Seen in that light, one might think that Dioh was a scheming potato, yet I knew that this was not the case. The hot headed teen had merely acted on his impulses with not much scheming to speak of.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this second sneak attack of his forced the Third Chief’s hand. Whether it was to prevent a loss of face, to prevent a loss of face or even just to prevent a loss of face, this bandwagon wasn’t one he could easily disembark from. If he didn’t teach this brat a lesson now, how was he to survive in this dog eat dog world of his?
“You mangy brat! I swear I’m going to kill you!”
Screamed the bandit dead set on punishing Dioh. However, there was no way that George, as his elder brother, would allow this to happen; so the battle between three-stars began for real.
While the Third Chief still suffered from injuries gained during the previous fight it didn’t hinder him one bit. Instead it stoked the flames created by the numerous provocations he endured today. Fuelled by rage, the bandit abandoned any attempt at defense and instead went on a reckless rampage; which ironically gave him an unprecedentedly imposing aura.
George on the other hand still hoped for a peaceful resolution in order to avoid the possibility of the bandits attacking their hamlet. They were after all, the weaker party in this confrontation. Should the bandits ever break through their defenses, the entire village might get massacred in order to set an example.
Even if by some stroke of luck they manage to avoid such a fate, the entire hamlet would still end up as the possession of the bandits; while the villagers would become slaves for them.
Thankfully, the situation hadn’t worsened to that extent. The Third Chief had only sustained some injuries and wasn’t dead. That meant that there was still a chance to settle this amicably. As for those small fries who died in this attack…did you honestly think that a bunch of immoral thugs would care about the death of their subordinates? Stop kidding yourself.
Compared to the Third Chief’s increasingly fierce display of power, the uninjured George seemed to be gradually losing ground. At least that was the impression he gave as he was forced into a purely defensive stance.
Logically speaking, George should’ve been a lot stronger than the Third Chief. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that he showed us his violent style of fighting where he ruthlessly hacked the bandits to death.
And yet he seemed to have become significantly restrained in front of the Third Chief; did he take some laxative by accident or something? Did he have a sudden tummy ache?
Either way, this situation seemed to have no connection to us at all.
The bandits tried to help out their chief, yet as they stepped forward, the hunters raised their bows and immediately pointed their arrows at them. With their morale shattered from before, they swiftly caved in to the threat of the bows and backed off.
George continued his passive stance as before but in the face of the Third Chief’s furious slashes, his defenses began to show signs of collapsing. From the looks of it, he would lose in another 10 moves or so.
As for Dioh, I honestly did not know what to say about this kid. For some reason, he seemed dead set on starting a feud with these bandits.
The kid stood there with his bow drawn and his arrow aimed right at the Third Chief, and yet he didn’t fire it off but instead merely kept it locked onto the bandit. “Hey you thieving bast*rd, I got my arrow locked right onto you so you better watch out!” Dioh shouted that reminder out as if he was afraid the bandit might forget about him.
As his long blade knocked the passive hunter back a few steps, he took the opportunity to sneak a glance in the direction of the taunting voice. The veins in his forehead bulged as his anger boiled over from the kid’s obvious provocation. To think this kid actually dared to point an arrow at him while he was busy fighting George in a one on one!
Having been pushed past the brink, the Third Chief swung his long blade out as hard as he could, forcing the three-star hunter to the side. “YOU DAMNED BRAT, EVEN IF IT KILLS ME, I’LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!” He bellowed at the kid not caring if this action ended up exposing himself to the hunter.
Before anyone could react to his words, he charged at the bow-wielding teen with a mighty kick of his legs, leaving the hunter behind as he focused his attention on his young nemesis.
Kid, did you practise your taunt skill while you were in your mother’s womb or something…
Yet before he could hack the offending teen to death, his long blade was blocked once more by George who managed to circle around him despite his earlier dash.
As expected, George was the stronger of the two. In the face of the Third Chief’s furious attempt on Dioh’s life, George didn’t dare to hide his true strength anymore. Which reminded me, how many times has this kid been saved already?
When you think about it, this pair of siblings worked pretty well together; one taunted while the other blocked as if this was a well choreographed play.
Naturally, the Third Chief didn’t think this way. It was one thing when you were the one watching the show, it was a different matter altogether when you were the one being watched; especially when that show involved you being shot at time and time again without being able to retaliate.
The bandit withdrew his long blade and gave the hunter a long pointed stare. He finally realized that harming the kid was impossible as long as this fellow was here. Then the question arose in his heart, who was more important? Dioh or the hamlet?
“Good. Very good.” Having no way to vent his anger, the chief laughed instead. However, it was a laugh that had a bone-chilling coldness to it. He pointed his long blade at Dioh before turning a hateful gaze onto George as if he was an injured serpent: “I’ll give you two choices. One, let me kill him.”
Having a blade pointed at him naturally ticked the teen off who immediately tried to draw his bow once more. Unfortunately for him, his brother had seen through his intentions and promptly knocked the bow away before giving the immature teen a reprimanding glare.
However, this bit of infighting wasn’t enough to satisfy the Third Chief whose face was just as icy as before: “Two, you let me kill off everyone in the hamlet.”
“You dare!” Dioh mustered the angriest face he could manage but was swiftly overpowered by the booming voice of George.
“SHUT UP!”
He deftly confiscated all the weapons he could find on Dioh; a short blade and another hunting bow. Without any care for his brother’s feelings, he tossed the weapons at the Third Chief’s feet and tried once more to negotiate: “I promise he’ll avoid you from now on…”
“There’s no need for that!” bellowed the Third Chief with his eyes bulged and his face as red as blood.
“This brat has tried to kill me several times now and yet you protected him each and every time. So I take it you want him to live? In that case, pay for his life with your village!”
“Is there no room for discussion?”
“I’ve said my piece, if I take it back now, how do you expect me to survive in this field!”
With that, he demonstrated his unyielding stance. Like the man said, after being shot at by Dioh multiple times, if he couldn’t even take care of the brat, how did you expect him to live this down?
“Is there truly no way to settle this peacefully?” George persisted with his pleading but the Third Chief wouldn’t have any of that. The gauntlet had been thrown down and there was no way he would withdraw it now. Not to mention the fact that they seemed to be on equal footing in terms of strength; at least that was how the Third Chief saw it.
From George’s deliberate display of weakness, the Third Chief had determined the personality of this hunter. Despite his impressive strength, he was the type to sacrifice his own interests for the majority. It was this personality that gave the Third Chief the audacity to dole out such harsh terms without any regard for George’s will; especially with the powerful backing he had.
With his boss, Dawson backing him up, the Third Chief wasn’t the least bit worried that George would dare to attack him for real. Killing those small fries was merely a minor issue that could easily be settled with money. However, if George were to kill him, a chief of the Wolf’s Fang, that would start a blood feud between the village and them.
“Sigh…” Having failed to persuade the Third Chief twice, it seemed like he had no choice but to choose between those binary options…and yet just as I thought he would do so, he struck out. In the space of that sigh, he did something that stunned everyone into silence.
Knowing that he couldn’t change the chief’s mind, there was only one option left to him since he didn’t want to sacrifice his little brother…he went all out.
As that sigh left his mouth, his short blade flashed out. With a ruthless swing of his arms, he sliced the man apart from his waist up to his neck. A second later, blood gushed out from that horrific gash, threatening to suffocate the hunter in a bloodrain. However, George was more than ready for this; his Fighter’s Aura activated long before the crimson droplets could touch him and instantly expelled the fluid.
So quick…I barely had time to register that flash of steel before the chief died a horrible death.
“Third Chief!”
This sudden turn of events left everyone staring at the hunter in disbelief including me. Up until now, George had been extremely accommodating, going so far as to isolate us in order not to cause trouble for the village. I had assumed that he was terrified of the bandit troupe, yet when driven into a corner, he killed the Third Chief with a single swing of his blade…this disparity was truly frightening.
However, my shock was nothing compared to the bandits whose morale seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. The shock from seeing what was in their minds, an impossibility, was nothing to scoff at after all. Even after his cold lifeless body collapsed to the floor, the bandits were still too stunned to process the sudden change…that disparity was just too much.
Now that their leader was dead, the bandits naturally fled back to wherever they crawled out from. At the side, I gave Ancarin a look that said “why does it feel like we had turned into a bunch of side characters?”
From the time that fellow came looking for trouble, we had gone through a round of fighting, followed by negotiation, followed by another round of fighting, after which we negotiated once more, and then he got murdered…if that sounded confusing, you aren’t alone in thinking that.
“Big..Bro?” Ignoring the fleeing bandits, Dioh turned to his brother with a shocked look on his face as if he couldn’t believe that his brother had such an unyielding side to him.
“Mhm.” He grunted in response to his questioning look before turning to face the three of us, or should I say me. He stared emotionlessly at me for a good while before he said in an understandingly impolite tone: “Why all this happened is no longer important, there’s also no way for us to chase down those fleeing bandits now, so news of me killing Doran will definitely reach the ears of Dawson. At that time, I hope that you’ll…help us defend the village.”
“Sure…no problem…” I nodded to show my complete support for his suggestion that definitely wasn’t any way motivated by his terrifying countenance…
Next came the task of tallying up the casualties. The bandits were roughly as strong as the hunters since their longer weapons gave them a slight edge. However, thanks to their three-star shirking his responsibility and leaving us to fight Doran, the hunters ended up scoring a decisive victory over the bandits who didn’t have a three-star aiding them.
In actuality, melee combat could be summed up as a battle of morale. Once one was able to suppress the other with their morale, the end result would be a crushing victory for one side.
Take for example our recent battle, the hunters suffered 9 deaths with 7 others being severely injured and 31 others being slightly injured. As for the bandits, they lost 11 wolves and suffered 36 deaths with 12 of their members being left behind due to their injuries.
Naturally, there was no need to guess what happened to these bast*rds. Leaving them here would just be a waste of food and medicine so the hunters threw them into the wilderness to fend for themselves.
With that settled, next came the question of how to deal with the bandits’ counterattack…but before that, there’s something I had to do…
I don’t know why but…I have a tummy ache right now…
