My legs burn like hell, and the cold doesn't help with anything. Still, my heart keeps pumping blood at a high rate while I try not to get caught by all of the soldiers at once. My options and decisions had to be made quickly and without hesitation, so because my clothes were all soaking wet, I gambled on whether or not I could take a single soldier with KP grade one.
If I can take one down and steal their clothes, then my gamble to run around basically naked wouldn't matter, but if I failed, I would be opening myself to acts of horror again, but it's all baked in, as the goddess said. I can't control anyone else's fate but mine, so let's go!
With the soldiers now following me on foot, the perfect opportunity to outsmart them had arrived. I just needed something to hit them with or knock one of them out, and the tool quickly showed itself on the forest floor. A bunch of dead tree branches lay on the ground, so I grab one that doesn't look as rooted out and hide in some bushes as I wait for a soldier to run past me.
{Whistling}
The soldiers had a weird whistling system that I had just noticed. I don't know much about older battle techniques, but I remembered seeing something like that in some old Korean drama about zombies. Could that mean these guys also had that same sort of system to guide themselves?
Look at me being all analytical and stuff like I am some sort of Minky Momo rip-off, albeit, to be fair; I would love to have her powers right now. Alright, I left some traces up ahead, so the guys chasing me at the front of the line should continue to follow them and get confused when they disappear, but that won't matter. All I need is to catch the last one, which will be the slowest and probably the weakest of them all.
Soon enough, a bunch of grown men run past me, following my footprints while I watch them all go by me, hiding beneath the leaves of a tall tree. Just watching them go by, I count them and try to remember how many there were. It was around fifty men who dropped to chase me down, minus all those that got hurt.
Wait a minute, that's when it connected. Why am I going to trouble myself killing healthy, muscular guys if I can run back fast enough to attack those who got severely hurt? With that new plan in mind, I slowly stand up from the ground leaves and make my way back to the waterfall.
The front part of my body, now covered in mud, helps me blend into the background even more. I keep going for several minutes until I finally spot the waterfall and the guys still receiving treatment from a medic. With a stick in hand, I don't even think about it twice before I rush toward them, targeting the doctor first so he wouldn't try anything funny.
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"AAAAAAHHH!" I scream at the doctor at the last second, who turns around to see a naked me covered in mud who soon plows him on the ribs with the trusty stick. "AAUUGGH!" The medic doesn't even react for a hot second. He just falls on the floor holding up his chest, which I then follow by stomping his head with the stick, all while the injured soldiers desperately try to help.
A soldier's hand soon reaches my left leg, and I respond with the stick, which finally breaks, but so does the man's arm, who rapidly starts screaming in pain. "I'm afraid I need your clothes, geezer!" I say to the old medic I just beat up as I remove his plate armor and clothes, which are a little too big for me.
"You're so fucked! The emperor is never letting you go, you dumb twat!" One of the injured soldiers tries teasing me, which ends up working, but because I wasn't stupid, I just grab another stick and run at him, rapidly swinging it against his head. "Your emperor can suck my bigger tit, hasta la vista baby."
Before putting the stolen clothes, I, of course, at least take the mud off by quickly running to the side of the waterfall, which takes most of the dirt off. Seeing me take my time was probably infuriating to the badly injured men who just stared at me the whole time while being able to do nothing to stop me.
My strategy to take on the weak, injured soldiers ends up paying off big time as I manage to steal not only some oversized clothes but also a bow and arrows from a couple of soldiers. Once I take everything I can from the injured camp, I just start running downstream as I assume the men chasing me will be back anytime since it wouldn't be so hard to trace me back to their camp thanks to all the mud marks I left behind.
{Distant whistling}
Just as I had predicted, the whistles sounded closer and closer every time I looked back from where I'd run back, which meant the jig was up. The soldiers knew I'd return to the waterfall, but it was too late because I was already way too far downstream from all the loot I could need.
I'd stolen an oversized shirt that looked more like a dress and a long coat. A tool belt from one of the men had a couple of things in it that I had no idea what they were: a pair of knives and a bow and arrows. I thought about stealing a sword, but there was no way I wouldn't cut my body off with one of those. I had never used a sword before, so it would be stupid to steal one.
I can still barely use a bow effectively, and to be honest, staying out of physical range is kind of my thing. I would rather fight from afar than up close if I seemed a little too excited to beat up injured guys; that was just the adrenaline rush.
Still, beating some of those assholes up did feel amazing. Gosh, I wish I could do that all day. Usually, I wouldn't promote hurting people who are already injured, but these assholes had it coming! Call it punching down or whatever, but from where I sit, sending thousands of men just to catch one girl is an even worse beatdown.
