The audience was deathly silent as I took a little snack in front of them. I made sure that they haven’t seen what I did, but I had to feed on someone rather quickly. The fifth enemy I had that day who was already scared shitless made a fine meal in my opinion. Soon afterwards, another corpse was added to the pile on the stage, showing everyone how useless it was to fight me. Their strongest fighter, an elf at that, was already dead and I was still happily slaughtering bandit after bandit, without getting tired at all.

A few of them tried to escape but were probably shot down by a few arrows as they tried to cross the burning wall. There was no escape for them and even ganging up on me wouldn’t work. Fourteen of them tried that and as a response, I just ran away and murdered them one after another. After I dealt with them, I returned with a few of their heads and threw them on my growing pile of corpses.

The bandits were already incredibly desperate and none of them wished to challenge me anymore.

“Guys, it`s not funny anymore. I´m bored! If someone doesn’t challenge me soon, I will pick my opponents.” None of them stepped forward. It was to be expected as the strong and brave already fought against me and lost completely. “… alright … you!” I said and pointed to a random person in the crowd. He didn’t step forward but rather shrank away from me until I grabbed his collar and dragged him on the stage.

“Sword? Axe? What weapon do you want to use?” He drew a sword on his hips while I rummaged through the weapons I collected from the dead. I soon found an appropriate sword and stood in front of him, ready for a fight.

“You are the devil.” He didn’t even try to strike me. He already lost all hope before I could crush him completely and rather ended his stupid life himself instead of giving me the honour.

“How rude … you,” said I and pointed towards another bandit. “clean that mess up. And the person to your right is next.”

It took me five hours until there were only two left. I purposefully left one of them alive because he was honestly the most interesting one so far. The man who stood behind me in the prison cell always watched every move I made and didn’t seem to lose hope like the others yet. In fact, he watched everything with glee as if he was some kind of freak. And thus, I ended the last fight with another person right before him as I beheaded my opponent with an axe.

“What a beautiful night, don’t you agree?”

“That depends where you look. The sky is crystal clear and indeed beautiful. If I look at the ground though or at you … it´s kind of disgusting. No offence.” He said while looking away. He was really not a great bandit as he wasn’t even true to himself. He tried to hide it, but he was strangely fascinated with the massacre as his eyes darted towards corpses more than once when he tried to avoid my gaze.

“Oh my, I´m sorry. I guess I really went a little overboard … at least the dress is now red.” I smiled as I threw the axe to the pile of bodies where it struck deep inside a shoulder of a corpse.

“So, I don’t have all night … well, I do, but I still want to hurry up. What´s your preferred weapon?” He didn’t wear any, at least none that I could spot, so I was rather curious how he wanted to save himself.

“Cards.” He said plainly. I broke out into a smile as I finally found someone who had exactly my humour.

“Cards?” I chuckled and giggled uncontrollably. It was the right decision to let him alive as he was the one I wanted to find the most. I haven’t given up on recruiting a unit yet, but I haven’t had the opportunity to find someone intelligent so far. My trip to the bandit camp was a huge opportunity to meet a lot of new people at once, I just needed to find the perfect way of weeding out the useless ones.

I proposed a one versus one challenge, not a duel to death per se. I never explicitly said what this challenge had to be and only gave a swordfight or similar as an example. I wanted to see if anyone would take advantage of this, but nobody did so far until he proposed his challenge.

“We play blackjack, best of five. I start dealing, then we switch.” I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore and even grabbed his chin with my bloody hand to force him to look at me. It was perfect. He was so calm in front of a monster like me that I instantly knew that he was the one. I wanted to have him as my first subordinate and I wanted to keep him forever. Desperately.

“Fine by me. Do you have cards?” I asked and he presented me with a few well-used cards. I instantly took them and threw them away. “Another set please.” I didn’t know if the cards were marked or similar and thus needed another set.

After a few minutes, he came back with different cards. I went through all of them and as I couldn’t spot any irregularities, I sat down at a table I prepared while he was away. A dagger laid dangerously on it, always in reach of my hands.

“Can I mix the cards first?” Without waiting for his reply, I mixed the cards on the table good enough so that none of us knew what card was where. With a smile on my lips, I handed him the set and watched how he mixed them again. And then, we started.

He drew a two and a ten for me while he got a four.

“Wow. What a great start.” I said while watching his movements very carefully. He didn’t seem to be cheating yet, but that could change at any time. “Another one please.” An eight. Not the 21 I was hoping for, but better than nothing. “Your turn.”

He placed another card on the table, this time an ace. With a total sum of five, he naturally drew again and got a ten. Sweat poured down his forehead as he drew the last card, a seven. Luck was on my side and just to rub salt into the wound, I stood up and cheered loudly. After several seconds, I sat down again and faced him once more.

“How does being so close to death feel?” I grinned as he closed his eyes and breathed in loudly.

“Horrible. But I´m not dead yet. It´s your turn.” He said and robbed me of my fun.

“Always so professional … there barely is any time to know each other better.”