After about 3 and a half months of traveling quickly, we managed to cover 480 of the 500 kilometers of distance. Today was a peaceful day. The heavy thudding of my plated boots covered Jane's softer steps. It was oddly quiet until we heard sounds of battle ahead of us.

The clang of swords striking was prevalent. Jane wanted to go see if anyone was in trouble and I obliged. Mostly because she saw how effective puppy eyes were and used it on me. Regardless, we headed over and checked to see what was happening. A caravan was being raided and the guards were in a heated fight with the bandits.

Only around 20 guards were left while more than 60 bandits were still alive. It seemed the leader of the bandits stepped onto the scene since the bandits were following one person. A man with twin axes was rampaging among the guards, slowly but steadily killing them.

Before the situation got any worse, I rushed in as fast as I could. I pulled my greatsword off my back and charged at the nearest bandit. He was distracted by his leader's killing spree. He was probably deaf too since my plated boots were extremely loud. When he finally noticed me, his torso was already separated from his legs.

I frowned since some of the blood got on me. His screams of pain alerted the rest of the bandits to my presence. They turned around and we both sized each other up. He was a bulky fellow, with his arms looking like logs. He wore crude leather armor and his axes were slightly chipped, possibly from idiotically blocking weapons with the edge of his axes' blades.

When he noticed I was missing an arm, he let out an amused laugh and greedily looked at my gear.

"What are you going to do with just one arm when there's over 60 of us here? Alright boys, surround him and kill him! Bring me his sword and armor!" The mass of bandits charged at me. I focused on the six in front of me before preparing a swing. The massive blade bisected 4 of them while mortally wounding the other 2. I swung again to get rid of another group of bandits. In the corner of my vision, I noticed a few bandit archers aiming at me. I got into a stance that would make the closest bandits get only glancing blows on my armor.

The archers released their arrows at me and I positioned my sword so that it would deflect the arrows. Once that was done, I ducked under a sword aimed for my head and sliced another row of bandits in half. The archers all caught some of Jane's arrows in their eye sockets.

The bandit leader was getting angrier at the fact that they couldn't get rid of me.

"WHAT ARE YOU FOOLS DOING?! HE IS ONLY ONE MAN. HE'S EVEN MISSING AN ARM! KILL HIM ALREADY!" He was fuming and his lungs looked like they would burst from anger.

After another row of bandits was wiped, he personally stepped in. And by that, I meant he launched a surprise attack at my back. I ducked under the axes and swiftly drove the tipped pommel of my greatsword into his side.

I felt some of his ribs break when I landed the hit. He retreated with a bruised, bloody hole in his side. Charging at me once again, I deflected his wild swings and shattered his axes with a single hit.

He was distracted by this and I used the opportunity to quickly behead him. When the other bandits saw this scene, they slowly started backing off at my blood-soaked, practically uninjured figure. I activated my aura to quickly scare them off. I looked around and saw that some of the bandit corpses had arrows in their vital areas. Jane probably kept them off me while I fought their leader. I'll have to thank her later.

Deactivating the aura, I turned around to grateful looks from the caravan guards. A group of men, women, and children came out of the carriages since the commotion was over. The first thing I noticed was some of these people had different colored hair, like green or pink. A man, presumably the leader of the caravan, approached me.

"Hey, I'm Ethan Rogers. It must have been fate that you came along." Fate? What's that? I sized up Ethan and discovered that he was just an average man. Save for his sky blue hair of course.

"I'm Michael Adkins and my partner is Jane Crimson." I gestured to Jane who was approaching in the distance. Ethan immediately pulled me closer.

"How did you score a girl like her? I wanna be like you, having a beautiful girl at my side." He gave me an envious look.

"Luck. Simple, dumb luck." Ethan wasn't satisfied with this answer, but let it go.

I waited for Jane to come over and scavenge some of her arrows. Once she was done, I introduced the both of us to the rest of the people. They seemed a bit more relieved after we joined the caravan. We climbed into Ethan's carriage and sat down. Jane sat next to me and rested her head on my shoulder. This action drew envious looks from the other men in this carriage, but I shrugged it off.

Nightfall came around, and we set up camp. I withdrew some firewood I kept stored in my inventory and sat down with Jane at the campfire. Before I cooked us a meal, I decided to check my cooking skill.

Cooking The ability to cook. Higher mastery levels will make your dishes tastier. Mastery: Intermediate 2 Effect: 24%

I thought my skill was satisfactory as I placed skillet over the fire. I pulled a pan out from my inventory along with plenty of cooking ingredients. I was aware of what would happen and prepared in advance. I placed boar fat in the pan and let it coat the pan.

Once that was done, I placed a slab of boar meat in the pan and started cooking it. When the meat was finished, I sliced it in half and placed it on two plates. Lightly seasoning the meat, I placed some vegetables on the plate as a side for the meat. I handed one plate to Jane and we started eating. Some of the other caravaneers came over, smelling the food and seeing us eating.

"Mister, can we have some?" One of the children asked. My gaze softened when the child asked that question and I prepared a smaller portion for him. Seeing his smile was heartwarming. I looked over at Jane and she gave me a nod.

I started cooking and serving meals to the others. Their expressions were filled with bliss as they ate the food. Some even asked to be friends and suggested I open a tavern if I ever got tired of the adventuring life. It sounded like an interesting prospect and I kept it in the back of my mind. Ethan pulled out the ale and a party was quickly started. Of course, I got involved in the drinking too.

It was a merry night.