Author's note: Heya, thanks to everyone following the story. I know it's lacking, but I'm trying my best and I have a lot of fun writing. I don't really understand why chapter 7 has less views than chapter 8, but let's leave it at that. ^^

Chapter 12: Sneak Attack

“Argh, fuck!” The arrow hit the bandit walking in the back in his shoulder from the back.

“What’s going on there?”

“Arrow! Someone shot Zac from behind”

You hit Zac for 18 damage. *sneak attack*

Zac is [confused].

Jordan is [confused].

Vincent is [confused].

Apparently the attack came unexpected enough that several of the bandits got confused from the sudden shouting. Paul shot another arrow, picking one of the bandits at random.

You hit Jordan for 40 damage. *crit*

Jordan is [unconscious].

He hit one bandit who was looking around into the darkness straight in the head. He dropped to the floor like a puppet. The bandits started scattering and hid behind the trees. It didn’t seem like they knew how to react to the sudden attack out of nowhere. Paul heard them nervously arguing among themselves.

One of the bandits seemed to have guessed the direction of the attack incorrectly and leaned to a tree while being illuminated by the light from the torches, in plain sight of Paul. Paul shot at him.

You hit Aidan for 10 damage.

Aidan is [bleeding].

Aidan is bleeding for 3 damage.

“I’m hit” the bandit cryed out and cowered on the floor, out of Paul’s sight. One of the bandits was smart enough to drop the torch he was carrying on the ground, and the surrounding wood and leaves started to burn, creating smoke. How irresponsible.

Paul could not find see another of the bandits right now, so he readied his bow and waited. According to the minimap all of them were still hiding around the place of the initial attack.

Paul then saw one of the bandits slowly crouching towards the downed Jordan. He released the arrow and it penetrated deep into the bandit’s stomach from the side.

You hit Justice for 20 damage.

Justice is [bleeding].

Justice is [confused].

Justice is bleeding for 5 damage.

Good hit. Justice struck Paul as a superbly inappropriate name for a bandit.

“Aaahh…” Justice let out a high pitched cry before collapsing on the floor, hands holding the area where the arrow had struck. Paul could make out some long hair when the hood the bandit was wearing came off. Seemed like Justice was actually a girl.

“Asshole! Come out and fight like a man!” One of the bandits started shouting in Paul’s direction.

Then an arrow struck a tree a few meters next to Paul. Someone was taking shots at him, but seemingly without knowing his exact location.

Paul didn’t want to stress his luck. The first stage of the attack went well. He picked up his spear, activated [Night Vision] and snuck a bit back, then circled around the group of bandits and got closer again. In less than a minute he had changed location.

He deactivated [Night Vision] again to conserve mana. The bandit he had hit earlier, Aidan, was still cowering on the floor and visible in the torch light. He now had the [scared] debuff as well and had already lost a third of his health. One shot later he was [unconscious] and near death. The others seemingly failed to even notice.

With three bandits left, Paul decided to wait before engaging in melee. He wasn’t that confident of his fighting skills. Then one of the red dots started to fall back from the group. He steadily moved towards the direction facing away from Paul’s initial position. Paul spotted the guy and shot an arrow at him, but hit a tree next to him.

The bandit froze in his tracks and jumped behind the tree. One of the others seemed to have heard the impact and guessed Paul’s position from the position of the arrow.

“He is over there! Come out asshole, you have nowhere to hide!” a blatant lie, there were plenty of places to hide and Paul had no intention of coming out. The two other dots moved a little and one of moving in a zigzag route towards him. Then another arrow flew by close to Paul.

Paul slowly snuck back away, away from the bandits, then a little to the side. When he was a dozen meters away, he observed his minimap. The one bandit who was sneaking away earlier had started to move again. He was probably thinking about deserting, but had not finally decided yet and just wanted to get a bit of a distance.

The bandit who shot at him earlier was still close to his wounded companions, while the one that shouted was slowly approaching Paul’s position. He was still a good 30 meters away, but Paul didn’t like it. He fell back a bit further into the darkness and waited. If the one guy ran away it might cause a problem, but so far it looked he would run out of the forest.

The guy who had come looking for Paul was silently quietly moving around the area, but Paul did not see him. After a few minutes the guy walked back to his friends in a straight line, he had probably given up the search. Aidan had passed away, yielding Paul 65 XP.

The archer was had moved to the same spot as the Justice girl and was probably trying to stop the bleeding. Justice had fallen [unconscious] and was periodically loosing health. The last bandit had joined the others again.

Paul decided to circle around the bandits, back to his initial position. He could see the archer kneeling next to the female bandit, pressing his hands against the wound and talking to the guy with the arrow in his shoulder. The last bandit was standing a few meters behind them and had picked up a torch, the other torch was nowhere to be seen and had probably been snuffed or died.

Those bandits were in a bad situation, without the light from the torch they could not see a thing, so they kept it burning even though it gave away their position. It was of course perfect for Paul, so he pulled another arrow out from his quiver. The most dangerous foe was probably the one who decided to actively search for him, so he shot an arrow at him, trying to hit his legs.

He did not have as much luck as before, and the arrow passed by the bandit. It was technically not a “miss” though.

You hit Justice for 15 damage.

Justice has died.

You have gained 65 XP.

Whoops. All of the bandits looked at the arrow, then into Paul’s direction. The archer kneeling next to the girl stood up and shouted towards Paul. “You bastard! Fucking Coward!” He drew a dagger from his belt and started running towards Paul. Not good.

“Oy! Wait up!” The guy with the arrow followed him, the last one dropped the torch and ran in the opposite direction. Seemed like he finally lost what little courage he had remaining.

Paul quickly shouldered his bow and held his bow ready. He also activated [Night Vision]. The better vision did not really let him see in the dark, but he could make out shapes and it made a difference. His enemies were definitely at a disadvantage.

The archer ran towards Paul, wildly swinging his dagger at branches. He bumped against a tree he had not noticed and nearly lost his balance a few times from the uneven terrain, but he got the direction right and continued to charge forward. The other bandit was obviously more careful, but followed with a sword in his hand.

Paul took a step to the side, so the dagger-swinging archer was charging straight at him, and thrust his spear forward as hard as he could as soon as he got into his reach. The momentum from the charge and the perfect angle resulted in a spectacularly effective hit to the bandit’s chest.

You stabbed Sam for 70 damage. *fatal crit*

Sam has died.

You have gained 80 XP.

The spear penetrated so deep into the bandit’s chest that Paul had to let it go. The other bandit stopped after hearing Sam crying out and the sound of his body falling to the ground. Paul stepped a few meters to the side and readied his bow once again. This time he actually hit the bandit in the leg.

You hit Zac for 10 damage.

“Argh…” Zac fell on his knee. Paul considered trying to take him alive and interrogate him, but he expected his chances to gain information to be slim. He was basically the bad guy right now and had attacked them unprovoked.

“Hey, bandit. Give up and I will spare your life” Paul decided to try anyway.

“What!? Who are you?” The bandit Zac was obviously in pain. He had no debuff, but could not stand up.

“I can kill you right now. Drop your weapon and give up” Paul was already pointing an arrow at him, but Zac could not see him in the dark.

“If you want to kill me so badly, just do it already, asshole. Urg…” Zac was trying to stand up.

Paul had considered knocking him out, but did not know how to do so without getting dangerously close. Darkness or not, Zac looked strong and had a sword. If he hit Paul, it would seriously injure him, and so far had come out of this fight unharmed.

Paul took quietly a few steps forward and shot Zac in the head from up close. “I will grant your wish then…”

You hit Zac for 50 damage. *fatal crit*

Zac has died.

You have gained 80 XP.

Paul then walked over to the place where the other dead bandits where. Two were already dead and the third one, Jordan, had an arrow stuck in his head and was slowly loosing health. It didn’t look like he would recover without surgery or magic and even then, brain damage was probably not an easy the injury to cure. Paul decided to leave him there for now and picked up the torch that was still burning.

He started to search the bodies for loot, which he stuffed into the large bag he bought earlier. This time he made sure to recover his arrows as well. Some arrowheads were slightly bent or chipped, but he should be able to use them again.

The dead Justice was wearing some nice looking leather pants. They were reinforced at several placed and even had metal kneecaps. He pulled the dead girl over and saw that she was rather pretty, even as a corpse. No wonder the archer got so angry after Paul killed her off. He then tried to pull off the pants and noticed that the girl had obviously not been wearing anything underneath.

Paul was feeling a weird temptation and decided to put the pants back on to her. He certainly did not want to be known as the “Necrophilia Ninja” or something. After making sure she was neatly dressed, he went on to search the other bandits.

The spoils were OK. The armour Zac had been wearing was punctured from the arrow to his shoulder and there was some blood on it, but it was overall in good condition. One of the bandits was wearing leather armguards, which fitted Paul nicely. He also found a necklace, probably made out of copper, two coin purses, a deck of unfamiliar playing cards and a bag with what looked like very hard cookies. One of the bandits had been wearing a rucksack with what looked like camping utensils: a large waterproof sheet, a few thin blankets and what Paul assumed were a steel and flint stone to start a fire.

From the looks of it, they were dispatched as a raiding party.

The weapons and equipment was worse than from the time they encountered the bandits on the road to Prozor: one long sword, two short swords, a spear and a bow that was not as good as Paul’s. He also found a few knives and daggers on the belts of the bandits.

All of the bandits were wearing leather cuirasses, but while they were sturdy, they were inferior to the armour they took from the highwaymen. The swordman guy Zac actually had the only comparable armour.

[Leather Cuirass

Defence 5

Durability 18/20

Leather Armour (chest)

Thin armour protecting the chest and back. Made of sturdy leather. Has some blood on it.]

[Leather Armour

Defence 8 (-1)

Durability 18/25

Leather Armour (chest)

Decently made armour. Well used but not well maintained. Is a little worn out. Has been punctured by an arrow. The inside of the armour has soaked up blood around the puncture.]

Paul packed up everything usable inside of the bag. All of the bandits were wearing simple clothes and furs or leather wrapped around their feet for shoes.

After looking through the combat log, Paul determined the name of the deserted bandit to be Vincent. His name showed up when he got [confused] in the very beginning, but did not show up again later on.

He dragged the dead corpses to a spot surrounded by shrubbery a dozen meters away and threw one of the blankets over them. If someone went looking for them, they would be found, but he wanted to at least lower the chances a bit.

The torch he was carrying seemed like it would die soon, so he wandered out of the forest, to bring his spoils to the dead tree were he had left the other things earlier. It was completely dark when he got out of the forest. He found the place with [Night Vision] and started sorting the items. He put all the short swords, daggers, belts and knives into the basket, except for the sturdiest looking knife.

He also put the rucksack and other small items into the basket.

He rolled the large weapons, the remaining knife and the bag with cookies up in the large waterproof sheet, as well as all of the armour.

He still had no idea how to explain how those items came into his possession without telling the guards that he was hunting bandits. It was not necessarily a bad thing to do so, but Paul still wanted to clear the bandits’ hideout alone did not want to trigger a new search effort by the town guard.

Paul shouldered the full and heavy basket and headed back to the town. He could make camp outside, but why not use his paid-for room at the inn?

After crossing the bridge, Paul he talked to the familiar guard.

“Heya Frank. Still bored?”

“Hi Paul. Yes, nothing happening here. I wonder how long the lord will keep us stationed here.”

“I got this deck of playing cards from at the market this morning. He threw it in to sweeten the deal, but I don’t have anyone to play with. Wanna have it?”

“Well, thank you. I can take it off your hands, but it wouldn’t look good if I encouraged the others here to play while on duty. Have to stay a good role-model for the younger fellas” Frank, the guard, said the last sentence with a proud undertone, but took the set of cards at the same time.

“By the way, there was a person running past me in the dark earlier, headed in this direction. Did someone come through here? Struck me as a little strange, did something happen?”

“Hmm… there were a few people hunting in the plains, like every day, but most of them returned while it was still bright. Now that you mention it, there was one guy looking kinda pale who came through here after the sun set. Wouldn’t have paid any attention, but he wasn’t wearing a bow like most hunters, only a short sword. A little odd, but not too unusual.”

“OK, it’s none of my business anyway. I’m just probably still nervous because of those bandits who tried to rob us when I travelled here with Marcus, but if you say it is nothing unusual, I feel relieved. You have more a better eye for those things than I have”

“Take care anyway. There have been no reports of bandit activity on the other side of the river, but that does not mean it’s safe. Always watch your back. If you see anything suspicious, make sure to report it” Frank said so to Paul. It did not sound like he suspected Paul of doing anything, it was probably just well-meant concern.

“And if you ever want to work for the guard, just go see the captain at the headquarters. Marcus and Jonas are still known here, and I can feel you are suited for the job. It’s not very thrilling to be honest, but most of the time it is pretty safe and you get a stable income.”

“Well… thanks for the offer. I will keep it in mind for the future, but I don’t feel like I’m good enough for the job yet, compared to guys like you, Jonas or Marcus.”

“Haha, don’t worry, the instructor will whip you into shape. Honestly, if you can hold a sword at the right end and can follow orders, I don’t see why they would turn you down.”

“I will think about it. See you then, I’ll head back to town. Thanks for keeping Prozor safe!” Paul had no intention of joining the guard. Standing around all day doing nothing was a dreadful thought for him.

After entering the inn, he saw a lone guy sitting in the community room, short sword strapped to his belt and eating the trademark bland stew.

[Vincent

Human

Level 8]