WebNovelrule two87.68%

1

The best approach to assaulting a hostile camp--

Leo stopped himself right there, shaking his head as though the physical act would toss out the stupid thoughts out of his head. What approach? The only knowledge of assaulting anything that he had either came from video games or from drunken stupors. With the former, the crux were the infinite respawns--he didn't have to know how to attack, he could just do it over and over again until he lucked into the 'right way''. And even though he already 'respawned' once, it wasn't as though he was willing to test the theory he was stuck in a time loop.

For the latter, his drunken stupor 'assaults' usually ended with him on his ass, or being carted into the hospital for one thing or another.

There were some bits of common sense that he summoned, something that was rather obvious and needn't be studied: assaulting the camp directly would be moronic, that much he knew. He was one man, and there were at least a dozen of hooded figures, likely even more inside some twenty to thirty buildings laying stacked within the valley. Even if he was by some miracle individually stronger than all of them, they could just gang up on him and beat him to death.

If the buildings were made out of wood, he could have waited for the night to set them on fire, but as they were not, that was also out of the question.

He could try and luring them out one by one, but he didn't know how--if they left on their own, that would be the only way for him to actually 'chip away' at their numbers. But what if they got everything they wanted from the forest and weren't planning on leaving their base?

A thousand ideas swirled inside of his mind but, by some miracle, none of them were even approachably good. They ranged from him gathering all the animals in the forest and charging straight into their camp like a madman, to setting fire to the surrounding area and trying to use the cover of smoke to attack from the shadows. Though the latter sounded 'reasonable' in theory, at the end of the day, this forest was his home--not only his, either, but the home of thousands of other animals.

What if the fire spread beyond his control? Burning down the entire forest in a desperate attempt to save his friend wasn't something he was willing to do.

That left, well, waiting. He'd wait for at least a day and see whether any of them left the camp. And even if they didn't, he'd observe their habits--perhaps, for some ungodly reason, they all collectively 'recharged' at night and would become easy pickings. Or maybe some other miraculous savior would appear to salvage the entire situation.

Sufficient to say, none of the most-wanted situations appeared--though, well, one of them did leave their base. Not for long, and not too far out, but it was an indicator that they did move beyond the enshrined borders of their home. Ultimately, that was his best bet.

Unfortunately, though their numbers were large enough to startle one man, they weren't so large that they wouldn't notice as soon as a couple of their people never returned. Once that happened, even if they still ventured out into the forest, they'd probably do so in the groups--probably of at least three or four, numbers Leo didn't want to test himself against.

A sudden chatter drew his attention back over to the central plaza--there, he saw Howly being lowered down amidst the jubilant cheers. Leo gnashed his teeth and stilled himself the best he could, which got exponentially harder when he saw why they lowered the wolf--they drew a massive gash across the wolf's back and heaved him over, letting the blood drops drip across the tainted fur and into a silver goblet beneath. Shortly after, everyone lined up and, one by one, took a sip from the goblet while they tossed Howly aside, barely a breath in the beast.

It was becoming more and more difficult to control himself; there was a large part of him that wanted to give into the anger and storm out like a thunderous judgment, but he held himself back. He reasoned it, that they hadn't captured him just to torture him. Perhaps there was something about his blood, or perhaps it was their ritual of 'bonding' with the nature. It was a shoddy defense against the rage, but it did well enough to quell it slightly.

Regardless of how 'justifiable' their reasons were, this was one of those scenarios in which it was irrelevant. It was the sort of a thing that began the cycle of revenge, one that would go on for eons, ending only when there was nobody to hold a grudge buried deep in the bones. It could have even been that Howly attacked them first, and they simply defended themselves but, ultimately, the principle stood.

Night fell rather rapidly, the sun fading as the moon began gently drifting across the clear sky. A few fires soon roared, illuminating the base. Leo frowned slightly, observing; while he, too, would light fires at night, it was mostly so that he could cook. If he wasn't cooking, he'd simply use his eyes to see in the dark as there was practically no difference as soon as he injected Qi into them.

However, they weren't cooking--and based on the positions of the fire, the point was to give light to the world. Shaking away the thoughts, he lay silently in wait; for a long while, he thought that he'd wait out in silence until dawn, but midway through the night he caught two shadows distorting out of the buildings and past the natural barriers of the valley, fleeting directly toward him.

They made as little noise as possible, so little in fact that Leo had to pour Qi into his ears to hear them, and then use that to track them. They didn't go far--perhaps half a mile away from their base, settling behind one of the shrubberies.

Though Leo had his suspicions from the onset, the quaint and muffled moans that began to erupt from the shrubbery confirmed that the two came out to have some fun, as it were. As for why they couldn't do it in the camp... well, Leo wasn't one to judge. Chances were that one of them was already in a relationship, and that was why they were here, in the wild. Or, perhaps, that was the point--the bedroom's fun no longer, and they need the freedom of the public--

--Leo stalked close and went behind the shrub, glancing over and down at them. They were bunched up against the thick trunk of a tree, roots jutting out around them like grasping arms. Even as he loomed in the open, they couldn't see him or hear him or even feel him, too caught up in it.

He clasped the sword as tightly as his fingers would, yet found himself unmoving.

Though it was dark and barely any light caught their frames, he saw them well enough. They were people--a young man and a young woman, somewhere in their mid-twenties at most. They had angular and jutting features, with the bridge of the nose drawing out the arch above and distancing the two eyes ever so slightly, just enough to give Leo that 'ick', a feeling that something felt off.

Perhaps they were a slightly different species of human, or perhaps they were cousins, but the point was that they were human. Just like him.

He got adjusted to killing monsters relatively quickly, but that was due in part to survival. He had to kill them. And, perhaps, in some abstract way he also had to kill these two, but his mind wasn't so kind tonight. He'd long suspected that there would come a point in his life on this world where he would have to take a life--not an animal's, not a ghost's, not some inordinate ghoulish threat... but a human life. And he grappled with the idea the best he could, never coming to an answer.

After all, thoughts were hypothetical--one seldom knew what they would do in any one situation until they precisely found themselves in it. And that was exactly where he was--unless their skin was made of diamond, one single swing of his blade would end both of them. Blood would spray out, they would perhaps even scream if he was slow enough. And if he was just another notch slower, he'd catch sight of their eyes veering over toward him, assessing who took their life with their last breath.

It was an impossible choice, one that for over thirty years of his life he never even contemplated in the slightest.

"Goddammit," he mumbled into his jaw and shoved Qi into the sword, executing 'Simple Slash Art'. The silver of the simple blade flickered under the fading ray of moonlight, and he felt it dig into flesh ever for a moment before cutting through as though it was cutting paper. He aimed at the necks, and due to the angle and the speed at which he attacked, the sword lithely cut through both within less than a second.

They didn't scream.

They didn't squirm.

They didn't so much as wince or whimper.

They simply... stopped moving.

He loomed over them still, blood silently dripping from the edge of his blade. As his eyes veered to the side, he saw them, the detached heads. As though the world was made for mockery, they were both somehow facing up--and not just up, but angled just right for it to seem like they were staring at him.

As he felt an overcoming rush of emotions, he did something that he never did before since coming here--he used Qi to calm himself down.

It was... terrifying. Like a cold wind shuttering through him, quieting the alarms. He became inordinately cold and numb, all sensations from within his heart disappearing.

And yet, this somehow was worse. He didn't like it, the cold, the numbness. He would have rather taken the ache, keeled over, and broke his guts vomiting. But what was done was done; he'd taken a step forward in this world that there was likely no coming back from. However, in the solemn silence, staring right back at the lifeless, golden eyes, he swore an oath--one to himself, unspoken to the world. An oath that he would never again use Qi to calm himself. It was a slippery slope to becoming precisely what he condemned this world for.

He quickly dug out a pair of shallow graves for the two and covered them up. It was likely that some animals would find them soon enough and all but swallow them up, but for the day or two, at least, it would suffice.

Finished, he took a deep breath and, giving one last glance to the slightly protruding earth, he spun his body and headed back toward the camp. Two were down, but there were many, many more to go.