“So... they said it's here?” asked Varbu, as he pointed to a spot on a crudely drawn map.

“Gii gi giiiii,” said Prince Gobbers as he stroked his smooth green chin and studied the map in a very scholarly way.

“Right, I would not have expected bandits to take up one of the abandoned nomadic villages so close to us,” said Varbu.

“Bent-gii was built here because it is in-between several past and present abandoned villages and forts that we could easily rebuild and expand Kodria's reach. But it seems we will have to clean up the area's group of bandits first,” said Akira.

“What are you going to do?” asked Mileena.

“It's only half a day's ride away and if we are to believe what Itchy told us, they are all at a similar strength and armed with cheap armor and weapons. It shouldn't be too hard to take control of the situation there, but I'm not going to trust everything they said so easily. To make sure there are no hiccups, I'll just take a portion of the royal guards and some of the orc warriors to help clean up the bandit camp.”

“What about me?” asked Mileena.

“You’re supposed to be relaxing, so just stay here and enjoy the scenery while I take care of the problem. Fluffball you can stay here and help protect Mileena with the rest of the guards,” said Akira.

“Yap...,” Fluffball reluctantly accepted Akira's order even though he wanted to go out and fight with Akira and the rest of the guards.

Akira exited the large stone building that acted as Bent-Gii's town hall.

A short distance away Akira saw several large carts filled with raw material pass by. The captured bandits were harnessed to the carts and were being used as horses to pull the raw material back and forth from one workstation to another keeping everyone fully supplied with building materials.

Each cart had one or two goblins who sat on top of the raw materials. Their pointy spears were ready to stab at the bandits' backs if they tried anything funny.

As one of the carts passed, Akira shouted out to the goblin guards, “If they try to revolt and attack anyone, Kill them. We'll deal with them when I return.”

The bandits pulling the cart, one of them being Itchy, shuddered at hearing Akira's words.

“Big brother, there is no need for that! We aren't going to attack anyone!” said Itchy.

“How many times do I have to say stop calling me big brother,” said Akira.

“Sorry big br... sorry bro. I will try to remember.”

Akira shook his head as he watched them pass. Itchy reminded him of a few special idiots from the past.

Turning to Varbu, Akira said, “I'll take care of the bandit problem, you guys just finish the walls and the buildings of Bent-gii.”

“That will be no problem. The walls should be finished by nightfall if everything goes as planned,” said Varbu.

“Giii gii,” said Prince Gobbers nodding.

With that said Akira hopped onto Grarr's back and led half the escorting royal guards out of the walled settlement. Several of the patrolling Orc warriors joined them running behind the royal guards at a steady pace.

***

Night time in a small village outpost to the north of Bent-gii.

“Awoooo!” a sorrowful wolf howled at the sliver of a moon that hung in the sky sending shivers down the backs of the patrolling bandits.

“Why do we have to stay here? This place is barely defensible and the monsters are already coming back in force after being wiped out from the plague,” asked Skeny, a skinny bandit. He was one of the three guards that were walking along the wooden fence that had been put up to keep out the less ferocious monsters.

“There are hardly any merchants that pass by us and no other villages to really loot stuff from,” said Hort, a short bandit as he held up a burning torch high above his head to ward off the darkness.

“It's all your fault that you shot your bow at that guy,” said Phatella, a round female bandit.

“Hey, I was ordered to by the captain. If we all hadn't been pushed out of the good spots by the large bandit groups we wouldn't have to beg for scraps,” said Skeny.

“What's taking today's raiding group so long to return?” asked Phatella in between bites of a dry sandwich.

Pa pa! Pa pa! Pa pa! The sound of running feet could be heard out in the darkness.

“They're finally back, now we can switch guard duty,” said Hort. The three of them stopped near the fence's gate and waited for the approaching raiders to arrive.

Several dark shadows started to form as they came closer and closer to the outpost using the torchlight as a guiding light in the night.

The speed at which they were approaching caught the waiting bandits off guard.

“Wait... that's not...”

Out of the shadows several grinning faces of wolves nearly as large as horses appeared. On their backs were even more fierce-looking furry faces of humanoid wolves, their eyes glinted and reflected the torchlight making them look even more fierce.

The sudden appearance of a frightening foe was such a shock that Phatella dropped her sandwich and clutched her heart. She fell face first onto the ground where she lay still, unmoving.

Hort and Skeny did not bother with checking on Phatella and turned around running right for the fortified wooden building that was used as the main building of the bandits.

Every night the bandits holed up inside the three-story building and slept there to protect themselves from the more dangerous local night monsters.

Unlike Kodria, the local night monsters around here regularly attacked anyone that left the fenced-off area and sometimes even attacked the patrolling bandits inside the fenced-off area.

As the large force of unknown foes reached the wooden fence gate the door to the fortified wooden building slammed shut as the two bandits escaped inside. The outside was once again left in darkness with the small sliver of the moon lighting up the area.

A large commotion could be heard inside the building as the two caused a storm by shouting hysterically.

Grarr and the other Gargs easily jumped over the wooden fence while the Orc warriors just hacked or slammed their way through the flimsy wooden fence.

Akira held up his hand to halt the forces when they reached the front of the three-story building.

“Bandits! By order of the Duke of Kodria you are ordered to cease your activity and surrender!” shouted Dolph who was on Akira's right while Vilkas was on the left.

A window from the third floor opened just a crack spilling yellow candlelight out onto the gathered werewolves, Gargs, and Orcs.

“Who?” asked a shaky male voice.

“The Duke of Kodria! The leader of the territory you are staying in and attacking.”

“Never heard of him,” said the voice.

“Your acting is horrible. It is pointless to keep trying to stall us, surrender now,” said Akira.

“We can't,” said the voice.

“Why?”

“...”

“Attack them! All of our debt to those guys will be completely paid if we do!” shouted the man's voice.

Five other windows cracked open and the tips of bows and crossbows appeared and fired!

Swish! Thud! Crack!

The arrows and cross-bolts rained down on the waiting werewolves and Orcs.

“Awooooo!” with Akira's howl the Gargs charged forward and slammed into the large reinforced double wooden doors of the building. The Orc warriors rushed forward and hugged the building's wall to hide from the raining arrows and bolts as best as they could.

After the third ramming attack into the door by Grarr, the wooden doors burst open with a loud crack as the wooden beam holding them shut was split in half.

Akira and the rest of the werewolves hopped off their mounts and along with the orc warriors stormed into the building where the bandits were holed up.

Several bandits stood in the hallway and fired cross-bolts and arrows at near point blank piercing the armors of several of the orcs and werewolves near Akira, wounding them.

A few of the bandits fearlessly charged down the hallway to try and stall the attackers... but they were cut down immediately.

“SURRENDER!” growled Akira.

The bandits paid his words no attention and continued to fight to the death.

In each room and on each floor it was the same thing over and over.

When Akira reached the last room on the third floor, the door opened and the captain of the bandits stepped into the hall with the remaining bandits.

“Surrender and you may live,” said Akira.

“Either you will kill me or they will,” said the captain of the bandits.

“...?”

The remaining bandits along with the captain charged at Akira and the other werewolves not saying another word. Their faces were completely calm and at peace as they ran forward to their death.

Even when Akira tried to just disable them so he could get information out of them they continued to fight or intentionally kill themselves.

“What's wrong with them?” asked Dolph.

Ding!

Bent-Gii is under attack!

You have managed to take care of the bandits that have been harassing the new settlement but the mastermind behind setting up the bandit group has launched the second stage in their plan.

Return to Bent-Gii and fight off the attacking force. If you are too late and you lose the settlement, Kodria's dukedom will lose 50% security for a month, causing more monsters to spawn in the territory.

“AWOOOO!”

The cheering Orc and Werewolf warriors that had finished off the bandits turned around to look at Akira wondering if what they had just heard was correct.

“The enemy is attacking the settlement! We are going back now!” said Akira, clarifying with words.