Chapter 39: Arc 3 – Chapter 2: Ambush

“Aaaaaagh!”

 

The road towards the southernmost city of the Argodian Kingdom, Llorden, is usually well maintained and kept free of danger by frequent patrols. Yet, on this day, a large caravan along with a high class carriage was currently under attack by a large group of assailants.

 

“Grrr… We’ve lost another! Has there been no sign of anyone receiving our distress call yet!?”

 

The young knight who appeared to be in charge’s call for concern was reasonable. It’s been almost an hour since the attack occurred, and yet there was no sign of the frequent patrols despite them sending magic signal flares requesting aid.

 

“None sir! The scouts have yet to see any response flares!”

“Damn it all! What the hell are the patrols doing!?”

 

The knights and the guard escorts were getting desperate. In the wake of the initial attack, they’ve already lost a good number of men. Their attackers were skilled and coordinated, implying that this was a planned assault.

The guardsmen were skilled enough to keep their assailants at bay, but with the initial attack and exhaustion taking its toll along with the enemy having more than double their numbers meant that their time was running out.

 

“Captain! Look out!”

 

Just as one of the men called out, one of the assailants broke through their defense line and charged directly towards the Knight Captain. Despite being caught unaware, the skilled Knight Captain was still able to move in time and parry the dagger strike, however, the attacker was just as skilled and managed to use the momentum of the parry to turn and strike with another dagger hidden in their other hand.

The enemy being too close, the Knight Captain’s balance was broken when he tried to avoid the first strike so he couldn’t retaliate, and seeing the dagger closing onto his eye, he could only grit his teeth in regret for having failed his mission.

Time seemed to slow as the dagger came down. Not wanting to close his eyes, he felt himself staring at the face of death, as the dagger slowly grew closer almost touching his eye until… *schuck* *THUD* … it disappeared.

A few seconds passed as he continued to stare at the space where the dagger had been. He also heard a loud thud as it disappeared from his view, but he was still stunned wondering what was going on.

He also wasn’t alone in the act, as every single combatant came to a stop and stared at the source of the loud noise as if something large smashed onto a rock. Staring at the cliff wall at the side of the road, they all saw one of the “bandits” stuck to the wall impaled by a large spear. Or it appeared to be a spear based on its size, but the strangeness of it was that the spearhead is elongated to the point it took more than a third of the entire length, making it look more like a thin lance. The strangest part was that the back part had feathers sticking out on its sides implying that the large impaling implement was an arrow… an absurdly large arrow.

 

For a short while they stared at the arrow and soon turned to the direction from whence it came…

There it stood atop a wagon on a hill… a horned humanoid wielding a great bow.

The scouts and those with good eyes were shocked as they clearly saw its features. Bronze scales and dark horns along with a reptilian face and tail peeking from its behind – a Scalekin; an enemy of the races of Paluvia.

 

…

 

‘Heh. Looks like I got their attention.’

 

It was a pretty close call when that guy decided to recklessly jump at one of the knights. The fact that he willingly broke through enemy lines alone without a care for backup just to take a stab at the knight who looks like the leader shows how determined these guys are. They’re definitely not ordinary bandits.

I wanted to use my gun to gain maximum attention, but the distance and how close that guy got made it too risky. However, now that they’ve stopped and looked towards me, it seems they’re getting ready to attack this place too.

 

“Mr. Kholdrum, now that they’re heading towards here, I recommend you all to stay in the wagons until I clear them out.”

“That’s fine and all Camus, but why’d you suddenly take out that thing?”

 

Sheesh. It seems he’s not even willing to acknowledge my gun as a weapon. Since these guys are all small fry as confirmed when I scanned them all with [Status], I don’t need to use any of my ‘named’ weapons. I do, however, want to prove my gun isn’t as useless as he thinks.

 

“Of course, it’s to confirm if my recent adjustments helped to improve its performance overall. Seeing their number, this is the perfect opportunity to test it out.”

“… Camus… lad… I understand what I said earlier musta’ hurt, but there’s nothin’ much more ya’ can do about that thing. That thing’s faulty to it’s base so there’s really nothin’ ta’ improve about it. Now please put that away before ya’ hurt yerself.”

 

Geez, just how much lack of faith does this guy have towards my creation? He even started talking to me like a kindly old man trying to talk down a thug into giving up his gun. Hmph! I’ll show him.

 

The enemies are getting close so I aimed just like I practiced and started shooting.

 

*BANG**BANG**BANG*

 

I fired three times and saw my bullets hit their mark. The power in this thing is no joke as the first guys who got hit exploded into blooming red flowers. It didn’t stop there as it tore apart several more people that were following them from behind.

Surprisingly, they didn’t get shocked or stunned even though I just killed several of them in the blink of an eye and are still running uphill towards us. Just what the hell are these guys?

I aimed once again and just as I sent in mana and pulled the trigger – *BOOOM*

 

… the gun exploded in my hands… DON’T SAY IT!

 

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“… sigh… I told you so.”

 

GAAAAAAAH! He just HAD to say it! Fuck this! No more games!

I pulled out a double-ended glaive from the ring and spun it like a staff. I chose a weapon that was meant to deal with multiple enemies while surrounded so anyone can pretty much guess what I plan to do next.

 

“GRRAAOOOOOOON!”

 

I roared as I leapt into the fray. One would think I could have just shot them from the top of the hill whittling their numbers while they were still far off, but I am so pissed right now that I just want to rage to my hearts content!

Another surprise was that for some reason, a number of them stopped moving the moment I roared, and it also looks as if those that were stunned are shaking. Does my roar have some sort of effect after all?

Well, whatever… rampage time!

I skewered a few with the glaive as I landed then twirled it once to shake off those attached to throw them onto the others. With that as the start, I twirled the glaive stabbing and slashing those that were close. I attacked them while in a wild dance to keep them in disarray as I kept picking them one, two, or three at a time. Whenever many got too close at a time, I swung the glaive while holding one end in a wide arc to keep them away then resumed my slaughter. Every now and then I would grab one with my tail and swung them like a mace smashing them onto their allies, or used it like a whip to smack several away.

This went on for an unknown amount of time, but when their numbers became low, a change occurred.

Suddenly, the remaining ones all jumped back as three black cloaked ones surrounded me as they attacked. Looking like a bunch of reapers with their full body black cloaks, they ran in circles around me while they struck every now and then. I couldn’t tell what their weapons were since they were hidden within their sleeves, and they struck so fast I could barely see the attacks coming. Worse still, the attacks were very sharp and precise, that if I didn’t have my scales, my body would have been riddled with holes right now since I couldn’t block a majority of them.

I’m honestly stumped. I’m not really threatened since their attacks can’t hurt me, but I’ve never had to deal with enemies that focused solely on speed. If it was only that, then I’d be able to keep track of them, but they’re skilled enough to actually utilize my blind spots when moving about while in coordination. It seems I still don’t have enough actual combat experience to deal with this.

Sure, I can take them out if I used one of my weapons of mass destruction or my fire breath, but there’s a risk that I might take out Kholdrum’s caravan or the other caravan downhill… that and it won’t help me learn some restraint in order to not end up relying on those super weapons too much. After all, I only have one left as a hidden card since I’ve belatedly realized how foolish I was in revealing so many of them during my time adventuring with Ellen’s party. Who knows if there were more enemies back then that were hiding while scouting me out as I revealed one thing after another.

Not that I regret my actions towards the end with Ichaival, but I definitely didn’t have to reveal the others like that boomerang or that I can change my equipment in a flash. After all, I’m still supposed to be chased down by those Dark Gods, though the fact that their agents have yet to reveal themselves (I think) up to now have made me complacent thus leading to my current conundrum of lacking hidden cards to play.

Anyways, back to the fight at hand, it seems the enemy has decided to back off a little when they realized they couldn’t do anything to me. One of them even tried using some sort of powder and threw it at me, but other than giving me an annoying gritty feeling like having chalk powder on my skin, there really isn’t much else it did. Poisons don’t really work on us Dragons unless it’s the poison of another Dragon or some other creature of the same level, which I seriously doubt these guys would be carrying. Looking as if they’ve come to a conclusion since they nodded towards each other, they turned towards the direction of their original targets and started rushing downhill.

Well, I somewhat expected this outcome if they weren’t able to find a way to hurt me. However, whichever action they chose didn’t change my plan.

 

“Wheet-woo!”

 

After I called out the signal, Fenril immediately struck them from the side! …or rather he was supposed to, but after a few seconds he somehow managed to jump out and catch up to them.

Having the same body structure as a wolf, he has access to their speed and agility, if not more. In a flash, he tore out the throat along with the head of one of the cloaked individuals after he took them by surprise from behind. He now stood in their way while snarling to keep them at bay.

 

[Why’d it take you a few seconds to react? Didn’t we agree that I’d whistle once it was time?]

[Err… My King… you said whistle but… what was that?]

[… I forgot I didn’t have proper lips, alright? So I had to improvise…]

[Urr… alright…]

[Just keep them preoccupied!]

 

Please spare me from any more humiliation! This has been getting more and more frustrating!

Anyways, now that these two can’t move, time for some interrogation.

 

“You can’t run, so now… what!?”

 

Before I could even finish, the two suddenly swayed and dropped to the floor unmoving.

‘Did they just… kill themselves?’

I immediately thought about the ways certain members of dark or underworld organizations tend to act when confronted with the possibility of being caught. To choose to immediately kill themselves was the first thing that came to mind, but… do they really do that? Wasn’t this too rash considering they fought me to a standstill? Or perhaps Fenril’s pressure was greater than I expected?

To confirm my suspicions, I got closer while being careful of traps. Taking out a spear and poking one of them on the side until I drew blood, they still didn’t react.

 

[My King, I smell poison coming from them. It seems they died.]

 

Well, that confirms it. Looks like I’m not getting anything out of them other than spoils. I checked their bodies for anything useful and found some knives, needles, small bottles and tools, but nothing that seems important that could serve as identification or the sort. They didn’t even have weapons that were worthy of note.

One of them was middle-aged man with scars and grey hair, while the other one was a beautiful Bunnykin woman. Such a waste… not that I was thinking of doing anything to her, but some part of me always feels terrible whenever I see a beautiful woman dead. Can’t be helped since she’s an enemy though.

While all this was going on, it seems the other party was finally able to rout the remaining attackers. Without their leader, it seems the enemies were no longer as coordinated as they were in their continued assault.

After some time, the enemies were all either eradicated or fled. No prisoners were caught since the enemies were quick to kill themselves whenever one was captured.

Now that things seemed to have settled down, I decided to head on over and check up on them but…

 

What greeted me was the familiar sight of having spears, swords, and arrows surrounding me and pointed in my direction.

 

… Welp, time to have another bloodbath!

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