3 - Calculations

Xu Xin suddenly stopped in his tracks, getting a bad premonition. His instincts were warning him of something, and so far, they had almost never been wrong in his entire life.

He looked around cautiously, quieting his breathing and listening closely. His eyes scanned over every little detail, not letting a single thing go unseen. He had been trained as a child to have hyperawareness of his situation at all times, and how to increase that focus even further if need be.

As he scanned around, he heard a few small shifts on the ground and the crunch of a few leaves.

As he turned towards where he saw the sound come from, he saw the tip of a crossbow bolt, sticking barely out of a bush, pointed straight at his head.

Instantly and without hesitation, he yelled out, "I have nothing on me of value. Even if you kill me, you gain nothing while only having to go through more trouble to get rid of my body. I don't care who you are, so let me go, and I won't tell the guards of the city that you're even here."

As he said this, he took the bag off his shoulder and threw it towards where the crossbow was, letting it hit the ground slightly in front of the crossbow in hopes of seeing who was behind it.

He knew what he had said had worked, and he knew this because he wasn't dead yet. Indeed, bandits were too lazy to dispose of a body unless they had something of value on them.

And considering that he had just given the bag to the bandit and wasn't wearing anything but basic clothes, the bandit knew that he didn't have anything else on him. At least, nothing of value.

As he saw the crossbow shift, he suddenly saw a giant man appear behind it. This man could only be described by one word: massive. The only suitable way to describe him would be to say that he was built like a grizzly bear.

Xu Xin even wondered for a moment how he had not seen the man due to his size.

But despite his size, his entire body managed to be concealed completely by a weird dark green cloak that seemed to merge into the woods. It was clearly a valuable cloak, and this man was clearly quite strong.

He then picked up the bag and tossed it back to Xu Xin without even looking inside it.

"Keep your useless shit. You can keep your worthless life."

The bandit's voice was deep and gravelly, as if he had ground his vocal chords with rocks. He seemed to be in a rush, hence the reason that he didn't kill Xu Xin.

"But I won't let you off that easy. Get down and beg." Under his hood shone a cruel smile, entertained by the idea of someone begging at his feet.

However, Xu Xin's words nearly took him off his feet.

"You must take me for some kind of a coward, afraid to die to the likes of a worthless bandit. Fuck off."

Instead of cowering in fear like the bandit expected, he even directly insulted the bandit, holding a perfectly calm expression the entire time. It was only now that the bandit realized that Xu Xin had never even had the slightest panic in his expression the entire time even after seeing the size of the bandit.

Hearing this, the bandit couldn't help but admire Xu Xin's courage, being only a kid of fourteen years old but not afraid to die. Even he himself was afraid to die.

He burst out in a hearty laugh that was so loud it hurt Xu Xin's ears.

"You've got guts, kid. I'll give you that. But guts aren't enough to survive in this world. So what can you do to make me let you go?" The bandit's deep voice rang out.

Xu Xin laughed as he responded, "I can't do anything to make you let me live. But I can make you leave.

Someone's following you, and given that you are currently in a rush, I'd say they're pretty close. If you kill me, you won't have time to burn my body or dispose of it, meaning that my death - the death of a completely innocent stranger - would be added to your crimes, at which point the force following you will get even bigger and stronger.

At this point, my life is meaningless, and whether or not I die, it makes no difference to me. But if you kill me, you only bring negatives upon yourself, whereas if you let me go, you have a better chance to escape without the force pursuing you getting stronger.

You might be able to dispose of my body, but considering how deep and how far apart your footprints are on the track ahead, I'd say that you were running quite fast, meaning that you don't have the time to, and that the people pursuing you might catch up in only a few more minutes.

Therefore, the reason you were hiding in the bush was in hopes that I might just walk past you and spare you the issue of dealing with your reputation while also escaping with no hindrances."

By now, the bandit's smile was completely gone, and he had a grimace written over his face. It was indeed exactly as Xu Xin had said. He wanted to preserve his reputation of never letting someone go while also escaping unhindered.

But what he didn't understand was that Xu Xin would only bring negatives on himself by saying this, so why did he say it? Saying this meant that he admitted that he knew exactly what was going on, and that this person in front of him was very clearly someone of big reputation.

By doing this, this meant that he knew that this person of big reputation wanted to avoid a fight that he could win in a single swing, which if that got out, would very easily destroy his reputation entirely, smashing it into the ground.

Now, the bear of a man felt the need to defend his reputation from this mere child, yet he felt something was amiss about him. He didn't have a single change in expression this entire time, as if he was confident in everything he said.

Xu Xin was simply playing with this man's mind, making him anxious, and when people are anxious, they are bound to make a mistake. He didn't even realize the mistake he had made yet.

Then, without saying anything more, Xu Xin bent down to pick up his bag off the ground in front of him. The bandit hadn't realized it earlier, but Xu Xin could've caught the bag, and it was at this moment that he finally realized that something was terribly wrong.

He tried to move out of the way, but before he could react, an arrow had slammed through his head, vibrating as it stuck deeply into the back of his skull, and another arrow had stuck dead in the center of his heart.

Both of these arrows had a silver glow around them, and they were extremely fast.

He then stumbled back a step before falling to his knees, after which he fell face first into the ground, dead. His giant body hit the ground with a deep resounding *THUD!*

Then Xu Xin stood back up, the bag in his arms, completely unsurprised. He then turned around to see the person who had shot the arrow over his head as he bent down.

They were on a path through the woods right now, and the archer was hidden in the bushes on the other side of the path. They had clearly caught up to the bandit awhile ago and were waiting for a chance to kill the bandit before he could react.

Xu Xin had already figured out that they had already caught up because of the fact that the man was already hidden by the time Xu Xin passed him, meaning that he had extremely good awareness of his surroundings, and that it wouldn't be easy to kill him unless he was distracted.

If it weren't for Xu Xin distracting him, it would've probably taken another couple days. This was because Xu Xin was just too odd, and the things that he said were just too mind-provoking for him to remain calm and collected, requiring him to think deeply about them, causing him to lose situational awareness.

"Two arrows at the same time, both dead center. Welcome, master archer. It looks like I underestimated how strong he was." He said with a deep bow.

Sure enough, from out of the bushes came a cloaked figure carrying a massive longbow over their shoulder. The quiver at their side held a total of fifty arrows, of which eight had been used.

As they walked into the light, he could see that the figure of the archer suggested that they were female, with a tall and slender figure that was almost perfectly proportioned.

However, she ignored his probing comment and asked, "How did you know I was here? And don't try to think that you can fool me by saying that it was luck or some other bullshit."

Xu Xin simply laughed and ignored her question, however, going on his way down the path once more.

The only thing he said was as follows: "Because I'm not stupid."

The archer had a mask on, but underneath her mask was an astonished face. Nobody had ever been so blatantly disrespectful towards her before.

However, before she even had the chance to retort against him, he once again spoke. "Without me, you never would have caught him. Consider us even. I helped you; you forget my rudeness. Now leave me alone unless you have something to say."

She almost couldn't contain her anger at his comment and nearly exploded, barely managing to resist the urge to shoot him on the spot.

However, after a couple seconds of thought, she realized that he was right. A child of fourteen years old only halfway through the body rank had realized something before she did. This completely astonished her.

This was because they were just past the border between the kingdoms, and if the bandit got any further, she wouldn't be allowed to pursue him, because a high ranking official going into another kingdom to kill somebody would attract too much attention and maybe even cause tension between the kingdoms.

Due to this, this meant that the kingdom they were currently in would obviously send someone faster than the big and clumsy bandit, meaning that they had likely already caught up long ago.

As she realized this, she took in a cold breath of astonishment. His intelligence clearly surpassed others his age by far, and she couldn't help but take a second look at him, trying to find if there was anything strange about him.

But no matter how hard she looked, he simply looked like a slightly more handsome than average fourteen year old, and she hadn't noticed his eyes or hair.

However, she quickly just went back to what she was doing, because no matter what, he was still far too weak to do anything even if he was smart.

She left him alone because he was right. If he hadn't intervened, intentional or not, she most likely wouldn't have caught the bandit. She did as he said and ignored his rudeness in exchange for his help, hence they were even.

She felt that he was a bit weird for not asking for something else instead of just making her ignore his rudeness, but she didn't really care since it made no difference to her.

Xu Xin then continued on the path, completely ignoring her existence, intent on doing everything alone.

He realistically could have very easily asked for something in exchange for him helping her, but she had been rude to him, and that made him lose all respect for her, hence his rudeness, and that took up the exchange. But he did do this for a reason.

He did this because he didn't want any help to recover, and getting close to somebody of a higher position in this city was bad for him. He had personally met every higher level person in this city, and they would all be able to recognize his demeanor given enough time.

However, it was at this moment that the unexpected happened, and an arrow flew out of the nearby forest and straight towards Xu Xin's heart.