NOVPUB
Chapter 127: Bandits, Eh?
That one hit differently.
Zayn looked into her eyes — those deep, violet eyes that always seemed to shimmer when she smiled or flustered.
Then he kissed her again. This time, slow and meaningful.
After a while, they simply sat like that — her curled on his lap, his hand stroking gentle circles on her lower back, both of them lost in each other’s presence.
Occasionally, they’d chuckle at nothing. Althea made a joke about being a bad kisser and Zayn insisted she had an S-rank in "Tongue Technique."
"Oh my gods, stop," she laughed, hiding her face again.
"Hey, I’m just giving feedback."
"I swear if you start calling me your ’DPS cuddle bunny’ — "
"I wasn’t gonna say that," he said, clearly about to say that.
Time slipped past them like a lazy stream as they simply relaxed.
Zayn finally sighed. "I should probably head back soon."
"Yeah..." she said, though her arms around him didn’t loosen.
"You’re not gonna let go, are you?"
"Nope," she said, smiling against his shoulder.
"Alright. Guess I live here now."
They stayed like that a few moments longer before finally, reluctantly, Althea stood up. Zayn’s legs were halfway numb.
She helped him to his feet and dusted off his back with more care than necessary.
[Side Note: Eldeeeeellllll I can sense your jealousy from here hehe]
...
"I wonder how Zayn is doing..." Elisse muttered, her arms folded over her chest as she watched the sun dip behind a ridge of hills.
She wasn’t the only one wondering, really.
Zayn had a way of leaving a gap in the group dynamic.
It wasn’t just his dumb jokes or the way he somehow managed to flirt with danger and every girl in a ten-meter radius — it was that he made things feel less tense.
Right now, tension could be scooped from the air like soup. Thick, awkward soup.
"We should’ve been halfway back to town by now," Kara grumbled, walking beside the slow-moving carriage.
Her hair was up in a high ponytail, dusty from the rocky trail.
Tobias sighed, arms folded, his eyes locked on the road ahead. "Technically, we should’ve been home an hour ago. Technically. But someone lied to the guild about the destination being ’a short ride north.’"
The escort clients — a couple of middle-aged merchants with enough body odor to qualify as chemical weapons — looked guilty in the back of the carriage.
"We didn’t want to pay the full price," one of them said with an apologetic shrug. "But this mission is really important! We have soul crystals in here!"
Tobias didn’t scream.
He wanted to.
His eye twitched, and the corner of his mouth did that thing it always did when Zayn wasn’t around to buffer his nerves.
"Elisse," he said, calm and sharp, "next time someone lies to the guild, remind me to tie them to the front of the carriage."
Elisse smirked, waving a hand in mock innocence. "Sure, Captain Integrity. I’ll even hand you the rope."
Then it hit her.
A glint.
No — several glints. Flickers of sunlight reflecting off something fast-moving.
She blinked. Horses?
No.
Horsemen.
Ten riders galloping at full speed, kicking up dust in a rage-filled trail behind them.
They weren’t just riding for sport. The shouts and whoops carried across the dry air.
"Trouble incoming!" Elisse yelled, her fingers already crackling with a faint glow of healing soul energy.
Tobias swore under his breath. "Bran, Kara — get ready!"
Bran had been out inside the wagon, half-asleep in that weird way only muscleheads can be.
But the moment Tobias shouted, he sprang into action like someone had just dropped a steak on the battlefield.
The bulky axe wielder came out, slammed one foot onto a rock and launched himself upward like a cannonball.
His axe glowed faintly with crackling blue soul energy.
And then — he descended.
"YO!" Bran roared midair, grinning like an absolute lunatic.
The bandits barely had time to squint at the giant man falling from the sky before Bran’s axe hit the ground with the force of a small meteor.
The shockwave blasted outward with a boom that threw the lead rider clean off his horse, flipping like a ragdoll. Two others skidded to a halt, shielding their faces from the dust and bits of rock flying at them.
"DID YOU JUST USE A SHOCKWAVE TO SAY HELLO?" Kara shouted from behind, ducking behind the cart as Bran stood in the small crater he’d just created, his axe resting on his shoulder.
"What? You wanted me to wait for them to greet us first?" Bran called back cheerily.
Tobias sprinted past Elisse, already forming a thin layer of soul energy around his fists. "Alright. Let’s do this the efficient way."
"Remind me again why I left the house for this?" Kara muttered, drawing a sigil with her staff and slamming it into the ground.
A wall of stone erupted behind the carriage, creating a makeshift barricade and shielding the merchants.
Two bandits dismounted.
One of them — a lean, long-haired woman with a spear — cracked her neck.
"They’ve got a tank. Fine. I’ll carve him open first."
"Oh please try," Bran said, grinning and pounding his chest. "I skipped lunch just for this."
The woman lunged.
Tobias dashed in, intercepting her spear with a flash of soul-infused movement, parrying the strike with twin daggers he must have pulled out his inventory.
He grunted as the blow sent a vibration up his arms, but he held steady.
"Tag out!" he barked.
Bran charged in and swung horizontally, missing by a hair.
The spearwoman backflipped, landing near the edge of the road.
A bandit with a crossbow took a shot — only for Kara’s wall to suddenly jut outward and smack him in the face like a giant stone pancake.
"Hope you weren’t married to your nose," she called dryly.
Meanwhile, Elisse focused on the merchants, healing one of them who’d somehow managed to fall out of the wagon despite sitting down.
"You’re the reason Tobias has stress wrinkles," she muttered, casting a small wave of healing over his sprained ankle.
"He has wrinkles?"
"He will, if he keeps dealing with people like you."
