Judy P.O.V :

It happened again. Not for the first time something strange happened around my little brother. I first noticed it with those plants he was growing in his small corner of the garden, now he may have put a lot more time into a fewer number of plants than mom did but getting a better result on the first time was unnatural.

Killing this boar, that some of the other merchants seem to think is above average level for a boar should not be something a kid who had not turned 10 yet should be able to do. Especially after wounding his dominant arm not 4 days ago.

“Now wait just a minute, who said he is giving away this meat for free?” I jump in before the vultures can pick away at the bountiful resource that is the boar. “I’m sure my brother will be more than happy to sell you enough to cook for yourselves today and sell the rest tomorrow when we reach our first stop.”

Hopefully by the end of this trip he might deem to trust me with all the things he has going on, after all it seems Tom slipping out that he had a stealth skill seems to have done a number on him, I still remember the dread that showed on his face when he learned that his skill was out there.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, though I had to be a lot more careful when going to practice as some of the merchants took it upon themselves to spy on me for a bit the first few times after I brought back the boar.

As for my practice it was very fruitful. Not only did I get better at handling keeping the wind enchant on my blade I even learned to use the earth weight augmentation to its fullest. True it was not exactly the most useful ability to use when wielding a sword but considering that the weight changed for a very brief period of time it did wonders for a hammer swing.

I was still working to find an application for fire and water as those were much stronger elements when used in larger amounts and power rather than small short bursts. Not having witnessed anyone or anything ever use the elements also limited me in working with them for now.

The two towns we had passed through on our way over seemed like nothing special. The building looked very much like the ones in our own village and besides spending the day at the stall my sister manned while we were there with her trying to get a cheaper price to sell for a profit in the city nothing much changed.

We were about 6 hours away from the city when my desire for something to replace the boredom was answered in a way I had not imagined or could have hoped for. In the middle of the road, right after a tight corner, lay a fallen tree. One that looked to have been cut down rather than fallen by looking at the clean cut at the base.

The merchants seemed to have come to the same conclusion as I had as they all sprung into motion to get the carts turned around and head back to find another road that led to the city. Alas, they were not quick enough as a rough voice came out from behind a tree.

“Look at this boys, what do we have here?” What was clearly the leader of the bandits commented in a fake surprised voice. “You folks look like you’re in need of assistance”.

“We are perfectly fine, just turning around and we will be on our way” the lead merchant of the caravan said in an unsure voice. We’re not looking for any trouble”.

“Now who said anything about trouble? Did you hear me say anything about trouble?” his voice taking an even more ridiculous tone than before.

“No, I didn’t hear anything like that boss” one of the other henchmen replied with an evil smirk on his face.

There were about 20 bandits, we outnumbered them 2 to 1 but I somehow doubted me, my sister and Alana were in the minority in not being a match for a bandit. My eyes were going from one thug to another trying to check for a weak link in their formation in case I had to grab Judy and make a run for it.

After taking a full look around the encirclement I didn’t have a single idea as to where the best path of escape would be, except I knew for certain it wasn’t anywhere near the leader, he was definitely one of the strongest as even the rest of the bandits gave me a wide breadth.

As I was looking between the bandits to figure out which one could be the weak link i got a new skill [Judge Threat], now every time I focused on a different person I got a strange feeling, sadly none of them were good, so I couldn’t exactly tell what they meant as I didn’t have a baseline so I turned towards the only other person in the caravan who was younger than 10, the 6 year old son of a different merchant.

The feeling I got from him was comfortable, someone I knew I could beat, with my new baseline formed I turned back to looking through the bandits to see if I could better spot a weak link. It wasn’t much but I could feel a lot less power coming from 3 of the ones blocking off the way to the right. All of them felt like they would put me through the grinder but that their grinder would be running a lot slower than the others.

The worst feeling of them all didn’t come from the leader, it came from the guy behind us all close off the way back to the village. He felt like he could take on any 2 of the others, any three if the leader wasn’t one of them. With him behind us all watching our every move instead of talking I didn't feel great about our chances.

“Stop this at once” a loud voice proclaimed coming from behind the bandit leader. "You are all under arrest”.

The voice belonged to a city guard with a much fancier uniform than my brother had, behind him were 15 other soldiers all with better looking uniforms, though not as important looking as their leader.

“Men don’t let them get away, these lot have already hit 3 other caravans, we won’t let them disrupt Lessis’ trade any further” The captain announced, thought I am not sure why he would bother in doing so loud enough for all of us to hear, was he that self important?. “Capture those that surrender but let none get away”.

And there it was, the reason for all his grandstanding, he was looking to make his own job easier by threatening the bandits with death without actually saying the words. The severe man looked like he was in his late 30s or early 40s though in this world age isn’t something you can base off of looks with the way increased stats affected it.

As he finished his speech 2 bandits, both part of the 3 weak ones I spotted for my escape plan, took off running towards the woods. They didn’t make it more than 3 steps before they each took 2 arrows from crossbows. This seemed to be the end of the fight as the rest of the bandits took a look at the 2 bodies before looking down at the ground defeated and resigned, even the stronger one behind us seemed to be in no mood to fight, his face ashen, despite his clenching fists giving away his frustration with the situation.

The remaining bandits were rounded up rather quickly after that, all of them were shackled with thick iron chains that radiated magic in a way I’ve never felt before. A more focused look at the chains showed some weird symbols engraved in the metal, this must be the runic magic Kate told me about, the 3rd and final way to use magic and the widest spread as it required very little skill to use but quite a lot to create.

As the soldiers rounded up the bandits I took a quick look at them with Judge Threat and found them to be at only a slightly higher level than the bandits themselves, half of them inferior to the stronger bandit that had blocked off our escape.

As the bandits were all being led off the commander of the soldiers also finished his words with the lead merchant and went to follow his men. As he was leaving I decided to check just how strong he was. After I focused on him I was filled with dread, none of his own men compared with him in terms of strength, I could feel my face pale a little from the pressure.

At this he stopped and spun a frown sporting on his previous stern but neutral face, a judging glance that wandered until his eyes landed upon me at which point his frown deepened for a moment before his eyebrows shot up in surprise. His previous frown was quickly replaced by a smirk as he shook his head good naturedly and turned back around to march towards the city.