72

With my Agility and Endurance, I used the forward momentum from flight to roll upon landing and only slightly wind myself from the landing. All eyes were still on me as I ended the roll on my feet and staggered up and around to face the bandits from behind. I was going to have a very stern heart-to-heart with those merciless bastards one day.

Grimm and Shade seemed content to circle about overhead as everybody looked at me with the letters 'W-T-F' clear on their faces and helmets. "Gentlemen," I say to the group of male outlaws with a brief raising of empty hands which caused several of the bandits to turn their crossbows on me.

My expectations for the guards immediately lowered when they did not immediately open fire on the redirecting bandits. However, the fact that nobody had fired was a plus in and of itself. At least now I was getting their attention.

"Before I kill each of you with but a wave of my hand because your mana levels are all lower than the daisies you'll soon be pushing up, I would like to ask a question," I inform the outlaws while casually demeaning and threatening them. "Why, and do know there will be interrogations if you don't out and answer, are there so many damned bandits on this side of the mountain?"

All the outlaws who had a fellow in their direct line of sight briefly shared a look with one another. Yep, they had something to do with the outlaws ransoming travelers. This was probably a group of scrubs who got ditched at some point.

When nobody said anything but another pair of crossbows were aimed at me, I nodded my head calmly as if all was as expected and continue walking forward. Because their magic levels really were about as high as a pile of dog shit was tall I really could take care of them with a simple sweep of my hand. However, that sweep would trigger their crossbows.

"Gentlemen," I say again in something of a reasonable manner as I walk forward with my hands clasped behind my back. "It is clear to me from your sack of rocks level of IQ and EQ that you indeed know about the hundred-plus bandits that were gathered south of here. However, because you're all about as useful as a brick with no mortar or people to smack I believe you were intentionally left behind.

"Thus," I continue with a sudden lunge of ten feet that brought me only ten yards away from the bandits who now all aimed their crossbows at me. "I believe you'll be delighted to learn that they were all as equally fucked then as you are now. You're all such trash that the only thing positive that can be said about you is that you were cleaned up this day. Any questions?"

The outlaws knew they had lost ninety percent of what little control over the situation they once turned the majority of their crossbows on a single target. However, as long as the crossbows were still loaded, there was the chance of shooting someone and nobody wanted to die. Unless they got hit in the head or heart, neither side would die quickly enough to ensure the other's safety.

For some odd reason, though, the one guy holding fireballs was actually enough to keep all of the merchant guards from firing. Amateurs. Complete amateurs.

I had no choice but to sigh dramatically and tiresomely wave my arm, filling the highway between the guards and I with a sideways rushing wave of shimmering blurred air as almost a full ton of force swept over the outlaws. I could tell without forcibly prying at their stats that their Endurance stats were much to low to sustain such blunt impact trauma to every inch of the side of their bodies.

Bloody and broken rag dolls flew off into the distance over a neighboring hill only to be swiftly pursued by my wisps, leaving behind nothing but pulverized puffs of wood dust settling off to one side of the road. "Gentlemen!" I call out to the guards with a broad smile, raising a hand in greeting before making my way forward.

All of the guards immediately aimed at me and, unlike all the previous times when they actually should have, fired their crossbows. At first it was one young and scared dude whose armor was even smaller than the others who shot, but all the other guards knew that there was no going back after just that one shot and pulled the trigger in relative unison.

The average crossbow at their medieval peak could shoot a bolt at around two hundred feet per second but even a simply imbued oak crossbow could reach the more modern speeds of three hundred FPS.

As if the Luck stat I once considered realistically high decided to disprove itself, the crossbows these guards were equipped with were not cheap and simply imbued. They were a nice and rosy variant of hickory called bloody hick because of their unnaturally red sap and wood. They were a magical variant of hickory and thus had naturally strengthened characteristics of hickory as well as a high conductivity.

The speed at which their bolts approached me was close to what a small caliber handgun would reach.

I used to think that if I had guns and modern equipment in general I would be set for life, but this moment told me that my concept of power might need a little adjusting. Even though my body was currently physically strengthened so that my Agility was higher than normal, the mana had mostly been focused into Strength. Yet, despite all of this, my Agility was more than enough for the world to suddenly slow down once the final trigger was pulled.

The sounds of bowstrings twanging and tightly snapping into place were abnormally loud and drawn out as I leaned back and away from the first bolt. My heartbeat that had just finished clenching began expanding once again in slow motion. Seemingly of its own accord, my body hopped sideways from my leaning positions and then sprawled out.

Like most people taught to use crossbows or firearms, the guards had mainly aimed for my upper center of mass which allowed me to evade at all. All the bolts were closing in on roughly the same position and my first movement was already taking me out of the way. The only thing I had to do was continue stretching out to the side while falling under the paths of their bolts.

"Gentlemen!" I cried out loudly and maybe a little angrily, huffing loudly and using the exhalation as energy to push myself back up to my foot. "You lot had better be grateful to your great and mighty gods above because if I were not a servant to one of them I'd have shoved those bolts right up your asses!"

"DID YOU BLASTED RETARDS SHOOT AT THE MAN WHO SLEW THE HIGHWAYMEN?!"

An incredibly loud and enraged voice erupts from one of the wagons, turning out to be a fairly tall and very round man in his mid to late forties with a full beard and shaven mustache. His head was bald and round as if to emphasize his large stature. The clothes he wore were a similar style to my Traveler Suit but a more luxurious and thick silken model.

This man came flying out from behind one of the drivers' benches while bearing down the beet-faced fury of a thousand suns on the young man who fired first. Some of the guards tried to speak up in the young man's defense but the obvious boss disregarded them completely and continue roaring insults and profanities I even tried to step up and calm the man down on the other guy's behalf. The big guy simply wasn't having any of it.

Finally, the slightly nasally voice of a young lady clearly rang all throughout the region "Father! Think of the show you're putting on for that young magician!"

The big guy seemed to only then realize who it was standing beside him with a firm hand on his shoulder while trying to claim 'no harm, no foul'. It was me, the guy who saved them from the outlaws.

Once the man who seemed to that the leader here calmed down a bit, how quickly lowered his head in acknowledgment of his shame and said, "I'm sorry to show you something so unsightly right after you came to our aid, good sir. What can I do to show my appreciation and make up for this ugly bit of business?"

Winking at the nearby guards, I say, "I was simply passing by and did what any capable and upstanding person should do. As for the trouble you man has caused, if you could be just a little more merciless- err, rather, if you could forgive and forget we can all move forward in life. The young man simply needs more training to become… reliable."

Even though a few of the guards laughed I could tell the noob on their team was not happy right now. And he should not be anything remotely close to happy. The fucking idiot tried to shoot me!"

"Reward the boy so that we can get moving again!" The young lady's voice, probably the daughter of this merchant, calls out once again. My immediate impression from the voice was either a young sounding lady or a young teen miss and they were eighty-percent likely to be a tsundere or even himedere.

"There is nothing to worry about," I hurry to reassure the merchant as he becomes flustered and starts searching about his pockets. "My wisps will be done looting the bandits in just a minute or two so I will have been paid more than enough for my time. You and your people did not even need my help, considering the armaments involved and the general mana levels of both sides then your side was the superior force. I merely brought things to a head."

"How… modest," the merchant says distractedly, both relieved by my words but also worried by them. However, no matter how nice of a person you are it only becomes more important for me to repay you. If your own travel means were not obviously faster, I would at least offer to let you ride with us."

Wondering why this man's odd sense of good-naturedness was familiar to me I say, "Well, there was a small city back in the direction we're coming from, would you be passing back through their any time soon?"

Nodding somewhat cheerfully, the man seems happy to have an outlet of repaying me and says, "We won't be passing through, but we'll be back home in a matter of about three months. Once the real cold has set in. Are you also from Intar?"

Shaking my head with a slight smile I simply say, "No, I live further south. It would probably take your group a month of casual trading to the next river around the mountain and then following the highway southward to get there. But in… Intar, there's a recently reestablished pawn broker not from from a small shopping plaza in the southeastern district with a tailor and a magic shop across the street from one another. The plaza is in the upper district area but the pawn broker's place is in the next lower district from there and its the big rectangle building on a corner.

"This place," I emphasize before taking a breath with an awkward smile. "The pawn broker who owns the place is the aunt of two children I recently rescued much worse circumstances more south of Intar. They and many others were captured by the larger bandit group I mentioned. You should hear the actual story from someone in the family but I would appreciate if you helped to look after these children and that store for me."

"Absolutely," the merchant replies with barely even a blink of hesitation. "What do you want me to do, buy the shop and a house inside the upper district and take over their educations? I have many businesses despite this small caravan and any of them are open to your godchildren in the future. My daughter may be close to their age, she can help make sure they are taken care of in the future."

Grateful for the man's enthusiasm I still hurry to reassure him with, "Nothing so serious, my good sir, it's not as if all the guards were dead and wagons surrounded. Their aunt's business was actually just recently… reestablished, which was the occasion for the children and their parents to be traveling in the first place. I have also taken the role of their tutor in magic but if you could find another to oversee the rest of their education that would be wonderful.

"Overall I was hoping you could keep an eye on their business from the outside in case they get any unwanted attention as well as to help them with some resourcing such as intermediate magic materials for the kids' studies. Is this suitable?"

"This is not a problem," he assures me briefly with a small sideways waving of his hand. "I have a large family with many governesses, the children will have the best educations possible. I have an auction house and a chamber of commerce with Guild connections, materials for magic training such as alchemy and other crafts will be within their reach below market pricing. As for their business, I will let the various mercantile factions know that your friends are the friends of the Robirstin Trade Services. Now, if I may… how old are you?"

*