8.

There are 2 ways to reach Fiore from Riverwood town. A risky path and the safe path. The safe path means you'll have to traverse the main road. It is rare for bandits to raid merchants in the main road because they'll be persecuted by magic knights, by crossing this path, it will take you a week's time before you reached Fiore.

Then there's the risky path, you'll have to traverse the Wailing forest filled with bandits and cross the River of Lugh, that is the natural habitat of Rock Alligators, to reach Fiore in a short time.

Only team of elites choose this path and we were supposed to use this path, if not for me telling them about putting the meat in a cold enclosure so that the meat will be preserved.

I asked Jura if a refrigerator is a thing in this world but I found out that only those who mastered runemaking could make what I described to him. Also the price of one is astonishing. I facepalmed and I asked if how many in the mages in the team knows ice magic and he told me we only had one. I then asked if someone knows water magic to make some ice cubes and pour them over to the crates of meat and wrap them up.

Its been 3 days since we've been traversing the main road. We have already bypassed the town of Magnolia and I have already seen the Guild HQ of Fairy Tail.

We passed by another town last night and the rest of the journey is the most gruelling as we will have to camp outside. It is already turning dark so the Caravan Master ordered a halt as we started building a camp surrounding the wagons.

I begun cooking food for 25 people that's including Me, Erza, and Kagura. I have also established friendly relations with other adventurers in the caravan. We had fun together as they kept telling stories of their own adventures.

It is already night time and we're about to take the night off when an arrow suddenly flew towards the one eyed adventurer. Jura immediately shouted as the sleepy and drunk men suddenly regained their senses.

"Bandits! Prepare for battle!" Shouted Jura as we formed an encirclement with the wagon as our shield.

I motioned for Erza and Kagura to go back to the wagon and lay down to avoid being hit by arrows.

We didn't let our guard down for a whole minute before we broke the encirclement as we head towards the one eyed man.

I then placed my hand to check for his pulse before shaking my head as they showed pained emotions. A friend of theirs died, just like that, even though it can be considered thr normal dangers of being an adventurer.

I then ripped his shirt off and saw purple stains around the wound and informed Jura.

"The archer uses poison, and its fast acting. Consider yourself dead if you got struck." I said as Jura frowned deeply.

"Whoever that archer was, plans to tire us out mentally. We need to deal with him immediately. You can't risk others being mentally drained in the journey." I said as I explained one of the possible motives of the archer.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Jura asked.

"Let's catch the archer. Knock him out or kill him. Any way works." I said as Jura pondered about it.

I then told Jura to use his earth magic to form a natural dome cover covering the whole caravan so that no one's going to be sniped. I then told him to make a tunnel and patrol the perimeter with the two of us.

I gathered the team and told them of the plan as they agreed. Its better for them to be covered in a dome rather than be sitting ducks waiting to be culled. I then approached my daughters as I talked to then.

"Erza, Kagura, Father is going to catch some bad guy and I want you two to behave. Got it?" I said as they nodded.

'Good. Let the hunt begins.' I thought before signalling to Jura and he used his magic as pillars of earth started forming a dome around us. The group lit a bonfire inside so they can see.

"Let's go." Jura said as I nodded.

Jura jumped as he controlled the earth beneath him to form a tunnel to the outside wworld We made sure that we're pretty much far away from the earth dome and we split up to find the archer.

I went to the west as Jura went to the east side. I strolled around the place as I used my previous body's experience and searched for tracks that would help me identify his location.

It was already 5 minutes since I've started looking for clue but all I've found is animal trails. I decided to go meet back up with Jura to ask to return to the previous town as the road to Fiore is still far away.

I went towards the east side and followed his tracks. When I met with Jura. he was already fighting with the archer.

"Give up bandit king! You can't win against me!" Said Jura as he punched the Bandit king in the gut.

While Jura was pummeling the bandit king, I can't help but feel that something's wrong. I saw a man holding a bow and arrow pointing towards Jura and released the arrow. I rushed towards Jura and within a split second, I feel like time slowed down and my mind cleared up.

'I can do it. I can catch it if I jumped towards it.' I thought as I jumped towards the arrow and barely caught the arrow tail and I can't help but sweat heavily because if I was one second late, then Jura would've been hit and died.

Time resumed slowly as I felt my mental strength was spent. Jura was shocked in his heart because he would've died if not for my help.

I then swap with Jura as he chased the archer and I fought with the bandit king in hand to hand combat.

He sprinted towards me as he tried sending a right hook towards my body.

"Impact knocking! Well done!" I countered it by hitting the elbow joint as his right arm started losing strength. The bandit king followed up with a left uppercut as I closed in near his chest as he forced his left arm to retract but its already late.

I struck his left elbow joint, followed by striking his chest, right leg, left patella, and his left shoulder blade.

The bandit king screamed in pain as I finally subjugated the bandit King. Soon, Jura returned with the archer in his hand.

"Thanks, for saving my life." Jura said with a bow. Heh~ a future Wizard Saint bowing towards a cripple? How ironic.

"As long as we're alive, its all good." I said and waved it off.

"As much as I would like to continue chatting, we really need to get a move on, a beast stampede is coming and the path to retreat is already swarmed by the beasts." Jura said as I frowned. Its either, those animals are mad... or they are running away from a predator.

"Quick! Let's go back and tie these two up. I don't know why you called him bandit king as he didn't have fellow bandits with him." I said as we rushed back to the base and informed them of the impending danger.

Luckily, we are 1 day advanced fron the beast stampede based on Jura's calculation from what he saw in the cliff.

We immediately packed up and started moving in fast speeds.