Mountain bandits

The 8 within the small group were carefully selected for their lack of talent in martial arts and also because of their previous status as slaves, their desire for power and their need for revenge.

Their role was to clean up troublesome elements within the village from the eyes of others, disguise them as accidents or to act against traitors or enemies who tried to send spies or infiltrate the village in secret.

They were raised to handle the dirty work in the dark so that the people living within the light could remain ignorant of serious threats.

Ki walked out of the village and entered the forest under the cover of night followed by the group of eight.

She continued keeping a lookout and listening for movements as they walked, they eventually reached further into the forest by the road where she started to notice traces of humans.

After noticing traces of the enemy group to remain quiet and looked at the traces of footprints. "I think there should be around 12 enemies, some of them are have lighter footsteps so they should be easier to handle. I'm guessing there is around five on the weaker side, four who are physically fit or well fed from living on the farmland and the rest should be at most a third rate martial artist. Let me handle the three strongest while you all handle the rest. Be smart and make small cuts or injuries and when you are struggling use your mystical arts to assist you. There is no need to keep their lives so if you have the chance to kill then take it."

The eight people nodded quietly to her words, they had become familiar with their power upon sparring between themselves but what they lacked right now was that they had never killed anyone before.

In a small camp not far away from the road hid a group of 12 men and women, three of them carried swords at their waist while the others carried sharp farm tools, knives or wooden sticks.

They looked a little worn down as they ate some cooked animal meat around a small fire, the strongest looking man among the group spoke up. "The last ambush was a failure because we didn't invite the boss to participate but he should be arriving soon. Who would of ever thought such a small family that lives in the middle of nowhere could hire some third rate martial artists are guards to protect their carriages. Maybe there was some truth in your words about them being wealthy, the next time a carriage passes we will definitely succeed. We can disrupt their business and slowly exile them as we build up our men with the stolen resources. As they become desperate to search for help they would send others out which would only be targeted by us. When they are weakened we will strike at them."

Some of the weaker people lowered their heads upon hearing some of the mans words but they had already come this far to stop now.

The previous healthy villagers had failed to recover in the nearby city after being removed from their land and homes, in their time of need they met a group of mountain bandits who took everything that remained, the bandits seemed to have a code of their own.

Those that claimed something or someone had ownership of them and nobody within the group could take it from them so the villagers quickly adjusted to the bandit lifestyle after being robbed and then claimed by the bandits.

After a while of adjustment they opened up to their captors and told the mountain bandits about the village and the Bombyx family, after a series of attacks with smaller numbers they had been unsuccessful because they had underestimated the Bombyx families ability to hire capable guards.

In order to gain something from the failures they had experienced they were forced to ask for help from the leader of the bandits to bring in more people.

They began to feel resentment towards the village after failing many times so decided to make a plan to harm and steal the resources from the village and the Bombyx family

Little did they know that their greed and wrath led them to walk a path of no return.

Outside of their notice Ki approached closer to listen to their conversation and judged them as a threat, even if some were there unwillingly they had already reached a point where they would be ready to kill innocent people in order to live or get revenge.

Many of the exiles faces were filled with resentment when the village was mentioned so it was clear they had informed the bandits of the villages information and carriages time of arrival and exiting.

Ki gave the 8 people a signal and mouthed the words. 'Surround' & 'mask'

Ki then took a drink of wine from her flask and sprayed the wine from her mouth onto the sword after removing it from its sheath.

She then walked directly towards the campfire while taking another mouthful of wine.

"Who is there?" The leader drew his weapon upon hearing the sound of footsteps approaching.

The others took out their weapons upon being alerted of an intruder.

The fire lit up the surroundings and fell upon the face of the person approaching with a sword in hand.

A small female child around 7 or 8 years old walked towards their camp, upon seeing her face some of the exiled villagers were greatly confused and shocked. "What is the young miss of the Bombyx family doing here so late at night?"

"That families kid huh?" The leader smirked. "So she has value to us."

"Why is she holding a sword though?" Another man beside the leader asked but relaxed his guard a little. "It's just a child anyways so let's quickly disarm and capture her."

The leader laughed with an amused smirk on his face. "How very cute, little girl did you come to stop some bandits from causing trouble for your family? How very brave of you."

The sword in the girls hands was shaking as the girls shoulders trembled in fear, her steps finally reached so that she was within the reach of the bandits.

The three men laughed as if to mock the little girls attempts when they began to reach out to grab the sword from the hands and restrain the girl.