Violent Strike

Roko was alone. He had heard Corissa trying to follow after him but evidently the forest's bewildering magic knocked her off his trail. He could no longer hear her chasing after him, even when he stopped to take in his surroundings. Brook had claimed it was night time now but the forest looked no different, its dark canopy blocking off any usual sense of time that Roko had. There was only the soft violet light that was never too bright to disturb their sleep nor too dark to hinder their travels. There wasn't any way that Roko could reach the hut on his own. But there was nothing left to do but try. So Roko continued to move in the direction that he had taken off in.

With no one around to chatter around him, Roko could feel a calm peace that one could only find in solitude. One that came with a sharp sense of guilt for abandoning his companions like that. Now he couldn't return unless they invited him again. Well, even if they never did accept him back, Roko was perfectly used to being alone anyway. Those last few words now ringing a bit hollow inside his own mind. Just as Roko was looking for a distraction, the sound of shuffling foliage drew Roko's attention to a thin wooden monster lumbering out of the shadows. A quick scan told him the monster was a Spriggan, a humanoid creature with a deceptively high strength stat. This monster breathed a labored breath that sounded like the cracking and creaking of wood as it marched towards Roko.

Roko drew his sword. He wasn't nearly as kitted out as last time. He had back on simple clothes with no real defense and his only weapon was a new sword from the armory. None of them really expected to get in much danger on this trip so preparations were more for camping than defense. Not that Roko had any of those at the moment. The spriggan reached up with a hefty fist and smashed it into the ground as Roko dodged his attack. The impact cracked the earth and shook the ground. Had it hit, Roko's head might've been crushed. But its movements were always initially slow. It would raise its arms in a slow manner, telegraphing its attack well in advance but when it moved to strike it was as fast as any other human.

"I'd love to see you actually try to do anything on your own!"

Roland's obnoxious voice echoed in Roko's mind. It was stupid of Roko to fall for Roland's provocation. He knew that. He didn't have anything he needed to prove. Especially when Roko was already fully aware of how he'd fight if he was well and truly alone.

When the spriggan next threw his punch down at Roko, Roko slipped to the side and stabbed his blade into the spriggan's elbow. The monster roared and stumbled back as Roko drew his sword back out. The wooden monster evidently did not have a wooden interior as dark red blood spurted out of its wound. Analyze discovered that the creature was more like an old man surrounded in wooden armor. Whenever it was parasitic or not, Roko didn't have the time to read as the spriggan threw another punch at him with its other arm. With another jab, Roko sliced into its elbow again. With both its arms now incapacitated, all the spriggan could do was roar angrily. But it wasn't enough. Roko swung around to the back of the spriggan and slashed into the back of its knees. With another slash, he cut the tendons at the back of its foot. The monster collapsed onto the ground, leaking blood onto the ground. It moaned, sometimes weakly, sometimes angrily as if it was trying to get back up but with its movements cut off at the joints, it couldn't do much more than wiggle on the ground angrily.

And with that the fight was over. Roko had sustained no damage and took little effort. All it took was crippling the spriggan to the point where it could no longer move. It was one thing to do this to a monster but imagining doing this to a human was the problem. A problem Roko didn't really have. Of course he naturally didn't want to do it and he's taken every step to avoid having to leave something in such a deplorable state thus far but if Roko was well and truly alone…

Screaming cut into Roko's thoughts. No screams that Roko's ever heard of, so not from Corissa or company. So someone new. But who could be this far into this forest? Turning towards the noise, Roko moved to head towards the distressed yelling only to stop and turn back around.

"Oops. Probably should put you out of your misery first." Roko said as he looked down at the disabled spriggan and raised his sword.

Roko reached the screams faster than he thought. It was in the middle of these dark woods that he discovered a pair of humans of all things. A middle aged man and woman crying out in horror in the face of a giant snake. Not nearly as big as the fake basilisk that Roko fought all those months ago but almost bigger than even an anaconda and with venom dripping from its fangs. None of them seemed to have noticed Roko arriving in the background and it was a good chance to end this fight as quick as possible. So Roko lunged forward with his sword swinging right at the snake's...neck for lack of a better term. The blade clashed against the animal's scales, making a shallow cut and failing to finish off the beast. But that was within Roko's calculations. As the snake tried to turn around to face him, Roko swirled his sword, wrapping the snake's body around the blade a couple of times before stabbing the tip into the ground. Bewildered and slightly dizzy, Roko placed one foot over the snake's head, pinning it against the ground as he pulled his sword against the snake's neck. Pivoting the blade against the base of its head where it could not escape, Roko swung up and decapitated the serpent with relative ease.

As the body of the giant snake fell off his sword and its blood spattered over his clothes, Roko turned to the stunned couple, "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yes..." The woman replied, too surprised to offer much gratitude, "T-Thank you for saving us from the snake."

"T-Thank you indeed." The man nodded enthusiastically, "We would've been dead without your help!"

"What are you doing in these woods?" Roko asked as he sheathed his sword.

"We...we were looking for someone."

"Who?"

"Ah...uhh..." The two shared one silent and anxious look before they turned back to Roko and replied, "We're looking for the hermit that lives in these woods."

"Really?" Roko raised an eyebrow, surprised at the coincidence.

"Yes! It's said that he can let us talk to the dead again!" The woman cried, "And we...we have people we want to make amends with that are no longer in this world."

"It's...a bit personal, please understand." The man nodded.

"That's fine." Roko replied, "I myself am looking for this hermit myself."

"Really?!" The woman gasped, "It's hard to believe such a coincidence but...why else would a human be in an elven forest, I suppose."

"I-if you wouldn't mind." The man said, "Would you help protect us until we reach his home? We can discuss our business separately if you want but if you could help guard us, we'd be ever so thankfully."

"Do you have a way to reach his home?" Roko frowned, "It's supposed to be quite hard to reach."

"Yes!" The man reached into his backpack, "We have a map!"

The man showed Roko a map that was more detailed than Roko expected but still didn't give him any sort of confidence on it's accuracy, "Are you sure it's authentic?"

"Yes!" The man nodded, "We got it from a reliable source back in the village!"

Roko sighed. He knew there was no chance these humans could reach the sage as they were but they had no chance of surviving if Roko wasn't there to protect them and well...there was a non-zero chance that their map could work.

"Alright." Roko agreed, "I'll protect you all until we find this hermit's home."

"Thank you so much!" The man and woman grinned, relieved, "We'll find some way to repay you!"

"You can repay me by getting me to that house." Roko replied, "Before any particularly strong monsters find us."

"Of course! My name is Alan. This is my wife, Olga."

"We'll be in your care, sir!"

"I'm Roko. I'll be relying on you to guide me. I'm not particularly strong myself."

For the next few hours, in this time muddling forest, Roko would follow the couple as they tried to track down this home. And time after time, monsters of all sorts would show up. Roko fought teeth and claws, wings and tails, poison and projectiles. Roko crushed their arms, severed their joints, slashed their eyes, cut their tails, and exploited every weakness he could find, every individual quirk and every flaw nature had left in the structure of their very forms. He fought until his opponents couldn't fight back and when they were left to bleed out on the ground, Roko ended their lives with barely a change in his expression. It was a terrifying process for the couple to view, especially when more humanoid monsters like trolls, goblins or gremlins would attack. Roko would sustain some injuries from his fights but he was always careful to avoid any serious injuries. After all, if he ever became unable to fight, these two would be left to fend for themselves again. It was the worst situation. If Roko was alone, he could at least try to die a more honorable death. Not that anybody would notice from his corpse but Roko could at least pretend to be a bit more human than he actually is. But with someone to protect that couldn't actually fight back on their own, Roko was forced to take every measure to defeat any threat on his own, drawing upon his own cruelty to do so. And in return,

"W-Wow." Olga gulped as Roko pulled his sword from the neck of a kobold, "Sir Roko, you are very strong."

"I wouldn't say so." Roko replied as he wiped a bit of blood from his face.

"No, you are certainly stronger than either of us. We were lucky to have met such a strong mercenary!"

"...I'm not a mercenary."

"Oh...s-such an honorable knight!"

Roko could tell she didn't mean her amendment. It wasn't like they weren't nice enough. They offered a sandwich to Roko once during a break but Roko found some rations in one of his pouch so he politely refused. As for their navigating...with the forest's peculiarities, it was impossible to tell if they were making progress or not. Truthfully, Roko had no confidence that they could guide him to the home but he couldn't just leave them now that he found them. And it wasn't like he had anywhere to go back to now.

Just when Roko was wondering how long he was going to have to guard them for, a light brighter than any other came into view. Highlighting a small cabin in the woods with purple flames floating around it. There was no sign to mark this destination but everyone knew they had arrived, much to Roko's shock.

"That's it!" Alan cried, "That's got to be the hermit's hut!"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I can't believe it!" Olga gasped, "I...I don't know if I'm ready yet..."

"Mr Knight, please, go on ahead." Alan nodded as the couple held onto each other excitedly, "We have to prepare ourselves!"

"...Alright." Roko said and he began to make his way towards the cabin.

And that's when the markers in his eyes moved and Roko rolled forward, dodging a swipe that nearly took his head off. As he rolled back on his feet, he turned to look back at the couple. Whose forms had begun to twist and elongate. Horns grew from their heads as they grew claws and fangs. Their clothes disappeared as their skin became a dark black and began to grow so large that their skin wrapped tight and thin around their bones.

"We drew so many monsters to fight you. You must be so tired now...human." The monster known as Olga cackled gleefully.

"We weren't expecting an appetizer." Alan breathed in an inhuman timbre, "But we couldn't let such a delicacy like you walk away before we feast on the hermit."

Roko looked at the two wendigos in front of him. Monsters that had, though ever so briefly, been his travel companions. And he drew his sword.

"Oh? Still got some fight left in you?" Olga sneered, "Or are you just foolishly brave?"

"Hahaha. I will start by tearing your arms from your body!"

Alan charged at Roko, arm raised to deliver a giant swipe at Roko's entire body. Roko lunged forward and stabbed his sword into Alan's mouth, puncturing his skull and killing the monster instantly. As Roko pulled the sword out, the monster's blood splattered over his arm and the remaining wendigo stopped sneering and looked aghast as Roko turned silently towards her.

"You...you would kill him?" She growled, "Just like that?!"

"I had expected this to happen eventually."

"Eventually? How? How did you know? For how long?!"

Roko looked at the data floating over his eyes that only he could see, "Since the beginning."

"You...you knew and didn't kill us?!"

"...Until now, you may have been monsters but you were...innocent monsters. I had no reason to kill you outright..."

And...for all his heartlessness...perhaps he was still too soft to kill something that looked so human.

"You scoundrel." The wendigo snarled, "Had you taken our food you could've become one of us! Why did you reject our invitation?!"

"...I'm...enough of a monster as is." Roko replied as he raised a hand soaked with blood from not just their former companion but almost every monster he had killed up to that point, "The only difference is that I'm still pretending to be human."

And he gestured for the wendigo to come at him. The wendigo roared and charged at Roko, swiping at Roko from a safe distance. Roko held out his sword and let the monster arm stab itself at the wrist. The wendigo cried out in pain but was already swinging her other arm at him. Roko raised his foot and caught the attack at the wrist again, pushing down on her arm as he pulled with his sword to swing the wendigo's own body to fall onto the ground underneath his boot. Roko slashed his sword out from the wendigo's wrist, leaving her hand hanging on by a small bit of flesh. He pushed his weight down on the wrist underneath his foot until he heard a crunch but the wendigo didn't seem to notice as she lunged forward, trying to bit Roko with her sharp fangs. Roko transferred his sword to his other hand and slashed out the wendigo's eyes. The monster roared in pain and fell backwards as she became blind. She tried to reach up to comfort the pain wracking her head but both of her damaged wrists had left her hands disabled. Now she heard hacking from the blind darkness that cut away at her elbows, even severing one of her forearms. The wendigo scrambled and tried to get away but Roko cut away at her ankles and joints again, leaving her debilitated on the ground. The monster who had never experienced such humiliation laid on the ground as she listened to Roko's footsteps walk around to the front of her once again. And once the footsteps stopped, she used all her strength to pull herself up and try to chomp down on where the human should've been. Instead a blade pierced her body, leaving her suspended in the air as Roko held her skewered body over him.

"How?" Olga croaked, "We were the perfect humans... How can you slaughter us like this?"

"...Because I'm alone."

Roko slashed, bisecting the monster and splattering blood all over him as the last monster fell apart besides him, dead.

For a moment Roko just felt like collapsing, his sleepless night catching up with him but he rubbed the weariness from his eyes. The cabin was still there in the distance so he at least could introduce himself. But as he turned away, the rustling of more foliage and familiar voices came into range around him.

"I swear I heard some noise over here!"

"Come on, Corissa, what are the chances it's going to be him?"

And from the darkness emerged the very party that Roko had left in what felt like a whole day ago.

"ROKO!" Corissa cried and immediately rushed over to hug him.

"Oh snap, it's actually him." Helena grinned as the rest of them arrived, "Damn, looks like you got in quite the fight."

"Corissa, I'm covered in blood right now." Roko said as he gently tried to pull the princess off him.

"No!" Corissa yelled as she clung to him even tighter, "Don't you dare walk out on us again!"

"She has been worried nonstop." Reaumur giggled, "Honestly, her worrying so much for us made us feel a lot more calmer somehow."

"You could've just called me, you know." Roko frowned.

"I tried calling you but you wouldn't pick up!" Corissa said angrily.

"You did? Oh you did. Oh, my phone's on silent."

"Why is it on silent?!"

"I don't know, I don't remember putting it on silent!"

"Roko, you're the worst! I hate you!"

"I'm fine! What were you worried about?!"

"Roko, buddy, you're not great at this." Brook snickered.

"Well what do you want from me?!"

"How about an apology for starters?"

"Okay fine, I...I'm sorry..."

"Not good enough!" A teary Corissa said as she continued to cling to Roko, "This is all your fault!"

"How's it all my fault?! Wait, shouldn't you be blaming Roland?!"

"Oh, we punished him already." Helena chuckled, "Don't worry about it."

"Can I have my hat back?" Roland frowned.

"Not until you apologize to Roko."

"For what?!"

"I'm gonna be honest, I don't even want his apology."

"There, you se-Wait, what does that mean?!"

"At any rate, we're right there at the old guy's home so let's just get there and be done with it." Roko sighed, "Let's go."

"Roko, you're covered in blood right now." Momo smiled, "How about you try cleaning yourself a bit before showing up looking like a horror villain?"

"We got a big of extra water from a nearby river back in our last camp." Brook explained as she threw him his things, "Go get changed."

"Alright."

"Corissa, you too." Helena added, "You're covered in blood now too."

"Okay..."

"Separately!" Roland cried, "You're getting changed separately!"

One quick wash and change later, Roko and company was standing in front of the hermit's door. There was a literal bell hung between two branches for visitors to use, a surprising accommodation for a recluse. Still, Roko and company rung the bell and waited for a response. A surprisingly young voice came out of the cabin in response, "Coming!"

And when the door opened, everyone was shocked to see a young female dark elf. A mere child compared to Reaumur and Brook who were equally shocked to see her.

"Uh...hello there." Brook quickly recovered, "We're here to see the old seer, Enlil. Is he home right now?"

"Oh, you guys are customers?" The dark elf said with a hint of excitement.

"Uhh...yes."

"Oh well then come on in, I'll get everything set up!"

"Uhhhhhhh..." Their entire party shared dubious glances with each other, "Sorry, we're looking for an elderly elven seer...who can preform divination..."

"Yep, that's me."

...

Momo whispered to Helena, "Does the dark elf process make people younger?...And change their gender?"

"Never even in the wildest and hottest elven novels have I ever read anything like that." Helena answered.

"What kind of books have you been reading?" Kaguya frowned.

"Wow, you have a big party." The young dark elf who identified herself as Enlil noted, "Come on in, I'll put out some tea."