REBORN AS A HIGH ELF SLAVE

“So you did.” The bandit boss said as he stared at the fallen man from his side.

The scarred boss’s voice carried no heat, just a flat acceptance that settled heavier than any shout. Dust still drifted where the man fell. The severed hand lay in the dirt like a discarded glove, fingers curled, blood already darkening the packed earth.

Eon didn’t flinch. He kept his empty hands visible, weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

“So?” he asked, quiet enough that only the closest riders would catch it. “What is it gonna be?”

The boss’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. 

“Well… I guess I won’t be taking your offer. There is no way I can get past this without a little bloodshed. Can we?”

Eon’s answering breath came out almost like a laugh, short and dry.

“Yeah. I guess we can’t.”

That was all it took.

The bandits behind had been waiting for a signal from their boss. But the moment the last word left Eon’s mouth, the line, as if they understood even without listening to what he said, understood this was the moment. 

So they exploded forward. Hooves hammered the road. Steel hissed free of scabbards. Someone whooped, high and hungry. The area suddenly filled with only shouting, dirt, and a chaotic advance of a hundred men.

As if time itself got slowed down at this moment, Eon stepped back once, giving himself room, before the bandits reached him in three seconds. Mana already stirred under his skin, warm and familiar, ready to answer. 

But he never got the chance to shape it into his magic.

A horse thundered past him from behind, so close the rush of air tugged at his hood. Elsa rode low in the saddle, silver hair streaming, a spear in her hand. Nora stood balanced on the horse’s back like the animal was nothing more than a moving platform for her, bare feet planted, dark braid whipping behind her.

Ten feet. That was all the distance left between the charging bandits and Eon.

But passing Eon in a flash, Nora made the first contact.

She jumped from the horse in a clean, silent arc, body folding mid-air, and landed among the first riders with a thud. The first bandit never even finished raising his sword. Nora’s short blade took him under the jaw, punched upward, and she was already twisting free before the body started to fall. Blood sprayed across the nearest horse’s flank. The animal screamed and reared, fearing the woman might do the same to it.

She didn’t stop advancing.

Men poured in from behind the boss, trying to swamp her. Nora also met them with an angry expression on her face, every movement economical and vicious. A spear thrust came for her ribs; she twisted her body, used the shaft as a lever, and pulled the spear so hard the man was flown off his horse toward her. 

Nora just placed her blade in its place, and the man on his own got stabbed with it, almost hugging her. At least that's what it looked like from Eon’s position. But he knew what Nora had done. 

Before more men came her way, she pushed the man aside, getting her blade out of his chest. Another swung a heavy axe. She ducked under the arc, drove her shoulder into his horse’s side hard enough to stagger the animal, then opened the man’s thigh from hip to knee on the way past. Arterial blood painted the road in a bright, shocking arc.

On the horse Nora had gotten out of, Elsa now rode in it at the edge of the chaos, her spear a silver blur. She took the ones Nora left half-dead or off-balance, punching the leaf-shaped blade through leather and into soft places beneath, driving it in again and again, in every man that came in front of her. 

As she was thrusting away at her pace, suddenly a bandit tried to flank her; she simply shifted her weight, let the spear slide along his sword, and punched the butt into his face hard enough to snap his head back. He toppled from his horse, falling from the height with a loud thud, possibly breaking a couple of his ribs. She never slowed or looked back at what happened to him.

All while his two companions advanced ahead of him, Eon stayed where he was for three full heartbeats, watching. The fight had exploded so fast that the rest of the caravan was still reacting; Alaric’s soldiers were stunned at Nora’s quickness, elves scrambling inside the carriages, cheering for Elsa, and the others on horses still contemplating whether to engage or wait it out, seeing how Nora and Elsa were doing it all by themselves. 

While they were hesitating, Nora carved through another man who had gotten in her way. She pressed forward like she had been waiting years to do something as exhilarating as this. Behind her, Elsa rode support, clean and precise. Between the two of them, they held the front almost alone.

Only the scarred boss and Eon remained outside the immediate slaughter.

They looked at each other across the narrowing space.

The boss’s eyes tracked Nora for a moment longer before she got past him toward the hundred men who were ahead of her. Watching her take three men in the space in front of him in a breath shocked even him. 

When she slipped past him, only then did his gaze return to Eon. A reluctant respect now sat in the lines around his mouth.

“Heh, your companions are something else, elf,” he said, voice raised just enough to cut through the clash of steel. “A dark elf and a white knight elf! Both fully in their strength, I see. Of course you looked so confident there.”

Eon’s mouth curved with a small and cold smile.

“Don’t underestimate them, bandit leader. Just because they’re giving your men a hard time, don’t just assume they’re at their best. They are still far from their best. Don’t sell my people short like this.”

The boss’s scar tightened. He scoffed, a rough sound that might have been amusement once.

“Arrogant bastard! So? Are we gonna stand here trading compliments while the road turns into a butcher’s yard, or are we actually going to fight?”

Eon rolled one shoulder, his muscles and mana inside inching for a fight after riding the whole day today and yesterday. 

“Ladies first, I guess,” he said in a mocking voice.

With that, something ugly flashed across the boss’s face. The calm that he tried to keep in his composure all this time finally cracked.

“Die, vermin! Argghhhh…. ”

He kicked his horse hard. The scarred bay surged forward, heavy cloak snapping. The short axe that he swung came up in a rising arc meant to split Eon from collarbone to hip.

And Eon also stepped into it, finally getting his chance to relieve the itching.

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