part0019

It came quite the surprise when the female dwarf was the first one to speak up, meaning that she was the leader of this little gang.

His bravado was, of course, completely false. In truth, he was scared shitless. All of these thugs were of a higher level than him, and Aoife was the worst of them all. She was level 8 and unlike the dungeon boss, Bun Ni, had the intelligence to fight smart.

Sam couldn’t help but notice that none of them seemed to be casters. All of them carried some sort of weapon, which he found to be quite strange.

“I don’t want to kill you, human, but if you don’t comply with our demands, we’ll have no choice.”

“You literally said that you might let me live, just a moment ago,” Sam said, quietly signaling Gordon to prepare for an attack.

If they had the element of surprise, then they may just be able to kill one or two of the men quickly, and even the odds a bit.

“Fine then, have it your way. Just don’t say I didn’t warn…”

Sam lifted his wand, targeting the man on the far left and used Mana Burn. At the same time, Gordon shot forward, sinking his teeth into the man’s calf and making him cry out in pain.

The bandit named Trey raised his rusty looking sickle and ran right at Gordon, screaming in anger and fear.

Gordon disengaged right as Trey swung for him, then performed a maneuver that left everyone, Sam included, completely stunned. As Trey’s sickle came down, the dog did a perfect backflip, lashing out with one of his rear paws and connected with Trey’s weapon hand. The force of the kick wasn’t all that much, but Gordon’s plan became immediately obvious when Trey’s sickle bit deeply into his companion’s right arm.

The man screamed in pain again as Gordon landed neatly on all fours, then darted in and latched his jaws around Trey’s throat. He quickly jerked his entire body to the side, mid-leap, and his momentum carried him past the bandit. With a sickening, tearing sound, a chunk of Trey’s neck came off in the dog’s jaws. A fountain of blood sprayed across his heavily injured friend, who was still screaming in pain and clutching at the sickle lodged in his arm.

Trey took one stumbling step forward, then his HP hit 0 .

What the hell? How’d he get XP from Gordon’s kill? Sam wondered, as he raised the Basic Wand and used Mana Burn on the injured bandit.

Maybe his earlier thoughts about parties being automatically formed had been correct. If so, it stood to reason that the more he contributed to each kill, the more XP he would gain.

Sam turned his attention back to the dwarf and the remaining bandit, both of whom were staring at the other two in shock. Though it had felt like minutes, the entire scene had played out in only seconds.

Gordon, guessing what he was about to do, quickly leaped back and out of the way. The bandits only had a moment to react, before Sam closed the distance and used his most powerful ability. An explosion of blue energy washed out from him, sending the dwarf staggering back, and the human sprawling.

Sam wasn’t done, however. Quickly raising his wand, he used Mana Shot and Mana Burn, further reducing the man’s health by another 38 points. Sam was pleasantly surprised when both turned out to be critical hits and a second later, Gordon was on top of the man, tearing at his throat.

Sam reeled as the blow struck, leaving his head swimming with shock and pain. He crashed to the ground, blearily trying to focus on the numbers swimming before his eyes. Thankfully, it only took a few seconds for his eyes to focus and he was up on his feet as soon as the stunned timer ran out.

He found that his legs still felt a bit wobbly, and guessed that had something to do with his decreased Agility.

Sam looked quickly around, wondering why the dwarf hadn’t already finished him off. His question was answered a moment later when his eyes alighted on Gordon, who was holding her at bay. At level 7, Gordon was pretty close to matching her, but the dwarf still had much more power. He winced as a glancing blow, from what he could now see was a heavy looking mace, shaved 30 points off Gordon’s health.

Casting around for his wand, he was happy to see that it was only lying a few feet away. Wobbling slightly, he bent down to retrieve it. Suddenly, he heard a scream from off to his right, and his blood froze.

Snatching the wand from the ground, Sam shakily turned in the direction of the scream. His eyes alighted on the elf woman, who was kicking her feet and struggling against a filthy looking man, dressed much in the same way as the other bandits.

The bandit was cackling loudly as he dragged the unfortunate elf from her hiding spot and began tearing at her clothes. Thankfully, Milly had chosen to wear more appropriate clothes for the road and they were holding the bandit off, for now.

Sam’s eyes darted between the dog and the elf, trying to decide who needed him more at the moment. Finally, with a growl of annoyance, Sam turned to attack the bandit. Gordon could take care of himself for now. Milly could not.

The bandit had finally gotten a good grip on the inside of Milly’s collar when Sam’s Mana Shot hit him in the head. The man staggered back with a screech of pain and Milly took the opportunity to bring her booted foot up between the man’s legs. Sam winced as the man doubled over, howling in pain, and Milly kicked him again, this time in the face.

Sam watched in amazement as the elf girl beat the man until he fell to the ground. shouting all types of obscenities while she did so.

Never mind. It appeared that Milly was more than capable of taking care of herself.

He saw the level 4 bandit’s HP dropping at an almost alarming rate and had to wonder how the elf could dish out so much damage with only a few kicks. Then he remembered how much more damage the creatures in this world seemed to dish out when they were enraged, and it all made sense to him. Why the blue siren’s attacks had suddenly gotten stronger; why all those bunnies in the dungeon had dished out so much damage; and why Milly’s basic attacks right now were knocking off such huge chunks of the bandit’s health.

The elf woman punctuated each word with a kick, that knocked off more than 5% of his HP with each jarring blow. Finally, she stopped, panting hard as her entire body shook with adrenaline. The bandit was sitting at about 10% HP, so Sam didn’t think he’d be bothering them anytime soon.

Slowly approaching the elf, Sam placed a hand on her shoulder. She whirled on him, fist cocked back to deliver a punch that would probably hurt. A lot.

“Sam?” The rage seemed to melt away from her then and she sagged, Sam only managing to catch her at the last moment.

Her face was drawn and her eyes were watering at the corners, as though she couldn’t understand what had just happened.

“You’re alright,” he said, pulling her into a hug and holding her tight. This was partially to give her support, but also to keep his eye on the bandit over her shoulder.

He felt Milly begin shaking against him and had to wonder how someone so much older than him could act like someone his age. He had to wonder how old Milly was by Earth’s standards. After all, he’d never actually asked how the calendar worked in Somerset.

It didn’t take long for Milly to calm down, maybe a minute or two, but by the time she had, Sam’s debuff had worn off. Pulling away from him, Milly wiped her large eyes, sniffing lightly and looking more than a little embarrassed.

“There’s no need to apologize,” he said, patting her arm lightly. “The world can still be harsh, even to a seasoned person like you.”

Sam wanted to find out more, but the loud crack, followed by a whine of pain from Gordon, brought his attention back to the battle.

Sam looked back to the man, who didn’t exactly look as though he’d be getting up for a fight anytime soon but nodded all the same.

Milly had a bit of trouble keeping up, but luckily, they didn’t have far to run. As Gordon and the dwarf came into view, Sam felt his blood run cold for the second time that day. Gordon’s HP was dangerously low, and he was limping heavily on one foot. The dwarf didn’t look too good either, but her HP was still at around the 40% mark.

Quickly reaching into his pack, Sam pulled out a Healing Herb and handed it to Milly.

Sam then turned his attention back to the dwarf and used Mana Burn, sending the ball of flaming mana into the dwarf’s chest.

The dwarf staggered back from Gordon, and Sam fired off another two spells, Mana Shot and Mana Burn . Sam saw, out of the corner of his eye, as Milly ran over and bent down near Gordon, placing the Healing Herb in his mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry for not just rolling over and letting you kill us, your highness!” Sam said sarcastically, lifting his wand again and preparing to finish the dwarf off, rules be damned.

Sam half turned to see what she was talking about, when her heavy mace went flying past him, missing his head by inches. His eyes widened as the haft of the weapon caught the bandit who’d been sneaking up behind Milly, clutching a dagger in his hand. The bandit staggered back under the force of the blow and Sam was quick to finish him off with a Mana Burn.

Sam managed to swipe away his notifications just as the dwarf reached him. His eyes widened as she closed the gap, and he did the only thing he could. Pulling his arm back, he punched her straight in the face.