Elena packed one bag and hid the coins on her person, and then they both left for the merchant's wagons at the north gate. Kyle knew his friend's father was a merchant, but neither he nor any member of his family was with the merchants leaving for Vegaville that morning.
Elena and Kyle had walked to the northern side of the town, and they were technically inside the 2nd district. On the side of the street were 3 wagons, each being drawn by 2 horses.
The house of Kyle's friend would only be a short walk away from where he was at, but Kyle thought they might still need their space. It could defeat a giant wereboar, but he felt that bursting into his friend's home with spells charged would be the wrong approach.
"Hi there Elena!" A woman who was a little younger than Elena was waving to her from the side of a wagon. The woman was a little taller than Elena, and had a little more muscle, but she was at least two years younger.
At the front of the wagon, a man was checking on the two horses used to move it.
"Hey, Gorsha." Elena said back to the woman named Gorsha, and the two of them hugged.
"Is that Kyle?" Gorsha asked while pulling away from Elena and bending down to look at Kyle. Gorsha had an alright body, but her assets were massive.
"I'm Kyle." Kyle saw the massive assets and reduced power to the brain to prevent sensory overload.
"Nice to meet you Kyle. I'm Gorsha and my husband Douglas is the one who owns the wagon." Gorsha was smiling a beautiful smile unfit for her hideous name. Everything that Gorsha lacked on paper she made up for in appearance.
"Ah, your guest are here Gorsha." Then man tending to the horses looked over at Elena and Kyle earlier, but didn't want to say anything until his wife got the first word.
"Yep, this is Elena and this little cutie is Kyle." Gorsha made a funny face when she said cutie, as if she sucked on something sour.
'Am I cute? Do I give off soft vibes?' Kyle was a man, and in this life alone he had already killed 5 people. He was not someone people called "cutie". Compared to the hundreds of thousands of demons he killed in his last life though, 5 humans was nothing.
"Well, step in and we will be off soon." Douglas walked back to the front of the wagon and got into the driver's seat. Elena helped Kyle into the back of the wagon and then she and Gorsha sat down on opposite sides, with Elena next to Kyle.
The wagon they were in was the last of the line, and it did not have it's own guard like the first and second wagons did. All three wagon owners paid for the escorts, and if something were to happen to the rear wagon, the escort from the middle would assist.
The three wagons left while it was still early and the dew on the grass was still wet. Birds could be heard chirping outside the town and there was the slightest breeze.
The wagons had been out for an hour before they suddenly took a right turn.
"What was the turn for?" Elena asked as she looked out the left of the wagon, but it was clear what it was. In the path of the road, it looked like a circle with a diameter of 70 feet had been demolished. As if a town once stood there, the dirt was in strange piles and there were no living plants. In the center of it all, there was a huge circular rock.
'Damn, I really messed this place up.' Kyle was also looking at the obstruction, and it was from the outburst he had those years ago when he learned about how the other heroes had tarnished his legacy and betrayed him.
"We don't know how it happened, but several extremely high powered magic spells were used here to destroy this section of the road. We just have to go around it." Douglas was following the other wagons and could turn back to face Elena when he spoke.
The road to Vegaville was long and winding, and passed several sections of wooded areas and plains. The dead lands that Kyle flew over on his way to the demon king's palace, they did not exist. These small wooded areas were prime areas for ambushes though.
----------------------------------------
"Get on da fookin ground mate!" Someone yelled from treeline as 5 others ran out. Kyle could see all of them from his position in the wagon, and they all were wrapped in the furs of monsters. 4 of them had swords and nothing else. One of them had a shield with their sword, and the last had a spear.
The one who yelled was the one with the spear, and when he charged at the leading wagon he thrust it at the guard and pushed him over in the front seat. The driver of the wagon attempted to flee, but he was also pushed by the guard and fell out.
The second guard readied himself to defend against 2 men with swords, one of which had the shield. The guard on the second wagon was too high to fight with the bandits though, and so he climbed behind him and into the back of the wagon.
As this all happened, the 3rd wagon was undefended. Douglas was the one without a guard this time, and now 2 of the bandits were coming for them.
The last two bandits came slowly, and in that time, the guard from the 2nd wagon was fighting with his two bandits behind the wagon, and the first guard had been overpowered by the spear and had several large wounds.
The bandit with the spear was clearly the leader, and his thrust were like lightning. A quick jab to the torso put the guard off balance, and from there he was able to inflict smaller injuries onto the guard. The 1st guard rolled out of the seat like the driver did, and landed just next to him.
The 1st guard drew his sword and prepared to fight the man with the spear and the man with the sword who had now circled around the wagon to face him.
The 2nd guard maintained a high position in the back of the wagon. Unlike the front seat where he was unable to hit anything because he was too high, the back of the wagon was low enough that he could slash at the upper bodies of the bandits.
"Wha he gunna do wis deez cunts?" One of two bandits spoke who was approaching Douglas' wagon.
"Kill da man, rape da bech, en sail da keed, ya fook head." The other bandits looked over at the other one with a huge grin on his face, and the two of them readied their swords.
'Don't you know who I am? I am the 5th hero bitch!' Kyle stood up to face the bandits and he looked around for something to fight them with. He could not use magic around other people, and he could not use the Wolf Fang Fist because of his damaged ki pathways. That left Kyle his sword skills.
"Do you have a sword or knife or anything?" Kyle asked Douglas as he looked at the bandits. The bandits looked at him and shook their heads.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Dat keed, tinken he tuff."
"We gana see owe tuff hay es wen we sell em."
The two bandits did not see the 8 year old kid as a threat, so they slowly continued to approach while the other bandits overpowered the other guards.
"I have a knife!" Douglas said and he pulled a very small knife from his pocket.
"Give it to me!" Kyle demanded and he stuck out his arm.
Elena was shocked at what was happening and what Kyle was doing, and Gorsha was stuck in her seat. Gorsha had been in this same situation before, but the guard was able to take out the bandits. The one other experience did not prepare her for this.
Douglas gave him the knife and Kyle held it in his hand.
'Shit for weighting, crappy blade... hidden-dragon style.' Kyle was going to use his assassination style that could use almost anything with a sharp edge as a weapon.
"Ohh, da keeds got imself a knife." The bandits mocked Kyle, but with the flick of his wrist the knife flipped in the air and he caught it by the blade.
The closest bandit was only 7 feet away, so the blade would make about 2 and a half spins in the air before it hit the target. Kyle drew back his arm and threw the knife at the bandits.
"Wa da fak?"
"What the duck?"
"What the flip?"
"What the heck?"
Everyone had something to say as the bandit on the left fell to the ground after a massive amount of blood swept from his neck. In only a second, Kyle had thrown the blade so that when it spun, it would not just implant itself into the bandit's neck, but also made a large cut that ruptured very important blood veins.
"El fookin kill yu mate!" The last bandit yelled as he ran forward at Kyle, but he felt strangely slow.
Kyle cast [Slow] on the other bandit when he brought down his hand from throwing the knife, and using that time he jumped from the wagon and picked up the bandit's sword. The sword was not as sharp as the knife, and it was very heavy.
"Kyle!" Elena yelled as Kyle brought the sword upon the other bandit without using a sword skill. Without stopping to listen to Elena, Kyle killed the second bandit too. A man under the effects of [Slow] had very little they could do to defend.
Kyle then turned to look at the other bandits. From his side of the wagon, he could not see the 1st guard, but the 2nd guard had taken out one bandit due to his higher ground and was now only facing one bandit.
"Kyle, what are you doing?!" Elena had come to her senses, and after seeing her son kill two people, her mind was filled with nothing but thoughts of him. Kyle was only a child, and for him to be killing people so easily...
"That's your son?" Gorsha was in disbelief. Elena had told Gorsha about a sweet little boy who went to his friend's house every day to help her learn her school subjects, but what she was seeing was a cold blooded killer.
Douglas did not say anything. He was a merchant, and he knew that help should be accepted whenever and wherever it presents itself. He would make a donation to the poor in Thornberry when they got back.
'Blood...' Kyle had been on hundreds of battlefields in his past life, and though demons had different skin color and they had things like tails and horns, their anatomy was basically the same as a human's.
'Kill all demons...' Kyle had very clear orders in his past life. See a demon, kill it. No exceptions.
'Kill them all...' Kyle looked at the other bandit who was fighting the 2nd guard, and Kyle advanced towards him.
Each step Kyle took was like a bomb exploding in a room. Killing intent was not a real thing, but if it could be felt, even the wagons would be pushed back. Kyle took a few more steps towards the bandit, and the guard was able to dispatch him.
The bandit fell on the ground next to his fellow bandit, and Kyle was taken out of his human-demon battlefield and back to the real world. Kyle knew the war was over, but with enemies right in front of him he just could not help himself, and when the situation played out like it would during the war, Kyle could not help but fall into old habits.
The 2nd guard hopped off the back of the wagon and went around to the other side. On the left side of the wagons was the 1st guard with many holes in him caused by the bandit leader's spear when he fell down and was unable to protect himself.
"Daryle!" The 2nd guard seemed to know the first, and he ran forward to help his friend. Kyle heard the guard yell, and then he too went to the other side of the wagons.
The bandit who followed the leader was now fighting with the 2nd guard, and the leader of the bandits finished killing the 1st guard and looked at him. The two bandits were going to team up against the 2nd guard, and Kyle did not know how much longer he could last.
"You'll have to fight me too!" Kyle yelled at the bandits and then moved forward while still holding the sword. It was a little large for him, but floating-swan style would still work.
"Oi, we gonna have to kill this kid too?" The bandit leader asked nobody in particular as he walked towards Kyle.
'These aren't demons, they are just human.' Kyle did not want to anything too rash again, and thought how his actions might have affected Elena.
"You better run away right now mister!" Kyle yelled, trying to sound like a child. The leader of the bandits did not see what Kyle had done to two of this men, and did not see him as much of a threat at all. In his mind, he was going to circle around the last guard, kill the kid, and then kill the guard.
"Alright, you asked for it mate." The spear wielding bandit leader ran up on Kyle to evade the guard, but as he came close, Kyle moved his sword to push the spear into the ground, and then he was kicked.
Kyle did a backward roll coming back from the kick, and he readied his sword. The bandit leader had been pushed back a little, but mostly because he was not expecting a child to fight him.
The bandit leader pulled his spear from the ground and lunged at Kyle, but he did not expect what Kyle did next.
Kyle too lunged forward, and pushed the spear tip even faster with his sword when he came between the bandit and the spearhead. From this angle, the bandit leader was suddenly moving forward faster than he expected and lost balance. Kyle slipped underneath the legs of the bandit leader who had them in the spear thrusting position, and he also brought his sword up from underneath.
The bandit leader's underside was spilling out from the large wound he received, and then Kyle went to assist the 2nd guard.
"You... fucking... cunt..." The bandit leader slowly died as he held onto his internals, which in the blink of an eye had become externals.