Corpses littered the ground of the Mud End Alley. The youth's house was located at the end of it. The neighboring houses were eerily silent. Just moments ago, the village was full of vitality. This place was the first to be hit by the bandits. The one killed by the youth named Rain had stayed behind to find more loot.
Walking out of the now bloody house Rain paused to observe the alley. There was blood and bits of flesh everywhere. Hell seemed to have descended here.
Dreadful.
He wasn't overly attached to the village's inhabitants besides a few people. Still, he felt slightly low watching this mockery of human life. He was raised here. It was home. And those people, good or bad, he grew up with them.
His grandpa and he were considered outsiders in this village. Because of this, their relationship with the other villagers wasn't harmonious. Rain went through bullying growing up and his grandpa endured a lot of mistreatment. The simple villagers could be exceedingly cruel. They believed that Rain's grandpa was cursed. How else could his accelerated aging be explained?
At one point, Rain resented them heavily. But one day his grandfather said this to him.
"They aren't bad folks Rain, just a bit uneducated and ignorant. Don't forget, they accepted us (strangers) in their midst and gave us a roof over our heads. Although the adults don't speak well and the kids are bullies, we should still be grateful."
These words went through his head and Rain broke into a run. To save the surviving villagers he needed to hurry, bandits were reaping lives left and right.
'Grandpa would want me to save them. If I can.' he nodded to himself.
Soon, Rain reached the entrance of the alley, from here he could see a section of the main road. A woman was running barefoot, a little girl in her arms. Panic was painted on her face and the little girl was crying.
Rain paused and looked past the woman. A burly man with an obscene smile and a huge machete was casually following behind. Rain understood two things, this muscular man was playing with the woman, and could easily catch up at any moment.
Rain's grip on the ax tightened and he instantly regulated his breathing. His eyes narrowed and he hid in the shadow of a wall. In his head, he started counting. At 7, the woman passed by the alley entrance. At 12, without looking, Rain jumped out of the alley. He spun on his ankle and delivered a charged chop toward the burly man's neck.
Just looking at him, one could tell that Rain didn't receive martial training. Despite that, there was certain stability in his form. That stability was born from repetition. The burly man was an experienced martial artist. Normally, avoiding the blow or repelling the ax would be easy. But, somehow, he was caught off guard, the timing of the attack was simply heavenly.
Looking at the scene from afar, one would think that the burly man just threw himself at the ax. Following the rule of momentum, his head was neatly chopped and sent flying. Then, answering the call of gravity, the head drew an arc before falling in front of the running woman.
It would almost be comical if not for the gruesomeness of the situation. The woman stopped abruptly after watching a blur soar above her and fall at her feet. Her mouth hung open in a mix of shock and horror as she recognized the head of her pursuer.
She hesitantly turned her head backward but was greeted with the back of a youth disappearing in the distance. She stood dumbly for a moment before the cries of her child woke her up. Not wasting any more time, she sped toward the west gate of the village.
While running, Rain thought about the previous kill.
'The Chief was right, timing is everything while on a hunt.' A memory came to the front of his mind.
He was young at the time, only 8 years old. He had a job before he became a woodcutter. Rain was a servant boy for the Chief hunter of the village. Maybe because he was sensible or because he was good at serving him, one day, the hunter allowed him to follow on a hunt.
If he were to describe the whole process, Rain would sum it up in two words 'wait and kill.' Rain had only been good at one thing, and that was waiting. After all the first few weeks since he was born were spent waiting.
The thing that Rain learned in addition to his natural disposition in that hunt was 'Timing'. Being able to wait was good. Being able to grasp timing was even better. Although this was the first and last time he went hunting, the lesson was engraved in his head.
Who would have thought that the lesson would come in handy now? The difference was that it was applied to a different kind of beast, 'bandits'.
An hour later,
Rain stood in front of a corpse. His mind was blank as he was breathing heavily. This was the 7th bandit he killed. At this point, his body was covered with numerous wounds, deep and light. He had a knife wound on his thigh, his left arm was broken and there was a gash bleeding heavily on his forehead.
In the last hour, he had successfully assassinated 7 bandits. This battle record was remarkable for an untrained villager, especially a young one like him. It did not come easy. Each of those kills was strongly dependent on his ability to grasp timing.
He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep for three days, but he couldn't. He made a vow. He couldn't rest until all the bandits were killed. According to a kid he happened to rescue and his own observations, there were 12 bandits. Because of his rampage, only 5 were left.
Step.
Instantly, Rain's pupils contracted, and he ducked. Slightly raising his head beyond the empty wooden case, he saw a man walking with a serious expression. He seemed alert. The man had short hair and a huge scar from the corner of his lip to his left ear.
A bandit.
The man put his fingers to his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. He then paused and stood attentively. After a few seconds, his face darkened. Rain associated the actions of this bandit with the calls hunters made in the forest to grasp each other's positions.
As this association was made, his heartbeat skipped.
'He knows something is wrong.'
Almost at the same time, the man muttered, "Something is wrong."