Compulsion

"Everyone, onto the ship!"

I heard the captain call out, even though some of my wares have yet to find their way under the deck.

A sound judgment, given how quickly the commotion was growing, involving people closer and closer to the wharf.

'We won't be able to leave all that soon,' I thought as I took a single glance at the level of the water within the port's bay and then moved my eyes toward the water-gate structure located at the exit of the area.

While it was still possible for all the ships to float, the structure of the gate made it near impossible for any seafaring vessel to escape the port and get to the deeper waters.

'We will have to wait for the higher tide to return,' I thought, gritting my teeth as I moved away from the commotion, taking a long way around it before finally changing my angle of approach and slowly making my way toward the core of the brawl.

What started as a small commotion has now turned into an all-out riot, with people fighting all over the place.

'This really isn't natural,' I thought, quickly noticing how most of those involved… clearly wished for nothing but to be somewhere else. Yet, as the violence and the desperate screaming grew louder and more prevalent, even those who wished nothing to do with the brawl ended up forced right into it.

'Are those soldiers?' I thought when I climbed up a small wall that separated someone's garden from the rest of the port, gaining a small height advantage and thus the ability to peer over the heads of the people closest to me.

And to my surprise, I could easily tell that some of the people in the areas where the fighting was heaviest… were clearly not just unfortunate civilians who found themselves in the middle of the brawl!

I jumped down from my spot and resumed my jog around the place, trying to maintain a constant distance of at least thirty to forty meters away from where the people were fighting. Yet…

As soon as I moved past the commotion… I realized one, extremely important thing.

This strange feeling of compulsion was one of the main reasons why I bothered checking this brawl out in the first place… It wasn't leading me toward the commotion at all! Instead… it led me somewhere beyond all the chaos.

Squinting my eyes in confusion as I attempted to figure out this weird situation, I allowed my instincts to carry my steps forward, quickly bringing me to the opposite side of the commotion than where I was when it started.

And just like I noticed before, this feeling continued to pull me in the same direction as before, away from the commotion and towards one of the smaller alleys at the very edge of the port area of the town.

'Is this some sort of a compulsion to follow the main questline or something?' I attempted to put my understanding of how things would work in a less realistic VR world to my current situation.

And quite frankly, this didn't raise my morale at all.

After all, I was this fucking close to finally leaving my pursuit behind. This close to boarding the ship, waiting for the high tide, and then leaving the place, safe from any further chase.

And here I was, walking right in the direction of what was likely a heck of a lot more trouble… All because of a weird feeling that I didn't really understand myself.

'Well, there's no harm in checking things out. Worst case scenario…' I thought, peeking out from behind the corner, into the alley where my instincts screamed for me to go.

There were only two people inside, a delicate, black-haired woman and a small, red-haired child.

The woman was squatting down and keeping her hands to herself, acting like an adult that just found a lost child. The kid, on the other hand, looked back at the woman with an empty expression on its face.

The kid… It was a young, roughly five-year-old girl with long, red hair that reached all the way to her knees. Her face was empty, devoid of any thought or emotion. And her eyes…

The very second I peeked out from behind the corner, her eyes shifted to the side, instantly locking on my face.

'Ugh…' I squirmed, nearly losing my composure when the feeling of urgency exploded in my soul, nearly causing me to rush ahead without a single thought, all to reach this strange girl before any harm could come her way.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked, clearly confused by the kid's weirdness.

Tap.

A third person appeared at the opposite end of the alley. It was a solidly-built man with a thick gambeson hidden underneath rattling and shiny chainmail. To top it off, he held a brandished sword in his right while holding a solid and short knife in his right.

'A soldier?' I thought, instantly recognizing all the marks of someone who dealt in the less popular of the two oldest professions known to a man. 'No,' I squinted my eyes when the man took a step forward, his eyes locked on the same pair that drew my attention before. 'He's a damn mercenary!'

There was one hell of a difference between the two.

A soldier was someone used to just following orders and not shying away from bloodshed. A mercenary, however, was someone who sought the most efficient way of dealing with his enemies that brought the least threat to his own safety.

And this difference, I could spot from just the way in which the man moved.

It wasn't a soldier's solid and confident step, one developed after hours of parading, drills, and marching.

It was a step of a hunter who remained as cautious as it was humanly possible while ready to spring into action regardless of where the danger would come from.

'He has to be at least sixth… no, seventh rank,' I thought, gritting my teeth as the man made another step, leaning forward as he accelerated.

The black-haired woman raised her eyes, finally spotting the danger.

But by now, it was already too late. The mercenary was already running at his top speed, holding both of his weapons in a reverse grip to prevent any accidental injury during his sprint.

The woman reached out and grabbed the red-haired kid, pulling the girl into an embrace as she leaped to the back.

And quite honestly, I couldn't watch it anymore.

Maybe it was the strange compulsion that grew exponentially with every step that this man took toward the two girls and every inch that the kid got closer to where I was hiding. Maybe it were the rules of being a man that my father engraved deep into my soul that made it quite obvious what I was supposed to do in this situation.

Or maybe it was just my unwillingness to just stand back and watch how things would develop without my interference.

'I really am stupid, aren't I?' I thought, allowing the stick that I'd grabbed before to fall out of my sleeve, only to grab it when it was about to fully escape from my clothes.

And with nothing but a hardened stick in my hand, I moved out from behind the corner and rushed forth, ready to confront the high-ranking soldier bearing a sword and a knife.

'I can't win this fight by normal means,' I thought when I made my first step forward. 'With a weapon, it would be a game of odds, but without out…'

There was no time for me to properly plan the fight out. No time to come up with a valid strategy or a crafty ploy.

And as the difference in our weapons was simply too much for me to handle, I shot my left leg a bit further than I would in a normal step, twisting my body sideways as I did so while allowing my leading, right hand to lag behind…

Before springing my entire body and using the momentum I gained to toss my stick right at the charging soldier!