Chapter 18
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Before me stood a stunningly beautiful elf woman.  She had long, lustrous golden locks, well-made clothes with several accessories including a thin tiara like band on her head and sharp, delicate features that illustrated her refined beauty, yet her face was contorted into a twisted sneer.  The hateful glint from her eyes bearing down on to me, the grip on her sword had tightened to the point that her knuckles had turned red. 

After leaping out of the path of this elf’s strike, I stood about several feet away from her with Sarduna close by while Naira stood to either side of the elf girl.  Both of them had reached for their weapons, Sarduna had a hatchet and Naira held a short sword.  We began to form a semi-circle around this girl, though I was the weakest link being still only armed with the copper dagger.

“Hmm, perceptive.  I’ll definitely have to be rid of you before that woman notices.”  The elf rambled aloud to herself.

The hateful glare she directed at me it was obvious that I was the one she was talking about.  She readied herself to make another attack on me. 

“AHH!”  Sarduna shouted as she preempted the elf with her own attack.  Raising the hatchet she prepared for a crippling downward swing, at the same moment Naira hunched forward to make a piercing thrust of her own.

The elf woman made a lightning quick response.  She punched out at Sarduna with the hand that held the sword, resulting in the butt of the sword smashing into Sarduna’s jaw.  Then in one swift, and frankly, flawless motion she pivoted on one foot twisting around making a broad sideways swing of her blade at Naira.  She managed to block most of the strike with her own sword, but she still got knocked down into the dirt, with a cry of pain and nasty looking cut along her arm. 

Just like that both of them were down and out.  Now I was alone in opposing this girl, just me versus her and I was definitely out armed

Honestly, I wanted this elf girl, to add her to my little harem.  Her alluring beauty, her skill at combat, I wanted her to submit to me and serve my interests from here on, with everything that entails.  Unfortunately, that hateful sneer on her face and the brutality she met out to my Sarduna has soured my desire for her.  This girl clearly intends to harm me and I’m not confident that I have the strength to effectively put her down, even with lethal force.

She reached up to the crown of her head and with her long, delicate looking fingers clasped the tiara on her head.  In that instant she had completely disappeared.  Sh*t, she’s aiming to sneak around my meager defense and take me out in fell swoop. 

‘Okay keep calm, control yourself Yuri.’  I thought to myself.  ‘You need to keep track of her movements, so use those great senses on yours and find her again.’

I once again focused in on my hearing, every minor and seemingly insignificant sound came reverberating through my ears.  My mind, still pumping with adrenaline, processed the information that I was bombarded with as quickly as I could.  The chirping of a bird, useless.  A piece of cloth moving in the breeze, no next.  An inexplicable creaking of rock and dirt to my left, wait that’s it!

Hastily shifting my posture to face the noise, I was met by a sudden thrust of a blade out of thin air. 

I react in the only way I could, moving my knife to block the strike. 

With a loud clanging sound, I managed to catch the elf girl’s blade and redirect it.  Unfortunately, the knife warped and deformed right in my hand, I could feel it bend as it made contact with the elven blade.  Honestly it shouldn’t be surprising, my knife was made of copper, and that elven blade looked to be made of something tougher.  She pulled back her sword to ready for another swing at me.

I was able to block the second strike that came at me, but that only damaged my knife even further.  Looking at it the blade was bent at an angle, the poor thing looked crumpled beyond recognition. 

Even worse, after blocking those two swings my arms were already feeling numb and worn out.  Dammit, I’m too weak to fight like this for any length of time, I have no other weapons nor any armor and I don’t know how to use my blessings effectively. 

With the state of paranoia most of the girls in this camp are under, I doubt any of them would come to my aid, if they weren’t already dead themselves.  If only Aura was here, she supported me in my previous fight.  But she wasn’t here, she was off guarding the caravan’s remaining food supplies.  Then how am I going to get out of this?

The elf girl is crouching down for a third thrust, I seriously doubt I could block that again, meaning I’ll need dodge.

As the elven blade drives towards my body, I quickly jump to the side successfully.

‘Good, I can do this.  Now, maybe I can somehow get around her and take this girl down.’ 

Just as I was developing a plan a stinging pain radiated from my thigh, looking down I saw along gash across it.  Even though I was able to dodge the thrust, this elven girl was capable of converting it into a slashing attack that gouged out my leg.

Crippled by the immense pain I fell into a heap in the dirt.  The fiery sensations flooding my brain, the constant leaking of blood, I knew that she had gotten me good and that know there was basically nothing that I could do to stop her.

The elf girl stood above me, watching as I squirmed on the ground with a sense of sadistic contempt.  It was obvious that she could kill me at any moment now and that she just gloating over me.

“Ha, why?”  I asked vainly hoping to delay her even for just a few minutes.

There was a long pause as she made no effort to respond, instead after a few moments of silence she stamps her foot onto my bleeding thigh.

“AHHH!!”  I hissed as a fresh wave of pain shot through me.

“Heh, that’s what you insignificant little slaves deserve.  Daring to challenge and even kill your betters, this is what you rightly get for needlessly antagonizing us.”  She started ranting rabidly as her heel continued to press onto my wound.

Enduring the pain I desperately wrack my brain trying to figure out what she was talking about.  Challenging and killing elves?  Well, there was the elf raid that me and Aura fought off.  That’s the only incident that she could be talking about.

“You’re talking about the elves who tried to raid the caravan.  We were merely defending ourselves, you can’t blame us for retaliating against thieves.”  I retorted defiantly.

I received several kicks to my body for my words,

“You have no such right as self-defense, if an elf shows up demanding your property then the only just action you have is to hand it over.”  Her words oozed self-righteous arrogance, as though she truly believed the words she was spewing out of her mouth.

This girl is utterly mad.  Are all elves really like this?  If so, then I’m starting to get why no one wants to deal with them.

“So does that mean you elves can’t fight back when I want your stuff?  I’ll keep that in mind for if I ever want to go scrounging for some quality elf-slaves.”  I mocked at her by applying her own logic at her.

“Shut up!”  She lands another kick on me.  “You think it’s funny messing with innocent elves, to play around with their lives and discard them at your leisure, like what you lot did to my sister.”

“What!?”

“How can you be so ignorant?  My sister was amongst the poor, helpless elves you and your accomplices killed.”  She stated with a twisted grin.

So that’s it.  She wants revenge for her sister’s death.  It doesn’t matter to her that her sister was a bandit running in blades swinging, she’s here to murder us all.

“Now how am I to punish an unruly slave like yourself, especially with that mouth of yours?”  I felt a tug on the hem of my skirt.  “Maybe I should put you in your place, by making you into a proper butt-slave.”

Turning my head I can see that the back end of my dress was raised upwards, she had her blade tip hovering underneath it, and uncomfortably close to my butt.  A very lurid fear washed over me, this was going beyond mere killing, or torture even, this was pure sadism.  Her blade just hung in place, she was dragging this out for her own sick pleasure but I knew this crazy elf bitch was going to have to kill me sooner rather than later.  The question was, is there any way out of this?

Glancing back and forth, vainly trying to find anything that could help me out of this.  There STILL wasn’t anyone coming out, it was as if the camp was completely deserted.  Maybe no one could hear us?  Or maybe this camp was effectively abandoned?  Whatever, there’s no point continuing to dwell on this.

Turning my attention over to Sarduna and Naira in concern, I hoped that at the very least they could escape.  But when I looked in their direction I only saw Naira, huddled on the ground nursing her wound.  Where was Sarduna?  What happened to her?  My panic and fear grew yet again as Sarduna’s disappearance stacked on top of all my other worries, that being killed and losing my anal virginity to a sword in the process.  But why does Naira seem so unconcerned?  While I was glaring at her, she simply smiled and put one finger over her lips.

‘She wants me to be quiet?  Why is she shushing me?  Wwwaitt…Sarduna is up to something, isn’t she?’  Realization dawned on me as I grinned in anticipation.  This would mean I need to keep this crazy elf occupied till Sarduna does whatever she’s going to do.

“Are elves so incompetent at wooing a woman that you lot have to resort to cutting down random girls just so you can get a date?  Do you even know how to pleasure a woman?”  I taunted cruelly.

“You insolent little!”  She screeched moving her sword down right into my right shoulder.

The tip of the blade pierced right through, pinning me to the dirt as yet more pain flooded my brain. 

“Ahh!”  A cry rang out from behind the elf, I then saw an axe lunge out at her back.  Sarduna somehow managed to sneak up on the elf and was swinging her axe at her. 

I’m not exactly at a good angle to describe what’s happening at this point other than Sarduna was landing blows on the elf.  She in turn roughly jerked her sword out of my shoulder to fight back.  Based on the pain, she might of caused more damage pulling it out than when stabbing it in. 

The two of them continued to fight as I slowly pulled myself up.  My right arm was effectively useless after getting stabbed, so I had to rely on my left to get up.  Once, on my feet I took a breadth, to prepare for what was to come.  I feel like a worn out rag-doll at this point, but that doesn’t matter, I need to defeat the elf-bitch.  So gripping the battered remnants of my knife in my left hand, I turn to face the ensuing battle.

In the handful of moments that passed since the start of their bout, the elf was clearly winning despite some nasty gashes on her body.  She had control of both space and tempo, allowing her to force Sarduna on the defensive.  Harnessing every last bit of strength I could, I stumbled towards the elf in order to end this.

But then the duel came to a sudden stop, the elf had managed to stab Sarduna in the abdomen.

I was surprised at the abruptness of it all, rage bubbled up at the sight of Sarduna falling over.  All I his elf WILL pay for harming Sarduna I’ll make sure of that.

Making one last lung at the elf girl, I open my throat right as she turned in my direction and let out a…

*ROAR*

My guttural, feral cry seemed to have stunned her.  Her eyes went wide, body frozen and her grip on her blade slackened; it almost seemed as if she was crumpling in the face of my roar.  Not that I was going to let this opportunity pass, I was going to finish this before she could recover.

Aiming my knife I thrust it straight into her eye.

Watching broken corpse of the once beautiful elf fall into the dirt, I allowed myself to sway back and forth just before I blacked out.

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