The bandits' treasure

"As for you..."

"Your wages for the next 12 months will be paid directly to the children."

The bandits sighed slightly after Maxime had said these words, after all this punishment could hardly be considered punishment.

At least they weren't receiving any physical punishment, and above all they would still be housed, fed and able to train without worry.

For them, this was already very satisfying.

Maxime didn't glance at them again, then passed in front of them, while Laura and Organ led the way.

All the mercenaries, except the bandits who had rebelled, followed them, keeping a respectful eye on Irus.

After all, beyond the willpower he had demonstrated, Irus was sure to become an important person in the mercenary group with his personality and courage alone.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the back in the area where the bandit leader stored his treasures.

"Well, it almost looks like we're in a dragon's treasure..." commented Maxime as he saw the pile of 'treasure' in front of him.

Indeed, before him lay a mountain of various and sundry objects.

"Even goblins would have tidied up their work better..." added Andrew with an ashen face.

Maxime nodded, then regretted not having planned to take all these "treasures" with him.

No matter how much he thought about it, he didn't know what to do with all this material.

Even if he took all these various and sundry objects to town, he'd have nowhere to store them.

It was at this point that Romuald stepped forward with a precise idea in mind.

"Chief, may I ask what exactly is your objective in creating a mercenary group?" he asked curiously.

Maxime looked at him in surprise, then replied:

"Didn't I already tell you? It's simply to become stronger and be able to protect my family."

"Chief, your thinking is still too naive," Romuald commented, shaking his head.

Most of the mercenaries frowned as they listened to Romuald, but no one took any action.

Firstly, Romuald had a high status in the group and secondly, he was one of the strongest mercenaries in the group.

Even Maxime and Andrew wouldn't be sure of winning 1:1 against him.

He had an astonishing 2.3 physical points. Maxime, Andrew and Ernest followed closely behind at around 2.1 physique points.

"The stronger the group becomes, the more likely it is to embark on big-person intrigues."

"If we're not careful, our boat might get caught in currents far too powerful for us."

Maxime remained silent for about ten seconds, long enough to reflect on Romuald's words.

"I imagine you've got something in mind when you say things like that," Maxime replied, looking at Romuald.

"Indeed, Chief. As a former chief of guard, I know quite a bit about how noble families operate."

"The main piece of advice I could give is to always have part of your force in the dark. This not only blurs the estimation of our strength for those who threaten us, but also means we always have a card to play when things go wrong."

Maxime was suddenly enlightened by these words.

He'd never learned this knowledge at school, it was probably an open secret among the big forces, although he'd probably have learned it when he joined the university.

But he was no less intelligent than those forces.

"So, since the treasure is here, we'll leave it here first," declared Maxime with fiery eyes.

"We'll establish our first stronghold here, starting by building simple huts in the forest and then setting up several lines of surveillance and means of detection to avoid being attacked by surprise."

"The children taken in will also be raised in the forest with the help of recently recruited bandits and a dozen mercenaries."

"Then we'll set up a system of rounds between the mercenaries residing in town and in the forest."

"When the rounds are made, we'll also take advantage of them to receive necessities from the town and at the same time slowly squander the items from the cave treasure that are useless to us."

Maxime continued to speak, assigning each mercenary a mission to carry out, while appointing people in charge of each important task.

Once Maxime had finished speaking, everyone looked at him in amazement.

It only took a few suggestive sentences from Romuald for Maxime to come up with a flawless plan to take the mercenary group to a new level of strength.

Watching everyone get down to business, Maxime breathed a sigh of relief.

For the past few dozen minutes, Maxime had felt as if he'd overloaded his brain with information, but now that everything was going well, he was happy.

At the same time, not far from the cave, a group of men were investigating the bandits' tracks.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that these bandits were mostly dead and the rest now belonged to Maxime's mercenary group.

A strong man came up behind these men inspecting the surroundings.

"So, what's the result of your research?" asked the strong man.

"Lord Ron!" replied the men with a military salute.

Surprisingly, it was Chevalier Ron whom Maxime and his mercenaries had met just after the bandits' ambush.

Knights were all considered noble to ordinary people, after all in some declining baron families there were no knights at all.

"There's plenty of evidence that humans regularly pass through here," commented one of the men in response to Knight Ron.

"Um...ok good news, hurry up and find the trail of these cursed bandits. You'll each receive 1 gold coin as a bonus if you find their hideout before nightfall" announced Ron calmly.

The men's eyes twinkled as they set off on their search with more gusto than before.

Ron smiled mentally before leaving, but suddenly a vague odor crossed his nostrils.

"Wait, do you smell that?" asked Ron.

But the men still nearby frowned, smelling nothing.

"Blood, that's the smell of human blood!" exclaimed Ron with a smile.

The men nearby didn't react immediately.

The knights were well out of the ordinary category, their senses far more developed than a normal adult's.

"Why are you just standing there? Hurry up and warn the rest of our men behind that we've found the bandits' trail!" ordered Ron with some displeasure.

As his men left, Ron smiled brightly as he looked towards the cave, where Maxime and his mercenaries were still standing!

Although there were plenty of bushes and trees, and at least 300 meters between Ron and the cave's hidden entrance, Ron knew by the smell that he'd found the bandits he'd been looking for so long.

A few minutes later, a hundred armed men were behind Ron, marching towards the cave.

Simultaneously in the cave, there was a cheerful atmosphere.

"What did you say, Tena? Can you tell me again how many silver coins that damned bandit leader had hidden here?"