Malt stitched the layers of linen together with shaky hands. The occasional sting and the resulting bead of blood on his fingertips served as a constant reminder of the fact that even though he’d been trained to be proficient with a vast variety of weaponry, he couldn’t manage to wield a needle with any semblance of skill.

Those around him, however, seemed to be masters of the trade. Nadia worked her knitting rods with impressive speed, neatly weaving frayed ropes of yarn together with deft hands.

Mari’s needle danced across fabric with amazing finesse. He’d even wager that she could rival Geld in terms of dexterity.

Even her two sisters, both of whom didn’t look to be much older than Kirk, put his work to shame.

The hearth glowed dimly as it radiated a pleasant warmth. They shared tea and gossiped about matters that might as well have been in another language to Malt. Talk of who did this and who did that, who liked whom and who disliked whom.

Thus, Malt made himself as scarce as he could and huddled up into the corner of the room beside a window. Although he looked to be focussing diligently on his patchwork, his mind was somewhere else entirely.

If he used Niko and Misha as samples, Pavel would likely be ridiculously strong, at least from a physical standpoint.

It was common knowledge that he could defeat nearly anyone in the village if he chose to do so. And even those that could defeat him, Nasir likely being among them, had more to lose from causing trouble with him than they had to gain.

This was why he himself was likely in the prime position to intervene. As long as people kept their mouths shut, and Pavel didn’t find out too much about his connection with siblings, he wouldn’t have anything to lose.

That being said, dealing with Pavel was much easier said than done. If Niko and Misha were used as an example, Pavel would likely be strong. Immensely so.

‘Fortunately’ though, Malt had had the opportunity to spar with Stromund a few times before.

Stromund was known across the kingdom for his prodigious strength, so a backwood nobody like Pavel was absolutely insignificant in comparison.

Granted, he himself couldn’t even manage to budge Stromund even though the man was holding back quite a bit, but at least he has experience with fighting stronger opponents.

But would it be enough? All these thoughts swirled around his head, each plan he thought of only spawned a dozen more questions, all of which he had no answer to. He wasn’t coming to a conclusion any time soon, that was for sure.

“The needle’s going to break if you keep wiggling it around like that, y’know?”

Malt snapped out of his thoughts, realizing that he’d been absentmindedly fiddling with the patch of linen the whole time.

“Ah, sorry ‘bout that.”

Nadia’s brow raised questioningly. She looked skeptically at the mangled piece of fabric.

“...what’s that supposed to be?”

He held up his work,

“Uh, a coat...I guess?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you already have that strange looking one in your room?”

“Yeah, I was thinking of making a little padded jacket for Kirk.”

She nodded in realization, returning to her quilt.

“For his first hunt huh? Thanks for that then.”

This time Mari leaned in closer, examining the sizable bundle of linen leaning against his leg.

“I think you went a little overkill on the fabric then, this much must’ve been pretty expensive.”

A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek despite the relatively moderate temperature. He barely stopped himself from instinctively pulling the bundle closer to himself.

“Well, I expect to mess up a lot, you...know…”

He quickly turned his head away, peering out the window that looked out to the cottage’s front yard. The others looked at him questioningly.

“...there something wrong?”

Without looking away from the window, he grabbed the bundle.

“...are you expecting any guests, Mari?”

Her head tilted curiously,

“No, there aren’t many people who come here anyway.”

He beckoned to her, keeping his eyes on the three figures approaching from the woods.

The moment she laid eyes on them, her face grew grim.

She pointed to her sisters.

“Girls, get inside the bedroom.”

They promptly leapt up from the floor and ran into one of the rooms, panic on their faces.

Mari was already making her way to the front door, visibly alarmed.

“Lock up the windows Nadi.”

Judging by how quickly and easily she pulled close the steel window covers, this was obviously not the first something like this had happened.

Malt sprung up from his seat and made his way to the door with Mari, bundle in hand.

Before she could begin working all the various locks, he pushed his way outside, pushing the door shut behind him.

Mari struggled to pull him back inside, bewildered.

“What the hell are you doing?! Get inside quick!”

“Lock the door.”

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He forced the door shut despite her resistance.

Turning, he made sure to widen the distance between himself and the cottage, stopping just moments before the forest’s edge.

“Who’s there?”

Despite asking, he knew full and well who it was.

“Looks like another bitch made its way to the village, huh?”

The man leading was easily more than a foot taller than Malt, and definitely heavier by a substantial margin.

His physique could only be described as large. He definitely ate well, considering his protruding belly and thick chin, but it was also obvious that he sported a disturbing amount of muscle.

He was both bulky and plump, his limbs were disproportionately small compared to his torso, but that might’ve simply been because his torso was so large.

This paired with his square head and obnoxiously arrogant expression made him almost comically unlikable, even at a glance.

Malt had originally planned to keep his cool and try to gather information on his personality and weaknesses, but it quickly occurred to him that that would probably be easier said than done.

“What, you stupid or somethin’?”

He waved him off as if he was waving off a stray dog.

“Go on, shoo. I ain’t got any business with a brat like you.”

Biting his tongue, Malt kept his expression as neutral as he could.

“Do you have any business here?”

Despite his expectations, Pavel actually answered. It seemed like his narcissism won over every other emotion in that miniscule brain of his.

“Me and my mates’ve got some business with those ladies in there.”

He gestured to the cottage with his chin.

The taste of blood now filled Malt’s mouth. If he clenched his teeth any harder, he’d end up taking his own tongue off.

The guys behind him were a familiar sight, but not in any way a welcome one.

They had the kettle helm, the gambeson, and the telltale facial features that he’d grown to associate with violence and death over the past few months.

The two were definitely Khods, albeit obviously fresh recruits judging by the presumptuous way they walked. They tried their best to look intimidating, sheathing and unsheathing their swords “menacingly”, although it all came off as rather comical.

“...fucking greenhorns.”

One of them strutted forward, belligerent.

“The fuck you say kid?”

Kid? We’re literally the same age.

He got up into his face, butting his forehead against Malt’s as he broadened his shoulders and hunched up onto his tiptoes in a vain attempt to assert his dominance.

He pointed to the sword rather clumsily strapped onto his back.

“You see this, I’ve fucking killed people with this.”

You definitely have not.

“You wanna be next, huh?”

Malt felt more pity toward him than anything else really, like he was witnessing that one kid in every class that claimed to have been in a ton of fights for the clout.

The khod’s face broke out into an arrogant smirk. He’d gotten himself the acknowledgement that he’d craved.

“Yeah that’s right, keep yer mouth shut, bitch.”

He stomped past Malt, making his way to the cottage.

Malt’s hand reached out and grasped the khod by the collar.

“Excuse me, where do you think you’re going?”

With one tug, the khod was on the dirt, scrambling to get back onto his feet.

The other one rushed forward, ready to draw his sword.

“Oi.”

Pavel gave the khod a menacing stare, and he quickly retreated to his position behind him, like a small child being reprimanded by his teacher.

Pavel looked toward Malt again, smirking.

“What, you their dad or somethin’? I’m just trying to show my two friends here a good time. What else are those ladies good for, y’know?”

At that point, he’d seen enough of Pavel to understand his personality. There were only two things that occupied his meager intelligence, if it could even be described as such: arrogance, and lust.

He was vulgarity incarnate, a gorilla perpetually in heat. He lacked empathy to the point where if he’d been on earth, he would’ve been labelled a psychopath, although it was easy to infer that that would be the least of his worries.

There was absolutely no reason for this person to exist.

He placed his thick hand onto Malt’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take gooood care of them. You’re okay with leftovers, right?”

“Fuck off.”

“The fuck you sa-”

“What, are you deaf or retarded? Maybe both? I said fuck off, cunt.”

His face twisted in anger as he lifted his fist and clobbered Malt viscously over the head.

His knees gave out as he collapsed to the ground, crawling into a ball as the other two came over and began assaulting him. They peppered his body with kicks and stomps as he laid there defenselessly.

Pavel began pounding into Malt’s side, over and over with crushingly heavy strikes. Any human would likely die within seconds of this, but somehow Malt was still alive, and conscious at that.

Seeing this, they continued stomping him with increased fervor, huffing and puffing as Malt’s body was beaten into mangled pulp.

Finally, a stray strike from Pavel made contact with his head. Blood splattered from a split in his temple, trickling onto his face and amassing in a pool onto the dirt.

Malt stopped moving.

They finally relented, taking in deep breaths as they recovered from their fatigue. Pavel looked content with his work, and after a while, wiped the sweat off his brow before turning toward the cottage once again.

The khods looked at him, panicked.

“Pavel...h-he’s not breathing anymore.”

“I know. I thought he’d last a little longer, what a bore.”

The reality of their actions began to sink in to the khods. One keeled over and promptly vomited as the other collapsed onto his backside, staring at Malt’s body with shaking hands.

“Stop being such pussies about it, no one cares if we take care of a few mongrels. Just toss his body into the woods or somethin’.”

Seeing as he didn’t hear either of them stand up, he turned around, angry once again.

“I said get the fuck u-”

Malt stood behind one of the khods, one hand clasped dangerously around the boy’s mouth from behind.

A pile of linen sat discarded on the floor, and a sword, one that Pavel hadn’t seen before, lay in Malt’s tight grasp.

He had it pressed flush against the boy’s exposed throat, much to both khods’ alarm.

Pavel stormed forward but the moment he did, small beads of blood began surfacing from the khod’s throat.

“You fucker, you better let him go right now or else-”

“Or else what?”

The khod being held hostage couldn’t scream, on the account that if he moved even the slightest bit, his throat would be promptly split open. But the fear was visible in his bloodshot eyes.

Pavel, driven by anger and not having the self control to stop himself, rushed forward regardless.

This time the other khod spoke up.

“W-wait Pavel! If either of us die, Rudd’s gonna be pissed!”

Pavel stopped in his tracks. This “Rudd” person was obviously important, seeing as even Pavel seemed to be afraid of him.

His meager brain went into overdrive, until eventually, he came to a rather troubled conclusion.

He stormed off back into the forest. Malt released the khod after he’d travelled a sizable distance, watching him scurry off along with his friend.

After, and only after the trio had travelled out of sight, Malt collapsed, succumbing to his injuries. He gave a reluctant thank you to Geld under his breath, and lost consciousness quickly thereafter, with his last sight being Nadia and the others emerging from the cottage.