Equan let an arrow loose, letting the force plummet into the skull of the fourth kobold.
He had killed four of the humanoid creatures with the skull shape of a canine.
Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself.
There were still six or so more resting behind the large trees of The Dark Forest.
The cold wood of the tree was scraping against his back as he trembled from exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Bandit was sitting atop one of the highest branches, snacking on an apple and laughing every time that Equan messed up in any way.
Over the last week Equan had ventured into the cursed forest alongside this stranger, and still couldn't put a finger on who he truly was.
The man was incredible, his skill was even more so.
He could sneak into some of the most heavily guarded places in Vallmora and get away with it. While also possessing powerful strength in battle.
Reaching back, Equan realized that his arrows were completely gone.
'Damn this guy.'
Laughing at the top of the giant tree, Bandit continued to holler with laughter while dropping arrows from his hands.
He was persistent, Equan would give him that much.
With a quick pull, the boy tightened the strap of his arm guard and burst toward the first kobold with a reinforced suit of armor.
Sliding underneath the attack from its spear, he reeled back and struck the beast with the arm of his bow.
In point blank range, he quickly yanked the string back letting his energy flow into the longbow.
A zap of lighting completely obliterated the skull of the kobold, but Equan had to move fast.
Bending backwards as quick as he could, he pushed off the slow falling body of the kobold he had just killed and launched himself in the direction of the next one that had already begun moving toward him with two small daggers.
Equan landed next to it, and went to sweep the legs with a kick but was greeted with a terrible pain the moment his shins struck the beast's.
"Crap."
A dagger swung down toward his head, which Equan evaded barely as his back lie on the ground.
With the beast directly above him and swinging savagely, Equan had to think quick.
Bandit must have been smirking from the top of trees which only angered him more.
He dropped his bow and grabbed the snout of the kobold, pulling it down to the ground next to him.
Then before it could swing the dagger at an even closer range, Equan grabbed its right hand and squeezed, while at the same time letting electric energy flow through his body like a capacitor.
The dagger dropped and would have impaled him in the sternum had he not swiftly snagged it out of the air with his own hand.
Then he turned on the beast as quick as humanly possible, jabbing it in the eye with the small blade.
Ripping it out, he jabbed it into the kobold's throat just for good measure.
Turning around, he spotted the last two of the hound-like monsters.
Taking a deep breath he grabbed his bow off of the ground and charged both of them.
Jumping in the air after a short sprint he quickly shot a bolt of lighting straight down, incinerating the left arm of the one kobold and knocking the other into the grass.
With a swift swing, he struck the heavily injured kobold in the face, and quickly turned onto the other thrusting it with the tip of his bow as hard as he could.
On the ground in the distance, he spotted one of his loose arrows.
But first he had to kill the two kobolds.
Grabbing the injured one by its good arm, he pulled it down onto its knees, and grabbed the dagger from the small pocket on his chest.
Then pierced its skull with a powerful strike.
The other one had already recovered and was charging at him with a sword.
Equan ducked underneath of the horizontal slash, sending a low kick at its knee.
The beast recoiled backwards and panic slashed at Equan's face.
As blood trickled down from his nose he rushed forward, slamming into the beast with his shoulder.
Summoning more lighting, he grabbed the beast by its snout and let out a terrible shock of energy that killed the kobold on the spot.
Breathing heavily, Equan looked around and just before he thought he could rest, an arrow shot past his head, missing it by an inch or two.
Without any second thoughts, he sprinted toward the loose arrow and felt another shoot past him as he ran.
Reaching low while in full sprint, he grabbed the arrow and turned in a moments notice, knocking, pulling back, and firing in the direction that the arrows had came from.
Normally he wouldn't have struck with such little intel; however, the kobold had peaked out to fire another arrow from behind a tree just as Equan let his own arrow fly.
"Dead."
He muttered as the beast fell backwards with a thud.
"BRAVO!"
Bandit yelled while clapping his hands together.
Then he jumped down from the very high branch and landed with such grace that you would have never even known he was there.
He walked over to the body of one of the kobolds and poked its flesh.
"Weird."
Equan knelt down not too far away and let himself recover stamina.
"Why are there so many of them?"
Bandit shrugged.
"Not sure, but we have ran into about a hundred now. Which means that something is coming, I bet I could make a fortune by notifying the guild hall about this..."
"What do you mean?"
Bandit must have been grinning behind the mask, because he looked up with an evil glint in his crimson eyes.
"They will request a hunt by all guilds, which means we will have a large scale battle on our hands soon. I'm willing to bet the kobold chiefs will rise from their caverns and try to intercept some merchants on the road or something... Or maybe even attack a civilization."
"And that means?"
"Bounties..."
Equan tilted his head.
"You are one greed bastard..."
Bandit shrugged.
"Money buys a good life here in Vallmora, just doing by job as the Bandit bounty hunter..."
With that, they carried on in there search for the lesser goddess of the moon...