Despite his desire to ask if she was crazy, Arthur remained quiet as he stared at the cat above her head. It was staring back at him with its three big golden eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw it, but he knew no one else could.
‘Is it possible that this cat carries the will of the previous Arthur?’
This was the only explanation that Arthur could think about. If this cat was the preserver of the last of its will, hence the three eyes, this could explain why Arthur never felt compelled to do anything.
There was one other person that saw this cat, and it was Hannah, the child he found in the Spirits Realm. He also decided to help her and gained a powerful ally.
If this was what the cat did, it wanted him to make Little Yin believe he loved her. But Arthur didn’t like fooling or playing with other people’s emotions. So, he was about to deny it.
“I guess I put you on the spot there,” Little Yin waved her hands with a red face. “There is no need to answer me. We can pretend that I never said anything.”
“No, I was about to….”
“Really! No need to tell me anything!” she said before starting to walk away toward the cart. “Hurry up, we need to go!” said Little Yin as she hopped into the cart with the cat still on her head.
Arthur stared at the cat, sleeping soundly on her head as if its goal had been achieved. However, although he thought it would disappear, the cat remained.
“What the hell is going on here?” muttered Arthur while ruffling through his hair. “In any case, the priority was this the mission. That cat will soon disappear.”
That was what Arthur believed, but after riding the cart for half an hour on the road, the cat was still there. Arthur kept stealing glances at it, and every time he did, Little Yin got shyer.
Arthur was annoyed with this cat more than Little Yin misunderstanding him. The fact that it showed itself now, not when he decided to merge the two timelines, made him speechless. But, in any case, he could do nothing about it.
‘Or can I?’ thought Arthur inwardly before he turned to stare at the cat in all seriousness. She was still sleeping on her head, looking like an oddly-shaped hat. Then, he reached to touch it.
“Ah?” blinked Little Yin as she yelped with surprise. Arthur was more focused on the cat at hand and tried to touch it. However, his hand went through the cat and patted Little Yin.
Arthur looked at his hand passing through the cat as if it was a figment of his imagination and then turned to see Little Yin staring at him with a gaping mouth. Her face was as red as a tomato, and Arthur was about to retract his hand when the horses saved him by stopping.
“Hm? What is it?” said Arthur aloud. He commanded the horse to follow this path unless there was an obstruction. Several trees were cut down in front of them, blocking the road. Arthur stared at them and found that they were freshly cut. “Bandits.”
As soon as he recognizes this scheme, Arthur senses several people coming from the woods around them. Of course, he didn’t fail to sense them, but since the forest was filled with monsters and animals, he couldn’t discern every one of them.
“Is it them?” asked Little Yin as she turned around to stare at the men coming out of the woods, carrying swords and axes.
“No, just regular bandits. I will take care of it.” Arthur jumped from the cart and counted their numbers: four bandits and three sharpshooters in the woods. “This is going to be troublesome.”
Arthur didn’t mean they were strong, but the fact that they ran into other people meant that Arthur couldn’t spare them. So he either had to adjust their memories or kill them.
“You know how this goes,” began their leader, a bald man with his head caved in as if someone hammered him. “You leave the goods and the women, and you are free to go.”
“Is this how it always goes?” asked Arthur with a frown. He understood that some bandits wanted to survive using these methods, but the fact he demanded he leaves Little Yin behind was different.
“Unless someone has a death wish, keke,” said a shorter bandit standing beside the leader, whose front teeth were as big as his nose. “Be sensible and do as you are instructed!” he took out his dagger, still tainted with blood, and licked it.
“I’m glad you are honest men who show their true selves. But, unfortunately, it is rare to find such a person in this world, making it very hard to judge whether someone deserves to die or not.”
“What is this bastard talking about?” frowned the bald man before spitting and raising his hand. “Shoot him down!”
Three gunshots sounded at the same time as three bullets raced to pierce through Arthur’s body. However, Arthur raised his hand in response, and the three bullets stopped moving in midair. The bandits looked terrified.
“I am honestly amazed that all of you survived so far. A single powerful awakener would be enough to take you down, and yet here you are, offending whoever your eyes fall on. Let me make this the end of your villainy in this world.”
Arthur supinated his hand toward the sky, and the three bullets flew toward the three sharpshooters. There were no screams, but three loud thuds echoed as their bodies fell from the trees.
The bandits looked back and could see the corpses of their comrades with bullets in them. Arthur walked toward the bandits, whose bodies refused to move. As Arthur got to them, the men started shouting, begging, and crying.
“Please, powerful one, spare us!” said the bald man, his face full of tears and snot. “We promise to turn a new leaf, never harming a soul again!”
“This sounds like the perfect thing to convince a hesitating enemy, almost as if you rehearsed it,” Arthur stared at him coldly before raising his hand and grabbing his head. “Be well in the next life.”
There was no agony or splattering heads like before, but the man stopped moving. Then, he fell to the ground, lifeless. Arthur walked toward the others and did the same to them, killing them and then absorbing their stats.
These bandits were each a Vetus-ranker, which is why they thought they could take down Arthur. However, if judged through ranks alone, Arthur wouldn’t have been able to kill Amelio.
Arthur then obliterated the bodies and fixed the tears, making it seem like nothing had happened here. The only issue was that Little Yin witnessed all of this, although Arthur wanted to keep his abilities hidden as long as possible.
‘This is good since seeing me kill so many people should make her afraid of me,’ thought Arthur as he returned to the cart. As he expected, Little Yin was covering her mouth and staring down.
“I had to get rid of them,” said Arthur as he pulled on the reins, making the horses resume their galloping down the road. “More innocents would have suffered their villainous acts if I had spared them.”
Little Yin was still quiet, making Arthur frown and turn toward her. As he got a better look at her face, he found it red. Arthur blinked his eyes, unsure of what to say.
“Are you constipated?”
“No… no,” she hurried to say while removing her hand. Arthur realized she had a sweet smile all along, which she worked to hide from him. “It is just that… you are fine with killing for my sake.”
“Is there something wrong in your head?” asked Arthur, unable to hold back. “This isn’t something you should be happy about, even if true.”
“Those bandits deserved death, did they not?” asked Little Yin, to which Arthur reluctantly nodded. “You… you were so cool and strong.”
“Are all teenagers in Ilios as scary as you are?” asked Arthur with genuine curiosity. She was still thinking like that while witnessing the murder made him question the state of the world.
“I’m, I’m eighteen, so….”
“That was not what I meant…” said Arthur with a headache. “Wait, eighteen?” he asked again, realizing they were almost the same age. Little Yin nodded, and Arthur had no more words to share. All he could hope was that this mission would end without his heart stopping or his hair turning white.
There was nothing but woods in their way, but the road was smooth enough that the horses didn’t get tired too fast. Even still, Arthur could tell whoever was pursuing them was getting closer. It was almost time to set up a trap to welcome these unwanted guests, and no one creates traps better than a runemaster.
