Life is not a game on a screen that you can look at. However, to Ayva at that moment, it was actually like a game.

He can feel the bandits moving in the distance. If he puts his ear on the ground, he can even feel the vibration. He can map where he is and have a general understanding of where his enemies are. He can even draw out their position on a map.

...And, he can also move just out of their detection distance when it comes to it. He knows when to move and when to stay.

It is like a game of stealth. Stay out of the enemies detection range.

However, life is not a game. Even though Ayva took care to stay out of the enemies' detection range, currently he is trapped.

Even though he knows their movement beforehand, slowly, the bandits have been encircling his position. By closing the gap, they left no room for him to escape. Then, slowly, they close in.

However, Ayva was sure that the bandits do not know that he was there, so it was inconceivable how they were able to do this? Was it by chance perhaps?

Impossible.

More importantly, Ayva managed to do a head count. There was 50 of them, bandits.

Combine that with the 20 archers, it is a sizable force of 70, they must have moved from the other side of the road, why did no one notice? Could they be so amazing that even experienced guard and lord in charge of the road got tricked by them?

Thinking logically, Ayva smelled blood.

Suddenly, an image pops in his mind, it was the detect enemies skill. It acted like a super instinctive detective intuition that allows him to track his enemies by visually imagining them in his head through the sign.

In his mind, Ayva saw experienced knights, guards and other fell. It was a bloodbath.

The answer to why they manage to escape notice was that they killed them all.

Ayva feels sick in his stomach, such cruelty, these people was real criminal. However, even if they were cruel, there has to be a limit to what they can do. How could they simply slaughter all the guards and people guarding the road without even one person escaping to notice the local militia?

Yes, unless there was such a disparity in force that escaping was impossible, it is not possible for the situation to be like this.

For a while now, his Detect Enemies skill has been pinging something in Ayva's sense. It was a very different feeling from a normal enemies. It is not intuition. It can tell him that there was a single enemy, more special than any other. However, it can't tell him what that enemy is.

In Ayva's sense, that person was like a light in the darkness of other bandit. They were special. Ayva could tell that they were the leader, but special how?

His sense keeps nagging at him as the bandits tighten the circle. If he stay very still, could they not detect him? However, his sense keeps nagging at him.

No, he would not be safe, unless.... unless he equips those that is...

Immediately, climbing up a tree, Ayva switches gear and takes out [Detect Enemies] and [Detect Traps]. Instead, the two skills he puts in his skill slots were

[Hide] Require INT 12, AGI 13

Hero hides their presence and lower encounter rate

Immediately, incomplete knowledge fills his mind, and he breathes out more slowly. Ayva breathes as slow as the breeze blowing the leafs on the branch. He moves closer to the shadow, and pulls up his hood.

For some reason, the image of a person leading two others appear in his mind. It was the shadow of a large cities. The person whose viewpoint he is seeing is moving from the valley. From every shadows, there seem to be eyes, however that person was confident in their skills evading their gaze.

Ayva has a feeling this skill would be more useful in a urban setting, but this will do for now.

...And the second skills he equip was

Detect Monsters Require: 11 INT

Sense the evil in the world to identify monsters and avoid ambushes. It became easier to detect monsters' dens.

IT was a long shot, but he equips it anyway.

The moment he did, something immediately light up in his sense. A single monster among human. A humanoid monster in disguise.

It was not just any normal demon, it was a demon in disguise. It was sniffing out his location.

Immediately, with that knowledge, Ayva moves away from the demon, as far as possible. It was okay even if he runs into bandits instead, because they are just normal human. No, what he needs to do is to get away from the demonic leader and gets the information back.

Ayva ran with that information, dashing into shadow with practice ease as if he has always been a professional.

Then, he discards his hood and emerge from the shadow next to a group of patrolling bandits. With [Hide] he blends with their presence so well, as if he has always been one of the bandits.

Then, when everyone was distracted, Ayva continues to move and escape.

Finally, he was out of the circling formation, breathing a sigh of relief, Ayva moves back to his party to report the information.

"There was 50 of them, stationed here, here and here. By this time, they would have been here, here and here. They are lightly armored, probably from local guard stations. They have killed before, their weapons smell of blood."

"50? Impossible! How can there be so many!" Hearing the number of force at bear, Micah mutters.

He was a knight.

However, even a knight can be murdered by a couple of drunkard in a bar if they gang up on him. That is unless the knight was in plate armor. Unfortunately, the local environment is not suited for full plate, even though Ayva has them in his inventory. In this dense vegetation, limiting your own movement is a dead sentence.

"...And" Ayva licked his lips because the next part sound unbelievable

"They are being lead by a demon in disguise."

Micah almost slams the table in disbelief.

"H-how would you know? Even if it is a lesser demon, the chance of a person escaping unscathed, let alone being alone is-"

"I believe Ayva." Leonel speaks up.

Ayva glances over at his friend, glad to see that his bro has his back

"Lest you forget, there was almost 20 archers that we captured. The actually number being around 70 is reasonable."

"But how are we supposed to win against such number? There are only 4 of us!"

Leonel glances over at the silent Eliza who is currently snuggling in his arms, covering her face with his chest. Ayva wanted to say something like 'is this really appropriate right now' but hold his silence. It has been a long day for her.

...And it is probably going to be longer now.

"Like how we subdue the 20 archers."

Leonel glances at Ayva's direction before looking away

"Fire is a good force multiplier."

Muted, sir Micah actually needs a moment of thought.

"We mustn't. Even though the likelihood of the princess being alive is slim with this many bandits, we can't threaten her majesty."

Sheepishly, Ayva raises a hand.

"Actually, about the princess, I don't think we need to worry about her."

With a finger, Ayva points at a location of the map.

It started with a spark of fire in the forest.

Suddenly, the spark turns into a raging flame. The fire keeps burning until it consumes all the trees to fuel its heat.

Then, many more spark appears in the forest.

A raging wild fire threatens to consume the entirety of the bandit location. Even Ayva has to gawk at the audacity of the plan. Outside of the initial spark, Eliza isn't controlling the flame right now. She is letting them rage out of control.

Even without needing magic, fire is a power force. It consumes, it burns brighter and brighter until there is no stopping it. It could not be stopped.

The smokes and the heat alone is enough to choke the life out of any normal human.

Ayva glances nervously over to Leonel. The bright boy just smiles and nods

"Fire is a powerful force multiplier indeed."