Several bandits came over to congratulate me. Their happiness was genuine as they patted my shoulder and showered me with words of encouragement. It looked like my actions had been well noted. It helped my case that I had thrown myself forward to save many of those who still stood.

They didn’t know I had only reached level eight, but it didn’t matter. This was as good a reason to gain their trust as any other.

“OK, that’s enough. Gather the loot, pick up the wounded and get moving. We need to get out of here before more of them turn up!” The bandit leader thundered at his followers. Several of them grimaced as they turned back to their tasks, but none raised a complaint to the huge man.

Rule with an iron fist, indeed. I guess that works too…

It would never be my plan to control others through fear. That was usually a short term solution, and normally ended with a gruesome punishment for said leader. I’d seen it myself in the past. It would be better to get others to follow you because they wanted to, but that would take far more effort than wielding a big weapon and yelling.

“How far are we to the base? Another battle like that and we might not make it.” I placed my staff on my back and moved next to the leader. “Do you have any potions for the injured, if we can get some of them back on their feet, it might help us-”

“No, we’re close enough. No reason to waste resources.” The bandit leader growled at me. “I don’t know what it’s like where you came from, but out here we need to save those things for emergencies.”

I nodded in response to his refusal. It made sense, though this situation did seem like an emergency to me… but I had fully expected him to refuse either way. My request had been spoken loudly enough for the others to hear, so my main aim was well underway.

After they had finished looting the goblins, each member lifted one of their injured colleagues before we set off into the forest. Our speed was slower, but the bandit leader wasn’t stupid enough to order the others to leave their comrades behind. We were only as fast as the slowest person, which for once wasn’t me. An archer had to carry one of the practitioners who had taken a goblin kick to the chest, and he could barely stumble along under his burden.

For my part, I helped one of the warriors carry a heavily armoured man. We each hooked an arm over our shoulders as we stomped along the thickly covered path. At first, it wasn’t too bad, but then my Strengthen buff fell off. After a few minutes of struggle, I whispered the ability to reactivate it.

And the injured man heard me.

He glanced at me, his eyebrows raised to the sky as my muscles clenched. The man didn’t make any move to reveal my true class as he gave me a small smile. At worst, he would tell the others when they got back to the camp. Hopefully, they wouldn’t care too much about the class of the person who had saved their lives.

The same couldn’t be said for the bandit leader, who kept throwing irritable looks in my direction for the entire journey.

In a short time, my stock with this little group had exceeded his own, which he did not appreciate. I hadn’t made any direct moves against him, but if he figured out my class it wouldn’t take much for him to toss me aside. The others might try to argue on my behalf, but they were too scared of the leader and his punishments to make any real attempts to protect me.

I reactivated the Strengthen buff once more before we reached the outskirts of the bandit camp. A rough wall surrounded a huge area, and the forest had been cleared away up to twenty metres on all sides of the encampment to provide lines of sight on any incoming enemies. The leader strode ahead of the group and waved up at a bandit atop the wall.

“We’re back, open the gate!” He yelled up. The man atop the wall turned to shout into the camp, after which the large doors beneath him creaked open. The bandit leader didn’t spare a glance for his squad as he squeezed in through the narrow gap, but the rest of the group didn’t seem to care. After the gates had opened fully, we made our way into the interior.

It was exactly as I had expected.

The buildings were rough and ready, mostly made of wood and thatch. In the centre of the encampment lay a three-story high dwelling made of stone, but even that was crude in design compared to the most basic buildings in the town.

“The leader should mention you to the commander. Stick with us, we’ll keep an eye out for you.” The bandit beside me grinned as we walked towards a long, wooden hut in the distance. Several men and women dashed out and loaded the injured people onto several beds before they began treatment. Most of them were holy attributed practitioners, though some used more standard means of medication.

After the injured man I had carried was loaded onto his own bed, I stepped aside and rested against the wall. Those who had escaped major injuries moved to a large warehouse beside the treatment hut and dumped their loot into a pile outside the door, so I copied them and dropped my share into the same heap.

“They’ll sort it out and share the rewards equally between the squad. The leader will take a big cut, but you should get a good amount of commendations for this haul.” One of the bandits smiled at me. Her eyes were cheery as she looked over the jumble of odds and ends we had collected. “This should keep us going for a while, and we didn’t lose anyone, thanks to you. Good job, cub.”

“Thanks.” I picked up a dagger that had rolled off the pile and tossed it back on. “Who do I need to speak to if I want to join up officially?”

Several bandits chuckled at my question. The woman who had explained the loot split shook her head before she spoke again.

“Your over-thinking it, cub. All you need to do is prove yourself a bit, and you're in. You’ve done that, so there’s no need to go any further.”

“Oh.” I glanced at the bandits who were moving around the area. This encampment was rough and ready, but it was still their home. It had all of the amenities you would expect of a town, such as food, water, places to sleep and entertainment. A few pubs lay not too far from the main road in the distance, and a loud storm of music was being raised in the distance.

“Come on, cub. We have a spare bed in our barracks.” The woman pushed herself up and moved into the distance. Before I could follow her, a heavy hand slammed down on my shoulder.

“Hey, cub. Where are you going?”

I pulled myself out of his grasp and turned around slowly. It was the bandit leader again, but this time he had four people behind him. All of them glared at me angrily, though I had never met any of them in my life.

“I was going to go for a rest, apparently there’s a spare bed.” I smiled at the leader and ignored those behind him. “I’m told you’ll sort out the loot, so I can just leave that to you, yeah?”

“Oh, will he?” One of the men behind the leader grunted. “You want to push off anything difficult, do you?”

“Calm down, Bobby. He’s new here, so he probably doesn’t know.” The leader waved his friend into silence and turned back to me. “New members have to prove themselves. You can go help sort the loot, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“He was in the fight with us, he needs to rest.” The female bandit stepped up behind me. Her patience snapped in the face of the leader's overwhelming rudeness. “I’m not in your squad anymore, so I won’t take your bullcrap. Your pissed off because you failed your level twenty-five advancement, don’t take it out on the newbie.”

“Oh, you have a defender. Interesting.” The leader grinned at me as he ignored her statement. “Can’t speak up for yourself, Cub?”

“Probably too weak. We should just chuck him out, Ron.” Bobby suggested.

“No, no. We can’t do that, not without giving him a chance to prove himself.” The leader waved Bobby into silence again. I watched their little play as they mechanically spoke their lines. It was clear what this was leading up to, just as much as it was obvious this had been the leaders plan all along.

“Do you want to fight?” I sighed and pulled out my staff. “If that’s what you want, just say it.”

I was a Supporter, but there was no way I could take this lying down. This man wasn’t as strong as Bryan and the others. Bandits respected strength and courage, so if I ran from this fight it would destroy all the ground I had gained up to this point. I still had a few minutes remaining on my Strengthen buff, so that would have to do.

“Oh, you want to fight me? I guess I can agree to that.” The leader, who I now knew was named Ron, grinned and pulled out his weapon. It was a heavy, two-handed axe. The shaft was rough and dirty, but that did little to lower the danger from the huge hunk of sharpened metal at its tip. “No abilities, first to quit, sound fair?”

“Oy, that’s not fair.” The man I had carried shouted out from the side. He glanced at me before he turned back to the leader. “He’s a-”

“It’s fine.” I waved the man into silence. The longer my class could remain a secret, the less chance my cover would be blown. If these people learned I was a Supporter, there was a slim possibility they would link me to the person who had interfered with their plans a year ago. Until the point I had no other choice, I would have to rely on my basic level of skill to pull me through.

“Cub, wait a minute. Don’t fall for it, this guy has a passive ability. He’s trying to trick-”

“Shut up!” Bobby pulled out a wicked knife from his belt and pointed it at the female bandit. “He agreed to it, so that’s that. Back off!”

The woman gritted her teeth and threw me one more look. It was clear she wanted me to back out, but that would go against my plan. I had built up an innate level of skill during my year of constant practice, and now would be the perfect time to utilise it.

“Great. Let’s get started.” Ron lifted his axe into the sky and stepped towards me. “Don’t die too easy, Cub. This is gonna be fun.”