"Careful," one of the bandit stagnante yells. "He's a mage, too! He used Wind and Thunder elements, so he's at least a two-element fighter!"

Ronin smirks at the newer of the bandits arriving, mentally noting his current SP and MP. Currently, his SP is higher but did have a small chunk absent from using Bladeless Form. Compared to most of his other skills it had a very low cost but allowed him to turn the sheath of a sword into a material equal to its paired blade; albeit blunt, it was effectively able to turn his sheath into a blunt weapon akin to a training sword. Its sole weakness is that after a single strike, that power fades and the cost is determined based on the quality of his weapon. In moments like this, dropping the sheath removes his second hand's freedom to strike but grants access to his two-handed sword skills.

The nearby tents and the wall at his back gives Ronin a singular direction he can be adequately approached from, yet the wide opening means the two spears can adequately look for openings. Stagnante like Ronin fight alone but these bandits laid their camp's tents out intentionally to focus on fighting together.

Ronin shifts his stance and raises his sword horizontally, parrying the thrust upward before morphing his motion into swing, cleanly cutting the tip of the spear off and causing it to twirl harmlessly over his shoulder. The bandit before him grits his teeth and reads the motion well enough to block the sword's immediate swing, the wood cutting deep into the decrepit wood.

"Fuck! One of those Londelians!?"

Another spear thrusts in the corner of Ronin's view, sinking into the side of his thigh. The pain, blood, and rending flesh suggest it's a bad wound but the fact his leg doesn't give out under his weight tells the swordsman that the other spear's aim failed to reach anything vital.

In a battle against enemies with reach, the best methods are to disarm them. Spears may be sturdy but a precise strike can catch unskilled wielders off-guard and dismantle their weapon. But the greatest danger is that most spears are never alone; if you have to get hit-

The voice in Ronin's head taunts him in his brother's voice, causing the red-eyed swordsman's face to go from confident to grimacing.

"Retaliate!"

The word isn't merely a taunt that makes his assailant flinch, but the activation of a skill anyone worth their day on a battlefield might now. SP drains from his bar roughly equivalent to his lowering HP, turning his blade red hot. A small tick of his MP fades in perfect harmony with his sword cleaving through the shield and slaughtering the bandit behind it.

Click.

The sword cuts deep through his leather jacket, through his rib cage and organs, and finally out his back in a clean arc that severs the other spear just as it pulls free from Ronin's thigh. This bone tip's shaft remaining is long enough, however, that he grabs it mid-air and immediately surges at the befuddled stagnate.

Thrust.

The bone glows gold for all but a moment before the turning swordsman drives it through the bandit's face. Bone shouldn't have the power to go through human skulls without excessive force, but with his high-ranking skills behind it the makeshift dagger near-vanishes into the crevice of the victim's face.

Click.

The corpse falls away just as the swordsman from before brings the dull blade down at Ronin's extended arm. Even a blunt blade in the oaf's hands has the weight and swing to effectively remove the Londelian's arm, yet moments before impact the glow of mana arrives and the MP bar drains down to half of its total.

Gaian Wood Burst!

The mana solidifies into a thick wood, stopping the blade but crushing against Ronin's arm. Although impossible, he swears he hears the bone inside crack; his sword arm may not be in the best of condition but the weight of his offhand tells him that two-handed strikes will cause backlash from now on.

The bloodied and sole survivor of the trio screams, eyes widening and terror arriving with realization. "This isn't normal wood! This guy's the Londer Butcher!"

Ronin turns and tilts his sword, letting his injured arm go limp so the twist of his body moves it out of the way. The wood that blocked the bandit's strike grows and clutches at his weapon, vines growing free and snaking out to snare around his shoulders. A magician's glow illuminates Ronin's eyes, ignoring his MP going down to focus on controlling his spell; his sword isn't needed anymore but the noise of the camp warrants trying to deal with his enemies in whatever means that may preserve its edge. Gaian Wood is the sole Basic-level spell of Gaia but its advantage is being akin to a second part of the caster's body.

The newest stagnate grins, raising his sword so the bandit can see his fingers around the hilt. "So there are people who heard about me here... that tells me why they showed up at the beach and had an idea of who I was. For that... I'll kill you quickly."

"No," the bandit pleadingly cries. "Spare me! Spare-"

The wood releases a vine that throttles into the man's open mouth, down his throat, and immediately breaks his concentration. The shoulder-snaring vines tighten and pull his sword from his hands, raising it and turning it point-facing him. All it takes is a twist of Ronin's pointer finger across the others to draw the sword right down his throat using the other vine as an anchor-point, killing the man near instantly from the shock and ensuring his death with a twisting turn that snaps his spine.

Click.

His final victim falls and Ronin's eyes lose their mana glow, turning his attention toward the rest of the camp. No one had come toward him yet but a group of five are already gathering near the campfire in the center, watching him from a rough formation approximately twenty feet away. The numbers of this camp couldn't be terribly greater, yet this sort of formation would require a lot more of his resources. In a camp this size, their location and backgrounds require them to be no greater than twenty in number.

As far as damage, the most annoying to Ronin currently is the damage dealt to his arm. The skull-battering has his head beating more annoying than the clicks and the open wounds and their bleeding sting, yet none of the other wounds hinder his ability to properly execute two-handed skills. Two-handed skills not only had the power to cleanly cut through defenses, but they also were necessary for most crowd control.

The overwhelming value of Ronin in a battlefield equation comes from his multi-hit skills allowing him to deal with multiple opponents at once.

The wolfman... if I let him in now, he'd be more useful. But I'd also give him a perfect opportunity to gauge my skills; if we become enemies after I aid him, will I be able to beat him without any tricks up my sleeve?

"Sunai, why must I hold back against the others?"

The sixteen-year-old scowls, watching his older brother remove his wooden training armor. The newest set of bruises on Ronin had all been delivered by their soldiers during the group exercise, yet his brother hadn't even been hit once. All of it came from a restriction placed on the younger brother to keep him from using skills.

"Well," Sunai mockingly sighs, turning to grin back at Ronin. "For starters, you'd never lose if you could use your skills against them from the start. You recently discovered how to channel Fire and Wind elements, which means in the near future your magic alone will make you near impossible to beat in a situation where you can freely cast. But your sword skills are already reaching the middle-tiers. What happens if you kill one of them?"

Ronin's scowl doesn't fade, crossing his arms. "Training swords would stop that. It feels unfair that you can use all of yours but I can't!"

Sunai takes his response in equal stride, turning and crossing his own arms.

"Ronin, you don't get it because you're not old enough yet... but your talent with a sword can surpass mine. Your magical gifts are better than all of us in House Londer, but your swordsmanship... Father said that you may unlock our Bloodline ability. To do that, you must refine your swordsmanship until the point that it hurts. Day-after-day, even if it means los-"

"I don't care," the younger brother abruptly yells, gritting his teeth and turning away. He storms from his brother, tossing his sword down. "That stupid legend doesn't mean I should suffer! This isn't-"

"-fair!"

Ronin's sword cuts the last of the five's head from his shoulders, letting him collapse and join his friend. A gash on his right hip, shallow stab wounds on the left side of his lower back, and a series of bruises from shield beatings on his chest all hurt but nowhere near as much as the memories pushing at the back of his mind. Two of the men instantly died from his Iai opening, yet the other three struggled until the last moment attacking him. Ronin's burlap sack outfit looks more like a net now than attire, leaving much of his body nude to the elements and covered in both his and his foes' blood.

Despite all the pain in him, his red eyes look over the victims and shift toward a larger man approaching him. The gate into the camp opens wide and the wolfman paces in, however, causing the massive human to slow and grin.

Unlike all the other bandits, this man isn't stagnante; his attire is a near-complete set of armor, using a sleeved leather jacket beneath a hammered iron plate vest. Rusted pauldrons and greaves guard what his pants can't, even wearing a thick bear-like pelt around his shoulders. Such equipment may normally befit a bandit lord but no stagnante can acquire all that armor and have a proper weapon: a two-handed axe that he easily wields in his left hand as if it were a mere hatchet. The ten feet between them is enough to make the giant feel safe and give Ronin issues reading for openings.

He's skilled. Body of Gaia.

Mana inks out of his wounds and slows most of the bleeding, Ronin raising his sword to rest the flat of the blade on his right shoulder.

"You can die or run. If you run, you only have to deal with the wolfman."

The wolfman may have the crossbow in hand but his lack of firing implies Ronin's read is correct. His statement toward the large man doesn't earn any distrustful views from the wolf, though, but does inspire a grin from the bandit. Four more bandits approach his flanks from the remainder of the camp, each of them now fully equipped and likely comprising the honor-guard of the camp's strongest warrior.

"Really," his voice rumbles, similar in-depth to that of the wolfman but gruff as if someone tried to cut his throat in the past. He raises his free hand and strokes his chin. "Is that a promise, Londer Butcher? The rumors that reached the Land of Stagnation last year... well, they don't paint the finest picture of honesty in you."

Ronin's posture remains unchanged, merely glaring at the man. He brushes his wounded arm's thumb across his mouth, collecting some of the scattered blood and leaving a pink-tinted trail through the mess of viscera on him. The three strongest here had no sparse tension in them but the four guards twitched at Ronin's motion, forcing the bandit to softly dismiss and calm them with a simple wave. The ex-noble smears the gore down his damaged rags, licking his lips and spitting the remaining blood clear so he can properly take a deep breath from his mouth.

"I killed thirty-one men," Ronin replies. "Thirty guards and my brother. You know of my reputation, you know that I'm weakened from my trip, and yet you sling that shit at me?"

The large man's smile fades, watching Ronin lower his sword back down to his side.

"Let's be honest: you're not from the outside world, are you? You're just a tribal member who got banished... which means you don't understand who you're facing."

Ronin's MP reaches zero and his glow fades, leaving most of the wounds not bleeding and mostly sealed or scabbed over. Given how long it takes for his MP to regenerate, most of the more serious strikes like those on his hip and back will leave scars even if he uses Body of Gaia. The sole weakness of having such a great skill that mends damage by reducing healing time is that it can only cure internal damage; scars never went away once they formed.

"Starting now," the swordsman sighs. His eyes shift to the five remaining criminals, yet still, he sees the wolfman flash his teeth and flick the safety lever of the crossbow off.

"I'm going to teach you just how big the world is beyond the Land of Stagnation."