How About No? 5 (Patreon)

How About No?

Chapter 5

-VB-

Traveling along the Kingsroad was an experience.

It wasn’t a paved road. Despite its grand name, it was a packed dirt road. In some places, there were even weeds growing in the middle of the road itself in a manner that could only be described as “flourishing.”

There were people who traveled the roads, and most of them looked like farmers and merchants heading to and from a village to a town and vice versa. There were some travelers from afar, but in the two weeks of walking, I saw three among hundreds. This road was as medieval as it could be in my eyes.

Now, if there was one thing missing from this, then it was either some nobles running roughshod with the commoners or band-.

“RAAHHH!!!”

As bandits sprung an ambush and began killing people, I stopped and watched for a moment. Chipped swords flashed and cut into linen clothes and flesh alike. Some of the travelers tried to protect themselves with their own swords, but spears lunged in and tore into them from a distance their swords could not reach. All in all, this was a fantastically operating bandit group!

Oh, I could run. I had a potion that would let me run.

HISS!

I blinked when an arrow nearly struck me in the face but instead missed, passing by my left ear without touching it.

… Oh shit, what am I doing? I gotta move, too.

I reached to my side where many small corked gourd bottles hung, grabbed one with blackened bottom, and took a swig of the potion within. I felt my skin grow tough without losing its flexibility and knew that no mere arrow would pierce my skin for the next thirty minutes. I named this potion after one from my games: Elixir of Defense. I recorked it, grabbed another bottle, and took a swig from it. This one was the same as the one that let me throwdown with the bear. Just like the previous potion, I named this one after Warcraft potions and called it Elixir of Ogre’s Strength. Then I popped the third potion from the third gourd, Elixir of Agility.

I rushed in and slammed into the nearest bandit who saw me coming.

He did not, however, see the fist that cratered the left side of his face.

Even before his body (yes, body, because there was no way someone normal could live with their brain shredded and caved in simultaneously), I grabbed it by one of the arms and threw it at the other bandits, one of which was about to strike down a traveler.

Fortunately for the traveler, the dead bandit struck the living, ragdoll-style, and sent both of them tumbling away.

While this happened, the bandits remained utterly oblivious. I didn’t blame them; there was a whole cart between us and the rest of them. They heard screams and screams were expected when you were cutting down the defenseless!

I jogged over to the trembling and still living bandit who was trying to reach for his sword… and I kicked his head. The head didn’t quite pop off, but there was a pop and a twist from the force of my kick hitting the back of his head, and he just flopped dead.

Good riddance.

I grabbed the sword the bandit had been using and then ran around the cart.

And one by one, I sliced through the bandits until the sword broke. Then I grabbed an axe and buried it in one’s head. Finally, I used a spear to make shishkabobs out of the rest.

As the last bandit fell forward into the spear I used to kill him, I let go of the spear.

It was only then that I realized how loud the galloping of horses was from my rear.

Grimacing, I didn’t run away (because I didn’t want to make this look bad for me) and waited for whoever was coming to clean up the mess.

And to my surprise, the soldiers that came to the rescue were not Stark or even other House men-at-arms and levies. The soldiers who came were full-plate knights on their chainmail-covered horses. They were legitimate knights!

What the fuck?

The lead knight, one of nine knights in the front along with more lightly armored and armed cavalry behind them, looked around and then at me.

“You there. Did you do this?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“... You speak boldly to a knight.”

Did I speak like a Westerosi here or just like myself? I mean…

Well, momma taught me better than to be rude.

“I apologize, ser,” I replied. “I am not a Westerosi, so it is … still uncomfortable for me to refer to one of your status with honorifics and the like.”

“Not a Westerosi?” the knight sounded surprised. “... How did you kill all of these bandits, then?”

It seemed that the man in charge saw rather quickly that I wasn’t a bandit. Great! His question about how I killed …

I looked around.

Jesus, I just killed a dozen people. It … I was sure I felt just fine when I killed that first guy. Why was I? Damn, my stomach’s feeling a little too tight. Fuck, I killed people. Was I going to -?

I turned away and threw up everything I ate that morning.

It wasn’t until I was done throwing up and then retching a bit more after that I noticed how the knights hadn’t intervened or interfered.

“Your first time, son?”

“Yeah,” I muttered before realizing he might not have heard me muttering. “Yes, ser. My first time.”

There was a chuckle somewhere among the knight’s retinue, but it was ignored by everyone.

“You did a good thing, lad. Cheer up.”

“Thank you, ser. As for how I did it… I just did it?”

I did not want to tell knights of all people about strength and toughness-boosting potions. Hell no!

… I think I’m still a little jittery. I normally don’t think like this. Gotta be calmer, gotta be calmer-!

I took a deep breath in…

Turned around and dry-gagged again.

“But still… for a man to kill a dozen bandits with that kind of muscles…”

… Please don’t make any connection between me and -.

“Could you perhaps be a magician?”

Fuck.

… I also couldn’t run or fight because there was no way I could defeat dozen-plus knights and men-at-arms or outrun horses, especially the light cavalry.

“... It is not something I like to advertise, ser, but yes, I am a magician.”

“I see. Then I insist that you come and meet her grace, Shiera of House Targaryen.”

Ah fuck. This was exactly what I didn’t want. I glanced around. There weren’t enough trees for me to use as cover to run.

I took a deep breath in and sighed. “Alright.”

Besides, if it came down to it, I could just try to run at night, right?