an illusion of mind

"Ey, boss, can we have some of these, their looks are kind of pissin' me off." A man said next to Jeremy, he wasn't one Jeremy got along with too well, he had a tongue slithery like a snake's and his eyes were thin like a fox, Jeremy always got bad feels from him, but what would he know? He's also a bandit.

Their boss a burly man with a well trimmed beard and a large war axe turned to him his gaze shadowing over, Jeremy backed off a little moving away from the man that asked the previous question.

The boss punched the man right in the jaw breaking it causing him to fall over to the floor clutching his bloody face, "How many times do I gotta tell ya' merchandise is not for use." The boss's sharp eyes glared down at the man.

Jeremy had worked with the boss for a long time so he knew what would have happened, he looked down at the bloodied form of the man as the boss proceeded to pummel him to the ground until he was unconscious.

After the boss let off some steam he turned back to the 'merchandise', the poor women cowered and shrunk deeper into their cage after they saw what happened.

"Get rid of 'em Jeremy," The boss said gesturing at the mangled body of the man, Jeremy complied and threw the guy's body out of the tent. Their bandit base was located somewhere deep in the Varcan empire nobody would expect a bandit group to be so deep in the forest so it was perfect, they could keep attacking and kidnapping passersby and sometimes attack a few villages or two like in this situation.

Jeremy felt a little bad about what they were doing to these poor girls but he does what he does not because of his emotions but because it's what he has to do, they were planning on selling them on the black market as slaves and thankfully Jeremy wasn't in charge of that part...

"Boss, when are we sellin' em?" Jeremy asked the boss, after working in this bandit group for a while he could now read the boss's mood so he knew the boss was in a better mood after letting off some steam on that other guy.

"Hmm~ I don't see us sellin' em until like... A week later." The boss replied looking down at the trembling women, there was a total of 13 of them, they were the only survivors who didn't try to run from their recent village raid, sadly they had to kill the stubborn ones, they would have fetched a good price.

"Boss, what of the men?" Jeremy asked, they should also fetch a good price male slaves aren't as popular but they're still good for labour...

"We killed 'em." The boss replied without turning.

Jeremy turned to him in surprise, "What? why?!" he asked, the men would have gotten them pretty rich Jeremy remembered they were far more than the women.

"Most of em' were either old sickly or half dead, the good ones died, so we just put em out of their misery." The boss replied and Jeremy was taken aback, "Why were they so sickly?" Jeremy asked, "Boss that sounds really suspicious..."

"... Now that I think about it... You're right Jeremy that is suspicious, I only noticed now, most of them were ill because they were missin' blood." The boss put a hand on his beard scratching his beard, Jeremy's thoughts raced thinking of what could have caused the village to be like this...

"Jeremy stop thinking about it, we already killed em, we can sell the women and get some good profit." The boss said snapping Jeremy out of his thoughts.

"Righ-" Jeremy was interrupted by the tent flapping open and a bandit came in panting heavily his expression was panicked.

"You idiot! Are you stupid or what?! you better have a damn good excuse for scarin' me like that!" The boss unsheathed his war axe and pointed it at the bandit who was still recovering.

"S-Sir! We're under attack!" his words caused the boss to tense up as he retracted his axe, "By who?!"

"I-I'm not sure... But I heard it was by a little girl boss!" The bandit yelled.

The boss's eyes shadowed over as he swiftly swung his axe decapitating the bandit with ease.

"Does he think me a fool?" He shouted angrily as he burst through the flaps, "I'm going to find whoever made this stupid joke and rip their spine out!" the boss stormed out of the tent as Jeremy followed, the boss paused when they heard the distant screams and howls of pain and death, the boss's eyes widened realizing the previous guy was not joking and that they were really under attack.

They both started running towards the commotion.

5 minutes ago.

"Gods damn... The night shift is just so boring..." A guard spoke up standing with his spear upright as he yawned looking around the forest, they were a bandit group and he was given the guards night shift.

"Couldn't agree more..." Another guard spoke up also yawning he paused as he spotted something.

The guard leaned closer looking at the figure walked towards them, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" The guard asked his friend and the other guard finally noticed the figure approaching them.

It was a petite figure now that she was closer the guards could see that it was a girl roughly 15 years of age, she swayed her head around to a non-existant tune, she had short straight blonde hair, her face was petite and could even be considered cute. she ported a bowler hat on top of her head with a yellow stripe running across it, she had round glasses with yellow golden shine to them.

Around her neck was a yellow thick scarf with dotted black lines running across it at random, she wore a trench coat with two expensive looking rubies that matched her red eyes located on the stomach one to the right and the other to the left, she wore black pants that matched the trench coat she wore.

In her hand was a cane that she used to limp closer to the guards, and with a closer look, the guard could also spot two wires protruding from one of the trench coat's pockets and into her ears, once the girl was close enough she picked up a rectangular device that the two guards recognized as a music player, the guards were shocked as this was an expensive item it could utilize magic to play pre recorded orchestra or songs into the owners ears with those wires that were protruding from it.

The guards looked at each other a wide greedy grin coming on both their faces.

"Misters, I believe this is a bandit hideout?" The girl spoke up her voice high pitched with a weird maturity to it, looking at the girl's cane the guards smirks got wider and one of them approached her.

"Yes, it is, what's a girl like you doing out here?" He asked as he stretched his hand forwards, the girl's red eyes glowed and suddenly the guards outstretched hand was hit by a falling branch, smacking it away, the other guard raised an eyebrow at that snickering to himself seeing the other guard's failing at grabbing the girl.

He winced and yelped retracting his hand, "Mister, I'm just lost, I got too into the music I was listening to music." The girl looked up at the guard who was still holding his hand.

"You shut up!" The guard turned back to the other guard yelling at him to stop laughing, "and you!" he quickly charged towards the girl but to the other guard's sheer horror the tree next to him fell down having been chewed into by a beaver previously and completely splattered the guard blood shot out from under the fallen tree.

The girl was completely unfazed as she walked forward and around the tree with the help of her cane, she went towards the entrance of the hide out before a spear was about to be driven into her by the remaining guard a piece of the wooden wall surrounding the hideout fell from a screw loose as the guard's head was split open from a nail that was still stuck to the wood.

The girl simply continued moving forward, several other bandits noticed her casually strolling into the hideout with her cane as she took her music player and turned it on once more, ignoring the pained and fearful screams of the bandits around her, she continued her stroll.

A bandit swung for her head before clashing blades with a bandit that just so happened to swing at the same time as him, their blades flew at each other's throats and they both fell down dead.

Another bandit charged at her in fear seeing the fate of his comrades as he tripped on a rock and fell on his sword killing himself.

The girl simply walked forward unbothered by the chaos around her, in fact she seemed to enjoy it, to relish in the absolute chaos caused by herself, she raised her hands in the air along with her cane smiling widely as blood flew all around her always missing her somehow.

arrows flew around embedding themselves into others as the archers themselves caught fire from nearby torches, screams of absolute horror and terror resounded through the bandit hideout as the girl listened to the tune of her music at max volume her smile ever so wide.

"What the hell is happening here..." A large burly man with a long beard and a war axe watched on in horror as his men attacked the girl only to somehow by some means fail and end up killing themselves or having themselves killed by either a teammate or a natural cause like a wooden pole falling on their head.

His eyes refocused on the girl who was just humming a tune that he could not hear, he unsheathed his war axe and approached cautiously, his eyes widened as he dodged a wooden sign which had sharp misplaced nails on it that would have ripped into his face if he hadn't moved, he looked back towards the girl his eyes wide and panting heavily from the close call.

The boss continued approaching even more cautiously after that close call, the girl seemed to notice him as her smile widened, he might have had a hot temper but he was not stupid enough to be taunted by a mere 15 year old, a damn kid.

He continued cautiously approaching a shovel fell down on having been pushed by the body of a freshly killed bandit and hit the boss right in the foot, his eyes widened as he screamed in pain, the shovel had broken one of his toes and he stumbled back, his foot cached on an exposed root from a tree causing him to fall and hit the back of his head on a rock.

His war axe flew in the sky and if he hadn't tilted his head it would have fell right on him and embedded itself into his skull, he sat up and grabbed his war axe touching the back of his head and looking into his palm he found blood, "This... This is not possible... What the fuck is happening!?" He yelled out as he saw his men's numbers slowly dwindle down.

He decided to forgo all caution and simply charged at the girl, the girl looked at him her smile never leaving her face, she just stood still not that she could run away she was on a cane.

The boss jumped over the body of one of his men laughing loudly "Did you think that was gonna ge-" he was cut off as he felt resistance in his chest and an object protruded from his back, one of his men had died fell on a spear that was placed diagonally just right and launched it in the air, the spear embedded itself upright on the ground just when the boss was in the air causing the boss to fall right into the spear, piercing his heart.

"Impressive, 10 meters." The girl said pointing at him, "You made it 10 meters close." She chuckled as she turned away and started making her way out of the bandit hideout not being stopped by anything and no one, all who tried pursuing her died.

The bosses vision darkened as he felt his soul detaching from his body.

"That's the wonder of you~~" The girl sang along the way, that was the last thing he heard when he died.

The last bandit who was stubborn enough to pursue her had died from a venomous snake's attack which immediately paralyzed him and put him to a slow death.

"haa~ Elvis Persley never misses~" The girl took out the music player and scrolled through the list of songs she had recorded in it and picked another random one, not minding the chaos and destruction around her, the flames burning through the tents furiously devouring anything that got close.

The girl strolled out of the bandit hideout her cane trusty to rely on.

"Haa~ none of these people wanted to tell me where I am..." The girl chuckled as she continued walking through the dangerous forests, each dangerous or venomous insect coming close to her died by either being hunted by a predator or hitting a tree.

"I'm sure if I continued going forward I would eventually find a town." The girl continued walking with a limp, she felt a grumbling down in her stomach and she pursed her lips, "I'm hungry... I'm not sure I can keep going... Damn it! I should have took their food! I'm sure they had jerky or something..." The girl pouted and stomped the ground with her good leg, she whined as she felt her stomach grumble some more.

"Huh..." She turned towards the right seeing something in the corner of her eye, a deer poked it's head through a bush, the girl's eyes widened slightly and a small smile made it's way on her face, "What a cute deer... come closer!" the girl said as she set her cane on a tree and slowly sat herself down leaning on the tree, "I don't bite."

Surprisingly the deer walked closer to her sensing no danger from her as it sat down next to her leaning it's head into her hand, "How cute~ My name is Rachel! what's yours?" she smiled at the deer which made a small sound of happiness.

"Aww~" Rachel's heart melted as she pet the dear, however a sudden sound of a bush rustling, the deer went into high alert as it jumped and ran away.

Rachel turned slowly and creepily towards the rustling of the bush her golden glasses glowing in the sun, she was going to kill whatever that was which scared the deer away.

From the bush emerged a man with an axe hefted on his shoulder he had basic lumbar jack clothing as he looked towards Rachel weirdly, "Hey kid! what are you doing all the way over in this forest?!" the man rushed towards Rachel who stood up with the help of the cane.

never mind, he might be my way to finding a town.

"Hello mister, I was lost and I couldn't find my way to a town." Rachel said as she walked over towards the man with a sweet smile using her cane.

The man's eyes turned saddened slightly as he gestured for her to follow, "Come kid, you seem like a rich one, and one like you would be targeted by bandits a lot around here, it's dangerous I'll show you the way to town." The lumbar jack walked towards a certain direction as Rachel followed.

"Thank you sir, I'm sorry I might drag you down... I have quite the... Disability..." Rachel looked down at her leg left leg as she walked after the man with her cane.

The lumbar jack waved her off with a warm smile, "It's fine kid, I just simply can't turn a blind eye to a kid in the woods, no matter if you're rich or not..." His eyes glazed over her choice of clothing lingering on her music player for a little while.

"Thank you mister." Rachel bows her head slightly and follows after him, turning on her music player at low volume so she can hear the man if he speaks to her.