After leisurely grabbing a bite to eat, I set out on my little "tour" accompanied by Suki and two more warriors, all of us mounted on expensive riding lizards…
Only to ride straight into an ambush barely five kilometers outside the town walls.
Just as expected, a gang grown arrogant from its own impunity couldn't possibly resist bait like this. And the ambush itself…
The road ahead was simply blocked by a tanned boy who dramatically emerged from the bushes, clutching a pair of hook swords in his hands. His tangled hair looked like it hadn't seen soap in weeks. Behind us, the retreat was cut off by five youths not much older—or cleaner—than he was, armed with axes and spears.
"Oh, look at that! Such an important bird has flown into our humble lands! A real official from the Capital itself! So then—have you paid the toll for passing through our territory?"
Spirits above, he was so painfully generic. You could practically stamp a label on him: Fantasy Bandit, Standard Issue.
"The leader is mine. Take the others alive if possible. If it gets difficult, kill them on the spot," I ordered. I had no intention of dragging out this comedy routine.
"We'll handle it," Suki nodded.
Then, instantly losing all interest in the hook-sword idiot dumbfounded by our reaction, she leapt from her lizard and vanished into the forest to the left. Her companions took the right flank.
That left the loudmouth and his friends behind us for me.
Jumping down from my mount, I smacked it across the thigh with the flat of my blade, sending the startled beast charging straight into the bewildered bandit ahead of us.
Now then, time to deal with the rear.
A true giant—well over six feet tall and possessing a face utterly unburdened by any trace of intelligence—swung a club at me. A second later, however, he found himself occupied with a far more pressing matter: trying to shove his intestines back into his stomach.
The clearing rang with screams and choking sobs.
"Pipsqueak! No!"
Oh, hook-boy had finally stopped being distracted by the lizard. Hopefully my mount was fine.
While he shouted, I managed to crack another shaggy-looking nobody across the forehead with the hilt of my sword, properly kick aside a child no older than eight or ten—who, despite his age, had attempted to drive a vicious-looking dagger into my groin—and dodge an arrow fired by some sniper perched in a tree to the left.
Now that had been close. If I hadn't noticed the suspicious sway of the branch, I might have ended up growing an entirely unnecessary decoration in my neck.
While evading the shot, I slit the throat of one of the two remaining bandits covering the rear with the tip of my blade, while the last one's eye made the acquaintance of my throwing knife.
That left only my conversational partner.
Actually, considering how he reacted to the giant's death… I should add a little fuel to the fire.
"Did I scratch up your boyfriend? My apologies..."
"You bastard! Spawn of those fucking Fire Nation bandits!"
A whirlwind of fury came crashing toward me.
The interesting part was that he handled those hooks at a genuinely impressive level. Even blinded by rage, his attacks remained powerful and dangerous. If Suki had crossed blades with him, I'd have had serious reason to worry.
But he wasn't facing Suki.
He was facing me.
The enemy focused entirely on skewering me with a hook—or at the very least catching my sword and disarming me. The problem was that my fighting style involved more than just swordsmanship.
A step combined with an upward burst of fire once again proved, as it had many times before, a complete surprise to an opponent too absorbed in swinging his weapons around. Reflexively, he lowered his hooks to shield his face from the wave of heat.
One slash of my jian...
...and the forest rang with another howl as the bandit's severed right hand, still clutching its hook sword, hit the dirt.
No… letting him bleed to death was certainly an option, but not a particularly productive one. On the other hand, there was no way to properly treat a wound like that out here.
Fine. If he survived, he survived. If not… no great loss.
Another wave of heat. Another scream turning into a drawn-out howl. The smell of burnt flesh spread through the clearing.
Hm. Still alive. Hadn't even dropped from shock yet.
Now all that remained was tying them up and waiting for the girls to return. I wasn't worried about them—a Kyoshi Warrior was an absolute nightmare to fight in a forest, especially for ordinary bandits, even with an unusual leader among them.
Ten minutes later, the warriors emerged from the forest as well, kicking their bound thieves and cutthroats ahead of them. They had managed to capture everyone. Even the tree-climbing archer had been knocked out of the branches by a thrown war fan, bringing the total to thirteen prisoners, plus three dead.
The fact that some of the captives were barely twelve years old bothered no one in the slightest. One of the things I appreciated about this world was the absence of all that liberal nonsense and universal-human-values drivel. These kids had been robbing travelers for years. Judging by how skillfully even that eight-year-old had tried to stab me in the groin, every single one of them already had experience killing people.
Even the kindhearted—and once somewhat naive—girls from Kyoshi saw these little flowers of life for what they truly were: bandits and murderers who had slaughtered both soldiers carrying out their duty and, quite possibly, ordinary travelers from their own homeland.
So there would be no leniency, no sentimentality, and no tearful speeches about poor unfortunate children.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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