Breaking Providence (Original Fantasy)

Thrust forward, poking the spike at the end of the halberd into the belly. Pull back and twist, hooking the axe-head behind a leg and breaking the opponent’s stance, sending him to his knees as he drops his sword and clutches at his gut wound.
 
“Wait, please, I surren-urk!”
 
Marcus neither waits nor hesitates. The half-orc ignores the pleading of the bandit in front of him and instead moves to strike the finishing blow. His halberd simply arcs out, the metal gleaming and the axeblade glowing with holy light as it removes the upper half of his quarry’s head. Luckily there’s a cauterizing element to the enchantment on the halberd, so blood and brains don’t go flying everywhere and risk splattering onto him.
 
Not that there isn’t still plenty of blood and guts to go around all the same. As he pulls his halberd back and looks for the next target, Marcus sees nothing but the slaughter all around him. All of his own kills were relatively clean, but Erised was a fair bit… messier. It’s a bandit camp though, so he can’t really bring himself to mind all that much.
 
The little demon liked to leave holes in her targets, darting to and fro to slam her wicked daggers into the spots between armor, or in the case of leather, straight through the armor itself. She would twist her jagged blades this way and that and then yank them back out before continuing on, leaving her victims dying slowly behind her. And of course, because she fought in her Beastkin disguise, her daggers were invisible. Her opponents quite literally never saw it coming.
 
At first, it had made Marcus squeamish, watching Erised fight. He hadn’t even managed to hold down his lunch after truly taking in the aftermath of their first battle. However, he had never once asked her to change the way she did things. He wished he could say it was because he didn’t expect her to change for him, but that wasn’t entirely true. There was a number of things Marcus had asked of Erised over the past two weeks. Not least of which was to treat Angelina with some degree of civility, a request that had seen a small amount of success so far.
 
That said, when it came to their enemies… Marcus couldn’t bring himself to show them mercy nor ask Erised to do so on his behalf. Not after the things he and his party had witnessed since leaving the Capital.
 
At the start, it was something of an adventure. They’d waited for the Church to deliver his armor and weapons, all of which Marcus was exceedingly grateful for these two weeks later. The armor and weapons had proven indispensable in helping them accomplish their goals these last two weeks, as they’d gone from fight to fight with barely any rest.
 
The flexible armor that Chief Blacksmith Karn had ended up making for Marcus to grow into consisted of an adjustable chestplate, bracers and greaves on top of some studded leather. All of it enchanted with Serafina’s help, making it glow with the protection imbued by her Holy Light whenever it took a hit. At first glance, his armor didn’t seem very strong at all. He didn’t even have a helmet. But whenever anyone got past his reach and actually managed to strike him, the enchantments activated, blasting them back and leaving him untouched.
 
Meanwhile, his halberd had so far proven to be an amazing weapon, one that allowed Marcus to use the full strength of his half-orc body as well as his Dark Lord Job. And the shortsword he’d been given for close-quarters combat was decent as well, even if he was still rather unskilled with it. The weapons were also enchanted by Blacksmith Karn and her Holiness, something Marcus couldn’t help but be thankful for.
 
That all said… life outside of the Capital really wasn’t what he’d expected. When he and his party had left the city for the first time, he had figured they would find a few bandits, take them out, and make the Holy Empire a safer place for everyone. It would have to be that easy, right? Surely things couldn’t be as bad as everyone had said they were getting. Or rather, Marcus hadn’t truly understood what ‘bad’ actually looked like.
 
… Put simply, Marcus had thoroughly underestimated the banditry problem in the Holy Empire. It seemed unbelievable, but it wasn’t a matter of a few bandits… but rather a few HUNDRED bandits at least. Marcus should know, he and his party had personally handled over a hundred brigands so far all on their own in just two weeks.
 
And that was AFTER they got lost in the woods at the beginning. Shortly after leaving the Capital behind, Marcus had asked Erised and Angelina whether they thought it better to stick to the roads to wait to be ambushed or try and find the bandits in the woods so they could be the ones doing the ambushing.
 
Erised, ever the impatient one as Marcus had come to learn, had immediately advocated for the woods option. Angelina had counseled patience again, suggesting they stick to the roads. It had fallen to Marcus to make a decision, and in hindsight, he felt he had chosen poorly. His reasoning was fairly simple… he had wanted to balance the scales a little bit. They were only hunting bandits because Angelina suggested it. So then he should listen to Erised’s advice next to keep things fair, right?
 
Wrong. As it turned out, none of them knew jack shit about surviving in the woods. None of them knew anything at all about traversing the forest without any sort of road to guide their way. They were a city-raised orphan, a city-raised priestess, and a city-raised assassin respectively.
 
Oh sure, Erised was probably the most worldly of all three of them. Apparently she’d traveled a lot with her mother in her youth. She’d been to plenty of places. However, it wasn’t until their second day lost in the woods that Erised had admitted the truth… she and her mother had always stuck to the roads. More than that, it had been over a decade since Erised had had to leave her mother behind. A decade she’d spent most of in the Capital, first to find Marcus, and then to look after him from afar.
 
So yeah, none of them was a ranger- or huntsman-type of Job that would know anything about traveling through untamed wilderness. A little embarrassing to say the least, especially when they realized just how lost they were. But Marcus couldn’t be too upset, he supposed. In the end it had all worked out.
 
It had all worked out because three days in, they’d stumbled upon a bandit camp. Neither side got to ambush the other, because Marcus and his party didn’t fully understand what they’d found at first. In hindsight, it should have been obvious. They were in the woods looking for bandits after all. But Marcus had been… naïve back then. Which was a little strange to say about events that took place less than two weeks ago, but it was accurate all the same.
 
Dark Lord… Destined Hero… it didn’t matter what he was. Not truly. For Marcus had decided WHO he wanted to be. Bandit Killer.
 
That first interaction had actually been relatively peaceful until Marcus noticed the pile of bodies off to the side around the same time that the bandits noticed the women with him. Seeing the state that those scum had left the men, women, and children from the caravan they’d just got done raiding had made Marcus’ blood boil. Hearing the bandits talk about what they wanted to do to Erised and Angelina however… THAT had sent him into a damn rage. Before he knew what was happening, Marcus had unconsciously activated his Dark Power and started killing.
 
It wasn’t until Erised of all people had asked him to calm down and spare the last of the bandits that Marcus had finally come out of whatever the fuck THAT was. It had taken his disguised demon of all people actually asking him to let the scum live for Marcus to stop his fury-fueled rampage and regain his mind. By that point, everyone else in that first bandit camp had been dead. He’d killed them all, and most with his bare hands at that.
 
At first he’d been confused that Erised wanted to spare the last remaining bandit. So confused that he’d granted her wish. Then… then he’d found out what she wanted as she’d settled in to torture the bandit until he broke and gave them directions to the next nearest camp.
 
Marcus never would have guessed it, but the bandits… they were organized. More than organized, they were networked out the fucking ass. Each bandit camp had a leader that answered to someone higher up on the food chain. The infestation had gotten so bad that they’d developed everything from a hierarchy to their own special code and shit.
 
It was enough to make Marcus sick, especially as they continued on their way and saw more and more atrocities. He didn’t understand why no one was doing anything about it. He didn’t understand why Serafina, for instance, hadn’t sent the Paladins out en masse to handle the bandits once and for all.
 
Angelina had explained it to him a little bit, even as the sights they saw made the Holy Priestess beyond queasy and more than a little green. Apparently, if a large enough group of Paladins were sent to deal with the Bandits, then the latter would simply melt away, going to ground before the former could hunt them down. And if too few Paladins were sent, then the bandits would slaughter them to a man. It’d happened before.
 
That conversation was one of the rare moments where Erised had backed Angelina up. Marcus had still been struggling to understand. After all, look at what they were managing to do with just the three of them. But as Erised had gleefully pointed out, he was apparently worth a hundred Paladins, all by himself. With her and Angelina as back up? He was all but unstoppable.
 
As he looks around himself at this latest scene of carnage and recognizes that the battle is done, Marcus lets out a slow and steady breath. Reining in the Dark Power ability that his Dark Lord Job graces him with is always a little harrowing, but never too difficult. It’s almost as though the ability likes to be used. But the more he uses it, the more enraged and out of his mind with fury he seems to become. He has to use it sparingly, lest it take control.
 
Luckily, neither it nor his Dark Lord Job seem to keep him from using the Light-Infused Equipment and Weapons granted to him by the Church. Marcus has no clue why that is, though Angelina declared it to be another sign that he truly was the Destined Hero.
 
Speaking of the Priestess… Marcus looks over to see the blonde finishing up her latest chant, her eyes drifting shut as she bows her head in silent prayer to the Holy Light. At the same time, he feels the bolstering effects of her magic slowly beginning to fade away. One might assume that the cleric would feel rather useless, given not a single bandit had been able to get past his enchanted armor yet.
 
But Angelina wasn’t JUST a healer. The cleric had a variety of support spells, castings that made Marcus stronger, tougher, faster. In conjunction with his Dark Power, they made him all but unstoppable.
 
“Good work, Angelina.”
 
Smiling softly, Angelina’s eyes open as she nods to him.
 
“Thank you, Sir Hero. As ever, it is an honor to fight by your side.”
 
Before Marcus can respond, a shrill scream splits through the clearing, causing them both to look over as Erised does what she does best with one of the remaining bandits. Marcus winces as he sees just where her bloodied hand currently is, his own loins tensing up in blatant discomfort at the gruesome sight. And yet… and yet, he can’t bring himself to truly feel bad for the bandit.
 
He’s seen too many defiled corpses at this point. Too many women, cut down before their prime… but not just killed. No, while most of the men and children the bandits killed could expect relatively swift deaths and for their bodies to remain untouched after the fact, most of the women that Marcus and his party had come across were not so lucky.
 
Bandits truly were scum of the earth, and Marcus had long since decided he could countenance Erised’s actions, whatever they had to be, so long as they led them to the next bandit camp. To the next rung on the ladder at that.
 
Though, this time the disguised demon’s features are twisted in irritation as she delivers the killing blow to her current victim and then straightens up.
 
With a scowl, she all but bounces over to them both, cleaning her invisible daggers as she goes, no-longer invisible blood flicking onto the ground on either side of her.
 
“Ugh. They’re getting smarter, your Lordship.”
 
Marcus frowns.
 
“Oh?”
 
Nodding as she sheathes her daggers, Erised pouts mightily.
 
“They knew we were coming. That was why they had the crossbows set up.”
 
That gets a blink from Marcus. Huh, he HAD wondered. While a handful of the bandits they’d faced before had been armed with crossbows, the vast majority were not. This time around, however, when he and his party had descended upon the bandit camp and began laying waste to it, every single man had seemed to have a pre-loaded crossbow they fired before turning to more conventional weaponry.
 
Of course, not a single bolt had made it through Marcus’ enchantments or Angelina’s protection spells. Erised, meanwhile, had dodged the bolts as easily as she dodged arrows, dancing this way and that and ultimately not getting a scratch on her.
 
In the end, the crossbows hadn’t changed a thing. Marcus and his party had still torn through the camp like it was nothing. Still, to hear that they were prepared for them…
 
“Word has finally gotten out then?”
 
Erised nods her head, grimacing.
 
“Yeah. They’re also starting to change things up. New protocol is decentralization.”
 
The look on Marcus’ face must betray his confusion as to what decentralization means, because Erised quickly expounds upon it.
 
“Basically, they’re not talking to each other anymore, my Lord. They’re all moving camps and keeping communication at a minimum, because they’ve realized that we’re figuring out where they’re located from the camps we’ve found before. The easy life is over now. It’s gonna be SO much harder to find them from here on out!”
 
Erised’s voice takes on a distinct whine by the end, and she looks two seconds away from throwing a temper tantrum. Fortunately, Marcus knows a tried and true way to calm the little disguised demon down. Reaching out and around, he cups Erised’s pert little ass with one hand and promptly lifts her off the ground, pulling her up against his side as he presses his mouth into hers in a long, tongue-filled kiss.
 
… He’s done a lot of growing up over the last two weeks. Learned to love fucking under the stars and in the woods really quickly, that’s for sure.
 
Erised squeaks and then moans into his grasp for a few seconds before he finally lets her down. She’s panting noisily now, staring up at him with eyes that tell Marcus he’s very much getting ridden to completion once night falls. Still, she’s no longer in danger of throwing a hissy fit at least, and Marcus can tell she understands why he did what he did.
 
“… T-Thank you, Master.”
 
Marcus just smiles and inclines his head.
 
“So… what would you suggest we do next? If the well of information has dried up, what’s our next step?”
 
Erised looks mulish for a moment, as though she knows he’s not going to like what she’s going to say. Still, she says it anyways, crossing her arms over her small chest defensively.
 
“We move on, your Lordship! These bandits are hardly worth your time when they’re out in the open and make it easy to stomp them all like insects! If they’re all going to ground then you shouldn’t concern yourselves with them anymore! They’re just riff raff anyways. Maybe it’s finally time to go looking for the first of the Dark Generals?”
 
She sounds so hopeful at the end there. Marcus hates to just crush that hope out of hand, so he stays quiet for a moment, patiently waiting for Angelina to step in instead.
 
“I would suggest otherwise, Sir Hero. The mark of not just a great hero, but a great man, is not in doing the things he finds easy, but in accomplishing the things he finds difficult. It is true, these bandits are no match for your power. Even without the efforts of the Chief Blacksmith and her Holiness, I have full faith that you would have no trouble with ingrates such as these. However, they are still a plague upon these lands. An infection that only you can excise.”
 
At this point, Marcus has turned to give Angelina his full attention. She beams at him and clasps her hands together in front of her, causing her bosom to squish and jiggle a bit from the action.
 
“You are not the type of man to leave your work half-finished, Sir Hero. That I believe wholeheartedly.”
 
Frankly, part of Marcus felt like he was too new to being a ‘man’ in general to know what type of man he really was just yet. He’d only come of age this year, and only had his Awakening two weeks ago. Maybe he WAS the type of man to leave his work half-finished. But… no. Not when Angelina looked at him with such conviction and surety. Marcus wanted to be the type of man that she thought he was. She made him want to be the Hero she believed him to be when she looked at him with those trusting eyes of hers.
 
Letting out a shuddering breath, Marcus looks to Erised with an apologetic, crooked smile on his tusked face. She just rolls her eyes, already knowing what he’s going to say and clearly not taking it to heart.
 
“I think you know I’m in agreement with Angelina, Erised. So… with that in mind, what should our next step be to end the Bandit Threat once and for all?”
 
With a grumpy sigh, Erised reaches behind herself and pulls out a book, one that by this point is very familiar to Marcus. It was something they picked up very early in their travels, a book from a bandit camp that was written entirely in code. Erised was convinced it was important, even if none of them could make heads or tails of it at the time.
 
“I suppose we start making use of the list of informants in here before they realize we have this information too and start pulling them out of their spots as well.”
 
Marcus and Angelina’s eyes both snap wide open at that.
 
“You managed to decode it, Erised?!”
 
Smirking like the cat that caught the canary, Erised nods.
 
“Yep. Mostly useless junk, my Lord. Some idiotic ramblings, a bunch of information we already knew, and some that’s out of date now that they’re going to ground. But in the back there’s a list of village folk who pass them tips and information on passing caravans and traders for them to hit.”
 
For the first time since they left the Capital, Angelina has an honest angry outburst.
 
“Y-You mean to tell me that there are traitors even in the villages?!”
 
Erised’s smirk becomes a grin, even as Marcus too has to grapple with that fact. Living out in the forest as bandits and being irredeemable pieces of shit was one thing. But to actually exist within civilization itself and still turn on your fellow man and woman… that was even worse, he felt.
 
“Yeah. And because we haven’t touched a single person on this list yet, I betcha they won’t think we have it. I betcha lazy humans like these fucks won’t bother even alerting their informants to what we’re up to. Giving us some time to get in there and find out if the information stream flows both ways.”
 
Marcus can’t help but smile now as well.
 
“That’s… great work, Erised. Excellent work. With this, we’ve got a real chance.”
 
Basking in his praise for a moment longer, Erised hums happily… before frowning and crossing her arms over her chest.
 
“After we finish with this scum, you promise we’ll go find a Dark General?”
 
Chuckling, Marcus nods. Now that he knows what the Dark Generals are, namely the closest followers and advisors to his mother, the previous Dark Lord, he understands why Erised wants him to go looking for them. They’d all gone to ground when Gral-Ra had died, apparently. But one of them had not quite disappeared like the others. One of them had stayed very much out in the open.
 
“Sure, Erised. As soon as we’ve dealt with the bandits, we’ll go after the first Dark General. Who was it again? Roka-Ra, right?”
 
Perking up, Erised nods her head, and as the three of them leave the slaughtered bandit camp behind, she begins to once again regale him with what little information about the orcish Dark General Roka-Ra that she has. It’s not much, truth be told. But that doesn’t stop Erised from talking his ear off until they finally make camp for the night. From then on, her mouth is occupied with other things.

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