The ant's reaction time was flawless, as soon as Gordan struck out the ant moved to the side in order to avoid the strike, and then emidiatly turned to strike him. Gordan twisted himself mid jump and slashed quickly at the ants eyes but only managed to slightly graze one of them which made the ant scream in pain, Gordan landed on his feet right next to the ants side. Not waiting for the ant to regain its rationality he quickly struck at the ants joints, but he misjudged the amount of force needed so he ended up pulling the entire leg off, but in the process his knife cracked right down the middle. But he didn't care, things were just starting to get interesting, he loved the sound of confusion that the ant was giving off it made him want to fight even more.
It hadn't expected any resistance from a human but now it had lost a leg for its confidence.
Gordan saw the way that the ant was thinking and he suddenly stood up straight and stopped fighting altogether. He waited for the ant to calm down, it would be no fun if things ended too quickly he wanted to fight, but unfortunately he was disappointed. As soon as the attacks stopped the ant turned and ran back into the brush. This made Gordan frown in distaste, how could an inhabitant of the forest be so cowardly? And then he realized that he needed to get back to traveling. He looked at the place were the ant had escaped to and for a moment considered fallowing it but he consoled himself with the thought that he might find somthing even better to fight, it was the only tactic that seemed to get through to his less controlled self.
He leaned back to look at the sky which was a little bit overcast. He took a deep breath and smiled alittle, there was rain in the air, and it was a pleasant sent to him. Gordan quickly put back his knife and began to walk in accordance to the map and realized with some delight that he had to go in the direction that the ant had fled to which ment that he might have a chance to finish the fight.
The forest was quiet which was a bit aggravating since he almost never let loose, and then the one time that he did there weren't any foes to fight. Well that was only half of what he was thinking, since the other half of him was just praying that the trip went over smoothly, he had already lost quite a bit of time on his schedule because of the guy from earlier.
A group of soilders was waiting at the very edge of the forest for the return of their comrades. This was the last delivery before they could go report the stupid monsters to the king and that monster that was calling himself a hero. As they waited at the entrance they heard a horse galloping from the direction of the castle, they all held their breath hoping that it wasn't who they knew it was.
Ever since 'Hero' had shown up things had taken a nose dive, the king had gotten more testy becouse of the extra work and as a result those around were not only effected by the attitude of the hero but also that of the king, but if they had to pick which was worse it had to be the hero. He was far to arrogant and he had absolutely no sense of personal space. There were countless complaints from every branch of the castle, they were getting headaches just thinking about it.
"Where are they? They should have been out of there an hour ago."
The youngest of the guards was shifting uncomfortably, if they were caught by the entrance they would have to deal with the hero pestering them to go in and face one of the creatures inside. Thirteen guards had already fallen that way, one of which had been the guards younger brother who had just joined the army, he had been the first to fall to one of the hero's whims. After him the others had gone at an alarming rate, and yet the hero showed no sign of pity for the fallen, or remorse for his negligence.
"Quiet they will be out at any time, just be patient. Do you want the king breathing down our necks again?"
The oldest guard snapped at the youngest, he had also lost someone due to the hero, but he didn't lose them to death. One day the hero had been in one of his moods that he was often in, and on this particular occasion he decided to play a trick on the soilder that had resulted in his wife of twenty years to pack up and leave. But no justice was served, no instead his reputation was dragged through the mud to the point where he couldn't even go to the stores without people openly mocking him.
"That's enough, it won't do if we fight amongst ourselves. We have to remain calm, if we can do that then we will be fine."
The last of the soilders spoke up calming the other two instantly. He never complained about what had happened to him but the other two knew that he had been the most affected of really anyone in the castle. All twelve of the remaining victims happened to be either close friends or close relatives of his. Just thinking about what had happened made all of their moods darken. And though the soilder never complained he was starting to form a deep hatred of the kingdom itself, which had long since lost his allegiance. The only reason that he stayed was for the sake of his two surviving friends who still had some allegiance left for the kingdom. They were now his only real reason for living, especially now. After the last of his seven brothers died the previous day both his mother and father had committed a double suicide becouse they couldn't take the shame that had been directed toward them. The people had gone as far as to label them traitors and cowards, not allowing any of the children a proper funeral. Only a select few knew about his parents suicide since he had been given an urgent summons and hadn't even been able to cut them down. The king informed him that they would be labeled as radicals who had attempted to attack the hero's character, and since the kingdom needed the hero, what were a couple of casualties.
The king merely expected him to accept that, and on the surface he did. But he would not suffer the same fate as his family he needed to live on for there sakes. So he hid his hatred and malice even from his friends, what would it change if they understood what he really felt about the situation.
He wasn't worried about the two guards who had entered the forest because he wanted them to die. They had slandered his family to his face on many occasions, constantly gearing at him and his own. But to their faces he was always polite and never showed any resentment, which only made them go out of their way to tease him about it more.
The whole plan of setting up a monster nest on the trade route to one of their allies only to create entertainment for the 'hero' made him want to throw up. He wondered when the king had gone over the edge, enough to consider that punk a hero.
The guard re-adjusted his helmet which covered his face almost completely other than his eyes, he was where the same armor as the others which was the full blown chainmail and signature leather based armor that was used more for ceremonial occasions than anything else since it was extremely impractical, but since the hero had shown up they had been forced to wear it. He had a pair of swords strapped to his back which was different from the other two guards who each had single swords at their sides, the only way one could tell any of them apart was becouse of his swords. The three of them had been through many battles together during their time in the military, and the guard almost smiled at the memory of days gone by but emidiatly stopped.
The sound of the horse grew louder until before them was, as expected the 'Hero' in full blown armor sitting atop of his pure white stallion that looked like it absolutely hated its existence.