The Travelling Merchant

Spoiler:

Having recieved a request from the job board, yet again, Kris stretched and walked out of the tent in his divisions camp, heading towards the border between Reim and one of the smaller towns neighboring its border. It was another simple mission, but the reason that this one had not been taken yet, as it was a dire mission, was because Kris had almost literally grabbed it out of the hands of the scribe. Technically the mission had not even been posted on the board yet, but it would still count anyways.

A merchant who had travelled through, if he remembered correctly, Heliophat and was coming to Reim was having increased trouble in the Western Front, especially with bandits. That in itself was not surprising as the entire Western Fron was pretty much a bandits heaven, full of destroyed siege and war machines and completely barren and almost devoid of wild life.

Attaching his Rapier to his sash and heading out of the capital, mostly because bandits would require the use of force to remove, Kris headed down out of the southern gate of Reim, and began the lengthy trek to the border where the merchant was said to be staying. The rapier was not by any means a bad weapon, it certainly served its purpose in fights to injure and disable the opponent, but it did not dissuade attacks as much as the weapon he had seen a picture of in the Reim job office.

Katana was the name of the sword, and it was a blade unique to the Zou empire, almost. There were a few officers in Reim that did carry katana's but they were few and far between, preferring to stick with the standard long sword and short sword combinations of the Legion. The same styles that Kris knew, but could not be forced to practice if his life depended on it, as they were boring and had no finesse at all. The katana and rapier though, those were swords that had style and finesse in abundance.

Maybe on the mission was over with Kris would take a detour to the Zou empire, and start travelling the world some. There would have to be multiple different weapons and styles around that he could learn about or find while travelling.

As Kris reached the three quaters way point between the village he was meeting the merchant at, and Reim, he was, unsurprisingly, attacked bu bandits. There were only five of them, and from the look of it, they all had knives and swords. Not really a threat, Kris originally had just planned to keep walking in the hopes that they would back away, but alas that was not to be.

"Lookie here boys, some new grub, and fancy gear," one of the bandits snarled, his lips curled up into a grin. Covered with a black turban and wearing a porrly grown and maintained mustache and beard, Kris could quite literally count the amount of visible teeth on one hand. And if that was not enough, the sheer smell coming from the bandits mouths, and just their body odor in general, would have made a normal person run away in disgust.

What Kris could assume about that the shirts they were all wearing was that they, at some point in the long distant past, were once white. Now mud, sweat, urine, and blood had stained the clothing, leaving is a disgusting brown color. If Kris did not know better, and it honestly would not surprise him, they had probably used those same shirts to wipe their asses with. That alone made Kris gag slightly and want to vomit, as he was pretty sure he could see a piece or two of corn embedded into the tears.

Sighing and merely pulling out his rapier, Kris lunged and stabbed the bandit who had talked, which was mostly likely the leader, straight in the scrotum. Given the slight resistance he had felt as the blade met the sack, and the way the bandit fell down, face forward, without even uttering a cry, it was highly likely that Kris had struck one of the testicles, or the only testicle. One could never tell with this crowd.

Pulling the rapier out and spinning, Kris ducked under a knife slash from the second bandit, and jumped forwards, hopping over him as the third bandit attempted a sneak attack from behind. That much was extremely obvious, and Kris was left with the question of how, as the second bandits throat began spewing blood all over the third one, merchants and villages were having problems with these five. The fight had not even been going on for more than five seconds, and two of them were down.

Spinning and lunging again, Kris could feel the squish of the third bandits eye being speared through the socket and leading straight into the brain. That there was a slight crunching sound and feelign did not bode well for Kris, as he had probably managed to get the tip stuck within the skull of the man he just killed.

As Kris attempted to pull his rapier out, and defend against the two remaining bandits, his fear was realized, as he could not pull his rapier out at such a quick notice without harming the sword. He had just gotten this blade, and really did not want to have to repair it so soon after recieving it.

Letting go of the rapier for now, Kris grabbed the short sword from the downed bandit, and weighed it in his hand. It was decently balanced, but not nearly as good as the quality of the swords provided by the Legion. He was just thinking about how beneficial it would have been to bring a second sword with him when he heard the telltale signs of a cart and horses approaching.

The bastard of a scribe that Kris had grabbed the mission from must have sent ahead a messanger bird to the village, telling the merchant to meet Kris half way to Reim. Either they were confident in his skills in the Legion, or were trying to set him up for failure, and Kris absolutely refused to fail such a low ranking job.

Grabbing the sword of the other bandit that had gotten his throat slit open by his comrade, Kris turned toward the two bandits who were heading the the merchant's cart and easily caught up to them. With a simple swing of the swords, and correct timing and angle, Kris decapitated the two remaining bandits before they even came close to the cart.

Throwing the short swords down and walking over to the corpse that had his rapier in it, Kris placed his foot on the face of the bandit, and pressed down, pulling his sword out while hearing an almost naseauting crunch as the corpses nose shattered due to the force that Kris was stepping on it with.

Walking up to the merchant, Kris grabbed a rag out of the pouch he had brought with him, and wiped the blood and eyeball jelly off of the blade, before securely placing it within his sash once again.

"Do me a favor. Next time you request to meet somewhere for a job offer, do not follow instructions from another source. What if that had been from the bandits so they could have killed you before I got to them?" Kris said, berating the merchant as he continued walking.

Stroking the horses softly, and climbing into the seat next to the merchant, Kris propped his legs on the front of the cart, his hands behind his head and he leaned back, and looked at the merchant who was staring at him, flabbergasted at the tone and audacity of Kris to climb in his cart and sit next to him.

"What? I did your job, now head back to the bloody capital so I can get paid properly."