He lunged at me with his makeshift knife attempting to stab me in the leg only to be met with my foot. He fell on his back and dropped his knife to hold his broken nose that was pouring blood and began crying when I heard another shout behind me. I turned around to see three new attackers, all dressed the same as the would-be goblin and brandishing weapons similar to his.
My sister immediately grabbed the knife he had dropped and stabbed the crying goblin in the neck, silencing him. This spurred the new attackers into action; where the first one was short, like an eight-year-old, these new ones were tall, like teenagers. Their tactics consisted of yelling at the top of their lungs as they charged at me while swinging their blades with all their force in a desperate attempt to cut me.
It was too easy. As the first one approached me, he swung his blade down at me, only for me to grab his wrist and throw him at his dead companion. My sister quickly sprung into action and gave him the same treatment as his friend. 'One down, two to go.' The remaining two were stunned at how easily I threw their friend and stepped back in fear. I immediately took advantage of that opening and rushed them; the first turned around to run in fear, and the second found the courage to stand his ground. He quickly lost that courage as I kicked his friend in the back of the knee and took hold of his ear. He then screamed in pain as I ripped his ear off before blacking out from the knee to the back of the head. I threw his ear at his courageous companion and was rewarded with a scream of fear.
The last of them turned to run away as I felt something fly right by my head and into his back. "You almost took my head off," I scolded my sister for her reckless action of nearly killing me. "Almost, but not quite. Now stop complaining and help me tie this guy up," she said as she completely dismissed me.
We dragged Earless over to a tree by his fallen companions and began to tie him up, only to realize, "Um, what do we tie him up with?" I asked her as I realized that we didn't have any rope." Tie him up with those rags," she told me as she pointed at the bodies of his companions.
"Nope, not touching that," I said to her as I gagged at the thought of the horrors that were under those rags." Well, someone needs to, and I know that I'm not going to be that someone, so get to it" she once again dismissed me.
"Ugh," Earless groaned as he squirmed against the bloody rags of his fallen friends. "You're awake, good. Now you're going to tell us what we want to know, or the big guy here is going to mess you up," Anna said as she threatened Earless with my presence in the hopes of getting the information we wanted.
"D3KW$ ^hB#8Xz ^EwhjeH#" As those words came out of Earless's mouth, me and Anna locked eyes and groaned" Great, a language barrier". "Well, what do we do now" I asked Anna as I further lamented about another disadvantage for us.
"Well, in the books, there's always a spell or an item that solves this, no?" Anna asked while trying to decipher what Earless was saying." Well, yeah, but this is feeling less and less like a light novel, so this might be a problem". I said to her as I examined Earless a little closer.
He was a lanky man with long skinny limbs and a beer gut. His clothing consisted of rags wrapped around his feet like makeshift shoes and rags along his waist like a makeshift loincloth. Lastly, his skin, at first, I believed he was a goblin and that he was the reason his skin was green, but looking at it closer, I could see that it was painted; they must have painted themselves green as a sort of camouflage in order to ambush people as they did us.
"Well, they're not goblins," I informed my sister as I pointed out the areas where the paint was rubbing off. "You've got to be kidding me. Talk about false advertisement." She groaned as she began untying Earless's feet."What are you doing?" I asked her as Earless immediately tried to run away, only to be tripped by me. "Well, they have to have a camp and food or something, right? I don't exactly feel like sleeping out in the cold, do you?" I picked up Earless and told him to show us his camp.
***
"9%XzZ bwrxBVn VNe89$jU" Earless kept repeating these same words as we made our way through the forest. We were now in a different part of the forest, a less burned part, that is. The foliage was thick with brush that stood as high as my waist, while the trees stood at least 50 feet tall. "9%XzZ bwrxBVn VNe89$jU," Earless once again shouted at us, "Gag him or something, will you?" Anna said to me as we continued to follow Earless deeper into the forest; the trees were now over 60 feet tall, and the brush was now up to my elbows.
As we approached a clearing, I bent down to the floor to search for something to gag Earless with, only to find the edge of a pitfall trap." Anna, stop", I said to my sister, grabbing her attention to the trap, leaving an opening for Earless to run. He would've made it pretty far based on how far he had already gotten if it wasn't for the other 10-foot pitfall trap. I looked down the trap to find Earless now on the verge of being called legless. His left leg had snapped, with his femur poking upwards out of his thigh.
" Ooohh, that's gotta hurt," Anna muttered behind me as she handed me a makeshift rope."What exactly do you think you're doing, Anna? I'm not getting down there," I said to her with new determination; if I allowed her to continue walking over me now, then she'd always push off the grunt work toward me.
I began my argument with," You know, sister of mine, I've always supported equal rights for men and women, you know, but I also support sharing the workload. Here I am with an injured leg struggling to keep up with you, and now a hole in my shoulder. And there you are with not a single scratch on you." She narrowed her eyes at me as I continued to eloquently explain why she should go down the hole to get Earless until she approached me and said," You're right; you must be tired". She then wrapped me up in a hug and whispered into my ear," But you're an idiot if you think I'm going down that hole" before pushing me down the hole.
Just as I was about to hit the floor, the rope Anna had tied around my waist snagged and tensed, leaving me dangling just a few inches from the ground." That was very rude, you know," I said to my sister while groaning in discomfort. 'Pwah,' I sounded out as she undid the rope, causing me to finally make my landing on the hard dirt floor next to Earless. "You're doing great; you're halfway there," Anna yelled out in encouragement, which meant, hurry up already; I'm getting hungry. "Alright, Earless, let's get you up," I said to Earless as I stood him up; he was now sweating with great pain from his leg and ear. The green paint on his skin was now mixing with the dirt and turning a disgusting brown.
"Up you go," I grunted as I pushed Earless up to the side of the hole so Anna could pull him out of the hole. After an uncomfortable time of pushing Earless out the hole with his ass right in my face, I waited for Anna to pull me up for another uncomfortable period of time, only to be met with silence.
"Anna, you better not be messing around up there. I'm really not in the mood for long periods of silence. I'm already stressed out enough as it is today," I called out to her as I paced back and forth down in the hole, waiting for a reply from my sister. She responded by falling right on me. "Earless is a lot more resilient than I gave him credit for; you would think with the broken leg, he would have a harder time pushing me down here, but no, he just did it like that." " Now what?" I asked her; as she opened her mouth to respond, a growl sounded out. We looked up to hear what sounded like a bear, " Well, this day just keeps getting better," I said out loud, only to be met with Earless's screams.
" Alright, boost me up," I said to Anna as I grabbed two makeshift knives from our collection. She turned to me with a look of astonishment, grabbed my arm, and said to me, "What do you think you're doing?" I looked into her eyes and calmly said, "Well, we can't lose our only guide. I haven't seen anyone else for hours, have you? And besides, he's bound to be a lot more cooperative if I save him, no?". "Have you forgotten that there's a bear or god knows what up there currently eating dinner and getting ready for dessert?" she argued. "It'll be fine. The thing is distracted with dinner like you said. I'll just sneak up behind and put these right in the back of its neck," I said, gesturing to the makeshift knives in my hands. "
"Now boost me up. I don't think Earless has much time left before he's faceless," I said as I moved to the side of the hole, waiting for a boost from Anna. Fine, go get eaten by a bear for all I care. Just leave me down in this hole to starve to death or get eaten next. Why don't you?" she complained, reminding me. "Almost forgot. Don't worry, I'll drown down a rope or something for you to climb out with," I said as she finally relented and came over to boost me up. " Don't get eaten or anything," she warned me as she boosted me out of the hole.
' Okay, maybe this world does have a little bit more fantasy to it,' I thought to myself as I dropped down into a crouch and made my way toward the bear. The reasoning for my thoughts would have to be that the bear's fur was green. The bear was standing over the other pitfall trap, clawing at its current resident. Just as I made my way towards the bear and was about to stab it, a twig snapped behind me. It turned around in a flash and bore its gaze down on me while dropping down low to the ground to begin a charge.
I charged toward me a lot slower than I thought It would have, and it gave me enough time to run toward the pitfall trap we were trapped in. Along the way, I saw my sister running in the same direction and yelled to her, " You just couldn't sit still, could you?" She responded with, " Fine, next time you could deal with the bear yourself. Our bickering was cut short when we ran around the pitfall trap that was now covered, thanks to my sister. Then the bear emerged from the brush and charged towards us, towards the pitfall trap.
It shortly fell into the pitfall trap, leaving Anna and me to ponder our next course of action. "Well, what do we do now?" she asked me. I looked at her and said, "We cut up our lunch here, grab Earless, and then we finally get to his camp."