Ivan wasted another hour or so to kill four more rats and gained two experience points. He couldn't find any more rats as some of them had escaped back to their holes, which are the cracks inside the rocky cave.
With nothing to do, Ivan rested against the wall and tried to sleep, hoping he would wake up in his room the next time.
...
"Oy! Jon! Hold him steady."
"I'm trying, but he is too fat... Why did we always have to be given this job?"
"That's because we are the weakest one in our bandit group. What do you expect? Now shut your piehole and drag it properly..."
"The third chief always ends up killing some of the captured prisoners, but did he have to kill this fat one and... we had also delivered that old guy first thing in the morning."
"Shh!... Do you want to die? Don't badmouth your superiors or someone might bitch about us to the chiefs if they heard us."
"Sorry, Sorry... Let's finish this job quickly, and then we will have a drink together. What do you say?" Jon said to please his buddy because he's status was even lower than him.
"Now that's what I wanted to hear; let's drink afterward."
The conversation between the two men fell on Ivan's ears when they arrived near the circular stone blocking the exit. There were few small holes which made it possible for air and sound to pass into the cave.
"Bandit chief," "Merchants," " Stupid Mercenaries," and such words were the ones that Ivan mainly listened to carefully.
Ivan had already woken up. He was holding two bone spears in his hand and thinking of a way to hide. He knew these people who were going to open the cave should not be good people. They should be the ones to throw him inside of it. If they found him alive, they might kill him again.
Furiously Ivan thought when nothing came to his mind, he lay on the ground above a skeleton-like a dead person.
Khachak! Grrrr...!
The stone wall should have some mechanism for it to open from the outside. It's impossible to push open it manually because of its weight.
A torch brightened the cave as one of those unknown men held it. They dragged a person inside with difficulty.
Ivan's hands were sweating. He knew for him to survive, he has to know them out or go the extreme and kill them.
This thought popped in Ivan's head but threw it aside because he does not want to kill humans. Every person has some resistance in executing their kind.
Ivan was the same. Brought up in a world of laws made by humans against killing their kind, Ivan naturally had resistance to such thoughts.
Though Ivan had fought many times on the streets and even had two experiences of beating some thugs until their lives were hanging by a thread, he had never intended to kill.
The footsteps of the two echoed inside the caves as the bandits brought over the dead body held tightly in their arms. They threw it on top of the corpses o form a pile.
Thud!!
Both bandits fell forward after being hit on the back of their heads.
Jon became unconscious almost immediately, but the other bandit only felt a bit dizzy. He scrambled up to save himself from falling and used his hands as support.
Ivan didn't wait; he jumped and swung his bone spear while aiming to hit the back of the fallen enemy.
"Why you little..."? The bandit had just looked behind to see the face of the attacker, but then he was immediately hit on the front.
Crack!
The bandit's head was pushed a little backward. He immediately put a hand above his mouth, trying to stop the bleeding from his broken nose.
Maybe it was luck, or perhaps his head was just too hard; Ivan could not knock him out in his second strike also.
'No, my strength has been reduced by seventy-five percent. That's must be why I'm not able to knock the bandit out, and the bones are also not heavy enough... Dammit!' a thought passed through Ivan's mind as prepared to send another swing of his bone spear. This time he was also using its blunt edge. But the bandit rolled to side while holding onto his bleeding nose with tears flowing down his cheeks. It's a natural reaction of the body when the nose gets hit.
Ivan did not have much energy left for extended fighting, he had to do something, or the bandit might alert his comrades.
Fortunately, the bandit did not do such a thing; he instead stood after he rolled and jumped towards Ivan with wild ferocity. He was a bandit after all and had lived through many brawls with other bandits to know the necessary survival moves.
The bandit caught the bone that Ivan had swung at him and pounced on his enemy to make him fall.
Ivan fell backward on the skeletons, and a sharp bone fragment pierced his back, causing much pain and bleeding. The bandit had also fallen atop Ivan, his right hand holding tightly at Ivan's bone spear, blocking him from swinging it again while he used his elbow of his left arm to choke Ivan as he put weight on his enemy's throat.
"Gu... ugh..." Ivan was choking with his neck under pressure while his legs were moving like a frail chicken to resist fate. The bandit was looking at him as if laughing at his weakness. Ivan was looking back with pleading eyes, but it had no effect on the bandit; instead, it prompted him to put even more pressure.
Ivan's right hand was free, but it didn't have the strength to move the bandit from above him, and even when he tried to grab the bandits face to put pressure on his eyeballs. Maybe pull his nostrils to cause him pain; the bandit cunningly hid his face behind his left arm, making Ivan unable to do anything.
Ivan felt terrified. He had never been this weak in any physical brawl and never lost any dogfight. He couldn't even start to blame him being weal currently because his eyes began to roll back; he was going to lose consciousness any minute.
His right-hand fell on the ground and searched for anything that could be grabbed.
Suddenly his finger touched something cold and sharp. He grabbed the handle of that metal thing and waved it at the bandit's head.
"Puchi..."
Blood sprayed on Ivan's face causing him to close his eyes. He then felt the pressure on his throat loosening, and the body atop him felling his left.
Chime!
"Cough, cough... Cough...Hah!" Ivan gasped for precious air as he held his painful neck.
Ivan ignored the sound that rang in his mouth but instead looked at the thing the bandit to his left and the thing pinned to his neck, which saved Ivan's dear life.
It was a knife.
'Where did... that come from?' Ivan thought and turned his head to the other side.
"Ah!" Jon, who was the first bandit to be hit on the back of his head, was luckily lying unconscious to Ivan's right. His knife must have fallen off when Jon himself fell on the ground.
When stabilized, Ivan looked at the bandit he killed and hesitated for a moment before searching the dead body for a weapon. He wasn't going to pull the knife that he stabbed through the bandit's neck. Killing a human had already created too much guilt that weighed down on his heart, even if Ivan did it to protect himself. To show for it, Ivan's hands trembled as he searched the bandit's body.
Just as he had thought, both the bandits had a knife on their bodies. Ivan grabbed it and turned to face Jon.
"I should get some information out of this guy's mouth to know where I'm and how to get out of here."
Ivan endured the stinging throbs of pain he felt on his back and rolled over Jon, before placing the pointy end of the knife on Jon's throat.
Slap!
"Hey, wake up... Wake up, I said."
Ivan noticed he was speaking a different language at that moment, and when thinking back to the conversation between the bandits, they were also talking a different language than English.
But before he could think about it in length, Jon woke while making a painful face.
Jon felt someone sitting on him and also a sharp thing prickling his neck.
He almost jumped with his neck moving upwards. Fortunately, Ivan raised the knife a little bit, or the poor sod might have stabbed himself to death.
"Lie down, and don't move... or you will have to suffer the same fate as your friend there." Ivan nudged his head towards the dead bandit.
"Re...Mmp!"
"Screaming is also not allowed," Ivan said, closed the bandit's mouth in time.
Jon nodded in understanding. He was sweating too much due to fear of dying.
"What... what do you want?"
"First, tell me your name and about this place," Ivan asked as he also simultaneously call out his status screen.
It appeared to his side, but Jon didn't notice it, or he couldn't see it.
< Race: Human Level: 1 (Exp: 18.5) Status: Apprentice Warrior Strength – 15 Dexterity – 11 Defense - 11 Intelligence - 13 Vitality: 13 Charisma – 3 Class: Freeman Adventurer Class: None HP(Health Points): 4/26 (Fever/ Hunger) MP(Mana Points): 26(Locked) BSP:(Battle Skill Points): None AP:(Ability Points): None Battle Skills: None Ability: ??(Dormant) Weakened state(Bleeding- You lose 1 HP every hour) - All stats reduced by 79%>> < --------------------------------------------------------- Authors Note: Do read my first novel 'The Pleasure Lord' that has more than 250 chapters uploaded. Please do give it a read after finishing this chapter. You can find the above Novel's link in the synopsis or just search the name. Be sure to add it to your library. Its updated every day with 3CHP/day.