“Many people tend to consider the advent of civilization as a shift from the survival of the fittest that nature mostly adhered to, where those who would have found it hard to survive in nature’s harsh cradle were given a better chance at life, and whatnot.

It was most definitely not that.

Instead, the advent of civilization merely changed the definition of the fittest compared to what nature required. While survival itself became easier, there were many other things which preoccupied people, things like money, fame, and power, which slowly but eventually became the new ideals of survival itself.” - Lenneth Aurigan, Philosopher and economist from Jötunberg, circa 420 FP.

While the rest of her crew cleaned up the bandits, Erycea led a smaller team further forward, towards where she spotted a middle-aged woman giving commands to the rest of the bandits. The intel they received had no information on the leadership of the bandit gang, as they had never made it obvious, but with one look at how they operated, she guessed that the woman was the one in the lead, at least in battle.

She gave a couple of gestures to her people using her tail’s movements, something those behind her would relay to the relevant people, and before long, a smaller group of six people had gathered around her. Erycea and the rest had trained in group tactics other than their usual physical training over the past couple of years, and she had borrowed some tricks from her mother, which led to the formation of the smaller group that gathered now.

Where her mother usually relied on the aid of the rest of the Company to deliver her group of what were practically battlefield assassins into striking distance of their prey, Erycea modified the idea, and instead formed a smaller group that was still capable of similar tactics as her group as a whole. While her smaller group lacked the pure brute force capabilities offered by Vlad, Tasha, Vera, and Gustav, they could still use most of the same tactics, if on a much smaller scale.

Valeria and Beth took their positions in front, a bit to the left and right, while Llewelyn stood between them in the middle. The three shieldbearers then pushed their way through the bandits together. The way they set it up placed the pressure mostly on Valeria and Beth, since they also had to worry about their flanks, compared to Llewelyn who only had to worry about whatever was ahead of him.

Erycea and Rhiannon struck at those they passed by, guarding their flanks and backs, while Aurora and Ayrie supported them from the center of the formation, both with their blades and with their throwing dagger and crossbow as the opportunity permitted. Together they pushed their way through the throng of bandits - many of which were more than distracted by the rest of their group - and slaughtered their way towards where the middle-aged woman Erycea spotted was.

Once they reached the vicinity of their target, their formation shifted once more, as the three shieldbearers moved to the rear, where they covered the rest from the attention of other bandits that had pursued them. The remaining four charged straight towards their target, Erycea right at the front, Rhiannon covering their rear, with Aurora and Ayrie at the sides.

Some of the bandits tried to intercept them, but Ayrie dropped one with a pair of daggers that she flung with a practiced flick of her wrist. The daggers embedded themselves in the poor bandit’s eyes and went deeper, and the sight of his dead body falling on its back gave pause to the others for a moment. On the other side, Aurora snapped another shot from her crossbow which took a bandit right through the nose before she slung the weapon behind her, knowing that she would likely not get another chance to reload in the meantime.

When they saw how Aurora slung the crossbow behind her, one of the bandits was encouraged to attack her, only to find his machete blocked by the steel tonfa that Aurora brought out. The man had the presence of mind to block the blow from the flanged mace in the girl’s other hand which she pulled from where it hung by her waist with his shield, but had missed out on how the tips of her tonfa were sharpened.

He realized it only after she had perforated his abdomen repeatedly, and as he stepped back while he held onto the holes on his belly, Aurora’s mace struck his face head-on and sent him toppling back, no longer looking recognizable even to his own mother.

On the other side, a different bandit slashed at Ayrie with a saber, only for the quarter-elven girl to catch his blade between one of the curved flanges that extended from her shortsword’s handle and its sturdy blade. Ayrie twisted her blade, which forced the bandit to lean sideways a bit from the unexpected force acting on his saber, and took that chance to stab through the man’s throat from the side with a dagger in her other hand.

Behind them, Rhiannon used her swordstaff to fend off the bandits that tried to circle around behind Valeria and Beth, who guarded their rear. She and her twin brother Llewelyn worked seamlessly together, as they kept the bandits away from their teammates. Llewelyn mostly focused on the defense while his sister took a more offensive approach, but at unexpected times they might suddenly swap their opponents as if by some tacit understanding, which more often than not took their opponents by surprise.

All the while, Erycea struck down any bandit who got in her way with her pair of truncheons, their solid metal construction pulverizing flesh and breaking bones with ease. Not even weapons were spared, as one of the bandits in front of her found out the hard way, when he swung his sword at her only for Erycea to bash it aside with one of her truncheons.

Except that Ery had swung her weapon with enough force to directly shatter the sword’s blade and even caused it to fly off and strike a different bandit on the face, leaving a nasty cut on the man’s face. The baffled bandit never got to react to his sword’s breaking either, as Erycea then ended him as well with the return swing of her weapon, which struck the man’s neck from the side.

And broke it as easily as it did his sword.