Chapter Fifty: Blocking the Road

  When the first ray of dawn shone on the window, Hans and I walked out of his house, his wife Victoria seeing us off at the door. Hans hugged his wife briefly, then nodded to me and said, "Let's go, I'll take you part of the way, I often walk there, there's a road that goes straight to the city you're going to."

  I turned my head to see Victoria staring blankly at Hans, looking distracted. I thought Victoria's behavior was a bit strange, it wasn't like they were parting ways forever, why did her eyes look so complicated? When did the two of them get along so well that they couldn't be apart for even a moment?

  I shook my head and laughed out loud: "Hans brother, wait for me!" I quickly caught up with Hans.

  "Hans big brother, you two were very affectionate last night." I teased Hans with a smile.

  Joy burst forth on Hans' face: "Come to think of it, Alick, I really must thank you. At last Victoria has come round."

  "What does it have to do with me? Hans, your sincerity has finally paid off. Good people get good rewards." I chuckled and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Hans on the mountain path.

  ……

  In the mountains, the morning air is fresh and clean. Everywhere, you can hear the birds that got up early playing and chasing each other. Everything is full of life, even the mist in the forest seems to be filled with spirit. The sunlight passes through this thin fog, covering everything in the forest in a quiet and peaceful atmosphere of light and shadow.

  I suddenly saw something flashing in front of me, and I stopped chatting with Hans to look carefully in that direction. The thin fog slowly parted, and four people carrying double-handed swords walked out of the mist, their icy eyes fixed on Hans.

  Hans stared at them blankly and said, "What are you going to do?"

  "Hans, it's a fine day today, you should have no regrets dying in such a beautiful environment, right?" A red-haired young man joked to Hans.

  "Dead? Why? Are you going to kill me?" Hans asked in some terror.

  "Don't blame us, Hans. Lord Vini of Lant City has a liking for your wife and she wants to follow him to enjoy wealth and glory... so you seem somewhat redundant." The red-haired man said with a smile.

  "Impossible! My wife loves only me, how could she possibly conspire with Lord Vinnie to kill me?" Hans heard the red-haired man's words and suddenly roared like a furious lion.

  A middle-aged man beside the red-haired man said, "Let's get started, what's with all the nonsense, hurry up and finish the task so we can go back and have breakfast. You've been waiting for so long, aren't you tired?"

  Standing behind Hans, I knew this was an inevitable battle. Taking advantage of their conversation, I quietly took a few steps back. When the middle-aged man spoke, a bow appeared in my hand. As I drew the arrow and pulled the bowstring, those four people finally noticed my movement.

  They roared in anger, two of them charging towards Hans and the other two pouncing on me. My arrow flew off the string, piercing the throat of the first one, and the second one stumbled as another arrow shot towards him. He raised his sword hands in panic, barely deflecting the arrow, but he never expected that an archer would also cast magic on him, and the ensuing pale blue wind blade sliced him in two.

  On the other side, Hans was surrounded by danger, although anger filled Hans with infinite power, the hunting knife in his hand whistling with the wind for a time, and he fought evenly with the red-haired man and the middle-aged man who attacked him. However, while anger increased his attack power, it also made Hans neglect his defense. The two attackers opened several wounds on Hans' body, and blood almost dyed half of Hans' body red, but Hans still didn't feel anything as he continued to fight.

  After I took down the two people who attacked me, I shot an arrow at the middle-aged man. Although he blocked the attack, it also made them realize that their companion had been killed by me. These few people were underlings of Viscount Vini sent to kill Hans, and killing a mere hunter didn't require particularly skilled assassins, so these four weren't particularly impressive either. When the red-haired man and middle-aged man saw the gruesome state of the person cut in half by the Wind Blade, one was immediately frightened to the point where he couldn't even hold his sword steady, dropping it with a "clang", while the other turned around and ran away.

  A fireball shot out, hitting the middle-aged man who was running away, and the fierce flames engulfed him instantly, burning him to a crisp. The red-haired man had already fallen to his knees in fear, muttering repeatedly: "Spare my life, Magic Master, please spare my life, I'm just following orders, it has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with me..."

  I stopped Hans from taking any further action, and as soon as he stopped, he seemed to lose all his strength and slumped to the ground. I helped Hans sit down, tore open his clothes, bandaged his wounds, and gave him the medicinal water that Mr. Ben had distributed to us when we were escorting him earlier. Only then did Hans' injuries come under control, although due to blood loss, his face still looked somewhat pale.

  I worked on Hans' bandages with one hand, while saying to the red-haired man kneeling on the ground: "I think people all love their lives. It's clear that you're a clever person, between death and telling the truth, I don't need to teach you how to choose, do I?"

  The red-haired man nodded hastily and said: "Magician sir, I'll tell you anything you want to know, just please spare my life."

  I conjured up a water ball, which cleaned the wound on Hans' shoulder and then wrapped it in clean cloth with a small knot. I carefully examined my handiwork, nodded in satisfaction, and said: "Now, tell me everything you know about this matter from start to finish."

  The red-haired man said: "Sir, I am a personal guard of Lord Vini. This is Hans' wife, Victoria. The lord met her once while hunting on the edge of the forest and they often dated afterwards. Later, Victoria would often visit Lord Vini's castle and hang out with him. Recently, it seems that Victoria didn't want to continue like this and wanted to become the lord's third wife officially. Maybe the lord was also very satisfied with Victoria, so after she left yesterday, he called us four people over and ordered us to ambush Hans on his usual route today and kill him..."

  Hans listened beside, his eyes gradually reddening. He shouted loudly: "Impossible! Impossible! Victoria said she wanted to live a good life with me yesterday evening and asked for my forgiveness. You are lying!"

  The red-haired man said in a panic, "No, I didn't lie. If your wife hadn't told us, how would we have known that you often take this road? And if it weren't for the lord's orders, we wouldn't have come to kill you."

  Enraged Hans broke free from me who was bandaging him, rushed forward, raised his hunting knife and hacked at the red-haired man wildly. The red-haired man instantly let out a miserable cry as he was hacked into minced meat. Hans still didn't stop, hacking at the red-haired man's corpse with one slash after another, shouting in his mouth: "Impossible, impossible!"

  I rushed over, snatched the knife from Hans' hand, and tightly hugged him, shouting: "Calm down, Brother Hans, he's already dead."

  Hearing my words, Hans finally stopped his frantic movements, let out a loud roar to the sky, and fell to his knees, wailing in grief.