Bandits are one of the most common kind of criminals an adventurer is going to have to deal with in his lifetime. They can be found anywhere, particularly in poor or war torn countries. They always set base in forests, caves, mountains, or in some special cases, in the slums of a city. They may be brought back to the Guild alive, but the reward doesn't change much, because countries don't see any merit in sending bandits to prison, since they're considered the most unrecoverable scum on the face of Ghendrel by most. Though there are cases of people becoming bandits out of desperation instead of simple criminal attitude, most of these persons end up killing their conscience and becoming like any normal bandit. As such adventurers should have no mercy against these criminals, as they will not have any towards you.

Adventurer's Guide,chapter 27

"Damn, Kieris is far"

Andrew was complaining for the fact that he had been walking for two days ,and he still hadn't reached the capital. It wasn't a really hard trip: at night he slept in an incredibly comfortable darkness bubble, and regarding the food, he simply caught any animal he found and rosted it with a special flame that annulled every possible negative effect on his health, even if his food often got burned. What annoyed him was that he had been walking for ages, and now he was following a road in a forest. Also, it seemed that any human presence near Gorwyn disappeared, due to the fact that now the city is a dungeon: every village he stumbled upon was empty and not a single caravan was on the road. Andrew was seriously beginning to feel lonely. While he was thinking of all of this, he began sensing a lot of presences around him.

"Finally, someone! Wait.... i'm alone... in a forest..... and suddenly a lot of presences appear...."

Ten to fifteen men dressed in rugs and rusty armor appeared from the bushes, their faces grinning.

"Ugh, bandits"

One of the bandits, who wore a much less rusted armor and actual decent clothes put himself in front of Andrew. He was clearly their leader.

"Now, now, look at what we have here.Why is such a young kid like you traveling all alone? Don't you know that where you came from there's a dungeon?"

Andrew's face clearly showed annoyance,which the bandit noticed.

"Oh ,calm down kid, i was just worried about your safety. Now though, with us you'll have no problems,we'll make it so that you can pass this forest without problems. You'll just have to pay a small fee"

"Really, now? I don't have nothing valuable with me though"

"That's a shame, it just means you're gonna have to work for a while to pay us"

"I'm sorry, but i don't think i'll do that"

The bandit leader's face turned to one of cockiness to one of rage.

"Hey, little shit ,i don't think you understand the situation. We. Are. Bandits. Meaning you do what the fuck we tell you to do. Understand? Now come with us a-"

A black sword came out of a black hole and pierced the man's neck, whose face was now full of shock.

"As i said, i don't think i'll do that, understand?"

The bandit leader fell on the ground, his blood dying the ground in red.

"YOU SHIT!"

"BOSS! WHAT THE FUCK!"

"BASTARD!"

His comrades began panicking and cursing. They didn't think for even a second before attacking the boy in front of them. Two of them ran at Andrew holding their swords over their heads, he easily dodged their attack, making them fall on each other, then proceeded to cut them in half. Three men with bows tried to hit him, but he simply jumped away from the arrows, then towards the archers, slashing them with ease. A man with a mace tried to hit him from behind, but Andrew simply elbowed him in the stomach and stabbed his heart.

The remaining bandits began realizing who they were dealing with and thought of running, but four of them tried to attack him again, their thoughts and survival instincts clouded by the fear. Andrew got lazy and simply shot some dark spheres at them, piercing their heads. Now only three bandits remained, who began to run away the moment he looked at them, but were all shot down, apart from one, who he hit in the legs, making it impossible for him to run away. Andrew crouched right next to the bandit, who was clearly terrified.

"P-Please, do-don't kill me! I'll do whatever you want!"

"Ok, then, where's your camp?"

"Uh?"

Andrew wanted to know where their camp was, to see if he could find anything useful. Also because he didn't want that kind of scum to roam free.

"What, you sleep in the trees?"

"NO, NO...it's over there, you just have to follow that road!"

He pointed towards a small road, well hidden by the bushes, that Andrew wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

"I see, then i just have to follow that road?"

"Yes, yes! Now let me go, please!"

"Calm down, i won't kill you"

Andrew stood up and and quickly disappeared between the bushes. The bandit was alone, surrounded by the bodies of his colleagues.

"Ah..ahahaha...i'm saved...ahahahahah...i'm saved"

He was filled with relief. He just managed to survive the attack of some kind of magic swordsman that killed everyone else. It was a miracle.

"Yes.... YES!"

But while he was laughing, he heard growls, many of them.

"Uh? What's happening?"

He looked around. There were wolves everywhere, attracted by the smell of blood. Four of them began closing in on him.

"NO! STAY BACK! STAY BACK! STAY BACK!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

A scream resonated trough all of the forest,heard even by Andrew, who spoke quietly.

"Told you I wouldn't kill you"

After walking for ten minutes, he finally reached the bandit's camp. It wasn't really big, there were only a few tents and huts, all of them old and ruined. Andrew thought he had killed all of the bandits, but there were still 7 remaining, who were guarding some kind of cave, which had wooden bars to block the entrance.

"I wonder what they're guarding in there"

Andrew managed to sneak into the camp without being seen, then hid behind the hut closest to the cave, where he could hear whatever the bandits said.

"Hey, you think the boss is gonna bring something this time?"

"I hope so, we didn't get anything good recently"

"Well, it's not like we can since everyone has left this area due to that new dungeon"

"And we can't even go to another place"

"If only we weren't hunted by those damn adventurers"

They spoke of trivial chat for a while, and Andrew was thinking of just ending it, when he heard something interesting:

"Sooooo, what will we do with the guys in the cell? It's not like we can take care of them forever"

"The boss said to sell them to the first slaver that we find, but there aren't many chances of that happening...."

"Can't we just kill them then? We're just wasting food"

"Nah, when the waters calm down and we go set up camp somewhere else, five adventurers are gonna be worth a lot"

"Yeah, that's true"

"Adventurers?" Andrew thought to himself.

He didn't want to waste time saving them, they were his enemies after all, but if he did he could get a guide towards

the capital, along with useful information. He decided that in the long run it would have been much more beneficial to save them than to leave them. And then again, he hated bandits and slavers much more than adventurers. At least adventurers weren't total scum that took advantage of their own kind.... he hoped.

He jumped out to the rock and took out the closest bandit with his sword. He didn't use magic so as to not attract suspicion by the prisoners in case they saw him.

"What the heck?!?"

"HE KILLED KENNIOS!"

"YOU BASTARD!"

The bandits all jumped at him but it wasn't a problem for Andrew to dodge them all,while also slashing two of them.The remaining four tried to surround him,but he simply pierced one of them and got out of the formation.

"SHIT!THIS GUY IS FOR REAL!"

"HEY,GUYS,LET'S RU-"

Andrew punched the cowardly bandit in the face, throwing him towards a rock which he hit with his head, breaking the neck.The crunching sound was quite loud and disturbing, even for him. The two surviving bandits were trembling in place,not knowing what to do. Andrew simply cut their heads off before they could react. Having finished the job, he walked towards the cave and shouted.

"HEY! ANYBODY THERE?"

Silence was the only answer he could hear for a while but then he saw five figures coming out of the darkness of the improvised cell. There were three men and two girls, with one of them distancing herself from the rest.

"You ok? Did they do anything to you?"

The youngest-looking of them got in front. He had an average height, muscular body, short brown hair and like all the others, he just had some leather clothes on him.

"Thank you for saving us...but who are you?You overwhelmed those guys so easily"

Andrew stood silent for some seconds, searching quickly for an excuse.

"I'm... a nomad. And i heard you're adventurers?"

"Yes, we are. But now free us, quickly! Before the others come back"

"Oh, you mean the other bandits? I already took care of them"

All the adventurers' faces gave an expression of surprise like no other, apart from the girl who stood distant from them, who just looked passively.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? THEY WERE LIKE TWENTY PEOPLE!"

"...Yes, i'm serious calm down"

"HOLY SHIT! DID YOU HEAR THAT GUYS?!?"

"Yes, impressing.... if it's true"

The one who spoke was a slim man in his mid-twenties,who had short straight grey hair and wore glasses.His friends calmed down when they heard the statement.

"Yeah, it's... a bit exaggerated if we think about it..... twenty men alone.... even if he defeated seven by himself, he had to make a surprise attack"

This time a young girl with long, brown hair and blue eyes talked. She looked like she would be the mascot of the group.

"Why are we still talking about this? He saved us, who cares how many bandits he killed? Please don't listen to them and just let us get out of here"

The oldest person between them spoke. He had an incredibly tough-looking body,with a few scars here and there and blond hair.

"I think he could easily do it"

Now the odd one out talked, still with that apathetic face. She looked very frail, but she was nonetheless beautiful, with messy, red scarlet hair and eyes, lips the color of bloody roses and a killer body. Her beauty was accentuated by a red tattoo that could be seen on her right shoulder, which was mostly hidden by her clothes. She also released this strange and mysterious aura that one could not help but notice.

"Ah, please stop saying such absurdities you idiot" The glasses man said so with a voice full of annoyance.

"Yeah, could you please stop saying stupid things" The other girl looked at her with contempt.

"WHO CARES ABOUT HER BULLSHIT, LET'S GO!" The tough guy was clearly getting impatient.

"Calm down! Now, please,get us out of here" The boy finally spoke. He seemed to be the leader.

Andrew kept himself from letting them rot there because the red-haired girl was still inside. He cut the wooden bars with his Perditor, then helped them find their equipment. When they finished searching for it they went towards the road, farther away from the point Andrew got in from, since he didn't want to show the carnage to them. Also he still was puzzled about what the red-haired girl said .She seemed.... rather abnormal compared to her fri-colleagues. Very shitty colleagues. They stopped walking when they reached the road, then the leader of the adventurers began speaking with Andrew.

"First of all, i want to thank you for saving us. Can we do something to repay you?"

"Well, i guess you could guide me to Kieris"

"Really? We were going there. We have to report what happened to us to the Guild after all"

"And that is...?"

"You see, we were going to Gorwyn as scouts to check out the situation of the dungeon, but these bandits surprised us while we were sleeping and captured us"

"Wasn't there anyone standing guard?"

"Ehm....i was.....but i was attacked out of nowhere by, like, ten people, so yeah...."

"So you stopped to sleep at the forest and got captured"

"....Yes"

Andrew realized that he at least wasn't dealing with professionals, so he decided that a fight could have been an easy option if he needed to get rid of them.

"Well, could you tell me your names? I can't just call you Hey for the rest of the trip"

"Oh, yeah, right. I'm Drei,the huge guy is Grodia,the smart-ass Owa and the girl is Frea"

"And the red-hair?"

Andrew was really getting mad at how badly they were treating her.

"Oh, she's Rulia"

"Hi, nice to meet you"

She smiled cheerfully and waved her hand at Andrew. He was getting even angrier at how they treated her now, and wanted to beat the shit out of them, but he managed to skillfully hide his rage under a fake smile.

"So, shall we go now?"

"Right, right, we gotta go. Come on guys, it's just one day ahead! Thank the Goddess the bandits still had all our stuff and food"

"Yeah, quite lucky" said Andrew, who didn't really need any of those things.

And so they began marching to their destination.

A little before getting out of the forest, Rulia came to Andrew, her eyes staring at him ever so intensively. He was beginning to feel awkward.

"Ehm... is there something you want?"

"Oh, yes, i have to tell you something actually"

She got really close to Andrew's near, who was really feeling embarrassed now.

"Hey, too close!"

He pushed her away while trying to hide his slight blush.

"Just let me tell you one thing, ok?"

Her face returned to her passive expression.

"O-ok"

Andrew was still uncomfortable, but let her get close anyways. She closed in ,even more than before, but this time she wasn't pushed away, mainly because she didn't let him do it.

"You know....."

She grinned slightly.

"It's really cute when you hide your bloodlust with that smile"

Hello guys! Liked the chapter ?Hope you did, since i'm introducing new characters. Also,

CLIFFHANGER, MOTHERFUCKERS!GET DUNKED ON!