Nipping Out The Buds I

We walked out of the secret tunnel under the guise and mounted on the beasts that were waiting for us outside of the town, along with a small group of people.

Immediately, I felt the effect of skills as we rode into the forest.

These skills are oriented toward stealth. It is absolutely necessary that we remain stealthy. 

We are moving to attack the slither bandits.

We had been planning for months, even before the monsters attacked. The monsters delayed our plans, but also helped tremendously in dealing with more than half of the bandit groups.

Still, there are many dangerous groups that have remained and we are going to wipe them out.

We had worked really hard for this and spent a lot of money.

It is not easy to sneakily transfer forces, scout the enemies, and make other preparations. 

Tonight, we are not striking one group, but several of them. We want to nip this problem out of the bud.

Monsters are already troublesome; we don't want another in our hands.

Even with all the planning and preparations, we don't know whether we will succeed. The bandits could spring up any surprise, and while we have tried to minimize that with our preparations, nothing could be said.

Our forces are at their places and at the right time, they will launch an attack; we are just extra help to them.

We moved through the dense forest in the moonless night and soon reached the small, abandoned orc village.

My people told me, this kind of scenery had become quite common here. Especially the small villages where the heads are not powerful enough to stop the people from migrating to places with better opportunities.

That would be the Renin town; the small villages, where a number of people less than a hundred, had entirely migrated to the Renin town.

The town has a lot of opportunities and steady work. There, they didn't have to face the uncertainty that came with the hunting-gathering.

The medium and big villages are a little slow in joining. Their leaders are holding back the people, in order to not lose influence and for a few other reasons.

Even there, the people are slipping slowly. They would commute before shifting to town entirely, which is like breaking the rules, but many of them do not care for it, seeing the work and money the town is providing.

There is a shadow hand of Ignatius behind this. He wants everything in his control. which is a wise thing.

Half of the orcs in bandit groups are from these villages. They constantly supply the groups with men, to break the cycle, he will need to bring everything under his control.

Looking at the things, he is doing a damn well job.

The town he created not only gave the orcs employment but also reduced the supply of men to the bandit groups. 

It is one of the biggest advantages he has over me aside from patrons like Amberhold and Oksall, who are willing to pour large money into every project of his.

While I need to beg the Count for every penny.

Two more hours passed, and we stopped. We silently handed the beasts to the people waiting to receive them and began the journey on foot in the guise of stealth.

We didn't go together, Leila separated from us and moved with the other group, while I and Blackwell moved with another.

Soon, we reached our destination, and a blond-haired man came out of darkness to greet us.

"Adviser, Lord Blackwell," he greeted. 

"How are preparations, Colonel Brigs?" I asked. I had borrowed the man from the Mirador Hold specifically for this mission.

"Good, adviser; we are ready to strike on the time," he replied. 

We had surrounded the bandits from all four directions. There is no way, we will let this bandit group escape; they will either surrender here or will die.

Nobody said anything other than looking at our clocks. There were eighteen minutes until the attack and so we waited.

Minutes ticked as we waited in darkness, and soon, the eighteen minutes passed, and we moved without any words.

Colonel Brigs and Ignatius are ahead while I am in the middle, protected from all sides. I do need to show needless bravado; those in front are powerful enough to deal with any threat, but I am not.

It will be extremely hard for me to defeat someone with Lv. 20 and a good experience. 

Over fifteen minutes passed and suddenly a bow appeared in Ignatius's hand, and he pulled the string two times, one after another.

I didn't see the bow light up or the arrows appearing on it, but a few minutes later, saw the body on the ground. There were no injuries on her and there was no sound, but it is clear, she had fallen from above, seeing her position.

She is also alive. Unconscious but alive.

I don't know what kind of attacks he used. It might be a soul attack or some kind of other attack; it is hard to say, with the artifact involved.

We moved ahead without stopping and a few minutes later, Ignatius pulled the string twice, and once again we saw another unconscious body on the ground in a strange position.

"We are close," said Colonel Brigs, and we become even more careful.

Finally, we stopped and looked at our clocks. 

Three and a half minutes later, a voice rang through the silent forest.

"Bandits, you have been surrounded from all directions. Surrender and you will survive; resist and you will die," shouted Leila from the other side.

As her voice rang out, we moved toward the bandits at our full speed. I could feel skills activating and people turning serious as we moved.

I gripped my rapier tightly and checked my potions everything; I needed to be ready to face the bandits.

"Never!" rang out from the bandit camp loudly and I heard the bandits moving. 

In less than twenty seconds, we could see the bandits.

Ignatius and his archers in our group acted immediately and started shooting the arrows. Each arrow of Ignatius would reap a life, and bandits coming toward us slowed their charge.

Some with shields came forward, but it was useless, as his arrows seemed to have torn through them.

It surprised me; it seemed like Ignatius had improved since we had fought together last time. Maybe he had leveled up after the fight with the monsters or something happened with his artifact, but he had improved.

It's not like he wasn't able to breach the enchanted shields with his arrows before. He had and the only ones which could stop his arrow were the triple enchanted shields.

Now, its arrows passing through the shields, more swiftly, that single person had stopped the whole bandits and now they were running away.

We followed and soon saw the bigger group, with a few groups having already started fighting at the distance, including my sister, who was against several bandits.

Ignatius immediately begins to release the arrows in that direction, forcing a couple of bandits to fight against her turn. One got killed, while two were injured, which my sister finished off quickly.

The small group that ran away from us merged into the bigger group and turned to us.

"Kill every bandit that doesn't throw down their weapon," roared Ignatius and began to shoot the arrows at the bandits at even greater speed.

The bandits seemed to have gone crazy; they started coming at us, despite many of them falling at every step. 

They didn't seem to care.

"Someone used the skill," said the soldier beside me, and I couldn't help but nod. It is not a rage skill, seeing there is no burning anger in their eyes, but there is a lack of fear.

I shuddered seeing that there are skills there, that could make an emotion disappear.

Such skills are extremely dangerous.

Especially in an environment like this where their emotions have roiled up. In an environment like this, it becomes easier for such skills to affect people.

"Die!" 

They roared as they came at us, and we met them. Their numbers are bigger than ours since we couldn't bring huge numbers without getting discovered, but we can deal with them.

All the people chosen here are experienced with good gear; even the soldiers from our side are well equipped.

Every penny gotten from the sale of monsters has been used to buy better equipment and other things that will help us deal with the enemy better.

It took less than ten seconds for the enemy to appear in front of me; it was a thin human man with a saber.

"Die!" 

It screamed and attacked me, I moved back with Rapid Legs, dodging the saber by an inch, before moving ahead as fast as I could and attacking with Swift Blade.

His surprise turned to alarm, and the bandit tried to dodge it, but he was slow, and I was decisive.

My rapier reached his neck, and he activated a surprising skill. His neck turned stony.

Stone Skin is a pretty rare defensive skill. He must have got it when he had reached the Lv. 20.

My rapier didn't stop and instead moved with enchantments on it flaring. At the same time, I had activated the Sharpness. It flared with the power like it never did when I used it on other things.

Pachac!

My rapier touched his neck and finally, fear appeared in the bandit's eyes. Even the skill couldn't suppress the fear when the death was so close.

My sword cut through his neck swiftly and I moved sharply left, to avoid his saber coming at me. Dodging it at the hairbreadth.

It was a risky attack, but it did the job.

Jon had said I had a natural battle instinct, which is not new information to me. Old Remus had been praised for it hundreds of times and it had gotten over his head. 

It is one of the reasons he ended up losing his life.

He had asked me to sharpen these instincts but also cautioned me to use my brain with it. He said he had seen many people depend on it too much and ended up losing their lives.

There are people out there with enough experience and intelligence to manipulate the natural instincts of their enemies to their advantage.

Jon shuddered when he talked about them.