“So… Everyone is the bait this time?” I mused.

Anna giggled as the carriage bumped down the road, “Sure seems like it. At least it’s just not me and you this time. Sylvia gets to be with us today.”

Sylvia shrugged in response and said nothing. Dem rented a carriage for us to use on our way to Nactus. It served both as faster and easier transportation but also as the means to draw out our prey. A group of highwaymen have based themselves around this area and have been hitting caravans consistently.

Their MO has made them easy to understand. They tend to hit unguarded caravans regularly but aren’t afraid to attack those that are guarded either. Those who have survived their attacks and made it back to safety with their lives tell similar stories. The bandits lay traps and wait for an unsuspecting passersby to fall into said traps. Rather routine bandit work. But there is a problem.

Normally it’s well within the ability of the military to handle these kinds of problems but these highwaymen have managed to avoid capture by Sandervile and Whieland’s forces. This can only mean one thing. They have someone on the inside. It’s the only valid explanation.

It’s highly unlikely that a group can be so aggressive and consistent while not being caught by authorities. Every time a force shows up to apprehend the bandits, they are long gone, sometimes even days in advance. So the authorities realized that they have a mole and did the only sensible thing. They put the burden of finding these scum onto someone else. Adventurers are that someone else.

Dem managed to get first dibs on this quest and it aligns perfectly with our goal of heading to Luminar. If anything this carriage is cutting days off our travel time and I couldn’t ask for a better outcome. So far it seems word of my escape has yet to reach this side of Sandervile territory and soon enough I’ll be in Whieland territory, not that they wouldn’t turn me in the second they found me.

I believe that my redirection worked. I laid the groundwork in hopes that the Sanderviles would be expecting me to cross into Dark Elf territory. Or perhaps even try living out in the woods, something an Elf might try.

So either that worked or they are afraid to announce my escape to the public. After all, it would bring down the reputation of House Sandervile if word spread that an Elven slave child managed to escape while killing four people and maiming a child of a noble house while poisoning others. Of course, the poison wasn’t lethal… But I doubt they care too much about that part. Even more so if two of those four deaths were people considered to be some of the strongest the nation has to offer.

But this relative peace won’t last forever. A bounty will be placed on my head. It’s just a matter of when not if.

Currently sitting in the front of the carriage were Anna, Sylvia, and myself. Dem fancied the scenario that we were a family of High Elves heading back to the empire. And the three of us were… a very odd family. Anna was wearing her usual white and gold Amon-Ra priestess garb. Sylvia was masked and fully clothed in black, not showing an ounce of her skin or even hair. You wouldn’t even have known she was a High Elf if her ears weren’t poking out from the side of her hood. Then there was me. A High Elf wearing a full face mask and wearing all-black traveling mage attire. Yeah, not suspicious at all.

Dem and Silent were acting as our “guards” on horseback while Ilme and Alce sat in the covered portion of the carriage, waiting. It felt a little bad having our scout and ranger sit inside of the carriage, but out here in these wide-open fields there was nowhere for her to hide. I guess that works both ways though. The bandits wouldn’t have anywhere to hide, either, so that most likely means they have dug into the ground somewhere. Unless they are just waiting in the grass or fields. However, I find that to be unlikely.

“So Sylvia… What is your favorite thing to eat?” Anna asked.

“Food,” she responded flatly.

Anna put on a smile and nodded her head, “Yup… me too…”

Poor Anna has been trying to strike a conversation up with Sylvia for as long as I have been around. This is normally how it goes most of the time. I can’t say I’m much of a talker either but I’m not completely against the idea of having small talk. I could of course go without saying a word but I understand that people like Anna feel the need to fill the silence.

Speaking of Sylvia, she has remained an anomaly to me. I don’t understand her whatsoever and since she rarely speaks it makes figuring her out even more difficult. She is obviously extremely wealthy considering she can afford to hire a team of amethyst ranked adventures to escort her.

But for whatever reason, she doesn’t seem to mind being dragged along on these adventures. If anything, she seems to welcome the idea and apparently has requesters to tag along on every single one. But the question is why?

Why would somebody pay for others to protect them then do the opposite by putting themselves into dangerous situations? It just doesn’t make sense. At least to me, it doesn’t. Then again I’ve been around nobility long enough to know that some of them just fancy these types of things. Perhaps since this is something she can’t do normally, she has others do it by proxy? Either way I look at it, it’s odd. But I’m not one to pry.

I was letting my mind wander when I noticed movement in the brush a few yards ahead of me. My ears might have been damaged but my eyes were just fine and I could see perfectly as if the mask I was wearing was nonexistent. Sometimes I even forgot I was wearing a mask.

“Somebody is crawling in the grass ahead of us,” I said quietly.

I said it loud enough to where Alce and Ilme should have been able to hear me. With that Alce would warn Dem and we would enact our plan. We didn’t need to take these people in alive so no prisoners were needed. A few seconds later Dem and Silent both rode closer, signaling that they were aware of my warning.

A few moments later a man shot out from the tall grass and stood in the middle of the road with a shoddy spear pointed at us,

“S-Stop right there!” he yelled. Although his yell was very low-spirited… barely a threat even. Anna stopped the carriage while Dem and Silent slowed their pace.

This… this is a person that is a part of a group of bandits that has sacked multiple caravans? The middle-aged Human man was dressed in shabby chain mail and leather armor. An iron helmet wobbled awkwardly on his head as he re-adjusted it every few seconds. A few more men wearing similarly haphazard attire began sprouting out of the grass as well. Something is off.

“What do you want?” Dem questioned.

It seems Dem felt something was off as well. Upon encountering the bandits we were supposed to attack without question but as soon as he saw the man he hesitated. I had to agree with him. These men looked more like conscripted farmers than bandits attacking armed caravans. Let alone outmaneuvering a military force. We could easily just turn around and flee since they didn’t even have anyone blocking our retreat.

“Just- just drop your things! Leave the horses and go back to where you came from! We- we don’t want to hurt you!” he ordered.

“Something isn’t right,” Anna muttered.

Yeah, these guys wouldn’t pose a threat to a topaz-level adventurer. Maybe I should try this custom fireball.

Without waiting any longer, I fired off my custom fireball spell. It cost about four times the normal amount for a standard fireball but its objective was a little different. The fireball burned hot as it left my hand and shot off into the sky. Everybody's eyes followed the orange ball of fire as it hovered in the sky. The ball of flame burned brightly in the evening sky and as soon as it reached its designated height, the ball exploded with a loud boom. From the explosion, tons of small trails of orange streaked out into arcs. The arcs of fire impacted the ground and tiny explosions began going off.

I might have just cast this world’s first low-powered equivalent to a cluster missile. I set the explosions to be about 10% of the original strength of a fireball as I didn’t want the blast to kick up too much debris or injure my party. The fiery explosions were also aimed at…

“Voker… how did you… know?” Anna asked, unable to hide her disbelief.

“Wasn’t hard to figure out. I would have done the same,” I responded.

Sure enough, screams of men filled what used to be a quiet peaceful sunny day. People shot out of the earth from their hiding places in a panic. Some were on fire and screaming. Others were blackened from the scorch marks and missing a limb or were badly injured as they yelled in pain. And a few had managed to survive unscathed. My cluster strike had impacted the ground around the carriage and deeper into the fields. I wasn’t sure how many of them were out there but I knew they were there. These men sitting in front of us pretending to be bandits were the trap.

Only surprised by the initial cast of my magic, Dem and Silent had already dismounted from their horses and were charging out into the fields to fight those who were still left standing. I guess they weren’t accustomed to fighting on horseback.

I felt the carriage rock as a massive body shot out from the back accompanied by the twang of a bowstring and the whistle of arrows. Ilme and Alce had made their moves as well. I left the rear to those two and decided to support Dem and Silent but it seems I would only get in their way.

I watched as Dem’s bastard sword sliced through the air separating a man’s arm from his torso, a quick slash across his chest killed the man before he could even scream. Silent danced between a Beastmen and Human man as his twin Jian shortswords separated the Beastmen’s leg muscles. The Beastmen let out a roar of pain but Silent ignored him as he blocked the thrust of the Human’s spear. In quick succession, he cut the shaft of the spear and closed the distance on the Human man thrusting one of his shortswords into his chest. The man didn’t even have time to blink before the light in his eyes faded.

I took my time hopping down from the carriage to join Anna who was already waiting just in case anyone ended up injured. Sylvia didn’t even budge as she sat there and watched the events unfold. I moved my way towards the fields to see something for myself.

Dem was making short work of another spearman as he lobbed the head off a bandit in a single precise slice. I kept my wits about me as I nudged a piece of blackened wood out of the way. The piece of wood was covered in charred grass and foliage and I used to blend in nicely with the soil. Sure enough inside of the hiding spot was a burnt corpse that had taken a direct hit from my spell.

These men were also better equipped and more in line with what we were expecting from these bandits. I doubt a regular caravan would have survived being attacked by this many bandits. With how close some of them were, even a mage would have had difficulty killing them in time. It was a good thing I acted before they did.

I peaked around the back only to see an unfortunate Dwarf lose a few more inches as a giant war hammer crushed him from the top. A giant red dragon woman wearing a set of full gray plate armor swinging around an equally giant war hammer as if it was a toy. The wide arcing swing caught a man with a shield sending him sprawling onto his back. Before he could even get up an arrow had already been sent into his forehead.

With those two doing alright, I looked out into the fields with the fleeting thought that it was weird that these bandits didn’t have anybody with range capabilities. Even somebody just holding a bow might deter people from fleeing so… Oh never mind, it seems they were just hiding.

As if my thoughts manifested a man into existence, I watched as a Human man clambered out from his hidey-hole with a bow. Perhaps he was afraid, maybe my spell had damaged his trap door so he couldn’t get out, or maybe he was injured. Either way, it didn’t matter for him. Before he could even sling his quiver of arrows onto his back I launched a flare bolt straight into his chest. His body fell limp to the ground with a soft thud.

The spell was similar to a fireball but it didn’t explode nor spread flames. It was just a lance of super hot fire that pierced your target. It was a favorite amongst fire mages who were fighting with allies present and didn’t want to accidentally injure a comrade with a fireball, or so Dem told me. I’d never heard of the spell before but I was already in the process of creating a similar spell. “Base spell cores” were an… odd thing. It seems that’s just how people learned how to use magic and that was the system that was created. For whatever reason, whether it be evolution or just how magic works, base spells were the norm and the easiest to cast. Most mages didn’t even bother altering spell cores since the mana cost rarely outweighed the benefits of the custom spell. At least that’s the case for most people…

I wonder. Was this what you meant by “understanding” magic more, Grandpa? Why is your way of magic so different from everybody else’s? Maybe you were just ahead of the curve. Even drilling the ability to cast spells and use mana enhancement isn’t a normal thing… Meh, not the place to wonder about these things I guess.

It seems all enemies have been dealt with. The only people still left standing that weren't a part of our group were the shabby-looking “bandits” that first addressed us. It seems they didn’t take their chance to run as most of them were still holding onto their weapons shaking. Were they planning on fighting us now?

Dem casually flicked the blood off his sword and pointed it at the group, “So… What were you going to do again?”

One of the men spoke up, “Please! Just… they have the rest of our group hostage and said if we didn’t cooperate they were going to kill us! We-we…we…” the man trailed off.

Dem sighed, “I knew there wasn’t enough of them. How many did you get, Alce?”

“Ilme and I got six,” she responded.

“Silent and I got five… Voker got a few including the one…Yeah, that’s not enough,” Dem grumbled.

I agree. This amount of bandits was not enough to threaten an armed caravan like the ones that were hit. Sure they could wipe out an unarmed group with those kinds of numbers and challenge some smaller armed ones with a trap like this. But they would eventually have wounded that needed to rest before they could fight again. Which means the number of attacks doesn’t add up. There had to be more.

One of the men who had been staying quiet responded with fervor, “Yes! There are more! They are hiding in an underground base on a farm! I-I can lead you there!”

“Yeah, I can too!”

“Same! Please don’t-”

“We aren’t going to kill you…” Dem groaned while rolling his eyes. “Drop those pointy sticks on the ground and lead us to your friends. We will… recover them for you.”

Guess Dem isn’t in the business of making promises he can’t keep. There is no way he can guarantee the safety of those hostages nor does he probably care about them. If anything, innocent hostages just make things more of a hassle for us.

The men hurriedly agreed with nodding heads as they dropped their gear onto the ground without hesitation. Most of them seemed pretty happy to be rid of that stuff as hopeful smiles appeared on some of their faces.

Dem nudged me in the back, “What was that?” he didn’t seem mad but genuinely curious.

“What was what? The spell?” I feigned ignorance.

“Well duh. And the fact that you knew they were hiding in the ground like that? I was looking pretty hard and I didn’t see a single one of those guys…” Dem looked a little frustrated but he had no reason to be.

In truth, I didn’t know they were hiding in the ground. I just knew from experience that it was the most likely course of action for them. Perhaps if they had an earth mage that could have dug them in deeper my plan wouldn’t have worked but the survivors never mentioned being attacked by magic so I didn’t think it was likely.

“I just had a feeling. It’s something I would have done if I was them. With no cover out here hiding underground is their only option. If a caravan saw that many armed people on the road they might just turn around and run. As for the spell… it’s something new I’ve been working on,” I said while shrugging.

I don’t intend to reveal my full powers to anyone unless the situation calls for it. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

“That was a custom spell… Say you might be an Expert level mage… Hey, Anna, you think he might be?” Dem asked.

“I can’t be certain. I’m unfamiliar with fire magic so I don’t know for sure… But Voker is really young so I don’t think he is an Expert. Maybe just a gifted Intermediate level?” Anna suggested with a shrug as she finished healing a wound on Silent’s arm.

“Who cares,” Ilme huffed. “It was a good spell and that’s all that matters. We have more bandits to hunt so let’s go already.”

“Ah, thank you for the compliment, Ilme,” I said quickly.

The Dragonkin looked at me then blew smoke from her nostrils. It wasn’t the same as her usual routine. “It- never mind,” she groaned while flicking her tail.

Alce chuckled and patted me on the back, “Words of praise from Ilme are rare. Good work, kid.”

“Yeah, good job. Knew I picked the right child out of the forest. I’m a damn genius,” Dem said with a satisfied look on his face. But it faded quickly as he got serious once more, “Listen up. These bandits aren’t going to be able to report back so we have to strike now. If these guys can disappear so easily we don’t want to give them any time to escape. As soon as we reach their base we are going in.” Then Dem spoke quietly, “As for those hostages… they aren’t our priority and we can’t be sure they aren’t working for these guys. If we can save them then save them. If they are in the way… Do what you have to do, okay? Our safety and completing the quest come first and foremost.”

A varying degree of yes and understoods came out. It seems the only person apprehensive about things was Anna. I could tell she wanted to save the hostages but she was vastly outnumbered in her opinion. As far as I was concerned neither Dem nor Anna was wrong in their train of thought. But in reality, I was more in alignment with Dem. I wasn’t about to risk my neck for people I didn’t even know. Had enough of that for one lifetime.

With things settled we climbed back onto our carriage and horses and set out for the bandit’s hideout.