Arthur watched everyone's facial expressions closely. Bandits were nervous and afraid of what might happen. Elena's team were hesitating whether they should listen to Elena and join Arthur and Lena to fight the bandits. But they are now leaning towards Arthur's side. Arthur could feel that from their eye's as they had a different glow than previous time.
Arthur knew that it is all thanks to Elena that her team members, although temporarily, they trusted us to fight against the bandit with us. This scared the shit out of bandit group. They only had three people who could fight, among them the mage is injured heavily. He needs time to heal his bloody wound. On the other hand, Arthur and Elena's group had four people, among them Arthur is out of stamina and the elven mage is running out of mana. But they had two people completely fine.
Arthur is finally relived that Elena's team decided to temporarily lower their guard and fight with them. Now that the tables have turned on the bandits, Arthur decided to say something to Elena. But before he could say something, he heard someone's laughter coming from the other side of the road.
When the laughter sound was heard, everyone looked that way warily. There is four black-clothed people coming from that side. They had their faces hidden with black-mask on their faces. But they looked scary and intimidating. They had a dark aura around them. This is the first time Arthur saw someone emitting such dark presence. He thought how the hell did these guys gained such a heavy aura.
"hahahaha…, I can't believe that you guys are struggling so much against these weaklings. It's a complete waste of money to hire you guys. Even with a higher number of people you couldn't kill them all. You even got beaten up by some random kids. What a waste!!!", shouted one of the black-clothed newcomers who seem to be the leader of the group.
"what can you expect from these bandits, boss? They are all bark but no bite."
"hahahaha…"
All the black-clothed men laughed out loud.
I was surprised that reinforcement came so quickly to deal with Elena's group. Maybe, they were already lurking in the shadows and waited to see if the bandit group could do the work, and when they couldn't, these black-clothed group showed up. This matter just took another turn at this point.
I can't tell how strong these new guy's are but I think that there's no way that they are going to be weak from the bandit groups. After all the group leader of both team were peak-tier apprentice warrior. So, these new group of enemies must be stronger than the bandits.
I immediately bought a [ stamina regeneration] potion and drunk it in order to replenish my lost stamina. After I finished recharging my lost stamina fully, I remained silent. I didn't want to actively seek out the attention of the new enemies. I didn't even want to stay in this place one more second. But seeing Lena's vulnerable state, I couldn't contain the rage in my heart. I wanted to make these guys who hurt Lena pay for it with their lives. These contradicting thoughts didn't let me leave the place.
I was thinking what are they going to do now. Will they kill everyone here? Or is there any other motive of this group. From Elena's previous words, I know these are assassin sent to kill her. I don't know who or why of it but now, I am in the same boat as Elena
"You guys came just at the right time. With our joint forces, they don't have any hope of escaping now.", said the bandit leader not minding the insult of the new group that came to assist them.
"of course, we will do the job that was given to us. But you have failed to complete the task that was given to you. Now, its time for you to suffer punishment."
The bandit group was at first shocked, then frightened by their words.
"hey, stop talking nonsense. We are all on the same side here. We already lost a lot of our men fighting them. We want revenge against that little bastard there. Everything was going according to plan before he and that devil-race showed up here and messed up everything.", roared the bandit leader at the black-clothed group while pointing a finger at Arthur angrily.
Arthur cursed the guy a lot inside his head. He was trying to fade away from the front-line and yet, he is now being brought to the front again. There's no point trying to hide now. He decided to go all out now. He is so angry with all this drama here that he is sick of it. He regrets poking his head in other people's business now. So much dialogues and bickering. He just wanted to kill everyone and be done with it. But his enemies are much stronger than him that he isn't sure if he can kill them.
"oh, you have a devil-race here!!"
"I am surprised that they came here so deep in the empire. What are they doing here?", asked one of the black-clothed enemy.
"That doesn't matter. They have joined the target to fight us so they are our enemy now. One of them is injured but the other one is very strong.", said the bandit leader.
"oh…, not only did you fail to complete your task. You have the nerve to praise the enemy in front of us. You really have a lot of guts, huh. If only your incompetence was less than your gut, you might have survived. But now we have to clean up you guys too.", spoke the leader of the black-clothed people.
As soon as he finished speaking, he signalled his followers to move. They rushed toward the bandit group like a black ghost jumping on people. One of them attacked the injured bandit mage who already had difficulty in moving. The one who attacked him moved really fast and used a short dagger to fight. So, the mage didn't even get the time to prepare his magic before the black-clothed man closed in on him. He attacked the mage with his short dagger quickly and stabbed him in his wound that Arthur inflicted previously.
The mage cried out in pain and tried to move away but the black-clothed guy didn't let go of him. He stabbed him a few times more and crippled his legs so he couldn't run away anymore. The mage was really unable to fight anymore and was at the black-clothed man's mercy.
"please, let me go. We have no animosity among us. We can finish the work easily if we work together. Look, I will even tell you about the place where we hid all our money if you let me go.", the bandit mage begged for his life in a terrified voice.
But his pleading voice didn't reach the guy as he snorted coldly and slashed the bandit mages' throat in a single movement. The bandit mage fell down the ground with blood flowing from his mouth and body. He died in a few seconds. That is the first one of them to fall in the hands of the black-clothed assassins.