Leap of Faith

Sofia looked at Felix with worry in her eyes. He, on the other hand, looked unconcerned. He busied himself searching the boss's corpse.

"What are you doing?!" she said.

Felix turned to look at her; on his face was a look that said, "Isn't it obvious?"

"We don't have time for this. What do we do? Those are probably the reinforcements he talked about. How can we get out of here?!"

"Relax. Do you think I came in here without a plan? Right now, they are too busy to care about us.

Sofia looked unconvinced. Felix chose to ignore her and continued to search the corpse. Unfortunately, his search seemed unfruitful until he noticed a large scar on the man's chest. He looked closer and saw that, although the scar was made with a blade, it seemed too deep and narrow to have been made during battle.

Felix took out one of his knives and plunged it into the corpse's chest. Sofia flashed a look of horror when she saw Felix's action. Although Sofia hadn't led a sheltered life and knew how vile some people may be, she still wasn't used to such a display of gore.

Felix, on the other hand, had killed too many people to be disturbed by such a small amount of blood. Although the knife was sharp, it was still difficult for him to go through the rib cage. He had to use the butt of the knife to break the man's ribs. The sound it made threatened to make Sofia vomit. She averted her gaze and took deep, long breaths to calm herself.

Felix finally found what he was looking for a small metallic disc. He took out a small gourd on his waist and washed the bloody disc with the water it contained. The disc was silver with a tinge of gold. The specific metal it was made of eluded Felix, but he was sure what the object was. He then put it securely in the inner pocket of his clothes. Sofia was so busy trying not to vomit that she missed it.

Felix rose to his feet and quickly searched the other corpses in the room. Once Sofia finally felt better, she turned towards Felix. She was stunned again and couldn't help but blurt out, "Is it the time for this?!"

As Felix rummaged for valuables, he replied, "Why do you think nobody came to investigate? We made such a commotion here, even in their boss' bedroom, and no one came to check? They're just too busy to care."

Just as Sofia was about to reply, smoke started to fill the room. She wondered what was happening, and then a loud explosion sounded not far away. The tremor even caused her to lose her footing. The building creaked, and the ceiling came down piece by piece. Felix took her by the arm and led her out of the room.

"What did you do?" she asked in disbelief. Felix, judging by the calm look on his face, knew what was happening.

"As I was infiltrating the compound, I found where they store their food, so I set it on fire. The guards are probably too busy to care about us," he replied dismissively as if it had nothing to do with him.

Sofia was shocked but tried her best to maintain calm as they travelled through the hallways. The place wasn't that big but was built like a maze. Sofia had only been here a handful of times and each time, she had to be led by somebody else. This time, however, she was totally lost. Felix, however, was leading her confidently through the maze.

"How do you know where to go?" she asked.

"I don't. I'm just going away from all the shouting."

Indeed, although faint, the firefighting efforts of the bandits could still be heard outside.

"I'm surprised they are still here," Sofia said after pondering. "I would have imagined most of them would have fled by now."

"As long as they don't know the head is gone, the body can still function. Their middle management isn't totally useless. I wonder how they'll deal with the new arrivals, though."

As he finished his sentence, the sounds outside changed drastically. What had been a coordinated effort to fight the fire became a clash of steel as the bandits and the knight order started to fight each other.

"Weren't they allies?" she asked puzzled.

"The gang's boss and the governor may have reached an agreement, but that doesn't mean they are allies. If one of them shows weakness, I doubt the other won't jump at the opportunity. Besides, I highly doubt they would tell anyone besides their closest subordinates. The leader on the knight's side may know something, but all the higher-ups of the gang were probably in that room just now. When middle management saw the knight company, they probably attacked first, forcing the knights to retaliate. Even if the knight's leader wanted to avoid the fight, once swords are drawn, it is tough to reverse the flow of a river."

Felix's explication seems to make sense, but some things don't add up, she thought.

Her thoughts were interrupted as they finally reached a crossroads. Unfortunately, both sides led to hallways with multiple rooms on each side and ended in dead ends. While looking through every door for a path would take too much time, Felix opted for a more direct approach.

He simply approached the nearest window and kicked it. Although the walls were sturdy enough, the windows were deeply in need of repair. As Felix's foot made contact with the wooden window, the latch holding it close gave way, and the window opened with a bang.

Unfortunately for them, on the other side of that window stood four men deep in battle. One of them was knocked unconscious underneath the window as he had been too close when Felix forced it open.

"Don't mind me," Felix said as he jumped through the window and landed on the fallen man below.

Once the man wearing armour, probably a knight, saw his unconscious comrade being trampled by Felix, he charged right at him. His charge, however, was interrupted by two bandits who probably mistook Felix for one of theirs.

Sofia followed quickly after, landing on the fallen knight and further bending the already damaged breastplate. She was well known within the gang, and if the bandits had seen her, they would have stopped her from leaving. Fortunately for her, they both had their backs to them and were otherwise too preoccupied to bother turning around.

Despite the battle raging nearby, Felix calmly scanned his surroundings. It would be foolhardy to run around blindly only to end up closer to the main battlefield. As he tried to locate where he was, Felix noticed the knight fighting in front of him. Although he seemed hesitant, which showed his inexperience in battle, the movements themselves were simple yet effective, denoting his extensive training.

If the knight can survive long enough to accumulate experience, he might make for a decent opponent, Felix thought.

Felix then noticed a small staircase leading to the top of the wall. On the other side of that wall lay the dense Acrean Forest.

As the sound of the battle grew fainter, Felix took Sofia's hand and led her towards the stairwell. As they reached the top of the wall, Felix turned around to look at the situation in the middle of the compound.

The knights had already defeated most of their opponents and had already converged on the remaining ones. It was only a moment of time before the stronghold fell. Without most of their elites to lead the battle, it was obvious that mere bandits were no match for well-trained and equipped knights.

As the battle reached a close, most of the bandits who remained chose to turn and run, only to be quickly apprehended by the knights who surrounded them.

As Felix looked further, he noticed that the fire had already died down considerably despite the previous explosion. He wondered how they managed it but didn't dwell on it too much as there are so many bizarre things in this world that this situation was relatively low on the list.

As he looked around, the knight swiftly bested his two opponents and, even before checking up on his comrade, had already started running towards them.

Felix looked down the other side of the wall. The drop was farther than he thought. Felix wasn't sure about the landing as it was too dark to see. He turned to Sofia and saw the look of worry on her face. Felix smiled, held her close and jumped.