Fight with the bandits

After walking towards the direction Lucian had pointed in his map for two days, They had left the villages near the vicinity of Havrick city far behind. Now they could already see that the previously wider road was narrowed, enough for only one carriage to pass by.

There were many small branches and weeds extending from the surrounding forest on the the road, indicating that walking alone on that road was dangerous. There was no telling when a monster would appear in that place.

That, however, was not a problem for the two young men walking on the road. Their only concern was that they might not find the bandits they were looking for.

As Lucian stepped on a piece of dried wood that had fallen, he suddenly halted his steps. Aren stopped beside him because he too heard the sounds of fighting coming from ahead.

They looked at eachother and silently nodded their heads simultaneously, showing the tacit understanding they had. With Lucian in front, Aren followed him towards the bushes. After they walked for thirty to fourty steps, Lucian stopped.

Aren came beside him and asked softly. "Are those the bandits?"

"Mmm." he acquiesced.

"There seems to be 20 of them here."

Aren mumbled as he pushed aside the leaves which blocked his sights. Other than the bandits, he also saw 4 young men fighting with the bandits. Another three of them were laying flat on the ground forming a pool of blood, already dead.

Although 6 of the bandits had also died, it was still a large number for the young squires to handle. The head knight Kaldier, whom they attended upon, was also in a bad shape. Due to him surrounded by Goro and other bandits, he couldn't help them either.

As the orders they had been given was to protect the lord's carriage from these bandits, they were obliged to fight until they died. Although they were still mere squires, they had to not run in the face of this adversity by the virtue of a knight.

However, determined as they were, reality was different. They couldn't change anything even with their firm will, as in this world, strength was what mattered. Soon they exchanged their lives for the death of five more bandits.

"Tsk, these bandits..."

It seemed that Lucian couldn't sit still after the squires died one by one. Their plan was to engage with the bandits when they had lost much of their stamina after the fight with squires. However, they hadn't thought that the contemptible men would surround the young men, quickly killing them.

As Lucian rushed out from the bushes and unsheated his sword, runic force surged to its edges. The next moment, a bandit's head was chopped off cleanly. Immediately after, blood splattered like a fountain from that bandit's neck. He was dead before even knowing who killed him.

Yet, before even the bandit's body fell down, Lucian's sword; which was now dyed crimson had already found its way to the neck of another bandit.

"Enem..." just as the bandit uttered in horror, his voice was abruptly cut off. The bandit didn't manage to finish his sentence. Nevertheless, that was enough to alert the other bandits.

As Lucian had already made the first move, there was no reason for Aren to stay hiding now. He promptly emerged from the bushes and hurled forward at a nearby bandit like a tiger jumping at its prey. The viligant bandit, however, luckily managed to get away from Aren in time.

'Tsk, I should have stolen this bandit's fortune before making a move.' As this thought formed in Aren's mind, he executed his next move. So what if he got away once? Luck was unpredictable and from what Aren not only sensed but was also certain of, that bandit's luck had started to run out the moment he targeted him.

Aren enhanced his legs with runic force and closed the distance between them in a flash. Then, powering up his hands with runic force, he gave a roundhouse punch to the bandit which sent him flying.

He then instantly exploded with inhuman speed and moved towards a small bunch of bandits who had just managed to grab their weapons.

Six punches landed successively on the faces of stupefied bandits. The next moment, all six of them started bleeding from their noses.

Heretofore, there was not any problem but suddenly two extremely strong dudes had appeared out of nowhere and started taking down their men. That was enough for the bandits to go be stirred up. Now they were terrified out of their minds seeing Luican cutting the men like carrots and Aren smacking them like punching bags.

When the news about this reached to Goro who had just managed to take down the head knight, 9 bandits had already fallen.

They could have managed to hold out if those bandits were united but with the leader fighting someone else, the bandits were thrown into a disarray quickly.

Goro frowned when he saw that there were two rank 1s killing his men. Judging by the fighting techniques of them, both of them didn't seem like rookies.

In a head on confrontation, he couldn't defeat them. He could maybe take down that hooded fighter if he was alone but with the swordsman being there, Goro would be going to his death if he decided to fight them both.

'Not good. I'll need to cooperate with Gurlim and Honker if I want to have a chance at defeating these guys.' he thought as he quickly started to formulate an escape plan. As for the other 5 to 7 bandits? They were just there to stall time for him. These men, who had no purpose in life could always be found and gathered anywhere.

At the moment his life was threatened, Goro didn't hesitate to discard his subordinates. Only that, the men under him had no idea that their leader, who was supposed to support them at that time, had already decided to leave them to die in the hands of enemies.

As the other bandits started to engage with the swordsman, Goro made a dash for his life. If only those bandits had turned around, they would see how their boss was running away like a mad dog.

However, just as he had ran for 20 metres, the hooded fighter appeared from behind one of the tree trunks and gave him a palm strike on his chest.

"Where do you think you're going?" Aren said as he retracted his palm. He was not a bit less vigilant even after seeing that the bandit leader in front of him had spat out a mouthful of blood. Judging by his bulky appearance and his flexile muscles, he seemed to be a heavy swordsman. Aren knew that these types of guys had more vitality. One attack was not enough to finish off this bandit leader.

Goro, knowing that a fight was inevitable; took out his greatsword from his back and got in position. The situation suddenly became tense. As both parties didn't know anything about their opponents, whoever made the first move would be at a disadvantage. Knowing one skill of the enemy earlier might even be the deciding factor in the battle.

"Woo...woo..." as the wind rustled,

The two of them charged forward at the same time. Goro did a straight vertical slash after coming in range with Aren, which Aren barely managed to dodge with a sidestep. However, this was just the start as Goro started striking with his sword aiming Aren's shoulders and head.

Aren skirted around the sharp edges of the greatsword. Every time he dodged, Aren would feel the wind blowing his hairs, with the sounds of the sword cutting the air. He also tried to punch and kick the bandit while dodging but his strength seemed to be insufficient. Even after using skills like force punch and karate chops at full power, the effect was very low. It seemed that heavy swordsmen really did have great vitality.

On the other hand, Goro was getting frustrated over the fact that he always missed Aren by a hair's breadth. Although Goro's strength was way higher than Aren's, he still fell short on speed. Little did he know that Aren was actually using a skill to dodge like that.

It was called Close Maneuvers. It required great mental strength and dexterity. The fighter also needed to have constant trainings to master this skill. That time when he had to dodge the attacks of rank 1 Orcs while in Lithuyrm village... Just thinking about the terrifying 'practice' he had to do under Cowen still made him shudder.

Compared to those Orcs, this bandit was clearly lacking. Though it was not like he was winning too. It was a stalemate between superior speed and greater strength.

'Still, I had decided to not use these but I have no choice.'

Haste! Lesser strength!

As he cast those two spells on himself. His speed and strength clearly increased. As he evaded the sword strikes, his figure turned like that of a phantom's, while sometimes even producing afterimages.

Near rank 2 speed!

This speed was only possible for those veteran rank 1 combat professions who were on the verge of advancing to rank 2. Goro was stunned that this fighter in front of him had reached that stage already. He couldn't understand how this fighter's strength had increased in such a short time though.

Just when Goro was suprised for a while, Aren found a gap in his style. He quickly gathered runic force in his leg and executed a whirlwind kick. As his boot landed on that bandit's neck, the bandit was nailed to the ground by the sheer force behind that kick. His strength which was now equal to Goro's, coupled with his near rank 2 speed had finished off the bandit leader.

Although the battle was not easy, forcing him to even use his trump cards, Aren earned a lot of combat experiences against humans. Although he had many battles with monsters, Cowen was always there to ensure his safety. So it didn't have that thrill of life and death battles.