The red-haired bandit grit her teeth and dug her fingers into her chest. She quickly pulled out the arrows leaving behind a gaping wound. Then, she dug into her clothes and pulled out a small red bottle which she uncapped and poured its contents over the wound taking on a small mouthful.

Hiro frowned, “A potion…”

He looked at his feet and grabbed a war axe. His right arm shone a dim white as he threw the axe as hard as he could. However, to Hiro’s surprise, the red-haired bandit caught the heavy war axe he threw with her bare hands by the blade. Hiro recalled just a few moments earlier she'd pulled out several grey pellets and ate them.

After consuming the pellet her body slowly began to turn a dull grey color similar to those pellets she had swallowed, and now that all of her body was this grey color she shouted, “Kill him!”

The surrounding bandits looked at each other and drew their bows while the rest charged him. The red-haired bandit jumped into the air and swung her two sabers down at the same time. Hiro clenched his fist and as a faint white light began to cover his entire body he mumbled, "Overload."

But just as the blood dripping from his legs began to faintly shine a golden color, suddenly, the red-haired woman shooting straight towards him was cut in half. Her severed upper body was knocked into the air by the blow and flew away, while her lower body fell to the floor beside Hiro.

Hiro’s eyes widened as a maid with a halberd and several mercenaries landed beside him. Then before any of the bandits could react, a burly man charged through the forest straight towards them shouting, “Wolf Fang!”

He unleashed several powerful jabs through the air, and several bandits were sent flying with large holes in their chests. The burly man paused and turned to Hiro revealing a familiar face. Edward raised his arm covered in cuts and bite marks, and gave Hiro a thumbs up, “Told ya you could count on us!”

"Ah," Hiro stared at Edward blankly, and thought to himself, "He's not half-bad"

Noel looked down at Hiro and sighed, she raised her halberd and the green gem inlaid in the center of the halberd shone with a bright green light. Wind began to gather around the tip of the halberd and as several bandits began releasing the monsters from their cages Noel thrust her halberd in their direction and tornado shot out sending all the beasts and the bandits flying through the forest causing dozens of beasts and bandits to be rendered unconscious from the impact of landing or from hitting a tree.

Several of the mercenaries followed up using their weapons to make quick work of the remaining bandits. Soon enough the rest of the bandits either threw down their weapons and surrendered or were naturally killed.

Noel turned to Hiro and sighed, “Young master would you please listen to us for once? What would have happened if we didn’t notice their base of operations? What do you think would happened?”

Hiro scratched his head, and he looked down at his leg covered in dried blood, the golden light it was exuding earlier had vanished, and said, “I would have been fine, probably.”

Suddenly, Hiro felt himself get pushed forward as Edward came up behind him and smacked him a few times in the back with his large hands, he laughed, “I mean with how well he was doing before we got here, perhaps he actually would have been fine.”

Noel turned to Edward, “Sir…”

“Edward is fine, enough with the formalities. Then again sir is shorter. Alright, Ed, call me Ed!”

Noel sighed, she couldn’t help but feel as if this has become a bit of a habit of hers over the years she didn't particularly like lecturing people, but due to her job, it became a force of habit.

“Edward you shouldn't encourage him to act like this, he’s still a child.”

Edward laughed, “A child who took down who knows how many bandits after managing to escape the caravan unbeknownst to several dozen trained individuals until we were informed by the guards. Then he managed to not only find the enemy base of operations but hold out until we got here."

Edward pointed his thumb back at the bandit's campgrounds, "There's even a mage skewered over there, and that girlie you killed was one tough nut wasn't she."

Edward turned his head towards the red-haired bandit's corpse whose skin still remained a dull grey even after she perished, “Though I must say you’re one heck of a gal too ya know, cutting through someone who ate a few Ironskin pellets with one swing. A darn heck of a gal.”

“You flatter me, anyway we need to round up the rest up the-”, Noel paused in fright as her eyes were fixated on what was behind Edward. Edward turned around and he too gaped in shock.

Hiro who was tired of listening to their ramblings walked over to the remaining tied up bandits, and with a swing of his hand, he decapitated them all. Edward screamed, “Oi brat!”

Hiro turned around, “Hmmm?”

“What do you think you’re doing!”

“What do you mean, I was just finishing them off?”

Edward clenched his fists, and shouted, “They surrendered!”

“And? They attacked us, they're criminals, they're evil. The world would be better off without them. Humanity would be better off. It's only natural that I killed them.”

“That’s…”, Edward clenched his fists and exhaled briefly claiming himself, “Alright whatever, but next time just leave them alive, we could always acquire information from them or something.”

“Hmmm,” Hiro shook his hand wiping off the fresh blood, “Alright, next time I suppose. Anyway, how's the caravan.”

Noel walked up and replied, “Everything's been taken care of.”

Hiro nodded, “I see, then I’m going to wash off, I believe there was a stream around that way.”

Then he quickly made his way through the forest. Edward turned to Noel and gave her a meaningful look. Noel bowed and apologized, “I’m sorry for our young master's actions…”

Edward shook his head, “No, it’s fine. In the end, they were criminals, it’s just...it’s just too cruel ya know girlie.”

Edward stared at the decapitated corpses by his feet before turning to his men, “Alright, let’s at least give these guys a proper burial.”

~

After Hiro finished washing up at the stream, he made his way back to the caravan who decided to set up camp further down the road as the blood from all the corpses had filled the air and would likely draw beasts to their location.

As Hiro got back to camp, a girl called out to him, “Um, sir…”

Hiro turned around, and a young girl close to his age dressed in a brown dress walked up to him, “Are you alright?”

“Hmmm? I’m fine.”

“B-But your leg.”

Hiro looked down at his leg that was tightly covered in bandages, and said, “Don’t worry I applied a healing salve, it should be fine.”

Hiro turned back around and began walking away, the girl panicked and mumbled, “Um, but I-”

But before she could finish someone else threw a pebble that hit the back of Hiro’s head. Hiro turned around and noticed a little boy slightly younger than him walk up from behind the girl. The boy had short light brown hair and for the most part wore rags, he shouted, “Just let Collette heal ya, ya dunderhead!”

Collette panicked, and turned to the little boy, “F-Francis you’re being rude!”

However, the little boy Francis ignored Collette and walked up to Hiro staring him dead in the eye, “Your leg was injured right, Collette knows how to work miracles, I’ve seen her. She’ll fix ya back up.”

Collette grabbed Francis by the shoulder and pulled him back, and began apologizing, “I’m sorry for how rude he’s being, his mother was sick and his father was quite strict. Our village didn’t have much to go around, and the church was always so busy, but Francis would always help around. He may seem rude, but I promise you sir that he’s really a good kid at heart. Back in the village when Jonathan the village elders son was bullying the younger kids I saw him stand up for them and got in a fight. The nuns yelled at him and his father even punished him despite the fact that he was doing the right. I just-”

Collette began speaking in rapid fire as she told story after story in an attempt to apologize on Francis's behalf causing Hiro to scratch his head. He raised his hand and motioned her to stop, “Alright I get it”

Hiro walked over to a stump and sat down before he began unwrapping the white bandages around his leg. Hiro looked at Collette and said, “So? What are you waiting for?”

“Ah, yes!”, Collette walked over to Hiro and put her hands a foot or so around his injured leg and closed her eyes as she began mumbling something under her breath.

Hiro watched the young girl cast a healing spell on his leg, it was a bit different from the healing spells he was used too though. As a Hero, the healing spells he had access too were all typically of the highest tier and he never lacked potions, scrolls, and even one of his Divine Artifacts in the past specialized in healing.

It was known as the Radiant Amulet the Divine Artifact of the Fourth Hero used to combat the Demon King who at the time would spread disease and poison throughout the lands via a large amount of miasma. This was the true nature of the Hero’s Halo. Back then as long as he didn’t lose a limb he could easily recover from practically any injury.

The Radiant Amulet’s healing properties were so strong he could even regenerate some minor organs and he was rendered immune to all forms of poison, disease, and it granted him immunities against various magical effects.

As for whenever he’d lose a limb, well if one of the Saint’s typically accompanying him didn’t immediately cast a spell to regenerate his missing limbs then all he really had to do was pull out one of the many magical scrolls he had on hand to do so.

So this was really the first time he ever saw a low-level healing spell. As far back as his memories went all the healing spells he saw were at the very least far more advanced than the one Collette was casting.

Hiro was slightly intrigued by it though, It felt quite different, usually with higher tier spells the change was rapid or almost instantaneous, however, it almost felt as if mana was being poured directly into his leg and as a result, the wound began to slowly heal at a visible rate.

Hiro turned to Collette and noticed that her breathing was quite ragged, and he realized she probably didn’t have a lot of mana, “You don’t need to push yourself.”

Collette shook her head and replied, “It’s fine. I’m fine...”

Hiro hesitated on whether or not he should stop her, but decided to allow her to continue, and finally after ten minutes the wound had finally healed.

Collette sat down on the floor, and wiped the sweat off her face, “It might be a bit itchy later, but do your best not to scratch it.”

Hiro smiled, “Thank you, Collette.”

Collette smiled brightly, “Happy to help uh...”

“I’m Hiro, Hiro Whitmore.”

“Nice to meet you, Hiro”

Francis who was sitting to the side laughed, “Hiro? What a funny name.”