Chapter 7

This predicament had stumped me. Thinking for hours, I still couldn't find a solution. I was locked in and If I did manage to break out, there was the problem of the beast then another lock I had to bypass. This was driving me crazy. The beast was roaming around constantly and it had kept producing noises knocking my equipment all over the place that it was hard to concentrate.

If only I could kill it and stop it from kicking my armor around I could concentrate on unlocking the padlock! Wait. Actually thinking about it, I needed to kill the beast and unlock the padlock. I did say I needed a thieves tool. I think I saw something while I was shoved here. That's it! That beast had already ate the corpses it snagged and it was bound to be hungry right now. Things fitted in like a jigsaw puzzle. I hated these type of scenarios, I wasn't gifted in stuff like this. Those adventurer thieves could had probably figured out how to escape hours ago.

Sinking my teeth into my hand, blood dripped. The beast had started walking towards the scent of fresh blood. It's location was obvious as it had sniffed loudly with it's four nostrils. Luring the beast to come closer, I had sat on my ass near the cell bars with my legs bent.

The beast had stuck it's neck in between the cell bars. To ensure I didn't lose my hand, I had maintained a steady distance with my hand as it got closer. The sound of it coming closer had stopped, it's body was too big and he could no longer pursue his target of interest.

It was time. I hurriedly wrapped my arms around his neck. I sprawled my legs out, shooting it out. I had kicked its front legs making him lose his footing. As it had tried to regain balance, I had continue kicking his legs keeping him off from recovering.

The strength of the beast was still stronger than an average human. My face would hit against the bars occasionally but escaping my hold was futile. With my left hand I shot it out to its neck, digging it's skin. Managing to pass through the skin, I began digging into it's flesh. The muscles had tensed up, making it harder for me to pry into him. The interior of the beast was hot, slimy and gooey. My ear buzzed from the loud howling noise from distress.

Grabbing onto what I could fit in my hand, I had pulled as much as I could out. As I pulled, the voice of the beast became increasingly distorted. I made sure I pulled far enough to detach the lump piece of flesh, it had stopped making noises. Repeating the process, digging and ripping out anything I deemed useful to keeping it alive. The entire time, my legs could feel hot liquid pouring onto me.

The movement stopped minutes ago, but to ensure it was absolutely dead I had waited. My arms were tired and my cheeks sore from having iron pressed against it. Laying it down, I felt it's face, trying to find its mouth. With both hands, I had departed the jaws open.

What I needed was a tooth to lock pick the padlock. The tooth was ideal, it was thin like a strand but sturdy. Yanking a single tooth was difficult but It was doable. Reaching for the padlock, I fiddled with it for minutes. The frustration was racking up quickly and had vanished just as quick when I heard the metal clicking open.

I'll show them they were wrong to mock me. On my knees, I carefully patted the floor looking for my longsword. The beast had scattered them across so it had took some time.

Finding the longsword, I went to the cellar door. Shoulder Bashing it, I had figured the placement of the slide lock. Now it was just a matter of time as I carve that area with my longsword. I promise, I'll give them a harsh lesson about the consequences of mocking an opponent, especially me.

An hour had passed, this wood was really sturdy. A hole as big as a fist had been made leading the outside. The bolt was exposed in the middle of the hole. Reaching for it, I had slid it to unlock. Slowly opening the cellar door and catching a peek outside to ensure no enemy was present. It was safe and there was no sun. The night sky didn't provide much lighting but I was so accustomed to the cell, this felt like child's play.

My armor wasn't best suited for sneaking, the metallic look was easier to spot in the night and the noise it produced at times could give me away. Ditching it for now, the only thing I took was my belt to hold my long sword. I detest stealth missions.

Crouching across to the front, a moving frame of a child on top of the slab could be seen. It was probably Mark resisting. He was still alive, I'm sure it would be too risky to save him right now. If it was me, I would set sentries in the bushes and many other places to keep a watch. With them having a beast watching a prisoner, I'm sure they had countermeasures placed somewhere.

I had crawled to the hill. I was right, a horde of villagers just waiting at the stairs. In robes with hoods on, they were completely still. I needed to thin their numbers but with that amount, surely they would just call for reinforcements. It was too risky with a whole village of them just down below.

I couldn't take the stairs and the only option was to slide down from the sides. There was plenty of vegetations. Brush offered good concealment during observation but had produced loud sound and offered the least advantage to movement. Judging from yesterday, they had poor vision in the dark, I didn't have to worry much. I would have to wipe out most of the village before I could extract Mark out of here safely.

With the village lined up, it made my job easier. The houses had their doors opened. Creeping inside one house, no lights were lit, and the interior of the room housed three villagers. They were all facing the wall, staring at nothing and awaiting for their master's call. Attacking swift and fast, I had to make every hit count. There was no room for error. Should these mindless pawns escape, it would be a very bad day and compromise all my efforts.

Sneaking behind them, I readied my sword. All it takes is one swing. Using my entire weight swinging, two heads fell from their shoulders. Before the other one could react, I had kicked him to the floor. I needed his robe to blend in and it wouldn't do any good if it was covered with blood. I had got on top of him and put his neck in between my biceps. Pulling him up I dragged him away from the other bodies to avoid the establishing puddles of blood. With my other hand, guiding his head towards where it's not supposed to go, his neck had snapped. Stripping him and wearing it over my clothes, I had then eased my blade into him to ensure there was no possibility he could come back from death.

With the line up, it was easy. I had systematically decapitated the residents of the village. My blade would be covered in grease, conveniently they had wash bins in the back of their houses and I had used it to support my killing spree. Clearing all the way towards the entrance had took a good while. Without my armor, I was able to recover quite quickly so it wasn't as tiring. I have been so use to combat with my armor that this felt terrifyingly easy.

At the entrance I could see a short shadowy human shape. With both it's legs, it had another pole touching the floor. Only one person in the village had this shape. This must be that so called head villager asshole. He must've been programed to greet the people to come here.. Thinking back on all the obvious hints fueled a flame of anger inside my chest.

Stealth had flew out of my mind as I had approached him. He turned around with his stupid face, and then his eyes corrected itself and fixed onto me. His tongue sliding across his mouth.

"Dear Guest won't you stay for another night?"

He probably said the same thing to everyone trying to escape. This whole village reacted poorly to people. I'm sure now that everything was orchestrated except when they answered their Master's call. She was truly sadistic. She'll die by my hands. My muscles bulging, his head had cleanly came off. All the blood from my sword had found its home onto the ground.

Torches lighted up behind me over the crescent of the hill. They're starting it huh.. Might as well bring a present up there. Picking up the head, I made my way towards Mark.

I wasn't in a rush, all they were going to do was torture Mark, he'll live. All I needed to do after exterminating these pest was backtrack a town and have a priest heal him. I needed to conserve my energy for the real fight.

Walking up the stairs was fine until I saw a villager walking down with a torch in his hand and an unidentifiable object in his other. To him, I was just another one of his crownies passing by. As I got next to him, it had realised the blood stains I had on my robe and the head in my hand. Turning around trying to signal his master, my blade quickly and swiftly found its way into his neck. His head now dangling by a small connection. I had barely caught his body from dropping onto the floor while also wielding a sword. The blood flooded down onto the stairs.

"Oh dear. Go check it out." a faint voice could be heard. It was that bitch.

This wasn't good, I dragged the body to side of the stairs. Two villagers had started to descend. Their bodies were healthy but they were useless brain dead beings. As they came across the puddle, they both looked down. I had started closing my distance and prepared to lop off the head of the closest one. They had looked at my directions only because of the blood trail, failing to realize I had already been arms distance. The head came off, and the body instantly dropped. With my longsword, I had redirected it's natural path with force and pierced it into the other man's neck through the vocal cord.

With my position revealed, it was time to get started. She'll surely love this present. Throwing the head underhanded, it flew high into the sky disappearing from my sight. I made my way up the stairs. They had been too focused on the head to notice I was making my way towards them.

The place was well light and I could see Mark had indeed been the one tied onto the slab. There was a line of villagers and a tall one next to her. She really did keep to her plans. They all had been wearing the same brown robe. If I didn't know better that she was controlling all these people, I would have thought they were an actual cult.

"You're not one of mines are you. What. Another adventurer stumbling upon here to investigate this town? I'll just kill you like the others before you!" the confident voice of that lady was tiresome.

"Ad.. ven.. rur. Help… please…" Mark struggled to talk. He had looked drained and on the verge of collapsing.

What is with everyone thinking I'm an adventurer especially Mark. Had he forgotten he had a babysitter. I'll play along with their adventurer play, it would be quite entertaining revealing my identity and seeing the shocked face of that bitch after finding out the man she locked up had escaped just to personally murder her.

Only an adventurer would set a flashy grand entrance. Throwing my robe into the air and getting into a stance. I wasn't worried she would realize it was me, It was too dark for them to see my face when they stripped me.

My blade pointed towards the hordes of villager. My stance was wide. I didn't really use this stance for armored foes but they had lacked armor, making wide attacks more deadly and capable of killing multiple of foes with one sweep. I didn't have to worry so much about the repercussions either, there wasn't anything to make it bounce off of. They're all going to die.