A few days of more hunting later, we came out of the treeline and into a road. We were each pushing a small cart that Moonwash had fashioned from random wood lying around in the forest, and we’d packed them all with our bountiful harvest.
“This is a lot!” Berry referred to our massive haul of materials, and even a cart overgrown with vines and other plantlife that Moonwash was pushing. I’d learned that it was apparently possible to preserve food with nature magic, but that was certainly not an effect I could accomplish with my limited grasp of element. Not that it was easy for other people, as Granuel couldn’t do it either. It was overall a very rare and valuable skill that of course Moonwash could wield. My girlfriend was amazing.
“Hehe.” I preened at Berry’s enthusiasm. “What’d I tell you? Just leave it to me!”
“Yeah! You and Moonwash were amazing!”
“Aren’t we!?”
We continued along the packed road for a while longer, finding little resistance. I believed the monsters had learned to avoid this path. Sapients were more dangerous than whatever else they might encounter.
“Stop,” Granuel suddenly said, and we all immediately dropped our carts upon hearing his tone. He was quiet for a few seconds more, before finally adding, “People up ahead. Likely bandits.”
He just proved my point. The world was terrible, and the people in it were opportunistic and vain. They were hateful, they were a stain, and the only way forward was to be rid of them all!
Not that I would actually do that. But the thought was starting to get kind of amusing.
“Oh no,” Berry spoke in almost a whisper, but she still stepped forward no matter how scared. If she really didn’t want to be here, then I was truly of the opinion that she should just stay back in civilization and do what actually makes her happy, but I respected the hell out of her courage. She was by no means a liability despite her fear, not once had she allowed it to put us in danger.
“How do you guys want to do this?” Therick asked?
“How many enemies, Granuel?” I asked. I’d already drawn my sword. “A general idea?”
“Um, an ishkawtan, I believe, but she’s not carrying any weapons. Maybe she’s a mage. Then there’s one human, and he has a bow. Two ogres, one kobold, five centaurs, three crustecars, and… two belfegors that I can spot.”
“We’re outnumbered,” Therick said. “Their levels?”
“I don’t know,” Granuel shook his head. “They’re too far. They’ve just reacted to us suddenly stopping and are moving this way.”
“They might just want to extract a toll,” Angerly’s was… reluctant, but she still asked, “Should we give it?”
“Hell no!” I huffed. “We fight and we kill them!”
“A-are we really going that far?” Berry asked. “There’s so many of them!”
“Don’t worry. As long as they don’t have a level 40 among them, we can take them.”
“But what about killing them? Is that really fine?”
“Of course it is! If they want to kill us, to steal from us, then I will fight back. No matter their reasons.”
“We have a lot of illegal materials here from the cursetacean we killed,” Moonwash spoke for her own interests. We had buried our illegal trophies under a pile of other things, and we’d sort of just randomly sprayed other elements in there in hopes of diluting the curse still somehow present in the flesh. The hope was that people would feel something was off, but wouldn't actually investigate. “I’m not giving those up.”
“Alright. We can’t and won’t give them our things, but please allow me to be diplomatic about this first,” Therick said, and we all nodded. “You should be ready for a confrontation though, if it comes to it.”
I was well ahead of him, with my sword already drawn, concealed hooves just ready to dash forward. I still had my contacts and my oversized boots up, but I was getting ready to at least coat my sword in wrath magic. If word of this somehow got out, then using some curse-aligned magic shouldn’t be serious enough to touch me. It was illegal, but it wouldn’t galvanize armies to move.
A few tense seconds passed as Therick stood behind Berry, eyes scanning the treeline. I was right next to Granuel and Moonwash, and the former whispered to us where exactly the enemies were. He became able to tell some of their levels upon further observation, and I was already planning where I would best be able to do damage.
“That’s about enough!” Therick shouted at the hidden bandits before they could surround us. “What do you want!?”
A laugh echoed between the trees, and then a centaur man stepped out from the treeline. “Leave all your belongings, and we’ll let you walk away without a fight!”
“No!” Therick flat-out rejected. “We just want to pass through in peace.”
“Ah, but we just want to unburden you of your load. Unless if you want to be unburdened of something else!?”
“There is nothing we wish to be unburdened by! But I am willing to part with a dozen gold for safe passage!”
WHAT!? The offer made my hearts pump in rage, for we had no reason to be offering this filth anything. Angerly stepped in front of me before I could step forward and give Therick an earful for how he was handling this.
“No Haell,” She said a little bit too sharply, and my glare snapped to the ogre woman at the tone she took with me. “Look…Please let Therick handle this. It’s best to prevent a fight.”
“There’s no need to prevent shit. I’ll tear them apart!”
“You probably will,” she sighed. “But there’s no need to take the risk. And a couple of gold is no trouble. It’d probably help them out a lot. I bet there’s a camp they return to.”
“I don’t care!” I snapped quietly as the shouted negotiations continued in the background. “It’s not about the gold. It’s nothing to me either. But it’s the fucking principle of the thing!”
“You’d kill for principle?” Angerly asked me the genuine question.
“Depends.” I planted my sword on the ground so I could cross my arms. “On who I have to kill and what principles had been broken.”
“Okay… but please stay put.”
I gave her a final glare, but stood my ground and waited like she’d asked. “Fine.”
“No. You will leave all those carts, and we will all search you personally for coin. Or we could just kill you all!” The centaur gave his ultimatum, and Therick had to sigh. My friend had tried everything, but even revealing our levels did nothing. Of course it didn’t. We were a party of three level 20s, and three below that threshold. That was probably better than theirs in levels, but they had the advantage of sheer numbers. Oh and they didn’t believe us. They might not have level sense at all, or it could be hard to get a proper read on us just yet from this far away.
The adventurer badges didn’t work either… since Moonwash and I didn’t even have a badge, and only Berry had a silver one. Therick didn’t even try to argue that I was the equivalent of a level 40 in combat prowess as that would just make everything sound like even more of a bluff.
“It’s your choice,” Therick said, dejected. “Don’t say I didn’t want you.”
“That’s my line!” The centaur reared up confidently and signaled to his allies. “Get them!”
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We reacted to his signal faster than his allies could. Granuel shot several sharp pieces of stone towards the left side of the treeline, and Moonwash formed a massive fireball that rocketed towards the other. They’d been preparing their spells the entire time Therick and the presumed bandit leader had been chatting.
I too made my move, spurred on by the screams of those that were dying. My feet carried me to the left side of the road with a whiff of wrath magic, and I only had to draw deeper upon that well of anger to dodge an arrow shot toward me. The thrill of battle began to surge through, and the hatred that had been brewing for my enemies came to a boil. They had a chance, Therick even offered to fucking pay them, and yet they still chose death!
So I will grant it to them.
I surged into the treeline, immediately cutting apart the unmoving centaur on the ground as wrath magic surged through my sword. She was very likely already dead from the many stones lodged in her torso, but I would not let her play possum now only to lose my life or a friend later.
I heard the stomping and shouting of an approaching ogre, over three meters tall, and beyond the threshold of level 20. I screamed back at him and charged, easily dashing past his axe and raking my sword across his thigh. It cut right through his weak leather and the flesh underneath, immediately causing him to limp.
“FUCK! MOTHERFUCKER!” He swung his axe wildly, but I was already running for the kobold far behind him. The kobold man took a deep breath, and I reasoned that a fire breath was coming. Instead of dodging, I flooded my legs with more wrath magic, ready to fling myself forward when suddenly someone dropped from the trees. A belfegor woman landed on my back, and she squeezed at me painfully, restricting my movements, but I could still ram the kobold and finish him off. That plan was dashed when a second belfegor landed on my back, and I fucking screamed as infernal flames blazed to life around my body, causing my shouts to be mirrored by my hanger-ons.
The fire also surged through my helmet and into my skull. My contact lenses were resistant to heat, but they could be burnt off if exposed so directly. I helped with my wrath magic, and a stabbing pain struck my own eyes for a moment, but soon they were free. That sinister gaze only had eyes for one person, and my aura exploded out of me as I glared at the kobold.
He stopped. He choked on his own breath, eyes wide in fear. Like a deer caught in the headlight, I crashed into him like a rampaging train. That knocked the wind out of him, along with his breath attack. It was a strong flame, stronger than anything I’d ever seen anyone of his level do, and it came out in sputtering vomiting coughs toward the sky.
All this time, the belfegors had desperately clung onto me through the heat of my own fire, preventing me from properly using my sword. They screamed louder as the fire that burned them suddenly grew even hotter, and that gave me the opportunity to violently tear them away from myself and toss them towards the sniveling kobold on the ground.
They landed in a shrieking agonized heap as the kobold was not yet down spitting out gouts of flame, further setting all three of them ablaze. I slashed my greatsword into that writhing mass, and one belfegor was sliced in two. The other belfegor was so confused and burning that she never realized the fate of her comrade, until she suffered it too.
"Wait!" The kobold coughed to get the last of the embers out of his lungs. His eyes were covered by the bloody remains of his friends, and he was gasping for air as his ribs had collapsed from the weight of my prior blows. "I surren--" He couldn't finish the sentence as his reptilian head rolled away from his throat.
I took a deep breath for the massacre that had occured, and another for the murders that were yet to come. It was not over yet. It would never be over.
The ogre from earlier caught up to me soon after despite the limping leg, and I didn’t try to parry his axe with my greatsword. Instead, I kicked off my boots, stepped into his guard, and slashed through an arm. It didn’t cut all the way through, but it did make the entire limb useless, with even the bone broken.
He looked at me with hate after trying and failing to lift that arm, but his rage was nothing compared to my wrath. I inflicted the same fate on his other arm, and then I beheaded him after I forced him to kneel.
His remains landed on the ground as disgusting slabs of flesh.
With a huff, I turned my attention to the rest of the battlefield. The bodies of centaurs and crustecars were strewn on the ground, dead from slashes, burns, and blunt-force projectiles. Moonwash and Granuel were firing into the other burning side of the forest as they huddled behind their shields, Angerly was panting over the crushed carapace of three crustecars, and Berry was running circles around the one remaining centaur.
I charged towards the latter, their presumed leader, and the one who had started it all. The familiar sensation of my own body breaking surged through my psyche as the entire world blurred. It lasted for but a moment, and I collided against my target like a massive armored train. Blood rained, and entrails dropped like meteors as his horse and humanoid half were entirely separated from each other.
Berry looked at me. She would be blinking if she had eyelids. But I had no time for her indecision. I charged again with all my might toward the burning part of the forest. The fire did not bother me as I searched, I did not care for the additional burnt bodies lying around, and it did not take long to find Therick trying to shake off a belfegor that had latched onto him. I immediately ran toward my friend, sent an infernal fireball toward a wheezing and unconscious human, and then slammed my wrathful eyes and aura toward the belfegor woman. I pried her from Therick even if it broke my hand, and then my friend stabbed the enemy in the chest until she finally let go.
I tossed the belfegor away and burned her to a crisp.
Therick wobbled away once he was free. He wheezed and panted from the pain, took a few deep breaths, and then noticed the sickly orange flame burning the dead human archer.
“Haell what the fuck!?” He coughed. “You killed him!?”
“Uh, yes? That’s the point!?”
“He was knocked out!!”
“And he could’ve woken up at any moment to plant an arrow in our fucking backs!”
We only got to continue glaring at each other for a small moment as a whine squeaked out nearby.
My teeth clenched and my hands squeezed the pommel of my blade. I abruptly tore myself away from Therick and marched out of the sparse flames to find the disturbance. There I found an ishkawtan woman who had fallen on the ground. Her eyes were wide in terror and her entire body quivered.
“P-”
Her head splattered into pieces of blood and gore before she could get a single word out.
“OKAY HAELL WHAT THE FUCK!?”
Therick stumbled out behind me, dragging himself clumsily through the forest on broken bones.
“Shit, you’re injured.” I started to summon vines and flowers in an attempt to heal him, but my friend swatted my hand away when I tried to give him support. I gnashed my teeth and I glared at him for how he’d been treating me since earlier, but I pointedly stopped myself from punching him and just stared murderously.
“What? Are you going to kill me too!?”
“Of course not! That’s exactly what I’m not doing!!”
“H-hey! HEY! What’s going on here!?” Berry arrived at our side, followed by the others.
“Guys, calm down!”
“Please! Don’t fight!”
“Why are you the ones fighting?”
“We’re fighting because Haell killed someone that was trying to surrender!”
“You don’t fucking know that!”
“I don’t because you killed her before she could speak!”
I huffed through my nose and fumed, until I forced myself to sit and calm down. The others had begun to heal him, and we both just kept quiet for a long little while.
Eventually, I spoke. “This isn’t a game, Therick. I have secrets to keep.” I pointed at my true eyes and my hooves. “And they chose to fight us. Really fight us. To the death. There’s no room for hesitation in war.”
“So what? Are you just going to kill everyone that knows?”
“OF COURSE NOT!” I roared, and found myself shouting again in response, but I really did not care right now. “You’re not listening. If she found out on accident, then I’ll just take the fucking loss. But if she found out because they forced me to reveal who I was by putting me in this situation where I have to fight for my life, then yes I’ll fucking kill them just like they were trying to do to me! To us!”
He stared at me, and shook his head. “You don’t even know that she knew about your secret. You’re wearing a helmet, she might just question her memory of the event, and your eyes could still be passed off as some material-enhanced mutation!”
“That’s not the point! They attacked first, they gave me a reason to fight for my life, so I had a plenty good reason to kill them already! There was no fucking reason to take the risk!”
“No reason!? She didn't even throw a single attack!”
That made me pause. “Really?”
“YES!”
“Well… it doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “She was probably still their spotter, at least. She participated. That doesn’t absolve you.”
“But you don’t know that! She could’ve been their slave for all you knew!”
“Oh, so what? Are you going to ask and make sure of all your opponent’s backstories before you fucking kill them? Just present your back to them to plant a fucking dagger into!?” I sighed. “I fucking abhor slavery, and I will kill anyone who dares to fucking do it. But I will never hold back on the battlefield, even against slave soldiers, just to get me and you killed!”
The glares faded from our eyes, and we just continued to stare at each other in silence.
“You didn’t do it for me.” Therick turned and walked away. “You did it for yourself.”
A tree shook, the world screamed like thunder, and my fist bled from punching a solid piece of fucking wood.