“I beg you it is enough. Please stop this!”(?)

This one shout woke everyone up. After a few seconds everyone focused in the direction it was coming from. The person who shouted and tried to save the child in the last moment was none of the child’s parents and none of the humans living in the village.

It was the little cat girl I saw before. Considering that she wasn’t even human and tried to save one I got interested in why she did that.

“Hoho, what have we here? A demi-human trying to save a human even when his own parents gave up every hope? What courage you have little girl.”(A)

The one who always grinned spoke. Suddenly the parents of the boy lying on the ground and who just escaped death saw hope for their child to survive this. Packed by greed they assumed.

“Why don’t we switch the hostage from our son to her? She is so in love with him that she even tried to save him.”(Father of the child)

“Huh?”(Demi-human girl)

She didn’t know what just happened so she gave a dumb reply. I have to be honest I did expect they would try something but I didn’t think they were that stupid.

Betrayed by the ones she just tried to stand up for the girl made a sad and disappointed face. I could see the pride on the face of the parents. I don’t know from where they got it because their idea was nothing other than stupid and desperate. If you took a glance at them now they looked like they probably thought that they had a really good idea.

“What a nice idea to take her a hostage too. But letting the other one go, I don’t know about that? Hmm, we should do it more interesting.”(A)

And he smiled again. Are there only stupid humans and weird beastmen? Nah, I shouldn’t make a prejudice so fast and after only meeting a handful of them.

“How about this, I am going to kill one kid every hour you need to find him but I will start with her and finish with the boy she tried to safe. That is fair isn’t it?”(A)

The parents of the child got frightened by that idea and just noticed what they have done, but knowing that they had some time to save their son they were relieved. They were even more scared to try and save him like the little girl did, so his fate wouldn’t change much anyway.

I tried to take a glance at the little girl. And the demi-human child made an even more depressing face than she did before. I expected that much.

“Well you reap what you sow, but I just got interested to ask her for information and reasons why she would rescue the boy. I shouldn’t let her die so fast.”(Me)

I whispered to myself.

I found (stole) a black hood in one of the villager’s houses and wore it while moving around the place to cover my face. I was slowly moving to the middle through the crowd. No one noticed me yet, because I also used my light deflecting barrier. Every time I bumped into one of the villagers they would stare at nothing.

“Start searching now! We will start killing the children one by one in one hour if you can’t find him.”(B)

The one who was normally quiet spoke. All of the human children fainted out of fear and everyone else of the villagers scattered to search for me. I needed to hold back my laughter because I was right next to them. The little girl I wanted to rescue didn’t feint. Well I don’t know if she even heard the shout because she looked like she lost all her hope and made a face from which anyone could tell she already gave up on living.

Back to the important part. I needed to think of a way to save her.

Suddenly she looked up. I was standing right there were she looked to. I quickly checked my barrier and it was still working. But she could see me. No wait, that wasn’t possible. My barrier was well made. I mean it was made by me.

She probably used a technique I don’t know of yet and just felt that something was there. Now I was even more interested to know how she did that. I waited till the villagers got away far enough, to engage the enemy, without involving them in the fight.

My plan was easy. After waiting a few minutes I would go near one of the two beastmen in order to surprise and then kill him as fast as possible to have an easier fight in a one vs one. Even if I couldn’t kill him in one go he would be severely injured.

I thought my plan was perfect but before I could use mana to activate a spell I would have been detected. I had no weapon, nothing sharp and my fists wouldn’t be enough for the job.

I was back to think on how to engage again but it got cut short because one of them noticed and attacked me. I didn’t know what gave me away. Was it because I let my guard down? I don’t know I needed to focus on the fight now.

“There he is. I told you he would come if you take some hostages.”(A)

“Yeah you are right but focus now.”(B)

I didn’t have much experience fighting but with all the magic I should have an advantage I thought. I widened the gap between the attacker and me and used a basic fire spell [Fireball].

He dodged it. Not that I expected it to hit him. Suddenly I got attacked from behind. It was the other guy. He used his spear and tried to pierce me. I reacted a little bit late and got a cut in the shoulder. I didn’t know how he could have moved so fast.

Blood started flowing out. It wasn’t that deep to endanger my life but it hurt like hell. I knew it would be a hard fight. But even than I couldn’t beat them with raw strength or mana capacity. I didn’t have a weapon which they did have. This lowered my chance of winning even more.

I needed to think of a strategy to beat those two.

And I needed to think of one fast.