Chapter 38: A Room of One’s Own
Simon peered around his tree looking for anyone else that might be trying to murder him. Over the sounds of screaming and burning it was hard to make much out, but after half a minute he decided the coast was clear. That decision almost cost him a death as an arrow embedded in the tree trunk inches from his eye.
Though he couldn’t see who it was that tried to shoot him, he ran in the direction that the arrow came from which was the next best thing. He groped for his shield, trying to get it up in case there was another arrow, but continuing to charge heedlessly, he body checked his would be assassin in the underbrush, sending them both sprawling.
The bandit was on his feet before Simon, and pulled a dagger from a boot, but he held back, and Simon really understood why after he rose to his feet, towering over him. His attacker was little more than a malnourished child. The feral little thing practically snarled at him as it slashed the air with the dagger to keep him back.
“Why don’t you just run for your life you little bastard,” Simon growled, pretending to swing his sword hard enough to make his opponent flinch and jump back. “The last thing I want is to add killing kids to my list of achievements.” The bandit listened to him suspiciously, like a trick was being played on him, and then, after a couple of cautious steps backwards he turned and ran off into the forest, leaving Simon to walk back to the road without so much as the need to look over his shoulder.
Why should he after all. He’d won, big time. However hard some of the monsters Helades had him face, underfed country bandits were no match for a high end, top 1% adventurer like him. “Well Luken,” Simon asked, nudging the prone man with his boot. Rather than lash out at him as Simon had expected, the bandit instead cringed fearfully and shrank from his touch.
“I’m sorry, master mage sir, I didn’t realize… we didn’t realize that you could—” the man babbled before Simon interrupted him.
“That I could kick your ass up and down the street?” Simon gloated, still holding his sword in a threatening way that didn’t quite promise the other man death.
The bandit’s eyes had a hard time leaving it though, and he swallowed hard before he managed to say, “quite right my lord, quite right. If you could see it in your heart to—”
“Go on, get out of here,” Simon said waving the man away dismissively as he sheathed his sword. “If I ever see you again I’ll gut you.”