Ch. 93 A Bard's Instrument and a Rogue's Daggers

The note rang out across the whole battlefield, garnering everyone's attention and seemingly making the entire battlefield come take a pause. Looking at the scene, Roo had his lute in hand and the enemy he was fighting was stiff as a board, mid swing of his sword. If they could see the soldier's eyes, they'd see that they appeared to have glossed over, losing focus on everything around him. Roi kept his lute in hand and moved closer to the solider. When he was within a meter, he grabbed the gourd on his belt and used it as a club to crush the soldier's helmet.

"Hahahahaha.... He was right..." During their training, Gabriel had noted that the gourd Roi carried was made of some sort of incredibly dense material, making it a good weapon as it wouldn't break easily. He had also asked Ara to help Roi figure out his magic, which had led to the discovery of his Sound Magic. Luckily, Ara had a book on the basics of sound magic, allowing Roi to create his first sound based spell, Stunning Note. This allowed him to stun 1 enemy within 10m of him, giving him enough time to eliminate the enemy.

Putting his gourd back into its harness on his belt, Roi began to strum on his lute making a gentle tune that did not match the intense fighting in the area at all. Gabriel was amazed at the effectiveness of Roi's battle, it was short and straight to the point. The only problem Roi had in combat was being unable to actually fight, as long as he was against a single opponent he could easily stun then kill them. However, as his Sound Magic was still in it's infancy, all he could pull off was stunning a single opponent that had to be relatively close to him to begin with. Gabriel knew he would have to force the peaceful satyr to find a fighting style to supplement his Magic, but wasn't sure what he could do to help, he needed to find an actual combat expert if he wanted his new subordinates to continue getting better.

"Cut that out, now's not the time for music Roi."

"....but it's such a nice day..."

"This is a battlefield, not a tavern, show some respect to those still fighting."

"...my apologies..." Slinging his lute on his back, Roi fell into line with the others. There were still several fights between the other satyrs happening. Currently, the score was Gabriel's Team - 5 and Irizan's Brigade - 2, 3 battles were still happening, but Gabriel was confident they would easily win at least 1 more fight.

-- Aslen Fight --

"DAMNIT!" Aslen came to halt after being pushed back hard enough to skid across the dirt nearly 2m from her opponent. Gathering her bearings, she dropped into a low stance before running with her arms at her sides, daggers at the ready. Watching her get closer and closer, the soldier finally unsheathed his sword again, bringing it up just in time to block her attack. The whole fight the solider had never unsheathed his weapon for more than a few seconds at a time. Another flurry of attacks were traded back and forth between them, leaving Aslen with even more small wounds.

"You're good, but not good enough." Drawing his sword from the sheath, the soldier began to slowly move it in a circular pattern before slashing vertically across his body. As the tip of the blade made the slightest bit of contact with the ground, a wave of sharp pressure came at Aslen throwing her to the ground in a heap. Getting back to her feet took a lot of effort from Aslen and when she finally managed to stand up tall, she quickly fell backwards flat on her back, unconscious.

"Take her." Gabriel pointed to Aslen while speaking to Dys and Roi, the score was now 4-6 as one of the other satyrs had been eliminated during Aslen's fight. Gabriel made his way over to Francesca and put his hand on her shoulder. "I'll keep my word, you're free to leave if you'd like, but you can never speak of anything that has happened here, nor myself or my family. You already know the punishment."

"Lord Irizan, you are free to take your cousin with you and leave my land. Do not return." Gabriel gave Francesca a slight push and began to walk towards the gate entrance. (I'm surprised Aslen lost, I thought for sure this would be an easy contest.) Even knowing he may lose one of his new workers, Gabriel was unaffected and wanted to continue on with their training regiment. Yuni, Kor, and Dys hadn't been allowed to participate as Gabriel felt they would slaughter their opponents, but he now regretted letting them sit on the sidelines.

"Come on, all of you need much more training if you'll lose to weak soldiers like them."

"If you would've let us fight we would've won!" Yuni had been impatient watching the fights. Voicing her anger, she seemed to be on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum. After working with the group for a little while now, Gabriel had come to find their personalities were quite strange. Yuni was like a petulant child, Kor was like her stoic older brother, while the satyrs covered the entire spectrum. Aslen, Mar, Roi, and Neus were nothing like the other 7 satyrs who all seemed to be the same as Dys, loyal to their family and emotionless beyond that. Turning around the make sure the group was following him back inside, Gabriel was met with a strange sight.

"I will not return to Zan nor mother. Did you not read my letter at all? Leave this place before you anger Gabriel."