A lot of minced meat

As the smoke settled a bit, Jay finally rose to his feet.

By then he could take a good look to what happened with the farms yard. The sudden explosion that occurred had taken everyone by surprise and then a fight had broken out.

The sounds of fierce battles came from Jay's left and right side, but he couldn't mind it much. With bandits coming for him with all they got and from all sides, that was all he concentrated on.

The numbers he had heard seemed to match with what he was looking at.

Without wasting time, he brandished his daggers and broke into a run. Dodging most of the incoming attacks while getting some in himself, Jay even had to use [Shadow Step] as the flood of attacks got to great.

Like this he managed to reach the main building without receiving to many attacks himself while getting rid of five more opponents.

Until then his plan had succeeded to that point, but the critical phase had just started. The next minutes would determine how the operation would end.

Kicking in the front door with all his might and entering the house, Jay saw the notification in his log that he just killed another bandit. Apparently the one guarding the door had stood directly behind it and got squashed by it as it flew diagonally through the room. The hand peeking out to one side just confirmed his suspicion.

Taking another look on his log to check if everything was going smoothly after he surveyed the entrance, he made his way to the basement.

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What had happened untill then was mainly Jay taking action on his own after laying a solid foundation.

At first he had the main force of the small unit used the high grown field to sneak in position for an attack on the yard. Using his [Hide], he relayed their plan to Petters and the members of the first raid.

They would combine with the previous raids survivors and rush in together after Jay gave the signal.

Fiona and the strongest fighters had circled around the farm and kept ready to attack the barn from the backside.

As far as Jay had found out, the farmer himself, his workers and the abducted people were kept in there. They learned this from two patrols they caught and having Fiona interrogate them.

Jay himself and the other two scouts had been busy sneaking towards the farm and eavesdropping the bandits talks.

As all had been ready and set, every soldier awaited the signal while Jay snuck towards the silos together with Petters and took care of the lookouts. And then finally came the signal.

As for the signal Jay chose…

It was two absolutely loaded (Meteor), one directed to the blockade where most of the bandits had been hiding and the other one close to the barn.

He placed it close to there so it could destroy the barn's gate while getting rid of another batch of bandits guarding it.

The first was cast manually like he already did quite a few times, while the second volley went off after Jay had mentally clicked on the assigned quick button and let go at the same time the casting was done.

The spells went off simultaneous while taking a large chunk of his abundant mana reserves.

Jay just had a slight miscalculation regarding the explosions scale. It wasn't the gate he demolished with the spell, it was over fifty percent of the whole front side of the barn that went missing.

The same applied to a part of the stables and the barricade that got struck by the second spell. Latter was gone for the biggest part, as well as the bandits stationed there.

Debris flying all over the yard wounded the few bandits not hit directly and anyone who survived was completely shocked.

Even Petters was looking over to Jay dumbfounded and clearly not able to comprehend what just happened.

And then the hidden bandits flooded the yard. Most of them had been in the barn, but three figures came running out of the main building.

It was a large, slightly chubby man flanked by a skinny gray haired and a muscular bald one. Looking around as they reached the middle of the yard, they only needed seconds to start yelling commands.

Another couple of seconds later a new flood of bandits rushed onto the yard and took the positions of their deceased fellows. Not one cared for the few survivors.

Taking his strong dagger and weavers hammer in tight grip and loading both with lightning, Jay used his quick button for the (Meteor) spell one last time.

Putting the target circle between the three leaders and the barn where most of the bandits came running from and activating it, Jay jumped over the silo's edge.

During the short free fall, his casted meteor passed him with a lot more speed and made contact with the ground long before Jay.

The impact didn't only kill quite some bandits, it also hurled up dust and debris, granting the best cover jay could wish for.

And then he made contact himself.

Not with the ground, but the thick bandit leader's head. At the same time his hammer landed on the bald man's skull and the backwards gripped dagger was aimed to the skinny bandit. They had positioned back to back as the explosion occurred and taken a defensive position.

The problem was, looking to each direction they were missing the crucial one.

With a crushing sound, two heads exploded and their bodies cushioned Jay's descend, giving off a splattering sound as they were pressed on the hard and dusty ground while the last, skinny bandit made no sound at all.

He simply fell forward the moment jay slowly rose up again.

Only upon hitting the ground did his back start to split where Jay had cut along with the magically enhanced dagger.

Wiping off the blood from his weapons with one swift swing, Jay has had only one slight miscalculation. Though the damage he sustained from falling wasn't that much more than from the smaller silo, the pain had multiplied.

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As he had seen Fiona twirling through the bandits and disposing of them already inside the barn, Jay could take care of his own target inside the main building.

The farmers family was supposed be be held captive there.

His second goal was to defeat the leader of this group, if possible capturing him or her alive in hopes of learning more about their orders and who was behind the whole operation.

Slowly descending the stairs while keeping his hide skill up, Jay reached the corner on the stairs and could finally take a peek inside the big basement.

Aside from a really big, muscular man with a irokese hairstyle, six more bandits were to spot there. They all were on high alert, but distributed all over the room.

Next to the irokese man stood a small woman with her dagger gripped tightly while the man leaned lazy on one of the pillars.

In the back, a dark clothed man was looking at some papers while peeking to the back of the room in between.

It was there where two shabby looking bandits kept holding two children in tight grip and threatening them with their swords. While the boy of about eight years looked so frightened he might pee himself any moment, the older looking girl had a stoic and unbroken eyes.

The last two bandits were a women with dark skin close to the man looking at the papers and a guy at the end of the stairs that looked partially see through.

Jay guessed it was how hide looked to others as he analyzed the man and saw he had that skill.

He was the first one to die.

As their hidden thief died to a backstabbing, all other bandits in the basement got alarmed. Even the big guy grabbed his giant axe and the dark clothed man ordered the women by his side to attack as well.

With a hammer to the side of her head in a speed she couldn't fathom, the woman got send flying to the side with lightning cracking. She had long died as her corpse crashed onto the wall and gave off unhealthy cracking noises.

To this the team of the big guy and the small woman attacked. A wide swing with the double bladed axe came from the right, which jay ducked down to.

He barely managed to roll to the side when the small woman jumped over the man's back and stabbed down her dagger.

Rolling backwards and to his feet, she was already coming for Jay so he had to jump back again. Glad the wall behind him was still a yard away, he took another attempt.

The big guy was already coming for Jay with the axe risen high while the small woman tried to distract him with her dagger.

Hurling his hammer after a swift spin while activating (throwing) and (crushing blow) at the same time, the hammer made contact with the small figures torso but didn't show any signs of slowing down.

It took her with it on its flight path, directly towards the big guy.

As the package crashed into the muscular man who had still held the axe high up, They all got blown back over two yards until the man managed to stop them. But he had let go of the axe that fell down and got stuck in the ground.

In a rush, Jay sprinted forward and grabbed the giant weapon.

Circling it upward once, he used his skill for this type of weapons and descended the axe-blade with the use of cleave. The two bandits that fought as one, died the same way.

Both bodies got split in half from the top of their head to the crotch.

With this, everybody in the room knew what they were facing: An opponent that was out of their league.

But the only one who reacted was the dark clothed man. He jumped towards the bandit holding the girl and pushed him towards Jay while taking the girl hostage himself.

With another turn and swinging the massive weapon, Jay split the shabby bandit horizontally while letting go of the axe and taking back his hammer.

The other shabby bandit came rushing over while screaming "brother…!", disregarding his hostage. While the young boy simply fell down on his knees, Jay took care of the man.

A hammer thrown to his head made him spin backwards and the following high sweep kick had the body beeline towards the next wall.

Holding back in close combat was something Jay hadn't learned, so that meat bag was no longer available for any interrogation afterwards.

It was only one last bandit he had to take care of.

Walking towards him, said man took a step back. He threatened Jay to stop or he would kill the girl, when suddenly the young man vanished from his sight and he looked around.

The voice coming from behind him as a metallic blade touched the bandit leaders neck send shivers down his spine.

"How about you release the girl and we have a nice talk, huh?" J.

Without thinking about it, the man let his knife fall down and released her. After witnessing the massacre that hadn't even taken two minutes, he knew his chances of surviving lay only with pleading for his life.

At least he thought that way.

Back up in the main building of the farm, Jay had the two children hide in the living room of the house. The two bandits in there got disposed of without the children seeing it, before he had send them in.

Locking the door to the room, Jay went back towards the yard where he met the small attack force led by Fiona that was coming from the barn.

As a good number of the bandits got taken care of with his initial attacks and the soldiers flooded in from two sides, the majority of their opponents had died. Fiona herself had taken a big role in this as well.

In the short conversation with her and Petters, Jay learned she had killed off over twenty bandits on her own and even guided the hostages to safety.

All that was left was to search for some bandits who had been so wise to hide and look out for possible groups that had been absent at the time of attack.

Splitting up into search groups, Jay decided to check the main building himself. He wanted to free the kids only after the threats really were all eradicated.

Not one bandit had been hiding on the ground floor. Jay checked all the rooms like storerooms, the kitchen and so on.

On the upper floor he found two bandits in a small room adjoining one of the bigger bedrooms. They attacked the moment he opened the door, what led to both of their deaths.

As the number of rooms was a lot higher than on the ground floor, it took him a while to check them thoroughly. Finally done with it, Jay went to the ceiling.

The ladder leading up was next to the stairs. Climbing it up slowly and as silent as possible not to alarm whoever was up there, he snuck through the hatch and looked around.

Two bandits were whispering to each other and didn't notice Jay getting closer as he was using his (Hide).

Another man was lying next to them and seemed to be asleep. Directly getting rid of the lower leveled middle aged man with a stab from behind, the other man jumped up and instantly dropped his weapon.

Pretty much the same applied to the man who had been sleeping.

Minutes later the two men had been roped up and were on their way down to the yard. The part with the ladder sounded a bit painful to Jay but it didn't really matter much to him.

Back in the open he learned the other searching groups found all together 16 more bandits hidden all over the farm. They were bringing them to the barn at that moment.

What followed was a meeting for battle reports and conferring about the next steps with Fiona, Jay, Petters and two other soldiers of slightly higher rank.

As he learned there, a messenger had already been dispatched towards Sentinel. The reinforcements that had been sent to their location were no longer necessary, instead more supplies were needed as the unit would stay for a while until the surrounding region had been secured and the farm was functioning again.

That was the reason a good portion of the soldiers was absent as they kept checking the vicinity in search for more bandits.

The next topic in their talks was a bit awkward for Jay. It was about the explosion he caused that went off close to the barn.

Though the initial attack killing dozens of bandits instantly was welcomed from everyone present, it came with massive damage to the barn. Some of the workers who were held captive inside got wounded in the process as well and all were glad at least no casualties had arisen.

The same applied to the barricade Jay had utterly destroyed with his, previously planned as a signal, initial attack.

It had broken not only the bandits defense line, but the farmers means of transport as well. Again, no casualties on the soldier side or from the hostages appeared and the farmer himself hadn't minded the lost carriages.

It was a different matter for the stables that got grazed by Jay's third and last attack. Two of the normal oxes that were kept to help on the fields and the farmers trusted horse type monster got caught up in the explosion. The soldiers who went checking on the stables had come back really pale and after checking herself, Fiona had understood.

From the once pretty big animals, only debris and meat paste had been left. One of the oxes got crushed by the breaking stable and was mostly intact, but the horse looked, though it was a magic beast, like it had exploded itself.

The only good thing in this was, their meat supply for the next days had been secured as the farmer had given his consent to use the parts that were still good.