*NOTE: Until the start of the new year I'll only release a chapter every 4 days, as you know it's the Christmas season and it can get busy IRL, I ask for everyone's understanding.*

Three days after the trial, Ren came to visit Soma in his mansion along with Mark and Max.

“You coming to visit me in my home means that those idiots are about to attack the town, right?”(Soma)

“…So you knew about that?”(Ren)

“Yeah, it was mentioned in that diary we found when we dealt with the twins, the ‘Observation of the shady side of the Love Church Vol 5’, it was mentioned that the twins had come into contact with a group of 200 men and women who looked to be bandits, but they carried with them weapons that bandits could never afford, they had weapons made out of Mithril and magic steel, and such group came in contact with the twins who were creating monsters deep within the forest and from their interactions with each other they appeared to know each other”(Soma)

“I figured it was like so as well, every year after the fight against the flood, I would take my injured Knights and go back to the capital city…”(Ren)

“We would always lose some of our Knights fighting the Flood leaving the rest of us all gravely injured and exhausted…”(Mark)

“And the same could be said about the townspeople, everyone would come out of that fight injured and tired to the point of that the town would need to stop functioning for a whole month at the least, and us staying in the town will lead to the people taking care of us as thanks for protecting them, but that would only cause them to take care of themselves less and less, we didn’t want that to happen, and so we would always leave the town right after the battle”(Max)

“But there is another problem the town has to suffer, days after we leave the town, a group of bandits would attack the town taking advantage of its condition after the fight and would demand that the townspeople hand over their money, food, and many other things, the Lord would always stand in their way and negotiate with them to take the goods and money but leave the people alone, there is no one to fight them and if they wanted to take women and children as pleaser slaves, no one would be able to stop them, that’s why the Lord would always try to convince them to take the money and goods and leave the people alone, I always wanted to remain here and protect the people, but we would always be in no condition to do that, and even if we chose to remain we would only hold the townspeople back and the bandits might take some of us injured knights hostages to elevate their position in the negotiation with Lord ruining everything”(Ren)

“I see…”(Soma)

“Honestly when you came to me asking me to take the Knights and leave the town I thought that you were talking about this matter, I thought that you wanted us to leave the town to attract the bandits here, but it turned out to be for a different thing entirely”(Ren)

“It’s not different at all, when returning to the town you came back through a different route than the one you took right?”(Soma)

“Yes, I figured that I would use us leaving the town as bait for both the Drold household and the bandits, we left the town while acting as if we were injured and on our way back, we made sure to take the route on the opposite side of the town all the while scouting ahead to make sure that the bandits are not able to see us, and we entered the town in small batches as to not attract attention to us by making use of the town’s soldiers, we had the soldiers go on patrols around the surroundings of the town and a small group of us would hide amongst them every time they returned to the town, and to make it more even more of a bait to the bandits, we had the soldiers dress and act as if they were injured”(Ren)

“Good job! To think that you were able to come up with all of this..”(Soma)

“No, that’s not it! Actually, we had all of this planned by the second day of the Flood, and the plan was mostly the brainchild of the Lord and not me”(Ren)

“Even then, you did a great job fulfilling both requirements at the same time”(Soma)

“Well, protecting this country is my job and my utmost desire, and thanks to you it seems that we will be able to fix a lot of problems that we were not even aware of, really thank you very much!”(Ren)

“You don’t need to thank me, everything I did is for myself, but never mind that now, why did you come to visit me today?”(Soma)

“I came to tell you that the Bandits are on the move, according to our scouts, they should be here by tomorrow afternoon, that’s why I wanted to ask you if you are willing to participate with us the Knights in fighting against the bandits?”(Ren)

“I have an even more interesting plan, hear me out……..”(Soma)

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A group of armored men and women made their way towards Elk the town that survived the Flood some days ago, the Flood consisted of thousands of monsters from different types that attacked the town like an army.

The group of men and women knew about the Flood more than the people of the town, this group of bandits is in reality a group of soldiers coming all the way from the South Cardinal Kingdom north of the Valc Kingdom, their job consisted of coordinating with the two tamers coming from Vitos the Holy Kingdom, and to attack the town after the end of the Flood outstretched by the twins, their goal is to attack the town while pretending to be bandits, and take all the money and goods they could take, their reason for that is to give the Love Church a chance to integrate itself into the town by offering the townspeople assistance, they have been doing this same thing for years now but the people of this town would always refuse to accept any help from the Love Church and so the “bandits’” job is to take more and more from the town in hopes of driving them more and more into a corner, and this time they intend to take 70% of everything the town’s money and goods.

“…How did the scouting mission go?”(Bandit Leader)

“Perfectly! We were able to confirm the absence of the Knight Order and the damage the town suffered by looking at the soldiers going out on patrols around the surroundings of the town, the armor they were wearing was tattered and broken in multiple places, and some of them were clearly suffering from broken bones and some nasty bruises!”(Bandit Scout)

“Same as always then, but man… it’s going to be a pain carrying all of the goods we are about to blunder from them”(Bandit Leader)

“Why did we need to send scouts in the first place? Of course, they are in a bad condition! The monsters that the twins unleashed on them were no joke at all this time, them surviving is a miracle in itself! These people are even worse than cockroaches, they keep surviving again and again!”(Bandit)

“True True!”(Bandit)

“How about we kill some of them as an example?”(Bandit Scout)

“That might scare them just enough to make them accept the Church’s offer! What do you think, Leader?”(Bandit)

“Humm, that does sound like a good idea! How about we do that after that Lord of theirs hand over the money and goods we are after? Yeah, let's do that!”(Bandit Leader)

The bandit group continued their march towards the town all the while chatting and laughing, they were already thinking about how they were going to kill those savages that lived in Elk, and after three hours they finally made it to the town, but they were surprised to find the gates open and blood marks were visible here and there all over the gates and walls of the town, they thought that these blood marks were left behind by the fight against the Flood’s monsters and proceeded towards the town, once inside the town they were able to see how much damage was inflicted on the town and blood marks were all over the place, they walked towards the Lord’s castle as if they owned the place, all the while looking around at the people of the town escaping away from them, and once all of the 200 bandits were inside the town, the gate they entered through slammed shut surprising all of them into drawing their weapons, but that was not all, their surroundings started to change, the blood marks started disappearing along with the damage done to the town, but what surprised them the most was the appearance of the Knight Order out of nowhere, out of thin air the Knight Order and the townspeople are right now surrounding the bandits from every direction with their weapons on the ready.

“What’s the meaning of this?! Where did you all come from?!”(Bandit Leader)

“Well Well, I believe this is my first time meeting you, you always came to attack the town after we leave, after all”(Ren)

“Well, it’s not my first time meeting them! I certainly have met the lot of them, filthy bandits!”(Dolan)

“What are you doing here?! I was sure you left the town days ago!”(Bandit Leader)

“Well, that’s what happens when you underestimate your foes too much! Me leaving the town with the Knights Order was nothing but us setting this trap for you lot!”(Ren)

“Trap you say?! Don’t you know who I am?! I am the leader of the biggest bandit group in this whole kingdom! Are you going to resist just to have your people killed?!”(Bandit Leader)

“I’m fully aware of who you are and why you are here, I assure you! Isn’t that right, Soma?”(Ren)

“Yeah, Vitos’s dogs are too used to having the upper hand all the time causing their default stance to be that of them underestimating their opponents”(Soma)

Soma’s voice came from behind them and when they all looked at him they all were surprised by what they saw, Soma was sitting on top of a two-headed lizard and the bandits were familiar with the said lizard, it was the two-headed Salamander that the twins rode on top all the time.

“Y-You! Where did get this Salamander?! It shouldn’t be with you and why is it letting you sit on top of it?!”(Bandit Leader)

“Simple enough, this Salamander was under the control of some annoying twins that we found were the cause of the Flood, and so after killing them I tamed it for myself, that’s all”(Soma)

“T-That can’t be!! Those two would never lose to some mongrels like you! You must have used some underhanded method to do it!!”(Bandit Leader)

“Says the soldier sent by the South Cardinal Kingdom to act like a bandit, says the guy who enjoys taking money from injured and exhausted innocent people, but that ends here, the whole lot of you are going to die here and now!”(Soma)

“Hrmph, as if a group of weak-ass knights and townspeople are going to be stronger than us! Guys show them what’s the meaning of true strength!!”(Bandit Leader)

“ “ “OOOWWWW-!” ” ”

“ “ “GYAAAAAAA!!” ” ”

“…W-What?!”(Bandit Leader)

Before the bandits were able to finish their war cry, fire streaming from the Salamander’s mouths burned more than 50 of them to death leaving the rest dumbfounded, but that wasn’t the end of it, Ren dashed at them and used his sword to behead the bandits one after the other, and from the other side Dolan was swinging his hammer at the bandits one after one planting them in the ground.

“Impossible! Impossible! How can you be this strong?! Even though all of us here are users of the pink system, how can you be stronger than us?!”(Bandit Leader)

“Even if you are users of the pink system, the difference of levels between us is enough to make us this much stronger than you lot!”(Dolan)

“…Level difference…?”(Bandit Leader)

“Yeah, thanks to those monsters you keep sending at us our levels kept going up and up and this is the result of it all!”(Ren)

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Inside the forest, a magic circle appeared on the ground, and from that circle one of the bandits appeared “…I have to go and report this to the Church! Those stupid mongrels well pay for this humiliation!”(Bandit)

“As I thought, one of you had the ability to use Space-Time Magic! You must be the one who had to take the loot back to the South Cardinal Kingdom, I have been thinking where did all the goods the bandits took from here ended at, and one of the ideas I came up with was that one of you guys is able to use Space-Time Magic, and it seems that I was right”(Soma)

The bandit unsheathed his sword and dashed towards Soma, but out of nowhere Soma’s sword came and beheaded him before he was even able to see it coming. And that was the end of the bandits.

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