The Road Warriors
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If… if we didn't have the intelligence gathered from those [Spygems] I would have zero reason to refuse.
"How… how do you even know about that?" I turned around and asked with a scowl.
"I SMELL MONEY!" Sacha retorted with a shining grin, exposing three gold teeth.
I nodded. "That sounds legit."
Wait, how about… "How interesting. We just so happened to have captured a bunch of adventurers along with the bandits. They belong to the Poison Snakes group. How convenient that another group of adventurers are close by just in time to assist." I grinned.
"Ohh? That's alarming. Be careful about saying things like that, adventurers live and die by their reputation alone." The leader of the Steel Fangs looked thoughtful. "But that means bandits are going to claim anything to avoid being executed.
"If they're really adventurers, then you should bring them in anyway to be tried by the Guild."
That also sounded fair. If Monika didn't track a messenger pigeon leaving the inn, this would also be extremely convincing to me.
"Yeah sure. Come along then."
On the other hand, bringing along a whole troop of dudes who might backstab us was not exactly a problem. Because now the mayor and the town guard was a witness that the Steel Fangs had come along, so if we all died then someone would know who they should wreak harsh vengeance upon.
Unless they go back to kill the mayor and the guard captain and the innkeepers, but frankly killing all the people who notice you're killing people is the sort of silly plan that ends up with you losing your hat, and any plan which involves losing your hat was a bad plan.
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So the leader of the Steel Fangs and the second-in-command had their own horses. The rest of the group, all twelve of them, didn't have to walk but rode on three wagons. I noted they were armed mainly with short spears and war hammers. Upon reaching the site, the prisoners would be loaded onto the wagons. While it was cushier not to have to walk back to town, the extra time it would take to try and escape from a moving vehicle would make it easier to stop their attempt.
Only needing to walk half the way there was still pretty a sweet deal and the town provided use of their wagons for free. Adventurers were pretty good at not having to do any more work than they needed to.
It was still very dark, and the way ahead was long. The road was eerily silent and lit only by a hovering magic ball of light. The only thing to hear was the clop clop sound of our horse's hooves and their rasping breaths.
It was the perfect setup to just backstab someone. Sacha and I took the lead, while his second-in-command trailed right behind us on guard for any ambushes.
"So why are there even still bandits?" I had to ask. "If anyone that's reasonably fit with any real willingness to work hard can become an adventurer?"
"Well, you know how it is. You're an adventurer. You go take a request from the mission board. You go do that request. You come back with proof that you did it, and get paid. Monster beasts don't carry money. People carry money. It's a lot easier to just attack people and take their stuff, monster beasts fight back when they're wounded and can run away. Merchants just get scared."
"Ah. Greed and laziness. What a perfect combination."
"Did you know bandits look down on Adventurers? They think that just because they live out in the woods and fight monster beasts for their next meal, they're somehow better than people who have it their whole business to fight stronger and stronger monster beasts?"
"Ganging up on targets if they're even a little bit stronger than you, how is that much different to bandits?"
"Ganging up on things always works! How is that much different to how a kingdom does it?"
I laughed. "That's true. Cooperation is its own power. Though I suppose peasant mobs can't easily prevail against knights running them down."
And then a tense and uncomfortable silence returned.
After a while Sacha spoke up "Say… don't I know you from somewhere?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
"You're… Reflet's Red Chicken guy, aren't you?"
"Yiss." I pumped my fist in victory.
"… Why do you look so happy about that?" Sacha looked taken aback for a moment. "Last I heard, you're… what, Green Rank?"
"Purple."
"… Again, that doesn't sound like something to be so proud of…" Sacha murmured. "You're an adventurer too, don't you think you might be getting in way over head here?"
"Don't feel too proud about helping guards fight back against bandits. Killing monsters is different from killing men. Adventurers should not be fighting other people… if you want to do that, join the guards instead. Fighting monsters can feed you for a long time if you stay fast and smart… fighting men builds grudges and stains your soul, don't do it just to make money."
I blinked. "Should you actually be saying that to me?"
"I'm not even insulted you're so suspicious of me, boyo. That's a thing that'll keep you alive. Only staying alive matters."
I smiled thinly. "Then you should keep that in mind too."
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We found the prisoners tied up and huddled in a circle between the V shape formed by the two carriages. The problem with taking prisoners is now no one except Arma and Olga and Yumina were allowed to sleep easy. All the rest had to be alert for any attempts at breakout or ambush. The guards surrounded the prisoners in two layers – the Belfast guars facing inwards with their swords drawn, the Mismede guards facing outwards. Elze and Linze and Yae sat on the carriage roof, ready to bombard or punchsplode or spinslash anything that looked at them funny.
I could feel their tangible relief when we came into sight.
"Sir Zah, are these the ones who will take over the prisoners?"
"All of us will be moving to the next town. Lion Blitz, son of the General of the Royal Army Lyon Blitz, may I introduce you to Sacha Bogue, leader of the Steel Fangs adventuring party. Sacha, inside that carriage sleeps Olga Strand, ambassador to Mismede. Some time back she was falsely accused of a regicide assassination plot that would have left Belfast embroiled in civil war and opened the way for an invasion by Regulus."
"Uh… milord, should you be saying that?"
"People tell lies to protect themselves. The truth is a weapon. Deal with the new security formations, Sir Lyon. Mister Sacha, please come with me." I slid off the horse and approached the sullen prisoners.
The bandits glared up at me.
"So who are these jokers?" I asked aloud.
"We're da Black Mountain Bandits! You're going to regret this, ya idjit! We'll burn da town ta da ground fer dis."
The four more well-dressed adventurers were tied up together in a separate huddle. "So do you recognize these yahoos?" I asked Sacha.
"Not really. The Poison Snakes are a lot larger than four men. But if they are… my little bro runs the poison snakes, so…" Suddenly his boot snapped out kick one of the adventurer mages in the chin. "Either these guys are a bunch'a TRAITORS, or they're too incompetent to give the Poison Snakes a bad name."
The adventurer fell back, moaning through his bloody mouth. Another spoke up with "It's all a mistake! We're just scouts, we're not a part of these bandits!"
"If you weren't fighting with them, you wouldn't have gotten your asses beat," Sacha snorted. He turned to me and said "Adventurers wouldn't normally be working with bandits. Bandits don't pay."
Then he asked the Poison Snakes again "Where's the rest of your group?"
"Tracking down the bandit's hideout to attack them when they're away."
"You bastards!" screamed the bandits. "They're lying! They're da ones that talked to us about attackin' dis caravan in da first place!"
Sacha snorted again. "We'll sort this out with the Guild when we get back to town."
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So we set out in this formation:
Two Mismede horsemen rode up behind. In front of them was the first carriage, and on top of that carriage sat Elze and Linze. With the driver and the archer guard, that's a group of six to guard against things that struck from the back.
Then the three prisoner wagons surrounded by the walking Steel Fangs ahead of the first carriage. Four light cavalry riders trailed around them, ready to run down anyone that tried to escape.
Then the second carriage. On top of the carriage sat Yae and the other the Mismede archer, while Yumina sat beside the driver. Inside this carriage were Olga and Arma.
Sacha and I rode slightly ahead, the hovering ball of light above our heads lighting the way.
And I said "What could drive an adventurer to work with bandits? Obscene amounts of money? The promise of becoming house knight? I don't understand it – you said that adventurers live or die by their reputation. Why at all risk being nullified by the Guild?"
Sacha rubbed at his grizzled face. "Let me tell you something about being an adventurer. In the end, all you do is take up requests by people. All adventuring is about is making good money without sweating too much over it.
"Bandits are lazy and weak, but they make up for it in numbers. There are a lot of friends who party together to have fun becoming strong and having adventures… and they go home hungry because all the good quests are already taken.
"There's ranks of adventurers, and if you go too high you're not allowed to take the easy low-rank quests anymore. But if you have a good group, and remember that behind every request is someone who wants something done fast and cheap, then you can do a lot of quests really quickly and keep a whole lotta people fed. There are a lot of people who go all-out in being an adventurer just so they can stop being an adventurer."
It was still dark out. The only sounds were the night calls of insects and the rasping of wagon wheels and horse's hooves and the shuffling of feet on dirt. A bird call whistled out.
"The best adventurers aren't the strongest, but the ones who get patronage, right?" I asked. "Success is as much about who you know than what you can do."
Sacha moved his horse away a little bit and turned to face me. His beady black eyes bored into my opaque ones. "Adventurers betray each other all the time. So when you can find those you can trust as brothers, then nothing should be able to scare you from doing the best for them."
"… I should be more annoyed by that, except that's basic stockholder-centered profit management and I'm surprised a bunch of adventurers already operate as a cooperative." I stopped and raised my palm up. "I'll be honest with you – the reason I even allowed this is to ask you to work for me instead.
"Bandits are a convenient excuse to kill anyone inconvenient. But those who try to complete the mission after the bandit attack fails might end up being eliminated themselves as inconvenient witnesses. This shite goes all the way up to the King's own business. Are you sure you're not the one actually getting in over their heads here?"
There was the clattering sound of an incoming carriage. In the middle of the night? I glanced to the side. There was little room in the road for two carriages to pass side by side without moving the horse riders on the left side.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about this. But adventurers are more than just people who have Guild cards. An adventurer is free – and it's great to be rich in a completely different country."
From the forests, a lit torches were tossed out and group of archers showed. The Poison Fangs were known for their archery and their use of poison. Light cavalry horses were unarmored.
I sagged in my saddle. "Are you really sure about this? I am sick of people thinking they can just f-ck with Belfast."
"Adventurers shouldn't be patriots," Sacha scoffed.
Behind the convoy, the rest of the Steel Fangs ran out from the tree cover. There were around twelve more of them. The Poison Fangs numbered sixteen archers. They were quite pretty big for an adventuring group.
"How about this? Why don't you surrender instead, and I'll spare the women? Only one woman needs to die here. We're not monsters, we're not like bandits who r-pe and kill and not even in that order sometimes. We kill for money, but it's quick and clean and not much pain."
I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "Oh you're good. You know what you want and you're not going to regret doing whatever it takes to get it." I spread my arms out wide and shouted "But are you good enough to go against…. MY DIAMOND DOGS?!"
There was a sound like passing thunder, the distinctive sound of cavalry on full charge. The Steel Fangs blocking the back of the formation turned around to see a squadron of twenty light cavalry running at them with couched lances.
The Ortlinde Guards had been notified, [Boom Tubed], and been following just out of sight for the past two hours now. A magic stone [Encribed] with [Muffle Sound] gave them a modimum of stealth.
The incoming carriage accelerated, the horses whipped into a full gallop. The driver cut the straps holding the horses to the carriage and had them run off on their own, leaving the carriage still moving on its momentum to crash into the formation.
Sacha's spear swung at my face. My arms and body were still held arrogantly wide open.
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Flash.
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I was a Char. Of course that meant I was almost always wearing a helmet.
I was planning on just leaning back and letting the spear glance off the helmet, and then I remembered that this was a place with magic and innate powers, so who knows if they have some strange super piercing personal Null magic?
But I was also a leaf in the wind. I was already recoiling away from the strike, then my [Air Sense] detected that at the same time a poisoned arrow was about to hit me in the back.
Time seemed to slow down in a [Quick Time Event]. I ended up forcing my body all the way back that I ended up almost perpendicular to the saddle as if lying down on the air ready to just fall off. I watched the arrow pass by overhead, the head turning and its wooden shaft flexing in the air.
And Monika said /"Player! Battle is not the time to be playing around. People could die here from your pushing them into unnecessary conflict!"/
I smiled back. "Well then, I guess someone has to work even harder to save lives, right?"
Monika pointed at me and puckered her lips. /"You are poking my emotional triggers and I don't enjoy ittt…!"/
Then she stepped back and her figure blurred. She jumped off to the side. And to the other side. And to the other side. And again. Until six virtual clones of her sought to obtain absolute mastery of the battlespace. Her green eyes blazed with unnatural focus and intelligence.
And then time flowed naturally again.
Sacha flicked his spear and slapped away the incoming arrow. Bending over meant pulling my arms closer and straight against my body for balance. I pointed at him and whispered "[Shock Lightning]".
Fzhrak!
"Gabblagabblablaaagh…!"
Lightning shot out of my fingertips and slammed into his chest, blasting off his horse. The sudden crack and flash and heat frightened my horse and I was thrown off to land on my back to the rough pebbly ground.
"Ow."
"Brother!"
"Sir Zah!"
I tilted my head up to see an adventurer in a green cloak. From my peripheral vision I could see the oncoming wagon ready to run me over. Also from the other side, the lead carriage also hurtling to run me over. Yumina turned to command the driver, but stopped suddenly as Monika whispered into her ears to keep going and don't break the formation.
/"Inbound carriage, impact in four seconds. "/
I slapped my palm down on the ground. "Rise, Earth. Create a supporting column, [Stone Pillar!]."
Frumph!
A broad circle of the ground suddenly shot up, flinging the whole incoming empty carriage into the air. The [Stone Pillar] shot up at an angle, and sent the carriage spinning backwards.
/"Improvised projectile lands by the side of the road, no longer blocking the escape route while flying fragments disorient front area attackers for at least two seconds."/
Sacha's brother rolled out of the was just as the carriage slammed to the ground upside-down with a thundering crash.
/"Player rolls three turns to the right, lead carriage horses pass by safely in six seconds."/
Meanwhile, other things were happening at the same time.
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The group of adventurers at the rear, seeing the cavalry charging down on them, decided to rush to attack the rear carriage and get away from open ground. An adeventurer sprang onto the back of the carriage.
Elze was on top of the carriage. It was a great vantage point, but it also massively exposed. The only reason she wasn't a bloody pincushion full of arrows was at that immediately as soon as Monika confirmed hostility, Yumina cast [Darkness Wall] to obscure the view from both sides.
Elze, rather than jump down and maul them all single-handedly, threw down stones marked with flashbang magic enscriptions.
"Gyaaaah!"
/"Enemies disoriented momentarily. Commencing cavalry strike."/
Boom.
Boom.
[Boom Tubes] appeared in front of the charging Ortlinde light cavalry, and then they shot out at almost point-blank to the still confused group of Steel Fangs. Their lances were blunted, but at full charge they tossed people all around which way and trampled the rest.
/"[Continuous Diagnostic Sweep.] Laceration. Broken ribs. Broken ribs. Broken leg. . Shattered shoulder blade. Concussion. Cut and wound from dropped sword. Facial bones cracked. Broken arm."/
Monika monitored everybody's health condition. She performed [Triage] from most injured to the least.
/"[Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.]"/ She stunned and time-locked everyone that was closest to death.
[Homo Stasis] was a [Light] spell, and Monika was incapable of casting common elemental spells.
Monika's power was all the [Null] spells. But now that she could [Store] spells in physical spell stone matrixes, she could apply [Multi-Track] and [Extended Operation] into each of them.
/"I am going to save people from dying. No one dies because of me!"/
Screams of pain and terror rang out underneath a dark shroud.
/"Prisoners will attempt to break out. Enemies acting as guards in the center of the formation will attack. Separate and restrict movement via physical barrier."/
Linze flicked her wand up. "[Ice Wall!]
Two great slabs of ice slammed down on either side of the group of prisoners held in between the two carriages. The [Ice Walls] creaked and fell inwards, crashing together forming an upside-down 'V' or like a tent. The prisoners fell down in panic, thinking they were going to get crushed.
Linze shouted "[Ice Wall!]" again and sealed the openings on either end.
She began to breathe heavily, but she was still a long ways away from magical exhaustion.
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The Steel Fangs that were guarding the prisoners were thrown back from the crash of the [Ice Walls]. The Mismede and Belfast cavalry guards ran through them and leaving room for the Diamond Dogs to continue their charge.
/"Archer volley commencing, now that prisoners are less at risk of being accidentally hit. Disrupt cohesion by short-range ambush."/
Before the Poison Fangs shot out another volley, with murderous howls they were taken down by Silver Wolves striking from behind them under the forest cover.
They were adventurers and while they could deal with being attacked by beasts. "What – petrified?!" one of the Poison Fangs hissed as the Silver Wolf he had just stabbed had gone rigid and fell on top of him. He couldn't even pull out the knife anymore.
[Fera Stasis] worked the same way as [Homo Stasis], with the same important limit. Unlike [Sleep], it can only work on beings that have some form of injury. On the other, they were truly time-stopped and were immune to any further damage.
And then Yae and Elze were upon them.
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/"Pacify prisoners by placing them under [Stasis]. This requires some amount of injury."/
One of the [Ice Walls] retreated. The bandits and Poison Fang adventurers inside squinted to see Linze standing there, staring down at all of them with a completely emotionless face.
"Get her! Get a hos-"
Linze threw a [Flame Wall] into the gap.
And then there was only time for screaming.
/"[Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.] [Homo Stasis.] …!"/
Sacha moaned and shivered with still painfully flaring nerves as he slowly got back up to his feet. He looked up to see his brother and two other Poison Fangs fighting that strange red-suited masked young man. As should be expected, their weapons were poisoned.
His brother, Hacas, shot an arrow at the Purple-rank adventurer's back. The young man plucked the arrow out of the air with his bare (gloved) hands and stabbed it into the chest of a Poison Snake attempting to disembowel him. The taller, more muscular adventurer dropped instantly with a heavy *thunk*.
"You bastard! DIE!" yelled the other Poison Fang as he dashed forward with his sword out to stab.
/"Desperation fuels bravado to push aside fear. Becomes too fully committed to a strike. Evade and counter."/
The young man stepped lightly to the side and kicked out. The burly adventurer huffed and bent inwards as the kick straight to his abdomen flung him up and away backwards. He slammed into the ground foaming in the mouth and knocked the fugg out.
"Some… some sort of fighting boost personal magic?" Hacas hid his face behind a green bandanna, but his eyes showed only a keen, eagle-eyed discernment. "I have one of those too." He tossed aside his bow and took out a pair of green daggers.
"Did you all really think I was just lying?" that eerie young man sighed softly. "Lay down your arms. Or die."
Terror and regret rang in the pounding of his heartbeat. Sacha was coming to understand that he had underestimated this trap. Badly. But now he only had one concern – saving his younger brother from his own mistake.
"We are the Steel Fangs and Poison Snakes of the Unconquered Cliffs!" Hacas shouted back.
"I see only fear. And dead men."
"No. Nooooo!" Sacha yelled. He scrambled forward and raised his weapon to attack from behind.
Playa opened his palms out to either side.
Thoom.
Lightnining lanced out from his white gloves.
"Grabbble gabble gaaah!" both brothers sputtered out as they spazzed out.
And then they knew nothing more.
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And then it was done.
As long as nobody died, it was fine. We could heal almost anything.
Monika laughed silently. /"Aha. Ahahahaha. Ow. Oww. Overclocking that much even with cooling magic feels like a combination of an ice cream headache and too little sleep. But nobody died. Nobody dies! Not because of me...!"/
Not because of you. I will accept those sins, blame everything on me from now on. Be free, my dearest, be free. Surrender your evils, be free, be free.
The Mismede guards and Olga Strand watched with wide eyes as we stacked the bandits and adventurers beside the road.
"Are… are they dead?" Arma whimpered.
"No, they're just knocked out," Yae said with a small smile as she tapped the young fox girl's shoulder. "Don't be scared, Arma-chan."
"Milord, we had enough problems with prisoners from before… now we have almost fifty prisoners. What do you mean to do with them now?" asked Lyon Blitz.
"I'm going to remove them as a problem, of course."
Lyon looked at the men piled high. While he knew there were just magically held insensate, their rigidity really made them look like corpses ready to be thrown into a mass grave. "Do you mean… kill?" he whispered.
He took a deep breath and relaxed. Well they would end up being executed anyway. However, it would not be good to do it where the ladies might know about it.
I smiled thinly. "Worse. Much worse."
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Boom.
Crash.
"Tristwin, I said to secure everything breakable…" Duke Alfred sighed.
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Splash.
Sacha coughed and gasped for breath as the ice-cold water shocked him back to wakefulness.
He blinked and tried to move and discovered he was securely tied down to a chair with metal chains. He looked up and saw that smug masked face that would not feature in his nightmares. His men… his brother!
"YOU!"
"Me."
Fear hammered inside the veteran adventurer's heart. He remembered everything that I said about things being way over his head. The penalty for treason was death.
They gambled big, and they lost completely. He sagged in defeat.
He was inside a dark room. There was no telling how long he'd been unconscious. Hours? Days? At least he could see it was no torture room in a dungeon. There was only him, me, and Maldon. Inside a room with thick stone walls that muffled sound.
"I'm not going to be difficult. I'll tell you everything you want to know. Just please… my men, they didn't know. They were just following orders. I'll tell you whatever you want, but please – what happened to my brother?!"
I smiled thinly down at him. "Oh no. We don't need that. We don't need to interrogate you. Or any of you."
Sacha grimaced, preparing himself for pain. "What more do you want? You won! You want to make us an example…? We're just hirelings, who's going to care?"
I loomed over him and grinned. "Have you ever heard of the expression… 'wearing a wire?'"
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"The penalty for treason *is* death," said the King. "So tell me why I should offer any of them clemency?"
"We need to preserve our military strength, and adventurers make for some good light infantry and skirmishers. Execute all the bandits as you wish, but I'm interested in the practiced combined-arms tactics of the Steel Fangs and Poison Snakes."
"You can't trust adventurers who worked against this country already just for money. If they have nothing to believe in, they won't stand in the battle line."
"Send them to Zorah so she can break their spirit. They can work off their crimes in the defense of the border," I replied. "Make them her problem now."
I began to chuckle darkly. "And then – once they are thoroughly sick of her patriotic elitist nonsense, I will take them back and get them to fighting for me with a real purpose and good pay again!"
I threw my head back, put my hands to my hips, and laughed. "They will be so grateful or they will go back to die! Gwahahahahaha!"
The Duke stared blandly at me. "One day you will realize what you are saying to Lady Zorah of House Zenovivi and on that day I will laugh."
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Boom.
/"Player… I just realized something. Is the template for your mercenary company… COBRA? (1)"/
I turned away. "… I can neither confirm nor deny."
/"Absorbing competing armies is a time-honored trend. Mercenary companies and warbands have done this since antiquity. But I don't see how following Cobra Commander's example and making your battle cry "RETREEEAT!" is going to be of any help."/
"That's not the part that interests me!"
/"Is it the part for all his flailing incompetence, Cobra Commander is oddly charismatic and inspires strange loyalty in his terrorist forces who are technically supposed to be fighting only for money?"/
"Mmm. I can't be Big Boss or Solid Snake – I like to be seen out in the open and show off too much."
/"I"ve been trying to understand your memes, so I am familiar with these 80s cartoons you watch not just for irony, but for the vicarious experience of childlike innocence you never had. The Internet spoiled you with cynicism and perversions too early."/
Monika raised a finger and her expression brightened. /"But you know what else Cobra is known for?"/
I beamed back and waited for her answer.
/"Superweapons."/
I raised my fist to the heavens in an unspoken oath. Overcome a disparity in troops and industrial capacity with stealth, mobility, and special deterrence! "A weapon to surpass Metal Gearrr!"
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(1) youtube /watch?v=y_tEE41xJRw