Chapter 12

After a few seconds of being in the darkness again, it all started to fade in favor of light. He slowly started to open his heavy eyelids, looking straight up at the sky. Seeing the blue sky with a few clouds in between felt like heaven compared to the lonely darkness from before.

"Hey everyone, come quickly. He is awake!" Arthur suddenly heard a voice from the side. It was the ecstatic voice of Ethan.

A second went by before the beautiful blue sky was covered by 10 different figures looking down on him. It was, of course, the happy faces of his teammates.

"You finally woke up!" Franz suddenly said with a smile and a happy voice.

"yeah, I guess …" Arthur said with a wry smile as he did not know what to say. "ARGH!" He wanted to sit up from his position, but as soon as he tried that, he felt a piercing pain from the side of his stomach.

"Don't move. Your wounds still haven't healed!" Emily said with a worried tone.

After hearing that, Arthur lifted his head and looked down at his body. His upper body was completely covered in bandages. There was barely any skin visible at all. Looking to the right side of his stomach, where the piercing pain came from, he could clearly see that the wound had bled straight through the bandage.

He couldn't help but look around as well, as he remembered the fight they were in. The last thing he remembered was the point where he pierced the bandit leader's heart. He did not see a lot of bodies, but he did see the bandit leader on the ground. He could still see the frightened expression he had died with.

"I see we won the fight!" Arthur smiled a smile of relief as he calmed down.

"Yeah, we did, all thanks to you!" Ethan commented from the side. "What the hell was those eyes anyway? They were so f*ucking scary, almost made me piss myself …!" Ethan continued saying something he shouldn't have. No one laughed, though, as they all understood where he came from.

"I have no idea … All I remember is feeling cold and lonely … I can't explain it, but it was just as terrifying for me at that moment!" Arthur answered with a frown on his face.

He had no idea of where it came from, but it was probably the eyes the old man had talked to him about. He did not want to share this with anyone at the moment, as he did not know anything about it himself.

"Well, no matter!" Ethan said as he shrugged. He did not mind it, as long as Arthur was okay at this moment.

"We captured the other bandits who survived, and they have told us something we think you should hear!" Franz came from the side where the bandits had been tied up. His face was quite serious, so Arthur was, of course, willing to listen.

"What is it?" Arthur looked straight at Franz.

"That sword the bandit leader was using had the crest of the royal family embued in it …" Franz started out, which made Arthur's face quite ugly. "This led to us thinking they might have attacked a carriage from the royal family, and after interrogating the other bandits, we confirmed this .:." Franz's face started to frown. His face showed that that was not the end to it.

"Let me guess … they captured a royal family member?" Arthur could guess from the face Franz was showing.

All Franz did, was nod at Arthur. His face became even uglier after this.

"Which member?" Arthur while sighing loudly. He had a bad premonition about this.

"The third princess … Princess Maria …!" Franz said in a serious tone. He knew this meant they had another mission, and this adventure suddenly became a whole lot harder.

Arthur stood up from the ground while fighting the piercing pain in his stomach, trying to stop him. He looked straight at the bandits at the side with eyes that could kill. "You guys are going to tell me where your base is if you want even a slight chance to survive this!"

Hearing Arthur's sentence, Franz understood that he took the task of saving the princess with the highest importance. The deserters would not do a whole lot for the next few days, as they needed to build their base. A lot could happen to the princess, though, as she was in the middle of a bandit's layer.

"Y-Yes!" Seeing the eyes, Arthur wore on his face looking at them. They remembered the eyes from the fight earlier. They were scared shitless and would basically do anything he asked.

"Okay, everyone, it seems we have a new task at hand … We will have to go save the princess, and it seems it will be quite a dangerous mission! We might all lose our lives!" Arthur stood in front of everyone and started talking. "But, this is one of the most important missions we could have the pleasure of completing. I hope you are all ready to follow me into a hard battle …! " Arthur tried making a good speech to help hype everyone up.

The speech Arthur came with was not the best, but the way he was standing in front of them, with a wounded body covered in bandages, made it, so none of them wanted to back down.

"Yes, sir!" That was all they yelled back at him, synchronized and with a lot of energy.

"Good, you lead the way!" After getting everyone's confirmation, Arthur looked at the bandits who were tied up and picked one at random to show the way.

Untying the man, Arthur pointed towards the forest, in a gesture showing he wanted him to show the way. Seeing this, the bandit just smiled at Arthur and thought, 'I know these forests. Do you really think I can't escape?' He was quite confident since he had been living in these woods for many years by now.

"Then follow me!" His smile grew wider as he started sprinting with all he got. It did not take long before he had gotten far away from Arthur and the others. He was quite happy with his own ability as he slowed down a little and went towards the base.

"Was it really a good idea to let him run up ahead?" Franz asked by the side, still having an eyes on the bandit. He did not know what Arthur was planning, but he felt this was not the best idea.

"Haha, think about it … what will the bandit do as soon as he arrives?" Arthur asked Franz with a smile like he already knew all the things that would happen.

"He will tell the leader of the base about us …!" Franz answered with a questioning look.

"And what would you do if one of your underlings came to you and said 15 of your men had been caught by 11 strong 16-20-year-olds?" Arthur asked another question with an all-knowing smile.

"I would be furious, and after that, I would send a few of my soldiers to capture the men who captured my men …!" Franz said, still not knowing what Arthur was thinking.

Arthur did not say anything more, and he led Franz to sit and think for himself. Franz's brain was blowing on all cylinders, trying to figure out what Arthur said, when his face suddenly lit up.

"You want to capture the men he sends out in an ambush to have more bargaining chips?" Franz said with shining eyes. This was quite a savage plan, but sometimes you need to fight savage with savage.

"Bingo! As soon as we figure out where their base is, we will start setting up traps for these men that will be sent after us!" Arthur grinned. He was quite satisfied with himself for thinking up these plans. This was definately the quickest and best way to get success.

Following the bandit soon turned out to be harder than what Arhut had thought it would be. They were getting into the deep part of the forest, where you almost need a torch to be able to see anything. If they don't pay attention, they might fall into pits or be attacked by ferocious monsters.

There was no overgrowth on the ground here, and it was all a hard, dirt forest floor. There were a few spots with a little bit of wetness, but all the water which could get through the overgrown trees was quickly absorbed by all the tree roots. To Arthur, this looked like hell almost, as he could see no signs of light.

Keeping up with the bandit was still hard, but he soon stopped. He had found what he was looking for, and that was the enemy's layer. There were tall wooden walls, with a massive wooden building planted in the middle.

Arthur did not pay too much attention to that, though, as he wanted to use as much time as possible to set up many different traps. At this point, the darkness would work in his favor, as anything they set up would be hard for the bandits to see.

"Okay, everyone, scatter out in teams of two, and start setting up the traps!" Finding the spot where he wanted to plant his traps, Arthur ordered his men to get started.