"Rock, paper, scissors!"
It was a short battle that ended in Eliza's overwhelming victory as she held up her index and middle fingers while laughing at Evan who had his palm spread open.
"Since the two of you are done with your bullshit, can we get going?"
Pride, who was already walking into the forest called out to them, causing Eliza to hurriedly follow with Evan slowly dragging behind.
"Why would you of all people want to deal with matters concerning totally unrelated people?"
To the question Evan asked Pride, the high demon was silent for a short moment before she took a deep breath and replied.
"If I'm guessing correctly, then one of the two groups of people involved here.... are my brother's thralls."
Hearing her words, Evan's face turned serious as he understood what Pride's words implied.
"Greed's thralls? Here?
Are you sure of this?"
Pride turned to Evan with a look of annoyance as she asked with narrowed eyes.
"Do you think that I of all people, would mistake my brother's aura?"
"Well.... no."
"I thought so."
Pride turned around and increased her speed, dashing forwards with Evan and Eliza following suit. The battle priestess spread out a wave of magic power and confirmed more than a dozen life signs a few hundred metres in front of them, however, her expression turned grim right after as she spoke.
"Some of the life signs are weak, very, very weak."
Hearing this, the group increased their speed, crossing the hundreds f metres of distance in less than a minute and arriving close to where the groups were most likely confronting each other.
"Hold on for a moment."
Evan held out his hands and blacked Pride and Eliza from moving forward, before concealing all three of them with his concealment skill.
"Now then, let's do it like this..."
◇ ◇ ◇
Within a small clearing not too far away from Evan and Co's position, two groups stood at a standstill as they glared at the opposing side with rage in their eyes.
On the right side, were a dozen dull grey light armoured men and women, with each of them having a noble household crest drawn on the shoulder pads of their armour.
They tightly gripped their swords and spears while gritting their teeth as they glared at the group of people that could only be described as a rag-tag group of bandits.
These 'bandits' stood in front of a toppled carriage that looked plain on the outside, however, the fallen doors revealed the luxurious interior of the carriage.
On the back of one of the said doors, the same crest that was on the shoulder pads of the lightly armoured group that stood opposite the bandits.
As for the bandits themselves, they consisted of men and women who looked to be in their late twenties to early forties.
Their appearances weren't uniform, with some wearing partial leather, while others had either light steel armour or heavy full-body armour.
A few of them had insidious grins on their faces while some others had varying expressions, ranging from indifference to anger.
Now then, the reasons for the multitude of expressions displayed by the two groups were quite simple, to say the least.
For the bandit's group, it was because the group of light armoured men and women, who were Knights, had killed five of their companions and had three others on sword/spear point, including the one who was their vice leader.
While for the group of Knights, it was because the person that they were charged with protecting, the daughter of the lord that they had sworn oaths to, was being held hostage by the bandits in front of them.
Not only that, but some of their fellow knights who had been overpowered were also in a similar situation, with one of them having lost his life already.
The noble's daughter and her personal maid were forced to the ground face down, with the bandit leader's curved swords on their neck.
The brown-haired middle-aged man, licked his lips as he rubbed his groin against the butt of the maid who silently cried while doing her best not to make a sound for fear that the blade at her neck might just cut it off if she did.
And her fears were not unfounded, after all, the bandit leader was an existence at level 184, and he had more than enough physical strength to slice off the level 100 maid's neck with relative ease.
In the same way, he could easily cut off the neck of the noble's daughter whose neck he held his other blade at.
This was precisely why the knights could not make any careless movements, because one wrong move would mean the death of their lord's daughter.
And just like the bandit leader looked like he wanted to assault the maid at any point in time, the same thing went for another one of the bandits, a woman who looked no more than thirty, however, the sheer amount of physical strength she possessed was enough to enable her to rip off the armour of one of the knights.
The only reason she hadn't yet forced herself on him was that the bandit leader had given her to order not to, so she was staying still.
However, that didn't stop her from feeling up the poor knight whom she had stripped half naked on the ground.
Beside her, laid the corpse of another knight whose head was missing, with a fairly large Warhammer that still had blood stains on it right beside it.
The two groups stood at a standstill as they watched the other's moves closely. The knights didn't want their lord's daughter whose life was at the mercy of the Bandit leader to die and the bandit leader didn't want his second in command to lose his life either.
This led to the current situation where they glared at each other with sweat dripping off their faces under the fairly hot early morning sun.
However, this standstill was broken by the intrusion of a third party.
"Oh, this is quite the situation I have run into."
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