Merlin drew his bow back, aiming it at one of the horses in the front carriages.
His first goal would be to prevent the carriages from running away. If he started picking off the guards, it was likely that the carriages would continue to their destination while leaving the guards as a distraction.
For this task, he only had to kill one of the two horses each, as the dead horse's corpse would serve as a severe inconvenience that would hopefully prevent the other horse from moving the wagon much, if at all.
As the horses rode closer, Merlin's eyes locked onto the clover insignia on the covered wagons, which was all he needed as confirmation to let the first arrow fly. The arrow flew out of the treeline, embedding itself in the head of one of the horses tugging along the leading wagon.
The horse became panicked, running the cart towards the treeline and knocking over one of the guards, only to drop dead a few moments after. The sudden boost of speed, followed by the sudden stop as the wagon's wheel hit the dead horse, caused the driver's body to jerk forwards, throwing him off the cart.
"What the--" One of the guards shouted out in surprise as another arrow flew out of the forest, hitting another horse in a similar way, followed by a third.
By the time the guards had drawn their weapons and moved to defend from their attacker, all three wagons were effectively disabled.
Merlin could hear startled cries coming from the wagons, which caused an increased feeling of bloodlust to grow within him.
Merlin drew another arrow, sending it flying into the heart of one of the guards. And fortunately he wasn't given a karma reduction, which meant that the system treated them as nothing more than criminals.
The guard that was hit in the heart staggered towards him, it was impressive that he was even still standing after taking a shot from his longbow, let alone the poison.
The guard dropped to the ground after making it about half way from the road to Merlin's position in the treeline.
"It's just one guy, be careful of others still hiding." One of the guards shouted.
The rest of the guards, and even the drivers, had started making their way over to Merlin's position. A couple more arrows were shot out, one of which barely scraped a guard's arm, the other found its way in the throat of the guard that was yelling out orders, causing that guard to drop dead moments after too.
By this time the guards had closed in on Merlin's position, so he was forced to throw his bow back into his inventory and move into melee range. He kept the quiver on his side however, not bothering to take it off just yet.
He drew his daggers and ran towards the nearest guard, who had been barely scraped by one of the arrows. This guard had started wobbling around as he moved, it seemed the poison had started circulating through his system, but he was fortunate to not get as high of a dose as the others so it was taking longer.
Merlin had loaded each arrow with enough poison to overdose a horse within a matter of seconds, so while the guard hadn't gotten it all, it should still be a lethal dose.
"An owl?" The guard muttered before slashing his sword at Merlin.
Merlin dodged the guard's desperate sword slash before slicing the man's throat with a couple quick strikes from his daggers, finishing the guard off.
The last three guards had pounced towards him with their weapons drawn, Merlin parried away the closest blade while leaping backwards to avoid the others. But as he leapt back, the guards continued rushing towards him, not giving him enough room to plan his next attack.
"Fine, we'll do it this way." Merlin muttered as he reached for his quiver, grabbing hold of three poisoned arrows.
As his foot hit the floor, he leapt backwards once more, throwing the three poisoned arrows into the air above him.
The three guards glanced up towards the arrows briefly, wondering what the purpose of that action was. But as their attention all snapped back towards Merlin, they witnessed three vines suddenly burst out of his body.
"What the, it's not human." One of the guards shouted in surprise.
The vines extended up towards the arrows, each wrapping around one. It was at this moment that the guards realised what was about to happen.
Before they could even react to the attack, the vines, alongside the poisoned arrows, were suddenly thrust into the guard's bodies.
"A demo--" A guard who had the arrow thrust into his neck muttered before the poison overtook his system, causing him to fall to his knees.
One of the guards who got an arrow to the shoulder ran towards Merlin once more, slicing at him while shouting at the top of his lungs.
Merlin avoided the strike, but the blade cut the vine that was attached to him still, causing it to retract.
Merlin plunged his daggers into the guard's heart, finishing him off. He then approached the last guard that was still standing upright, but he seemed to be having a hard time staying that way, let alone moving.
The guard didn't even bother raising his sword arm, or perhaps he couldn't, as Merlin approached and cut him down.
The guard that was on the floor died moments before Merlin even approached him.
"Yew is overpowered against low constitution enemies, wow." He muttered, glancing over at the drivers who seemed to be experiencing a large array of emotions.
One of the drivers was trying to drive away, but the remaining horse couldn't drag the wagon and the dead horse being dragged underneath it. Another driver had a dagger drawn and was slowly approaching him, and the last driver was groaning on the floor, as he seemed to have been trampled by his remaining horse as he was bucked off the driver seat.
Merlin made short work of the driver approaching him, before finishing off the driver groaning on the floor, and then he made his way to the driver that barely managed to move the wagon and was currently a little bit down the road.
It took him about twelve seconds at a slight jog to catch up with the vehicle. Before the driver could do anything else, he felt his body go cold, only to look down and see a large vine piercing through his chest where his heart should have been.
The driver was dragged off the wagon by the vine, it seemed the vines received a little bit of a strength upgrade, which Merlin had just noticed.
The driver was thrown to the ground at Merlin's feet, and he stared up to see the face of a pale white porcelain owl staring back at him.
"I don't think you're cut out for this line of work." Merlin taunted as the driver drew a knife and attempted to lunge at him.
Three vines flew out of Merlin's body, each piercing a large hole in the driver's torso.
「Passive skill ⟪Rose Blight⟫ has triggered, target's stats have been reduced.」
Surprisingly, the vines had actually killed the driver.
"Woah, you guys got a pretty nice buff." Merlin mumbled compliments as he retracted his vines back into his body. "Not sure if that's because of the raw attack damage bonus or an upgraded part of the skill, but not bad."
He looked around his surroundings, noticing that he left a little bit of a mess out of all the child traffickers.
"I should probably clean this up before I free the kids, huh." He muttered, sending his vines out to grab the driver's body before dragging him into the forest. He found keys on the driver's corpse, something he thought would possibly be useful so he grabbed them.
He disconnected the dead horse, throwing that into the forest too, before riding the wagon back towards the other wagons.
He tied the wagon down to another wagon before running around hiding all the dead bodies, obtaining the driver's keys and retrieving all the arrows that didn't break on contact.
He cast cleanse on the salvaged arrows before throwing them in his inventory, he also threw the quiver full of poisoned arrows in his inventory.
Fortunately nobody else seemed to be out on the road yet, or he'd have to quickly escape. But once he was done, it was time to remove the covers from the wagons.
He ripped the black fabric cover off the wagon, revealing that the inside of the wagon was just a large metal cage.
"This would have been obvious during any amount of inspection..." Merlin muttered, "There have to be guards on the noble's payrolls."
Inside the cages were a large number of young children, mostly young boys, packed within the cage. They seemed terrified, but clearly couldn't do much against their bindings, let alone the metal cage.
Merlin started messing around with the keys he looted, figuring out which key belonged to which cage. He eventually got the door opened, and began untying all the victims. It was mostly children but there seemed to be a few older individuals in the group.
He eventually finished freeing everyone, and once he had, he turned to the older looking individuals.
"Start making your way back to town. Don't trust the guards at the gate, it's highly likely that they are working with the human traffickers." He ordered, "And don't trust Madame Hartlace."
