Chapter
1 – A Life of Bloodshed
More traitors have been spotted
within our kingdom of Bernhard, and I’ve been deployed with my friends to
eliminate them. While hunting for our prey, I see the knights around me
fiddling with their weapons and armor muttering to ourselves. Most of us are
geared in leather armor like me while a few wear heavy black armor with spikes
on the shoulders and arms. We’re all armed with axes, maces, and swords with no
shield in sight save for those who have their small shields on their armor. As
for me, I’m one of the few carrying around a two-handed weapon, a zweihander,
to be specific, and a favorite of mine as it is effective at killing more than
one foe in a single swing.
“I can’t wait to kill these scum,”
one knight says.
“The one who least kills has to pay
for our celebration dinner,” a commander suggests.
This gets us to move a bit faster
to the location as we make our way through the dense forest of our kingdom.
Here, the trees block most of the sunlight and most of its bugs and animals are
the size of a child, at the very least while most are the size of elephants,
bears, and lions. This makes it a difficult land to traverse, so very few of us
are on horseback and we had to dismount our horse-drawn carriages a way back to
make our way through this part of the forest that is denser than usual. Even
so, we’re all skilled hunters and should be able to find our prey, and sure
enough, we find them taking shelter in makeshift tents made from huge tree
leaves.
Immediately leaping into action, we
pounce on the traitors to not give them a second to react. These scum don’t
deserve it anyway nor do they deserve the quick deaths that they get. We cut
them down as they scatter and struggle to pick up their weapons and muster some
kind of defense, but hardly any of them can do anything or run far enough
before they are killed. As we cut down the last of them, I notice that their
numbers are fewer than I expected. Before I can voice this aloud, more traitors
come out of the tall grass to ambush us. They are aided by ratmen, dark elves,
beastmen, and man-sized birds and dogs that they tamed. Many die in the
cowardly ambush and it takes a significant counterattack for us to push back
against them. Leading the counter is me and a few other fellow knights one of
which is a female that catches my eye for some reason.
The woman also looks at me in the
eyes, and in this moment, it seems as if time is moving slower. She wears body
chainmail armor with light gold and red metal pieces on it. In her hands, she
wields a long sword and axe that she is using to deflect an arrow coming her
way and cut the arms off an enemy at the same time. If I recall correctly, her
name is Matilda and we’ve been serving together for quite some time but never
got the chance to really talk to one another. Together, we push back against
our attackers, however, our fellow knights who fought with us didn’t survive as
we did. Still, quite a few of our allies remain though there are many enemies
left to punish.
“We’re outnumbered, it seems,” I
say.
“So, it’s a fair fight now,”
Matilda says with a smile.
I smile back and laugh.
“So it is.”
Matilda and I rush back into the
battle, however, another surprise hits us as light magic blows up our allies,
and wind magic cuts apart others and sweeps them away.
“High and wood elf magic,” Matilda
says in shock.
If that wasn’t enough, man-sized
monkeys, tigers, snakes, and oxen wearing Asian armor and wielding foreign
spears and blades aid the elves as well.
“There are men from Draco here
too,” I add.
“Regardless of who they are, if
they’re aiding the traitors, their fate is death,” Matilda says.
I agree and leap into the fighting
with Matilda. Many more of our allies die in this battle though they go down
bravely taking down many enemies as they die. The enemy fiercely fights against
us, however, we eventually drive them back. They retreat on horses and the
backs of their beastmen and Asian allies. At the end of it, Matilda and I see
that we’re the last knights remaining in our squad.
“Regroup and let’s finish off the
fleeing bastards!” Matilda calls out in the hopes of seeing one of our allies
answering her call.
After waiting a few seconds, the
reality that we’re the only survivors begins to sink deeper than before.
“It’s just us now,” I say.
“And? We still have a job to do,
and now, we have friends to avenge!” Matilda says with fire in her eyes.
Agreeing with her, we quickly go
back to where our commanders left their horses, get on them, and pursue the
retreating traitors and their allies. We follow their trail for some time with
our horses running at full speed. Their trial leads us to a small town on the
border between Bernhard and Eastern Europe, or Unser Sieg as we call it today.
The town is burning and under attack with its defenders struggling to fight
back especially since ratmen are popping out of the ground and taking people
away. We try to save as many as possible, but we’re too late, and our enemies
bust their way through the gates of the town and leave it behind. The bodies of
dead civilians lay around us while the guards struggle to pick themselves up
from the attack. Looking over to Matilda, I see that her hands are shaking with
rage and she’s grinding her teeth.
“Not another town…again this has
happened,” Matilda says to herself before turning to me and saying. “They won’t
get away with this! We won’t rest until they’re all dead!”
“Are you two crazy?” a guard asks
us as he approaches us. “You can’t go after them alone. Look at what they did
to the town!”
“To punish and hunt down traitors and
unrepentant sinners is the duty of knights like us. Those scum won’t escape our
wrath and the justice of God,” I say.
“I get it, but still, it’s too
dangerous to chase after them as you are.”
“You dare call yourself an orc and
a faithful servant of God? It doesn’t matter if you’re one against a hundred.
You do your duty till your death.”
Matilda looks at me in a peculiar
way.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stay here and do
my duty, help the people, and send messengers out to get help for the people
who were kidnapped. You two go and do whatever you think God wants you to do.”
I nod and Matilda and I head on our
way on our horses.
Along the way, she says, “I like
you, even though we never formally introduced ourselves to one another. My name
is Matilda.”
“My name is Gunther,” I say.
“Gunther, let’s spend some time
together if we survive this and I’ll consider marrying you.”
“I hope to be worthy of having you.”
We smile and laugh at one another
before pushing our horses to sprint faster after our prey.
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