Well it was good to know how exactly it had come to this situation, but that did not in any way help Lock with finding a way out of it. Sure, the group heading here was apparently composed of horse thieves, but that wasn't really something Lock wanted to condemn others to death for. He'd killed in his last life, however that had been to secure immortality. No price was too high. Upon meeting here however, a conflict on dungeon rights would probably occur. He wanted to see them willing to attack them first for their own gain before he returned fire, so to say, but that was a hopelessly naïve approach to a situation that would almost assuredly lead to combat.

“So, what now?” he turned to his grandfather and asked.

Only to receive a shrug, along with a mirthful smile.

Okay, so it was on him, then. A learning experience, that's what it was. You're just outnumbered and fighting a dangerous foe you didn't want to fight yet. No pressure, right? “You think they'll try to attack us when they get here?” he asked grandfather.

“Most assuredly. I overheard them talking about how they were going to, and I quote, 'Clobber that old fart, whatever crying brat he has with him, and take the dungeon for ourselves, we'll be rich, rich I tell you.'”

Lock rubbed his temples. He couldn't assume that his grandfather was telling the complete truth. He wanted Lock bloodied and ready to take on anything after his demise. This included killing others, and he didn't think Abraxas much cared for the identity of Lock's first kill. It was a very us versus them mentality, just taken further than Lock himself preferred it sometimes. He wished he could just tell the man that he'd killed before, and that he wouldn't hesitate when it came down to it, but alas.

In the end it really came down to the question of whose life he treasured more. His own, or that of the three incoming nuisances. It was an interesting question when taking into consideration his immortality. Sure it would suck to have to live through the first few years of childhood again, very very boring, but other than that the only negative thing associated with his death were the feelings of the people who cared for him.

Grandfather would be disappointed, probably throw himself off a cliff at the nearest opportunity. His father and uncles would grieve, Cindy would have no one to give her a thorough fucking anymore, Shink would... have to find another way to earn money. Who would argue with petulant children if he wasn't there anymore?!

It was at that point that Lock remembered that the confrontation wasn't a death or death scenario. If he was uninterested in coming into mortal conflict with the incoming thieves, he would just leave. He would get nothing, they would get a dungeon.

Okay hold up, first, lets get some more information. He turned to grandfather. “When will they arrive?” he asked, hoping to have some time left.

“Five to ten minutes.” Lock glared at him for having been forced into this situation.

He pulled on his hair in frustration and emitted a rather unmanly “unngggggg” sound of frustration while stomping on the ground like the perfectly sensible adult he was. Okay, this was fine, for someone to grow they had to be put through situations that pushed them to their limit. This was just his. A trial by fire. He may emerge slightly burned, but there wasn't really a need to be afraid. Inaction was much worse than anything he could actively do here.

“Slightly burned, nothing to fear,” he muttered to himself, the idea that the altercation needed to end in death seemed silly suddenly. Unconsciousness and ropes existed; he could just knock the thieves out. Why had he been so quick to come to the conclusion that someone would die? Seemed pretty stupid of him, he hadn't killed anyone in over twenty years, after all. Hell, he'd been in a dozen or so fights since being reincarnated. None of them had ended in death, why did he suddenly start thinking along those lines when confronted with a bunch of horse thieves?

He tried to trace the thought back to its origin, and failed. He furrowed his brows, brown eyes gleaming in concentration. It had just popped into his head, it was supposed to be easy to remember it damnit.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

A look of realization suddenly came to him. The reason why he'd first thought of death. Because it was convenient and pragmatically speaking, the right thing to do.

Why was he against it?

Because no child deserved to be a murderer at 16. Perhaps an old-world sensibility, but it felt like something he owed the boy who's life he'd stolen.

“Three minutes, I can hear them now,” grandfather said cheerfully.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

Okay, okay, incapacitate.

He had paralysing poisons on him. No worries. They might take a while to take effect, but he was fairly sure he could keep a bunch of thieves busy for the five minutes it took for them to lose all feeling in their bodies.

He scrambled up a tree that the trio would have to pass under, given the direction they were coming from. He poisoned his dagger while balancing precariously on a thick oak branch, hidden in the foliage as grandfather watched amusedly. What an inefficient way of applying poison. He would need to look into getting a blow dart in the future. He looked at grandfather, made a motion to be quiet, and waited.

He heard them before they even came into sight, although the forest being bushier than a giant’s armpit probably made that fact less than impressive, especially stumbling and cursing through the bush as the trio was. These definitely weren't any sort of professionals. How could thieves be this unstealthy?

“Can we just turn round already, we've walkin for hours,” a female voice complained.

She was promptly shut up by the barked reply of a male one, “Shut the fuck up already, it's barely been an hour.”

Definitely not professionals, Lock thought to himself as he tried to blend in with the tree trunk. His stealth skill helped, slightly. Though maybe he couldn't hear his own breathing because his heart was pounding loud enough to drown out the noise on its own.

“Can you two just keep quiet already? I think we've arrived,” the third person, a calm male one said.

“Yeah, quiet Siron, we wouldn't want to alert an old man and his baby,” the angry one replied, this time in a mocking manner.

A sigh, presumably from the one who'd tried to calm the other two down.

Lock quickly assigned them names as they stumbled through the undergrowth into his line of sight. The girl was Girl, the angry one Angry, and the calm one Calm. Although ‘girl’ was a bit of misnomer. Looked more like a potato with legs, to be honest. Yeah, Potato, even her hair was potato-blond.

Angry had what basically amounted to a sharp stick in his hands, while Potato had a club. Calm was the most dangerous one, clutching a bow with an arrow nocked and slowly glancing around.

It was odd, being so relaxed when he'd been panicking not a minute before, but such was life. There were occurrences where you simply could not allow yourself to be anything but composed. So he didn't.

They walked under the branch he was standing on into the clearing, Calm hanging slightly back as expected. They finally caught sight of grandfather, stealthily standing in the middle of the clearing as he was.

“It really was just an old man,” Angry chuckled, his intimidation factor heavily lowered by the fact he looked like an average filthy muck-haired peasant who'd picked up a stick. “This'll be like taking candy from a baby.” He turned expectantly to Potato, urging her on with a small hand movement from behind his back.

“Talkin bout babies, weren't there supposed to be a kid with you?” Potato said, menacingly, ruined by the fact she was a fat filthy peasant, and also had the mannerisms of one.

Now that both of them had spoken, and were therefore focused more on grandfather than on their surroundings, Lock dropped down silently behind Calm and quickly wrestled the other teen into a choke hold. And he was a teen, maybe seventeen. Smaller than Lock, probably due to bad nutrition. Small and thin enough for him to simply pick the guy up with a flick of his hips despite his struggling and drag him behind one of the trees big enough to cover the body.

Grandfather had impeccable timing and had replied to Potato and Angry just in time for his words to cover up the thump of bow and arrow falling to the ground.

“Youth these days. You know how it is, very unreliable,” grandfather said whimsically.

Lock pricked the unconscious body of Calm in the thigh with his poisoned dagger so he would be paralysed by the time he woke up.

“All old people are the same. Patronizing old bags of bones, well the tables have turned old man. We might spare you if you show us the entrance to the dungeon,” Angry said. Very unconvincingly mind you. Also daddy issues, ow.

Lock was actually starting to enjoy himself, mocking his unprepared opponents in his head and executing silent takedowns efficiently. He snuck up behind the two remaining thieves, his senses going haywire and time itself seeming slowed. He could see every individual blade of grass as it moved in the slight breeze; he could hear the leaves rustling.

A kick to the back sent Angry, who had been busy brandishing his stick menacingly, flying into the dirt, while his left hand seized the long tangled hair of Potato and pulled her backwards onto the ground. An odd sound resounded from the direction he'd kicked Angry into, but he didn't let it distract him. Potato fell harshly on her back and he brought his dagger point first to rest at her neck. He broke her skin slightly to show her he was serious and that she better stay down, but the idiot girl’s first instinct upon being pulled to the ground and a dagger placed onto her neck was to try and stand up again.

There was some resistance at first, but the dagger Shink had given him was very sharp and pointy. Magically so, being an artefact and all. Suffice to say, the neck didn't stand a chance. Lock was still seeing things in slow motion, so he saw in the girl’s eyes the moment she realized she was dead, and she was dead. He'd been too stunned by her idiocy to retract his arm.

Unwilling to let the unexpected death distract him from the still living/conscious enemy he still had to face, he threw himself into a pitch perfect roll over Potato’s wheezing form and spun around upon landing, drawing his sword and shield in a crouched position.

Only to stare confoundedly at Angry's face-down corpse, a sharp stick protruding from the teenager's neck. A sharp stick he'd been waving around just as Lock had kicked him.

He stayed in his defensive crouch and glanced down at Potato, who was just expiring, hands desperately trying to hold the gaping neck wound closed. He looked at grandfather, who looked confused.

“Huh,” Lock said.