The bandits didn’t hear us coming. They were way too drowned in the sounds of their own making to even try paying attention to the surroundings. By the time they saw us, the archers had already killed three of them. After that, the remaining nine of them rushed forward with their weapons drawn, and cut off the bows of the archers first.
All of the members of our group grabbed a random enemy and pushed them back to the wall, trying to make way for the ones who were going to follow. Sylvia grabbed two of them with her magic, while a larger one of our group did the same with his hands. Once they were mostly subdued for the time being, the rest of the groups ran through the entrance as quick as possible, and split up to go to their decided locations.
The ones who were moving towards the route Typhen and I had taken earlier were the only ones who were sure of what they were doing. The ones moving in the other directions had to map out the place and formulate a plan on their own, based on the layouts. It was already decided that Jillesha most probably wouldn’t be in those places, so these groups did not require the strongest fighters. Those groups were, thus, led by Typhen and Kaisel. The archer had had some problems with being given a group which wouldn’t be present in Jillesha’s range, but Ginzari promised him that they would stay Jillesha’ execution until he was present there.
Once Kaisel had entered the cave and given us a thumbs up for good luck, our group let go of the bandits we had been holding, and all of us took our weapons out. On my first trip here, I had thought that the corridors of the cave were huge. The rooms were also sized appropriately. But now that there were more than sixteen people in the same room, with their weapons drawn, the size came into perspective. My conversation with Sylvia came into my head, and made me smile. There was no way all of us would be able to fight properly in this one room.
Nobody made a move. The seven people on our side, and the nine on theirs, seemed to be guessing which opponent they wanted to fight for now. I had already gotten the names of the people I was supposed to defeat, so I just needed to know whose names those were. If the same went for my six companions, then they were probably itching to know the names of these bandits too. We needed to find some way to do that if we wanted to get out of this alive. Otherwise, even winning and killing a random opponent could mean death for two people at once.
“Which one’s Sylvia?” One of the bandits growled.
All of us turned to him, and Sylvia stepped forward, speaking, “You all too? Alright, let’s separate as we must, then.”
One of her hands began to glow white, and the same small sword as the hospital appeared in her hand. Her other one started to get a faint hint of red, but she didn’t raise it yet. Her opponent screamed as she came towards her with his arms raised. Sylvia tried to dodge and slash him, but he grabbed her throat with one of his hands and ran out of the entrance with her. His screams slowly faded out, and their fight moved on to its own battlefield.
The fourteen people in the room began to stare at each other. And then, one by one, the bandits called out the names of the opponents they had been given, and those pairs moved away to different locations, usually beginning their fight midway as they ran. In the end, three bandits, one mercenary, and I remained. One other person had already gotten two opponents, and two out of the remaining three would be mine.
“Ryworn.” One of them called out.
“Let’s go. Who’s the other one?” I asked, readying my sword to block if the first one attacked, “Also, please tell me your names.”
“Dayer.” The first one gave me his name in an accent I hadn’t expected. The stress on the ‘y’ was much more than I thought it would be.
Another one of the two remaining bandits ran towards the last mercenary and threw him to the other bandit before turning to me, “Rok.”
That one was pronounced exactly how I expected it to be.
The third bandit grabbed the last mercenary, who immediately took out his spear and stabbed his palm. The bandit groaned and kicked him in the face before throwing him away to the other end of the room, where he hit the wall and fell to the ground.
“We’re staying here, I guess.” I looked at my two opponents. Rok looked like he was much stronger than Dayer. But I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up that difference in my head for long, since I did not have enough time to let their physical distinctions set in. Other than those, they used the same weapon, so my major source of understanding them was blurred between the two. I would have to treat both of them as the same person for now, and think about changing strategies between them only when the fight had been up for a long time. The book I had read was coming in handy.
Rok ran towards me first. His nature was aggressive. He hadn’t taken out his axe yet, which suggested a high level of confidence. I slashed the air, purposefully faster than needed, and rolled to dodge his hand. Once I stopped there, I turned around to hit his leg, but he jumped away and took out his axe. His study of me seemed to be over already. I flipped my sword to better suit his weapon, and tried to look for openings.
Reminding me of his existence, Dayer jumped in headfirst with his axe. He looked like he was in a hurry to end this fight. I jumped forward, moving closer to Rok, to dodge the direct attack with the axe. His weapon got stuck in the ground, and he took a second to pull in out. By that time, I rushed Rok, who seemed to have been spectating for now. He blocked my straight attack with the handle of his axe and pushed me away, but I maintained the grip on the floor and slashed once more, only to be blocked. The handle was definitely getting chipped at, though, because it had two visible cuts on it already. He couldn’t use it to block forever.
I slashed once more, pressing forward, but before Rok could block, a dagger came flying right towards my face. I pushed my upper body back while keeping the momentum of the sword intact. The dagger pierced through the edge of my forehead, leaving a cut. But Rok hesitated due to the move, and his hand slightly turned. My sword hit the back of his wrist, and left a gash there. Keeping my head moving backwards, I flipped away from him and moved a bit to the right to keep both of the opponents in my sight.
Rok was busy looking at and understanding the depth of the cut on his wrist, and Dayer occupied me in the meanwhile. He moved forward with his axe drawn once more, forcing me to get ready to dodge again. I looked back for a quick second and noticed that the pillar containing the torch of the room was close by. I ran back, keeping my eyes on him and right before he reached me, I went for the torch with my sword still up.
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His axe reached my edge, and my one hand wasn’t able to handle the entire impact. The entire hand bent down and the sword got closer to my chest, being pushed further by Dayer. I turned back to my original position with the torch in hand, and bashed it into his face. He shouted and his push got weaker. I attacked back, parrying his axe, and finding an opening to quickly slash once more, vertically through his torso. But right as I got close to his neck, I stopped and jumped back. Because right from his back, Rok had appeared; using his other hand to wield the axe.
Had my attack to his wrist been that bad?
Anyways, Rok missed his attack, while Dayer handled his own injury for now. The exact words of the directions came up in my head. I was just supposed to ‘defeat’ these two. There was no need for them to die. Just go out of commission. Rok rushed in once more, but I had no particular strategy ready in my mind. So, I just blindly swung my sword to block his attacks, which kept on coming relentlessly. Even with his other hand, he had managed to keep up the same strength as his first one. Right then, as I was getting used to his patterns, he threw the axe to his other hand, and completely changed the trajectory of how he had been attacking me till now. Thrown off, I tried to keep up, but he managed to get to the side of my stomach, starting to tear in.
I felt the blade enter my flesh; cut through it smoothly, but I brought my sword in to stop it as soon as I could. With all my strength, I pushed back at it, using my second hand after some time. But Rok’s raw strength was much higher than mine. I shouted, trying to pour in extra energy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t push him back. I did, however, manage to stop his axe from moving further in. Consequently, though, I was pushed away by the sheer force of his arms, flying straight back to Dayer’s position, who let me go right past him and hit the wall behind him. I fell to the ground, and pulled myself up.
Some blood fell out of my mouth. If I could just know the exact time, then it would be safe to switch to magic, but the chances of the unmonitored time having started were very low. Dayer turned his torso, covered in blood, and tried to attack me. At the same time, Rok also moved in. I raised my sword to counter, the first one first, but Rok managed to catch up to Dayer quickly. The fight at the camp flashed in my mind. They wouldn’t expect this exact block, so it was worth it. I kept the sword in its original position and tried to calculate their speed. Surprisingly, Rok would probably end up reaching me first. Perfect. Right as he was about to, I twisted the sword to be behind me, and used it like a dagger once more, blocking the attack from the wrong side.
The change in form probably stumped them, because Rok’s attack did not seem as powerful as before. Kicking them would do nothing, so I just settled with using my sword, whose tip was pointed straight towards Dayer’s shoulder for now. As he was buckling due to the block, I pushed my sword forward, jumping ahead myself for extra force. It tore right through his shoulder and stayed there. I pushed it to the left to get it out of there, and once more, used its momentum to move away from the two. I heard Dayer shout behind me, and turned my entire body when I was far enough.
Dayer’s axe had fallen to the ground, and the arm that he had been using to swing it till now; the one I had cut the shoulder of, seemed to be dysfunctional. I sighed with relief, but then the update after that was much more reassuring.
Stage Directions (Day 31) –
MAIN: Witness – Before You Embark on a Journey of Revenge, Dig Two Graves
SUB: Defeat Rok
One down.
My sword still raised, I got ready to deal with the second opponent, but then something unexpected happened. Rok rushed forward without thinking, and without aiming his weapon. I hesitated, getting ready for another trick, and sidestepped to make sure that he wouldn’t be able to get him easily. His right arm was coming straight for my face, which made me panic.
I ducked to avoid him while slashing my sword. I shouted as I did. Then, silence followed by a loud thud.
Rok had run straight into my sword, and cut his own neck.
Why?
He had no reason to throw his life away like that. In fact, he was clearly stronger than me. He could have defeated me without any issues, if he kept attacking like always. Then why did he just…
The directions did not update.
I heard a loud shout and looked to the other end of the room. The mercenary who had been fighting the other bandit fell to the ground, and his entire body collapsed into itself, leaving nothing but a large splat of blood all over the walls.
I had been wrong. Killing the wrong person did not cause two deaths. The one killing only had the limitations of direction. The one who failed to kill their target would be the one who would be punished. By indirectly killing the man who had been calling himself Rok, I had killed that mercenary too. This is what the man’s plan had been. But the question was whether he knew what he was doing.
There was a chance, yes, that he knew. But the chances of the entire bandit camp being filled with people like Jillesha was low. Most of these people had to have been here without choice, as confirmed by the one who had killed himself in our own camp, in front of me. So, if it hadn’t been Pseudo-Rok’s choice to do this, then he had been given directions to do it. The bandits had been given the wrong directions by God. The wrong opponents.
I looked at the bandit who had been fighting that mercenary. Was that Rok? The real one? Maybe. Just like always. But it wouldn’t make sense. Because it wouldn’t be bad enough. God was watching this himself, after all. Something so simple for someone like me wouldn’t be enough. If it were God, he would plot something much more sinister.
The whole plan suddenly clicked in my head. The bandit kept running towards me, shouting with anger; his sword raised. And I ran the other way, straight to the corridor which led to the entrance.
If I killed the bandit, I would kill Sylvia. And if she killer her bandit, she would kill me. That was it. There was no other way to look at it. Directions or mistake, what Rok had done had been helpful to figure it out. I kept running through the corridor until I could see the flames dancing outside. The bandit behind me was catching up. I shouted and ran up, trying to attract her attention.
“He’s not yours!” I screamed my lungs out as I jumped out of the cave and rushed to the man she was fighting.
This was a gamble I was willing to take. Either killing this man would kill Sylvia, or save the two of us. That fifty percent chance was worth it, for both of us. If she died, then I would just have to live with it like always, but the idea of me killing her while not even meaning to, would probably make God happier. If I was ready for it to happen, then it just wouldn’t be the same.
My and Sylvia’s eyes met, and without a hint of hesitation, she turned her focus to the one who coming behind me.
“Him?” She asked.
“Most probably!” I shouted, swinging my sword up to cut right through the sword arm of the man, who was shocked by the development.
Right then, Sylvia poured the magic into both of her hands, and send a large ball of fire towards the bandit who just stepped out of the cave. Faced with the fire, he burst into flames and fell to the ground, shouting.
My brain was overloaded for a second, and I got on my knees to, sweating as I looked at the man in front of me. Quickly, I looked at Sylvia, but she was fine. I sighed with relief.
Stage Directions (Day 31) –
MAIN: Witness – Before You Embark on a Journey of Revenge, Dig Two Graves
SUB: Find Kaisel
It worked.
Somehow, it worked.
She sat down on the ground too and looked at me, “Kaisel?”
I nodded. She smiled and thanked me before turning back to the cave entrance. I took a long breath before pushing myself up with my sword and walking behind her as we entered the place once more, with the new directions.