Rescue: The Killing Begins

Holding the knives on his sides, he began to take a step forward and with that step, a small speck of a golden colour seemed to spark alight in his eyes as he began to rapidly increase his pace and before a second could pass, he had disappeared charging into the smoke that had now filled almost the whole village.

"Let's clear the left side then, Vom…" Shoma mumbled as he looked up, gaining eye contact with Vom who began to turn to encircle the left side of the village.

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, relaxing his whole body while reaching by his thighs where a small bag of arrows was sticking out. He pulled out an arrow and slowly set it on the bow.

His eyes then suddenly shot open with a speck of purple as he abruptly lifted the bow, pulled on the bowstring with the arrow nocked, and seemingly aimed it right into the smoke before letting it go.

Fwomm! (Epic arrow flying noise)

"What the hell is this smoke?" a bandit exclaimed as he immediately brought his arm over his mouth to not inhale the smoke, desperately trying to hold his breath. However, he instantly began to panic as he realised that he held his breath at the very end of his exhalation.

In a few seconds, the gas began to spread all around him. The bandit's face began to take on a wonderful shade of purple as he determinedly kept his nose and mouth tightly shut.

'I CAN DO THIS!'

'I need to quickly escape from this smoke!'

The bandit immediately began to run in a random direction, in hopes of escaping the smoke but as he took his fifth step, he tripped over a rock.

Falling had caused him to forcefully let go of his hand from his nose and the impact was quite hard, causing him to involuntarily take in a deep breath.

"Noooooo!" the bandit screamed out as he realised that he had inhaled the smoke, "I'm only 25!! Why God why!!"

'This must be one of those silent killer poison gases…' the bandit thought as he realised that he had no issues with breathing and felt no pain. He then closed his eyes as he raised his arms outwards as he gave up hope, waiting for the poison to lead him to lose consciousness.

One second… Two… Five… Ten…

The bandit's left eye slowly opened as he observed around, thinking that he had arrived in the afterlife, but he quickly realised that he was still in the same place.

"Eh?"

He looked around and saw that the smoke had completely encapsulated him, allowing him to only see the ground where he was kneeling. Realising that the gas was not poison, his panic quickly quelled as he let out a strange sigh of relief.

"Hahahahaha!" a roaring laughter echoed out from behind the man, startling him. But what he heard next, ruined his mood.

"How can you be so f*cking stupid?" another bandit laughed out loud, "Do you think a village could possibly afford enough poison gas?"

Hearing this, a wave of realisation hit the bandit as the cost of a batch of poison gas was not something that a mere village could afford.

'How stupid of me,' the bandit berated himself for not thinking clearly. Anger quickly replaced the embarrassment that he felt as he shouted, "So you think that it's funny? To humiliate a bandit like myself by throwing in a smoke bomb and making me think that it is poisonous?"

The bandit then got up with an incensed expression as he unsheathed his steel sword from his waist and began walking in the direction where he remembered the last house was.

"You all better get ready up there! Gobi always pays back his trespassers a thousandfold!" the bandit spoke as he began to see the silhouette of a house, an evil smile beginning to form on his face, "When I get up there, I'm going to take my time torturing you… Hahaha! I hope you have a wife and kids. I'm going to let you watch as you slowly lose all your loved on-"

The sudden sound of something gliding across the air could be heard and in that instant, Gobi, the notorious bandit who had a kill count of two and was known as a disappointment to his parents, had suddenly stopped speaking, not completing his sentence.

The sound of something heavy falling onto the ground quickly followed.

Hearing Gobi's voice abruptly cut off, the surrounding bandits thought that he had tripped again and began to laugh out loud, "Hahahaha! This dude has some peculiar affinity with rocks!"

However, after not hearing anything from Gobi's side, the rest began to grow concerned as they heard the sound of something dropping as well. They began walking in Gobi's direction and soon saw him slumped flat out on the ground, blood rapidly flowing right out as an arrow had embedded itself right into his neck.

Seeing this, they all immediately unsheathed all their weapons, keenly observing their surroundings with their one-metre line of sight. One of them got down, cautiously observing Gobi's body…

"There's no other wound on his body! It was a single clean shot!" the observing bandit proclaimed and turned around to face the others.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Two successive whistles of something flying through the air could be heard as two arrows seemed to suddenly appear out of thin air.

Puchi! Puchi!

The heads of the two bandits who were standing next to him immediately slumped backward as the arrows struck them right in the forehead. Without even being able to make a sound of distress, their lives had been taken, quickly and silently.

Witnessing the sudden death of his mates, the doubts of the bandit were confirmed. Warning the surrounding bandits, he shouted "IT'S AN ATT-"

But he was quickly cut short as another arrow appeared and struck the bandit on the chest, striking right at the heart, killing him almost instantly.

However, his abruptly interrupted exclamation was heard by all the bandits in the area. Immediately, the bandits began to vigilantly move around, now knowing that there was something going wrong. But the thickness of the smoke did not help much at all with protecting themselves as they were still unable to see the attack coming.

Shortly after, all across the left side of the village, a succession of whistles and slumping sounds echoed through the smoke.

Shoma was currently standing on the roof of one of the houses, his arms constantly pulling out an arrow and unleashing it as each hit their target.

'I'm running out of time,' he thought as he started to see the smoke slowly begin to dissipate as the silhouettes of buildings and people slowly began to appear.

"Up there! He's up on the roof of the houses," a voice suddenly shouted out, alerting Shoma as a bandit that was pointing at him came into his line of sight. He immediately pulled out another arrow and shot the man but as soon as he finished shooting, the sound of wood rattling could be heard as he began to see many bandits beginning to climb up the houses.

But despite seeing over fifteen bandits slowly appear from the smoke that was now dissipating into the village ground, a small smile appeared on Shoma's face as he pulled out two arrows, "It works better for me now that you are all closer now."

Outside the village elder's house, an old man who was cowering on the ground, seemingly trying to protect his midsection, was being kicked by the bandit leader.

"Tell me! How many men do you have?" the leader asked angrily.

Back when the smoke started emerging on the ground, he sent his men out to go and see what was going on. After having all his men leave, he turned his attention back to the old man, he slowly walked to the elder and gave him an inquisitive glance as he asked, "That white smoke… What was that?"

"I don't kn-"

A hard-sounding punch struck the elder's stomach, causing a spurt of saliva to fly out as the elder immediately flew back onto the ground, immediately clutching his stomach in pain.

"You think I am joking around with you?" the bandit leader asked, visibly incensed at the manner in which the elder was replying to his questions, "Let's see how long you can keep this facade up!"

The leader then raised his sword, aiming right at the old man's leg but just as he was about to bring it down, a series of screams rang out from the smoke that had now started covering the whole village. The bandit leader immediately recognized the source of the voices to be of his men and moreover, they were voices of pain from his men.

"What the hell is going on?" the bandit leader shouted out into the smoke.

A vague figure of a man was seen making its way towards them and as he emerged from the smoke, he was revealed to be a bandit. He had a horrible wound on his left leg as there was a huge gash on his thigh alongside numerous deep wounds on his arms.

"Bo-boss… there's… a-an... Att-attacker," the bandit spoke out, and as soon as he said that, his eyes rolled over to the back of his head as his body fell forward, revealing a sharp knife that was firmly embedded into the man's skull.

"Boss! Boss!" another bandit walked out hurriedly with an extremely worried expression on his face.

"Give me the report, Boki," the leader spoke out in a serious tone.

"Boss, we are under attack!"

"How many of them are there?"

"I could not see clearly. The smoke is too thick but the whole of the village's south side has gone quiet," Boki reported.

"You mean to tell me that those runts that I sent over to the South were all killed?" the leader asked menacingly as his aura took a serious downturn. A sudden wave of rage burst forth from him as he immediately turned towards the elder still feeling the punch's effects.

He rushed over to the elder and delivered a devastating kick to his ribs, the elder fell on his side, letting out an extremely pained scream as he immediately began to cough out blood.

"Tell me! How many men do you have?" the bandit leader asked in an extremely cold tone.

"Up there! He's up on the roof of the houses!" a voice in the distance clearly shouted out, turning the attention of all the bandits onto the houses.