Alright

"You were quite something, Amanda-"

With the goblins- the bait impaled to the ground it was only a matter of time.

"Save that talk for bed, sweetie-" She giggled huddling closer to Flint.

The two were under a tree- on a small hill, looking out.

The leaves weren't quite dense enough, so a fair bit of sunlight pierced through coloring their faces in odd shapes.

Slightly awkward. "Um… if you don't mind me asking-" He fidgeted his fingers. "Were you ever an assassin?"

A smirk. "If I tell you, I'll have to gut you-" She whispered, twirling a lock of her hair.

Gulping. "Please don't joke like that. You'll scare me."

Chuckle! "Yeah, I was once an assassin. Back then life was fun." She leaned back. "It's fun now too you know, I'm having quite the fun with you!"

She'd already collected and wiped her knives.

"Sure, sure. If you don't mind, if- if- you don't mind-" He proceeded to overemphasize- "I'd like you to teach me some assassination skills."

Normally, the guild wouldn't have given them this quest-

The quest to eliminate trolls.

Each troll head rewards would be 5 gold.

Trolls were tough monsters and that's why only B-rank and above parties were allowed to accept the quests. Luckily Amanda was an upper B-ranked adventurer.

And that meant she had plenty of experience under her belt.

"Look kid, I came cause I got a little curious." Not a trace of joy, just pure indifference.

"But don't take me for granted. I'm not some goodie-goodie who helps whoever begs for it. if you want my help either drop a bag of gold or pleasure me so much that I forget about it-"

Flint smiled. "I'm sorry. I can't do the latter. But I give you my word, I'll give you as much as I can make- or at least as much as I can save-" He smiled.

"The hell is wrong with?" With a shrug, she got up and prepared one of her knives. Small, sharp.

"My old master used to say that all the time-" He snorted, taking his sword out. "Stay out of this as much as possible-" He dashed forward glowing in a blue hue.

"But there's-" Eye slightly twitching- "Four…"

***

"Who'd have thought all you lot were dumb enough to just-" A slide and a swing-

Straight through the ankle of a troll-

WAROOO!!!

"-Be this straightforward. See food and don't even think why it's there?" A chuckle-

A swing- swing of a club-

Flint jumped- "Slow-" Voice firm. "Axel!!"

He sliced through the troll from top to bottom-

Thud!

Ground almost shaking-

Two down.

One tried to run-

But Flint hunted it down first-

Speeding up- he climbed the damn thing's back- pinning his sword down its head-

Wham!

The other one slammed down it's tree club- but Flint dodged at the very last second- and the third Troll perished from the impact.

"Would you look at that, killing friends?" He chuckled.

Unnerved the troll faltered back- shaking. "Fri-"

"Words?" Flint mumbled- grunted. "No, you're a monster!" That said, he tore out his sword, jumping forward again- jolting his sword through the air, eventually slicing the shins of the fourth troll- making it crumble to the ground. "No hard feelings but you kill hundreds of us too." Flint said, pushing his sword down its head…

Breathless-

The blue aura left him-

And with it came a world of pain and stinging.

Mari had stitched him up pretty good. His wounds were tightly stitched-

But the insides-

This might or might not have been a very bad idea…

"Are you sure, you haven't gone mad?" Amanda asked. "And you kept talking to them-"

She kept on glancing at his red bandages which were white even moments ago…

Red-

Fresh-

"Apparently, they can understand speech to a certain degree and have compassion for their kin. I was just trying to provoke and unnerve them. Works wonders when you kill one of them and they panic." A hand on the hilt of his sword, barely standing-

And lots of panting.

Eyes wavering-

He was about to lose conciseness, yet held onto it like his life depended on it.

"Are you an expert on trolls?" Amanda joked.

"Not really. The girl at the guild helped me out."

Hard to believe.

Really hard to believe.

An injured child-

A child of barely legal age-

Killing four trolls?

Alone?

"By the way, what's your lineage?"

"Human… why?"

"There's no other blood mixed in? Like Elven or Alven or-" She poked his face on various spots-

"None. Both my parents were also humans."

"Were…" Amanda paused. "I see." A breath out. "Let's get these to the guild then??"

"Just the goblins-" Flint paused. "You can have the money from the goblins. Payment for all this. If it's not enough, I'll kiss you. I need the trolls for something else."

Amanda opened her mouth- but no words came out. "Alright."