The carriage ride was an uneventful one.
While the group of boys chatted the entire time, there wasn't much else to do other than that.
"Do you boys heading over there to pay your respects?" The coachman's words popped up when the group entered into a short period of silence.
Xue Chang had set their destination for a familiar place.
The village he had visited back when he fought the demonic beast bear all those years ago.
The first destroyed village that he had discovered… and couldn't save.
It was difficult finding a carriage that was willing to bring them over there since many people in the city were superstitious.
But luckily there was one old man willing to take them over.
"Something like that. We knew some people at the village so when the news of its attack came in we were pretty shocked. I guess… I just wanted to go back to where everything started." Xue Chang responded kindly to the old man.
He was quite the character, being brave enough to go to a place where dozen of other 'brave men' refused to step into.
"It is a shame, who knows how many people have died in these attacks for the last few years. I just hope things will calm down soon."
"Hey mister, don't you worry that you might meet with some accident? I mean I don't mean to be rude, but you were pretty quick to accept our request. What if you someone asks you to bring them somewhere dangerous?" Tian Hai was also a little curious on why the old man was so casual about the trip.
Yet the old man just shrugged, as if he didn't really care.
"Listen here kid, I've lived a long good life. You know when I was young, I was quite the stud, had a lot of beauties come after me. I used to be quite gentleman if I do say so myself hehehe. I spent money back then like it was trash, I never worried about housing or food. I just partied everyday and I do t regret a single moment of it. I loved a full life, so what's there to be afraid of. Sometimes you got to live life like without a care, that's when you are really living!"
The coachman winked while showing off his glaring white teeth as the sounds of horse hooves trampling the ground continued around them.
Tian Hai grinned back at the man while Tian Kai and Xue Chang nodded in agreement.
Xue Chang thought to himself, "Living life without a care. Will I ever be able to do that?"
Opening his mouth as if to speak some more, the coachman suddenly froze and pulled the reigns back on the horses.
The carriage came to a lurching stop and the horses whinnied out in a panic.
Xue Chang and gang all used their seats to balance themselves before asking, "What happened?!"
The coachman replied, "…Bandits"
Shockingly, a barricade had been set up on the path they were traveling. And when the carriage lurched to a stop because of it, over a dozen men stepped out from the surroundings.
"Huh? There were never bandit attacks here before, what's going on?" Xue Chang was completely flabbergasted by what was happening. There should have been some patrolmen constantly passing by, so how was it possible for bandits to appear here unreported?
Luckily the carriage driver was able to respond quickly, "After the villages near the borders of the city were destroyed, less and less patrolmen came to survey the area. Plus with the monsters becoming more agitated lately, all of the soldiers have been forced to guard the city instead of keeping an eye out for bandits."
This was unexpected. Xue Chang thought things were improving after he dealt with the main perpetrators of the attacks, but it seemed things weren't so simple.
"What about the guild, aren't they helping out with hunting the monsters as well?"
"Well yes, but the numbers of demonic beasts had increased lately in proportion to the hunters. Since demonic beasts are so powerful, adventurers need to work in large parties just to subjugate one. Because of this, even with all of its renovations, the guild can't keep up with the number of attacks and had the city begin to assist them."
Contemplating the words for a bit, Xue Chang turned to Tian Kai, who frankly had a better idea of the guild's situation than he did. Tian Kai nodded in agreement. "It is true that more demonic beasts subjugation quests had been popping up recently."
"I didn't expect the situation to be so dire." Tian Hai creased his brow together. Even though there hasn't been any village attacks recently, he felt like things were actually getting worse rather than better.
Xue Chang sighed, "For now we should deal with the problems before us. Tian Kai, I leave it to you."
The guard gave off a little smirk while picking up his spear at his side.
"This will only take a minute."
The coachman saw Tian Kai preparing to act and panicked, "Wait a second, they outnumber us several times over. You shouldn't act rashly! You're still young, you should just give up your money now since you can always get more later."
Tian Hai gave the man a pat on the back while winking at him, "You shouldn't worry, in our eyes these guys are kind of like how you describe yourself. 'They've lived a long life, they should regret what's coming to them' so just sit back and enjoy the show."
The man couldn't understand where these people's confidence stemmed from, until he saw the next scene.
Tian Kai didn't move quickly or rashly. He took slow casuals steps toward the group in a seemingly defenseless manner.
The bandits were surprised to see someone approach them so casually.
And just as one of them was about to call out to Tian Kai to pause in his steps, he noticed that his voice wouldn't work. For some odd reason he couldn't say anything.
When he tried to turn his head to his comrades to see if they knew what was happening, he found out he couldn't do that either!
It was until he saw the ground rapidly approaching him did he realize what happened.
"Oh… I'm already dead."
The coachman felt his jaw hit the ground as he watched Tian Kai, in a single swift motion, behead over half of the bandits in an instant.
And under Xue Chang's watchful gaze, Tian Kai turned to face his friend with a confident expression on his face. "So how was it?"
Xue Chang rolled his eyes before retorting, "Thirty seconds left, finish off the rest in a minute like you promised and then I'll rate you."
Tian Kai just sniggered, "Aye aye sir."