A hero rises

Alexis and Jay watched the group of bandits for a short while to get their positions and the best timing to strike. The moment a big bulky man stepped out of the largest tent in the middle of the camp, it was their chance to strike.

All the men gathered looked at what seemed to be their leader as he closed his pants an no one was close to the Cages.

Dashing from their hiding spots, the Alexis was the first to arrive at her target and with a single punch obliterated most of the guarding bandit nearest to the cages.

The spray of blood even reached the next group. But before they could even utter a word the two bandits learned how to fly without wings. In a straight line onto the rock wall behind the camp.

Jay and Alexis had decided to circle around the camp and attack from the back in hopes to rescue the slaves. As all attention was directed inwards the camp they had used this perfect opportunity.

Alexis couldn't do other than help out in this one as human lives were in danger and no witness would be found here afterwards anyway.

Jay followed after her and raced for the second set of cages.

With a swift leap over the cage he crashed feet first in the back of the guards head. Effortlessly rolling on to stop in a standing position after a couple of feet he looked back at the guy whose face got buried into the ground, passing out cold.

Parcours had done the job and he knew instinctively how to jump and land in a perfectly fluid motion.

Him turning around had just one reason. While turning he threw his Wingblade, piercing the second bandit on guard though his chest and killing him instantly.

The group there was a lot weaker than the ambush group he had defeated the day before, so Jay had absolutely no trouble dealing with them.

The only risk had been the caged slaves being taken as hostage, but with the four wooden cages now behind Alexis and Jay, they could start slaughtering the bandits to their hearts content.

After Jay went back and retrieved his sword, none of them used a single weapon.

With a stomp on the still buried head he ended the bandits live he first attacked. Afterwards he and Alexis closed in on the campfire in the center before the large tent.

Five more tents had been erected, so their first attack had not been seen. Except the flying bandits crashing onto the wall over the big tent that is.

Screaming for alarm the whole group rushed in on them while brandishing their poor weapons.

But it was all for naught as Alexis stood back guarding the cages while Jay took care of the flooding in imbeciles. The sound of cracking bones and wails for help soon were to be heard over the shore of silver lake just a couple of hundred yards down the hill.

Just as he was about to face the burly boss bandit, reinforcements came rushing in from exactly down there at the lake. Not that it made any difference except more experience points for Jay.

Dodging the big guys war axe which came crashing down, Jay turned around to face the five victims that just arrived.

They had fear in their eyes the moment they had seen the condition of the camp. Mishandled and twisted corpses lay on the ground and one even hung over the remains of a tent. Their boss was standing there with bloodshot eyes facing a boy by himself while two of their comrades stuck to the rock wall as if they got glued to it.

Before they could process what had transpired there, Jay had gotten to them. He gripped the face of the nearest bandit and smacked it as hard as he could in the face of the next. The latter one fell back with a dent in face to never wake up again while the one in his hand had just passed out.

Dodging a sword from the left he gripped the right hand holding it and pulled the bandit it belonged to forward. His knee found it way up and left a perfect imprint on the bandits face after impact.

The last of the backup wanted to run but Jay had reached out just in time to grip his hem and pull him back.

Hurling him through the air, the last bandit landed on top of the rest, making the quadruple a small pile of bandits.

The boss was the last one standing, just like seconds prior. Just then he had reached where Jay had been stacking his lackeys.

With a high risen axe he closed in on the boy who dodged his last attack so easily and took out four of his men in seconds. Bringing the axe head down with all his might, even activating a skill, Jay still could dodge him with ease.

He stepped in and while turning in his movement held out his left elbow. The turn finished the moment his elbow had reached the highest point and contacted the bandits sternum.

With a big axe crashing down in front of him and the boss lying four yards behind him on his back, Jay had concluded the fight.

But as he just needed one bandit to answer his questions, he took up the bosses axe and with the same move as him brought it down on the pile of bandits using (slash), splitting the whole pile in two.

Pulling the boss by a foot behind him he got back to Alexis who still leaned against one of the wooden cages clapping a little sarcastically.

"It seems the guys here had passed out some time ago. We should have a look at the tent over there, though I doubt seeing anything good..." A.

And she was right. What they saw in the tent made Jay want to vomit.

Lying on a table in the middle of the room was a girl he recognized. With [Analyze] he confirmed it was Danica, the girl who had traveled back with him from Northvale.

She was laying there bare and pale, with unmoving open eyes. Her hands had been tied to the tents main pole while her ankles to the table legs she lay on with spread legs.

On a bed further back lay another young woman, only a little older than Danica. She lay diagonally on the bed, her head hanging upside down towards the tents entrance.

As Alexis and Jay walked over to her they saw she had just recently been 'used'. Neither breath nor heartbeat could be felt from her and her temperature told them she had passed away quite some time ago...

Rage welling up in Jay he turned round to the still unconscious bandit boss he pulled with him into the tent. Kneeling down he slapped the man awake.

"Was it your doing?" J.

He didn't get what Jay meant at first, but seeing where he was he understood the question of the boy kneeling next to him.

Shaking his head the man felt a something sharp pointing onto his crotch. Jay had taken out his sword and threw the man a questioning look.

"...W-well, it wasn't only me... the men also...hii!"

Pushing further the sword stabbed into the bandits meat and made it clear Jay was anything but pleased with the answer. As it implied that all the bandits here have had a go at the women, it was obvious he was pissed at the bandit before him.

"Care to tell me the whereabouts of your so called dock? And the locations of your main base and other camps if possible...

in case you don't wand my blade to move further..." J.

From then on the boss told anything he knew.

The dock was a pier with a little hut and storehouse just the road down south from the tower of azura.

Their traffic went mainly on eldrin river as it connected both sides of the kingdom. His knowledge on the main base was lacking as he had only heard it being some abandoned farm.

The other camps had no specific location, the same like this one. They would always camp for some days and then change location after the loot and slaves had been collected.

A man called Morris was traveling around evaluating the victims and fetching them. Where they went afterwards had never been of interest to the bandit.

With this statement he sealed his fate. With a slow push Jay's sword severed a tiny piece of meat the bandit held dear. Under wails of agony a big pool of blood spread from the bandit boss's nethers while Jay left the tent with Alexis. She smirked at him before a question came to her mind.

"Couldn't you at least finish him?" A.

"Never... Don't you feel like vomiting after witnessing this?" J.

"What they did is inexcusable but happens more frequently than you think. I had to witness something like this quite often in wars. And it's not like it happened only on the enemy's side.

Though flaying the dead is something I only heard until now..." A.

While they were talking the walked over to the cages. To their frustration only three of the slaves where awake while two had passed out. All of them were male with the two passed out being pretty malnourished. One of the men in better condition recognized Jay as he opened the cage.

"H-Hey, ain't you the guy that went with us back from Northvale?"

"Yep, that's right. So you guys were the last group those bandits caught, right?" J.

"Y-Yeah, ...Where is Danica? The girl with us on the carriage, did you see her? And Phil? Did he get away as we sent him for help? Malek didn't make it after that woman... and the rest all died in the ambush!"

Deciding not to tell what happened to the girl he simply shook his head.

Afterwards Jay told the man that his companion made it back and alarmed the garrison. Afterwards he got told about the ambush that was pretty much like the one he witnessed himself. Only the results differed greatly.

The last man mentioned was apparently taken to a tent by Katja and what happened afterwards Jay could imagine.

They freed all slaves together next and prepared to travel back, but beforehand they rummaged through everything the bandits had looted.

Now that Alexis knew Jay had an inventory she had him store anything of worth or that could gave hints on the bandit group.

When they got to one of the smaller tents he found something he'd liked to rather not see. It had been Katja Palins tent as it seemed and Alexis suddenly held up the phallic metal cone that had been way bigger in his memory.

"Wow, that's kinky... bet it's a order made one from the shop..." A.

She halted her words as she saw Jay's frown growing. Getting one and one together, pity showed on Alexis beautiful face. She put the tool back in its case and handed it to Jay as he held out his hand.

"So...care to tell me how you know about this shop and where it is located?" he said with a grin.

"Pff, getting possessive? There's a shop in the harbor district selling items like my ring. Guess you have seen it on the little girl from the garrison. Riley was it? It's a magical contraceptive. The shop is specialized on rather...special magic items. I bet this thing was made there as well..." A.

The way back took more than three hours as they had to support two of the freed slaves.

Alexis was pulling a wooden pushcart they found and laid the two malnourished slaves on. They had also placed some old weapons and worthless items on it to hide the fact they looted some money and items of worth to the public.

No one would raid a camp and leave anything of worth there.

Back at the garrison they reported to Haggard who was about to sponsor another feast, but Tharynn ruled him in stating it would ruin the garrison if any special deed of Jay would end in a feast.

He had accomplished too much in such a short time that they would have to wait a little for the next party.

To the question if there were any survivors Alexis denied. It would only be the bounty they would get.

The slaves the brought back had all been captured and were to be released in the following days.

On their way to the Inn she explained to Jay what the discussion had been about.

For every bandit or the like there was a bounty. As it normally stated dead or alive, everyone went for dead, as it was too complicated to bring back a bandit just to have him made a crime slave and sold to the kingdom.

The selling price was only slightly above the bounty as crime slaves could not be sold on the open marked.

Slavery was only allowed for already owned Slaves or licensed traders for crimeslaves in service to the Kingdom. It was strictly prohibited on humans, dwarfs and elves in this Kingdom.

Sometimes the bandit would simply get executed in public making the work for naught.

And one would only get paid either the bounty or the selling price. Only in rare cases the bounty was to catch alive and most of those requests wouldn't be taken.

While he changed his attire again before dinner, Jay checked his inventory.

Aside the devious tool he got about 130 silver pieces and some more copper ones, a small box filled with gems, the battle axe from the boss, a complete and not so shabby leather armor and a set of throwing knives.

The Armor was quite nice and seemed to fit, but is was a level 15 item, meaning he had to wait a little to don it.

Next was his Status. He raised his jobs levels by two and even gained a base level after quite some time. But it was still a bit until he could change his jobs.

With nothing else to check he started unbinding the Royal satchel.

As he had guessed it also took three days to finish forced unbinding.

To his surprise he still could access the Wingblade through the use of his quick-slots. The same way he could even store it as he imagined clicking on the quick-slot again.

With his matters there settled Jay made his way down to the dining area. Alexis and Mia had already been waiting for him with the dinner all set.

Today it was a rabbit stew that Marcus had prepared. After they had a nice diner and Jay had helped out in the dining hall again, he went to his room.

It had been a long day and he was really tired. But a knock on the door washed away his sleepiness. Alexis had come to his room and again didn't wait for him to answer.

As he stood in his room with nothing but his shorts she eyed him from tip to toe. With a sheepish grin she asked him "You don't mind if i stay here tonight, right?" while stripping off her shirt while closing in on him.

He didn't really need to answer her as a he rose a tent threatening to rip his short apart.

The long awaited sleep had to wait a little while longer.

Maybe not so little...