We made much better time on the way back home, Dad didn’t need to switch off pushing the cart with Mom and it looked like we were approaching the halfway point after only an hour. Pushing an unloaded cart is apparently a lot easier than one fully loaded with grain, who would have guessed that? I’m pretty sure we stopped for lunch somewhere around here, the sights weren’t very familiar, but the scents were. I closed my eyes and really focused on my sense of smell, midway through our journey we stopped for lunch, so if I could catch a whiff of that I’d know how much longer it would take to get back home.

It’s not like there was a lot to do once we got home, but after hanging off Mom’s chest all day I was a little sore and looking forward to getting out of the harness. Plus despite all of the new sights, sounds and smells the whole journey was pretty boring and it was difficult to think with the constant jarring of Mom’s every step.

As I focused on the smells around me I caught the scent of something familiar. It kind of reminded me of how that Pantherman had smelled, kind of musky with a hint of spice and strangely enough iron. Wait a second, iron, why would there be iron in the air?

I thought about it for a second and didn’t like the conclusion I came to. As we kept walking the scent came in stronger and I noticed the source seemed to be ahead of us and in the forest. I made some noise to get Mom’s attention, but she simply tried to comfort me, thinking that I was bored.

I needed to think up a strategy to get her to realize that we might be in danger, I thought they would have picked up on the scent, but their noses simply didn’t have that same sensitivity as mine. I was now smelling a lot of iron and multiple Pantherman scents, which screamed bandit to me. I needed to alert my parents without distracting them, so I decided to use my words. To date I really only had about five words I was confident in, Mom, Dad, my name, yes and no, none of which had I said very often. I had another twenty or so that I thought I might have figured out, like good and bad, tasty and gross, you know simple things. Not bad for someone who couldn’t ask any questions, but not really enough to try to convince my parents there was danger afoot.

So I did my best to remember all of my words, then I poked my mom to get her attention and said, “Mom, bad” and then pointed toward the woods. She looked at me and then seemed to try and comfort me, I not sure what she was saying, but her tone implied that everything was okay. I shook my head and said, “No, Mom Bad” I pointed to my nose, inhaling deeply and then pointed out towards the woods. I repeated, “Bad bad bad bad bad” and pointed once again toward the woods, right into the underbrush next to the road. Mom started to look concerned and began talking quietly with Dad.

Dad frowned then stopped the cart. Mom kept talking and after a brief argument in which I imagine Mom finished with a “because I said so” Dad took a deep breath. He then stomped his foot on the ground and a wave of earth moved out in a circle from him. When it hit the spot I was pointing at I heard some growling and Dad started to bear his fangs.

Three Panthermen stepped out from the underbrush and glared at us. The biggest of the three drew a sword, while the other two seemed to be duel wielding daggers. Dad called out to them in that other language I didn’t know and the one with the sword responded. Looks like he’s their leader. Makes sense, size is an asset in the bandit life as it indicates more strength and greater access to food. The bandit leader yelled something back and I could see Dad tense up even further.

At this point Mom started to unclip me from the harness, she put me in the back of the cart and went to join my father in front of it. He growled at the bandits indicating he wouldn’t give in to their demands and the leader simply nodded. As if the nod was a signal the bandits started running toward us and I could see dad really start to focus on them. His breathing became rapid, almost like he was hyperventilating and then he exhaled while once again stomped his foot on the ground. Whereas the last time he did that a circle moved out from the impact point, this time it looked like a directed wave. It started off fairly small but the farther away it got from dad, the taller it became.

By the time it reached the bandits, the wave was already 4 feet tall. The bandits tried to run over it, but as soon as their feet came in contact with the earth they started to sink into the wave. Somehow the earth that made up the wave had taken on some of the properties of water. It swallowed them up and I could see bits of their bodies as they were rolled along the ground for around 20 feet. They didn’t enjoy the ride as they were beaten into the ground along the wave’s advance.

When the bandits started to get up, they were all bleeding from multiple cuts and scrapes. Thanks to my enhanced eyesight I could see that one of the dual wielding knifemen had dislocated a pinky thanks to the little ride Dad gave him. However the worst injury probably belonged to the leader, his nose was bleeding like a faucet and if I had to guess I would say it was probably broken. Either way I knew the first thing I was going to ask dad to teach me when we could start to properly communicate.

Dad didn’t really give the bandits a lot of time to recover. After the wave hit them he was on the move, running toward them at full speed. By the time they had gotten up he was only ten feet away. Before they could even bring their weapons to bear Dad had jump kicked the least injured Pantherman in the chest. He flew back 12 feet and looked to be down for the count. Dad quickly recovered from his jump kick as he used his victim to arrest all forward momentum.

After landing he immediately spun to his left and engaged with the rather stunned leader. He feinted a punch toward the leader’s face and as the leader tried to block it, Dad grabbed his sword arm and then kicked the Pantherman right in the balls. Based on the strength of the kick and the fact that the Pantherman rose up two feet in the air I was fairly confident he wouldn’t be able to father children in this lifetime. As the kick elevated the Pantherman into the air, Dad ripped the sword from his grasp and shifted his focus to the third bandit.

Unfortunately Pinky seemed to have recovered enough of his wits at that point to know he needed to do something or he would be the next to die. He threw one of his daggers at Dad who didn’t really have enough time to react. Dad tried to use the sword to knock the dagger off its’ trajectory but was too slow to interpose his blade. It ended up sinking up to its’ haft in Dad’s stomach. If the fact that 3 inches of steel were now buried in his stomach bothered my father he didn’t show it, instead he simply bared his fangs at the third bandit, sword in hand and murder in his eyes.

Pinky snarled at my father and began to circle around him, obviously hoping to agitate the injury his knife had caused. Unfortunately for him he failed to keep track of his surroundings and thus Mom’s more cautious approach went completely unnoticed. By the time the bandit had completed a quarter of a rotation around my father his back ended up completely exposed to my mother. She took advantage of his poor battle sense and leapt at his back. Her foot connected with his lower back which sent him stumbling toward my father. Dad took advantage of the situation and jammed the sword through Pinky’s heart. His thrust was incredibly powerful as the sword not only slid through Pinky’s ribs, but it can out through his back.

Pinky fell to the ground and apparently the sword got caught on some bone because he took it with him. Dad grimaced and turned toward the bandit leader who was only just recovering from being turned into a falsetto. He snarled at my Father and his claws came out. Dad seemed to tense up as if preparing to engage the Pantherman in a contest of strength. Then he reached down, grabbed the knife from his stomach and whipped it at the Bandit leader. Dad’s aim was true as the knife pierced the Bandit’s neck.

The Bandit leader seemed to be shocked, he pulled the knife from his neck and clamped his hand on the wound. From the blood that sprayed out I could tell my dad had hit an artery, the chief had less than a minute of consciousness left before blood loss was sure to knock him out. The bandit snarled something at my father and then charged. He didn’t get more than 4 steps before collapsing to the ground. Did I mention that you really aren’t supposed to move when you have a cut artery? No? Well you shouldn’t, it speeds up the blood loss tremendously.

With the Bandit leader dead, Dad walked over to the first bandit he had kicked. The bandit was still alive, but he wasn’t moving. My guess is that his rib cage collapsed, piercing a number of very important organs. Dad stomped down on the remaining bandit’s neck before he finally showed a grimace of pain. Mom ran over to him and helped him walk back to the cart. She laid him down and I was able to get a good look at the wound.

Blood ran freely from the wound though I didn’t smell any gas which at least meant Dad’s intestines probably hadn’t been perforated. The wound didn’t look pretty but at least with enough rest he should be able to recover. Unfortunately I couldn’t be sure that he would get enough rest to fully recover, peasant farmers were not exactly known to have a lot of leisure time.

I used the side of the cart to support me as I made my way over to Dad, the whole time Mom just stood there, staring at the wound. I needed to snap her out of the shock she was apparently feeling so she could bandage the wound. She continued to stare at the wound as her breathing deepened then she finally started to move, placing her hands on each side of the puncture. Then a low white red light began to emanate from her hands and I saw my second bit of magic.

The wound began to heal, first the blood stopped flowing, and then the flesh seemed to reconnect, though I could tell that the reconnections were not perfect. Finally the top of the wound began to be covered over with what looked like scar tissue. Clearly Mom could use some kind of healing magic, though I don’t think she was an expert since I could tell, the abdominal she healed would always be weaker than the rest do to the improper connections made throughout the muscle.

Regardless of how skilled Mom ended up being, she still had some kind of healing magic, and Dad had earth magic. After the healing was finished Dad stood up and stretched, wincing a little in pain as he was still not 100% despite the healing. Mom and Dad the spoke to each other briefly before they left to go loot the corpses. The weapons were piled in the back of the cart, along with their shoes and clothes. They then dragged the bodies back into the underbrush and we continued on our way.

I don’t know how ethical it is to steal from the dead, but at the very least it is better than taking from the living. Plus those guys had tried to rob us, so I couldn’t really fault my parents for the cavalier way in which they dealt with the dead. The only thing that really surprised me about the whole affair was that we didn’t seem to be heading back to the city to report the bandit attack, instead we just continued on our way back home.

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AN: One short chapter left then we have a time skip and the MC will actually be able to talk to people. I also want to let you guys know my tentative release schedule. I will try and get a chapter out every day for at least the first month, but I can't guarantee that since I am only 2 chapters ahead of what's currently posted. I appreciate the comments and hope you guys continue to enjoy my story.