Chương 11: Ryan's Been Kidnapped

"Leave all your valuables behind and I might just let you keep your heads!" Blocking the path of Hale's vehicle was a gang of ten highwaymen. Five of them were mounted on horned horses. The foot soldiers were all armed with crossbows, while the riders brandished swords. They had just rolled into the narrow gut of a canyon, leaving them with absolutely nowhere to run. Dusk was falling fast, and they had originally been pressing the speed to make it to the outpost town at the far end of the pass before dark.

"Get inside the cabin," Maddie said to Hale and Ryan, her fist instantly igniting with a crackling flame. The bandits looked visibly caught off guard when they realized Maddie could handle magic. However, seeing that they held a massive numbers advantage and carried ranged crossbows, they didn't back down. Hale could read the layout too. With Maddie's raw power, she would walk away from this fight victorious.

But she was still nursing that shoulder injury, and he absolutely hated the thought of pushing her to fight in this state. So, he quickly shoved himself to the front of the vehicle, calling out, "Alright, alright! We'll hand over the cash." Maddie shot him a bewildered look.

"I can wipe them all out, Master."

"If you start killing people, the gods are going to slam me with another penalty." To be fair, he wasn't entirely sure if he'd get slammed with a Karma penalty for having his subordinate kill a bunch of violent outlaws, but cutting corners was a luxury he couldn't afford. He was already down to three working limbs; he couldn't afford to lose another one. With that in mind, he grabbed the coin pouch they kept in the dashboard and waved it in the air.

"Clear the road, and the money is yours." The bandits exchanged looks before bursting into raucous laughter. The leader sneered, "We want the whole damn carriage, pal. Do you have any idea what a magic vehicle fetches on the black market?" Hale's temper flared.

"It's almost pitch black out! How the hell are we supposed to get out of this canyon without a ride?"

"Start walking. If you keep moving till dawn, you might just clear the pass." Hale realized he was a total idiot for trying to use civilized logic on a bunch of cutthroats. Maddie cut her eyes over to him:"Stop wasting your breath on them, Master. Get back inside." With a snap of her draconic wings, Maddie's hands shifted into lethal claws as she launched herself forward. Hale frantically yelled after her, "Be careful! And try not to kill anyone if you can help it!"

The highwaymen hadn't anticipated that they were dealing with a Dragonborn. The cocky smirks vanished from their faces, replaced by pure terror. A human fire mage was terrifying, sure, but they were still flesh and blood. A Dragonborn was different; they were a biological weapon designed entirely for the meat grinder of a battlefield. They possessed an innate immunity to heat, their scales were as dense as iron plating, and their blood could literally corrode human flesh upon contact.

A fully equipped military vanguard would struggle to bring down a single Dragonborn, let alone ten low-tier highwaymen. One of the bandits shrieked, "Boss, pull back! Retreat!" But the escape window had already slammed shut. Maddie closed the distance, her wrist flicking out a lethal whip of raw flame. The bandits scattered in a panic. A few desperation crossbow bolts were fired to buy time, but they were casually swatted away by her draconic claws.

Maddie wasn't about to let them slide just because they were running. Only days ago, she had been forced to hunt down petty pickpockets because her master wanted to do good deeds; now that a whole buffet of actual bandits had served themselves up right in front of her, she wasn't about to waste the opportunity. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Watching the skirmish unfold from the safety of the cabin, Hale relaxed a bit when he saw Maddie handling the mob with ease. But then, his eyes locked onto the bandit leader, who had retreated from the main melee. The man's hands were weaving through a series of strange gestures. A sudden jolt of memory flashed across Hale's mind—he knew exactly what that guy was prepping. The man was channeling a spell, almost certainly a wind-manipulation art.

Wind was invisible to the naked eye, and Maddie wasn't on guard against a hidden mage in a low-rent bandit crew. Without a second thought, Hale threw himself out of the vehicle. His left hand instinctively mimicked the exact hand seals the bandit leader had just executed, unleashing a massive wind scythe that tore through the air. The exact instant the gale left his hand, Hale's heart skipped a beat. The trajectory of the wind scythe was heading straight for the bandit leader's neck.

Fortunately, because the bandit leader was a wind mage himself, he sensed the atmospheric shift just in time and violently ducked to the side. The lethal wind blade missed his throat, slicing deep into his right shoulder instead. By then, Maddie had clocked the threat. She lunged forward, slamming her palm onto the leader's skull and crushing his face into the dirt, knocking him out cold instantly.

The remaining bandits capitalized on the distraction, scattering into the heavy foliage of the woods to run for their lives. Maddie hauled some rope out from the back of the carriage, systematically binding the four unconscious bandits she had dropped.

"I didn't expect a hedge mage to be running with a pack of highwaymen. What are your orders regarding these four, Master?" she asked. When no response came, she prompted him again.

"Master?"

"Huh?" Hale snapped out of his daze.

"Right, let me think..." Maddie noticed the pale complexion of his face and asked anxiously, "What is wrong? Are you injured somewhere?"

"No, no. I'm fine. Just processing things." In reality, he was shaking inside from how close that call had been. If that bandit leader hadn't dodged in the nick of time, his head would have been cleaved clean in two. He would have officially become a murderer. Over the past few days, he had used his downtime to practice regulating his magic output, but he had made zero progress. Once the Mana inside his core was unleashed, it acted like a busted dam—completely unstoppable.

This wasn't the first time Hale had felt this terrifying reality: when you wield magic, taking a human life becomes dangerously effortless. The line between a savior and a monster was a razor-thin margin. This is a different world, he reminded himself. This wasn't his old home where the rule of law was strong enough to keep everyone chained. Here, war was actively ravaging the lands, and killing to survive was an inevitability. A day would likely come when he'd have to personally take a life to stay breathing.

He just wasn't ready for it yet. Right then, the translucent system interface blinked open. NOTIFICATION The Host and his subordinate have successfully apprehended four armed bandits with a documented history of robbery, sexual assault, and murder. Merit +8 Reminder: Merit points will be doubled if the Host ensures the criminals are formally processed or punished under the legal authority of the current territory.

Seeing that these scumbags had a heavy rap sheet, the system reward was noticeably higher than what he got for rounding up petty thieves in Raveno. The sudden infusion of points managed to lift Hale's spirits a fraction. He turned to Maddie and said:"Tie them up. We'll drag them to the next town and hand them over to the local garrison. If any of them can still walk, bind their wrists and hitch them to the back of the vehicle. As for the leader, wrap him up tight, especially his hands.

We don't want him casting wind blades to slice through the ropes. Dump him inside the cabin and have Ryan keep an eye on him." Finishing his sentence, he rapped his knuckles against the wooden cabin frame.

"Ryan, you're on watch duty. Keep your eyes glued to this guy." Silence. Hale yanked the front curtain aside, only to find the interior entirely vacant. The rear door of the carriage cabin was swinging wide open.

"Maddie, Ryan's gone!" he shouted. Maddie bolted to the back of the vehicle, her eyes locking onto a chaotic mess of fresh footprints stamped into the dirt. Someone had used the chaos of the frontline skirmish to sneak around the back, pop the hatch, and snatch the boy right out from under their noses. Without wasting a beat, Maddie hauled one of the tied-up bandits by his collar, slapping his face repeatedly until his eyes fluttered open.

"Speak," she snarled.

"Where did your people take the boy?" The man stammered, terrified, "To... to the camp."

"Where is your camp hidden?" The bandit tried to lock his jaw, refusing to play ball. Maddie's eyes immediately bled into a vicious, draconic slit-pupil amber, radiating pure, suffocating bloodlust.

"Play guide if you want to keep breathing," she whispered.

"Otherwise, I will slaughter every last one of you, and then I will reduce this entire forest to ash until I find our boy." The fabric of the bandit's shirt where Maddie was gripping him began to smoke and char. The sheer, radiating heat forced a pathetic shriek from the man's lungs, and he broke instantly.

"I'll lead you! I'll lead you! Just don't kill me!" Working quickly, they bound the remaining three bandits together in a tight knot against the trunk of a massive oak tree. Then, following the frantic directions of the bandit, they plunged deep into the dense, tangled undergrowth as the forest was swallowed by the dark.