My plan of standing around in the village waiting for bandits to show up was foolproof. Truly, a wonderful example of extracting the most possible value out of the minimum possible effort. There was a potential downside to the plan, though. Idle soldiers hanging out in a small farming village with nothing to do could easily start causing trouble. Not to mention that my students needed to eat, whether they were in the village or in the wilds. Extorting rice from the village under the guise of taxes was the last thing I wanted to do.

Fortunately, there was an easy solution to the problem. Instead of idle soldiers, my students could spend their days as busy farm laborers. By earning money in exchange for valuable labor instead of simply taking it by force, all parties would be better off.

My students didn't see it that way at first. I had to explain to them my philosophy that anything could be turned into magical training. In my case, the training took the form of maintaining mana circulation and meditative exercises while also accomplishing other tasks. My students, sadly, were barely capable of completing their meditation properly even when they had nothing else to divide their attention.

The solution that I hit upon was simple, but effective: any everyday activity becomes magical training if you're forced to perform it against magical resistance. It actually turned out to be good training for me as well. Since my students were working together with the ordinary peasants, I had to be careful to direct the force of my mana domain against only my students, while leaving the farmers untroubled.

It would be a poor return on the villagers' investment if hiring us as farm laborers meant that they would have to work while scared out of their wits, after all. There was still some disruption as the locals adapted to having sword saints work the fields among them, but after the first few days everybody was comfortable with the new routine.

While my men had their heads down, both from magical pressure and the need to keep track of what they were doing, I was able to enjoy a commanding view of the valley below. It really was beautiful. I could see this village turning into a resort town in the modern era. From the fields on the mountainside you could see forever. It almost felt like I could see all the way to the ocean.

That may have been an exaggeration, but I was able to see the figure approaching on horseback long before he neared the village. I couldn't help but smile. While my men were still technically getting some training time in, Lord Ota hadn't sent us out here to till the fields.

"Our guest is here," I commented. The nearby sword saints straightened up, ready to provide a warm welcome to the bandit, but I shook my head. "Keep working. I should be enough of a welcoming party."

Our agreement with the village was to provide labor in exchange for our food. It was important to teach my students the need to keep your promises and provide full value for anything you expected to receive from a customer. Hauling everybody out of the fields for just one bandit would have been a waste.

My students were upset, naturally, that they wouldn't have a chance to sate their bloodlust, but they followed my directions. I couldn't help but shake my head as I left the field and made my way down to the town's main--and only--road. One bandit who almost certainly couldn't use magic would hardly be enough to whet their appetite, let alone sate their need for battle. Better that they stay calm and keep working.

The bandit took longer than I'd expected to arrive. You really could see a long way from the side of the mountain. Either that or I had overestimated how hard he was willing to push his horse. On reflection, it made sense. The village wasn't going anywhere, so there was no reason for him to hurry.

I had planted myself in the middle of the road, arms folded across my chest, with the intention of presenting an impressive front to the bandit once he finally showed up. He took so long that I was tempted to abandon my post and go take a look, but I resisted the urge.

Finally, he arrived. Judging by the skeptical look he was giving me, it seemed my efforts at an impressive pose had failed. Even so, he pulled up to a stop in front of me.

I'd wondered what form the local bandits would take. This was, after all, an era of myths and legend, in a world of magic. For all that I knew, I was up against the local equivalent of Robin Hood, a temporarily disgraced noble who robbed from the rich to feed the poor. If that was the case, I might feel a little guilty about killing all of them. Not guilty enough to cross Lord Ota, though.

"Where's the old man, girl?" he asked. "He knows the deal."

I just looked at him for a moment.

"Instead of our fee this month, maybe I'll just take you," he said. "The boss'll thank me for it."

It seemed that rather than any kind of noble brigand, these were merely thugs who happened to live in the wilderness instead of the city. That simplified matters.

The bandit fell from his horse. I started a little in surprise, then realized that I had let my mana free without conscious thought when he'd made his crass remarks. The pressure was enough to make my students sweat, and they were used to it. It wasn't a complete surprise that it was enough to knock the bandit from his horse.

I stepped closer. He didn't make any attempt to get up. He seemed to be trembling where he lay. His eyes had rolled up until the whites were fully visible.

It seemed my students weren't the only ones making progress. I'd never been able to incapacitate someone with magical pressure alone, but spending hours every day focusing on nothing but applying pressure to my students had paid off. Although, to be fair, it had been a while since I had tried to use pressure alone against anybody without magic of their own.

I watched the bandit for a moment, but he still wasn't trying to move. I'd have to remember this as a useful form of crowd control. Before I could move forward and tie him up I noticed two of my students running over.

"Teacher!" Hideyoshi said, before taking a moment to catch his breath. "We need him alive."

I cocked my head. "I'll let you gather information from him, then."

Whatever our respective abilities, Hideyoshi was a large, strong-looking man, while I was a teenage girl. When it came to intimidating somebody into telling us where the rest of the bandits were, he should have an advantage. I could make up for it with magic, of course, but it would be a pretty fine line between demonstrating my capabilities and actually killing our prisoner. Especially when I was feeling pretty irritated with his behavior. I believed in delegating difficult tasks whenever it was possible, anyways.

Hideyoshi nodded, and I left him to it while I headed back to the fields. The rest of the students had stayed put, and I was happy to see it. I didn't mind one or two people taking the initiative at times, but the fundamental organization of the army needed people who could follow orders as well. They had slowed down in their efforts a bit, but now that I was back they couldn't slack off.

It was only about an hour later when Hideyoshi returned.

"We have their location," he said.

"Oh, good," I replied, before clapping my hands. "Everybody, take some time to get ready. We'll meet by the road out of the village."

One advantage of our base being such a small town was that setting up a group rendezvous was a simple task. Even if I hadn't told them where to go, there was only one major road leading through the village.

As expected, my students looked happy to be leaving farm labor behind in favor of attacking the bandits' hideout. I left them alone to go gather their things and accompanied Hideyoshi back toward our captive.

"Teacher," he said, then hesitated. It took him a moment to sort out his thoughts before he continued. "In order to convince him to talk, I told him that you wouldn't consume his soul."

I clicked my tongue in disappointment. "Why would you say something like that?"

I could understand the need to threaten and bluster in order to convince a prisoner to talk, but he really should have kept his lies plausible. Well, as the saying went, if it's stupid and it works then it's not stupid.

I shook my head. "Well, at least you got him to talk. How far away are the rest of them?"

"Not too far," Hideyoshi said. "We should be able to make it before dark."

That was good news. We were already pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't too surprising that the bandits were making their base nearby. This town was the last bastion of civilization for miles around, and it just wasn't capable of securing the surrounding area.