An adventuring party bound for the Central Lands.
Two sword-bearing warriors, and a cloaked monk carrying the Scripture.
Hidden in the roadside bushes, the bandit leader licked his lips and signaled to the men behind him with a few quick gestures. The bandits scattered into the thickets lining both sides of the road.
The plan was simple: ambush and kill the troublesome monk first, then use their numbers to finish off the two warriors. Kill them all, leave no one alive! Then loot the corpses and live well.
They waited until the three travelers reached a stretch of road hemmed in by thick brush on both sides.
The monk seemed to sense it coming before it happened. The instant a bandit lunged out, the Scripture swung up — and, as if by pure coincidence, cracked squarely across the man's skull.
Meanwhile, the monk's other hand had already produced some strangely shaped weapon from nowhere, catching another bandit's longsword mid-swing.
"Ungh!" A strangled yelp rose from behind. The bandit assigned to strike from the rear took a backward kick square between the legs.
The monk shoved the longsword aside, spun in one motion, and swung the Scripture again, flattening a third bandit.
The bandits still charging in from both sides froze for a beat at the sound of their comrades' screams.
Was this thing a warrior or a monk? Using a holy Scripture to bludgeon people?
"An ambush?"
"Looks like bandits."
Two more clangs of steel rang out as Rolwen and Timmy each parried a fresh flurry of attacks.
The bandits had stayed eerily silent from the first strike onward — silent enough that the wrongness of it all had nearly been written off as imagination.
"Wait!"
Just as both sides were about to go all-out, the man chosen as bandit leader called his men off.
He'd meant to roar, "All together — kill them all!" But the moment he got a proper look at the swordsman leading the party, the thought evaporated on the spot.
A failed ambush was nothing to fret over. But that swordsman was not someone you crossed.
"Hey — you there, the handsome one. You wouldn't happen to be the Demon Hunters Rolwen, would you?"
For all his hulking, brutish build, the bandit leader was surprisingly careful. As a professional, he knew the rule: be ruthless when ruthless pays, back down when it doesn't. Some people simply weren't worth robbing.
"Oh? F*ck, you know me?"
Rolwen grunted an answer while scanning their surroundings. There were more bandits than he'd expected, but he showed not a flicker of alarm — if anything, he looked utterly at ease.
"Ah, this is quite the misunderstanding. My brothers have gone hungry too long and got a bit heavy-handed. Let me apologize on their behalf."
With that, he waved a hand, and as the bandits sheathed their weapons and stepped back, he tossed a small coin pouch out of his pocket.
With a jingling clatter, a few silver coins landed at Rolwen's feet.
"F*ck, you're an interesting sort of bandit — paying me travel fare instead?"
Rolwen grinned. Demon Hunting was a morally gray trade to begin with; when there were no monster contracts to fill, he sometimes took the odd job robbing the rich to help the poor.
"Ah, it's all just a misunderstanding, truly."
The bandit leader laughed as well and cleared a path for the group at once.
The scene, seemingly settling back into peace, was broken by a cool, clear voice.
"But they really did mean to kill me just now, didn't they?"
The black-robed monk pointed at the three bandits sprawled on the ground.
If this had been nothing more than a shakedown for toll money, there might have been room to forgive it. But they had struck first, without warning.
Hearing that the voice belonged to a woman —
the bandit leader froze for a beat, then turned to Rolwen and, with brazen nerve, tried to talk his way out of it.
"Ah, come now, it's all a misunderstanding. You're all clearly skilled — no real harm done. Just think of it as my brothers giving everyone a bit of a warm-up, eh? Isn't that right, Lord Rolwen?"
What the big bandit didn't know was that Rolwen, for all his outward calm, was already pounding with panic the moment he heard that voice behind him.
This party — he wasn't the one calling the shots here.
Beside him, Timmy's throat bobbed nervously.
"I don't accept your apology."
The monk showed no trace of mercy or forgiveness. A faint killing intent began to seep off her.
"This... we've shown all the sincerity we've got. Well then — much as it pains me, I suppose I'll have to let those three brothers each lose an arm to make it up to you?"
The words nearly made Timmy gasp out loud.
This bandit chief was ruthless, through and through!
As if afraid Nanoda wouldn't believe him, the bandit leader signaled his men to drag the three fallen bandits over, then raised a blade to hack an arm off right there.
Blood sprayed!
Agony wrenched the three bandits back from unconsciousness, and three shrieking screams tore out one after another!
"Oh, god..."
Timmy had assumed it was just talk — he never expected the man to actually go through with it right in front of them. His stomach churned, and last night's dinner threatened to come back up.
Even Rolwen, who'd looked perfectly composed a moment ago, frowned.
The bandit leader wiped the spatter off his face and smiled.
"So? Feeling better now?"
"A thoroughly rotten man, through and through. Move aside."
Beneath the black robe, her expression was impossible to read.
At her words, the bandits dragged their three wounded comrades and dove straight into the forest, vanishing without a trace.
"I'm a little surprised — I thought you'd have killed them all," Rolwen said, scooping the coin pouch off the ground. He meant it, too.
"Yeah, well. They're no good men anyway — killing them wouldn't sit on my conscience at all. Leave them alive and they'll only go on hurting the innocent."
Timmy scratched his head. He'd thoroughly despised that bandit leader.
"If they'd truly fought to the death, I'd have finished them without hesitation. I'm just tired of killing bandits, that's all. Wipe out this batch, and another crops up down the road later on. Getting where we're going matters more right now."
She pulled back her black hood, and Nanoda let out a breath as her face came into view.
It suddenly struck her that nearly every time she traveled far from home, bandits waylaid her. What was this — some constitution that summoned highwaymen on every trip?
Watching the direction the bandits had fled, Nanoda gave a small shake of her head.
She wasn't the Hero. She wasn't some guardian of the Human world.
Punishing the wicked, upholding justice — that was a task no single lifetime could ever finish.
She was Demon Race. All she needed to protect was Gaderia and her "companions."
Nanoda was also starting to notice something: the longer she lived as a member of the Demon Race, the more her own temperament seemed to be shifting.
"Still, what rotten luck. We set out perfectly fine in the carriage, and then halfway here the horses ate some bad feed and got sick. Couldn't find a replacement, so we had to sell them off and walk the rest of the way."
Timmy grumbled.
"F*ck, I bet that f*cking innkeeper set us up — fed the horses spoiled feed on purpose so we'd have no choice but to sell them to him!"
Rolwen let loose a string of curses.
"Coincidence..."
Nanoda gazed at the road stretching off into the distance, lost in thought. The deeper her research into Paradox Magic went, the more some faint instinct seemed to let her sense that something about all this wasn't quite right.
Was all of this really just coincidence?
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