"Who are you?"

My gaze swept over a young violet haired elven youth dressed in a ripped black battle mage robe and a black haired beastman archer. The mage deceptively looked like a fifteen year old pretty boy. I wasn´t fooled however. Elves didn´t grow old as fast as humans so the boy was probably an adult. His eyes were still reddened and he was breathing raggedly though he still managed to emit an air of calm. He responded to my inquisitive gaze with one of his own. No enmity could be found in his body language. I felt a wave of calm take over me as I watched him. Momentarily I found that weird but immediately dismissed the thought.

The beastman on the contrary, ever vigilant, continued to watch our surroundings. His round bear ears were half concealed by his hat and his brown eyes had a feral glint to them. By his looks I guessed him to be about 25 years old.  Contrary to his comrade he paid me no heed.

I grinned.

I decided that I liked them and gave them a hopefully reassuring but on second thought in this situation probably misplaced smile.

An awkward silence ensued after that as I patiently waited for them to answer. Thus unable to bear the silence anymore after perhaps....20 seconds I tilted my head and opened my mouth.

"So..? Won´t you tell me? Are you secret-loving Ninjas or aliens or superheroes? You have something to hide don´t you?"

I was already considering all the likely scenarios this could take. They just had to be one of these options! My excitement seemed to puzzle the mage a bit as he raised his eyebrow while the beastmen who had obviously been listening shook in suppressed laughter.

"Do you do that often? Talk to the snow, I mean."the pretty boy said.

"Only when it annoys me... the snow is particularly talkative today." I rolled my eyes at the snow. "Probably cause of the battle. Nobody could sleep with that kind of noise." I added with a nod towards the direction of the melee where even now screams and the screeching sound of metal hitting metal resounded.

"Why did you do it?" I inquired.

"What?" the pretty boy asked.

"You know what I mean!" I didn´t know shit but it seemed like he wanted to make more small talk and I was already growing bored of it. I tried to sound sure of myself. Probably got that right as the elve´s face grew darker. He looked down at the bloody snow before him seemingly searching for the right words.

"There was no choice. I- no we had to. How could we let him die? He is my best friend for heaven's sake! Even if it means... che... even if it means betraying God." His words ended in a whisper. An expression of pain crossed his face.

My sensors warned me too late. He was already rambling and I lost interest after the first three sentences. I mentally tuned him out to the best of my ability.

My poker face lay undisturbed and the facade was upheld as the pretty boy continued to talk about some cliché forbidden love story. I didn´t care one bit though. Everything I got from the story was the fact that these guys were friends with the male lead of this soap and had infiltrated the black army in order to aid him in his escape.

Their plan had spectacularly backfired as they had yet to even see him and had almost died as a consequence.

I expected a quest to pop up any moment and prayed to the flying spaghetti monster that it wouldn´t happen. These kinds of drama quests almost always ended with either a sappy happy-ever-after-end or somebody dying. To me that meant boring unimaginative conversations, predictable cliché developments with love rivals and the inevitable kitsch.

<[Insert random Name] get immediately away from [insert a different random Name]!!! You are not worthy of her/him/(it?)>

UNBEARABLE

I hated it with a passion.

My eyes grew colder but I kept my poker face up with the utmost effort.

"...And that´s why we have to find them. By chance, did you see them? No, more importantly. On whose side are you? Show me your emblem."

Without hesitation I pulled out the pendant hanging from my necklace. It was the blue grape sized figurine of a wave with white foam at its peak. The emblem of the Water faction.

I watched the mage and the archer freeze upon seeing my emblem. My poker face was still in place so I just kept the smile going, leaned forward and whispered conspiratorial.

"I am the third party~"

"What does the water faction want here? We figured you guys would be leaning back enjoying the show like the other factions." If there was any emotion besides distrust within his voice before the elven boy had lost it now.

A member of the fire faction helping them, as I had appeared to be one with the red cloak, they could understand if he perhaps had similar circumstances as them. Nathans lover had, after all, many admirers and friends and there might be some who wanted to help her just as they had come to Nathans rescue, or so I figured they might have thought.

Nathan was by the way the name of the random male lead of this soap as it would seem.

"Make no mistake. I have no intention of harming those lovebirds. But neither will I help them." I quit the facade and gave the boy a stern look.

"They are not the reason why I am here."

"..."  I ignored his unspoken question.

"You still haven´t told me your name you know."

Archer and mage exchanged some quick glances but remained silent. Meanwhile I was wreaking my brain trying to come up with a strategy that would allow me to escort these guys out of this mess without getting involved in the drama.

"I am Midas of Larkana. My guard is called Eisul." Midas slowly revealed their identities." Thank you for saving our lives. I won´t forget this." He got up and gave a customary elven bow, then turned around to leave. He went towards the battlefield.

I was still comfortably sitting on the blood soaked snow. Looking at the small back of the admirable young man. He passed Eisul who followed him without a word.

"You are out of ammo and stamina, you don´t have any mana, you don´t have any allies. Say, why are you doing this?"

"None of your business." said Midas

And thus they left.

I looked, no stared at them, as they disappeared in the snowy forest.

My gaze traveled towards the sky.

My motivation arrived at an all-time low and I felt unable to get up.

In this manner time crawled on. It felt like an eternity of lying around and thinking about my failure. I was drowsy.

Later on I heard the soft crunching of footsteps beside me as a soldier passed by.

I wasn´t surprised or scared. In my motionless state I had heard this person approach from a distance. The snow hadn´t sounded a warning.

My hands slowly slid over the crystalline surface. The cold never affected me thanks to a little agreement I had with the snow.

I shuddered. My imagination began to run wild as I considered the likely consequences of my failure.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A crushing sense of defeat assaulted me and I got up.

"If my freedom is going to be forever taken by some desert ruin I´m going to have some fun first!"

Thus with renewed spirit I picked up the dagger of a fallen soldier, a sword being too long, and sprinted towards the battlefield.

I decided to join the red side as I already had the red cloak and began attacking the black soldiers. They were easy prey in the increasingly chaotic melee. My small build was again my greatest advantage here. Without care for my "comrade´s" lives I used them as meat shields whenever I was in a tight spot. I snuck up on a black soldier who was already engaged in a fight and stealthily cut his tendon. The poor lad, couldn´t have been more than 20 years old, tumbled to the ground and was finished off by his original opponent. The red soldier looked around for his helper but I was already off to the next target.

During the fight I kept my face concealed in the cloaks hood. There was no need for me to make any enemies here after all.

The longer I fought the stronger I became. My strikes became faster, more accurate in short: deadlier. After my seventh kill I entered the first step of my fighting trance. Already I could feel the enemies I currently fought become too weak.

Due to my mess up I was too late to dodge an incoming kick to the stomach and was sent tumbling down, gasping for air.

My enemy followed up his kick with a sword slash, which missed me by a hairs breath. I rolled away, still breathless. I retreated behind another member of the red army and had him deal with this bothersome enemy while I calmed my breathing. The enemy however was adamant about shortening my neck and circled around my meat shield. My eyes narrowed in concentration, I waited for the perfect timing to throw desert sand in his face and paint a red line across his eyes. He screamed, dropped the sword that had been about to mince me and clutched his face with his hands. I quickly ended his suffering and proceeded to the next victim when a sudden rain of arrows began bombarding the red army. Luckily the archers aimed beyond the frontline, turning only the soldiers farther in the back into porcupines.

The sounds of the unceasing arrow hail, the clashing weapons and screams only furthered my battle trance. Gradually my fight lead me towards stronger foes. A cluster of black elite knights, easily recognizable due to their fancy armor, attracted my clouded mind´s attention. Despite myself I grinned. The boost wasn´t yet strong enough for me to take them on. I was just about to turn to my next prey when I spotted a familiar duo of bishounen elf and beastman. This time they were in no certain death situation though they did seem distressed. Maybe I would have had remarked something about it had I been of clear mind. Oh well~

Enemy after enemy died with my help as my speed increased another notch. It was getting harder for the enemies to spot me as I slithered through the frontline in my red camouflage. I sped here or there not even taking the time to do the grisly work of finishing the job at times. It´s enough if they are unable to continue fighting right? No need to mindlessly murder. How ironic that I stuck to this principle despite the intoxication of the battle.

All of a sudden I felt ready to engage the elites in combat, or at least one of them. However when I reached the place they had crowded before I only saw charred corpses. Clearly a mages handiwork. The culprit was still standing in the center of the deathzone.

"Blue?!"

He turned towards me. Dressed in obviously stolen black armor, Bluesky was the one who had murdered all those elite knights?

He gave me a complicated look as I approached. My battle trance was quickly fading as my mind returned from standby. I stumbled over the crispy people while picking up a valuable here and there.

When I got close enough to be clearly heard above the battle music without the need to shout I asked.

"Yo demon, when the hell did you learn magic~?"

"How dare you speak so casually to mmmmhmphm" A random red haired woman of a race I wasn´t familiar with began to scold me. She had ram-like horns so she was most likely some sort of beastman. She wore green traveling gear, making it obvious that she was the female lead to the soap I was trying not to get caught up in. Her outburst was interrupted by Sky.

"Hey Smurfy, so you survived, che" I swear I could hear him click his tongue. The grin on his face mirrored my own as  I came to a halt in front of him.

"Rather than that, I´m surprised you didn´t chicken out on this little brawl~"

"And let you get all the glory? In your dreams."

"What glory? I can only see a barbecue."

"Smurfy, oh Smurfy, why can´t you admit that I got more than you?"

"Cause you didn´t~? I got at least 15 of  them if I exclude Team kills."

"See. I got at least 20. Just count them" He pointed towards the scorched remains around us.

"What a hassle, no way. You couldn´t have killed them without magic anyway so the lady or her lover must have roasted them."

He gave me an incredulous look, which was soon replaced by realization.

"You win this one." he grumbled.

"Well if you´ll excuse me now, I will just go and..." Blue gave me an extremely suspicious look that made me stop.

"Please don´t drag me into a drama quest! They are annoying!" With those words I made a dramatic exit, oh the irony.

Or I would like to have made it, had a certain demon not pulled me back by the cloak.

"We are in this quest together and I don´t want to go back to that room either so behave yourself for the duration of the quest, mermaid." He whispered into my ear. Shivers ran down my spine as I thought about the room.

"Alright I´m in." I said in a tone of voice that would have made any undead jealous. "By the way, have you ever heard of toothpaste? I hear it stops your mouth from stinking like something died in there. No seriously, try it." With that he left my personal space and I breathed out in relief.

BlueSky then shared the quest with me which wanted us to , as expected, ´blablabla forbidden love blablabla rescue the female and male lead´.

While we were talking the enemy didn´t idle either. They were rapidly closing in on us.

"Actually there were those guys on the Darkness´ side who wanted to help you. Some elven mage hmmm what was his name? Mist? Milan? Mi-something and his bear friend." I said towards the male lead.

"Midas and Eisul are on our side?" I could see his eyes sparkle. Interesting reaction for a Sprout. Sprout is a plant-like race. Unlike treants or most other plants they can move quite fast and take on a humanoid shape for convenience. This one had dark green leaves and purple bark. Strange combo.

"They are searching for you. Somewhere over there." I pointed to the direction I last saw them in. My voice was still monotone and unenthusiastic.

"Let´s pick up the pace." The girl said with a look around us. There were no more elite knights close-by but too many enemy soldiers could easily overwhelm us if they attacked at once.

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This chapter is dedicated to a potatoe who had an actor shout at me.

I still think it doesn´t fit the flow of the story till now but oh well~