FROM WHAT I COULD SEE, there were at least thirty bandits. Our situation was
unfavorable at best, as our paths—both to move forward and to retreat—were
blocked by bandits wielding swords, spears, and other close-ranged weapons.
Archers were positioned atop a cliff on the mountainside to our right, their
bows aimed down at us, while only the steep edge of the mountain, with the
looming fog below, beckoned to our left.
Jasmine, Durden, and my father showed no visible injuries, but Helen's
complexion was unhealthily pale—evidently a result of the arrow jutting
from her right calf. The walls of our carriage had given way to the force of
Angela's spell, but the wind sphere still protected us.
A scarred, bald man with the body of a bear approached, settling the giant
battle axe he carried against his shoulder. "Look what we have here. Pretty
good catch, boys. Leave only the girls and the kid alive.
Try not to scar them
too much. Damaged goods sell for less," he snorted with a leer that revealed
his nearly toothless mouth.
'Damaged goods'…
I felt my body temperature rising, and I tensed with a smoldering anger I
hadn't felt toward anyone in a long time.
Being sheltered in the bubble of my home had almost made me forget, but
any world will have its own share of trash like him.
Nearly forgetting the fact that I was now in a four-year-old's body, I was ready to rush this brute when my father yelled, "There are only four mages,
and none of them seem to be conjurers! The rest are normal warriors!"
I hadn't yet learned how to distinguish a mage from a normal human, but I
trusted my father's assessment—it was easy enough to infer what sort of
mage a person was by their physical appearance and weapons.
I was impressed by how quickly my father reverted to his former adventuring
days as the leader of the Twin Horns. His expression held the wisdom that
could only come from experience. He donned his gauntlets, shouting,
"Safeguard formation!"
Adam quickly arrived at the back of the carriage, facing the road behind us
with his spear raised. Jasmine and Helen moved to our left with their
weapons unsheathed, facing ahead, while Angela maintained her position,
preparing another spell as she kept her wind barrier active. My father and
Durden faced the mountainside, positioning themselves to protect us from the
archers overhead.
"Gather and guard my allies, O benevolent Earth; do not let them be
harmed," Durden chanted, casting a spell, and the ground rumbled and
transmuted into a massive earthen wall curving up in front of him.
Seizing that moment of distraction, my father burst forward toward the
enemy archers, raising his gauntlets to guard against the flurry of arrows.
At almost the same moment, Angela finished her second spell and unleashed
a torrent of wind blades, aiming them at the path behind and in front of the
carriages. That was apparently the cue; Adam and Jasmine shadowed behind
the wind spell to arrive in front of our distraught enemies, who were covering
their vitals against the flurry of blades. Helen held her position, her arrow
nocked and bow drawn, imbuing the tip with mana that shone with a faint
blue light.
It didn't take a genius to realize that this was the ideal arrangement for
protecting people or valuable goods. With two layers of protection from the
conjurers and an archer-mage ready to shoot down anyone who managed to get past Adam, Jasmine, and Father, it was a standard yet well-thought-out
formation.
"Warrior coming your way, Helen!" Adam shouted as he dodged the swing
of a mace, delivering a precise swipe to the jugular of an unfortunate bandit.
The man's eyes widened and he dropped his weapon, desperately trying to
seal the fatal wound with his trembling hands as blood spurted from the gaps
between his fingers.
Mother was holding me firmly to her body, trying to shield my eyes from the
scenes of gore around us. But she wasn't looking down at me, so she didn't
realize that I had a clear view of everything her arm didn't cover.
Meanwhile, a scruffy middle-aged man wielding a machete lunged toward us,
hoping to disrupt Angela's wind-blade spell. Although the spell wasn't
particularly powerful, it provided a painful distraction that kept us on equal
footing, despite the fact that we were outnumbered.
I tried to free myself to block the man before he got in range to attack
Angela, but before I could pull myself away from my mother, it was already
over.
The fierce sound of the shot came only after the arrow had done its job.
Helen had fired with enough force to pierce through the armored chest of the
machete-wielding bandit, lift him up and back a half-dozen yards, and nail
him into the ground.
I took a brief moment to make a mental note: Wise men ought not to piss off
Helen.
Helen's eyes narrowed as she nocked and drew another arrow. Looking
carefully, I could make out the mana gathering in her right eye as she shut her
left.
Soon, a second reinforced arrow streaked past with a sharp hiss, ignoring
all air resistance as it closed in on another enemy fighter.
This man vaguely resembled a smaller Durden, but more muscular and more
angular of face. With his brows furrowed in concentration, he had somehow
brought his giant sword—which was easily as tall as he was—around to reach the arrow in time to block it, creating a sound like a bullet hitting metal.
The enemy fighter slid back, unharmed, and anchored his great sword into the
ground to balance himself.
However, before he even had the chance to smirk
in contentment, a second arrow pierced through his forehead. It was a grim
sight, seeing the light drain from his eyes.
Jasmine was engaged in an intense duel against an augmenter, whose weapon
was a long chain whip.
Jasmine seemed to be at a disadvantage; the range of
her two daggers was lacking, and she was doing all she could to dodge the
erratic movements of the whip.
The enemy had realized how much she was struggling, and he licked his lips
as he jeered, "I'll make sure to treat you real well before we sell you off as a
slave, little missy. Don't worry—by the time I'm done training you, you'll be
begging to stay with me."
The very thought made me shudder, but at this point all I could do was clench
my fists in frustration. Against a fighter, I had a chance, but against an adult augmenter? I didn't have confidence in my chances of winning. It pained me
to stay protected while everyone else risked their lives. I tried to think of
ways to help, but none came to mind. I could only grit my teeth and endure.
Surveying the battle, I saw that the earth wall was holding strong, none of the
arrows able to penetrate it. I watched Durden's left hand, which was directed toward the earth wall as he maintained a constant flow of mana to keep it
from collapsing. He formed a narrow slit in the middle of the wall, allowing
us to see my father chasing after the fleeing archers as they scattered about.
"Take heed, Mother Earth, and answer my call. Pierce my enemies. Let none
of them live. Rupture Spike."
In moments, a dozen spikes burst forth from the ground beneath the bandit
archers. A few managed to dodge, but many of the bandits were impaled,
their screams lasting only moments before they died.
Casting the spell had visibly drained Durden; his jaw clenched as beads of
sweat ran down his pale face. It was at this moment that I noticed my mother had taken out a wand. Her trembling fingers fumbled with it, but then she
shook her head and stuffed it back into her robe. In place of the wand, she
held onto me, even tighter than before.
No one from our side was injured other than Helen, who had managed to tie a
strip of cloth around her calf to minimize the bleeding from her wound.
Fortunately, the arrow hadn't lodged too deeply, thanks to Helen's mana
reinforcement; the bleeding was quickly under control. But throughout all of
this, my mother had a constant look of anxiety, her face pale with worry. I
couldn't help but notice that she kept reaching for the wand in her robe, only
to draw her hand back at the last minute each time. Her eyes darted left and
right, constantly looking out for anything that might harm us.
Her behavior confused me a bit, but I dismissed it, assuming that since she
hadn't been an adventurer for as long as my father had, she was simply not
used to situations like this.
The battle was coming to its peak. The bandit group had not anticipated that
every member of our group would be a capable mage. Because of that error
in calculation, all the melee fighters were dead. The only ones left alive were
the mages and a couple of scattered archers on the run.
Jasmine was still having trouble with the chain-wielding slaver, but the
arrogance was wiped from his expression by this time, and his body was
dripping blood from various nicks and cuts.
Adam was engaged with an augmenter who held a sword in each hand.
Adam's flexible maneuvers and the sudden attacks of his fighting style
reminded me of a snake. He clearly had the potential to be one of the rare
elemental augmenters with a water-attribute style.
Reinforcing the shaft of his spear for flexibility, Adam attacked with a storm
of quick thrusts and fluid swipes. The battle seemed to be going in his favor;
his opponent's wounds were bleeding profusely, and he desperately tried to
parry the onslaught of Adam's blows.
A thundering crash shifted my attention away from their battle. My father was struggling to pick himself up from where his opponent had knocked him
against the debris of what was left of the earth wall. Blood dribbled from the
side of his mouth.
"Dad!" I shouted, and heard my mother cry in the same moment, "Honey!"
I rushed out of the protective curtain of wind to kneel in front of Father, my
mother following immediately behind. The remaining bandits were struggling
with the other Twin Horns members, so we were as safe as possible given the
circumstances. I could see the panic written on her face as she nervously contemplated what to do. I didn't know why she wasn't healing him—maybe
she was too startled to think of it. But just when I was about to suggest it, my
father cut me off.
"Alice," he said with a ragged cough, "listen to me. Don't worry about me. If
you use a healing spell right now, they'll realize what you are and try that
much harder to capture you. They'll be willing to sacrifice a lot more if they
know," he stressed, his voice a low whisper.
After a brief, trembling hesitation, my mother took out her wand and began
chanting. Perhaps her stammering words were from distress at seeing her
husband injured, or perhaps his warning had frightened her, but she seemed
almost afraid of using her magic.
Father turned to me, after realizing he could not persuade his wife.
"Art, listen carefully. After the healing spell activates, they're going to do
everything they can to capture your mother. Once I'm healed enough, I'm
going to engage the leader and try to buy more time. I think I can beat him,
but not if I have to worry about protecting the two of you. Take your mother
back down the road and don't stop. Adam will open up a path for you."
"No, dad! I'm staying with you. I can fight! You saw me! I can help!" Any
consideration for being mature eluded me. In this moment, I was acting
exactly like the four-year-old I appeared to be, but I didn't care. I wasn't
going to leave behind the family I had grown to love and the friends I had
bonded with."Listen to me, Arthur Leywin!" Father roared in agony. This was the first time
I had heard him use this voice—the kind of voice one would use only for
desperate measures. "I know you can fight! That's why I'm entrusting your
mother to you. Protect her, and protect the baby inside her. I'll catch up to
you after this is over."
His words shook my mind like thunder.
Protect her, and protect the baby inside her…
Suddenly, everything clicked: why she was acting so fearful; why she was
clutching me and making sure nothing even got close to us; why Durden and
Angela were both guarding us with defensive spells, instead of just one of
them.
My mother was pregnant.
"I was planning to tell you when we arrived in Xyrus, but…" My father
didn't finish his sentence, just looked at me sheepishly, still pale from the
blow he had received from the bald axe-wielding boss.
"I'll protect Mom. I promise."
"Atta boy. That's my son."
Just then, my mother finished her chant, and both she and my father glowed
in a bright golden-white light.
"Son of a—One of them's a healer! Don't let her get away!" the leader
roared.
I quickly grabbed my mother's arm with both hands and tugged at her to
move, reinforcing myself with mana as we went.
A dozen yards down the road, we reached the area where Adam and the dual-
wielder were battling. "Art, hurry, I got him!" Adam barked, keeping his
opponent at bay. The dual-wielder was obviously frustrated by his inability to
get past Adam to reach me or Mother.
As we hurried down the slope, I heard a faint whizz sound to our left. Acting
on instinct, I jumped up, bringing my wooden sword up and reinforcing my
whole body and the sword to withstand the blow of the incoming arrow.A splintering crack resonated as the arrow met the wooden sword.
Fortunately, the arrow wasn't reinforced with any mana, so even though the
force of the impact pushed me back, I was able to regain my balance in
midair by using the force of the shot, rotating my body and redirecting the
arrow away. I landed on my feet—a bit less impressively than I'd wanted to
—and threw away what was left of my wooden sword.
"What the—" I heard the assailant say, followed by a grunt as he was
promptly impaled by one of Helen's arrows.
"Go!" she exclaimed, nocking in another arrow and firing it at the leader of
the bandits to assist my father.
As I turned to grasp my mother's hand, I heard the bandit leader bark,
"Damien! Forget the plan—don't let them live!"
Who is he giving commands to? Adam and Jasmine were each fighting a
mage, my father and Helen were working together to battle the third—
suddenly I remembered. Weren't there four?
"…respond to my call and wash all to oblivion!" a faint voice chanted.
On the mountainside, one of the scattered 'archers' was standing, his hands
together, aimed at me and mother. We had been tricked. The fourth mage had
camouflaged himself during the chaos and retreated to a safer distance.
Shit!
There wasn't much time to react as a huge sphere of pressurized water, at
least three yards in diameter, shot toward us, increasing in size as it neared.
My mind raced, trying to come up with options.
To my immediate right was my mother, and to my left, not far off, were
Adam and his opponent; behind me, of course, was the edge of the mountain.
Even if I could dodge this, Mother wouldn't be able to—she'd be forced off
the edge of the mountain.
What should I do?
"Damn it!" I let out a roar unfit for a four-year-old.
Gathering all the mana remaining in my small body, I tackled my mother,propelling both of us out of the way. But I quickly realized my forty-pound
body couldn't carry enough momentum to push us both of out of range of the
water cannon.
I had no choice. But if I was going down, I was going to make sure to take
that bastard down with me!
I channeled mana into my arms and pushed my mother further down, out of
range. In that moment, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. My
mother's eyes slowly widened in panic and disbelief.
She might be badly
bruised from the fall, but such minor injuries were the least of my problems
at that moment. If I didn't want us to get hit with another spell, I had to get
rid of this conjurer.
Unsheathing the knife Jasmine had given me from my waist, I imbued it with
mana. What I was about to try was something I had only done with ki in my
old world—never with mana.
After willing mana into the knife, I threw it like a boomerang, aiming it at the
conjurer, who was still concentrating on the water cannon. The knife curved
around the edge of the giant cannonball of water moments before I heard the
firm thud of the blade meeting its target.
The mage let out a shrill howl of pain, followed by a string of curses that
proved he wasn't dead.
Losing concentration, the mage let the water cannon falter, but unfortunately,
the surge of water was still strong enough to push me off the cliff.
Thankfully, I had a backup plan. I had created a thin string of mana to attach
the knife—currently lodged somewhere in the conjurer's body—to my hand.
I tugged back on the strand of mana just as the water rammed against my
body like a brick wall, knocking every ounce of air out of my lungs and most
likely breaking my ribs. Like a fish caught on the line, the mage screamed
over the gushing tide of water as he was helplessly dragged down with me by
the force of his own spell.
Even as my vision darkened, I could see the battle coming to an end. Father and Helen had just managed to kill the leader. With Angela's help, Jasmine
was able to bring the whip user down to his knees. I also spotted Durden—he
was desperately conjuring a spell to save me, but I knew it was too late; the
spell had knocked me too far away.
Still, I was comforted by the fact that everyone would be safe. The only thing
I would regret, I thought, was being unable to see my baby sibling.
With that, I felt the cold grip of sleep steal me away.
Damn… I always wanted to be an older brother.