"Look! He's not that strong, he's just a hatchling! If we work together, we can kill him and bring him back! Think of the price we could get for the body." This caused the bandits to stop being scared and instead greed began to show in their eyes. As if they could take on a dragon, hatchling or not. Mere bandits, yet they thought so.
Snort.
Only 30 men, and they still thought they could take him?
How arrogant.
Richard didn't even take them seriously of course, with the varying reasons why he wasn't in danger.
Showing his arrogance, the bandit leader shouted confidently. "Do you know who we serve! We serve the marquis of Thorsen beast! If you do not surrender-" he stopped suddenly, as the aura around the dragon took a very different turn.
A cold rage emanated from the dragon as Richard recalled the name Thorsen.
Thorsen
The name of the family who had abandoned him after causing him to bear the curse of Nemesis.
The marquis of Thorsen.
His father...
Anger flowed through Richard as he recalled the very man who had abandoned him without question, without hesitation.
These men were hired by his father to stop this caravan? Then he really had to kill them after all.
Just this little way of spitting in the face of his biological father.
"H-h-hey y-y-you!? You think you scare me you hatchling!" came the faltering voice of the bandit as he shivered, the rage palpable in the air. The quiet calm had become violent rage.
Whispers can be heard, chittering that rattled through the area. Promises of endless death, famine, plagues, and other vile atrocities rang through the air, causing all the bandits and even the adventurer's to feel goosebumps, to feel as if something was walking on their grave.
Helga found the source of the whisperings, a screecher squirrel perched on the dragon's shoulder, hardly noticeable against the more outlandish appearance of the dragon.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It was the size of a hound, about the size all screecher squirrels are, and yet there was something ominous about it, different from any screecher squirrel she'd ever encountered.
The way it stared at them...
shiver
The faltering bandit leader moved instinctually, only to just barely miss a strike of red lightning that scorched the earth.
About to mock the dragon, he opened his mouth, only to spit blood, as he looked down to his chest, from which a furry paw emerged, drenched in the man's blood, all the while the whisperings intensified in his ear, the rodent's mouth never stopping.
The squirrel pulled his hand out of the corpse, continuing his insane whispers, intensifying his efforts and making it harder for all in the room to think.
Any momentum they may have had but a moment ago was scattered to the wind.
Desperately the bandits charged forward recklessly, while some fled, and a few just curled up in denial.
They would all die regardless.
Richard got some good exercise out of his tail by swiping it through his foe, finding that the weight of the tail made it sufficient enough as a bludgeon to easily kill the people.
The thunder spear volley came down like a rain of lightning as they came innumerably, a benefit of the low cost of the spell, and even if it was a weak spell for the monsters here, for these bandits, it was nothing.
Arrows shot harmlessly bounced off, leaving Richard to suspect these arrows were merely metal, nothing particularly fancy, probably only meant to distract foes, nothing more, with the occasional arrow managing to get a shallow wound, which Richard suspected was the arrows made out of greater quality metals.
One with an ax leaped forward, attempting to plunge it into Richard, but Richard dodged it quickly, before using his own claws to swiftly gut the man's neck in molten claw form before charging up a shock, which rushed forwards from his mouth, killing 2 more bandits.
The adventurers merely stood by and watched quietly, choosing to not get involved. They had no idea how the dragon would react to them, and thus it was best for them to remain quiet, lest they get associated with the bandits in the eyes of the white dragon.
One bandit had tried to beg for help, only to be pinned under the wingtip of the dragon, with the dragon shooting them a look before continuing.
No interference indeed.
The dragon moved with ease contrasting with its great size, using it's wings to slightly alter its course with such ease Helga found herself in disbelief the bandit leader would even suggest the dragon was a hatchling.
If this was a hatchling, than what was an adult like?!
With a single snap of its jaw it could probably swallow a person whole!
The squirrel was no slouch either, as it raced through the battlefield, tearing out throats, spitting acid and plunging its tiny paw through the chests of the bandits, causing the whole group to shiver.
Usually screecher squirrels, despite being C-rank monsters, are generally regarded as harmless due to their lack of interest in direct fights, and more so their interest in harassment.
She'd never seen a screecher squirrel fight before but now...
... she'd make sure to do her best to not offend them, inspite of their crass words.
She'd certainly try.
"Hey knockers!"
... Try
The squirrel came over to them, before looking at its paws, before clicking its tongue.
"Sorry, I gotta go and clean up. You know how it is. Blood just gets over everything, ugh. I mean, look at me! Mud baths are great for the skin, but bloodbaths? Not really. I need me a good, clean shower." he said politely.
And yet that made the adventurer's faces pale greatly.
It was widely known that not cursing was the screecher squirrel's way of expressing dissatisfaction with the other side, or even expressing hostility.
Curses inside and outside of battle had two very different meanings to the screecher squirrel.
Cursing was their way of expressing comradery when outside of battle.
Thankfully, they weren't killed like the bandits, so clearly, they had been spared, likely just disliked for a reason beyond them. Being a nuisance perhaps.
The white dragon had swiftly created golems made out of the clouds which began dragging the corpses of the bandits over to a pile of corpses, which the dragon itself promptly burned with its breath, before sweeping its tail's finned edge across the ash like a broom cleaning the dirt out., seemingly satisfied once the bandits were gone.
Its terrifying aura was gone, replaced once more by the calmer and more soothing aura it had presented from earlier, and yet Helga gulped, for the hard part was not yet over.
Each step by the dragon was like the step of a predator approaching the reward of a good day of hunting. And it was so.
For if they were spared by the dragon, then that was clearly because it believed they could offer something.
All Helga could do was hope and pray that they had something to offer and that the merchants would be reasonable in the face of death.
Otherwise that mercy would be changed to the fate that the bandits had been handed.