Looks Can Be Deceiving

Kies, Wompa, and the rest of Nell's squad, along with herself, arrived at the destination in a couple of minutes. They found the entire place destroyed with stalls all over the ground and a bunch of bodies on the ground.

"D*mn, they have the guts to pull a stunt like this so close to our headquarters... How did none of us find out about it earlier?"

"Some did. It's just that they didn't make it back," Nell nudged a body with her corpse. It had the same clothes that the guards were and next to it was a broken sword.

"F*ck... We really need to teach them a lesson."

"We have been trying this entire time. They're far too slippery for us."

Kies really didn't understand why the army wasn't doing anything about this. The so-called 'thieves' were practically terrorizing the city and yet the army didn't deem that as a big enough threat to worry about. How many people did they have to kill until the army finally made a move? Kies counted that there were at least forty bodies here on the ground. If this happened every time that they robbed people then the body count was definitely somewhere in the hundreds by now.

"Stay alert. They're still here," Nell told everyone. The blood was fresh and hadn't dried yet. The thieves were still nearby and were hiding. They were probably waiting to ambush them and so they needed to keep their eyes out for anything suspicious.

"Hey, that child is still alive!" a guard spotted. He pointed at a boy lying on the ground in front of them. He was reaching out to them and calling for help.

"P-please help. I don't want to die." The boy's face was filled with terror. He looked no older than ten and yet the thieves were showing no mercy to him.

The guards rushed over to him but Nell grabbed the two closest ones and pulled them back. "You idiots!"

"What are you doing captain!? He's dying!" The guard pointed at the boy's stomach which had a knife in it. Blood was coming out of his stomach and he didn't have long before he bled out. He needed to be treated quickly.

"It's a trap! Why would they leave any survivors!?"

"Even if it's a trap, we have to do something!" the guard argued with her. "Are you seriously going to let him die!?"

"I beg you, please help me!" The boy pleaded again for the guards to save him.

"Sorry captain, but I can't." One of the guards swatted Nell's arm out of the way and rushed to the boy!

"Hey! Come back now! That's an order. Stop! D*mn it!" Nell chased after the guard and the rest of them followed behind her.

Kies continued to keep his eyes on the boy while they ran and caught him reaching for something behind his back. Kies raised an eyebrow, unsure what the boy was doing, but suddenly an arrow flew out of nowhere and hit one of the guards.

"Ah!" The guard fell to the ground and everyone stopped in their tracks. It took them a second to process what just happened. In that short span of time, the boy jumped up to his feet and charged at the closest guard, and stabbed him in the stomach with something.

"Wha-" The guard didn't understand why the boy was doing this. He took a few steps back and then fell onto the ground with a knife sticking out of his stomach.

The boy laughed and stood up to reveal his real height which was around the same as Wompa's. He then grabbed his face and pulled off what seemed to be a layer of skin and threw it onto the ground. "What idiots. If only you listened to your captain." It wasn't a boy at all. This was a grown man who was just very short and had a childish voice.

Nell mumbled a curse and turned to the rest of her guards. "Retreat- Gah!" An arrow hit her shoulder and she buckled over in pain.

"Captain!" The guards surrounded her and the other two fallen guards and drew their swords.

Kies looked up at the rooftops and spotted a hooded figure with a crossbow loading up the next shot. He quickly grabbed a spikey fruit from a nearby fruit stand and threw it at the figure. It hit them square in the face and caused them to drop their crossbow. Kies ran over to the building and grabbed the crossbow as it slid off the roof and fell into his hands. He then grabbed the arrow that fell with it and loaded it.

*Twack!* Kies fired the weapon at the thief that deceived them. The thief raised his arm to protect his chest from the arrow, resulting in his arm taking the blow. "Argh! F*ck!" He pulled the arrow out without any hesitation and bolted off behind him.

"Catch him!" Kies shouted at the guards. The thief was injured and he was an easy target. He started to chase the thief without waiting for the guards to respond. He wasn't sure if they would listen to his order or not. The answer was probably no because they had to treat their Nell and the other two guards. Kies looked back up at the roof behind him and saw that the other thief had already escaped. He looked forward again and saw that this thief was also getting away.

Kies threw the unloaded crossbow at the thief and it hit him on the back, but it bounced off and didn't slow him down at all. The only thing that it did was make him grunt in pain when it hit him. This wasn't good. The thief was going to escape if this kept up. Kies wasn't used to running on sand so he kept slipping every so often. It was either that or his shoes were not made for this terrain.

"Winds," Kies called upon the winds to aid him in catching the thief. A layer of wind enveloped his body and he found himself running faster.

The thief glanced back and saw that Kies was catching up to him quickly and cursed. He then looked around the rooftops and Kies did the same in case some of his buddies were still up there and were waiting to ambush him. "I got one chasing me! Help!" the short thief shouted at seemingly no one.

Kies couldn't spot any of the other thieves but he knew that he had to be careful. The thief was almost in his reach and Kies reached out with his hand to grab the thief when something flew down from the sky and exploded in front of him, scattering sand into the air and sending him flying back. Kies managed to land on his feet and slid back across the sand a little. He looked around for the thief but couldn't find him anymore. He was gone.

"Tch..."

"Where's the thief!?" The guards finally caught up with him and asked about where the thief went.

"He escaped," Kies told them.

"We heard an explosion. Did the thieves do that?"

"Yes. Something exploded in front of me when I was about to catch him and he disappeared," he explained what happened.

"So they did steal the explosives... This isn't good..."

"They what!?" Kies wasn't sure if he heard that right. Did the guard just say explosives?

"Their true objective wasn't the stalls and shops here. We discovered that there was a caravan delivering gunpowder for the fireworks. It was being delivered for the tournament in two days but they somehow found out about it and intercepted it. We're in trouble."

"How are Nell and the others?" Kies asked them. If they were here then what happened to the other three? Were they fine or were they dead? Nell was probably fine since the arrow hit her shoulder and she had armor there to block it, but Kies didn't know about the other two guards. They weren't as fortunate and the two of them took arrows to the chest and stomach respectfully.

"They're being treated. All three of them will be okay. We are lucky that the arrows weren't poisoned. Anyway, we should head back. The other guards will take it from here."

"Got it."

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