GATE - War of Two Worlds Part 1

V01 - Chapter 4 RM

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--- Coan Forest ---

April 15th, 2025

Rory Mercury quietly jumps on top of a boulder. She looks down and sees five men around a campfire trying to stay warm. It is currently night. Two of the men have naked women on either side of them being held or laying on the ground out cold.

She had been hearing sounds of battle from the west of the Roma River and had been wanting to investigate.

She sees that the men around the campfire are well armed and equipped. All are using standard Imperial weapons and equipment, so she knows they cannot be mercenaries or standard bandits. They are soldiers who had recently gone rogue.

"Man, I can't wait to get home," one of them said.

"Are you kidding? Do you really want to go back home after what we've been through?" a bigger man said.

"They are just going to put you back into the army or enslave us for running away," a third man replied.

"And besides, we are free now. We can take whatever we want. Rape anyone we want. No lord or king telling us what to do," another laughs.

All the men chortle and clang their glass mugs together.

"Besides," another said as he rips off a leg from the beast they had killed for food, "We were promised riches and property if we enlisted. We are just getting what was entitled."

He reaches over and pulls an elven woman closer to himself. She quietly whimpers.

Rory heard enough and stood up from her cover, "Why, hello boys. I see you all having a fun time."

The men turn around, wondering where the voice came from. They then look up at the massive rock next to them and see the infamous demi-goodness, Rory Mercury — a servant to Emory, the god of darkness, war, violence, and death.

All the men look up at her in awe and start to tremble in fear, taking a few steps backward away from their camp.

"Rory the Reaper...!" one man peeps out in growing horror.

"... what are you doing here?" another man said, tossing the women on his lap away and grabbing for his sword.

She smirks, jumps off the rock, and lands by the fire. She then flourishes her halberd behind her back, further intimating the soldiers. As she does this, she is humming a song she grew up with. It was such a childish tune, but when it was coming from the embodiment of the grim reaper herself, it was a song of death itself.

"I wonder what you have been doing," she said and glances to her right. There were three naked, dead women.

She has seen this sight thousands of times. In this world, the strongest prey on the weak. That usually means that peasants get abused by the soldiers and their rulers. Rape and enslavement are the norm, and she has seen it all. But seeing the state of these women these men had left them in — dead or alive — just infuriates her. She finds no honor in such actions — soldiers taking and abusing whatever they want when they are supposed to be the protectors of the people.

She glares at them, "I was told some bandits attacked a small village nearby. They murdered everyone and took five young girls. I take it that it was you five."

Before anyone of them knows what to do, one of them charges her, taking a swing with his sword. The girl chops him down without sparing a single glance.

At the same time, two more charges at her, but the remaining two run away.

Once she is done with her first victim, she rushes towards the two attacking her and slashes them in half with a single twirl of her ax like scything through grass. She briefly pauses to take a glance at the remaining victims fleeing as fast as their legs could take them.