"..."
’...’
Silence pervaded the area surrounding the felled tree.
Even Mira’s thoughts went silent for a moment.
"*Cough* *Cough*"
"Doesn’t this place have a city council to deal with roadblocks like this? I can’t believe of all things that take me down, it’s a damn stationary tree!"
Alex spoke aloud, letting his thoughts loose.
"Hey Mir-"
But it was clear he thought it was still just him and Mira there.
After taking a quick glance around, it was obvious that it wasn’t the case.
"Haha... My bad, don’t mind us!... Just passing through is all."
Alex embarrassingly apologised to the crowd of 17 people, all stood around the three carriages that also happened to be stopped.
The horses seemed to be a little unsettled from Alex and Mira’s sudden supersonic entrance into the tree, as one of them even tried to break loose from its reins.
"Sorry about the horses as well... as I’m sure you can tell, it wasn’t intentional."
Alex apologised once again when he saw the state the horses were in.
But even though his crash into the tree wasn’t intentional, it had actually done everyone a favour!
With the speed he was travelling, the tree was left as nothing more than splinters and sawdust after his crash.
The road was mostly unblocked now, aside from the odd bit of debris scattered around, as well as the two sides of the tree sitting on either side of the road.
But while Alex was too busy trying to avoid any more embarrassments, Mira paid a closer eye to the situation in front of her.
And things seemed... awkward.
’Why do they seem so tense?’
She noticed the atmosphere wasn’t letting up no matter how much of a fool Alex made of himself.
The group of natives in front of her seemed to be split into two different sets of people.
"Hold up, is there some sort of problem here? There’s no need to keep your hands wrapped around your weapons so tightly. Like I said, it was an accident."
But her cover was completely blown by Alex, who had shown no intention to keep things on the downlow the moment he noticed something was wrong.
"Friend! I’m sorry about that, we’re just a little vigilant as you can see! This place is known for having its fair share of bandits after all!"
Boss Kang hollered back to Alex in somewhat of a jovial tone.
It was the first time since the start of this encounter that Alex or Mira wasn’t the one doing the speaking.
"I can see that."
But Alex sniffed out his ruse instantly.
His face dropped, no longer looking embarrassed or joyful as he glared directly at Boss Kang.
"Bandits have no place in this world. Don’t you agree?"
He snidely remarked to Boss Kang.
"Attack!"
Boss Kang shouted to his other 11 men instantly after Alex’s remark left his mouth.
But without even waiting for his men to go in an attack Alex, he turned tail and started running off into the forest in the other direction...
He knew it wasn’t a fair fight from the start.
He had personally felled the tree himself, and he knew how many hours of effort it took him just to saw through the base.
To watch Alex completely dwarf his hours of effort in just a moment after he blazed through the tree with ease and came out unscathed was enough of a reality check for him to realise he wasn’t a match.
He looked back behind him for just a moment to see if anyone was giving chase.
’Phew! What fucking master did I cross paths with!?’
The coast was clear.
Thump!
But as he looked back ahead, he was stopped dead in his tracks as he bounced onto the ground, his chest aching.
Mira stood in front of him, completely unscathed, with her hand stretched out.
She didn’t even need to lift a finger herself.
The guy just ran straight into her hand, and like a very weak force meeting an immovable object, he bounced right off of her!