Dust was picking up in the forest along with the insufferable sound of rattling that began to echo through the trees. In the middle of the dust store stood a short old man raging about. "God forbid that we get attacked ever damned time we enter these woods!" The shouting of the middle aged man was quickly drowned out by the intense stomping of the horses. The large wagon that carried the man and his precious belongings, was in the midst of being raided by a group of thieves. Covered in dark brown leather from head to toe, the thieves were relentlessly chasing after the man.

Moving at such high speeds through a forest wasn't the greatest idea, as the man riding the wagon was about to find out. This being a forest, there of course were trees everywhere, but to the man's surprise not only were the trees standing, there were also trees that had fallen down. The horses swiftly jumped over the fallen tree, but the wagon had smashed its wheels into the trees thick bark completely annihilating the wagons ability to move.

With the wagon now stationary, the thieves had quickly jumped of their horses and pulled out their weapons. Circling the wagon as to make sure the man wouldn't be able to escape. The old man popped right out of the wagon and began glaring at his enemies. Drawing a weapon of his own, the man kicked off the wagon roof and landing outside of the circling thieves. With a surprising amount of skill and agility, the old man had dispatch two thieves twelve thieves. Wide eyed, the group of armed robbers quickly repositioned themselves and starting attacking back.

_______________

Pulling the book out from the traveling bag, I continued to read through it. Although I had read about half the book, nothing on the pages made any sense. Of course there would be things I wouldn't get due to being from another world, but the book in front of me was just literally a bunch of gibberish. Frustrated and annoyed, I realized that I had completely forgotten about the soul I had obtained from the armored suit of nothing. With much difficulty in trying to pull the lantern out from my new clothes, I successfully brought it out and peered into the blue light. The soul was was swirling around with the other two wolf mole souls.Thinking back to the notes, the letter that was written to the girl named Lilana started making me think about who this soul belonged to.

Looking back at how strong the armored suit was I decided not to consume the soul. In exchange for the armored suit's soul, I instead ate another Mist Stalker soul. Reading through the mages research I was actually able to identify the creatures that had attacked me earlier, along with a multitude of new different monsters. With my body now healed back to its original state, I started to pick up my pace of travel. Speeding through the forest known as Deadmans Woods, I noticed a trail of dust picking up along the path, again with my curiosity, of course I had to check it out.

By the time I got to the trail, the dust had died down. Looking at the markings that were imprinted on the dirt road, my guess was a wagon was pulled through here along with some others. Judging by the speed the wagon was moving in, the others were probably bandits of some sort. Infusing my legs with mana I sprinted towards wagons direction, hoping to make it there in time. With the thought of saving the wagon rider I could only sigh, "A skeleton that saves people in need, what would the world think of that right." Now able to see the wagon in the distance, I pulled my hood down lower and sped up even more. "Good thing the bandits like wearing a uniform, it'll sure make it easier to know who's who." Closing in on the bandits I drew my sword from my waist and was about to cast magic on it until it hit me, "damn, I forgot magic was a thing of the past now, without a crystal on me I'll be suspicious for using magic. Guess I'll stick to enhancement and infusion.

With a preemptive strike, I stabbed my sword into the back of one of the bandits. Easily breaking his spine, I pulled my sword back along with the man and slung him at other. With great surprise, one of the bandits had shouted, "Damn! the asshole had companions, We need to retreat and regroup before-" before the bandit finished speaking the old man had used a crude weapon of which I had never seen. The weapon made a loud sound and shot something out from its metal pipe. The bandit that had issued a retreat now had a small hole in his throat, blood spewed from the hole and the bandit dropped like rock.

With a cutlass in one hand and the foreign weapon in the other, the old man stood there with a grin on his face. The pressure he gave the other bandits caused them to flinch back. With half their group dead, the odds were definitely against them. The thieves were already having trouble with just the old man, now that he had a companion they new they had to retreat. The bandits all quickly started retreating, not wanting to chase after them I just continued to look in their direction. The old man gave out a hardy laugh as he watched them run away. "HAR HAR HAR! They thought they were tough while chasing after me but boy did they lose their balls when we swung steel." After composing himself from his sudden outbreak of laughter, the man turned to look at me, "didn't really need your help, but ya saved me some gold, every time I shoot this thing all I hear is my gold going down the drain." Walking up to me the man put his hand out, "The name is Bowjack, captain of the Laughing Skulls."

Keeping my face hidden as I introduced myself, I told Bowjack that I would help him with his wagon. With a big grin he accepted my help and told me about the spare wheels in the wagon. I walked back to find the wheels only to found several small children caged up in the back. Rage instantly filled my skeletal body, I rushed back to Bowjack and put him at swords point. "What the hell are there children in cages for Bowjack? Don't tell me you're a slave trader!" Bowjack stared back at me with eyes thinned.

"You best pull your blade before I pull mine out."

"I'll put my sword away when you tell me the truth."

"Truth? What truth? Did I lie to ya about anything I was doing?"

"Don't talk to me like a fool Bowjack, I want to know if i saved you from a group of bandits, or helped you commit such atrocities!"

"You knights in shining armor types have always got on me nerves. Aye, I be transporting slaves, but I transport them to their parents. The Laughing Skulls are apart of the liberation guild. Me and my guildmates pirate slaves back to their homes."

"And? You transport these kids in cages and chains?"

"You accuse me of putting that shit on them! Obviously you never meet a slave before laddie, the chains and cages that are used on them are made with mana crystal dust. Tell me why I should waste time in looking for a mage to bust them out of their cages instead of running away?"

"..."

"That's what I thought, If you're going to be arguing with me all god damn day then you best piss off here, I got kids to send back home, before they send more bandits after me."

Standing there, I couldn't help but have to agree with Bowjack. I still knew to little about this world. I was so caught up in learning new magic that I forgot about everything else. Social standings, poverty, corruption, and the other things that existed in my world should also be in this world. Taking what Bowjack said to heart I knew what I had to do.

"I... I apologize for my out burst Bowjack, You're right, I helped out because I thought it was the right thing to do, even without know the circumstances. I would like to make up for the sudden interrogation. Let me help you bring those kids back."

"... I'm impressed. Didn't think you to be man enough to admit your mistake. Most people would have drawn swords over it, although we almost did. Fine, I'll accept your help, You seem to know how to use a sword, and two people fixing the wagon is much faster then one. But I kick you off if you start piss about again ya hear."

"Acknowledged."

Like Bowjack had said before, with two people fixing the wagon we were already to go. With the bandit attack ending up as a failure, Bowjack had also managed to tie more horses to the wagon. Now with four horses instead of the original two, the speed of the wagon was much faster. I also secretly cast a wind spell in order to ease up the rocking, with the children in the back and in cages, I thought that this would at least help them be more comfortable. Continue down the path we ran into more bandits, normally Bowjack would just try to out run them, but this time he stopped to attack.

Bowjack had given me the reins for the horses, not sure how to control the wagon I instead put more mana into the wind spell I cast earlier to control the entire wagon. Bowjack crawled to the back of the wagon and pulled out his mysterious rock shooting weapon. He told me to keep the wagon steady only to realize there wasn't any rocking or rattling. "Well I'll be damned, I may not know how to steer a wagon like a ship, but ya sure put me to shame real quick there laddie." He quickly began to shoot down the approaching bandits, but with me wind magic carrying the wagon instead of the horses, the bandits weren't able to catch up to us. After killing about half the group, the bandits retreated again, "HAR HAR HAR! These new wheels we be using must be blessed by the gods themselves!"

"Yeah, by the gods themselves," I muttered quietly. Having escaped the bandits a second time unlike before, after some time passed they never can back for a third strike. The slave trader that ordered the bandits must have lost a profit hiring them was the only reason I came up with. I peered back into the wagon and looked at the group of children bound by cages and chains. All of them had the same look to them. Eyes half closed with dried tears covering their cheeks. Turning back around and staring at the road I couldn't help but feel resentment towards the world.