Simon was familiar with the view; the two had been leisurely traveling in the cart. Paramour suggested heading south to the fisherman village, where he had an acquaintance who could recruit adventurers.
It had rained the night before, so the morning was a bit cool.
It had been almost a month since he left the islands to return to the village of his birth. It was fascinating how time flew when traveling. For some reason, the cart had already stopped, and there was a long line of traffic on the main road.
Facing south, there was a large expanse of farmland, considered the largest in the entire eastern continent. The main road passed through the middle of it, supplying not only the entire eastern continent but also sending some of its produce to the central continent. Simon had traveled east on an off-road route, particularly near the Black River, when heading north.
The rain had just subsided; the land was moist and wet, but there was smoke ahead to the south. The carts on the left side continued flowing, but after a while, a traveling cart came screaming to the carriages heading south.
“The Blood Axe Gang is attacking! Don’t go south!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“What the heck… but it's interesting,” Percival said. He looked at Simon; the boy had too many experiences with bandits. There are generally two types of bandits: those with a cause and those who simply want to survive. Depending on what type they were, they must be dealt with immediately.
Judging by the direction of the smoke, it was not on the main road; they had burned something on the farm. “We should take a look at it,” Simon said as he jumped down. Percival followed suit.
“Sir, we would like to check ahead. Can we leave some of our sacks here?” Percival politely asked as he handed some coins to the cart driver.
“Okay, I won't be going anywhere with this traffic... Be careful, or I'll keep your things,” the driver said. He then dismounted and started cleaning his horse’s muddy legs from walking in the rain.
“Aren’t you too cool?” Percival asked.
“We all die someday. If I worry too much, I won’t be able to live my life properly. Just take care and come back. I can see that you are not a normal traveler, eh?” The cart driver, somewhere around 30, looked at him as someone enlightened.
Simon took his two water blades and three pieces of wind knives. Percival was just carrying his axe and his coat.
<--->
Three groups of four bandits were ransacking the carts and carriages, even taking the horses and leaving only the humans inside.
“We are finished here, next!” one of the leaders of the three groups said. They would skip two after raiding a cart; it was efficient, and they wouldn’t miss a single one. The four laughed, knowing that the people inside were just waiting in their place after making an example of the first and second carts they raided.
The words “We will leave you unscathed if you follow us” were too effective; humans really are easy, they thought.
They passed one carriage and checked with the leader who was taking the cart’s valuables. They passed another cart, and there was no one there. The driver was there, shaking in fear.
“Huh?”
‘The second team should already be there ransacking,’ he thought. He looked back from where they came, but the next carriage back was already finished; it was strange.
“Kid… you, not even a sound, huh?”
He heard a voice, but it was not familiar. He looked behind him and finally smelled blood. All of his three parties were dead.
“The old man said that I should kill bandits indiscriminately if I can’t subdue them… especially if they are the bandits that fight for a cause,” Simon said, standing there among the dead bodies, his demeanor cold.
“That’s how it should be, then?” Percival commented.
The bandit, upon seeing this, tried to run to warn the others in the carriage behind them, but for some reason, he fell down, his view divided into two until he finally saw the ground on his face.
“You sliced him down in half? You are much more brutal,” Simon said, observing the one-cut display.
Simon instantly knew that they were bandits fighting for a cause because of their stature, the appearance that they were well-fed, and their clothes not ragged... Some of them even had good weapons.
<--->
Sebas, the commander of the bandits, was now studying a map, running scenarios through his mind.
“Sir, we already have the first storage house and burned it. The second storage house is fighting much better than we expected,” a man wearing knight’s armor reported to the leader of the Bloody Axe.
There were about 20 members of the fallen knights once known as the Golden Axe. Fourteen years ago, these knights were stripped of their crest and sent to the eastern frontier to serve under the Elford clan.
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There was quite a huge fuss about a certain mission gone wrong; few names leaked out, but as per the noble’s society and rankings, blame needed to be pinned, and they were the ones who took it.
They were a 60-man honorable knights order. Forty of them retired upon the said banishment, while the others followed the command to go into the eastern continent. Their commander retired too, refusing to go into the eastern frontier.
Sebas, the vice commander, had a different plan, though. He went with the migration together with the 20 who remained. He had to build a reputation for a while, which is why he created a pseudo group called the Bloody Axe.
The names and theatrics really did their work; they immediately gained fame as the counterpart of the largest rising bandit group in the eastern frontier.
By no means was he using the knights to commit crimes; he was recruiting villagers, outcasts, and sometimes criminals to do his dirty work. However, he had to reveal everything after some time and then do a bit of a purge.
The purge consisted of several actions, like flushing out some members who were against him and promoting some of the better criminals.
Sebas knew that loyalty was running low around him and had to rely on a carrot-and-stick approach. The last master of the Golden Axe had always put loyalty as the most important trait a knight can have; pride and honor were what lay behind it.
“Just continue. If we control the farmlands of the eastern continent, we would be able to control everything in the eastern frontier… then we could wage war on the central,” Sebas said. He was sure of his plan; he even waited for the Knight Order of the Elford to do their yearly dungeon push.
He even set it up to be harder, since the knights of the Elford, including the Golden Axe, would rotate in raiding the dungeons by schedules. He purposely didn’t do his part, making the yearly dungeon raids earlier and harder.
Now, instead of going to the dungeon they were assigned to, they attacked the farmlands. The noble who was protecting the farmland didn’t expect them, but after losing the first storage room, they were eagerly fighting back.
<--->
“Hold the lines!!! Hey!!! Don’t overextend; use the goddamn spear!” The commander of the soldiers defending the second storage was fuming, also holding a spear and commanding the small forces under his family’s name.
“He killed Maya!!! Argh!!” a soldier followed a female soldier.
“Ah, that’s why I hate romance in a group! This shit happened when I was an adventurer too!!” a soldier complained bitterly, taking it out on the bandits attacking them. The few 25 were now 23, including the commander.
The bandits numbered about a hundred. For a long time now, the Bloody Axe Bandit group has been gaining infamy, and its members too.
“...?!” Although he was fighting, his height made him able to see better in battle. He could see that there was a commotion behind the lines of the thieves attacking.
“Damn it, finally brother is here with reinforcements!” he said, but there was spraying in the air, coloring the moist ground red... It was raining blood behind the back lines of the thieves. The commander instantly realized that it was not his brother.
<--->
“Oh, you are more brutal than I thought. What the hell did that old man teach you?” Percival was in awe at how high the blood sprayed each time Simon cut. Actually, the blood only came out a few seconds after the cut.
“Yours are just grimy and not even clean…” Simon answered back. Percival was literally splitting enemies in two: horizontally, vertically, and sometimes diagonally.
Simon never really bothered with blood… the smell of death and the faces of those he had slain… didn’t even flash back in his mind. He was a cold killing machine that didn’t even pause or feel remorse.
Even the old man praised him for this trait since he was little.
“Who are you!? Are you knights?!” Among the bandits, Simon and Percival immediately noticed that the one who screamed was an elite.
The field captain of the bandits attacking the storage house had to send one of the elites to check it out. The few elites in the bandit group were actually knights and some of the better criminals.
“Sir Trundle… be careful, sir… they are really strong,” one of the bandits who saw how Simon and Percival slaughtered their comrades warned.
Trundle was a criminal known as a party slayer. When he was an adventurer, he would lure a party of adventurers by joining them. He didn’t take pleasure in killing; rather, he wanted to have a battle with lives on the line.
“Fuck off, weakling… continue the attack… I will enjoy this.” Trundle was a large man with many scars on his face.
“Oh crap, he is holding a spear… yours, kid.” Percival knew from the bloodlust the man that arrived was emanating; he was in a different league and he was holding a spear too—a good coincidence for Simon it seems.
The boy smiled. He was looking for a fight with someone who is a spear user.
“I see practice then…” Simon said as he acknowledged the bloodlust Trundle was showing.
“I would enjoy it too if the two of you would come at me, but a boy? Let’s see what you got.” Trundle knew that the enemies in front of him were not normal, but he didn’t care. Knowing that he was going to be fighting against strong enemies put his heart on thrill.
<--->
The noble commanding the defense of the storage house noticed that the enemy was thinning out. Of course, there could be a chance that the entity slaying the bandits was an intelligent monster. The frontier was never too safe a place.
He had to decide now. If he brought the fight into the storage house, then it would be a problem. He had to find a way to lead the monster away from the storage house.
“They are thinning out!! We will launch an attack at my mark!!” the noble screamed. The soldiers knew they would have to lay down their lives; the storage houses contained the food that supplied the whole eastern frontier. If it burned like the first one, they would not survive the winter—especially their families.
But the soldier at the front noticed the sudden change in atmosphere coming from the attacking bandits.
“Run!! Run away!! Let’s get out of here!!” one of the bandits screamed.
“I HAVE SLAIN YOUR LEADER!! FUCK OFF!!” It was a large man wearing a fur coat. He was bloody, and his axe was bloody; he was holding the head of the field captain of the attacking bandits.
“Crap!! We have to run!! The captain has been slain!!” another bandit said, and confusion consumed the bandit.
“SOLDIERS!! ATTACK THE BANDITS!! DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY!!” the noble who was reading the scene screamed, and the soldiers, although tired, lunged into attack.
<--->
Trundle finally understands what is happening. “Is that all you got? Why did you stop?” the boy said. For the record, he was not tired; rather, he was enjoying the first few minutes of their fight.
But there was something that didn’t register with him… something that was missing. Usually, when fighting the adventurers that he lured, he would land cuts and wounds… although he would struggle in the fight, every time he got hit, it gave him more fuel.
The fight was just cold and calculated. Then he remembered some of the words the boy said… “Practice?”
No, he must be joking. For some reason unknown, he knew he had to fight seriously; there was no time for him to be tilted in the situation. “So you still have some more?” the boy said.
Trundle started swinging his spear like he meant it. Simon smiled as he parried and dodged the attacks.