"Is anything the matter?" asked the person who was driving the carriage.
"We are collecting toll fees for the government. Everyone should pay up!" said the voice.
'Eh? Toll fee?' Reeve thought as he heard the loud voice.
There seemed to have been some disagreements, and in the next few minutes, they didn't seem to lessen. Reeve went out of the carriage to see what the problem was. When he arrived, he saw people who looked soldiers wearing a rough armor. There were only four of them, and as Reeve thought about it, he realized something was wrong. He walked over and asked, "Good afternoon, can we please--"
"Who are you? No, what are you?" asked one of the soldiers with surprise. When they looked at this person, despite the robe he was wearing, they could see faint outlines of stitches on his face. What kind of messed up outfit was this?
Reeve sighed before saying, "How much is the toll fee?"
Before any of the soldiers could respond, sounds of galloping horses echoed in everyone's ears. They were soon followed by loud cheers coming from the direction of the horses. The soldier in charge frowned, before drawing his silver sword from its sheath. He said, "Bandits! They are here to rob everyone again! Everyone, draw your swords!" The moment he said those words, the other soldiers drew their swords as well.
Reeve was perplexed for a moment. From the dust and the sound of the cheers, he could tell that the said bandits outnumbered the soldiers. If they were trying to fight, weren't the soldiers simply trying to commit suicide?
In a matter of seconds, the bandits arrived, leaving a trail of dust behind them. They were all wearing rough clothes, some made of animal skins, and others from some type of cloth. Reeve estimated that the number of bandits was somewhere around twenty. Four against twenty? What kind of idiot would fight against those odds?
As he thought about that, he edged backwards and turned towards the carriage. However, Riza came out as well.
"What's going on?" she asked as she came about. That was when she saw the bandits circling the soldiers. "Oh no! We need to get out of here!"
"Hand over everything you have right now!" echoed a loud voice. As Reeve and Riza looked at the owner of the voice, they saw a burly man riding on a horse. Besides the sword he was carrying, the sheer size of his build was enough to cause the two to back off.
Some bandits got off their horses, and in less than a few minutes, the soldiers had been captured. Riza and Reeve were about to run, but then they realized they were surrounded.
"Give it up! You cannot fight against all of us and win!" said the bandit leader, who was the burly man. He had a scar that spanned across his face, making his face fearsome.
"We won't know until we try", replied Riza with a smile. From her pants, she drew out short blades and then jumped towards some of the robbers. In a few minutes, a fight broke out! Some of the robbers decided to take care of Reeve, who was just standing there not doing anything. One of them jumped swung a longsword towards Reeve. The others had to move away to prevent themselves from being killed by their own compatriot.
Reeve moved sideways and dodged the sword. Due to the length of the sword, the bandit's movements were very slow. Well, to Reeve they seemed to be. As he dodged, he unleashed a round kick that hit the bandit at the back of his head. "Ura Mawashi Geri!" exclaimed Reeve after the bandit staggered forwards and dropped down, unconscious! "Eh? Where did I learn that phrase?" he asked himself, aloud.
The leader of the bandits was surprised by this. That style of fighting was really weird. Even with all his experience robbing soldiers, he had never seen them fighting like this at all. Not to mention him, Riza had to take some time from fighting to observe how Reeve was fighting. After all, she wanted to learn that fighting style as well!
The fall of the bandit with the longsword spurred the other bandits to attack en masse! About four people attacked Reeve all at once! However, like a fish swimming in the sea, he calmly avoided their attacks, retaliating with fists and kicks, while exclaiming some karate phrase. In a matter of seconds, all four bandits were down. Some were still conscious but groaning in pain, while others were completely out of it.
Riza couldn't help but let out a sigh. If she was the one surrounded by four people, it would take her some time to dispatch them like that. And if she didn't have her daggers, she wasn't confident that she could fight against someone armed with a sword, let alone four people!
As Riza was busy being shocked, Reeve started thinking. He realized he was one kind of an idiot. Earlier, he had wondered what kind of idiot would fight against the odds of four to twenty, and yet here he was, fighting against odds of two to twenty! He sighed, as he realized that the first thing he should have done was tell Riza and Eskaria to escape while he's slowing down the enemies. Wait a minute …
"Hey, you need to take Eskaria and escape! There are too many of them!" he yelled towards Riza who was watching him with growing fanaticism.
"Don't you think it's a little too late for that?" asked Riza, as she dashed towards him.
The other bandits which were still on their horses dismounted in preparation to help their comrades. However, the bandit leader stepped forward to challenge Reeve who was still encircled by bandits. Riza arrived at his back and faced off against one of the bandits who wanted to attack him from the back.
Before the bandit leader could get close to Reeve and Riza, a voice came from the carriage and said, "If you resist, she'll be dead!" Everyone turned their attention to the carriage, where one bandit came out, while holding Eskaria at sword point!