Making Some New Friends & Enemies!

Butcher was stunned.

He thought his day had been going great. His bandit crew had followed their usual routine of harassing unlucky cultivators, collecting sizable amounts of money, beast cores, rare items and other valuable loot that would benefit their organization. The gains kept coming, and Butcher was confident that his boss would be pleased with his efforts and would reward him generously. Everything had been going perfect...or at least it should have been!

And it definitely would have been, if not for Ethan's untimely appearance.

In a matter of minutes, Ethan had killed three of his subordinates and Butcher was furious. Truth be told, Butcher wanted nothing more than to slaughter Ethan for messing with him and his crew. However even though Butcher knew he had the level advantage, he didn't dare attack Ethan.

The reason?

'Grimgar looks shook...', Butcher thought to himself, noticing the pale expression on Grimgar's face as he stared at Ethan. His eyes drifted back to the black haired young man who stood before them with a calm expression on his face. 'That means this guy is dangerous.'

Grimgar possessed a special skill called 'Key Instinct'. It was a very rare passive skill among assassins that was somewhat similar to a sixth sense, warning the user about a dangerous situation or encounter. This skill had saved their bandit crew several times before in the past, so Butcher trusted Grimgar with his life.

'Is he a genius from an important family or something?' pondered as he tried to scrutinize every inch of his brain, trying to figure out whether or not Ethan belonged to any of the major families he knew of.

"Oi, I asked if you guys wanted a fight.", Ethan repeated himself after not getting an answer. "If you don't, then scram before I attack you myself."

Butcher snapped out of his thoughts and snorted. "Don't get ahead of yourself just because you killed a few small fries, punk. I could crush you right now."

Ethan didn't even bother replying and simply lifted his arms up in a 'come at me' gesture, which seemed to strike a nerve and further infuriated Butcher.

Grimgar walked over to his boss and patted his shoulder. "I think we can let him off, boss. We'll leave him for next time."

Butcher's jaw clenched as he reigned in his anger and nodded stiffly. "You're right, Grimgar. The Brigade always collects their debts. Always."

Butcher said that word slowly while looking at Ethan, almost as if trying to tell him to count his days. Giving Ethan and the two children behind him one last hateful look, the bandits walked out of the clearing, their figures blending with the darkness of the night.

Ethan eyes followed them as they left, and only after he was sure that Butcher and his men were gone did he finally relax. Feeling the tension and adrenaline leaving his body, Ethan let out a long breath of exhaustion and sat down on the ground.

"What a day!" Ethan groaned tiredly. "As if hunting all those beasts wasn't enough trouble!"

"E-excuse us, sir."

"Hm?" Ethan turned around and looked at the two kids he had just saved. Caleb hesitantly approached him and showed Ethan a few dozen marble sized beast cores.

"I-I am aware that this isn't nearly enough to thank you for saving us.", Caleb explained with a wistful look on his face. "But please accept this small gesture from my sister and I as thanks."

Caleb then bowed his head respectfully. Now that he had a closer look at the boy, Ethan noticed that his clothes were torn in a few places and his body was covered with scratches and minor wounds. His sister's condition was the same, just slightly better leading him to guess that Caleb had been protecting his sister while they hunted in the forest.

'He must've worked really hard to earn these, and yet he offered all of these cores to me without hesitation.' Ethan couldn't help but smile warmly at the boy's selfless gesture.

"Keep them.", Ethan closed Caleb's hand over the cores and pushed them back to him. "I don't really need compensation for helping someone out, right?"

"But-"

Ethan raised a hand to cut the boy off. "Though if you do insist on paying me back, you could help me with some information. Are you guys from Aurumville?"

Caleb nodded his head eagerly. "Yes,sir! Are you heading there? We could be your guides."

Ethan nodded his head. "Yes, I'd appreciate that very much. My name is Ethan, by the way. What are yours?"

"My name is Caleb Kymar.", Caleb introduced himself before pulling his sister closer to where Ethan sat. "And this is my sister, Ava."

"Pleasure to meet you, Ethan.", said Ava in a small and nervous voice.

"The pleasure's all mine.", Ethan replied before getting to his feet and dusting himself off. "Right. I say we set up camp here for the night and head out after sunrise. Sound good?"

"Mm!" Caleb and Ava nodded in agreement.

°

Meanwhile back at Butcher's base...

"Aarrghh!"

CRASH!

"Damn it!"

BASH!

"How?! How could this happen?!"

SMASH!

"That bastard! I'll kill him! I swear I'll kill him!"

Grimgar clutched his broken arm and trembled in fear as he stood to the side and watched his boss make a mess of their base. As soon as the three bandits had arrived back at their base of operations, Grimgar suddenly remembered that all the loot that they had collected that day was on the dead body of the first lackey that Ethan had killed.

When Butcher heard this piece of news, he was immediately blinded by his rage and chose to punch Grimgar in order to vent some of his frustration. But it wasn't nearly enough to appease. After all, Butcher was already pissed at the fact that he had been forced to retreat by someone weaker than himself. And now hearing that that person was going to profit from the resources that he had gathered through his own efforts seemed to have hit the final nail into the coffin, making him rampage around their Bandit base.

Butcher's last remaining lackey besides Grimgar tried to speak up and reason with his boss. "W-we c-c-could try t-to double back and check if t-they're s-still there. Maybe-"

BAM!

Unfortunately for the poor lackey, Butcher was not in the mood to hear any of it. Butcher slammed his fist into the bandit's chest, shattering every bone in his ribcage and sending him flying across the room.

"Fool!" Butcher growled angrily. "You think anyone would be dumb enough to stay in the same spot for so long? They've probably looted the corpses and are already on their way back to the city!"

'Damn it!' Thought Butcher as he smashed another crate against the wall. He made sure to burn Ethan's image into his skull. 'You better watch your back, punk! I swear I'll kill you with my own hands!'

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Make sure to leave a comment to let me know and don't forget to vote with power stones for extra chapters.

A quick shout out to No_Mic_ for killing it in the power stones department (been working on a special reward for you ;). Another shout goes to Equinox_D for the powerstones, I really appreciate it.

Have a good one!