“Hey, how about we make our own band of raiders? We’ll go up to Hilzland, raid a few villages, and make it back home before the invasion starts,” a townsperson suggested to a few of the people around them. They were met with mixed replied, ranging from overwhelming support to flat opposition.

“That’s a great idea!” Farvald was in support of the creation of the band of raiders. Although Farvald’s uncle didn’t want him leaving the town to fight, it would be much easier to keep track of Farvald if he went along with a group of people that would always have his best interests in mind.

If Farvald joined the army, he would have to worry about soldiers backstabbing him for greater loot or merits. But, if he joined a few townspeople and headed to Hilzland with them, it was unlikely that any of his comrades would plot against him or let him needlessly get hurt.

“I agree,” Andric voiced his opinion, coming in as the only non-native townsperson in the tavern. Farvald’s uncle looked over at him, but he did say anything. Of course, Andric only carried about finding information about the enchanted castle and any wand it might contain, and Farvald’s uncle couldn’t rely on him to keep Farvald safe.

“Who’s gonna join our band of raiders, if we make one?” the townsperson who originally suggested the idea asked. Several hands went up, including Farvald’s and Andric’s. Many people also voiced their approval.

“Wait a minute. I’m for the idea, but can’t we call it something else? Calling ourselves raiders makes us seem like the bad guys,” a concerned townsperson said.

“He’s got a point,” another townsperson agreed.

The opposition against the name of the group had many people thinking for a better name, and one person worked up the courage to voice their own suggestion, “What about the Radegart Riders?”

“Hm, yeah, that’ll work.”

“I like it.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good.”

The reception toward the new name was positive, and the discussion was settled. All that needed to be determined was how many people would be joining the Radegart Riders, which currently included Farvald and two other townspeople, as well as Andric, if they would accept him.

The next day, Andric met with Farvald and a few other townspeople at the edge of the town. Over the course of morning, more arrived, until there were eight of them standing around and waiting. As the hours trickled by, nobody else stuck around for very long, and the members of the group were finalized.

“What is the traveler going to do about a horse?” a young man named Carlman asked. He was older than Andric, but he was still in his youth.

“He better carry his own food, too. I won’t be luggin anything extra around,” a man named Theudobald said. He disliked people who weren’t born in Radegart, and he thought that Andric didn’t have any right to join the Radegart Riders.

Andric took a silver coin from his bag of storage and tossed it to Theudobald, then asked, “You won’t carry my provisions for me?”

“Nope,” Theudobald promptly replied and tossed the coin back to Andric, who returned it to his bag of storage.

“It should be fine. We’re not leaving today, right?” a man named Hagano asked. He was older than Carlman but younger than Theudobald, and he laid on the ground without caring whether it was wet or not.

“I don’t like having someone who’s not part of our town being in the raider group,” a young man named Isbrand said. He was the youngest out of everyone, besides Andric and Farvald.

Standing next to each other, two brothers were silent in their opinions about Andric. They were Filibert and Gerbold, who were around Carlman’s age.

Andric was silent throughout most of the conversation, except for his occasional half-joke proposition. He learned that he needed to keep his possession of a storage object a secret, so he couldn’t explain it to anyone or offer to carry their supplies. The Radegart Riders were not leaving that day, so Andric figured he could take out his roll of clothes from his bag of storage and carry that around.

As for a horse, Andric didn’t know what he was going to do. If he could buy a horse, he would rather do that, but he didn’t have any experience riding a horse. His Silent Gallop Technique at the second rank was enough to make him as fast as a slow horse, but he hadn’t tested it over long distances.

None of the martialists who had gathered were above the Novice realm. In fact, only Theudobald and the two brothers were in the Novice realm, and they were in the lower-third stages. Carlman and Hagano were at the ninth stage of the Human realm, and Isbrand was at the sixth stage of the Human realm. Farvald was the weakest of everyone gathered, at only the fourth stage of the Human realm.

Still, despite their low martial realms and stages, the group was confident in coming away from Hilzland with several benefits. They only needed to ransack a few villages for their valuables, then return to Hochland. With three Novice realm martialists in the Radegart Riders, it was unlikely that a village of less than fifty inhabitants would have a martialist who could fight all of them at the same time.

Everyone in the Radegart Riders knew each other, except for Andric. Farvald took it upon himself to introduce Andric to everyone, but none of them were particularly happy about having him join. If it wasn’t for Andric being at the Novice realm, Theudobald would’ve forced him away.

At the end of the day, Theudobald declared himself the leader of the group and headed to the town hall to make the Radegart Riders an official group. After he left, the rest of the members also departed, going their own ways inside the town. Andric returned to the tavern, where he prepared a few items from his bag of storage.

He needed to take food, water, and a weapon. He would be living in the wilderness for a while, so it wasn’t important to have a change of clothes. He found a carrying sack in his bag of storage, and he pulled it out to use with carrying his provisions. Luckily, his bag of storage contained many pounds of preserved food and bottles of water. The opening of the bag of storage wasn’t large enough to fit a standard barrel through, but it was large enough for ceramic bottles and bottles made from hard plants.

Andric filled his carrying sack with eighty pounds of provisions, then wore it on his back. He expected the carrying sack to be a heavy burden, but the strength that came with the Novice realm of the martial way was significant. Andric had no problem hauling eighty pounds on his back.

A Novice realm martialist had the strength of two men, but Andric had another bonus to his strength: his Perfect Circulation. When spirit energy circulated throughout the body, it strengthened the flesh, bones, and organs. Because Andric had all of his major meridians open, his body was being tempered by spirit energy at a much faster rate than normal. That was a maximum limit to how strong he could become due to circulating his spirit energy, but he had no yet reached that limit. Even if he stopped cultivating, he would still get stronger over time.

Andric looked at the armor inside his bag of storage, but none of it was appealing. Most of it was thin metal or thick leather, and Andric had always disliked wearing armor. As he thought about what armor to wear, he realized that adding so much weight to his person would make his running speed heavily decrease. If he wanted to carry a large amount of provisions and wear armor, he needed a horse.

Andric put his carrying sack in his bag of storage, then went down to the first floor of the tavern. He scanned the tavern with his eyes, then turned to the waitress and said, “Waitress, a cup of wine for everyone,” and flipped her a silver coin.

Food and drinks were commonly bought with copper coins. A high-quality slab of preserved meat could be worth fifteen copper coins, and a cup of wine was worth five copper coins. In one go, Andric bought twenty cups of wine for the tavern patrons, equaling almost a whole barrel of wine.

“Aye!” the townspeople in the tavern gave a cheer for Andric, then continued whatever they were doing.

Andric quickly asked, before the momentum from buying the round of wine was lost, “Does anyone have a horse for sale? I have a martial technique manual for the Severing Slash to trade for it.”

Andric had lived in Einburg for fifteen years, so he wasn’t entirely mindless of the price of a horse, especially in the winter. If he was at a horse farm, it would be simple to buy a horse for silver coins, but that couldn’t be done in a small town like Radegart, where every horse had a job. If one horse died or was taken by an outsider, it would mean less spring plowing and less good transportations. The only way to buy a horse from someone who didn’t want to sell their horse was to offer them something so desirable that they had no choice but to accept. A notorious martial technique was one such object.

Owning a martial technique book not only allowed that person to practice the martial technique but also to make copies of the book and sell them. Trading a horse for five silver coins would eventually result in the five silver coins being used up, but trading a horse for a martial technique book would result in a new line of business. A martial technique was worth much more than a horse.

“I’ll sell you my horse!”

“No, take mine, it’s young and strong!”

“Buy a good breed from me!”

As soon as Andric offered the martial technique, he had many townspeople trying to sell their horse to him. Young horses, old horses, and various breeds were stated to him, and he quickly found himself out of his element. He knew a few things about horses, but he didn’t know what made one horse better than another.

“These slimy fellas, trying to sell you something without even letting you see it,” and older man said from amidst the crowd of townspeople who were trying to sell their horse to Andric. It was Farvald’s uncle, and he said, “If anyone wants to sell their horse for that martial technique, they should bring their horse here at sunrise. That way, the young master can look through them and decide which one he wants.”

Farvald’s uncle was still under the impression that Andric had a powerful backer, and his ability to trade a martial technique for a simple horse only cemented that thought.

“Ah, thank you, Uncle. That would be helpful,” Andric said.

The comotion inside the tavern slowly died down, and most conversations switched to what horse people were going to take to the tavern the next morning. A few people wondered what kind of backing Andric had, as well as why he didn’t already have a horse when he traveled to Radegart.

Andric felt a little anxious about riding a horse for the first time, but he didn’t think too much about it. With his current strength, he could strangle a horse with one arm, so he didn’t doubt that he would be able to keep a random horse under control.