A knight in despair

Seeing Ren in thought as he looked at his guild card, Lucian asked "Is this your first time forming a party with someone?"

Aren put the card in his pocket and nodded.

As the two of them got outside the Guild, Lucian gave a short explanation about parties to Aren.

"You see, parties formed by lower rank adventurers are not anything special. While you are in a party with someone, your guild card will give you a general direction towards your companion, if you two are ever separated while doing a quest.

"But when parties are formed between adventurers having silver cards and higher, it will be very benifical for the adventurers in a battle. I was in a party with a rank D Adventurer once, so I know quite a bit about it."

'Oh so that's why there are so many adventurers even though the pay is low.' Aren came to understand that being an adventurer had many more benefits than he knew of.

As the Central district was surrounded by other districts from all sides, they first went to Coppernoon district and exited from the western gates.

When the two of them had left the city and were nearing the villages, Lucian took out a map from a pocket of his trousers. Placing the map, which was drawn on a yellow parchment, on the trunk of a tree; Lucian started moving his fingers from one marking to another.

"What are you doing?" Aren asked curiously.

"It should be somewhere here.... Oh me? I'm trying to locate where the bandits hideout might be."

"Before coming to take this quest, I had done some search on the information about these bandits. Up untill now, the area where bandits mostly appeared is in the periphery of moonlight forest." Lucian said without turning back, still immersed in whatever he was doing.

About four to five minutes later, he pointed at a cross marking and suddenly exclaimed. "I've found it. If they appear on this pathway leading to Orotto city, then I'm certain they will make their hideout in the Silent Cave."

He then rolled the map and put it back in his pocket. As they continued their journey, Lucian told him in detail about the 'great deeds' of these bandits, which they had done in the past two months.

As it turned out, Panther's claws were one of the most notoriously shameless bandit group in whole of Ashlar Kingdom.

Even though they had as much as three rank 1s, there was never a fight in which a leader had not ganged up with other bandits on one individual. They would mostly target peddlers who were a little rich, low rank nobles and travelling merchants whose guards were mostly one or two rank 1s. Bringing their opponents down with numbers and begging for their lives when they were defeated, only to strike back when their opponents had let their guard down.

Their dirty tactics had made them infamous among low rank adventurers and mercenaries.

Two days later, Aren and Lucian were about to reach the place where bandits mostly appeared. They had just finished formulating their plan on how to complete this quest while on the way there.

According to Lucian, the bandits had about fifty to sixty men among them. Although only three of them were rank 1s while others were just slightly stronger than normal humans, Aren and Lucian would surely lose in a head on clash. At their rank, they were still not confident that they would not be overwhelmed by the numbers. Fortunately, the bandits didn't have a mage among them. so there was still a chance for them to successfully complete the quest.

Their plan was to catch the bandits off guard when they would be fighting with the guards of some noble or merchant. At that time, the two leaders would mostly be in their hideout and only one leader would lead the other bandits. Only if there were two rank 1 guards among the merchants would all three of the leaders would come, but with the ill reputation of Panthers claws, they would never initate attacks to those.

.....

Clang!

The collison of two greatswords produced a clanging sound. One of the owner of these greatswords was panting, covered with blood and large numbers of wounds while the other one was unscathed. However, although the wounded man was panting, he was still holding on.

If not for the despicable companions of this bandit in front of him, he would have surely defeated this swordsman. Kaldier, who was supposed to guard his lord was very furious at the bandit group which had attacked them. At the same time, he was helpless.

As the most trusted knight of baron Reiter, Kaldier was truly ashamed at his inability to protect his lord from the bandits.

When their land had been breached by a group of monsters, Baron and his family had no choice but to flee. Although his land was no more, Reiter still had his title of a baron. If he could get an audience with the king and plead for a piece of land, The king would surely give him some land. The monsters near Orotto city had also seemed to have gone in a frenzy. Many nobles had lost their fiefs so he also had a reason to ask the king to bestow him a land.

But who would have thought that just as they were two days away from the kingdom's capital, the bandits would attack them. If lord Reiter still had his squad of knights like before, then these bandits would not be a problem for him but with the other knights killed while defending the territory, only kaldier was left with Reiter.

Kaldier looked at his squires who had already fallen due to being attacked by many bandits and his heart was filled with sorrow.

Such disgraceful death. Even if they died, kaldier would not prefer to die in the hands of these despicable bandits.

"The squires are down, whatcha guys waitin' for. Go loot that carriage!" As the bandit leader, Goro noticed that only kaldier was left standing, he immediately yelled.

Much to kaldier's dismay, that time finally came when he couldn't do anything.

"No you won't!"

As he helplessly shouted and ran towards those bandits while brandishing his sword; Goro, using this opportunity, cut a deep arc on Kaldier's back.

"Ah!" his agonised rang out in the battlefield.

Clang!

As he lost his strength, the greatsword in his hands fell to the ground. He slowly extended his hand to the back and felt a deep gash extending from his left shoulder to his waist. Blood was ceaselessly flowing from the wound.

Thud!

His wobbly legs couldn't hold up his weight for long as he fell to the ground with a thud. His vision turned blurry and his eyelids started to droop.

'Am I going to die here? What will happen to lord Reiter, mistress Slevena and young master Luther... I'm sorry my Lord, I couldn't protect you.'

Withal, just as Kaldier's vision turned black, he heard a bandit saying to Goro in an urgent voice.

"Boss, we have trouble. Two guys have suddenly..."