I Woke Up Inside My Friend's Video Game

[Arc 2] Chapter 37. The Flame Beneath the Fog

Arc 2. Face Your Death with Courage

The sun had begun its slow descent behind the pine-choked hills, casting long, gold-streaked shadows across the uneven trail. The light bled between the trees in narrow slits, like the world itself was trying to close its eyes and pretend it didn't see what was coming.

I tightened my grip on the ironwood staff I'd carved back in Falkreath. A light wind stirred the leaves and danced across the worn trail, but something else rode with it—something I could feel, but not name. Erik walked beside me, quiet as always, his boots crunching softly over the brittle underbrush. He hadn't spoken much since we passed Nikolai's group. Not that I minded. The silence between us had become its own kind of language.

But then I heard them—rustling. Mismatched footfalls. Leather scraping against steel. A forced cough.

And then a voice, cracked and lazy: "Hello... uh... citizens. We came here to collect, uh... taxes."

I turned slowly, and there they were—six of them stepping out from behind the birches. They wore Imperial armor, or at least pieces of it. The armor was blood-rusted, too large or too small on some of them, held together with frayed straps and patches of fur. One of them wore the helmet backwards.

A bad copy of a bad lie.

Erik didn't move, but I felt him shift ever so slightly beside me. He looked at me.

I looked back.

And in that breath of a moment, we nodded.

The one in front—who I guessed was their leader only because he spoke first—tilted his head. "So what's it gonna be? You pay us the gold, or we'll be forced to consider you... uncooperative citizens."

I smiled. "And what's the tax rate in this part of Skyrim?"

The others chuckled behind him, like children imitating wolves.

He took a step closer, his fingers twitching near the hilt of a chipped steel sword. "Everything you've got. For, uh... security reasons."

Erik's hand was already resting on the hilt of his dagger. "You killed real Legionnaires for that armor."

"Prove it," the leader snapped.

Erik did.

Before the last syllable had left his mouth, Erik was in motion—a blur of black cloak and flickering steel. His dagger flashed once, opening the man's throat like a scroll. Blood sprayed the trees behind him, bright and steaming in the cooling dusk.

That was the signal.

I ducked the swing of another bandit's axe, the wind of it hissing past my ear. I rolled forward, the scent of dirt and iron flooding my nose, then sprang up behind him and smashed the end of my staff against the back of his knee. He howled, fell, and I brought the staff down again—once, twice—until his helmet crumpled inward like a crushed shell.

Another charged me, roaring with the blind courage of idiots. I saw Erik behind him, already dispatching his second opponent with a clean, elegant thrust through the ribs.

This one swung at me in wide, wild arcs—no form, no training, just anger and panic. I waited. Then, like Hadvar had taught me, I stepped inside his swing and drove my claws into his eyes.

He screamed. Gods, he screamed.

"Don't impersonate soldiers," I growled, pulling my claws free as he crumpled.

A fourth man tried to run. Erik threw a dagger. It found the base of his neck. He twitched once, then was still.

When it was over, the woods were silent again.