3rd person P.O.V

Lord Terence

"Milord, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Of course it is! We're short on men, aren't we? Besides, as a lord of the state, it's my duty to see everything firsthand"

Two wagons were currently rumbling their way down a rough dirt road that headed into the dense forests. They held around a dozen trainees and 4-5 professional soldiers as well as Lord Terence and his daughter.

They were heading into the part of the Demon forest to do a routine inspection for bandit encampments, this time Lord Terence insisted that he went along with them despite the protests of the soldiers.

Currently, the only knight in the whole group was sitting next to the lord while voicing his concerns about the matter. The safety of the group was less than ideal, the trainees didn't have any real combat experience so if they were ambushed by any bandit that was ranked C or above they would be massacred.

An adventurer or soldier that is ranked is different from a monster's ranking. A monster is ranked by their danger level to society, while an adventurer is based on the number of quests that have been completed and therefore raising them up the ladder. For a soldier, it's their years of service, combat prowess, and their magic level, so a monster that is ranked C would take multiple of the same ranked humans to take it down with probable casualties.

"Daddy! When are we getting there?"

Terence turned around and smiled slightly at his daughter. His wife had died during childbirth, leaving Terence with only his daughter, Caroline. Now she was his star in the sky that kept him moving forwards, nothing was going to change that.

"Caroline dear, we'll be there in an hour. Go and ask the soldiers for some stories, I'm sure they have a lot to tell you!"

They were moving closer to the Demon Forest, the place where the previous 56th demon lord resided. After the Demon Lord and Hero had both perished two years ago in their final battle, the place became a ruin and was overrun with goblins and other vermin.

There shouldn't have been any monsters above D rank still there since the holy army, as well as the kingdom's army, had cleared the place out, but one could never be too cautious about the dangers that lurked in the unforgiving forest.

"We need to ignore the monsters that we come across, they generally pose no threat since they are in such low numbers. The problem we have now is the constant bandit raids against our villages, they have been increasing and we think there is a bandit encampment in the outskirts of the forest"

Terence glanced at Caroline, who was laughing as the soldiers talked to her about their adventures. He hadn't told her what was going on, just that they were going into the forest and coming back after a while.

He turned back towards the knight, who was cleaning his sword and specks on his plate armor

" If I die, at least make sure Caroline can get back into the city. I had to bring her because I know there were assassination attempts on both me and her, just...stay by her. I can fend for myself"

The knight paused his cleaning before looking at Terence, setting his sword down to the side of him.

"With all due respect, we have vowed to protect you and your family. We will not allow any harm to come to either of you, do not worry."

The horses that were moving the wagon neighed indignantly as they started to move further into the forest. It seemed like there was something there that the horses wanted to run away from, but the driver forced them to face the forest and keep on moving forward.

The knight and lord stayed silent for the duration of the ride before they finally started to come into a clearing. Night had already fallen since it had taken them a longer time than normal to get to their destination, there was no turning back now.

The knight stood up to see in front of them before sitting back down.

"We've arrived, this was where locals said that they saw bandits when they were picking mushrooms."

The driver stopped the horses as the men started unloading from the wagons. Weapons and other supplies were unloaded from the wagon as the men started to set up campfires around the place.

The knight jumped off of the wagon and surveyed the men who were setting everything up. They had brought enough supplies to last them a day since they had predicted an overnight stay in the area, they should have enough food and supplies to last.

"This'll be an overnight stay, sir, you and your daughter should stay in the wagon. We only need to stay here to make sure there isn't any bandit activity and we'll leave by tomorrow morning. I'll ge-"

CH!

A small sound came off of the knight's armor as an arrow hit it and fell off. If he wasn't wearing full plate armor, he'd have an arrow stuck in his chest.

"AMBUSH!"

The men who were loading off the supplies immediately dropped what they were doing and went for their shields and weapons. More arrows were aimed towards the lord and his daughter but the knight stepped in front of them and shielded them from the incoming projectiles.

The arrows stopped for a moment before loud footsteps exited the cover of the trees and bushes. Men who were dressed head to toe in makeshift leather armor and wielding a variety of odd homemade weapons. There were nearly 40 of them, more than double the Lord's group.

"Damn bandits! Secure the area, don't let them get to the lord!"

The trainees that had just been enlisted weren't exactly ready for this, but they did what their training told them and held their shields up in a semicircle while the bandits rushed forwards.

"HAH! You guys stopping us!? You don't even stand a chance, get out of the way insects!"

The man that was leading the charge was holding a Morningstar, which he swung right through a group of trainees that were holding their shields up. The force behind this swing was enough the crush two of the trainee's shields and kill them instantly.

"UWAAH!"

A soldier broke the formation and charged the man, desperately attempting the stab him with his spear. However, the spear easily got snapped by the large spiked club, which made the soldier fall down onto the ground. Petrified, he watched as the man loomed closer and raised the mace over his head.

CLANG!

However, before he could swing it down, the knight intercepted his strike. Despite the weapons size difference, the knight was parrying the Morningstar strikes with his longsword.

He landed a flurry of stabs on the man, forcing him to drop his weapon as a stab impaled his arm. The weapon tumbled to the ground as the man growled and retreated back.

Around the wagons, similar incidences were occurring. The regular soldiers had started to gain the upper hand due to their opponent's lack of technique and training, managing to cut down many of them before they also retreated backward.

The man who had wielded the Morningstar grunted

"Retreat for now boys! We'll be back in a while to finish the job!"

The rest of the bandits also retreated back into the forest. They had been beaten temporarily, but the group had suffered more casualties than they had. Out of the 20 personnel, six trainees and one soldier had been cut down. The rest of them were extremely tired, some of them suffering from extreme injuries.

The knight sighed as he turned back to the wagon where the lord and his daughter had hidden.

"it's alright, we should be safe for now. However, I fear that the monsters in the woods will be even more dangerous than the bandits, so we must stay here tonight."

Terence attempted to get up but before he stood up, the knight heard a quiet WHOOSH sound as an arrow embedded itself in the lord's shoulder, making him fall down into the wagon.

"Archer!"

The remaining men brought their shields up in case of more arrows but a rustling in a tree before it fell silent confirmed that the archer had retreated as well.

"DAMN! This was their goal all along! Do we have anyone who knows healing magic!?"

One of the soldiers came up to him,

"I know a bit of healing magic, but..."

They looked down at the arrow wound. After taking off the lord's shirt, the wound and the flesh around it had started to turn green.

Poison

"Sir, this looks like Curare. It'll kill him by tomorrow, we need the cure!"

This was extremely bad. Carare was a common poison that was put on darts and arrows for assassinations, it was highly lethal and only had one cure.

"We need to find a Manchineel tree."

The man took out a book from the supplies that they had brought and flipped through it. He flipped through the pages as the men once again started campfires.

He finally stopped on a page, turning it around and showing it to the knight. It was a picture of a medium-sized tree with spindly branches and peculiar round fruits growing on them.

"These aren't exactly uncommon, but they are extremely toxic. To use poison to fight poison, that's what has to happen. If we manage to put this over his wound after removing the arrow and instantly cast healing magic, he'll live."

".....If we can get him back to town, an apothecary will have the antidote as well. We can't risk going deeper into the forest, tell some of the men to scout ahead. I'll stay behind and protect the lord"

"Understood"

The soldier went towards the group of disheveled men and started to explain the situation much to their dismay.

But, both the knight and the soldier didn't notice a little someone peering over the wagon and listening in on their conversation.

Caroline

"I'm gonna go and help daddy! Fruit, Fruit, where are you Mr. fruit?"

Caroline was almost skipping through the dense forest that was supposed to be packed full of bandits and monsters without a care in the world. She was only seven, much too young to understand what was going on. All she heard from her father's friends was that he was sick and he needed a magical fruit, so she grabbed the book and headed into the forest without anyone noticing.

There was the occasional fruit-bearing tree but after checking the page the soldier had folded, they weren't the same. So she kept on going while humming to herself.

Terence had covered his daughter's eyes and ears during the whole fight, so she didn't know what had happened. The soldiers had also buried the bodies.

She stopped skipping forwards as she saw a bonfire blazing with a few men roasting what looked like fish over the fire. They were roughly dressed, some of them were covered in blood but they were laughing and eating just the same.

Maybe I can ask them for help!

Her father had taught her to not judge people by their appearances, so she just wandered over towards them while waving.

"Hi, Mr's! Can you help me find a magical fruit? My father needs it to feel better."

The men immediately grabbed their swords, daggers, and whatever else weapons they had before lowering them after seeing a little girl standing there.

"Uh, boss, why's there a little girl in the middle of the Demon Forest?"

"You idiot! That's the Lord's daughter, grab her!"

One of the men stuck his hand out and grabbed onto her arm before she could run.

"Uhm, can you please let go? I-uh I think I'll just go back"

Even the positivity that Caroline had didn't make her oblivious to the terrible situation that she was stuck in. It was clear that these men weren't good so she knew she needed to just run.

"No can do missy, our contractor told us to wipe out the king's vassals and their bloodline. You'll be dying here today with your father."

The men grabbed a dagger and heated it over the flame, the metal turning a glowing orange as it heated up.

"This is gonna hurt missy, don't blame me for this, blame your heritage"

The man got closer as she tried desperately to escape with no progress. She couldn't beat the strength of a full-grown man.

"Hehe, the employer will be really happy. We'll dispose of her and then deal with her father- URK"

The man who was advancing on the girl was about to get closer but found that he couldn't. He looked down at his chest to see a blade had pierced through it before crumpling to the ground, dead.

Around the fire, the bandits were being cut down all at once by three armored figures. They didn't even have a chance to react as they were hacked into pieces.

Caroline looked up at the man who had saved her but was not expecting the red eyes of a skeleton to be staring back.

"AH!"

Naturally, she was extremely scared and hid behind one of the wooden barrels that the bandits had brought there. The other skeletons had finished killing the bandits without much of a hassle, there were only five there so it was very easy to deal with.

The skeleton in the white armor sat down in front of her as she hid behind the barrel. He set his sword on the ground and opened his hands to show her that he didn't mean any harm.

She was a bit hesitant, but they had saved her, so there wasn't much reason not to trust them.

"Th-thank you Mr.Skeleton. Um, could you help me find a magic fruit?"

Once again, she was asking a random stranger, scratch that, a C+ rank monster for help to find an antidote for her father. She was running out of options though, her father was going to die otherwise and the soldiers back at camp didn't want to risk finding it.

She showed him the page of the book that had the picture of the Manchineel tree and its fruits. He took the book and showed it to the other two skeletons while chittering. One of them pointed towards a deeper part of the forest before walking all three of their hands started glowing purple.

Soon, three skeletal horses ran full speed through the forest towards them before stopping right in front of them. The two skeletons got on the horses before the large one in white armor got on his.

The skeleton looked towards the forest before extending a hand towards Caroline, who accepted it. She was still a child, after all, horse rides were fun!

The skeleton moved a bit back and put the girl right in front of him on the saddle before the horses took off deeper into the forest in search of Caroline's "magical fruit"