"Eat shit!" Just as my words echoed infront of the cave, I threw the dung right at Nasir's face. I was afraid that I would miss my shot despite the distance not being that big but lady Luck was by my side and the warm dung directly hit his face in the eyes.
Before anyone could react, I brought out some more dung and threw it into Ares' eyes too. My nervousness quickly changed into excitement when I landed two successive bulls eye.
By the time Ares was hit, my left hand was already on the edge of the cart and I jumped. As soon as I jumped, Nasir exclaimed, "Aaahhh! What the hell?" His left hand was already reaching for his face while his right hand moved towards his long sword, freeing the girl he was holding.
Just as Nasir's exclaim reached Carlo's ears, he started to turn around to look at him. His hands had left the Lakéqus he was petting and it reached for the red 'bamboo gun'. This was what I decided to call his weapon.
While Carlo was turning his face, I had already jumped off the cart and positioned myself to hide behind a Lakéqus. Carlo had successfully tied one of the monsters to a wooden stump he had nailed on the ground. The other Lakéqus was still tied to the cart.
Just as Carlo turned and his face was revealed, I threw another one on him. I was now quite close to him so my shot was bound to hit. As the dung hit Carlo's face, Ares shouted from my left, "Aaagghh! It stinks!" Meanwhile his hands moved towards his back to grab his heavy sword.
'Of course it stinks! It's the dung of a monster!'
After calming my mind, I flushed out the dagger that Princess Josephine had given me. I constantly had to turn my inventory on and off as it would block my vision. That was taking a toll on my mind. With a quick movement the dagger then moved towards the rope of the Lakéqus infront of me which tied it to the cart.
By now Carlo also spoke, "Who the hell- Shit! It stinks! What is this?"
As he was speaking, some girls realized what was going on. Despite their faces covered and their sights blocked, they started to run in many directions. From the corner of my eyes I noticed that four were running away while three were still stumped in their position.
Before Carlo even finished his sentence, I managed to cut the rope. The dagger was so sharp that just a touch of it to the stretched rope and it split into two. When Carlo finished his sentence, my dagger was already returned back inside the inventory and my right hand was already on the back of the Lakéqus.
Since there was not much noise made, the beast was calm. Also, it was a male Lakéqus who were trained to be calm and support their riders during stress. Moreover, I had female Lakéqus' smell on me which even further helped me.
As I was in the air, jumping over the Lakéqus, Nasir had already removed the dung from his eyes. I noticed from the corner of my eyes that he was now holding the long sword in his right hand while his left hand, covered by a brown and gooey substance, was moving towards the girl closest towards him.
He was looking toward me with squinted eyes. His whole face was red, the area around his eyes even redder. His eyes were watering like a faucet! As soon as he looked at me climbing the monster, he shouted, "Catch that bastard! He is running away on a Laké!"
Before Nasir finished his sentence, I managed to sit on the male Lakéqus. I kicked the monster lightly on his flank with my right foot and grabbed his reins even before I even settled down on it. As soon as I kicked I also blurted out loud, "Haiyah!" A vocal signal works best to start the horse-riding or in this case, Lakéqus-riding.
Just as I started to move, I looked back to see the situation. Ares had now cleared his eyes. He was not squinting like Nasir but his eyes were very red. Instead of following me, Nasir and Ares were running after the girls to catch them. After all, I was already far from their reach. There were many screams and shouts whether it was from the girls or the men.
I turned back and looked if my posture and my vision were aligning correctly. After confirming that it was good enough, I pulled the rein outwards from the beast with my right hand. The Lakéqus quickly turned towards the forest which was on the right.
I looked back and noticed that the girls had actually run pretty far. They even ran towards the river, opposite from me. The knights were cursing and running after them. By this moment, all the girls were free.
'I'm sorry. Because of me you'll have a momentary false hope. Although I wish that you manage to escape but the outcome is pretty clear. I'm sorry to make you taste something even bitter than death!'
Putting my guilt-filled thoughts aside, I looked at the shooter, Carlo. By now he had also successfully managed to wipe his face. With squinted eyes he was looking towards me. His hand was reaching towards his bamboo gun. Looking at me he shouted, "Come back you bastard!"
"Never!" I whispered with a smile on my face. The Lakéquses were fast, very fast! By now I was already inside the forest. The trees covered my vision of the knights and the group. Looking forward again, I loosely grabbed both of the reins and jerked them to increase my speed. "Haiyah!" I shouted again.
Hoof! Hoof! Hoof!
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
'Thank God the rules of controlling the reins are the same as that video! I was so scared that my plan would fail!'
Finishing my monologue, I noticed that the beast was running too fast! It was probably even faster than a horse probably because it had six legs! It was now getting difficult to control. I had to prevent all the trees coming towards me by handling the reins.
Controlling the reins was pretty simple. Pulling left would move the horse towards left and pulling right would move it towards right. To stop it, you needed to pull the rope downwards with both the hands. The stronger the pull, the sharper was the reaction from the horse.
There were some other things like how you needed to also use your legs and your body to control the horse but that was not something I remembered from the video. Jerking the rope and increasing its speed was what I saw in a movie and it was surprisingly working!
As the number of trees coming towards me was increasing, so was my focus on controlling the Lakéqus. The beast was smart for he would choose the path with less resistance and would avoid most of the hurdles by itself.
Swoosh!
Thump!
Just as I got used to riding the Lakéqus, something small like a dart swooshed through my right and hit a tree! I turned behind quickly and noticed that Carlo was chasing me on the other Lakéqus. He was still far behind but he was holding his red bamboo gun in his right arm which was also steering the Lakéqus. His eyes were either closed or squinted and tears were flowing profusely from them.
His left hand took something out from the right pocket of his jacket. He then quickly dipped it into one of the pockets in the belt and placed it into the gun. The red colored bamboo gun had a white colored something arching over it. He moved it back and placed the bullet infront of it. Just as he released the arch, the bullet shot forward. Luckily, it missed me by quite a huge margin. But I wasn't sure what would happen once he got used to the stinging!
"Shit! Fuck!" I exclaimed and shouted, "Haiyah!"
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
He fired many darts, some missing closely and some missing by a large margin. The forest was filled with only the sounds of six legged beasts marching and darts cutting through the wind.
I was really having trouble riding the Lakéqus. My thighs were getting scratched while my pants were already tearing apart. My control was also very bad. I couldn't even count how many times I had avoided death! When I could not decide the direction to move the beast towards, I would just loosen up the reins and let it decide.
Besides me constantly jerking the reins and being in a very high speed, Carlo was still catching up to me. Our chase had already lasted for quite a while and I was pretty sure that we were already very deep in the forest.
Luckily, he was missing his every shot but I was sure that it won't be like that for long. If someone was this good with their eyes closed, imagine how good they were with a proper vision!
I turned back and noticed that he had gained his vision back. He was already aiming his gun towards me with his right eye completely open and left eye closed.
"Shit!" I exclaimed and made my ride turn slightly towards right.
Whoosh!
Pooch!
Hoof! Hoof!
The bullet then hit the stifle of the Lakéqus I was riding. It was still running but his speed was noticeably decreasing. Meanwhile Carlo and his ride started to close the distance while he started to reload his gun.