Hagwin Ralorie was an elf. A battle-tested elf. Most elves were peace-loving and preferred to spend their time writing poems, singing songs, or painting beautiful art. Not Hagwin. He liked the thrill of battle.
It was a very rare elf who had a taste for war and fighting. Elves lived in a forest of trees where they had little need for such things. But Hagwin had always been drawn to the bloodier side of life.
“Hehehehe! This is going to be fun!”
The elf grinned with excitement as he watched the enemy soldiers approach. He held his large bow firmly in hand, and the sound of his footsteps on the ground sounded like a drum.
“Hehehehe! It’s time to dance!”
The enemy soldiers came rushing toward Hagwin. There were over ten of them. And they had bows.
“I’m going to slaughter you all!”
“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”
The soldiers started chanting their death cries as they drew back their bows and fired at Hagwin. The elf expertly dodged every single one of their attacks. He fired an arrow of his own. The moment it reached its target, he moved away, letting the enemy soldiers run past him. He then took another arrow from his quiver and nocked it before firing it off once again. He was doing this over and over again, dodging, firing, and moving, never missing a step.
The soldiers stopped their chanting of death cries and started cheering for Hagwin instead. They cheered him on as he moved about the battlefield. The elf smiled with satisfaction, then took out another arrow from his quiver.
“Die!”
A soldier’s voice echoed across the battlefield. Hagwin had spotted an enemy soldier behind cover and shot an arrow directly into the soldier’s face. As the soldier slumped to the ground, his body still twitching, Hagwin continued to shoot arrows as he continued moving about the battlefield. The soldiers started cheering once again.
“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”
As the enemy soldiers kept shooting at the elf, he fired his arrows at them one after another until he ran out of arrows. Then, without stopping, he drew a sword from his back and started slashing the soldiers’ throats. The enemy soldiers collapsed one after another as they were killed in an instant by the elf’s sword.
“Hehehehe! That was easy!”
The elf let out a small laugh as he looked at the fallen soldiers. Then he suddenly noticed something odd.
“Hm?”
There was no one left to fight. The elf frowned. He could tell there had been more than ten of them. There should have been more than ten.
“Huh…?”
A chill ran down Hagwin’s spine when he noticed that there weren’t any enemy soldiers left. All he could see was an empty space where the enemy soldiers had been just seconds ago. There was no way there would have been such a drastic difference in numbers between the two sides.
Hagwin looked around him. There were only four of them left—himself included. The elf checked his surroundings, but he couldn’t see anyone else. Just as he was thinking there might be a fifth of his group hiding somewhere, Hagwin suddenly heard a faint voice coming from the east.
“Hagwin?”
“Shiraaase?!”
It was Shiraaase, one of Hagwin’s companions in his party, who had been leading their group.
“Shiraaase! What’s going on here?! Are you all okay?!”
“Yes. But we are currently in a tight spot.”
“I can tell. We have more enemies than I thought… We’re surrounded.”
“We can’t leave any witnesses alive. Kill them.”
“Understood!”
Hagwin could hear the sound of blades slicing through flesh from nearby. There were probably four or five other elves left in the enemy army. They were fighting hard to kill every last enemy soldier that surrounded them, but there were too many of them for just a handful of elves to deal with. They’d been cornered and outnumbered, but Hagwin couldn’t afford to hold back any longer.
He drew his sword and charged at the enemy soldiers. The soldiers panicked when they saw him and immediately turned tail and ran. Hagwin chased after them, but it was clear he wasn’t going to catch them before they escaped. He stopped chasing them and turned around to face his companions.
“Shiraaase, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. You, however, are not.”
Shiraaase was standing there looking very pale and covered in wounds. Blood was dripping from several cuts and gashes across her body. Hagwin knew that she was an exceptional swordswoman and would be able to heal herself if she needed to, so he didn’t worry too much about it. He rushed toward Shiraaase and grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“Shiraaase, what’s going on here? What happened?”
Shiraaase winced when Hagwin touched her. “We were attacked by a powerful monster.”
“A monster…? Where is it now? Do we have to worry about it coming back?”
“No, I killed it.”
Hagwin let out a sigh of relief and patted Shiraaase on the back. “That’s good news. So, why are we in a tight spot now?”
“We were caught off guard and completely lost track of time.”
“Oh?”
“The enemy found us before we were ready to fight, so we decided to take our chances on the battlefield and attack them when we saw an opening.”
“I see… So we’ve already taken some losses, huh?”
The battle hadn’t been going too well for them up until this point. Hagwin had lost count of how many enemy soldiers he’d killed by this point. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was lucky, but he knew it was probably because his group was blessed with superior skill. But still, they’d already lost quite a few members of their group by now. It wouldn’t be surprising if they didn’t make it out alive from this battle.
“You seem to be doing fine, Shiraaase…”
Shiraaase nodded at Hagwin’s compliment. “We have the skills to fight, but our group has never been in this situation before, so we are still at a disadvantage.”
Hagwin took a good look at Shiraaase’s wounds. “How is your health?”
“I’m fine… I think… My magic can heal me if anything happens.”
“That’s good to hear…”
The two of them were surrounded by dead bodies, and their numbers were dwindling, but they’d managed to survive this far by having Shiraaase heal their wounds. As long as they continued fighting, they should be able to stay alive for the time being. But it wasn’t like they could keep this up for too long, either.
“Let’s try to run for it once we kill everyone else.”
Shiraaase nodded and pulled out her sword from its sheath at her waist. She then pointed it toward the sky and released a powerful shockwave. The sound of an explosion rang out, followed by the falling bodies of enemy soldiers that were blown away by the force of the impact. Hagwin looked up to see that Shiraaase was using her ultimate attack, “Bubble Burst,” which created a sphere of air around her and sent it flying at her enemies. It was a technique that allowed her to destroy large groups of enemies with ease.
“This is the time to use that.”
Hagwin nodded and charged forward with his sword drawn, ready to cut down anyone in his path. He moved quickly, leaving behind a trail of bodies in his wake. He was constantly switching between swordplay and running to catch up with his companions whenever they ran out of breath. Shiraaase used her bubble blast to take out any soldiers who tried to attack their group while they were running. She kept her distance and only used it when the enemy soldiers got close enough. If she used it too often, they would be able to tell that something was up. They’d end up dead before they even knew what was happening.
“It’s no good. We’re running out of breath.”
“I know…”
Hagwin and Shiraaase both gasped for breath as they watched their allies fighting desperately against the enemy soldiers around them. They were surrounded on all sides by soldiers who were attacking them with everything they had. Their attacks were getting more and more desperate as the number of their enemies decreased.
Hagwin and Shiraaase stood back to back, waiting for an opening that would allow them to strike at their enemies. And as they watched their comrades fall one after another, they were filled with an indescribable feeling of fear. It felt like their hearts would stop beating at any moment. This was the most terrifying moment they’d ever experienced in battle so far. The two of them felt their bodies tremble with fear as they looked at the faces of their friends, who were slowly but surely losing their lives in battle. They were crying out in pain as blood flowed freely from their wounds, and their faces were twisted in desperation as they fought to protect themselves from death.
“I-I can’t take it anymore…” Shiraaase whimpered as she dropped her sword and shield on the ground, then wrapped her arms around her knees and began to cry. “I don’t want to die…”
Hagwin put a hand on Shiraaase’s shoulder and squeezed it tight. “Don’t worry.” He whispered in a voice filled with determination as he looked at the sky above him. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” He gave her shoulder a hard squeeze. “We’re not going to die here.”
Hagwin felt the strength returning to his legs and he picked up his sword and shield. He stood back up and picked up Shiraaase’s fallen sword and shield before putting them on his back. “Now we’ll finish off those enemies.”
Hagwin began running toward the remaining enemies once again, his sword at the ready. Shiraaase watched him go and then finally regained her composure and took out her sword from her sheath once again. She took a deep breath before turning to face the enemy soldiers and readying her sword at her side. She then looked around her surroundings and saw that she was now alone in the middle of the battlefield with no one around her except for Hagwin. She looked at the bodies of the soldiers lying dead around her and felt the fear return to her heart.
“Hagwin… I don’t know how much longer I can last…”
Hagwin ran through the battlefield with his sword held at the ready as he approached the remaining enemies. As he closed in on them, he used his shield to knock down an enemy soldier that had jumped out in front of him before slashing the man’s throat with his sword. The soldier fell to the ground without even managing to cry out in pain as he died from Hagwin’s sword wound. Hagwin took another step forward and swung his sword at a soldier who had jumped in front of him. He severed his head and his body collapsed to the ground. Hagwin then swung his sword in a horizontal arc to block an attack from another soldier coming at him from behind. He turned around to see another soldier jumping at him and slashed him down with his blade as well, making the soldier fall to the ground as he let out a loud scream of pain before dying from his injuries.
Hagwin didn’t even spare a second to see how many more enemies he had left to fight before he started cutting them down one after another. He killed every soldier that tried to approach him until only three remained—one of the enemy soldiers had already been taken down by Shiraaase before Hagwin arrived, so there were now only two soldiers left for Hagwin to fight. He raised his sword into the air as he looked around him, searching for any more enemies that might be hiding nearby.
He couldn’t find any enemies in his line of sight, so he let out a sigh of relief as he sheathed his sword at his waist and turned around to face the two enemy soldiers.
“I thought I’d take care of you myself…” Hagwin took a few steps forward and then suddenly stopped in his tracks when he felt a chill run down his spine. There were two shadowy figures standing in front of him, each wielding a sword in their hands. They were both cloaked in black and looked just like ordinary elves… but there was something strange about their eyes. The pupils of their eyes were completely black… almost like a void… as if they had no pupils at all. The only part of their eyes that showed were the whites of their eyes… as if there was nothing there at all.
Hagwin stared at the pair in surprise for a few seconds before his eyes widened in terror and he immediately turned around and began to run. He didn’t bother to look back and see if the two figures were following him. He just sprinted away from the enemy soldiers as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Hagwin…!”
Shiraaase cried out in horror as she saw her friend running off into the distance. She’d lost count of how many times Hagwin had been killed already. But there was no doubt that he was running away from those shadowy figures in black. And there was no way they weren’t going to follow after him. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew she couldn’t let Hagwin run off by himself. She jumped off of her horse’s back and picked up its reins as she ran after Hagwin. She continued running and ran past several enemy soldiers who were lying on the ground, unconscious or dead, as she tried to catch up with Hagwin.
“Hagwin!”
Hagwin ran as fast as he could through the forest and didn’t stop running until he reached a large tree that was blocking his path. He jumped off the tree and rolled onto the ground before getting to his feet and looking around him. The two shadowy figures from earlier were nowhere to be seen. Hagwin looked up to see that it was now dark outside, so he decided to take a break from running and sat down under the tree’s shade. His whole body felt like it was about to collapse under the weight of exhaustion and fatigue, so he sat down against the tree’s trunk and rested his head on his knees.
He felt like he was going to pass out as soon as he closed his eyes, but he was afraid that if he slept, he wouldn’t wake up again. The shadowy figures that had appeared out of nowhere had frightened him so badly that he was unable to sleep at all after seeing them for the first time.
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